Education in Four Parts

School's Out

I spent the last day of English class at Jaffa’s Lev school discussing food with Aya and Sineen. As they chose pictures of peaches, tomatoes, cucumbers and watermelon to put in their make believe fruit and vegetable salads, we talked about what they liked to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The girls, along with their classmates, had become increasingly rambunctious and distracted over the course of the last few months.  On this day Aya and Sineen literally danced in their seats---their hands and torsos swayed to a disco beat while their bottoms remained planted in their seats. Pointing to each other they learned the English words for “she’s crazy.” It was a wild ride to the end of the session.

After class the headmaster, a personable young Arab man, invited us into his office for a goodbye celebration.  We had contact with him during the year, especially towards the end, when he was called on to intervene with students who needed some encouragement to behave in class. One day, for example, Mahmood refused to work with me until the headmaster had a talk with him. Later, the headmaster explained that Mahmood’s parents, who were divorcing, had come to school and yelled at each other.  Speaking in Hebrew, the headmaster thanked us for taking the time to work with the children. He explained that many of the kids experienced disadvantaged or difficult circumstances--- single parent and divorced families, poverty and so on. With 30 kids in a classroom, the teachers have little time to give them the individual attention they desperately need. He said that they had benefited from the one on one attention we provided. As for the challenging behavior, he said we shouldn’t take it personally as they treat all the teachers that way. This was obvious to me when I saw the kids bursting into the teachers’ lounge and heard the teachers yelling at them. The headmaster explained that they were testing us---Would we come back? Do we care? What expectations do we have of them to learn and succeed? “You have done something important,” he concluded, rewarding us with a booklet about Jaffa (in Hebrew and Arabic) and an ergonomic ballpoint pen and offering us cookies and juice to show his appreciation for our efforts. 

The cookies, from the nearby bakery Piece of Cake, were unbelievable.  Since I needed a birthday cake to bring my ulpan party the following day, I got directions and headed directly over there (the chocolate and halva cakes were a big hit). We stopped in again while touring Jaffa with Rachel to stock up on cookies, rugelah and granola. I am going to miss my weekly trips to Jaffa, typically including stops at the fruit and vegetable market and Café Yafo for shakshuka (traditional North African dish of eggs poached in a tomato, onion and pepper sauce) or, more often, fabulous gelato/sorbet. Luckily I didn’t discover Piece of Cake until the end of the term otherwise that would have also been a weekly temptation. And of course I should also mention the famous Abulafia family’s Arab bakery and hummos/shwarma restaurants.

To Teach or Not to Teach Nakba

One of the worksheets we used for our lesson on "daily activities" features simple stories about “Tom” from America and “Gila” from Israel in which the children introduce themselves and tell how they spend the day: “My name is Gila, I am from Israel, I live in Tel Aviv, I get up at 7 a.m.” and so on.  When I asked Aya to write a similar story about herself she began: “My name is Aya. I am from Felastin. I live in Yafo.”  When I gently suggested that she lives in Israel, she insisted on writing  “Felastin”, using a spelling based on the Arabic pronounciation. I should point out that Aya was the only girl in the class who wore a white head scarf covering her hair but Sineen, minus headscarf, also agreed that she lives in Felastin. With my limited Hebrew and their limited English (and young age) we weren’t going to have a political discussion about this. However from observation, reading the newspapers and talking with community activists, I can see that as the Palestinian/Israeli conflict fails to resolve, and conditions for Arab-Israeli citizens remain problematic, Arab residents find themselves in limbo and many have become more militantly identified with the Palestinian struggle. Religion also plays a role with differences among Christians and Muslims and varying degrees of fundamentalism within the Muslim community. On the street one now sees a few women wearing the most extreme head to toe black garb (with only a small slit for the eyes) standing out from those wearing less drastic head scarves and coverings. 

Arab and Jewish families have lived side by side in Jaffa for centuries through periods of interdependence and prosperity, suspicion and conflict. The fierce struggle that led to the 1948 creation of the State of Israel marked an important turning point in Arab-Jewish relations in this traditionally mixed town. At that time many Arab families left and were unable to return due to political circumstances. Those that stayed became citizens of Israel but experienced marginalization and discrimination. A fascinating account of Jaffa’s history, told through the stories of several key families, can be found in Adam LeBor’s City of Oranges: Arabs and Jews in Jaffa.

This month controversy erupted over observation of and teaching about Nakba  (Palestinian commemoration of the ‘catastrophe’ that befell them after the establishment of Israel).  A knesset member from the right wing nationalist party Yisrael Beitenu proposed a bill prohibiting any event marking Nakba while at the same time HaAretz reported that a curriculum about the experiences of Palestinian Arabs before and after the creation of Israel has been developed for use in Israeli high schools. 

Multiculturalism in Israel? (Oy!)

Curriculum issues make for huge battles here, not only between Jews and non-Jews but also between secular and religious Israelis. As I explained in an earlier post, Lev school split from the neighboring school across the courtyard, Weizman, over language and curriculum issues between Arab and Jewish parents. Now Weizman school is having difficulty attracting Jewish families to maintain the diverse population in the school.  Consequently, Beit Daniel, the Reform (Progressive) synagogue in our neighborhood that operates a guest house and educational progams in Jaffa, has been invited to run the kindergarten in the school next year. The hope is that this will encourage Jewish parents in the community to enroll there children here rather than choosing an alternative or private school.  

Reforming Education---the L.A. Connection

Amazingly, I recently met a woman here, Sara Gefen, who was instrumental in  developing a relationship between the very well-respected high school in Tel Aviv (near our apartment) where she teaches photography and optics and Miliken High in Los Angeles (connected to the reform congregation Stephen S. Wise---my parents were among the founders!).  Sara spent a lot of time in Los Angeles working with Metuka who runs all the educational programs at Stephen S. Wise. Metuka was one of my Hebrew school teachers many years earlier. As a high school student I was her assistant in the third or fourth grade Hebrew school class.  Another unbelievable coincidence among many we've had here

 

Yom Huledet Sameach! : A Happy Birthday with Two Ednas

Photos: Aleph Plus class; Linda, Edna, and Vivien; Linda, Edna B. and Hedva

I celebrated my 61st birthday in Israel with two Ednas and my friends in Aleph Plus. I'll write more about my adventures with Edna Barromi-Perlman in another post. Meanwhile here is a photo taken at lunch with her mother in an old-fashioned restaurant near the headquarters of the Hashomer Hatzair Kibbutz Movement (an important left-leaning zionist socialist organization) after Edna gave a fascinating presentation to the movement's archivists about the implications of choosing how to preserve and interpret childhood images in kibbutz photographs. Using images from one specific kibbutz, she focused on how children's lives were captured in historical photographs and how one particular archivist from this kibbutz has been documenting information that was left out of the historical record, especially regarding parents' ties to children, the role of women and inclusion of family members who moved off the kibbutz.

The second Edna, my ulpan teacher, prepared a very beautiful, heartfelt blessing for my birthday and taught us all the words to use to congratulate someone or to celebrate a special event. I brought two cakes--one chocolate and one halva--from a fantastic bakery in Jaffa. The class sang "Yom Huledet Sameach" (Happy Birthday) and we took some photos. Edna said I bring joy to the class because I am always smiling!  That is because I love Edna and Kita (class) Aleph Plus.  Here's a rough translation of the blessing, which you can see on the board in the group photo:

Dear Linda, Happy Birthday! We congratulate you on your birthday and wish you much happiness, good fortune, good health, success and joy. We hope to see you return to Israel. Yours in friendship, The students and teacher of Aleph Plus class, Gordon Ulpan, Tel Aviv.

After class Lew and I capped the celebration by sharing mussels in a curry-coconut broth at Goo Cha on Dizengoff. He bought me a beautiful small red hand made vase from the Eretz Yisrael museum gift shop. With phone calls from Mom, Judy, and Rachel and ecards from Gregory, Judy and Adele, the day could not have been better. Thanks to all for making my birthday so special!

 

 

 

Apples, Smoke and Memory

 

In our quest to sample all the cultural riches Tel Aviv has to offer we spent a recent Friday afternoon with a gyrating mass of young people in the courtyard of the Suzanne Dellal Center listening to the Apples, a popular Israeli funk jazz band that has gotten a lot of attention in Europe and elsewhere. The Suzanne Dellal Center, home to the Batsheva Dance Company, is an important incubator for innovative dance, music, and theater in Israel. This event was part of a three week festival, “The Big Stage,” celebrating the center’s 20^th anniversary and Tel Aviv’s first 100 years.

The band-- sax, tenor sax, trumpet and trombone grouped at one side of the stage, upright bass and drums on the other side, and 2 DJ’s in neon green jumpsuits manning turntables in the center—jammed at high intensity for over two hours. For most of this time the audience was on its feet. We were not entirely confident that the temporary stadium style seating would hold up to several hundred people rhythmically swaying and stomping in unison but we came out unscathed, at least sort of. The bigger problem was the smoking. You would think that since we were outdoors this wouldn’t be much of a problem. You would be wrong. Sadly, the majority of these young people smoke like chimneys.  Many held a cigarette in one hand virtually the entire time (often while managing a bottle of beer in the other). A haze of smoke billowed above the crowd, occasionally swept away by a refreshing breeze. One young woman directly behind me noticed my discomfort and graciously moved a few feet away but most of the smokers were oblivious to the impact on others. Soon my throat burned and my chest felt constricted. I can only imagine how long I would survive in a club setting where one would usually here this music. In any case I’m sure that I’ve reduced my life span by a few months just by inhaling my neighbors’ smoke at the outdoor cafes and restaurants (no restrictions outside).

Luckily, our second visit to the Big Stage the following evening drew a different crowd who, thankfully, did not smoke. We saw an intense performance of  “Aide Memoire,” danced by the excellent Kibbutz Contemporary Dance company. This work, by choreographer Rami Be’eri, stems from his personal response to the memory of the Holocaust (his parents were survivors) and his hatred of war. The collage of movement, lighting, spoken text from Ecclesiastes, music and percussive sound was striking and intense. 

All it Takes is Love: Shavuot in Jerusalem, part 2

Finishing dinner around 11 p.m. with a long night ahead of us, we set out to “repair” ourselves through study. Conveniently, we only needed to walk a short distance from the hotel to the Hebrew Union College facility where we were able to participate in two study sessions (in English) among the hundreds offered at various synagogues, institutes and cultural venues across the city. With small groups of English-speaking strangers, led first by Rabbi Rich Kirschen and then by Rabbi Dr. Michael Marmur, we discussed Biblical text and commentary on various aspects of what it means to be “a stranger in a strange land:” What has it meant for Jews to be the “other” in the diaspora?  What does it mean to lose this otherness in Israel?  What is the relationship between otherness and the Biblical concept of being “chosen” by God for a special purpose-- to receive and live by “the law”?  What is problematic v. formative about this concept?  The second session with Marmur was especially lively. He used commentary by the famous modern scholar A.J. Heschel to explore what it means to feel alienated or at home in the universe (“I am a sojourner on earth” Psalms 119:19---we are all just passing through). How does this realization affect our conceptions of God/spirituality, compassion, and justice?  Have we become too comfortable or complacent during our sojourn?  The theme of the stranger is central to Shavuot, embodied in the reading of the Book of Ruth, the ultimate convert and great, great grandmother of King David.

Still going strong at 2:45 a.m. we walked to Beit Avichai-- a gorgeous facility that offers lectures, music, art exhibits, theater and so on—where we joined a larger crowd of mostly young people to study with Avichai Lau-Lavie, the founder of Storahtelling. The evocative title of this session was “Mounting Sinai: Mythos and Eros on the Dawn of Revelation.”   Through poetry and interpretive texts we explored the central Jewish metaphor of the union of bride (the people) and groom (God). Presumably the bride (the people) was asleep when Moses returned from the mountaintop with the Torah. Moses called to the bride to wake up and join the waiting groom under the canopy to receive the laws. Now we study all night on Shavuot so as not to miss the big event.  Trying to keep our eyes open, we talked about what’s going on inside us when we sleep and what it means to be truly awake. What opens us up?  What gives our lives meaning?  Ultimately, Lau-Lavie says, it all comes down to love. The power of love enables us to unite polarities within ourselves (head and heart; inner and outer; male and female) and connects us with others.

At 4 a.m. we connected with hundreds of others streaming out of the many sessions at Beit Avichai and elsewhere and following a silent, invisible pied piper through the quiet streets and narrow alleys of the Old City to the Kotel (Western Wall). Waiting for the sun to rise we watched the growing crowd fill up the plaza. Aside from praying, the main activities seemed to be smoking and milling around.  Groups of young religious men and women, dressed to the nines (rhinestones and modest necklines) gathered to check each other out. Teens from abroad, dressed more casually, greeted their friends with shrieks of recognition. Mothers guided little girls in fancy party dresses through the chaos. We sought in vain for a spot where we could breathe freely. Although signs warn against taking photographs, there is no prohibition against smoking. Somehow it just doesn’t feel spiritual to inhale second hand smoke in this ancient, revered place.

“Jews for Cheeses”: Shavuot in Jerusalem, part 1

We celebrated Shavuout (our final holiday here in Israel!) in Jerusalem and it was a more sober and studious experience than the previous night’s urban circus in Tel Aviv. Shavuot is dual purpose holiday: on the religious side we celebrate receiving the Torah at Sinai while on the secular side we mark the end of the counting of the omer (seven weeks after Pesach) when the first fruits of the harvest were brought to the Temple. On the secular side schoolchildren make flower garlands and, at least in one surviving kibbutz, there is a parade of children, farm equipment, animals and harvest bounty. Religious observance entails Tikkun Leil, an all night study marathon to repair, correct, or set things right. Everyone, secular and religious, eats dairy (cheesecake and blintzes!). The dairy association has many explanations, mystical and biblical, but the one that my ulpan teacher favors is this: Before we received the laws or commandments written in the Torah there weren’t any rules for preparing food. As soon as we received the Torah we had to learn the kosher rules in a hurry. Since it was easier to prepare dairy in a kosher way, as opposed to the more time consuming effort that is required to properly slaughter and prepare kosher meat, we began our new lives as people of the law with a cheesefest (as one letter writer to the newspaper put it, on Shavuot we become “Jews for Cheeses”). The cheese eating often goes along with the donning of white clothing, more likely to represent aspirations to purity rather than identification with dairy products. The white clothing sticks around as the temperatures rise and I noticed a surplus of cheesecake at the supermarket—post-Shavuout leftovers.

This year the holiday began on a Thursday night and segued into Erev Shabbat on Friday night. Since the busses wouldn’t be running for our trip hone until Saturday night we needed to find a place to stay for two nights in Jerusalem. All the affordable hotels and guest houses were booked weeks in advance so we were lucky to be invited to stay with Noam and Marcella Zion in the Arnona neighborhood of Jerusalem.  I was a little nervous the taxi driver would misunderstand my directions and take us to the Dead Sea rather than to Rechov Yam HaMelach (Dead Sea Street) but my fears were unfounded. Our driver, an entertaining and knowledgeable young Arab man regaled us on the way with an account of his plans to buy a “new” used car for his wife who is completing her drivers’ training.

Despite construction of massive new apartment complexes, this area still feels peaceful and somewhat remote from the intensity of the city center and Old City. From the balcony of their apartment on Dead Sea Street we could see a blue strip of the Dead Sea with the brown hills of Jordan rising above. From 1948 to 1967 this was the edge of “no man’s land” which lay beyond a barbed wire fence across the street. Not too far away is the hilltop U.N. outpost where the Jordanian forces began their attack in 1967.  Now incorporated into the Israeli controlled Jerusalem metropolis, the view highlights the city’s contrasts—the modern high rise complexes of the Jewish neighborhood of East Talpiyot dominate the sliced off the tops of the nearby hilltops while further away the small enclaves of Arab neighborhoods, each punctuated by a tall, florescent green lighted minaret, nestle into and conform to the shape of the hills that roll to the Dead Sea. Tall date palms, cypress and pines, vivid purple, bright pink or orange bougainvelia and sweet-scented flowering jasmine abruptly give way to the browns, tans and ochres of the desert where the rain line stops. Just down the hill to the south the former Diplomat hotel complex once housed thousands of Ethiopian immigrants brought to Israel in the massive airlifts. Many Arnona neighbors walked to the hotel on Shabbat to bring gifts of food and clothing to the new citizens who recreated the atmosphere of a traditional village in the halls of the hotel.  Further away to the south rises a massive new school complex built to serve the children of the Arab villages. As you may remember from a previous post, there is a serious lack of classrooms for these children.

Once the holiday began, walking became the operant mode of transportation. Given our somewhat remote location from the city center, we put a lot of mileage (or, more appropriate to Israel, I should say kilometers) on our shoes. Shavuot eve our observant hosts walked us to a community center in the German Colony that houses Shira Hadasha, a somewhat more egalitarian, though still orthodox, congregation that features lovely singing.  This popular, pioneering congregation incorporates somewhat more progressive  practices into their worship and strives to build community among the members, both novel ideas in the Israeli context. Though a high gauzy curtain separates the men’s and women’s sections, the podium (bima) extends to both sides and the curtain is opened during the more didactic portions of the service. Women participate as service leaders  and read from the Torah. We had actually visited this congregation on our visit two years ago and shared a Shabbat dinner in the home of a couple that belongs to the community. This time, with a gazillion adorable kids running around and a not overly interesting dvar (teaching) in Hebrew, our prayer experience was not riveting and we didn’t stay too long.  Mainly we were here to connect with Marion Robboy(visiting from Chapel Hill), daughter Tanya (who lives in Jerusalem) and her friend Liora, a South African transplant now working for Nefesh b’Nefesh (an organization that assists new immigrants).  The four of us walked to the King David Hotel, their Jerusalem base, where Stan awaited our arrival for our prearranged dinner date. 

At the King David a mix-up led to our being seated in the “meat” dining room rather than the “milk” dining room. During Shavuout the hotel offers discounted rates so the place is absolutely packed with religious families who come for this pilgrimage holiday. The demands on the kitchen are intense so they offered a set menu that consisted of numerous small courses served in succession—tuna tartare, pate, fish, duck breast, steak, lychee sorbet with fruit, chocolates. Amidst the hullabaloo we had a grand time catching up with Marion and Stan who came to visit Tanya and attend events related to their service on the board of the Israel Museum.

 

Red Walls/White Night

Who knew that when I painted my living room and dining room walls red over ten years ago I was following in the footsteps of Israel’s national poet, Chaim Nachman Bialik. On a recent visit to his home, built in the 1920’s, I was surprised to see the walls painted in rich hues of red, blue, and green downstairs, with more subtle hues (light blue, gold, lavender) upstairs. Fabulous tiled columns and floors and delicately stenciled friezes add to the gracious ambience. With its open layout, high ceilings, large windows, spacious verandahs and library lined with built-in wood bookcases, this impressive house, carefully restored to its original state, embodies a unique blend of European and Arab architectural and decorative styles. I can easily imagine the poets and thinkers of Bialik’s day gathering to discuss big ideas and the latest developments in the long journey to Israeli statehood. If the city hadn't turned it into a museum, I would have been tempted to move in and live with their ghosts for a while.

The house is one of several large, beautiful homes, anchored around a stately municipal building (also undergoing restoration) that encircle Kikar Bialik, an open plaza with a lily pond at its center. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the artist Reuven Rubin also had a home (now a museum) on this street, as did Felicia Blumenthal, a prominent piano virtuoso whose home now houses an intimate concert venue and music library. Kikar Bialik (Bialik Square) is at the center of Little Tel Aviv, an old neighborhood of narrow streets at the heart of the city spreading out from the apex of Allenby and King George Streets (major shopping arteries) that join four other streets to form Kikar Magen David. Shuk haCarmel (market), Gan haIr (city garden), historic Trumpledor cemetary, and stylish Dizengoff Street are all within walking distance. This neighborhood was a vital center of Tel Aviv (and Israeli) literary and artistic culture in the early to middle decades of the twentieth century. Although many of the buildings have deteriorated over time, or been replaced by newer apartments, recently efforts have been made to restore and preserve the area’s character and charm.

Kikar Bialik turned out to be a perfect place to experience Lilah Lavan (White Night), Tel Aviv’s all night extravaganza of music, street entertainment and general hoopla that takes place throughout the city-- on the pedestrian mall of stately Rothschild Street, in concert halls, museums, libraries and synagogues, in parks and neighborhood squares, at Jaffa port and on the beaches— the day before Shavuout. This year’s White Night theme, “Little Tel Aviv,” commemorated the city’s 100th anniversary and featured special activities to celebrate the city’s cultural and historical heritage. With too many enticing options to choose from, we decided to head first to Bialik street where a 1920’s European-style café was set up in the square, complete with white tablecloths and flowers on the tables and plenty of beer, coffee and other refreshments for sale at the brightly illuminated “Café Bialik” kiosk. Costumed “newboys” distributed broadsheets with the news of the day (1909) to the “customers” as they began to stream in at dusk. We snagged a couple of chairs and parked ourselves up on the verandah of the Felicia Blumenthal Center next to the municipal building where the musicians were setting up.

With the white moon rising in the balmy night sky, the haunting sounds of Yair Dalal and his Bedoin-Balkan ensemble of violin, oud, sitar, Bedouin flute and percussion players, created a haunting and spirited ambience. A gaggle of little girls, joined by a couple of lively older women, jumped and swayed with the music in the limited open space directly in front of the band. Closing my eyes, I could feel myself transported to a bedoin tent in the desert. And that’s exactly where Yair Dalal often finds himself. An Israeli musician and composer of Iraqi-Jewish descent, he plays the oud and the violin and sings, drawing on Arab, Jewish, classical European and Indian traditions in his original compositions. He is also a peace activist, working to build communication and understanding through collaboration with bedoin and Palestinian musicians.

As the night progressed, the plaza became more and more packed with groups of chatting, drinking and smoking young people mixed in with families and hip alta kakers (older folks--us!). After a brief intermission, a parade of 15 hippie-esque brass, wind and percussion players, their instruments held high above their heads, snaked through the crowd to the stage. Time to PARTAY with the Marsh Dondurma Band!! Taking their name from a favorite Turkish ice cream,this wild and crazy street band from Jerusalem packs a punch with their foot-stomping klezmer-inspired eclectic mix of jazz, Balkan, funk, New Orleans, gypsy, and Latin grooves to traditional and original tunes. I especially liked their high-energy version of Ellington’s Blue Pepper featuring some wailin’ sax and horn solos.

Energized and curious about what was going on elsewhere we spent another hour and a half following the crowds (and the music) around town before hopping into a taxi for the last stretch home in the wee hours. I wasn’t all that tired and was tempted to bike up to Tzuk beach for the sunrise concert by pop star Yehudit Ravitz, but we had plans to pull an all-nighter for Shavuout the following evening so I resisted. It’s hard work keeping up with both the secular and spiritual dimensions of Israeli culture but as a true Gemini I can swing both ways.

"Rembrandt of the Straedtel": Goldberg's Non-Variations

A few years ago while clearing out our mother’s dining room, my sister and I uncovered half a dozen black ink drawings or prints that belonged to our grandmother, Gertrude Frankel (nee Gittel Goldberg). The artist’s signature, written in Hebrew, reads “Avraham Goldberg.” As it happens, my grandmother had a brother, Avram Goldberg, who came to Israel rather than the United States when the siblings left Minsk, Belarus before WWI (another member of the family went to Montevideo, Uruguay but that branch of the family also moved to Israel in the 1970’s). I first met my Uncle Avram, a very sweet man, when I was about 10 or 11 years old. He came to Los Angeles for a visit and we took him to Disneyland, which he loved. I saw him again when I spent the summer of 1965 in Israel and stayed over a few weekends with his son, Nechemia, and family—wife Tamar and two daughters, Chaya and Ruthie. During all this time I never heard any mention that he was an artist and I’m pretty sure the similarity in names is only a coincidence. Still, I was curious about the artist Avraham Goldberg and decided to see what I could discover. First, I checked on the Internet. I found one piece of Avraham Goldberg’s work for sale on an art auction website, as well as the name of a Tel Aviv art gallery that has another. I also learned that the artist was born in Poland in 1903, made aliyah to Israel in 1919, spent some years studying in Paris and New York and died in 1980. Although the lifespans of the two Goldbergs match, I’m reasonably certain my uncle did not study in Paris and New York. To explore further I stopped by the Bineth gallery; the staff there suggested I visit the library at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The library turned out to be a treasure trove. The library contains books and archived materials on Israeli artists; when I told the librarian what I was looking for she brought out a small stack of books and a file of newspaper clippings. Two of the books contained reproductions of Goldberg’s black ink drawings and color pastels prefaced by scholarly introductions. The third, an overview of painting and sculpture in Israel published in 1958, included a critical assessment of this artist along with others active at the time. The newspaper clippings from the Palestine Post and other newspapers reviewed exhibits of his work at the Tel Aviv Museum and in Jerusalem (1939, 1942, 1950). In addition to frequent shows in Israel, he also exhibited his work in France. One reviewer referred to him as the “Rembrandt of the Staedtel” and noted the influence not only of Rembrandt but also Daumier. As the title indicates, his subjects were invariably the Jews of the Ghetto—rabbis praying, old men and women (often his mother) around the Shabbat table or at the cemetery—expressing his “homesick longing for the semi-darkness of the lost staedtel of his childhood” and portraying the “burdens of a much-tried people.” While the reviewers gave a nod to his skill at portraying the dignity and suffering of his subjects, they also criticized the monotony of his work---“always the same rabbis, the same women.” My take is that during the early years of statebuilding, Israelis preferred more heroic and less defeated images; they were creating the future while Goldberg dwelled on the past, the lost world of Eastern European Jewry. I agree that our prints create a somewhat gloomy atmosphere but they also are very evocative and haunting. Although I’ll need to verify this, I have a hunch that what we have are merely reproductions and not originals. Still, it was fun to track down the background of this artist.