At a concert during the 2014 Sacred Music Festival, held in the Old City’s Tower of David Museum (Photo credit: Michal Fattal)
The sixth annual Jerusalem Season of Culture, the five-week summer festival that celebrates the capital’s diversity kicks off July 27, offering musical performances, historical tours, parties and exhibitions.
Much of last year’s program was canceled because of the Gaza war, but this year proves to be as dynamic as ever, said program director Itay Mautner. Pics and video after cut...
“Last year’s festival was interrupted by war and the continued tension and sporadic violence in Jerusalem throughout the fall,” he said.
“We deal with it in our season. We are trying to look for a way to broaden the conversation by connecting people, by opening doors for people we would never enter.”
The Hazlenuts, one of the bands performing for the In House Festival (Courtesy Jerusalem Season of Culture)
The Season of Culture begins with the In House Festival, which runs from July 27 to July 30. The festival offers a series of intimate performances held at different locations around Jerusalem. The pointedly alternative venues are part of the experience, and each location is meant to take participants to a different world within Jerusalem. This year’s performances include a Harlem-style rent party, based on the apartment parties held in New York City in the 1920s in order to raise fund for rent, complete with live doo-wop swing music.
One of the In House Festival events is an audio tour of the desolate Palestinian village of Lifta, called HaKol Galui (The Revealed Voice), which invites participants to explore the ruins of the village, whose Arab inhabitants fled in 1948, and which later housed Kurdish and Yemenite immigrant Jews. Situated under the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Highway at the entrance of the city, most of the village remains intact, although it is being threatened by current highway construction and development in the area.
Mautner hopes the experience raises questions for those who visit.
“It makes you think, ‘What are rich people trying to do tearing down the villages, trying to make a new shopping mall?’” Mautner said. “Why are the people who are not heard so easily kicked away, and who says whose voice should be heard?”
Exploring Lifta during the In House Festival (Courtesy Jerusalem Season of Culture)
Marlyn Vinig’s house overlooks Lifta. The ultra-Orthodox artist, teacher, film critic, songwriter and mother of seven is hosting an In House Festival event, called “The Marlyn Lexicon.” She also wants to challenge people’s ideas by presenting her own unique story.
“I want to open people’s minds and feelings and eyes to [something] different,” she said.
Marlyn Vinig, whose unorthodox views on the ultra-Orthodox and Israeli society will be part of the In House Festival at the Jerusalem Season of Culture (Courtesy Marlyn Vinig)
The Australian-born artist returned to a religious life in her early adulthood and is now a researcher and college lecturer on ultra-Orthodox cinema. She hopes her atypical background and work will challenge people’s notions about ultra-Orthodox Jews.
“I say come see something else, come think outside the box,” she said. “I have something to say about my life, about life in Israel, about the connection between the Haredim and the secular.”
Next on the schedule is Contact Point on August 6, the always-festive, interactive nighttime experience at the Israel Museum. The exhibition includes music, dance and other artistic innovations alongside the museum’s regular exhibitions. There will also be special creations celebrating the museum’s 50th anniversary.
From August 17 to August 21 there is Frontline,showcasing Jerusalem’s independent music scene with concerts, ceremonies, interviews and radio broadcasts. The city’s music has a unique and special sound, with groups like 60 Reebo, who combine Jewish motifs, the Talmud and punk rock in their own kind of musical experience.
Jerusalem’s music also reflects the city’s fractured population, Mautner said.
“It’s not a regular city with a regular scene,” he said. “You can’t have a scene where two-thirds of the population, the Palestinian and the ultra-Orthodox, will never be interested in your music scene because it’s non-religious and non-political.”
Under the Mountain, running from August 25 to August 28, is described as a new public art festival. Art was traditionally looked at as objects to be viewed, a statue or painting that could be exhibited in a museum, explained Mautner. “Public art is the art of people being together,” he said.
This year, the festival will focus on the Temple Mount, one of the city’s and world’s most important religious sites. The conversation around the site is two-tiered, Mautner said. It is both a national conversation about Israelis and Palestinians, and a religious conversation about Islam and Judaism. The event aims to broaden this discussion and see what part art can play.
“The Temple Mount determines more than we even think of our daily life. It’s something that we cannot look away from and say ‘I have nothing to do with it,’” Mautner said. “We have a lot to do with it whether we like it or not.”
The Season of Culture closes with the Jerusalem Sacred Music Festival, beginning in the Old City on August 30 and ending on September 4. The festival is a multicultural celebration of the city’s various races, religions and nationalities, and will also include artists from Jamaica, Germany, the United States, Armenia and Zanzibar.
At a concert during the 2014 Sacred Music Festival, held in the Old City’s Tower of David Museum (Photo credit: Michal Fattal)
The essence of the Jerusalem Season of Culture is opening dialogue, connecting people and taking them out of their comfort zone, Mautner said. “The problems of the past year are part of the Jerusalem experience and part of the festival.”
Mautner recently did the HaKol Galui tour of the abandoned village of Lifta and said the experience hasn’t left his mind since. The question he is thinking about, he said, is whether there is a chance for multiple voices to live together and be together.
“These are the basic questions of living in Jerusalem, and the question for Israeli society,” he said. “I hope that the answer is yes.”
Tickets and more information about the events are available on the Jerusalem Season of Culture website.
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