Spring has sprung
Filed under: Environment, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness
Spring seems to be here, judging from the birds’ chatter in the morning and the buds springing up on the trees — not counting the hateful sharav weather that has been weighing us down as we ‘slave’ over hot stoves for Pesach. More importantly, I happened to notice out my back windows that green, not-yet-ripe peaches are emerging on the peach tree — good news, as I feared the passionfruit vine had choked it to death, that my spring annuals were also blooming and emerging, and most exciting, my wisteria vine has finally bloomed, five years after it was planted.
Of course, spring has meant both Purim and Pesach, two major holidays that required and require a significant amount of preparation. But I’m trying not to focus on those aspects of spring, and rather on the sense of rebirth, blue skies, fewer layers and getting outside again, and, those purple blooms just outside the window, signaling that shorts and tee-shirts, barbecues and lazy evenings, summertime and sort-of vacation are just around the corner.
A happy Passover to everyone out there.
Nostalgia Sunday – Old-New Haggadah
Filed under: Art, education, Food, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Life, News, Nostalgia Sunday, Religion
In every generation, the Haggadah says, we must regard our telling of the Passover story not as a retelling but as a personal history, “as if he himself had come out of Egypt”. Perhaps that’s the reason that, although the Seder ritual was put into writing in Mishnaic times (70-200 CE), the Haggadah continued to evolve over the centuries, with songs, chants and other bits added in until it’s form was more or less set with the advent of the printing press.
It took the mimeograph machine and the advent of short-run office-scale printing to enable people, once again, to tell their personal Passover story. Since the mimeo’s invention more or less coincides with the Zionist movement and the birth of the Jewish State, there’s little wonder in the fact that every youth movement, kibbutz, moshav or workers union stencil-printed up a non-traditional Haggadah, each with its own ritual and its own ideological bent.
For example, in 1944, the members of Kibbutz Heftzibah printed up a Haggadah that included a few passages from the traditional text. Mostly, it presented songs and reading-texts by Hayim Nahman Bialik (who would become Israel’s first national poet), Labor Zionist thinker Berl Katznelson, Biblical leader Zrubavel, 11th century poet Yehuda HaLevi as well as references to the recent Holocaust and current efforts, in opposition to the will of the British Mandate, to bring the Jews of Europe to the Land of Israel.
This simple little pink-covered pamphlet, by the way, recently sold at auction for $220, after having been listed for $100.
In 1943, the members of Kibbutz Kfar Giladi created a stenciled Haggadah, with hand-painted illustrations. In addition to passages from the traditional text and reading passages, it refers to the new immigrants from Iran, the “Teheran Children”: ” In two Egyptian trains the young olim from Teheran arrive, in all 1,200 people…”
In 1948, the year of Israel declared and battled for its independence, the cultural committee of the Histadrut — a.k.a., the General Union of Hebrew Workers in Eretz Yisrael — published a Haggadah that, alongside the traditional text, included prayers over the four glasses of wine: one for the liberty of Israel, one for the Jewish State, one for free Aliya, and one for the defenders and the army, as well as a special “Yizkor” memorial prayer for the War of Independence victims.
The Haggadah printed up by Haifa’s Central Youth Circle of the Eretz Yisrael Workers Party in 1949 doesn’t have outstanding graphics but is noteworthy for the whiny tone taken in its alternative to the traditional text: “This night we dine all of us together, members of the circle and guests, joyous and celebrating… in a banquet hall and not in our own clubhouse as was promised to us for a very long time”. Despite their obvious disappointment at not having their own digs, we can only hope they had a good time anyway.
The history of Kibbutz Be’eri can be told through the above three Haggadot. The first (far left) was issued in 1946 by a Binyamina-based group of Israeli scouts, Kvutzat HaZofim Bet. The second (center) was printed in 1948, after HaZofim Bet merged with Kvutzat Be’erot. According to Kibbutz Be’eri’s website (wittily entitled Wikibbutz), “The Haggadah was similar in nature to those commonly accepted by the Kibbutz movement in those days… integrating biblical and traditional Haggadah texts with contemporary poetry and prose divided along the following themes: spring, the Exodus from Egypt, freedom, the Holocaust and the ingathering of the Exiles in the Land of Israel, liberation of man and the Jewish people from slavery, and Israel’s independence.
The third (at right) was first issued in 1951 and represents how far the kibbutz had come in so little time. The Haggadah, published by Be’eri Printers, founded in 1950, features striking illustrations by Paul Kor, one of Israel’s leading graphic artists.
Be’eri Printers continues today to be a leading innovator in print, specifically advanced mailing and personalized printing.
Israeli artist Arieh Allweil, created the Haggadah for I.D.F. soldiers, published by the Chief Military Rabbinate in 1950. According to the Kedem Auction House’s notes, “The Haggadah opens with a blessing by Chief Military Rabbi Shlomo Goren followed by Pesach regulations for soldiers”.
The Ministry of Defense has since published a new Haggadah, under the supervision of Chief Military Rabbi Yisrael Weiss, illustrated with military pictures relating to story of Pesach.
No artist is credited for the dancing Miriam crossing the Red Sea with her darbuka in tow, but you’ve got to love the image that embodies so much of the non-traditional ideals expressed at Passover: joyous spring spirit, leaving slavery for freedom and independence and — at least on paper — gender equality. This Haggadah was created by Moshav Beit Herut in 1957.
While those of us who grew up in the States made Seder with the Maxwell House Haggadah (reissued this year after a long absence), urban Israelis celebrated with the HaSneh Insurance Company whose 1957 Haggadah deviated from tradition by presenting company promotional material. The cover was by Iris Schweitzer, who went on to write and illustrate children’s books in Israel and the US.
More fascinating Haggadot, traditional and non, may be found in the Kedem Auction House online catalogue — a real find for lovers of Judaica, Israeliana and related ephemera. The Duke University Library has an extensive collection that includes a long out of print bibliographic source book by Haggadot collector Nathan Steiner.
Enjoy them all and Chag Sameach! We wish our Israelity readers the happiest of holidays.
English theater takes the stage in Jerusalem
Filed under: A New Reality, Entertainment, General, Holidays, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Music, Pop Culture
The Maccabee Queen is one of the attractions of the Stage One #2 festival.
Claiming to offer a unique perspective on issues of identity and culture from both local and international perspectives, the lineup for the three days during Chol Hamoed (the intermediary days of Pessah) include plays, music and stand up comedy by local Anglo Jerusalemites.
Highlights include The Maccabee Queen, a feminist play set in the tumultuous period of the Hasmonean kingdom and S.Y. Agnon’s story The Fable of the Goat
The Maccabee Queen is a play, written in iambic pentameter by Jerusalem resident Lauri Donahue, telling the story of Queen Alexandra – aka Shlomtzion Hamalka – quite faithfully as reported by Josephus and mentioned in the Talmud.
She was reading Josephus, and said “wow, this reads like Shakespeare!” with civil war among brothers, fratricide, matricide. So the play reads like what Shakespeare would have done with Josephus.
The Fable of the Goat finds S.Y. Agnon, the Nobel Prize laureate and one of the founding fathers of modern Hebrew literature, using language to evoke pathos, humor and biblical narrative in a dramatic story. . Other plays include Jewtopia, a comedy about two friends who team up to teach each other how to woo the women of their choice, and Mikveh, a drama about a new mikveh attendant involved in intrigue and suspicion.
Jerusalem’s leading English improv group Hahafuch will lighten things up with their sketches about Jewish identity, Israel, aliyah, and religion in Israel, and local piano man Ben Draiman present From Within – by The Ben Draiman Music Project.
The English-speaking community in Jerusalem will be able to kvell in pride at this display of talent offered in Stage One #2.
Foto Friday – Bread of Affliction… and Refrigeration
Filed under: Food, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, News, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture
Some years ago, Israelis took a liking to an Italian bread known as ciabatta. Since then, the local version of these small, elongated loaves has — like a lump of out of control sourdough — morphed into something so wildly different from the original that visiting Italians barely recognize that which most Israelis today call a “jepata” or, worse yet and more embarrassingly, “Geppetto” (pictured left).
What you can’t see in the picture is that this particular jepeta is gluten-free and therefore — aside from being a godsend for sufferers of Celiac and other wheat-sensitive conditions — is kosher for Passover (at least for pulse-eaters) and will be widely available in your local Super-Sol (a.k.a. Shufer Sal) this coming Passover holiday.
The image is quite different from how most people envision Passover in Israel. While news archives are filled with pictures of bakers of handmade shmura matza like these fellows from Matzot.org…
In fact, most Israelis will eat matza that looks like this, hot off the press at Matzot Aviv…
Manufactured in automated factories like Jerusalem’s Yehuda Matzos where, from the mixing to the baking to the packing, they are almost untouched by human hands…
According to a Ynet/Gesher poll from last year, 69% of Israelis said they observed Passover dietary laws forbidding the consumption of leavening and leavened bread. The remainder have been stocking their freezers with a week’s worth of the following…
But why not just eschew the carbs for a week and go with the unleavened flow? Matzot Aviv certainly has, as the producer of what they say is the world’s biggest matza…
Aviv is also producer of an industrial video that just about defines the terms “wacky” and “zany”. Between the yucks, you can learn a few fun facts. For example, did you know that the average machine-produced matza is 18 cm by 18 cm? No? Well, now you do.
The Bieber, Bibi and Sderot
The Bieb on the beach
In any case, even if Bieber did refuse to meet kids from the Kassam-deluged Sderot, they’ve still gotten themselves invited to his concert, thanks to the folks at the ROI Community funded by the always generous Lynn Schusterman and the Morningstar Foundation. The two funds raised $30,000 to cover the cost of discounted tickets and transportation for 700 kids living in Sderot and other nearby communities to go to tonight’s concert.
So even if Bieber didn’t wanna meet them in person, they’re gonna see him on stage, at Biebermania in Tel Aviv. But chances are, Bibi won’t be there.
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