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March 17, 2009 - 10:10 PM by

bulletin-board2Israel’s streets are often a kind of bulletin board of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not necessarily in terms of who and what you see walking down the street, but rather the actual sidewalk bulletin boards, which are always posted with the life and times of the city in which you’re currently existing. Situated on random but central corners, each board is a collage of what’s going on in the city, from concerts, lectures and classes to special deals and death notices.

Reading the bulletin boards is how I found a drumming school for my 11-year-old stepdaughter — she’s taking private lessons this year, but next year could continue downtown; discovered that one of my favorite Israeli singers — Etti Ankri — was going to be performing and on a sadder note, found out that Sarah Einstein, a well-known local jeweler, had died. Her death notice was posted on a number of boards, as well as other surfaces in the neighborhoods in which I wander on a regular basis.

The death notices — stark, black print on white backgrounds — are in themselves an Israeli phenomenon and are a common sight in most cities and newspapers, letting neighbors and readers know about the passing of a friend. They can be personal, adding a detail or two about the person, their status in life, from profession to family position, and they’re generally pasted up around their neighborhood, as well as on the doorposts and gates of their home, or wherever shiva is being held.

As for Sarah Einstein, she wasn’t a personal friend, but she was one of my first entries into the world of semi-precious stones and what I like to call, ‘breastplate necklaces,’ as she specialized in stone- and silver-heavy jewels, of the Middle Eastern sort. An older friend sent me her way during one of my post-college trips to Israel, and I’d never seen quite so many stones and chains in one place. The Sarah Einstein style didn’t become my own, but the sign above her shop became one of my personal J’lem landmarks, signifying another stop in my adopted hometown GPS.

So the notice of her death was something I needed to see, because like others, it becomes an obituary of sorts, a public notification about the passing of another Jerusalem personage.

Tags: , , , , , • Category: Art, design, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness 

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