A Bird's Eye View

I love travel, that opportunity to see the world through fresh eyes. I savor the sheer pleasure of resting weary feet at the end of a day of exploration, a day of trudging through museums and city streets, studying shop windows and the attire of the locals. Ahh, but home, an equally satisfying journey. We sit aboard our plane taxiing on the runway back to the comforting routines of our life. There is comfort in the ordinary, in expanding beyond packed bags to the untidy clutter of everyday living. Periodically over the past few weeks my phone would flash reminders of yoga classes, reminding me of that life that felt so distant, soon to be embraced once again.

We have been traveling the past several weeks in Israel with a chaser of Paris. Our travels to Israel with the Jewish Artists' Lab afforded us the opportunity to meet a number of Israeli artists and to travel with fellow artists and arts aficionados. I am normally a bit leery of traveling in packs. I like to be in control of my time so usually shoulder the planning and lugging of bags in exchange for that control. This time I let go of control, trusting that the Israel portion of the trip would offer experiences beyond my capabilities to create. I was not disappointed. It had the added benefit of an extremely compatible group of fellow travelers, really good companions. Our travels were booked before the spate of terrorist attacks in Paris and Israel and we noticed tightened security along the way, soldiers with guns, screening equipment at every museum. Still everyone continues with their life. It is hard to be too much on guard and live normally.

Now at home I sift through our experiences putting them in some sort of order. I had let them wash over me so am left with fleeting images and impressions. When we concluded our trip in Israel we were asked about our experience. Then it was too soon for my response to take shape. I need to let things simmer, then go to my mental mountain top and get a bird's eye view, finding the common themes that echo and weave throughout.

Some impressions...Israel was filled with Purim revelers. For the week before Purim we passed groups of young people, faces painted, cat whiskers and superheroes, a young man with angel wings and a halo in the market. We went to a service on Purim. The rabbi stood at the pulpit with a large sombrero on his head as a family of ladybugs sat nearby. We too came in costume. My husband improvised with mask and shower cap creating a superhero vibe while I went feathered mask and jewelry bedecked.

And cats everywhere, real cats, not revelers in dress. Tel Aviv once had a rat infestation so in the 1930s the Brits brought in cats. Cats soon proliferated. Residents put cat food on the streets and clusters of cats dumpster dive. We look for ones like our ginger cat who craves attention as much as food, not the temperament for a wild cat. He would certainly never survive to his 20s on the street.

Tel Aviv is also known for its over 4000 buildings built in the Bauhaus style or the International style. We explored a segment of these buildings on a walking tour of Tel Aviv. Ironically this defining architecture migrated to Israel along with the Jewish architects fleeing the Nazis, the spread of ideas on the wings of persecution.

We felt as if there were many Tel Avivs as we experienced three different areas of the city. Our favorite was by the port the night before we departed. We strolled Dizengoff Street where store windows could easily pass as galleries, filled with sculpture and sculptural clothing. A charming restaurant at which we ate could easily have been in our next destination, Paris.

Another stay in Rehovet, just outside Tel Aviv, allowed us an opportunity to visit the Weizmann Institute of Science, an unexpected treasure. With clever use of interactive technology they allowed the nonscientist to appreciate often unexpected interconnections. I thought about our Artists' Lab theme of wisdom and the way in which one discipline often informs another, how wisdom of necessity must embrace interconnectedness. I was also struck with the familiarity of video statements from scientists about what drew them to their profession, how it satisfied their appetite for discovery. It was so similar to what an artist might say, a curiosity and exploratory nature is common to both.

We had many artist visits, Lisa Gross' whimsical work created out of found objects, Sabena Saad, who integrates the papers in which oranges are wrapped into her artwork. For both everything was grist for the mill, a repurposing from one source to another. A theme begins to emerge not too unlike what we observed at the Weitzmann. We are surrounded by creative sparks if we learn to view them as such. It is in how we view our surroundings, how we see the world around us. Those found objects are all around us waiting to be discovered and connected in different ways.

We had an opportunity to discover some found objects of our own as we participated in the Temple Mount sifting project, a project that allows visitors to sift through dirt removed from the Temple Mount. Pottery shards and even an ancient coin were among our discoveries. We were even allowed to take some of the rejected discoveries which were to reappear later in our trip.

In the course of our visit we went to Zippori, a Jewish city that did not revolt against the Romans, but rather incorporated elements of its art and culture into their own. There we observed mosaic floors that incorporated mythic elements. Even the synagogue floor included birds, animals, people and the zodiac.   Jewish culture has often incorporated elements of other cultures. Even Yiddish borrows from many languages. Similarly the art.

When we visited the extensive Judaica collection of Bill and Lisa Gross, Bill had pointed out the Hanukkah lamp from Vienna in the shape of a Biedermeier sofa. A Dutch lamp echoed the Dutch buildings. Another lamp was made from a Hessian Grenadiers hat, a found object repurposed.

At the studio of David Moss and Matt Berkowitz we learned to create a symbolic language to tell a story, borrowing Moss' approach to his retelling the Binding of Isaac.

And so we borrow, incorporate ideas from others and integrate disparate concepts finding the synergies and points of connect.  We find objects and ideas wherever we go and draw on them for inspiration, repurposing them to find new meaning.  And we carry ideas into new realms like those Bauhaus architects. 

At the conclusion of our trip we had the opportunity to create mosaics, often from the very found objects we had gathered along the way. Pottery shards from the Temple Mount were integrated into our mosaic of our experience in Israel, a fitting metaphor for our travels into a world of interconnection, exploration and discovery.

Museum Meanders 2

After several large museums we needed a palate cleanser. We headed out to a small museum called the Museo Cerralbo. This museum used to be the home of the Marquise de Cerralbo (1845-1922) who was an inveterate collector of many objects including a wide range of paintings. While the collection included an El Greco, Tintoretto and Zubaran, the salon style did not lend itself to easy viewing of art. It was more interesting as a perspective on how the wealthy of that period lived as the home still reflects the way in which they lived in it. Periodically I would glance out the window at the busy street and feel wrested from a turn of the century world.

An hour later we were on the street by the Parque del Oeste, near the Royal Palace of Madrid. Within the park is the Temple de Debod, an Egyptian temple from 2BC which was a gift from Egypt to Spain. The temple is open and free to visitors and is an unexpected surprise in a Madrid park.

We walked to the end of the park, down steep steps, along a road that bordered the railroad tracks and across a railroad bridge filled with striking graffiti to arrive at the Pantheon de Goya. The chapel of San Antonio de la Florida contains Goya's tomb as well as his artwork. His frescos decorate the cupola and ceiling. Mirrors assist you in viewing the frescos on the ceiling. An identical chapel was built next door to allow this building to be devoted to a Goya Museum.

After leaving the chapel we discovered the Cafe Mingo, the oldest cider house in Madrid.  Since 1888 it has been serving roasted chicken and homemade cider. We were charmed and a bit intimidated, faced with finding vegetarian items for my husband. I was delighted when the "chicken man" consented to my request for a photo.

A short walk took us to the Palace Real and its park and gardens which presented beautiful vistas while a peacock strutted over his domain.

The next day we were ready once again for a foray to a big museum, the Prado.  We had been to the Prado twice before and I don't think we've ever "finished" it, though not for lack of trying.  We did a focused visit with an emphasis on the Spanish artists that one often does not see elsewhere -Velasquez, Goya, Ribera, El Greco and Zuberan with additional visits to Bosch and Rembrandt.  Seven hours later we limped out of the museum.  Bested once again.  Unfortunately they don't allow photos so it is all a pleasant mush in my head.


The following day we decided to go to Toledo. We had been there once before, but many things had been closed. This year is the four hundred year anniversary of El Greco's death and they are showcasing his many works in Toledo where he lived for much of his life.  Toledo is also the home to two of the three remaining synagogues in Spain. We took a train from the nearby Atocha station and then caught a bus up the steep hill to Toledo.  When we exited the bus we were faced with a warren of narrow streets leading downhill.  Street names change frequently so it took some time to get oriented.  Banners announced El Greco sites, many of which are church altarpieces that he painted. We found our way to the El Greco museum which houses his paintings of the apostles and is recreated in the style of his time.

It is located in the former Jewish district so almost next door was the synagogue I was seeking. The Synagogue of El Transito felt mosque-like in its design, ornate and intricate, but there embedded in carvings was Hebrew text, 522 years after the Jews were expelled from Spain.  It was built with the support of the King and his treasurer Samuel Levi.  It later became a church when the Jews were expelled.

Madre by Sorolla

Today was our last day in Madrid and a very satisfying one.  We had two small museums on our list, the Sorolla Museum and the Lazaro Galdiano.  The Sorolla Museum is the former home of Joaquin Sorolla who painted around the turn of the century.  He was quite successful in his own time and is known for his striking use of light.  His home was beautiful and we got a flavor for how he lived as well as enjoying his artwork. I especially loved a painting he did upon the birth of his third child.

San Diego de Alcala by Zubaran

Nearby was the Lazaro Galdiano museum, the former home of Galdiano.  Galdiano was a wealthy publisher and had an amazing art collection that holds extensive Goyas, several paintings by Bosch and my favorite Zubaran.

And on our way to the metro stop, one last museum, an outdoor one of sculpture, the Museo de Escultura al Aire Libre de la Castellana.

So concludes our travels in Portugal and Spain. And that art museum list we keep of those we've visited; we're up to 145.

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Museum Meanders 1

Much of our time in Madrid has been devoted to museums. The weather is a big determinant of our activities. Rain is a real threat at this time of year so plans remain flexible. We check the forecast regularly assessing the feasibility of day trips.

In my earlier travels I used to spend time seeking that unique item that would remind me of our travels. My best discovery was a hand carved chess set in Granada with beautiful Spanish faces adorning each piece. On our last trip to Paris we came home with a sculpture of a horse that still gives me great pleasure, but such discoveries are unexpected. Madrid is filled with souvenir shops that are unlikely to divulge such treasures so instead we admire the treasures of its museums.

One thing to be aware of is when museums are free, especially the larger museums that are more costly. Not all of them share this information on their site. We set out Monday morning for the Thyssen-Bornemisza which is free from noon til four on Mondays. As most museums are closed on this day, it is a good use of one's time.

We had been to the Thyssen twice before and it is hands down my favorite museum in Madrid. We arrived shortly before noon and joined a long line that ran out the courtyard and around the block. We were inside the museum within ten minutes and began our visit at the top with the Italian primitives. The collection spans Italian, German, Dutch, Flemish and Spanish work through the 18th century. It includes Renaissance and Baroque art, Impressionism, post-Impressionism and German Expressionism. It also explores European and American artists up through the 20th century from Cubism to European post-war figurative art. It is an amazing art history course spanning seven centuries and has high quality pieces representing each artist.

When we go to museums I take photos of favorite paintings. I have electronic folders of images and labels from many museums. I find that the act of photographing fixes a painting in my memory. Sometimes I focus on a theme such as portraits. I am especially interested in how artists achieved certain effects, particularly ones that I might want to attempt. I am also intrigued by unexpected paintings from artists with which I am familiar. For example I associate Raoul Dufy with brightly colored, sketchy paintings of the French Riviera so was intrigued by a realistic painting titled The Fish Market which dates to 1904/5 right before he became familiar with Matisse and shifted to Fauvism.
On the way to the Thyssen we were intrigued by the building of the CaixaForum Cultural Center with its stunning vertical garden. It exhibits retrospectives of artists from earlier time periods. We discovered that they too were free on Mondays and stopped there later for an exhibition that explored the beginning of Western civilization through objects representing mythology and philosophy. It is well worth a visit for the building alone and the excellent exhibition felt like a bonus.

Every large city seems to have a Bella Arte museum. In Madrid it is known as the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. The museum is associated with the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of which Goya was once a member. The museum is free on Wednesdays. The highlights of this museum are a number of Goya's including two self portraits. There are also five Zubaran monk paintings, always favorites of mine. One floor is devoted to a contemporary exhibition of members of the Academy which we thought was quite exceptional.

The Reine Sophia is close to our hotel so we decided to go over Sunday when they are free 1:30-7:00 PM. They have had an expansion since our last visit with a distinctive red facade and roof. We were disappointed to learn that it was only free for selected exhibitions so returned later in the week for the permanent collection. On past visits I had enjoyed this museum with excellent text in English and a clear flow through periods of contemporary art. That seemed to have disintegrated and we found the flow confusing. As expected Guernica attracted a considerable crowd. There are many artists who are represented who may be well-known in Spain, but with whom I was not familiar. When I searched for one that I admired, I learned that he had little presence outside of Spain. It is interesting to be reminded that our knowledge of art history, especially contemporary history, may vary geographically.

Coming soon...Museum Meanders 2

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Fresh Eyes

Our trip is composed of both the new and the familiar. We've been to Madrid on several occasions, but never Portugal. Thus I have the opportunity to view Portugal through fresh eyes, a heightened awareness of the things that fall outside of my daily experience.

Déjà vu

While Portugal is new to me, it still has the echo of similar places. When one has traveled a lot there is often a sense of déjà vu even if one has never been in the specific place before. Our first evening here we walked up a main street lined with restaurants. Tables filled the center of the wide avenue as people thronged about. It had an eerie familiarity that I struggled to place, finally remembering a similar street in Jerusalem, almost picturing the Jerusalem shops layered over this Portuguese street.

Lisbon is a very hilly city, built on seven hills. I did not expect it to conjure up San Francisco, but the downhill vistas with vintage cable cars chugging uphill certainly did exactly that. San Francisco is also built on seven hills. There is even an orange suspension bridge in Lisbon that looks uncannily like the Golden Gate. I was to learn that it was designed by the same architect.

Portuguese Pavement

When we first arrived in Lisbon and exited our metro, I was struck by one of the unique features of Portugal, the mosaic sidewalks in black basalt and white limestone. Each street seems to have a unique pattern and they are truly works of art. In the evening light they glow. Patterns suggest sailing ships, mermaids or simply elegant abstract designs. It is often referred to as Portuguese pavement and was initially installed in the mid 1800s. Squares and plazas are often the location of the more involved patterns. I already find it useful in identifying different locations and spend a lot of time looking down.

Hills, Tiles and Clotheslines

On our first morning in Lisbon we ventured out on our own walking tour. As we walked up several sets of steps and then continued uphill, it dawned on me exactly how hilly Lisbon is. I needed to feel it in my muscles and breathing to fully appreciate it. Our hotel is close to the water where the ground is level, but as we ventured forth it was all uphill. We gradually climbed higher until we finally began to move downhill through neighborhoods of narrow streets. Clothes hung from windows fluttering picturesquely in the wind. We conjectured Monday must be Portuguese laundry day. Many of the buildings had tile facades in a variety of unusual designs, another detail uniquely Portuguese. Artful graffiti covered many buildings, certainly not unique to Lisbon, but notably good graffiti.

 

Enticing Food

 

We descended down to the water where the trains, buses and cable cars ran alongside the port. Huge cruise ships anchored not far from graceful sailboats while cranes moved boxes overhead. It is hard to get lost in Lisbon. You need only aim downhill and follow the coastline.

In route we passed the market and were puzzled by the Time Out neon sign. It looked like the magazine logo. We soon learned that this is Time Out's first foodie venture and just opened in May. They have installed 35 food kiosks representing a wide variety of food. Five top chefs have restaurants there. They will be adding exhibition space as they continue to execute their concept. Next to this extensive food court is the fish and produce market.

Today we went to Belem, an area on the outskirts of Lisbon which is known for custard pastries called Pastels de Belem. We brought a few back to our room to enjoy, quite a decadent feast. Aside from that we've been eating a lot of fish, especially cod which is prepared many different ways. My husband, who eats vegetarian plus fish, has not had trouble finding interesting foods from which to choose.

A Travel Oasis

We've been adding new art museums to our museum list. Nothing that has overwhelmed me yet, but some striking pieces scattered about. A room of Zubaran saints and a Hieronymus Bosch in the Museu Antiga, a Rembrandt in the Gulbenkian, a good scan of contemporary art since 1900 at the Berardo. Museums are often the destination around which we plan our day, an oasis when you travel offering clean restrooms, good cafés, wifi and art.

We have one more day left in Portugal and plan to go to Cascais, a small fishing village nearby. The draw for us is a museum of work by Paula Rego, an artist I've become familiar with on-line. Then on to Madrid.

 

 

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Happy Birthday in Portuguese

This blog started as a bit of a travel journal when I was traveling to Lithuania five years ago. Every so often it returns to its roots when I write of my travels...

I always forget the parts of travel that I don't like. Until that is, when I remember them as they occur once again. I had booked a trip to Lisbon and Madrid for my birthday, an effort to begin my year with an activity that I love. The night before we had gone to my stepdaughter's to drop off our cat, originally her cat on permanent loan, thus a lifetime of free cat sitting. It was Halloween, a date we usually share with them, avoiding buying too much candy for the few trick or treaters that arrive at our home and instead enjoying the costumes of our grandchildren.

It was also the last day to prepare for our trip when the fundamental difference between my husband and I arises and with it the stress level. He first begins to think about what he might bring. Meanwhile I have listed and packed and re-packed, eliminating one thing and adding another many times over as I try to figure out what will fit into a carry-on. Now this was difficult to do because in our household my husband does the laundry. Yes, I know that's a good thing and most of the time he has my deep appreciation. When he saw my rather imperfect folds early in our relationship he quietly took over that duty. It made perfect sense to me. When I was growing up I would take any package that needed to be wrapped to my dad who with engineer precision would fold the paper precisely into a sharply wrapped package. In my world guys know how to fold. Now however, I awaited half of my clothes because my husband wanted them done at the last minute for maximum cleanliness. I tell you this to let you know that our different personalities were already tripping over each other.

We sped to his daughter's with me driving, finishing up a conference call on bluetooth while he held our meowing cat on his lap. Now in our hurry to get out the door while thinking of my travel list, I forgot that I never drive with him in the passenger's seat. There is a reason for this. He is not a good passenger. "What are you doing?" he yelled at one point. I glared at him as his voice transmitted on my call along with the meows of our cat. Later he advised me I should be thinking about getting over to the right lane. I quickly moved over. "Why did you do that?" he asked. "You told me to," I replied. He informed me he just wanted me to think about it so I could shift at the opportune time. I don't work that way. Tell me you need something eventually, I pick it up immediately. Got to cross it off my mental list. It burdens me until I do. Apparently I am a precrastinator according to a recent NYT article. My husband has a reserve list of to dos unaccompanied by a sense of burden. He doesn't understand this trait in me nor do I understand his lack of it.

The next evening we entered the plane with seats in two separate rows. When I booked the flight Delta's system was not working properly so they booked me on Air France, a shared flight, rather than directly on Delta. As I recall I called Air France to book our seats on their leg. The day before our flight I logged into Delta and was aghast when it advised me we had no seats on that flight. A few middle seats remained. I quickly grabbed the last of a bad deal, only then realizing that they probably weren't reflecting what Air France had booked for the flight and no doubt had just overridden them. A panicked phone call later and a lot of begging had landed me two seats, an aisle and a window in different rows. A kind man next to me was now willing to trade his seat. That negotiation completed my husband and I now sat side by side.

When I fly overseas I am always torn between so many activities that seem to counter sleep. In that narrow window between meals, do I want to watch Boyhood, finish reading Gone Girl, or sleep, sleep in an uncomfortably tight space with limbs compacted and the distraction of many glowing screens around me? So I watched Boyhood and finished Gone Girl, arriving in Paris with eyelids drooping from lack of sleep. Somewhere along the flight my husband wished me a happy birthday, but I'm not sure in which time zone or country it had occurred. I was still in that unmoored state where I was zooming through time zones with no allegiance to one.

A four hour wait in Paris, eyes bleary, and we boarded a plane to Lisbon. I noticed one flight attendant testing the size of bags in one row and quietly slid into the other row, my body hiding my slightly larger carry-on. We were determined to do this trip on two carry-ons. I successfully got my bag on and stowed, when I realized this was an old plane. Ashtrays were still embedded in the arms. The seats were the tightest I've ever experienced, as if they had added rows to maximize capacity, far in excess of the limits of the human body. If it was tight for my frame, I couldn't imagine how my husband was faring. I glanced over, his legs were splayed, one knee in each direction.

Finally we touched down and happily, albeit a bit groggily, rolled our two carry-ons from the plane. I hate packing to travel light, but I love the simplicity of the arrival. We got our Euros from the cash machine, found the metro at the airport and loaded up two metro cards. One transfer delivered us up the street from our hotel. I love to find interesting hotels on Trip Advisor and was pleased with my discovery of My Story Hotel. I was even more pleased when we got a call asking if they could check something in the room and they arrived with two slices of a flourless chocolate torte and fruit. The hotel clerk even did a fine rendition of Happy Birthday in Portuguese. Ahh, the night was improving. Now this is where I should be posting a picture of this wonderful dessert, but we devoured it before that thought occurred to us.

We wandered around the surrounding area and walked down to the water, a few blocks from our hotel. The plazas and street were alive with people milling about and the sounds of street musicians. We ate a late dinner and returned to our hotel to catch up on our many hours of lost sleep. I am usually a glass half full person, but even I must confess that there was very little pleasure in the preparation and flying part of our trip. I'm glad to finally get to the fun part. More to come...

 

 

 

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Stories, Observations and a Few Odd Facts

As you may know, I am especially fond of story. Nomi, our guide in Israel, was an excellent storyteller and in the course of our trip, I've filed away many interesting stories, observations and a few odd facts. And of course good stories are meant to be shared.

The Haredim
On the flight to Israel, there were many Haredim, the extremely religious Orthodox Jews easily identifiable by their attire. The word Haredi actually means one who "trembles at my word". In Israel we saw many bearded men wearing large black broad brimmed hats and on the Sabbath we spotted one with a "streimel", a large traditional fur hat. The married women dress in black and white and wear a head covering or a wig. Usually they have several young children in tow. I watched them with some curiosity, wondering how they saw the world. Often in arranged marriages, they know no other world than the closed society in which they were raised. On the flight to Israel I awoke to men standing in the aisles in morning prayer, prayer shawls held aloft, then drifting down round their heads, they could as easily been at the Wailing Wall. Within the prayer shawl they created their own private world of prayer as the breakfast carts maneuvered around them.

Nigerian Pilgrims
Along the way we observed large groups of Africans all dressed in matching brightly colored garb. Nomi advised us that these were Nigerians and their government began to pay for Muslims to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The Christian Nigerians said, "What about us?" and the government began to pay for them too to go to the Holy Land. They only receive $1000 which is a fraction of the cost of
travel. Thus they economize wherever possible, buying one bolt of material and each sewing their clothing from it. As she told us this story we drove by the place where the Jordan River flows into the sea of Galilee and there the pilgrims stood in the river awaiting baptism.

The Druze
Another interesting ethnic and religious group that we observed were the Druze. The Druze are loyal to the country they live in and as a result often end up on opposite sides of conflicts. Many are in the Israeli army. They are found in Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. You cannot join the Druze religion because they believe in reincarnation so you must be born a Druze to be one. They are identifiable by the white head covering and black loose pants that they wear. Many of them live in the Golan Heights and speak fluent Hebrew.

More Than Food
I loved the Israeli food and I don't think I had a bad meal in the course of the trip, but meals often proved to be about far more than food.

One day we stopped for lunch at a goat farm and our guide struck up a conversation with a gentleman who had come there for lunch. Upon learning that she was a guide he asked where the group was from. To his amazement it was the very organization where his child had spent a year working with the local community in Illinois, in fact many of the people around that table. Now what are the odds?

At another lunch stop at an olive farm we heard the story of the late Ehud Yonay as told by his wife. His family had settled in that community in the 1920s. The community was originally created by Hasidic Jews from Poland who gave up waiting for the Messiah and came to Palestine to farm the land. Ehud went to California where he wrote the original article that led to the Top Gun film. He was also the author of No Margin for Error, the story of the creation of the Israeli Air Force. He later returned to run the family olive farm where we had stopped for lunch.

Tel Aviv Cats or Be Careful What You Wish For
In Tel Aviv you will see many feral cats on the streets. In fact there are 39,000 of them, one for every ten residents. Why so many? Apparently in the 1930s cats were brought from England to deal with a rat problem. They quickly multiplied and now if you see a cat with a striped tail it likely has British ancestors.

Bauhaus Architecture
Tel Aviv has the distinction of having the largest concentration of Bauhaus buildings with 4000 buildings in this style. In the 1930s German-Jewish residents fled Germany and accounted for this building boom. So we have architecture driven by anti-Semitism.

The Second Temple Menorah
When the second temple was destroyed, the Romans had a quandary. Their practice was to take the representations of the gods of the people they conquered and treat them in a humiliating manner. What to do with a people who believe in one God and do not make idols? Instead they took the grand menorah from the temple and took it back to Rome in a triumphal procession where it is depicted on the Arch of Titus. So where is the menorah today? Rumor is that it resides in the Vatican.

The Calendar
Has it ever occurred to you to wonder why September begins with the root word for seven, October-eight, November-nine and December-ten? But wait a minute, they are actually the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th months. The Roman calendar began with March so this numbering was once accurate. The Julian calendar established by Julius Caesar added two additional months, January and February. The Roman Senate named the month of July in Julius Caesar's honor for reforming the calendar. It replaced Quintilus, then the 5th month. When Augustus came to power they renamed the month Sextilus as August in his honor. Not wanting to slight either Julius Caesar or Augustus they made both months 31 days in length.

And a few interesting facts....

The Dead Sea has nothing living in it. I suppose the name is a give-away, but it never dawned on me that it has no fish. The sea is 33% salt versus the ocean which is only 3%. In Hebrew it is called the Salty Sea.

A home is only taxed when it has windows so you will see many Arab homes without them. I recall a similar system in Mexico involving not finishing the top floor.

As we passed City Hall in Jerusalem, our guide pointed out the bullet holes in the building. She related a story of the mayor's secretary exclaiming "They are shooting at us!" to which the mayor replied, "Duck, madela, duck". (madela means young woman in Yiddish)

And a few food facts...

Bananas are often seen with a blue bag over them so they ripen at the same rate.

After 15 years they cut down palms and replant them as it is too hard to harvest them when they are too tall. Well that makes sense, doesn't it?

Supposedly there are 613 seeds in a pomegranate which represents the 613 commandments that Jews are to fulfill. This is the reason the fruit is often a symbol for Jewish organizations.

A Bit of Magical Thinking

It has been both a challenging and interesting time in Israel this past week. I am traveling here with my 86 year old mother, fulfilling a lifelong dream of hers. As most dreams go it had a bit of magical thinking involved. I think she was imagining a "beam me up Scottie" experience with effortless travel spiriting her away to Israel in the body which supported her travels twenty years ago. Reality bites. There have been many moments when she longed to click her heels together and arrive back at her home instantaneously.

We began our trip with a battle over using a wheelchair, probably not uncommon with elders who are not ready to acknowledge their limitations. Suddenly what I knew would be a challenging trip became quite overwhelming as I contemplated moving her safely and quickly through O'Hare on her own steam. My sister gave me the advice to go with the flow. She lives closer by and sees my mom weekly so has had more practice dealing with such moments. So I let her do her thing. Dragging her small carry-on behind her as I managed the larger bags, she'd walk for a bit, then pause to catch her breath while looking to me woefully, managing to project both exhaustion and defiance. When I found a cart to load the bags on, I had her help push. I know she is particularly fond of shopping carts that she can grasp for balance, a walker by a less threatening name. By the end of that stretch she agreed that the airport was much bigger than she imagined and perhaps a wheelchair might be helpful.

I have been greatly impressed with the ease with which airlines initiate the wheelchair conversation. They seem to have a practiced eye for identifying who needs assistance. After that first day my mom began to welcome their offers of help.

As I expected, getting my mom out of her familiar setting was a bit confusing for her although that seems to have stabilized now that we are no longer changing hotels. I am doing my best to be her source of familiarity and to quell that first impatient impulse. Life is so much more difficult for her than it used to be and by and large she proceeds with good humor.

I realize that I've had the luxury of focus for much of my life. The ability to focus comes with quiet and the lack of distractions. I had not fully anticipated the fatigue that accompanies attending to someone else's needs and repeated questions while keeping them on schedule. My fellow travelers have been very kind to my mom and I appreciate that they reach out and literally lend a helping hand.

I end most evening too tired to write despite the fact that we have an excellent guide who tells us many interesting stories. But a few stories stay with me which I will share in these pages in abbreviated form.

For now a few general impressions... I have been struck with the closeness of borders. Now I know Israel is a small country surrounded by a number of unfriendly countries. It is one thing to know that, yet another to realize viscerally exactly how close those countries are and with that, the threat that always exists in the lives of Israelis. One day we drove ATVs along a barbed wire fence festooned with signs that indicated, Danger-Mines. I take my mom to some interesting places! On the other side of the minefield was Syria.Every decision Israel makes has security consequences, a fact that countries with physical security often fail to appreciate. One does not return territory without assessing the potential range of shelling. The return of Gaza has reinforced that awareness.

When we first entered Jerusalem we went to the Hebrew University at Mt Scopus for a Shehecheyanu blessing. There we learned that this world renowned university that began in 1925 with such luminaries as Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud and Martin Buber on its board (I am sure there is the potential for a great improv skit on their board meetings), had to close the Mt Scopus campus from 1948 until the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967. The Hadassah Hospital at Mt Scopus was also closed during that time as Jordan forbid access. Ironically Haddassah Hospital serves all populations in Israel and Arabs make up 30% of its population. Now imagine a US university or hospital faced with such a circumstance.

One more story on a somewhat related theme. Our guide told us a personal story from during the 1967 war when she was a high school student. She and fellow students were required to dig temporary graves in Tel Aviv as they expected 20,000 deaths. Juxtapose that thought with the fact that her father was in the army and they hadn't seen him for a month. She and her mother made sandwiches for soldiers when the Army was having difficulty feeding the soldiers. For every sandwich they handed out they got a note in return saying "please call my wife, my mother, my family and tell them I'm all right". I think about how such experiences color one's perspective, what it must be like to live daily with an awareness of threat. And  perhaps those of us who judge from the comfort of our well-protected nation are also prone to magical thinking, skipping over unpleasant facts and realities that conflict with our tidy solutions.

Unexpected Finds

At a recent session of our arts book club, my husband and I were reminiscing about some museum shows we had attended. A person in the group remarked that we must go to a lot of museums. In truth we do. The first thing we look up in any new city is what art museums there are to visit. We are always in search of those we've not yet discovered and often find them in unexpected places.

But now I was curious. How many had we actually visited? With my usual dedication to number counting I began to build a list slightly over 130 with almost 60% of them overseas. Not surprisingly France accounted for 25% of the list. Almost half of our total received repeated visits.

Fortunately for me, my husband shares my passion for viewing art as well as the endurance to spend whole days immersed in that activity. I recall a seven hour visit we had at the Prado in Madrid. Exhausted in both mind and body we were trudging back to our hotel, contemplating a Spanish siesta, when we stumbled over a lovely gem of a museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza. It closed in two hours. A sidelong glance at my husband confirmed he could muster the energy for another two hours and off we went.

When I was recently in Boston for the International Jewish Genealogy Conference, we spent two afternoons at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts as well as a visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The MFA is a stellar museum that I had never been to so it was a rare treat. John Singer Sargent was a citizen of the world who called many cities home, but did some significant work in Boston. Upon entering we discovered the ceiling murals commissioned from Sargent in 1916 for what was then a new museum building. In addition to a large collection of Sargent paintings, drawings and murals, the museum also has an exceptional contemporary exhibit which reflected thought and artistry, something we do not always find in contemporary exhibitions. We were particularly drawn to a work hanging overhead by Tara Donovan created solely out of styrofoam cups. The form and material interacted with the light to create something much greater than one might imagine. Between Sargent and Donovan we spent a lot of time looking up.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner is a very eclectic museum which has a Sargent painting of its founder that I had only seen in books. Her husband so disliked it that it was not shown until after his death. There is something rather special about standing in front of the original. In addition to these wonderful offerings, we took particular pleasure in the unexpected discoveries at the Pucker Gallery and the Boston Public Library.

The conference had the forethought to arrange a visit to the Pucker Gallery following a film on Samuel Bak. The gallery represents Bak who now lives in the area. Bak came from Vilna, now Vilnius, Lithuania where he and his mother were among the 200 survivors of a city of 70-80,000 Jews. Nuns hid them during the war. His father was murdered shortly before the end of the war. Bak's talent was recognized at an early age and he was invited by the poet Abraham Sutzkever to exhibit his artwork in the ghetto at the age of nine. Although he wasn't in a camp, he heard the stories of others in the DP camps and that influenced his work. After the war he studied art in Poland, Germany and Israel. His work has a number of themes; pears, chess pieces and a childhood friend who died in the Holocaust reappear frequently. Pears were common in Vilna and his stepfather used to play chess with him.

At the gallery there were many pieces on display and accessible on panels that could be pulled out. Upstairs a display of his work filled the walls. Pucker shared stories about Bak's history and the meaning of symbols that reappear. It was a rich immersion into the work of an amazing artist.

As we wandered around Boston we came to the public library. We entered the new portion which while certainly functional lacked the magic of the original which we entered through a connecting courtyard which felt like the many cloisters we had visited in Europe. Around the grand staircase we found murals by de Chavannes representing the muses of Greek mythology. In the Sargent Gallery we found an impressive series of murals titled the Triumph of Religion. The theme was based on the idea of religious freedom and ran into a bit of controversy that caused Sargent to abandon his last painting of The Sermon on the Mount. The paintings begin with the religions of “pagan gods” and then depict Judaism and Christianity. The focus is on the study of religions, not on religious worship, but the controversy arose when Sargent depicted Synagogue and Church. Synagogue was depicted as a blindfolded older woman while Church was depicted as a beautiful young woman. The Jewish community of Boston objected that his depiction demeaned Judaism. Sargent, puzzled by the controversy, was drawing on depictions in Christian art which typically show Synagoga as blindfolded and holding a broken lance, suggesting it was vanquished by Christianity. They represent the inherent bias of Christianity as they are depicted in a church narrative.

I found it interesting that the Jewish community of Boston was sufficiently established to object vocally, perhaps the best argument that some measure of religious freedom did in fact exist at that time. An interesting side note relates to another unexpected Sargent discovery of ours in the War Museum in London. There is a powerful painting called Gassed which depicts the blinded soldiers during the war. Done at the same time, it is argued by Sally Promey in Painting Religion in Public: John Singer Sargent's "Triumph of Religion" at the Boston Public Library that its influence can be seen in this painting.

If you get to the library make sure to visit the Edwin Austin Abbey murals on the The Quest of the Holy Grail. The library offers tours of the artwork and architecture. And if you are interested in learning more about Sargent and his work, two books which offer excellent background are David McCullough's The Greater Journey and Deborah Davis's Strapless.

City Musings

The CAJM conference in NY was a great opportunity to explore the experiences of the city as well as its museums. It was appropriately named The City as Muse. While there, I had the opportunity to revisit the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. When I was last there I visited the residences within the building, located around the corner from where my father once lived as a boy. I recall how fascinated I was with how they reconstructed the stories of the residents who once lived there. This visit was somewhat different in that we visited the shops and bar that were once housed on the ground floor beneath the residences.

We entered what was once a German bar around 1870 when the area was largely German and traced the lives of its owners and the community that gathered there. Newspaper articles and documents aided in its reconstruction and painted a picture of the role it played within its surrounding community. Next door was another shop, actually a variety of shops over time from a kosher butcher to an auction house to an underwear discounter. The museum was faced with a choice, which store would they choose to represent? Their creative response was to represent all of them using technology that allows the viewer to place an object on a white board and pick up a phone which tells the story behind it. Documents appear on the board that expand on the story. This use of technology allows them build a story from an artifact, much in the way they reconstructed spaces themselves from documents and items found in the fireplace.

On another day we visited the Chelsea home of artist/architect Allan Wexler where he shared his work with us. Later he led us on a walk along the High Line, a former elevated railroad track that affords views of the city and soon will be the site of the new Whitney Museum expansion. Much like the Promenade Plantee in Paris, it is basically an elevated park and walkway. Public art can be found along the High Line and for the third time in my visit I saw the wonderful work of El Anatsui (Broken Bridge II Western wall between West 21st and West 22nd Streets on the High Line), a Ghanaian artist who makes use of aluminum, bottle caps and copper wire in his museum work and pressed tin and mirrors in the work along the High Line.


On the same visit I admired a beautiful piece of his at the Metropolitan Museum and many works which filled a huge area within the Brooklyn Museum.

I had the opportunity to visit the Brooklyn Museum with CAJM during the museum's Saturday event which is open for free to the public. The Brooklyn Museum has an eclectic collection and juxtaposes pieces that I would not always expect to be side by side. It was full of surprises and I suspect that helps to introduce people to the museum that might not normally seek it out. The Brooklyn Museum has been very successful in reaching out to the surrounding community and doing programming that invites them in.

On one floor they house the Judy Chicago dinner party, a triangular table with individually designed plates and tapestries that speak of the women that the creator imagined inviting to a dinner party, women who were pivotal in history and especially women's history, but frequently not adequately recognized. While I had heard of it for decades, this was my first opportunity to see it.

Earlier in the day I had been at the Metropolitan Museum where I observed films from the early 1900s. Similar films were at the Brooklyn Museum near the paintings from the same period. I was especially intrigued by these as I was reading the Inventor and the Tycoon, a book about Eadweard Muybridge and his creation of moving pictures. I could understand the delight and amazement of people as they watched images of their time as I felt a similar delight watching a windy day at the foot of the Flatiron building a century later where early NY residents grabbed their hats to save them from the wind. At the Brooklyn Museum I watched a 1901 film by Thomas Edison, who elbowed out Muybridge in the moving picture game, capture a Marilyn Monroe moment when a woman of the times walked over a grate with a gust of wind as she held down her skirt, then burst into laughter in her turn of the century garb.

On the last day of my visit we walked over to the 9/11 memorial. The design of it is both beautiful and moving. Each tower has a pool of water that echoes its footprint. Around it are the names of those who perished in its collapse. The names are grouped by logical groupings, firemen together as well as specific businesses. They are cut out of the metal so at night a light underneath illuminates them. A waterfall descends from all four sides forming rainbows. Ultimately it pours into a 20 foot square and disappears in much the same way that the towers did. The name of the memorial is Reflecting Absence.

Lessons from the Past

While in the Chicago area we decided to visit the Illinois Holocaust Museum.  The museum is located in Skokie, a community that was the focus of a neo-Nazi march in the late 1970s. At the time the population of Skokie was half Jewish and home to about 7000 survivors.  The march galvanized the community which organized a foundation to support Holocaust education, ultimately leading to the museum.

I have visited many Holocaust museums and exhibitions throughout the years and done much reading on the Holocaust.  Through the Jewish Identity and Legacy Project I have also done a number of interviews with survivors.  I came to this visit with a fair amount of knowledge so was curious if I would find anything new. My test of a good museum  is if I experience new information and insights that cause me to examine my knowledge from a different vantage point.  The Illinois Holocaust Museum passed that test with flying colors.

The entrance to the museum was past bushes with branches that were as gnarly as fingers.Spiky rocks set in the ground at various angles mirrored the larger field of boulders one finds at Treblinka, each representing a town, a lost Jewish community.  The architecture was clearly designed to mimic that of a prison, but also had a reflection room  designed to capture light, the antithesis of the dark prison-like structure.

The exhibition began with a view of those lost Jewish communities, preserved in memory and faded photos.  One cannot fully understand the impact of the  Holocaust without realizing that in addition to countless lives, a world was lost, whole communities erased.

We then moved into a historical view of Hitler's rise to power.  Unsuccessful in his first attempt at political power he decided to use the democratic process to in effect vote democracy down.  I found myself reflecting on the recent political environment in the US and the attempts to suppress access to voting.  As an American Jew I have never believed that any country is immune from the events of the Holocaust, even the United States.  I think that is a fundamental difference between me and my non-Jewish friends and it deeply informs my political views. I believe we must always be vigilant in protecting human rights as each incursion brings us closer to a precipice, a diminishment of our humanity that makes all sorts of evil possible.

As Hitler's power built, many Germans supported him on economic grounds even though they didn't share his anti-Semitic views.  They assumed that once in power he would be forced to moderate his views.  I have heard uncomfortable echoes of such beliefs in our recent political discourse, reminding me once again of the vulnerability of any country once it loses its mooring in fundamental human rights.  I am convinced that there are lessons to be learned in the study of this prewar time in German history.

The museum then began to move into the events which first affected German Jews. They looked at the Jews who escaped Germany before the war, 50% exited as they witnessed the looming dangers up close.    I had interviewed a woman whose parents were able to escape to Shanghai and a woman who was on the Kindertransport to London.  These two stories were echoed in the Shanghai and Kindertransport stories told at the museum. Until my interview with Trudy I had not realized that the early policies of the Nazis encouraged Jews to leave Germany. Trudy had told me that her father was released from a concentration camp on the condition that he leave the country.  He was required to report to the Gestapo each week on his plans.  Documents in the museum told precisely this story.  It was only with the conquering of additional countries with their significant Jewish populations coupled with the unwillingness of other countries to accept the Jews,that the Germans began to concoct the Final Solution to what they  referred to as the Jewish Problem.

The exhibition continues through the early measures against the Jews to gathering them in ghettos and ultimately their extermination in forests and camps.  The initial measures were gradually implemented with an awareness of the world response which in fact proved negligible.  Here again was another point where actions taken could have altered the flow of world events.  When word of the camps was sent through diplomatic channels, the State Department with its anti-Semitic bent suppressed the message.  How can one adequately address  the movement from  bigotry to murder when one is infested with the same bigotry?

Countries fell like dominoes to Hitler's advances.  A telling comment by one of the survivors in the museum video was that the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto succeeded in standing up to the Nazis for longer than any country that he invaded.  When I reflected on why that was possible I noted that the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto saw certain death ahead, they chose to fight to the end and die with dignity if necessary.  Countries did not hold that same perspective.

The other fact that the museum noted was that two wars were being fought, one for world domination and one against the Jews.  The US only participated in the first war.  I had not bisected the war into two wars, but that perspective clarifies the role of the US and its failure to respond to Jewish refugees and news of the camps until the end of the war when there was no room for denial.

The museum also goes a step beyond liberation to follow the lives of survivors from Displaced Persons (DP) camps on through immigration into their new lives and new families.  The museum does an impressive job of sharing the full breadth of the story and highlighting aspects that made me consider the gradual erosions in civilized society that can lead to unthinkable horrors.