Tell A Fairy Tale Day

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Tell A Fairy Tale Day is being celebrated today!

What better time than now to tell you about a unique experience I enjoyed while staying with the Franziskusgemeinschaft in Austria last November.
The community invited Eva Meierhofer, a professional storyteller, for an evening of fairy tales!

Eva came with a thick book of  "the world's most beautiful fairy tales."

Also a strange little book, "Tales of Idiots, Poor, Beggars, Jews, and Gypsies."

Since I didn't understand all that much of the German, I could concentrate on Eva's pointy shoes and special umbrella.

The Feenhaar, literally fairy hair, played with a bow, gave ethereal music.
I think it is also called a psalter.

You can hear a sample of its music and see beautiful photos of how the instruments are made in Switzerland here: http://www.klangkunstwerk.ch/Feenhaar-Fairy-Hair

All the members of the Franciscan farming community gave it a try.
It was really a magical evening in rural Austria.
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You can look for Eva Meierhofer on Facebook and see more of her special work.
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Music to my ears

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Bright and early yesterday I walked over to the Meitar Regional Council office to have my Israeli identity card changed to my new address.
Yay! Now I am an official resident of the Negev and of Meitar.
(It is pronounced  may [like the month] + tar, accent on the tar, so:  may-tar' .)
Hmm, would that make me a Meitarite?
Dina of the Desert?

The secretary said I was in luck because at 4:00 there would be a festive ceremony to re-open the newly-renovated Moadon LaGil HaZahav,  literally the Golden Age Club. 

OK, so I dutifully walked back over there in the  35 C/ 95 F heat of mid afternoon.
The new glass wing of the clubhouse really IS impressive.
What a view!

The young Minister for Senior Citizens, Knesset Member Uri Orbach, came down from Jerusalem to give a speech.
(Does YOUR country have a Ministry for Senior Citizens?)

He predicted that the old-new clubhouse would be full of cultural and learning  activities.
Once Meitar gets its own high school, he  added, they want to open a class for retired people.
The group would have classes all morning taught by the high school teachers, and several times a year "stars," visiting professors and experts, would come to lecture.

Orbach also gave a hint that his Ministry is working on starting a Shnat Sherut for retirees, a year of volunteer service, complete with certain benefits!
Until now, this  Sherut Leumi year of civic service was meant for young people who, because they are Israeli Arabs or very observant Jews, are normally exempt from compulsory military service;  it gives them a chance to serve their country and be recognized for it.

 Meitar, founded in 1984, is a community built around good education, cooperation between the religious and non-religious and young and old, volunteerism, and general quality of life.
Here above is the Moadon LaGil HaZahav as seen from the wadi, where a nice park and playground have been built. 

A local rabbi and of course our Regional Council head Avner Ben-Gera also spoke to the audience.
But the best part was the man in the photo, Anatoly Lain, an Israeli born in Russia.  What a singer!!
He started with La Traviata.  Hear him on YouTube (at a different venue).

Anatoly gave us an hour and a half, if not more, of  arias, old Israeli Hebrew songs, and a few Yiddish songs too.
But the most moving was what he sang in Russian. 
What could be more touching  than a baritone singing soulful songs from old Russia.
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(You can enlarge the photos 2x.  The desert sky is for SkyWatch Friday.)
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Gates to a smaller world

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Step through the open gates into the magic world of puppetry.
Just inside the stony entrance is the small amphitheater of the Train Theater in Jerusalem's Liberty Bell Park.

(The building behind it is the Inbal Hotel. You can watch Jerusalem on their live webcam!)
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August 14-19 they will be having the 20th International Festival of Puppet Theater.
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These gates are for Monday Doorways and the special world is for That's MyWorld Tuesday.
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Jerusalem Cinematheque

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Welcome to Jerusalem's wonderful Cinematheque.

While you wait outside one of the screening halls for your film to begin, have a seat on the plush chairs all in a row.

Or sip a coffee in the corridor.

Each table has a different scene from a famous old movie.

Or stand outside on the patio by the row of flags and watch the Old City wall turn golden in the setting sun light
From Mt. Zion you can see just how big the red tile roofed Cinematheque is.
The green is the Valley of Hinnom.
Behind, to the west, is new Jerusalem.
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See a historic photo of the building at the website, long before the Cinematheque renovated and moved in in 1981.
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Happy scenes from the International Book Fair

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This week's Jerusalem International Book Fair had 100,000 books, with 30 countries exhibiting, and 100,000 visitors were expected during the five days.
As I promised you yesterday, here are some more curiosities from the fair.

Sefer Hazahav! The huge Golden Books list the years and names of donors to the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet leYisrael).
This is more fully explained in my post from the last (2009) fair, along with a glimpse inside the venerable book.

"All roads lead to Italy," I think that's what it says.
And with TWO boots instead of the traditional one boot of Italy's map, I suppose walking those roads is easier.

Germany always has a mega-exhibit of quality books.
But cardboard boxes?! Several stacks of them formed philosophical building blocks.
If you know German, enlarge the photo and enjoy the quotations.

So sweet. The French offered a kid-sized reading corner for little readers.

CDs of Israeli songs, but sung in Esperanto!

Zamenhof, a Jew living in the Russian Empire, published his book about the international language he invented in 1887 under the pseudonym "Doktoro Esperanto" (Doctor Hopeful), from which the name of the language derives.
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A gift of music

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The That's My World meme, hosted by Klaus and his team, Wren, Sandy, Sylvia, Louise, and Fishing Guy, celebrates two years of blogger-guided tours today!
As a birthday gift I offer not the usual built environment but a joyous cultural event instead.
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No, these are not Muslims at prayer.
They are singers taking their final bow!

While in Jerusalem Saturday night, I quite by accident chanced upon a free concert.

And beautiful and inspiring it was!

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The Ranot Ensemble had come on their bus all the way from the Arava, Israel's southern desert, to perform in the church of Notre Dame de Jerusalem.

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For the past 16 years the group's several dozen members volunteer their voices and hearts to keep alive the most beautiful and moving of Israel's and the world's songs.

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During the day they work as computer scientist and mathematician, veterinary surgeon, librarian, laboratory technician in the dairy farm, tour guide, and farmer as residents of Kibbutzim Ketura, Lotan, Grofit, Yotvata, Samar, and Shaharut village.
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I think the Ranot singers were invited especially for the meeting of the World Union of Catholic Women's Organisations that was taking place at Notre Dame.

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The Jewish singers had no problem singing "Ave Maria"--in Latin--, standing under the big crucifix and the big statue of Mary and child.

(We have come a long way. )

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When the singers moved into Gospel songs in English, women in the audience from Africa in their colorful dresses could not sit still. They stood up and clapped and swayed to the rhythm.

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After many encores, the concert ended.

The Pontifical Institute Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center was beautiful by night.

The singers boarded their bus for the long ride home, home to the desert.

I went home with a song in my heart and I'm sure the hundreds of visitors from abroad did too.

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Thanks to dedicated and idealistic people like the Ranot Ensemble the desert is blooming, not only with agriculture but with culture!

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More about Ranot Vocal Ensemble with videos of their songs.

Ranot on YouTube and Facebook.

Map and website of the Eilot Region communities.

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Italian Festival in Jerusalem

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Summer in Jerusalem means lots of free culture, music, entertainment in the streets.

Every August the Museum of Italian Jewish Art puts on a 3-day festival in their courtyard.
See my last Friday posts for more about it.

Gates opened at 6:00 pm and the crowd grew as the sun and the temperature went down.

The chocolate booth was my favorite. The flag of Italy on fine Belgian chocolate. :)

And tall bottles of chocolate liqueur. Yum!

The roving commedia dell'arte actors raised a big smile from the chocolate girls.

All manner of pasta. Four packages for fifty shekels.

Another counter was offering bowls of steaming pasta in sauce.

Near the Italian-language book stall was a table full of wooden Pinocchio figures.

The pretty young opera singer was accompanied by harpsicord and cello.

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I mostly heard the music from inside the museum (entrance having been reduced to only ten shekels, about $2.60).

Part of the museum is a functioning synagogue with furnishings from the Conegliano Veneto Synagogue, built in 1701 in the small village between Venice and Padua.

More about that in a future post.

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Light art in Jerusalem!

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Free art!
The first-ever Jerusalem Light Festival is taking place from June 10-16 at almost 30 locations around and in the Old City, featuring artists from Israel and abroad.

Just outside Jaffa Gate are Gil Teichman's dynamic light cubes, "Miskhak HaKubiot."
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Click to enlarge!

Leave it to the Israelis! This father couldn't resist setting his toddler on top of a cube. It was weird seeing her glow orange color.

This particular light art installation made a pleasant place to hang out--or hang OVER.

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