It's been a good week for Jerusalem. Sure, it's cold, but Hamshushalaim is in full swing, and in its wake have come 120,000 visitors, 90% occupancy in city hotels, and a 30% increase in weekly takings of restaurants and coffeeshops. The festivities continue this weekend, and as always, there's plenty of other stuff to do as well:
First of all, don't miss your opportunity for more Hamshushalaimery with special discounts and tours throughout the weekend.
Suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with a modernist English-language performance of Hamlet tonight at the Jerusalem Theatre. 'Tis noble.
And in case Hamlet is too much of a downer, you can try your luck at an English performance of the theatrical adaptation of the Diary of Anne Frank at Beit Shmuel, also tonight.
Start the weekend off in style by listening to the Israeli Philharmonic saw through the classics on Friday morning.
Rocker Asaf Avidan and his boys the Mojos are stomping back into town to light the Yellow Submarine on fire Friday night.
Speaking of stomping back into town, dinosaur rocker Rami Fortis, pictured above, is doing just that on Saturday night, also at the Yellow Sub.
Or if you prefer your pop stars younger, try out David D'Or on Saturday night at the Ma'abada.
The Cinematheque's Jewish Film Festival kicks off Sunday for five whole days of celluloid neuroses. Don't miss it.
Lock up your daughters: these puppets mean business.
It's winter, and there's a faint whiff of approaching holidays in the air, even here in Jerusalem...or maybe that's just the delicious, delicious smell of sufganiyot (Hanukkah donuts) in the morning. And it's also festival time. Hamshushalaim madness kicks into full swing this evening, and it's your best (and by that we mean cheapest) chance all year to take in dozens of Jerusalem museums, restaurants and cultural venues. So get to it:
First off, don't forget to check out our full Hamshushalaim listings (so far) to find out what you can expect in terms of discounts and special events this weekend.
Tonight features the final performance of the International Oud Festival, specially marked down for Hamshushalaim.
March along with hometown brass band Marsh Dondurma from Mamilla to the Jaffa Gate - just like in New Orleans, except nobody had to die first.
Nurit Galron is a great name. And also a decent '70s Israeli rocker. Check her Saturday night at Beit Avi Chai.
Beloved children's production Journey Behind the Scenes, which teaches kids about the magic (and the nuts and bolts) of stage productions, is back at the Jerusalem Theatre on Sunday.
Also at the Theatre Sunday is the Andalusian Orchestra, a collective of Jerusalem's finest Arab musicians.
You probably can't learn to be funny if you're not, but that won't stop Off the Wall Comedy maven David Kilimnick from trying to teach you on Monday.
Lucky you, you get another chance to see a thoughtful theatrical presentation of the prickly relationship between a white supremacist and his Jewish attorney on Monday whenSkinhead returns to the Lab.
Dig Chick Corea? Then should enjoy Tal Babitsky, performing free Tuesday evening at the Yellow Sub.
The stage version of the Diary of Anne Frank is coming to Beit Shmuel on Wednesday - and it's in English too.
Much is made of the youth exodus plaguing Jerusalem, a cascade of bright young people squeezed out every year by skyrocketing rents, poor municipal management and sometime intolerance by more conservative sectors of the population, but were a Jerusalem visitor to situate themselves in the slice of downtown between the HaNeviim Street and Hillel Street, they would find a youth culture more culturally vibrant, artistically engaged and politically aware than any in a city three times the size of Jerusalem. What Jerusalem's underground community lacks in numbers, it makes up for in enthusiasm and the sort of civic pride peculiar to groups who buck the dominant culture. The pierced, tattooed Anarchist Against the Wall radical, the heretically-inclined but still devoutly faithful ultra-Orthodox Jew, the Russian-born lady electro DJ and the Palestinian drag queen may not fit the stereotype of a Jerusalem resident, but the city is theirs too - and they would be the first to tell you so.
So where can you meet the ambassadors of the Other Jerusalem? Let Jerusalemite show you the way with our list of the top five underground performance spaces in Jerusalem.
Uganda The British government once floated the idea of establishing the Jewish state in Uganda rather than politically volatile Ottoman Palestine. It came to naught, but a century or so later Uganda established itself in the Jewish state...or at least a hip cafe/bar/record store/comics shop calledUganda did. Located on a downtown side street near the fortress-like headquarters of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and the shuttered Russian Compound, Uganda is ground zero for Jerusalem's young, secular and radical crowd, a cozy space where disaffected local youth and earnest foreign activists alike can gather to discuss art and politics, flip through local zines and comics, sample and purchase the latest in European underground electronica and hear Jerusalem's best indie DJs, all while nursing a bottle of Taybeh (the Palestinian beer). Performances by both DJs and bands take place almost nightly, although you'll have to make your entertainment choices carefully, because come nightfall the urban secular demographic is split by...
Sira ...Jerusalem's other underground watering hole and incubator for local avant-garde and independent talent. Sira is the successor to D1, AKA Diwan, a bar in the same extremely dark, somewhat grotty and most decidedly seedy nook off of Ben Sira Street. D1 in its heyday served as the de facto headquarters of young Jerusalemites dissatisfied with the status quo, whether Jewish, Arab or otherwise, and huge crowds gathered nightly to share pints, shots of whiskey and not-so-well-concealed hashish joints while dancing to (or aloofly appreciating) local bands and DJs - some of whom (like Hadag Nachash's Shaanan Street, former D1 bartender) went on to big things. Sira continues that noble tradition to the letter. From punk to reggae to electronica to hip-hop, local talent lights up the tiny floor every night, and you never know if the guy rapping might turn out to be the next Rebel Sun (another Sira success). Hunting down the performance schedule might take some work, though: Sira is so thoroughly underground that their schedule is distributed solely in postcard form. But the club will have to scramble a little harder for fresh DJ talent due to...
Bass ...the newest arrival on the underground local music scene, a nightclub devoted to the cult of the DJ. Affiliated with heavy-hitting local turntablists like Pacotek, DJ Dina, Markey Funk and Walter Einstein Frog, Bass, as its name might imply, throbs nightly with the sub-tonal thumps of electro, house, breakbeats, electronica, hip-hop, dancehall, reggae and other things that go bump in the night. A weekly dancehall and roots reggae show is a godsend (Jahsend?) for lovers of reggae in Zion, and Bass is your best bet for catching big-name local and foreign DJs spinning their booty-shaking (or hyper-minimalist) best.
HaTaklit Things are a little less aggressively trendy over at HaTaklit ("The Record"), a tribute to the beloved vinyl record in bar/performance space form. While nostalgia for the record may not be entirely justified, seeing as the performers and clientele of places like HaTaklit have kept the medium alive and spinning, any excuse to open a bar with plenty of beer on tap, English footie on the TV screens, record sleeves on the walls and independent performers from at home and abroad on the stage is good enough. And best of all, HaTaklit is a labor of love, founded by three local boys working in various sectors of the music industry who wanted a place where they could show off their collections and hire all their friends and favorite bands. Awwwww.
Chet-7 The Beit Avi Chai organization, a private foundation dedicated to fostering Jewish culture in Israel, may have a bit too much money for true indie cred, but they don't screw around when it comes to their underground music venue, Chet-7: the only underground space in Jerusalem that is literally underground (in Beit Avi Chai's parking garage, to be precise). Chet-7 scored big by getting Yerushalmi golden boy Shaanan Street of Hadag Nachash to serve as consulting curator, helping to choose promising artists (both up-and-coming and well-established) and organize shows. Chet-7 is most notable for its Saturday night concerts, affordable and intimate performances by some of Israeli music's biggest non-pop names aimed solely at the hometown crowd.
Lots of underground artists also appear at the Yellow Submarine, but as a Municipality-funded affair, its cred is suspect - even if its music, which encompasses otherwise overlooked underground musical forms like jazz, is excellent. And of course, no mention of underground venues would be complete without the late, lamented Daila, a one-time Shlomtzion landmark that served as salon, gallery and cafe for Jerusalem's proud radicals, artists, poets and weirdoes. Jerusalemite pours out this Taybeh in its memory.
Photo of accordion antics and thumbnail photo of musicians at Uganda courtesy of ak-duck; photo of a DJ rocking Sira courtesy of dovi under a Creative Commons license; Bass photo courtesy of Bass; photo of Beit Avi Chai by Harry Rubenstein for Jerusalemite.
Joel Covington is not the most exciting name. There's nothing in the name that talks about growing up in Baltimore, moving to Israel and converting to Judaism. There's nothing that talks about a length, possibly racist, battle with the Misrad Hapanim to get citzenship. There's nothing that talks about being a hip-hop personality and poet that has impacted and molded the music scene in Jerusalem.
To get all that you need to get to know Rebel Sun, who deftly handles the mic for Coolooloosh, the Oleh! Records-affiliated Jerusalem party music ensemble. Their new album, Elements of Sound, hit shelves, or computers, this month.Following years of touring in Eastern Europe and Noth America, where they recently wrapped up recording sessions with The Roots producer David Ivory, Coolooloosh visits Hama'abada (The Lab) on December 6 for a launch party.
Please tell us a bit about Coolooloosh, the origins of the name and how you ended up joining the band and arguably defining its sound? First of all, the band had been playing for a year before I had hooked up with everyone - I believe in 2003. I just happened to run into bass player Ori Winokur at a show I was doing, and he told me about the band, which is basically free everything. The concept of the band goes with the name of the band. It’s a sound children make here in Jerusalem when they throw things here in the air. "Coolooloosh." From then on we were playing.
The Jerusalem Postonce called you the grandfather of Jerusalem MCs. Do you feel that title is appropriate? What have you personally added over the years to a city not widely known for its hip-hop scene? Is there a distinctly Jerusalem hip hop style? I've been here and seen the city over the past nine years - how it's changed and grown. Theres always going to be a crowd for hip-hop. I feel like hip-hop has established itself as a genre as a.... (For more questions and answers with Coolooloosh's MC Rebel Sun, click here).
Learn the secrets of the King David and other classics of Jerusalem British architecture
It may be time to bust out the cornucopias and raise a drumstick to Squanto (or...whatever) in America, but in Jerusalem, it's just another week. But don't let that stop you from making the most of it by hitting the town for an only-in-Jerusalem good time:
Gain insight into an inscrutable sector of Israeli society by viewing a documentary on Charedim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) at trendy gallery Barbur tonight.
Everybody loves an indie German techno DJ - especially those groovy Jerusalem secular twentysomethings. Catch Glitterbug at new club BASS tomorrow evening.
It's Mozart time at the Targ on Saturday morning. If you like classical, don't miss out.
It's a blast from the past Saturday night when '70s Israeli rock power trio Tzlil Mekhuvan lights up the Yellow Submarine.
Nikolai Gogol's Marriage is running once again at the Khan; catch it Sunday evening.
Hey: even more classical music (geeks, it's your week). Dig the sounds of Ligeti on Monday at the Hebrew University's classical music appreciation classes.
Lady rocker Yehudit Ravitz is returning to the Jerusalem Theatre on Monday evening to celebrate her latest album reaching gold status in sales.
Free jazz at the Yellow Sub on Tuesday night. Not free jazz as in Ornette, free jazz as in o-nay ough-day, dad.
Wrap yourself in the warm embrace of the Anglo community and the Jewish people's beloved humor-about-nothing with a Wednesday night Seinfeld marathon at the Merkaz.
The annual International Oud Festival kicks off this year on November 20 with a tribute to the golden age of the oud, and from there staggers nightly performances in venues through the city during its two-week run. Highlights include a musical exploration of the link between kabballa and Sufi Islam; Turkish giants of the oud Erkan Oğur and Ismail Demircioğlu; and the world premier of a performance by ethnomusicologist Maureen Nehedar, who will sing traditional Persian Jewish ballads from the oldest Jewish Diaspora community in the world.
The festival closes December 4 with a first: a performance of oudacious music from the northern Indian state of Rajasthan, whitch borders on Pakistan and marks the eastern boundary of the instrument's traditional influence. It's no Goa techno, but it should do.
Perhaps the most famous of Middle Eastern instruments, the oud, is that lute-like piece that resembles an overweight guitar with a broken neck. Plucked from Sicily to India and all the provinces in between, the instrument has become emblematic of Arab culture. As it has spread into Israeli hands, and, like falafel and hookah, it has become an easy go-to when looking for a cultural touchstone to talk about ethnic sounds and bridging traditions. Hence the Confederation House-organized festival, which brings harmonious music to the very front lines of our culture clash.
Tradition holds that the origin of the oud isn't so tranquil, though. The Bible attributes the birth of music to Yuval, son of Lamech (the great, great, great grandson of Adam), but Arab legend tells a slightly different story, in which Lamech accidentally kills his other son Tuval-Cain (after accidentally killing the original Cain) and hangs his body to dry in a tree, with the skeleton serving as a model for the first instrument. We don't want to know how they think the tuba was invented.
Even if you don't believe all that jibber-jabber, scholars believe the oud still stands as one of the oldest instruments known to civilization, dating back over 5,000 years. The ones being played today are probably considerably newer, but the sound certainly harkens back to a simpler, clichéd time, as many a Jerusalemite will hear during the festival.
Most of the concerts run between 80 and 120 NIS, but before you go saying the price is oudrageous, remember the famous saying about how oud music isn’t free. Or was that freedom? And If you're Ashkenazi and just not connecting to the flavor, no need to fret. Chanukah is right around the corner.
Photos of mystical composer Samir Mahoul, performing on December 1 (top), and of master hand percussionist Zohar Fresco, performing November 26, courtesy of the Oud Festival.
Yes, it's the artists. In fact, Jerusalem does not want for lack of institutions that cater toward artists. Ever since Boris Schatz started sculpting old ladies and founded the Bezalel School of Art and Design, the city has been rife with galleries, academies, musicians, poets and starving artistes all dedicated to "the scene." Now, a new project is being formulated to turn that scene into more of a community of artistic minded Jerusalemites. Ruach Chadasha, a student rights organization founded by next mayor Nir Barkat, recently gathered together movers and shakers of the Jerusalem arts movement to lay the groundwork for the communities.
The meeting took place at Agripas 12, a gallery well known for fostering cooperation between the various artistic institutions in the city. Among the cognoscenti there were Avi Sabag of the Musrara school and members of the Zik, Koresh and Hagagit groups. Maya Felixbrodt, director of young artists for Ruach Chadasha said she had been approached by many others about working with them to create the community, which is meant to made up of those already out of school who want to remain in Jerusalem. "We mean to give them some framework to go and create together and to give to Jerusalem as artists," she said. The community is meant to be something completely open to the participants' choosing, meaning they or may not live together and create together and eat together and work together. Basically, it may be about as communal as a privatized "kibbutz."
Though Thursday night brought cold and rain over 20 interested artists crwoded into the gallery to hear what would be going on and get in on the ground floor. Felixbrodt said she wasn't sure what Barkat's victory would mean for the project, but hoped it would translate into more support from city hall, though she said the project would go ahead no matter what happens.
Of course, this effort is far from being the first to try and bring artists together to create in Jerusalem. Chutzot Hayotzer (the artists colony right outside the old city, not the related festival) touts itself as being one such place, though its fine arts showcases have more of a commercial tilt. The Jerusalem Artists House also brings artists together under one roof, though it is more a gallery than a community effort. Plus nobody even lives in the house. In September, Jerusalem was the home to Lift-Off, the first, possibly annual, installment of an event that sought to bring together over 100 artists to display their work in a number of venues throughout the city. And there's always artsy tchochkes and expensive Judaica available at Ben Yehuda and the Cardo. In short, art did not leave Jerusalem with the original Bezalel.
Unlock the culinary secrets of Machane Yehuda this week in Jerusalem
It's the first week of a new Jerusalem. Or at least a different Jerusalem. Well, provided outgoing mayor Lupolianski doesn't cap off his useless term by seizing total control of the city and devoting 100% of the municipal budget to his twin initiatives of delaying the light rail and making his beard wispier. Hey, you can't rule anything out. But assuming the transfer of power goes well, this is a good week to make a toast to the fading reign of Mr. Lupolianski, and as always, Jerusalemite has plenty ideas of how to go about it:
Jerusalem has some of the world's greatest food. Learn about (and sample) the many foods Jerusalemites love, including the offalicious meorav yerushalmi, as you follow Beit Shmuel through Machane Yehuda today.
And tonight is your chanceto catch some rare English-language Jerusalem theater with After Eden at the Merkaz.
Is there any better place to see a 18-piece choral ensemble specializing in Jewish and Israeli music than at the the Tower of David? Dunno. Ask the Jerusalem Cameri Choir tomorrow.
Jerusalem is an orthodox city no matter what religion you follow, but if you happen to be a Conservative Jew, don't feel alone and uneducated: English-language Conservative Torah study starts up tomorrow.
This Saturday tour is not optional, even if you observe Shabbat, keep kosher or don't speak Hebrew. Beit Shmuel is taking a group of gourmands to the hummus restaurants of east Jerusalem and the Old City, and all that wonderful, historic hummus is worth the eternal punishment for any transgression.
Everybody in Israel loves rock ensemble Beit Habubot (except those guys who think music is a sin). Hop on the bandwagon Saturday night at the Yellow Submarine.
As if Jews and Arabs don't got enough beef, in The Return to Haifa, a Jewish family and an Arab family tussle over an adopted child in the post-War of Independence era. Catch it Sunday at the Jerusalem Theatre.
Sunday is also your last chance to catch Shakespeare's Henry V in English at the Ma'abada.
Dganit Ben-Admon is whitewashing everything in sight and calling it modern art. Two words, lady: "Tom Sawyer." Stop by the exhibit at the Jerusalem Artists' House on Monday.
Don't you wish your children cared at all about music that didn't sound like the pitiful dying screech of the last of an endangered species? Try to introduce them to some classical music with Speak to Me in Sound at the Jerusalem Theatre on Tuesday.
How can Jerusalem sustain multiple Dixieland bands? Gain some insight, maybe, by seeing the New Orleans Function Tuesday at the Yellow Sub.
How's your Jewish identity lately? If you don't know the answer, consider attending the first in a series of English lectures on the subject at the Shalom Hartman Institute on Wednesday.
And remember, you can always check the whole week's listings in our Events section. Have a good week in this new Jerusalem.
Unless the afterlife is absolutely not what it's cracked up to be, it does appear that the cosmic order survived this week's elections in America, contrary to all expectation. So Jerusalemites everywhere have cause to celebrate - at least until their own firmament-shattering elections, coming up in but a few days. But hey, the coming end of Uri Lupolianski's reign of inefficiency is also cause to celebrate. At Jerusalemite, we'll celebrate just about anything, the best way we know how:
Pop group Shotei HaNevuah may have broken up, but their frontman forges boldly ahead, while still sounding exactly the same. Catch Avraham Tal at the Yellow Submarine tonight.
Chanteuse Yael Badihi is hosting another musical party/luncheon Friday at her Nataf home, this time all about the poetry and life of the famous Rachel.
If you're curious about delving deeper into Jesus' final day than the Via Dolorosa, meet up with Beit Shmuel for a Jesus in Jerusalem tour ranging from the Kidron Valley to Mount Zion.
Want to inculcate your children with hyper-nationalist values using only puppets and poetry? Check out the Train Theater'spuppet show version of the poetry of Hayyim Nahman Bialik on Saturday.
Beatniks take over Saturday night with a night of "ecstatic avant-jazz poetry" at Yakar. Hey beardie, your lunch appears to be naked.
Want to be a pop star? Well, you're in the wrong place. But you can still shoot for fleeting local fame at the Mike's Placeopen mic night on Monday.
Tuesday is votin' day. After you choose Jerusalem's next mayor, quiet your lingering doubts with the sweet sounds of jazz at the Yellow Sub, finally back after a holiday hiatus.
On Wednesday, the battle will be over. Relive a far more stirring conflict with Henry V at the Ma'abada.
See you next week, if the city's still standing. Don't forget to vote, and don't forget to check out our full listing of this week's events...
Ain't no party like an Emek party, cuz an Emek party don't charge admission.
One day in the not-too-distant future, the anti-gravitational effects of a thousand constantly puffing cappuccino steamers and ten thousand constantly lightening wallets will lift Emek Refaim completely above the more pedestrian streets of Jerusalem, whereupon those lucky enough to be carried heavenward with the street of the gods will shower the less fortunate with great torrents of upscale kosher dairy bistro fare. But hopefully that won't happen before you can hit the annual Emek Refaim Street Fair on Tuesday.
What's the Emek Refaim Street Fair about? Well, uh, imagine Chutzot HaYotzer...good...and then imagine it smaller in scale and taking place on Emek Refaim. The Emek, as nobody should ever call it, will be lined with dozens of local artists displaying and selling their pieces, including paintings, pottery and glass works, with avant-garde assists by the Hagigit collective, who will be taking photographs of the merriment around them, futzing with them on computers and then displaying them on a giant screen. Meta.
Then there are, of course, the bands: homegrown Balkan-booty-stomping brass band Marsh Dondurma and that band they get for every festival in the city, Ethnika, as well as some lesser names. Oh yeah, and fire dancers.
And if all that art and photo-twiddling and Balkan brass and fire-twirling makes you want to get a burn on, stop at one of several wine stalls for a glass or four of the red (or white, or...pink) stuff. Sop that up by stopping in any one of the many, many, many restaurants lining the street, all of which are running festival-only discounts. It's the cheapest mountainous Mediterranean salad money can buy!
Festivities last from 17:00 until the decadent hour of 23:00, and entrance is blissfully free.