Nostalgia Sunday – Hamsa Hamsa Hamsa
Filed under: Art, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture, Religion, Travel
A new exhibition, Angels & Demons, Jewish Magic Through The Ages, opened at the end of last week at the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem (BLMJ). The exhibition examines the origins and development of magical practices in Judaism from the First Temple period to the present day by focusing on beliefs, customs and particularly, the use of magic objects in daily Jewish life. For although Judaism forbids the invocation of black magic there are no proscriptions, (at least according to the exhibition guide), against white magic, “i.e. defense against the dark arts, the forces of evil and the damage they cause.”
This is good news — tfoo, tfoo, tfoo — given the Jewish genetic predisposition to obsessive compulsiveness in which spitting on the ground three times isn’t OCD, it’s a necessary reaction to any bad news, (or good news if you’re trying to fool the evil eye into looking the other way).
In Israel, this sort of white magic is part of daily life. Having a spate of bad luck? Everyone knows where you can find a local reader of coffee grounds, tea leaves or an amulet-writing guy who, for a price, will take the hex off. And of course, for everyday evil eye warding off, the hamsa five fingered amulet has you covered.
The hamsa (the name means “five” in Arabic) is a regional symbol that is as old as… well… as old as the region. According to Wikipedia, “it is a palm-shaped amulet popular throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The hamsa is often incorporated in jewelery and wall hangings, as a defense against the evil eye. It is believed to originate in ancient practices associated with the Phoenicians of Carthage.” These practices include protecting the home and there are doorways, ancient and modern, throughout the Middle East, that are decorated with blue-paint handprints.
The Phoenicians associated the hand with the goddess Tanit and there is a continued link between the hand and powerful females. In Islam, the hamsa is sometimes called “the hand of Fatima” (for Fatima Zahra, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, and in the Jews of North Africa, who adopted the symbol, would “sometimes call it the hand of Miriam, referencing the sister of the biblical Moses and Aaron.”
The Israeli immigrant society crucible that melds together folk beliefs from all every part of the Diaspora, coupled with modern manufacturing methods, has brought the hamsa’s popularity to new heights.
Go to Tel Aviv’s Nahalat Binyamin crafts fair on a Tuesday or Friday morning and you’ll find hamsas fashioned from every medium: silver, gold, brass, stained glass, wood, decoupaged pressboard, paper mache, plastic, clay, plastic clay (Fimo), fabric… an endless wellspring of good luck charms at the ready to protect you and your home. Speaking of which, Home Center’s been selling a tablecloth with hamsas woven into the fabric. There are hamsa-shaped cookie cutters. Israel’s queen of retro, Michal Negrin, has produced a line in her own unique style. And of course, hamsa keychains abound. I especially like the ones that decorate a 5 shekel-sized disk for your supermarket shopping cart.
It’s a bit strange that this symbol — which has little to do with Judasim but everything to do with the Middle East — has become so ubiquitous. But, on the other hand, there’s nothing wrong with a little extra help in the luck department. It’s worth checking out the rest of the talismans, amulets and charms at the Angels & Demons exhibition. And if you can’t get to Jerusalem in time to see the exhibit first-hand, BLMJ has launched the first Israeli museum iPhone app – look up Jewish Magic through the Ages at the iTunes store.
Foto Friday – Ancient Masks and Rattle Relics
Filed under: Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Holidays
Growing up as daughters of a rabbi, biblical scholar and part-time archeologist, my sisters and I never questioned the historical roots of Purim. So, I find it both amusing and disturbing that most people regard the Purim story as a myth or fairytale when it really is a docu-drama. Or, as my father put it, it is the story of a clash of empires that actually occurred and in which the Jews played a pivotal role.
Here is what Dr. David Neiman z”l thought: “The story of Purim is an account of the historical events related in the Scroll of Esther. Biblical scholars have always had a problem with this story and other biblical narratives which are beautifully written. It is as if the perfection of the literary work leads them to doubt its historical accuracy.” A portion of his audio lecture, The Politics of Purim is available online.
Our Purim traditions — masquerading, using noisemakers and getting drunk — are rooted in pre-Biblical pagan rites and our region’s archeological sites yield historical proof. In honor of the Purim holiday, the Israel Antiquities Authority has posted an online exhibition of ancient masks and rattles.
There is no clear historical moment that divides between the use of masks for ritual and for theater. But given their era, the masks presented by the IAA were definitely intended for ritual use.
Mask – image of a man, from Akhziv. Photograph: Miki Koren, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Mask from Nahal Hemer cave. Photograph: Nahum Selpak, courtesy of the Israel Museum.
Grotesque mask from Akhziv. Photograph: Miki Koren, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Ancient rattles are known from the third millennium BCE to the first century BCE. It is believed they were used primarily for ritual purposes. Clay rattles that contain small stones or other materials for making noise have been found in archaeological excavations all over the country.
Rattle from the City of David. Photograph: Clara Amit, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Rattle from Hazor. Photograph: Clara Amit, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
For more on the historical background of the Jews of Persia, The Book of Esther and life in ancient Persia – including the best pony express in the ancient world:
Israel Museum expansion almost completed
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, design, General, History and Culture
The newly refurbished Mandel Wing for Jewish Art and Life
One of the leading art and archeology museums in the world, the 44-year-old museum is the country’s largest cultural institution, housing nearly 500,000 objects inside encyclopedic collections ranging from prehistory through contemporary art, and includes the most extensive holdings of Biblical and Holy Land archaeology in the world, among them the Dead Sea Scrolls.
However, over the last two years, visitors to the museum have been greeted by tractors, bulldozers, and a curtailed experience, as the museum began undertaking a massive remodeling and expansion. The good news? It’s almost completed. The museum announced this week that the renovations on its 20 acre campus will be open to the public on July 26th, 2010, and will include the creation of new facilities as well as a comprehensive reconfiguration of the Museum’s three collection wings, encompassing 80,000 square feet of new construction and 200,000 square feet of renovated and expanded gallery space.
Among the highlights will undoubtedly be the museum’s Jewish Art and Life Wing, housing the world’s preeminent collection of Judaica and Jewish ethnography. The wing will be named the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Wing for Jewish Art and Life in honor of a $12 million gift presented this week to the museum by the Mandel family from Cleveland, Ohio, and it will present objects from sacred and secular Jewish traditions together for the first time in a newly combined permanent display.
The Jewish Art and Life Wing, which traces the diaspora of sacred and secular Jewish cultures worldwide, from the Middle Ages to the present, will lead visitors through the daily and ritual markers of the Jewish life cycle and calendar, and will include a ‘synagogue route,’ which includes four original synagogue interiors from European, Asian, and American cultures.
Always an eye-opening experience with endless discoveries, the newly refurbished Israel Museum will undoubtedly surpass all expectations as a premier attraction in our attraction-filled country.
Nostalgia Sunday – Lod Mosaic
Filed under: Art, General, History and Culture, Nostalgia Sunday, Travel
It may be more historic than nostalgic, but the big news in archeology last week here was that the Israel Antiquities Authority made an interesting discovery while detaching a magnificent floor mosaic for transfer to the IAA conservation laboratories in Jerusalem. They found ancient footprints! Apparently, while working on the plaster bedding (done before laying down the mosaic) the artisans trod on it in sandals and in bare feet.
The floor is a story in itself. According to the IAA: “The 1,700 year old mosaic, which is one of the largest and most magnificent ever seen in Israel, was exposed in the city of Lod in 1996 and was covered again when no resources could be found for its conservation. Thirteen years after efforts were made to raise the large amount required to treat the unique artifact, the IAA received a contribution from the Leon Levy Foundation that is specifically earmarked for the purpose of conserving and developing the site, in cooperation with the Municipality of Lod. The mosaic was re-excavated, exhibited to the public and is now being removed from the area for treatment in the IAA conservation laboratories.”
“The mosaic, which constitutes a real archaeological gem that is extraordinarily well-preserved, is c. 180 sq m in size. It is composed of colorful carpets that depict in great detail mammals, birds, fish, floral species, and sailing and merchant vessels that were in use at the time. It is believed the mosaic floor was part of a villa that belonged to a wealthy man in the Roman period.”
Hopefully, the floor’s restoration holds the key — along with other innovative social welfare efforts reported on by ISRAEL21c — to turning Lod around from the center of drug-related crime to the tourist haven it ought to be. The IAA stated that, “The municipality, in cooperation with the Israel Antiquities Authority, plans to integrate it into a tourism circuit that will include a number of historic sites in the city.” Given the magnificence of the artifact, there is every chance that the plan could work.
Scroll wars
Filed under: coexistence, Crime, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Politics, Religion, War
A sad byproduct of the tragic media war we’re currently engaged in is that Zionists and Palestinian nationalists seemingly can’t even agree on what the region looked like 2000 years ago. Forget about the possibility that we just might have common ancestors – if the “facts on the ground” are disputable today, then all the more reason to dispute what they were in ancient times.
Because for hard-core dogmatists, much of the “whose land is it, anyway” debate boils down to whose land it was back in the day. For many years, the Palestinians have been excavating the Temple Mount, with Israelis decrying the destruction that these excavations have allegedly wrought. Many have even posited that the digs have a goal of finding and destroying any evidence of a historical Jewish connection to the area, with a nationalist agenda.
Archeology and nationalism can go hand in hand easily. In the best cases, they can even build bridges of international cooperation, as we saw this past winter with the Italian government’s interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
But in Jerusalem, where high-stakes heists and sleuthery are known to rear their heads every now and then, sometimes the powers that be feel the need to exert their power in order to maintain an edge in the information war.
And that’s how it came to be that a crack team made up of several Israeli bureaucracies came together to put the sting on two area Arabs this week. The Undercover Unit of the Jerusalem Border Police, the Intelligence Office of the Zion Region, the Archaeological Staff Officer of the Civil Administration and the super-specialized Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery all worked together to recover what experts are calling a Second Temple-era Jewish legal document.
As the AP tells it:
Undercover Israeli officers foiled an attempt by two Palestinian men to sell an ancient, valuable papyrus document on the black market, police said Wednesday. The men were arrested at a Jerusalem hotel Tuesday after a sting operation lasting several weeks, police said. The 1,900-year-old Hebrew document, previously unknown and valued at millions of dollars, was rescued, and police showed it to reporters.
…. They are suspected of violating Israeli antiquities laws by illegally possessing and trafficking in archaeological artifacts and could face several years in prison if convicted. Police are trying to determine how the document fell into their hands.
This specimen of Second Temple-style Hebrew calligraphy (pictured), written on six square inches of papyrus scrolls seems to be from around the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and it could help (Jewish nationalism-tolerant) historians to better understand what life was like in the region some 2000 years ago, about 500 years before the birth of Muhammad.
Amir Ganor, director of the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery at the Israel Antiquities Authority, explains:
“From an initial reading it seems that this document deals with the property of Miriam Bat Ya‘aqov, who was apparently a widow. The deciphering of the entire document by expert epigraphers and historians may shed light on how the people of the period managed their affairs and supplement our knowledge about their way of life. What we have here is rare historic evidence about the Jewish people in their country from more than 2,000 years ago, during the days following the destruction which sent the people of Israel into exile for a very long time – until the creation of the State of Israel.”
Subscribe
Subscribe to Israelity via email:
Social Media
Categories
- A New Reality
- Art
- Blogging
- Business
- coexistence
- Crime
- design
- education
- Entertainment
- Environment
- Food
- Foto Friday
- General
- health
- History and Culture
- Holidays
- Immigrant Moments
- Israeliness
- Life
- Medical Breakthroughs
- Movies
- Music
- News
- Nostalgia Sunday
- Picture of the Week
- Politics
- Pop Culture
- Profiles
- Religion
- Science
- Social Justice
- Sports
- Technology
- Travel
- tv
- War
The Face of Israel Today
-
About Israelity
Free newsletter
Stories from ISRAEL21c.orgPopular Posts