Jerusalem is the new... Brooklyn?

WORK

Ah, it has been a bit. The "work" aspect of this trip finally did catch up with me and I have had a number of meetings over this past week. All of them have gone really well, though I have to say I really dislike Hebrew University's campus. To me it is confusing and ugly and somewhat impractical; the Forum (central area) is located far from the entrance and buildings dot the campus seemingly without rhyme or reason. In all my hours there I have yet to find a classroom. By far the most impressive and interesting meeting was with D.I. at the Israel Museum, who is the head of their educational programming. We share the same philosophy, and we had a really nice, long conversation before he gave me a tour of the expansive programming at the Museum. If I ever get my Hebrew together I would love to do a project with them. (Pictured: work by one of the students at the Museum)

YELLOW SUBMARINE

Galit invited me to an art exhibition at the Yellow Submarine which would host some of her friends' work. This was a hot music venue when I was 16, but it looks as though it's changed around quite a bit. From the moment I walked in I felt vaguely as if I were in a Brooklyn hipster haven. Girls in tiny dresses were setting up racks filled with used clothing to sell, a guy was hawking CDs, a few were promoting parties or projects. In the back room was the art, a photography exhibition called Feels Like Home. I really liked most of the collections, and it was nice to be introduced by Galit to many of the artists. Then Ari, another guy from WUJS, showed up and we bumped into each other. Ari is very into exploiting the fun to be had in Jerusalem during the summer, and I told him I was up for whatever he found, which as ended up being quite a bit... but back to the Submarine. Over the course of the day people began lounging on the floor, and the bar area had a mist which they would turn on and off to fight the heat. Galit and I began to run for it whenever it was on.

TEL AVIV: Ahat La Ahat Festival

I had heard about the Ahat La Ahat Festival, a women's business festival put on by The Center for Jewish-Arab Economic Development. The advertisement used phrases like "crafts" and "easily accesible" which drew me in, but proved to be falsehoods. It was Shabbat (no buses running) so I spent quite a bit of money to get to Tel Aviv (taxi to Center City, sheirut to TA) but it was in TA that it became ridiculous. It turns out the exhibition grounds are as far North as the central bus station (where the sheirut stops in TA) is South. And since all the taxi drivers hand out together they jack up the prices to insanity. The guy asked me to pay 120 shekels! I was a bit proud of myself to get him down to 80, but pissed when I foudn out it should have cost 40. This might be prejudice, but I never liked TA and now I hate it even more. The actual festival was a large room filled with booths, but very few of them were impressive. Most were people selling crap jewelery, a few had bath products, and there were a handful of Arab women selling traditional crafts and olives cured in old soda bottles. There were a few inititatives that were interesting, but on the whole, I should have skipped it. (Pictured: belly dancer entertaining the kids. Really.)

JERUSALEM FILM FESTIVAL

Every summer the JFF hits town and the cinematheque is packed, and I love it. It is sponsored by Orange, a phone company, and so Jerusalem gets covered with that distinctive color, which I haven't seen since the Gaza Pullout (when the opposition tied orange ribbons on everything). A lot of the films look really interesting, and I plan on spending most of Shabbat in the sweet airconditioning of those dark rooms. Yesterday I saw Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger, an Australian film of a Jewish girl's coming of age. It was very sweet, kind of a mix of Freaks and Geeks and 13, with a good deal of humor but some sadly adult situation for such a young girl. An Orthodox mother with her two pre-teen daughters obviously didn't know what coming-of-age stories are made up of and she horribly embarassed her daughters by covering their eyes during makeout scenes and literally pushing them out of the theater when a reference to sex was made. Keisha Castle-Hughes plays Esther's best friend, and while I loved her in Whale Rider, her post Nativity pregnancy somehow stayed with me, and I had a hard time believing she was 13, especially compared to the tiny girl who played Esther.

Last night Ari invited me to a free screening at the JFF's Moonlight Cinema. These screenings take place at the Old Train Station, in an outdoor theater that can seat 2,000. Things did not start on time (oh Israel) but we got excellent seats and enjoyed the band. Well, we did for a bit, but then the film was an hour late and we were a bit sick of the band. We did find the Jerusalemite teens who pushed toward the stage and danced wildly (and very whitely) to the music. The kids began doing all sorts of different waves and congo lines, oblivious to the pop and rock music.

The film, Jellyfish, was written by Etgar Keret and created by himself and his wife. I really enjoy his sotries, which are always a cynical look at Israeli life and which sometimes include elements of magic of whimsy. I really loved the film. It follows mainly three characters in Tel Aviv; a young woman who is herself very lost and who finds a young girl in the sea, a Phillipino woman working in Jerusalem for rude people in order to make money for her family at home, and a bride who broke her leg at her wedding and has to skip her Carribean honeymoon to stay in a dingy TA hotel. I thought the film was cleverly done, the storylines interwove beautifully, and the acting was heartbreaking. I cried. A lot.

WINE TASTING

Ari also invited me to the Israeli Wine Festival hosted by the Israel Museum. It was absolutely incredible. For 55 shekels, you recieve a glass to use at over 40 booths of Israeli wineries. And the tasting portions are generous. And there are no limits. I was familiar with many of the booths; Carmel, Galil, Binyamina. There were also the offshoot lines of the big labels, their trendy eco-friendly wines and summer labels. I'm a fan of white wines, especially reislings and pinot grigio's, but they were few ad far between so I mostly did roses. I honestly think I drank more that night than I did int he past year, but somehow I didn't feel drunk. It was a beautiful site for it, in the sculpture garden over looking all the lights of Jerusalem. It was perfect.