Rosh Khodesh at Beit Avi Chai

Adar aleph, it seems, is the Tribe of Dan's month, so last night at Beit Avi Chai we were at a presentation that included a lecture on the tribe, a history of the Dan bus cooperative, and a singalong.

First an oudist and a kanounist played for us in the picture gallery leading to the small cafe. Such house-style concerts are a new feature before eveng events.

I always find it interesting to listen to secular Bible scholars what might be the origin of Biblical passages, in this case about what Dan's blessing might mean and what the story might be behind the sanctuary set up art what is now called Tel Dan.

Copyright 2016 Jane Fox

Best Customer Service

The best customer service I've come across anywhere is at the Jerusalem Theater box office. The theater has at least five venues offering concerts, plays, stand-up, movies, dance performances, international films, lectures, and anything else you might find on a stage. Those box-office clerks not only know the programs, they also know all the discounts and deals you might be elligle for. You can attend three events for the price of two. Pay now, and choose later. Forget to pring your card when you come in to buy tickets for the third event? They'll find your record for you. You can also get tickets by phone or over the Internet.The box office is very patient, and I've heard them serve customers in three languages. I'd be happy to give any of them a recommendation for a job teaching customer service personnel how to work with customers.

It helps that the products they sell are excellent.

By default all your tickets go on your card. At the door, an usher reads the card and reminds you where your seat is. But what's to remind you that you have an event that day and when? You transferred it to your calendar, didn't you. Well, no. I haven't even tried to get the phone to read the card, though I'm told it can. Fortunately, if you ask, the box office prints you a paper ticket. I don't suppose anyone under 50 asks for that.

Copyright 2016 Jane Fox

Poetry Set to Music

Wednesday night we had tickets at Bet AviChai (bac.co.il) only because we'd been given discount coupons after a Tuesday night lecture.

That lecture was a fascinating account of the real ship Exodus (as apposed to Leon Uris's novelized composite of several ships and romance, which later became a popular movie). Much more is known now that governments have released documents kept classified for decades.

After the lecture Michael dropped his cellphone from two flights up. The seven-year-old phone made by a company called Tellit worked just fine after I put it back together again.

Wednesday night was poetry. We were a bit apprehensive, but it turned out to be classic poets (Bialik, Altermann, and the like) plus some we'd never heard of, many set to music. The poem about the solar water heater and the antenna was new to us. The singers were so good that I think even listeners who understood no Hebrew would have enjoyed the performance.

We are now on the BetAviChai mailing list, so se won't be dependent on my noticing posters for their events or being handed a flyer at one event for another one. As with other Jerusalem venues, performances don't always seem to appear on the website when I'm looking.

Copyright 2013 Jane Schulzinger Fox

End of Divine RIght

Beit Avi Chai's lecture series on the Jews of North Africa did not start with their arrival there. The series is, after all, only four lectures. It started with colonialism, and the results of good intentions. (Patricia Limerick has a wonderful riff on good intentions in her book about the history of the American West, Legacy of Conquest).

What we heard about the changes colonialism brought to the Jews of the Maghreb was interesting, but there was also a reminder for all of "the West."

"Louis XIV ruled by divine right, Napoleon by the will of his people (however often he ignored their will)." That change in the basis for the legitimacy of power is something to remember today.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Archaeology and the Bar Kokhba Rebellion

Tuesday's lecture at Beit Shmuel on the contribution of archaeology to to research into the Bar Kokhba rebellion, reminded me both of the contribution of coins to our knowledge of the past and of the difficulty of interpreting the meaning of the presence of any artifact in a particular place.

For dates after the invention of coins, they can be better than pottery for dating a location. That coin showing Hadrian's likeness didn't get there before Hadrian became emperor.

But coins are easier than pottery to carry from place to place. The presence of a Bar Kokhba coin in Hungary does not make anyone think that the rebellion spread that far. I suppose you could write an article about the likelihood of a Roman soldier carrying the coin there versus the possibility that a string of itinerant traders brought it there. Or even that a refugee carried it as a reminder of the hope that faded in so few years.

This makes it difficult to interpret the four Bar Kikhba coins found in the north of Israel as a sign that the rebellion spread that far.

Here in Jerusalem, even in a popular lecture on archaeology you hear of very new findings. Tuesday we heard about a village in the north that showed the same signs of destruction at about the same date as the places the Romans definitely destroyed farther south as they put down the rebellion.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Turkish Guest Towels

Not what you'd call "turkish towels" at all, the towels in the exhibit of Ottoman embroidery at the Museumfor Islamic Art (http://www.islamicart.co.il/en/ ) are large but delicate. The Ottoman Empire lasted a little under 500 years, if you count from the fall of Constantinople in 1453, longer if you count from Osman I's reign over Anatolia. Osman's people were Turkic, from Central Asia. (The Ottoman Empire ruled the Land of Israel for hundreds of years.)

These towels, from the royal palace are the finest cotton batiste with silk, silver, and gold embroidery in broad bands. They were probably the work of royal wives and concubines who had little es lese to keep them busy. An explanatory video shows some of these women, looking remarkably western. I suspect those pictures were the work of the wived of English diplomats. In the 18th and 19th centuries "taking a likeness" was an "accomplishment" taught any gentlewomen who had the talent to learn.

In conjunction with the exhibit, which includes large and small rugs, and pottery of similar motifs, the museum is presenting a series of lectures by Rafi Yisraeli on the history of the Ottoman Empire. Last night he taked a bit about the young teenaged boys who were drafted, mostly from Christian areas, and brought to Istanbul to be converted to Islam and educated in complete isolation from their families They grew up to be immensely loyal to the empire, entering the top levels of its administraiton. So I've read and so Professor Yisraeli said. A remarkable triumph of education.

COpyright 2011