Art and Pasta

• Each year, Jerusalem holds an Italian Festival, draped in Italian colors and bright with music, food, and good humor. They call it Art and Pasta.
• In the piazza next to the Italian Museum crowds sample the pasta of three Italian chefs or eat Mediterranean-but-not-Italian wraps from The Coffee Shop across Hillel Street. Commedia dell’Arte actors stroll and dance among baby strollers, children, young parents, grandparents, teenagers, tourists, locals, and everyone else.
• When night falls, slides of Italy illuminate the screen at the back of the small amphitheater in between concerts by a musician of strange instruments (funnels, saw, broom, balloon, and more). A boys’ group sings Italian lustily. A klezmer band performs on the balcony. Children make pasta crafts. (See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/unexpected-february-entertainment.html )
• Inside the small but excellent museum (http://www.jija.org/ENGLISH/JIJA/Museum/Museum.html ), along with permanent and changing exhibits, is the gorgeous Conegliano Synagogue (http://www.jija.org/ENGLISH/JIJA/Synago/synago.html ), transported from Italy in 1951. A sign on museum’s side reminds us that the Jews of Rome have their own version of the liturgy, developed in their community, which was hundreds of years old before Rome morphed from republic to empire. The synagogue has an active congregation and is sometimes also used for lectures., which is how I know that the pews are as uncomfortable as benches designed for human sitting can get.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox