End-of-season sales
V.v.'s sale ad
Here’s what I have seen and heard:
Delicatessen, which is two stores owned by Idit Barak, an F.I.T.-trained Israeli designer, offers distinctly ladylike clothing with a cool vibe, including some great sheaths and skirts for this season, all on sale. She also has a selection of bags and great jewelry, really wonderful costume pieces that are worth checking out.
5 Barzilay Street, Gan Hachashmal
19 Masryk Street
Enki by V.v., designed and owned by the petite and knowledgeable Vivi Ben Ezra, also lends itself to a certain retro, 50s-era vibe, with a wonderful selection of pants, skirts and tops that all work well together and offer the opportunity for a rejuvenated wardrobe. This weekend, she’s invited a Jaffa shoemaker, Luka, to strut her stuff, which, luckily enough, goes very well with Vivi’s designs.
38 Mohliver Street, Nachalat Binyamin
The whimsical, spirited and downright amusing fashions of Frau Blau are the brainchild of Helena Blaustein and Philip Blau, and all are on sale, including some great mesh material skirts and tanktops, as well as some sleeveless tee-shirt dresses.
8 Hachashmal Street, Gan Hachashmal
Also noteworthy: Leather jewelry designer Hagar Sattat, buy one item, get the second for half off. Serious discounts at handbag studio Kisim and at shoe designer Shani Bar. In fact, chances are, you’ll find sales everywhere.
Happy hunting.
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 – A Walk Down Nachalat Binyamin
Filed under: Art, Blogging, design, Foto Friday, General, Life, Travel
Every Tuesday and Friday, there’s a crafts fair on Tel Aviv’s Nachalat Binyamin Street.
There’s no end to the coverage about it, because it is a very good event that has managed to maintain high standards of quality for over a decade and a half — no mean feat, as so many other so-called crafts fairs start out in promising fashion, then sink quickly into a mire of cheap crap from India and China. But the TA municipality keeps close tabs the Nachalat Binyamin artisans and artists, many of whom staff their own booths.
Most visitors pay more attention to the products than the sellers, as is only natural when shopping. And that’s where the photographer’s eye comes in.
Photographer Jessica D. Korman, a recent new immigrant to Israel, took a stroll down Nachalat Binyamin and — aside from snapping shots of the wares for Tchochkes.com, where she is a regular contributor, she also took a look at what goes on around the booths.
Korman, who studied interior design, says she looks for architectural elements wherever she goes, “to present a different view of an object or event.”
“I like photographing everyday scenes,” Korman says, “always looking for a different angle or perspective to the mundane or even the ‘ugly’ side of things.”
A former picture editor for publications such as Scholastic, Star Magazine and Woman’s World Magazine, Korman now works as a Visual Communications Consultant in Jerusalem. “What I love about [photo editing] is that it is the marriage of written content with images. The proper choice of image will enable one’s work to have the greatest impact. Besides, what better job is there than getting to look at pictures all day?”
There’s inspiration everywhere. More of Korman’s work is available on her website, The F Stops Here.
Improv Everywhere
It all started in August 2001, a group of creative New Yorkers decided to bring joy to a city which had recently experienced it’s greatest tragedy of all time. They founded Improv Everywhere, a organization whose goal is to simply to “make scenes” in public. It’s where street theater meets public art meets entertainment. They’ve done some pretty quirky stuff such as a fake U2 concert on a NY rooftop, turning a subway car into a haunted house, and even conducting a musical in a mall food court (my personal favorite). Their most ambitious scene involved over 200 participants who simultaneously “froze” in the middle of Grand Central Station. The video of this event on YouTube has over 12 million views and has inspired many other groups around the world.
Including in Tel Aviv.
On July 11 a few dozen (sadly not hundreds) of Tel Avivites “froze” in the middle of a main public square at the end of the Carmel market simultaneously confusing and entertaining the myriad of shoppers, tourists and passersby.
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