City of Asylum

Tags

American Academy, Diane Samuels, Foundation for Jewish Culture, Henry Reese, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Huang Xiang, Khet Mar, micrography, Pittsburgh, Samsonian Way, YMCA

 

For the past few weeks each time I entered the YMCA for my weekly French class I was confronted by the sight of a slim woman sitting at a table beside the entrance, totally engrossed in her work. On closer inspection, I found that she was writing what is known as micrography around the edge of a large sheet of paper, her tiny handwriting amazingly legible. Beside her were several books in English, and her work involves turning sections of these texts into beautiful, handwritten art.

When I finally plucked up courage and asked her what she was doing and why, she seemed only too happy to interrupt her work and talk to me. Her friendly demeanour and readiness to describe the undertaking behind her presence here in Israel captured my interest immediately, and as we talked the minutes simply flew past until it was time for me to enter the classroom. As I later discovered, micrography, which is a traditional Jewish art form, evolved in the 9th century as a form of decoration which does not contravene the Second Commandment. Originally Hebrew letters were used, although today it has parallels in Christianity and Islam.

Together with three other artists from various disciplines, Diane Samuels, who is from Pittsburgh, is spending ten weeks in Israel under the aegis of the American Academy in Jerusalem as part of a 10-week fellowship for distinguished artists, architects, and planners from abroad. The Academy seeks to help strengthen the city of Jerusalem as a vibrant, pluralistic center of arts and culture, and is under the aegis of the Foundation for Jewish Culture. The Foundation invests in creative individuals in order to nurture a vibrant and enduring Jewish identity, culture and community, stressing the importance of Jewish culture as a core component of Jewish life.

At a lecture-cum-presentation given earlier this week at the American Center in Jerusalem by Diane and her partner, former businessman Henry Reese, the audience was treated to a talk interspersed with a series of clips describing the philanthropic project, City of Asylum, which the couple has established in Pittsburgh. The concept parallels similar projects in other cities, but is unique in being financed solely on a private basis, with no government or university funding (as is the case with the other projects).

Originally, Diane and Henry bought a crumbling house in their neighbourhood, refurbished it and made it available to a writer in exile who had been persecuted for his work in China, his country of origin. The writer in question, the poet Huang Xiang, also painted his poems in Chinese characters on the outside of the house. When asked by local children to recite one of his poems he launched into a spirited rendition of one about a tiger, causing his audience to ask for more, and eventually leading to public performances of his work. From the clip we were shown we could understand the children’s enthusiasm.

In the framework of the project, the individual writer, together with his or her family, is able to stay in the house rent-free for two years, and is given an annual living stipend of $30,000, medical benefits and assistance in transitioning to exile, the goal being to help the writer become stable and self-supporting. If necessary, the writer is able to stay on in the house after the initial two-year period, in the hope that eventually he or she will be able to pay a nominal rent.

Other writers who have stayed in the City of Asylum project include Burmese poet Khet Mar, Horacio Castellanos Moya from El Salvador, and the program has been extended to include visiting international writers in residence.

Over time the project has evolved from its modest beginnings and now encompasses several houses in the same street, Sampsonia Way, each one decorated on the outside by local artists in a unique way, as well as monthly poetry readings, public poetry and jazz performances and an extraordinary awakening of a sense of community in a neighbourhood where once few people had any connection with their neighbours.

Truly a remarkable and praiseworthy achievement.

 

Two Fascinating Women

Tags

Auschwitz, Boueno Sarfatty, German occupation, Kibbutz Ein Hashofet, Max Garfinkle, Salonika, Thessaloniki

 

 

The title of the lecture, ‘An Ode to Salonika: the Ladino Verses of Boueno Sarfatty,’ was not particularly enticing, but I decided to go along anyway out of the goodness of my heart and a sense of duty to the organising group, the Giving Circle. In the event, I was taken by surprise and completely captivated by the erudition, mental agility and linguistic ability of the speaker, Renee Levine Melammed, as well as by the subject of her book, the fascinating woman called Boueno Sarfatty.

Renee Levine Melammed, who originates from America, is now Dean of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. As she explained to her audience, she started her academic career by studying texts relating to the Spanish Inquisition (not the funny one invented by the Monty Python crew but the real, cruel one that put an end to one of Jewry’s most splendid communities), the subject of her doctoral dissertation. One thing led to another, and as well as acquiring the ancient languages required for her Ph.D., Professor Melammed also delved into ancient texts relating to Jewish women, eventually publishing a number of books on the subject. Today she is academic editor of Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies and Gender Issues, published by IUP, and a columnist for the Jerusalem Post.

Professor Melammed, kept us spellbound for over an hour as she described the series of incidents and coincidences that led her to meet the subject of her book, after having studied allied subjects and mastered the Ladino language. The result of ten years’ work, travels and research, her latest book, ‘An Ode to Salonika: the Ladino Verses of Boueno Sarfatty,’ contains the Ladino original of the poems, some two hundred in all, written by Boueno Sarfatty, together with Professor Melammed’s English translation of them on facing pages, as well as an account of Boueno’s life story.

Boueno Sarfatty, who was born into a prosperous and respected Sephardic family in the Greek port-town of Salonika (Thessaloniki) in 1916, had a long and checkered life. After growing up in the wealthy Jewish-Greek community of the town, she lived through the German invasion of Greece, serving to help  her fellow-Jews by distributing food and medications. Although she was captured and imprisoned for her activities by the Germans, she was helped to escape by the Partisans, whose ranks she had joined.  The Jewish community, which accounted for the majority of the population of Salonika, was completely destroyed during the German occupation. Most of its members were deported to Auschwitz, where they were murdered, and their homes and property were appropriated by their Greek compatriots. The poems she wrote describing the various incidents of her eventful life, provide a graphic account of what happened to one woman who was blessed with considerable talents and abilities.

After the war Boueno met and married Max Garfinkle (see photo above), who was serving as quartermaster for the British relief unit and at the same time working for the Jewish underground. The couple went to live in Max’s kibbutz, Ein HaShofet, but Boueno did not manage to find her place there, and in 1947 the couple moved to Montreal. While there she wrote her memoirs, and had a son, Eli, now a respected physician, who survives her, together with his wife and four children.

Boueno Sarfatty died in 1997 but to hear Professor Melammed describing her life it seems as if she is still very much with us, representing, in Professor Melammed’s words, ‘a feisty survivor-partisan-heroine of the decimated but once vibrant Salonikan Jewry.’

A Meeting with Naomi Tsur

Naomi Tsur, who was born in England and moved to Israel in 1966 to study Classics and Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has had a varied career, ranging from coin curator in Israel’s Antiquities Authority to co-authoring a Hebrew-English/English-Hebrew dictionary and heading the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and the Sustainable Jerusalem Coalition.

 

Acknowledging her achievements in these fields, Naomi was invited five years ago by then mayoral candidate Nir Barkat to join his party running for the Jerusalem municipality. She accepted and was given third place on the list and the promise of appointment as Deputy Mayor if the party was successful in the elections.

When I interviewed her a few days ago Naomi admitted that she had become an advocate of ecological issues by accident, a feminist by accident, and a politician by accident. Needless to say, she has invested her considerable energy and intelligence in all these spheres, chalking up signal achievements along the way.

Barkat’s party was indeed successful in those elections, and during her term as Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Naomi succeeded in furthering many ecological projects, establishing parks, preserving open spaces, and preventing massive construction in areas around the city. As is well known, the population of Jerusalem comprises a large ultra-orthodox element, and Naomi was also involved in combating their attempts to impose their religious tenets and way of life on the secular population.

But prior to last month’s municipal elections Mayor Barkat changed his priorities, and as a result Naomi felt impelled to establish her own list, Ometz Lev (Courage). The new movement featured women prominently on its list, championing female leadership for Jerusalem, while adopting a holistic urban platform. Thus, Ometz Lev’s members come from all sectors of the population as regards their religious and cultural affiliation, seeking to increase the representation of women in leadership roles, properly reflecting the proportion of women in the population, fostering greater government transparency and public participation, engendering environmental responsibility and sustainability, and furthering secular-religious cooperation.

With only two months in which to organize a campaign, Ometz Lev suffered from insufficient time and resources to garner exposure and support. While focussing on the ‘triple bottom line’ of economic, environmental and social issues, regarding them as interconnected facets of policy, the party sought to attract the votes of both secular and orthodox sections of the population, and of women in particular. However, several lists were vying for similar segments of Jerusalem’s electorate, and unfortunately when the results were in Naomi’s party was left without a seat on the new municipal council.

Now Naomi is turning her considerable talents to a subject that has long been dear to her heart and in which she has been active for many years, the concept of Green Pilgrimage. Naomi has been a global ambassador for the Green Pilgrimage Network for some time, and was instrumental in organizing the First International Green Pilgrimage Conference in Jerusalem earlier this year. The Israel branch of this world-wide organization seeks to promote pilgrimages and eco-friendly tourism to the City of Jerusalem every year, as well as to foster a network of home hospitality to be provided by both Arabs and Jews throughout the region. The organization of the Second International Jerusalem Symposium on Green and Accessible Pilgrimage, to be held in 2015, is currently under way, seeking to further the organization’s goals of building partnerships between different faiths and their spiritual destinations.

There are other projects in which Naomi is involved. One of these is the treatment of sewage produced by the Arab and Jewish neighborhoods in southern Jerusalem and which are currently soiling the Kidron Valley area. Getting the two populations to cooperate in overcoming this problem is no easy matter, but Naomi is convinced that a solution can be found by a combination of determination and good will, both of which she has in abundance. Naomi claims that this is one of the subjects that should really be on the agenda of the current Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, but at present nobody knows what subjects are under discussion.

Funds need to be raised and capital put in place to enable a massive project of this kind to be undertaken, probably under the auspices of an international business consortium. One can do no more than wish her luck in her new-old role as champion of environmental issues and urban sustainability.

Ashdod and the Philistines

Tags

Babylon, Bible, Champollion, David, Goliath, Hebrews, hieroglyphics, Samson, Sea Peoples

  

 

In Biblical times (and probably before that, too) Ashdod was a stronghold of the people known as the Philistines, who were constantly getting into fights with the Hebrews residing in the Land of Canaan. Everyone remembers the story of David and Goliath, and of course Goliath was a Philistine warrior, probably the result of some kind of genetic mutation that had caused him to grow to gigantic proportions.

 Samson was another Biblical figure who had dealings with the Philistines. He was drawn to their womenfolk, had three Philistine wives, and was fatally attracted to Delilah. The Philistines got the better of him, with Delilah’s connivance, but the recovery of his phenomenal strength enabled him to bring their temple crashing down, causing the death of many of their number as well as his own, after they had blinded and enslaved him.

 Today Ashdod is a thriving modern city on Israel’s Mediterranean seaboard, with some 200,000 inhabitants and a thriving port (currently suffering from an ongoing labour dispute arising from the government’s plan to enable the construction of another port, to be managed by private enterprise). The town has its own cultural centre, an abundance of parks and open spaces, and impressive environmental sculptures at almost every corner.

 Ashdod also has a Museum of Philistine Culture. The name sounds like a contradiction in terms, as the word ‘philistine’ has come to mean someone who is totally without culture, but it seems that the original Philistines certainly did have a culture, and many artifacts deriving from the time when they were in control of the area have come to light in the sandy soil in and around Ashdod.

 A visit to the museum reveals a wealth of sophisticated pottery and figurines which tell us a great deal about the life and culture of that ancient civilization. It is surmised, on the basis of these artifacts, that the Philistines originated from the area of the Aegean. They were also known as the Sea Peoples, though what impelled them to leave their homes and travel eastwards is not known. It may have been defeat in battle, famine, floods or a natural disaster of another kind.

 On their voyage east the Sea Peoples brought some of their pottery with them, and these bear a strong similarity to those found in the Aegean region, giving credence to the view regarding their origin. Their religion involved the worship of male and female gods such as Dagon and Baal Zebuv, who are mentioned in the Bible, as well as the Greek goddess Pitgayah, together with Baal and Ashera, who were Canaanite gods. Thanks to our ability to understand hieroglyphics (first deciphered by Champollion), archaeologists have been able to gain considerable information about the Philistines, as they are mentioned in ancient Egyptian texts.

 Eventually, the Philistines were defeated and exiled to Babylon, together with the Jews, in the late 7^th century BCE, after flourishing as an independent culture for over 600 years. Unlike the Jews, however, they assimilated into Babylonian society, accepting their culture and religious practices, leading to their disappearance as a separate nation.

 The museum in Ashdod has recently been renovated, and alongside its many display cases with their ‘official’ labels are cute little cartoons depicting the Philistine way of life in a humorous way. There are also interactive exhibits, including one which enables the visitor to bring down the temple of Dagon in Gaza – virtually, of course – with appropriate visual and sound effects. That’s great fun, for kids and adults alike!

 Today all that remains of what was once a thriving society, with trade links to the rest of the ancient world, is what can be found on display in Ashdod’s Museum of Philistine Culture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taxi!

Tags

Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Jerusalem, London, music, New York, Paris, The Knowledge

 

Taxi drivers the world over are a race unto themselves. The taxi drivers of London, have to acquire ‘The Knowledge,’ which involves studying London’s streets till they can find any address, and have to pass an exam to gain their taxi licence. These days they are separated from their passengers by a glass partition, so that the chances of conversation are limited. Many years ago, however, when my two sisters and I went to London to surprise our mother on her birthday (at our father’s instigation and expense), I remember the taxi driver exclaiming “Young people should never go away and leave their parents on their own!” when we told him why we were there.

In Istanbul the taxi drivers whizz around at breakneck speed, disregarding the thousands of other cars on the road that are also driving at a rapid pace. The fact that there don’t seem to be many collisions attests to their professional expertise. In many parts of Paris the taxis enjoy their own special public transport lanes, which are of great benefit to anyone trying to get from A to B without having to walk for miles in the Metro and struggle to work out which line to take.

In Buenos Aires we were warned never to hail a taxi in the street, but only to order one by phone from an accredited company. Apparently, there have been instances in which tourists were kidnapped and held for ransom, or worse. In New York, to the best of my knowledge, taxi drivers are often not native-born Americans, and it is one of the ways by which immigrants can make a living.

For a variety of reasons – partly geographical, partly economical (I share our car with my husband), and partly my own character flaws – I take taxis once or twice each week to get to various destinations. So I think I can be said to have some knowledge of the Israeli taxi experience.

Most of the taxi drivers I have encountered here are young men who have been born in Israel, come from underprivileged backgrounds, listen to the radio channel which broadcasts music from the North African countries from which their parents originated, and hold interminable conversations with family members, friends, or other drivers on their mobile phones as they drive into town from the dormitory suburb of Jerusalem in which I live. In Jerusalem one can safely hail a taxi in the street, and in some cases the driver turns out to be an Arab (as I gather from their phone conversations in Arabic). They are at least as courteous and safe as Jewish taxi drivers and their attitude to their passenger is perfectly professional.

Some drivers like to chat, whether about politics, sport, or other drivers, while others remain silent. I must say that I tend to prefer the latter. Political discussions are not always conducive to a safe journey, and I’m pretty certain my views won’t be in agreement with those of the driver.

As a classical music aficionado, I find that the strains of ‘oriental’ music jar on my ears, and invariably find myself (politely) asking the driver to either reduce the volume or turn the radio off. In most cases they oblige without demur. In some cases I’m then obliged to listen to pop or rock music of one kind or another, or the endless jabbering of the talk programmes, or even sports broadcasts, which is only a marginal improvement. As far as I’m concerned, silence is preferable to all of these, and sometimes I do even manage to pluck up my courage and ask for it (but I have to excuse this by saying that I’ve got a headache).

Yesterday, however, I had the surprise of my life. When I got into the taxi I had just hailed I heard the strains of the Schubert sonata that was being broadcast on the classical music programme. When I told the driver, a not-very-young man wearing a large skull-cap, that this was the first time this had ever happened to me, he said “That’s what everyone says,” then went on to tell me at great length how in the past he had disliked classical music but had decided that, just as he had once hated yellow cheese and avocados and now liked them, he would open his mind to classical music. “I find it very soothing,” he said, and then talked for the next twenty minutes about his philosophy of life, what he had told the mayor-elect about the traffic arrangements in Jerusalem, why he encouraged passengers to tell him what route to take and how he would always apologize and admit any mistake he may have made if this was pointed out to him in a civilized way.

 Truly, a very unusual person. I nodded and smiled as he bared his soul to me though my ears were straining to catch the notes of the sonata on the radio. Still, if I ever get the chance again, I confess to preferring that kind of disturbance to the other sort. After all, anyone who enjoys classical music is a kindred soul.