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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Commedia dell'arte in Jerusalem

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Italian Festival -- Art and Pasta
the poster says.

It was my first time to see the 3-day festival put on every summer by the Museum of Italian Jewish Art.

Masked and costumed actors interacted with the crowd.

Their funny antics were billed as Commedia dell'arte.

I'm reading now that this kind of improvised drama started in 14th century Italy.

More pictures from the event tomorrow.

But now, Shabbat shalom, Sabbath peace to you.

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Piazza Roma benches

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Rome Square?? In central Jerusalem?
I didn't know we had a Piazza Roma.
 Looks like it was dedicated just last May.

It's not the most beautiful setting, but for sitting it's OK. Many benches in a row.
I discovered it last night, just in time for RuneE's Friday bench meme.

The pretty building at the end of Rome Square is the Museum of Italian Jewish Art and the Jerusalem Italian Jews Association.
I was there for their annual Italian Festival. (More in coming posts!)

Nice to have this modern-day connection with modern Rome.

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But I can't suppress a giggle when I think of Roman emperors Vespasian, Titus, Trajan, and Hadrian, who variously destroyed the Temple, plowed Jerusalem under, expelled Jews from our city, and generally tried to make Judaism disappear.
 They must be turning in their graves to see Piazza Roma in the middle of thriving Rebuilt Jerusalem, capital of the sovereign State of Israel.

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Ciao.
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