Dina Merhav

Dina Merhav was born in 1936 in Vinkovci

Dina Gross was born in 1936 in Vinkovci, Yugoslavia, to Zlatko and Steffi Gross. In World War II her father, an officer in the Yugoslav army, was held as a prisoner in Germany. She fled with her mother and family to Italy and then to Switzerland.

After the war the family returned to Yugoslavia, and in 1949 they immigrated to Israel and settled in Kiryat Motzkin. In 1957 she completed graphic design studies at Bezalel in Jerusalem.

She worked as a graphic designer and taught at the WIZO Haifa Academy from 1966 to 1996. She also taught at the University of Haifa and at the Technion. She later studied sculpture at the University of Haifa and in Pietrasanta, Italy.

She made sculptures of birds and angels from scrap iron, and her works were placed in countries including Croatia, China, the United States and India. In 2008 a park with 14 of her sculptures opened in Ganei Tikva. She won the Herman Struck Prize of Haifa in 1998.

She worked in a studio in Nir Etzion and lived in Ein Hod. She died at her home in Ein Hod on October 19, 2022, and was buried in the village cemetery.