A Palm Sunday post (sort of)

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Now that I live in the desert in southern Israel, away from Jerusalem, it is hard to get fresh Christian photos for the blog.
So last October when I sighted this cute children's book, The Story of Easter, in a church in rural Austria, I knew it would be the blog post for Palm Sunday!

The kids' books were in the basket in back of the pews.
I guess to keep little ones busy in case they are brought to Mass.

I also got a kick out of the congregation's German songbook, Singe Jerusalem.
And that's in addition to their grey Gotteslob prayerbooks. 

The Roman Catholic parish church of the little Austrian town Pinkafeld was built in 1774 in Late Baroque style.

Happy Palm Sunday to all the Christian friends out there! 

(To see Jerusalem Palm Sunday blog photos, please click here and here.)
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The Nativity, Ethiopian style

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When I still lived near Jerusalem (sigh . . . ), I loved wandering alone in the Old City, getting lost, and seeing what I would discover off the beaten path.
Once I found a Churches Street, turned up al-Battikh Ascent, and then onto little Ethiopian Monastery Street.
Shyly I stepped into the empty courtyard of another world.
The building said "Ethiopian Orthodox Patriarchate."

A man saw me and invited me to see the monastery church and he graciously opened their 17th century book of gorgeous Bible illuminations  with text in Ge'ez.
Enlarge the photo twice to see Mary and child.
Later I realized this man must have been the head clergyman. 

Here is the beautiful old manuscript.

Up on the wall, a peeling but still touching scene of the Nativity.

Click to see "Ethiopia extends her hands to God."
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To all you Christians  who can't be physically present in Jerusalem or Bethlehem tonight, I wish a silent and holy night followed by a merry Christmas.
Shalom from your Jewish Israeli friend Dina.
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Strange bedfellows

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A poster on the door of the children's section of Beer Sheva library.
It is one of the Steimatzky Books ads from a recent campaign.

Click through the other clever bed mate photos at Literary Companion Campaigns.

The Hebrew at the bottom says
 "WITH THE RIGHT BOOK, YOU ARE NEVER ALONE."
Or as Steimatzky has it in the English version of their ads,
"THE RIGHT BOOK WILL ALWAYS KEEP YOU COMPANY."
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Only dry readers may enter the library

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I was happy to discover the Joseph Meyerhoff Public Library in Beer Sheva.
Interesting system: to borrow one book you leave a 50 shekel deposit in cash or check, or for two books NIS 100.

At the entrance a page from Bechalomi, a book by Miriam Yalan-Shteklis,
 a beloved Israeli writer and poet famous for her children's books:

I think there's no need to make poems and songs.
They make themselves.
And how do they do that?
That's their secret. 

And a sign on the door that struck me funny down here in the Negev desert:

NO ENTERING THE LIBRARY
IN WET CLOTHES!
Thanks
the Management

Maybe kids get their clothes wet walking through the fountain right outside the library in Fannie and Max Targ Square, next to the Beer Sheva Conservatory of Music?
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(Linking to Our World Tuesday, signs signs, and Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)
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Young artists

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As you may know, my Aussie family is staying in Israel for seven months and they rent a house walking distance from me in Meitar.
Friday evening all the relatives got together to celebrate Eyal's 6th birthday.

Eyal and his brother and sister and even his mother are good artists, so I gave Eyal this wonderful book.
Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children About Their Art  is published by Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.

Amazon says 

In this remarkable and beautiful anthology featuring the likes of Maurice Sendak, Robert Sabuda, Rosemary Wells, and Eric Carle, twenty-three of the most honored and beloved artists in children’s literature talk informally to children—sharing secrets about their art and how they began their adventures into illustration. Fold-out pages featuring photographs of their early work, their studios and materials, as well as sketches and finished art create an exuberant feast for the eye that will attract both children and adults. Self-portraits of each illustrator crown this important anthology that celebrates the artists and the art of the picture book.

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY,  DEAR EYAL! 

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A 10-minute walk to the library!

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 Meitar, where I now live,  has a public library!  Yay!

The library building was built in 2003 with the help of over a million shekels from Mif'al Hapais, Israel's national lottery.
"You win, the country wins" is the motto of the Pais.
Since 1951, using the money people pay for lotto tickets, Mif'al Hapais has given more than  five billion dollars to funding of community projects all over Israel.
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(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)
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Coffee and cake and books at Yad Vashem

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Today I had to meet a friend who works at Yad Vashem, our Holocaust memorial.
Here is the Visitor's Center where we had coffee and cake (one floor below).

Right behind the impressive building is an impressive gift shop; well, actually it is called The Book and Resource Center.
It  is managed by Steimatzky Group Ltd.
The center provides a wide range of current reference books, multi-media, memoirs and Holocaust literature for visitor purchase and fills book orders and visitor requests related to the Holocaust and WWII in various languages.
You can see samples of what's available at the Yad Vashem Online Store website.

Wish I had taken a photo of the book store for blog-friend Petrea Burchard in Pasadena because she just now informed us via Facebook  of a marvelous new ad campaign by this same  Israeli book chain,  Steimatzky's.
Follow the link, you will love the photos about the magic of reading!
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(This post links to Our World Tuesday and to Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)
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Slide reader

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Back in March I wandered around the old Jerusalem neighborhood  Musrara for the first time and fell in love with it.
I remember focusing my attention and camera on Mt. Scopus on the horizon for this shot.
Funny, but only now, when I enlarge the photo, I notice the woman on the slide.
She's getting some warm reading time while the baby probably sleeps.
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Hebrew Book Week is starting now all over Israel, so it seems an appropriate time to share this photo.
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Haggadot and piyyutim

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I am back now from tonight's Passover dinner, celebrated this year with just a few women friends.
I led the seder--for the first time in my life.

Reading the Haggadah of Pesach reminded me of two very beautiful, very big, and very expensive Haggadot that were displayed at last month's Jerusalem International Book Fair.

Like this one.

 I didn't put on white gloves to turn the pages, but the special book was open to the Ma'aseh BeRabbi Eliezer.
Five of the greatest Tannaim, Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya, Rabbi Akiva, and Rabbi Tarfon, are shown elaborating on the Exodus story all through the night.

Even if you don't know Hebrew you can enlarge the photo (with a click or two) and enjoy the artwork.

Haggadah means the  telling (to your children), and this nice idea just appeared online from Jerusalem Post blogger Ben Corn:

 The great medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides famously asks whether one is obliged to read the Haggadah if alone when conducting the Seder.  He answers that the Commandment still prevails in that circumstance. The explicit reason is that there is an inherent value derived from articulating the story, but the implicit rationale for this Maimonidean ruling is that there is a child present even in that scenario. A child exists within each adult.

Here is another special book, opened to the piyyut written in Israel by Yannai in the 5-6th century.
This piyyut (liturgical poem)  in the Haggadah and is known as Az Rov Nissim or Vayehi Bachatzi Halayla" (and it came to pass at midnight) or Karev Yom (a day is coming) and describes the miracles that happened to Israel at night.

You can read the  translation on the right--the text is beautiful even in English.

The last stanza, the mystical wish for redemption, was made into a well-loved Israeli song. 
Hear it here. 
The lyrics and a translation of the refrain are here.
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Chag sa-MEH-ach -- happy holiday!
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Inauguration in Italian at Immaculata Hall

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So there I was, your nice-Jewish-girl blogger, sitting in the Immaculata Hall among all these  Franciscan friars and a smattering of nuns.
I came to St. Saviour's Monastery  curious to see the inauguration of the new premises of the archives of the Custody of the Holy Land.
The morning of lectures began at 8:30.  You can see the topics here  in the online invitation; but don't let the English fool you (as it did me)--the lectures were all in Italian.

We browsed the exhibition "Books of the Holy Land. A journey among the ancient books of the General Library of the Holy Land Custody in Jerusalem."

I like what the Custos, Father Custos Pierbattista Pizzaballa, said about all the work that had been invested in this project:
"It is necessary to focus our identity, to have a clear perception of reality, to be capable of having a vision, to give ourselves perspective," because "in books, in documents, in the archives, — that is, in our history — is our future."

See a short Franciscan Media Center  video about the library and its inauguration.

Or a slideshow of the place and some of the beautiful old books at the official website http://bibliothecaterraesanctae.org/.

And about "culture at the forefront."
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(A post for ABC Wednesday:  I is for Italian and inauguration.)
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The megillah of Esther, in German!

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Be sure to enlarge this one! (you know, one click, then another)

Every year at this time, Megillat Esther is unrolled and read out in the synagogue to tell the story of Purim. 

Tonight and tomorrow morning in my village (just outside of Jerusalem), and Sunday evening and Monday morning in Jerusalem. 

The scroll is read in Hebrew, of course, to recount the deeds of brave Queen Esther, of her uncle Mordechai the Jew, the Persian King Ahasuerus, and the evil Haman back in the 5th century BCE.

So you can imagine how I did a double-take when I walked near the scroll pictured above at the Jerusalem International Book Fair!  -- It was in old German and lavishly illuminated! 

German art book publisher Taschen  has just published their facsimile of the Esther scroll.

It is produced from a very fine and rare example of the scroll held by the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library in Hanover, dated 1746 and measuring 6.5 meters long (over 21 feet).

 The artist of the Hanover scroll was Wolf Leib Katz Poppers, a Jewish scribe and illustrator from Hildesheim.

From the limited edition of only 1,746 copies you can buy one from Amazon for only $744 or through Taschen for about 500 Euros.  

It comes with a commentary volume by Falk Wiesemann containing an introductory essay, the biblical text of the Book of Esther in German, Hebrew, English, and French and a fold-out sheet with an overview of all the illustrations. 

Please see a pdf of the facsimile with more description and some of the beautiful colored illuminations.

The Book of Esther is only ten short chapters and is an exciting story. 

You can read it in English next to Hebrew here.

Interestingly, it is the only book of the Bible that does not mention God. 

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Bound by the people of the book

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Which strikes your fancy more--the refined style of artistic leather binding or the back-to-nature earthy binding?

Both were displayed at last week's Jerusalem International Book Fair. 
On the tables of the oversized artistic books white gloves were available; on the other hand, the signs said "Do not touch." 
So I "touched" the gorgeous books only with my camera. 

The top photo is of books from the Jerusalem Leather Studio.
A short video on their website shows the artisans selecting ostrich skin or full-grain leather and then hand-tooling 22K gold.  
Fascinating!
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An American artist's "Antiquarian Book Shop"

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As you may guess from the title,  ABC Wednesday is starting another round through the ABCs today, for the 12th time!

New York artist Mark Dion’s work "The Antiquarian Book Shop,"  2008,
now stands in the Israel Museum's art garden.

A Jerusalem Post article calls it "an installation that tries to shatter the accepted norms of history and collective culture."

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem Magazine calls it

  a life-scale book shop filled with hundreds of books and collectibles culled from various locations and cultures worldwide and across an impressive range of periods in time.
Dion’s house-like structure is locked and not accessible, creating a kind of still-life motif within the dynamism of the Garden’s seven-acre setting.
The work seeks to find connections between disparate peoples and moments in history and literature, revealing underlying commonalities of humankind and resonating both with the European tradition of the 16th–17th-century Wunderkammer, and with the Museum’s encyclopedic collections.
Its special setting in the Garden, near works by such minimalist masters as Sol LeWitt and Donald Judd, creates yet another level of dynamic reflection about the nature of empty forms, as well as of those – such as Dion’s – that are filled with rich material content.

Well, whatever.   All I know is that it felt frustrating to be peering through locked windows and door at all those globes and stuff and books, instead of being able to enter and browse.
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(Linking to Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)

Photography from a powered parachute!

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This man has to have the most exciting photography job in the world!
Above the world, actually.
He makes photos of the earth below while flying in a powered parachute.

You can see his flying machine on the cover of his book, Knafayim shel tsipor (Bird's Wings).
Asaf Solomon stood still a minute for this picture with his book and with Or Solomon at the big AgriTech exhibition in Tel Aviv.

Go to the AgriTech website and click on the box "A Bird's Eye View of Agriculture in Israel" to see a short and amazing slideshow of some of his best shots.

Under Asaf's hand you can see his handout: each of the 18 boxes shows one aspect of what his photos are good for.
Artistic aerial photography and postcards of Israel, of course, and coverage of special events like hot air ballooning.
But also to find drainage problems in farm lands, to document the extent of forest fires, to better see roof solar panels and to map acres of greenhouses, to document building violations, to plan water reservoirs . . . and much more.
Asaf is also helping archaeologists see "the big picture" that they can't grasp while standing on the ground.

Channel 10 News made a video of Asaf in action!
You can watch it at the photographer's website, http://asafsolomon.com/en .
Just don't get too jealous.
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The bloody sword of Doeg

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For PsalmChallenge here is a dramatic painting illustrating Psalm 52.

You can enlarge the photo below and read the text in English and Hebrew.

I saw this beautiful copy of The Book of Psalms at a hotel art gallery (see more here).
In it each of the 150 psalms are illustrated by a different artist.
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The story of Doeg the Edomite referred to in our psalm is recorded in I Samuel 22.
In his flight from Saul, David was given refuge and supplies by Ahimelech, a priest at the city of Nob. A herdsman named Doeg reported this to Saul, who subsequently ordered the massacre of all the priests in the city.
None of Saul’s servants would carry out the order except the informant himself.

¹⁶ And the king said, “You shall surely die, Ahimelech, you and all your father's house.” ¹⁷ And the king said to the guard who stood about him, “Turn and kill the priests of the Lord, because their hand also is with David, and they knew that he fled and did not disclose it to me.” But the servants of the king would not put out their hand to strike the priests of the Lord. ¹⁸ Then the king said to Doeg, “You turn and strike the priests.” And Doeg the Edomite turned and struck down the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five persons who wore the linen ephod. ¹⁹ And Nob, the city of the priests, he put to the sword; both man and woman, child and infant, ox, donkey and sheep, he put to the sword.

I Samuel 22
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Today's psalm--compact, together

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With the persistent encouragement of Daily Athens Photo's Robert Geiss, the weekly PsalmChallenge has already covered one third of the Book of Psalms.
Today we arrived at Psalm 51.

You can simply enlarge the photo to read the English and/or Hebrew text and enjoy the awesome painted illustration of Psalm 51.

To my great joy this wonderful book was on display in an art gallery in our Le Meridien hotel at the Dead Sea.
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"The Book of Psalms, decorated and illustrated by 150 artists accompanied by a new English translation" the front cover says.
It was printed in only 613 copies (like the 613 commandments in the Torah).
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What a treasure.
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When printing took some effort

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We have come a long way since this Alexandra iron handpress was made in London in 1730.

It has a place of honor in the front window of our National Library at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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For the 4th of July

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Jerry the Dragon's spiky back and tail cast nice long shadows for Shadow Shot Sunday.
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The dragon lives in Liberty Bell Park.

(I'm hoping he will qualify as an animal for Camera-Critters meme, too.)

I was there two weeks ago for the big Hebrew Book Week fair.
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This innovative activity park intersperses stone paths, greenery, and an open-air community center offering cultural and recreational events.

Jerusalem created Liberty Bell Garden in 1976 in honor of America's Bicentennial.
The replica of Philadelphia's Liberty Bell was a gift to Israel from the City of Philadelphia and is mounted in the center of the park.
But without the crack.
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The inscription chosen for the original bell is from the Bible, Leviticus 25:10--

"PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT THE LAND, TO ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF."
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Happy Independence Day to the United States and to Americans everywhere!

The People of the Book

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I blogged about Israel's National Library before, with its stained glass windows (some of the largest ever made) that show Isaiah's vision of eternal peace (here and here).
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But this morning the library was the scene of something totally different:
a giveaway of 30,000 books, free!
The photo above I took a half hour before the books were brought out, but hundreds of people were already standing around the tables outside, securing their places.
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I didn't have strong enough elbows or long enough arms to get first choice at the books.

When the poor library workers couldn't get through to the tables, they put boxes on the ground.
The crowd pounced on each new box.
Sort of like a feeding frenzy.
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The non-fiction books were either extras or material that the library could not use, books that had been donated to the library over the years.
Most were in English, with some in Russian, German, French, and Hebrew.
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The Jewish National and University Library website says this "donation to the public" will go on for four days or until all the books are gone.
More of the story at the Jerusalem Post.
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Among the throng were mothers with babies strapped to them, men in wheelchairs, religious and secular, students and older folks.
"The People of the Book."
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Understanding the desert images

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When one needs strength, consolation, encouragement, hope, or help--the 23rd Psalm is the best psalm to know by heart.
Or so I have found in times and places that I was lost.
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Since today's psalm is already so well-known, I want to do something a little different for Robert's weekly PsalmChallenge. I want to recommend a book.

You can enlarge the photo and read a sample.
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The book is a must for those who have never walked Israel's deserts or never herded sheep and goats (I have done both, but I still need this book!).
-- This because so much of the imagery of David, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and other prophets and sages assumes an understanding of such things.
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As the dust jacket says

One of the Bible's best-known and best-loved psalms begins with the words of the young David: "The Lord is my shepherd" (23:1). The experiences of David as a shepherd in the Judean Desert affected the imagery of his psalms, his escapes from the pursuit of Saul, and even the judgments he rendered as king.

Each chapter bears the name of a verse from Psalm 23.
For example

Chapter IV "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."
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Terrifying cliffs and canyons
. An arid land, a land of the shadow of death
A land of darkness
Cliff and fortress
. Rock of Ages
The shepherd's staff

The late great Nogah Hareuveni, of blessed memory, wrote Desert and Shepherd in Our Biblical Heritage several decades ago.
There are three in his Biblical Heritage series.
He also founded Neot Kedumim, the only Biblical Landscape Reserve in the world.
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Enjoy the Neot Kedumim website.
You can order the book there too. I would be lost without it.
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PSALM 23

¹The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

²He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

³He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

⁴Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

⁵Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

⁶Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

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