World City Guide

Culture

Israel appears at first sight to be a brash, assertive society. However, to see Israelis express themselves in music is to realise the underlying emotional depth of this nation. It is striking that most buskers here are playing classical music. Several world-class classical music events take place in Israel, including the International Harp Contest held every three years (the next one, which will be the 16th, is scheduled for 2006). In addition, there are important classical music festivals, such as those at Kibbutz Ein Gev and the Kibbutz Kfar Blum. The Israel Festival, bringing a high-culture mix of music, drama and dance, turns Jerusalem into the world’s cultural stage for three weeks in May and June.

The Jerusalem Centre for the Performing Arts, 20 Marcus Street (tel: (02) 560 5757/55), in the German Colony area of west Jerusalem, serves as the city’s unofficial cultural centre. This venue and the Jerusalem Film Center, Hebron Road (tel: (02) 565 4333; website: www.jer-cin.org.il) (the city’s trendy centre for arthouse films) are worth visiting in their own right, as places to absorb the buzz of creativity amongst Israel’s most talented performers.

The best ticket agencies for nearly all concerts and theatre performances in Jerusalem are the Bimot, 8 Shamai Street (tel: (02) 624 0896), the Klaim, 12 Shamai Street (tel: (02) 625 6869), and the Ben Nayim, 38 Jaffa Street (tel: (02) 623 1273). Travellers to the city hoping to catch live shows can also buy tickets in person from the various box offices.

Listings for major events (with web links) can be found online at the Jerusalem municipal website (www.jerusalem.muni.il), while the online magazine, @The Source (website: www.ii-a.com), includes a guide to cultural events.

Music: The Henry Crown Symphony Hall, 5 Chopin Street, is the home of the excellent Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (tel: (1700) 704 000; website: www.jso.co.il). Tickets are usually priced NIS100-150. The world-renowned Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (tel: (02) 645 4647; website: www.ipo.co.il) rotates performances between its main base in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem. Visitors to Jerusalem may find obtaining tickets for its concerts in the city very difficult. Such is the level of devotion to the orchestra, the ensemble boasts almost 30,000 season ticket holders – the largest subscription public per capita in the world. When it performs in Jerusalem, concerts are at the Binyanei Ha’oomah, 1 Shazar Street, near the Central Bus Station (tel: (02) 655 8558).

Theatre: Jerusalem’s most innovative theatre for new plays and drama is probably the Khan Theatre, 2 David Remez Square (tel: (02) 671 8281), which performs five or six plays every season. The repertory is divided between new plays from Israel and around the world, classics and adaptations. Performances are mainly in Hebrew. Devotees of experimental and avant-garde theatre should try to catch performances at the Habima Theatre, a 96-seat studio at Floor 4, 4 Yad Harozim (tel: (02) 625 4463; website: www.habima.org.il, Hebrew only).

Dance: Lovers of dance will have no problem finding what they want in Israel. The renowned Israel Ballet (Israel’s national classical ballet company) performs mainly in its home town of Tel Aviv, with occasional productions in Jerusalem. Several professional modern dance companies, most based in Tel Aviv, perform throughout the country and abroad – best known are Inbal Dance Theater and Batsheva Dance Company, both based at the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv (website: www.suzannedellal.org.il). In Jerusalem, Mechola, 43 Emek Refaim (tel: (02) 563 6663; website: www.geocities.com/Broadway/Stage/8973), is a municipal dance centre housing jazz and folk dance companies and workshops for children and adults.

Film: Most foreign films in Jerusalem are screened in their original version with Hebrew subtitles. Among the most popular mainstream cinemas are Ray Chen, in Talpiot (tel: (02) 679 4477), and the GG Gil, Jerusalem Mall, Malha Street (tel: (02) 678 8448). The Lev Smadar, 4 Lloyd George Street (tel: (02) 561 8168), is a highly regarded, nice and comfortable arthouse cinema. However, the best place for cinema in Jerusalem is the Cinematheque, at the Jerusalem Film Centre, Hebron Road (tel: (02) 565 4333; website: www.jer-cin.org.il). The Cinematheque has two auditoria showing classics, critically acclaimed new releases and foreign arthouse films.

Literary Notes: Some of Israel’s greatest living writers were born in the 1930s. Many of them lived in Jerusalem at the start of the Arab-Israeli War, which followed the foundation of Israel in 1948. Constant themes are the conflict between the religious life of Judaism and the life of the modern secular Jew; and the contradiction of Jerusalem as the holy, eternal city of God and Jerusalem as the man-made, political city of human conflict.

A B Yehoshua deals with these issues in his novel, The Lover (1977), which describes a husband’s attempt to trace his wife’s lover, who disappeared during the Yom Kippur War of 1973. The husband finds the man living within a community of Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem and attempts to persuade him to rejoin the modern secular reality of life in the city. In Amos Oz’s novel, My Michael (1968), the tension between violence and spiritual yearning in Jerusalem leads to strains within a Jewish couple’s marriage as they become more aware of both the threat and the hope offered by the city’s Arab population. Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) was one of the country’s most admired and most successful writers. The author of more than 75 books, Amichai’s works have been published around the world. While also much admired for his love poems, it was his ability to capture the dynamics of Israel’s inner tensions and historical evolution that proved to be his most enduring contribution to Hebrew literature.