Hamshush time

December 3, 2009 - 3:32 PM by Jessica

If it’s the weekend of December 3-5, then it’s the second Hamshushalayim, which is one of those Hebrish idioms for Hamshush — that’s a combo of Hamishi, Thursday, and Shishi, Friday and Yerushalayim, Jerusalem. But what it really means in this context is three long weekends of various Jerusalem events, from plays and musical performances to bar specials and city tours.

It’s all part of Mayor Nir Barkat’s efforts to liven up the city of Jerusalem, and make it a happening place, rather than a place of ‘incidents’ and situations.

“We broke all records this past summer with festivals and events,” he says, whipping out the first statistic: the doubling of the local culture budget. “Journalists don’t always grasp that the public differentiates between a demonstration and a performance, even if they are just 300 or 500 meters apart. Beautiful things are happening in Jerusalem parallel to the demonstrations, even if they lend themselves less to media coverage,” he told Ha’aretz last weekend.

The events are definitely geared toward students, university students that is, in an effort to keep them in Jerusalem. But there’s lots of cultural stuff going on, so it’s worth checking out.

Here’s the PDF brochure in Hebrew, and a few events that I’ve selected that look worthwhile:
*The Psik Theater group will be performing for free on Alrov Mamilla Avenue at 9, 10 and 11 pm on Thursday night.
*All Cinematheque movies are just NIS 28 for all Hamshushalayim participants, throughout the weekend.
*Nighttime tours of City of David, between 9 pm and 12 am, NIS 10-NIS 20 per ticket.
*Craft fairs at the ICCY and on Bezalel Hakatan (in town), on Friday morning.

And if you can’t make it this weekend, there’s always next weekend.

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