This week in Jerusalem

by michael    July 24 2008
This week in JerusalemArtFilmFor the kidsPhotographyThings to do
Chairs.
The photography of Gustavo Sagorsky, now at the Jerusalem Artists House

Summer festival season has wound down, and the citywide High Holidays bashes are still a couple months off, but don't mistake this for the doldrums: even during the hottest days of a hot summer, Jerusalem and her many fine institutions continue to offer more culture than a Tel Avivi could shake an unearned sense of superiority at. Dig:

  • Comedian Nadav Bosem and uni-monikered singer Rili are mounting a comedic/musical tribute to the popular Israeli entertainers of the '50s and '60s tonight at Beit Shmuel.
  • Take the kids to the Israel Museum Sunday for a taste of what childhood was like in the austerity-stricken early days of the country with a hands-on exhibit of bygone childhood pursuits. Maybe they'll appreciate their lives more afterwards?
  • Give yourself a little grounding in pressing international affairs Monday by attending Foreign Ministry official Menashe Amir's lecture on the Iranian people at the Hebrew University.
  • Wrap yourself in the warm, if sometimes limiting embrace of the Jerusalem Anglo community at Mike's Place Tuesday night for some musical democracy in action: a freestyle, take-all-comers jam session. Bring your axe, as long as you like guitar rock and Shlomo Carlebach niggunim.
And as always, there's plenty more to do, and you'll find it all in the Jerusalemite Events Section. Click here for a full listing of the week's events.

Image of Gustavo Sagorsky's photography courtesy of the Jerusalem Artists House.
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Huck Finn, meet Arik Sharon

by michael    July 21 2008
Municipal newsThings to do
Mark Twain
With a mustache that grand, you'd think he'd be cheerier

One is a renowned man of letters, a novelist, satirist and essayist whose emancipationist sympathies, finely honed wit and admirable mustache ensured him the title of "father of American literature." One is an Israeli war hero turned iconoclastic, if corpulent politician who during his tenure as prime minister began the process of disentangling the nation from its thorny post-1967 territorial gains before being felled by a stroke. And one is a religious Zionist seminary/urban development concern currently engaged in the controversial business of buying up and resettling the Old City's Muslim Quarter. Their common ground? One Jerusalem building, it turns out.

The aforementioned man of letters, one Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens, embarked in 1867 on a tour of Palestine, then a region within the Ottoman Eyalet of Syria, and spent several days poking about the religious sites of Jerusalem. His travels in the Holy Land and Europe inspired the popular travel memoir The Innocents Abroad or The New Pilgrims' Progress, published in 1869, and partly informed the (for its time) remarkably philosemitic Concerning the Jews, published years later in 1898 - although as his surviving letters indicate, Twain's chief concern while he was actually in Jerusalem was one that should be familiar to any modern Jerusalem tourist: which thematically appropriate tchotchke to buy for the folks back home. From a letter to a Christian Quarter bookseller:

Mr. Esais—Fix up the little Bible I selected (I don’t want any other)—the one that has backs made of Balsam-wood from the Jordan, oak from Abraham’s tree at Hebron, olive-wood from the Mount of Olives, & whatever the other stuff was—ebony, I think. Put on it this inscription: “Mrs. Jane Clemens—from her son—Mount Calvary, Sept 24, 1867.�? Put “Jerusalem�? around on it loose, somewhere, in Hebrew, just for a flyer. Send it to our camp, near head of the valley of Hinnom—the third tents you come to if you leave the city by the Jaffa Gate—the first if you go out by the Damascus Gate.
Twain, when not pitching a tent in the valley that now houses the Sultan's Pool performance venue, was staying in the Mediterranean Hotel, then the preferred Jerusalem haunt of foreign intelligentsia indulging in a bit of Orientalism. In the years that followed Twain's visit, though, the Mediterranean was sold off, repurposed and eventually forgotten - until now.
A group of researchers and archaeologists has recently located the Jerusalem building that housed the famed Mediterranean Hotel, which served in the late 19th century as the intelligentsia's cultural, social and tourist hub in the Holy Land.

Based on photos, blueprints, maps and observations, the research team was able to pinpoint the institution to the Wittenberg House in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City. Today, the building houses the religious seminary of the Ateret Cohanim non-profit organization.
Yes, Mark Twain's old stomping ground is now the home of those, um, territorially optimistic young men at Ateret Cohanim. But before the entire building became the organization's property, one of the apartments comprising it was owned by none other than disengaging schawarma connoisseur Ariel Sharon. It's a small world, and Jerusalem happens to be at the center of it.

Twain's hallowed footsteps through our city might or might not be worth following, but if such an endeavor does interest you, this tour might just be your bag.
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Paper birds bring peace to Jerusalem

by Ziva    July 18 2008
Things to doArt

Origami work by Paul Jackson

Ever feel like expressing your love for Jerusalem? Then get out a piece of paper. No pen. Just paper. And start folding. That's the idea behind the new exhibition Origami Regards from the World to Jerusalem at the Moriah Hotel July 22nd through the 24th. Run by the Israeli Origami Center, the international exhibition presents 1,500 works of origami by artists of all ages from more than 15 countries and four world religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. Coinciding with the exhibition is their fourth international convention which welcomes 14 leading international origami masters, including Eric Joisel, who will lead round-the-clock workshops for adults and children on origami practices, techniques and fun. Joisel, from France, is known for creating complicated and intricate works through (relatively) simple techniques and papers.

Representing Israel's contribution to the field of origami art is Paul Jackson. Originally from England and currently living and teaching in Tel Aviv, his breathtaking works have been exhibited in prestigious museums around the world. Jackson is best known for elevating origami to the fine art frontier, bringing the technique much critical attention and respect through his masterful works and theories. During the three-day conference workshops are open to the public (at a daily rate or evening rate, with advance registration) for both long-time fans of the art form and newcomers alike. It's a great opportunity to acquire new techniques or hone budding skills in the company of talented teachers and artists.

All works created during the conference will join the 1,500 works of art on display at the hotel either hanging from the glass-topped ceiling or decorating its walkways which were created by children and artists from around the world as part of a commissioned project, run by the Folding Together organization, to create origami messages of love for Jerusalem. The instructions were simple: express your love for Jerusalem in a work of origami; no religious motifs, only abstract shapes; and make sure the work is stable and strong enough to be hung from above. "The response was amazing," says Miri Golan, a leading Israeli origami artist and Director of the Israeli Origami Center and the Folding Together organization. "We received such wonderful works reflecting such hope and love from individuals, especially children, from around the world."

The Folding Together organization has been bringing together children from East and West Jerusalem to create works of origami together over the course of the past year. As Golan explains, "When children create together, they forget about things like politics and difference. They learn to form a new language that's shared, open and new. It's about peer-to-peer, or people to people, interaction without politics." July 24th will celebrate the project's end at the hotel with a short documentary film about the project and a performance of the traditional Sakura song by participating children and Japanese opera singer Isako Ikada in Japanese, Hebrew and Arabic. The exhibition will travel across Israel to smaller Jewish and Arab communities until the end of the year.

For information on fees and registration for participation in conference workshops call 03-751-3483 or download the form (pdf).

Featured above, origami work by Paul Jackson folded from a single, uncut sheet courtesy of Paul Jackson.

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Last call at the Jerusalem Wine Festival

by ben    July 17 2008
FoodThings to do

Looks like rubies, smells like unicorns!

Tonight is your last chance to enjoy the myriad of top-notch wines being offered to you at the Israel Museum's Israeli Wine Festival. The three-night affair's finale promises to be jam-packed, if Jerusalemite's visit earlier this week is any indication. It is Thursday night, after all.

The Sculpture Garden has been transformed quite nicely into a highbrow bacchanalian, with lovers of fermented grape juice being given the opportunity to enjoy live jazz, plush outdoor couch seating areas, fancy chocolates and cheeses and plenty of other food options. And wine. Lots and lots of delicious wine that many of us could never afford to buy on a regular basis, but when you're talking about 55 NIS per entrance (which buys you a glass that you can rinse and refill as often as you'd like, one gulp's-worth at a time), the party is on.

Our favorites from this year's yield include the Tzova Sangiovese, the Psagot Franc, the Galil Pinot and the Dalton Barbera. Gush Etzion's cherry liqueur is not a wine really, but it was also alcoholic and extremely tasty.

Click here for more photos.

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This week in Jerusalem

by michael    July 17 2008
This week in JerusalemThings to do
Shaanan Street
Hadag loses its Nachash: Shaanan Street goes solo

Is July Jerusalem's best month for culture, or is it just the wine buzz talking? Hopefully you've all been taking full advantage of the many fine offerings of the Film Festival and the Wine Festival, but don't think the cultural extravaganza stops there. The event train keeps on rolling, and as always, Jerusalemite is making sure you won't lack for things to see and do.

  • Israelis may have the blues, but they don't play the blues, which is why they have to rely on Americans to do it for them. Get low down in the (Nile?) Delta with the Jerusalem Blues Project tonight at Mike's Place.
  • Shaanan Street, lord and master of chartbusting hip-hop/funk outfit Hadag Nachash, has gone solo for some reason and will be performing live at Beit Avi Chai at 22:30 on Saturday night in support of his just-released album.
  • There's something appealingly incongruous about Hebrew-language stage adaptations of popular American films - and if you need an example, look no further than the Jerusalem Theatre's winning production of Rain Man, also on Saturday night.
  • On Monday, swing by the Musrara art school to admire the works of its talented students at a special class gallery showing, and wind down the evening with cocktails and the smoky vocal stylings of young chanteuse Shelly Tzarafi at Birman.
There's plenty more happening throughout the city, and as always, all you need to do is click over to the Events section to find it. Have a great weekend.
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A conversation with Ilan de-Vries, Jerusalem Film Festival director

by simone    July 16 2008
InterviewFilmThings to do

Ilan de Vries

The Jerusalem International Film Festival is celebrating its 25th year under the auspices of a new general director, Ilan de-Vries, former deputy director under festival founder Lia Van Leer. Mr. de-Vries took time from his busy schedule to speak with Jerusalemite about the festival and Jerusalem's cultural scene.

Please give us some background on the festival. How did it begin and how has it developed since? The Festival began in 1982 as the brain-child of Lia Van Leer and Dina Eldor and backed by the Jerusalem Foundation, which was headed at that time by Teddy Kollek. The festival began with 50 films. It was very small. There were few guests and virtually no Israeli cinema, because there wasn't much Israeli cinema in general at that time. Since then, the Festival has grown each year, attracting more famous guests such as Jane Fonda, Roberto Benigni and Alan Arkin. In addition to films made in the past year or two, we began showing archive films as well and created a special category, "In the Spirit of Freedom," which features films dealing with issues of human rights, democracy and tolerance. There is a large prize, courtesy of the Nathan Cummings Foundation for this category.

This year we're celebrating our 25th anniversary. The festival has really grown in its 25 years. This year we have 100 films from over 30 countries, including films from some Arab countries including Jordan. We don't often get films from the Arab world because of the political situation.

How did you personally become involved in the Festival? When the Cinematheque opened in 1981, I served as Ms. Van Leer's deputy and was very involved with the Film Festival in its early years. After nine years at the Cinematheque I left to work at Channel 2 and then Mishkenot Sha'ananim before returning to the Film Festival this year.

Has your audience changed at all in the 25 years of festival operations? While the audience has changed to some degree, there is a core group of loyal viewers that come every year. These people continue to come from across the country because they see the best of cinema there and they like the festival's atmosphere. The Cinematheque currently has 7,000 members, and these members make up the core audience. Jerusalem of course has changed in the 25 years since the festival began. It no longer has the same demographic.... (click here for the full interview)
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Chofshi Bakayitz's free events are nearly over

by simone    July 15 2008
Things to doArtFor the kids
Onili

Must... keep... party... going....

As food and gas prices rise worldwide, and with Israelis (and Jews in general) always looking for a free ride (isn't that what the stereotype is all about?), the Chofshi Bakayitz (Summer Nights) series comes as a welcome breath of FREE fresh air in this hot summer. Founded in 2003 as an attempt to reinstate Jerusalem as the cultural capital of Israel and to provide residents with hope in the dark days of the intifada, the series now attracts culture hounds from all sectors and locales.

"It was important for me that people outside of Jerusalem come to the series as well, so we advertised all over the country," says Uri Strissover, cultural director of the Jerusalem Foundation, which sponsors the series. "I want people across the country to think of Jerusalem as a place of quality culture."

In keeping with its mandate to provide cultural opportunities to all of Jerusalem's residents, Chofshi Bakayitz offers a wide range of ways to spend those hot summer nights and days. The Yellow Submarine-hosted triple threat of Friday afternoon music sessions – rock, electro and world – was designed to attract the city's youth (the final session will be held this Friday). A number folk music and dance performances in the city's Gan Hapa'amon (Liberty Bell Park), on the other hand, have catered to those who still think Israeli culture means dancing the hora and/or singing in unison.

After the Bridge of Strings opening, in which young female dancers were asked at the last minute to wear more modest clothing, Jerusalemite was curious as to whether the Chofshi Bakayitz series encountered similar pressures from certain members of the Jerusalem leadership. The answer, according to Mr. Strissover is a resounding "no" - the reason being that the series purposely divvies up its events specifically so that all of Jerusalem's various religious and ethnic groups may take part in the series without having to attend events that they find offensive. An east Jerusalem street party featuring musical performances and family friendly activities attracted the city's Arab residents while an art exhibit at Oman, a charedi art school, is set to provide Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox residents with a day of culture that excludes scantily clad dancers. (The exhibit's grand opening takes place on Wednesday, July 14 at 8pm and the runs through July 30.)

The series closes out this Saturday, with yet another art exhibit - this time at the Artist's House.

Courtesy photo of Onili, a cheeky electro-pop songstress who played at the Yellow Submarine's recent electro-themed Friday session under the Chofshi Bakayitz umbrella.

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Moonlight Cinema at the Old Train Station

by michael    July 14 2008
Things to doFilm

The Band's Visit

It ain't easy being culturally active. You have to keep your ear to the ground. You have to stay abreast of events listings. You have to make difficult decisions: do you see a band, or a film? Wouldn't it be better, you've doubtless asked yourself, if you could see both at the same time (and perhaps not have to pay either)?

Sounds like you need some Moonlight Cinema.

Part of the ongoing Film Festival, Moonlight Cinema is three consecutive nights of free musical performances at the Old Train Station followed by free screenings of Israeli movies, each one definitely worth seeing.

It starts tonight with HaTavlinim playing a set before, appropriately enough, The Band's Visit (pictured), an ecstatically received (and quite excellent) 2007 Israeli production about an Egyptian police band slated to play at the opening of an Arab cultural center in Petach Tikva who, via some linguistic difficulties, wind up in a forgotten Negev development town. Veteran actors Sasson Gabai and Ronit Elkabetz are in fine form as the leads, but the show is stolen by up-and-coming Palestinian uber-hottie Saleh Bakri as a wistful skirt-chaser who just wants to find an Israeli girl with whom he can talk about Chet Baker. The dialogue is mostly in English; the only reason Beaufort represented Israel at the Oscars rather than this feature. Hebrew and Arabic dialogue will be subtitled.

Tomorrow, dig on the sounds of Yali Sobol, then get caught up in a full-on blast from the past with Shablul, the zany film debut of the massively popular late '60s comedy/variety troupe "Lool," from which sprang pop star/actor Arik Einstein and actor/comic Uri Zohar. The film is not subtitled, but frankly, if you're not either Israeli or very invested in Israeli culture, Einstein and Zohar's shenanigans might not make much sense even if it were.

Wednesday's proceedings are kicked off by Malkat HaPlakat, and carry on with Jellyfish, the debut directorial effort of Israeli literary superstar Etgar Keret. Jerusalemite hasn't seen this one, but if it manages to transfer to the screen Keret's rapier wit and sharp social eye, it should be a can't-miss.

Shows on all three nights start at 20:00, and there is a maximum capacity of 2,000 persons, so you may want to come early to ensure a place. And with those lovely Jerusalem summer night breezes coming up from the valleys, you might want to bring a layer of some kind. Jerusalemite's coverage of the Jerusalem Film Festival continues later this week.

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Bezalel graduates make a splash in the art world

by Ziva    July 14 2008
ArtThings to do
Blue glass installation by Michael Czeigler
Leave it to a bunch of crazy art students to point out how crazy or cool your life could - or should - be. Beneath their whacky dress codes - from ties and fedoras to bunny ears and beehive hairdos, and always the ubiqitious tats - you may never have guessed that some of these Jerusalem-trained artists actually have something interesting or innovative to say. Now on view through July 25th at the prestigious Bezalel Academy of Art and Design are the freshly-honed viewpoints of the 2008 graduating class.
 
Bezalel Graduate Show
Thursday night's opening event was wall-to-wall with art lovers, supporters, friends and confused folk, including me after seeing one young woman's video installation on "the enslavement of women in the sex trade" (swear to you). It was a triptych-like video set that showed a woman crawling in her wedding dress on her hands and knees after a plate of hummus, that was being pulled in front of her by a string. Oh, and the viewer "forced" the entire sequence by pushing the project with this large gilded knob. Yeah, it was neither new nor necessary.
But there were plenty of reasons why this event is looked at as a formidable turning point for Israel's art scene at large, and Jerusalem's in particular. For example, the Israel Museum's Real Time: Art in Israel exhibition, which focuses on highlights from the last decade in Israeli art, features several well-known Bezalel graduates currently making contemporary art headlines around the world, including Sigalit Landau.
 
The student exhibition is enormous, sprawling across seven floors, and it encompasses all the departments at Bezalel, including design, art, jewelry and fashion, ceramics and glass, new media, animation, photography and visual communications - which are all sorts of graphic artists (typography, illustration, etc). So to save you some time navigating all the nooks and crannies of the floors - some works are displayed literally in the loft space above the bathrooms - here are some Jerusalemite picks (listed in the same sequence as they appear at right). Keep them on your art radar (or rolodex) too, because we think they may be going places.
  • Yuval Sharon's installation incorporating paintings, drawings, burned car oil and lighting. Created over the span of one and a half years, the works recreate images from google searches and focus on themes of presence/absence, the environment, humans/animals/machines, reality/dream/potential.
  • Angelica Sar's photographs of young children reclining and relaxing about as if they're bourgeosie. Is childhood "the good life"? Or are today's children just incredibly spoiled?
  • Doron Hadar's Eco Tree City, which redesigns the common street lamp as a freestanding tree that's powered by solar panels.
  • Miri Berger's machine-like ceramic plates, which elevate art to machine - or is is the other way around?
But you don't have to take our word for it: Visit the Bezalel show for yourselves and let Jerusalemite know what you liked or even disliked most. The Bezalel Graduates Exhibition, at the academy's Mt. Scopus building, runs through July 25, open from 10:00 to 21:00 on weekdays and Fridays until 15:00. Admission is free.
 
At top, blue glass either explodes or spills, by Bezalel graduating glass artist Michal Czeigler, photographed by Ziva Haller Rubenstein for Jerusalemite. For more photos of the exhibit, check out Jerusalemite's photostream on flickr.
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A conversation with Avi Ben, oenophile

by simone    July 13 2008
InterviewFoodJerusalemite newsThings to do

Avi Ben in his store

Avi Ben, owner of the Avi Ben Wine Shop chain, is helping bring the "nectar of the gods" to Jerusalem mortals with the Israeli Wine Festival, an event held each summer at the Israel Museum. The festival, which attracts wine connoisseurs, wanna-be wine connoisseurs and those just looking to get loaded, runs from July 15-17 and offers attendees the chance to taste hundreds of top-shelf bottles for a flat fee.

How did you first get into the wine business? I started 25 years ago, working in my family's business, which was wholesale alcohol distribution. I soon realized that I was more connected to wine than to alcohol and that the type of people that enjoy wine are a bit different than your regular alcohol drinker, so I decided to develop this aspect of the business.

I opened my first store in Mahane Yehuda as a wholesale distributor. Then I opened a wine store in Talpiot in the mid-1980s. When I opened a second store in Nachalat Shiva in 1993 people thought I was crazy. That I was opening specifically a wine store and not an alcohol store – a store with tastings and courses in wine appreciation. It was definitely different, but it succeeded.

On July 3 we opened a new store in the shuk, right across from Rachmo. I've completed the circle, returning to the same place where my wholesale distribution store used to be. Today people say to me, "What? You're opening a store like this in the shuk?" But people said the same thing to me when I opened my store in Nachlat Shiva, and I proved them wrong.

All across Israel, the wine culture has changed, it has developed, and I was one of the pioneers of this development, one of the people at the forefront of this change, because of my own personal affiliation with wine, my personal taste for wine and the wine business.

You are one of the organizers of Jerusalem's annual Wine Festival. How did the Wine Festival come to be? What was the impetus behind it and when did it start? The first festival was held five years ago, in 2003. It was a time when bombs were going off regularly in Jerusalem and we noticed that business was slacking off - especially in the summer, when many of our regular customers went on vacation.

It was a bad time for Jerusalem in general, so we decided to organize a fair that would bring wine distributors to Jerusalem. We picked a great location, the Israel Museum, and once they agreed to house the festival, all the planning became easier. People loved the location, they loved the idea, and it was a huge success. We're now in our fifth successful year.... (click here for the full interview)
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