The Old Sha’arei Tzedek

Opening Event

Address: Jaffa St 161

Sunday 17.03.2024 at 19:00

Closing Date: Tuesday 30.04.2024 (time will be announced)

A Very Narrow Bridge

Curator: Fiammetta Martegani

Artists: Anissa Ashkar, Michael Ben Abu, Amos Biderman, Raya Bruckenthal, Tsibi Geva, Leor Grady, Kazuo Ishi, Liron Lavi Turkeinch, Dede & Nitzan, Haim Maor, Lenore Misrachi Cohen, Karam Natour, Israel Rabinovich, Khader Oshah, Ruth Noam Segal

"The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the important thing is not to be afraid."

-Rabbi Nachman of Breslov

Each of the artists in this exhibition has faced significant challenges, often due to their origin. They are Jews and Muslims, men and women, gay and straight, religious and agnostic, and represent the multicultural faces of Israel today. 

In expressing their individual voices in their native languages, Arabic, Hebrew, and Yiddish, they explore how the diverse languages and identities of Israel can help mitigate fear, and create a bridge between cultures, religions, and identities.

Al'amthal

Curator: Fiammetta Martegani

Artist: Lenore Mizrachi-Cohen

Al’amthal are Judeo-Arabic proverbs used by Syrian Jews before their community’s uprooting in the last century. Discovered by the artist on her family bookshelf, Lenore Mizrachi-Cohen has revisited them throughout her career.

Here, she celebrates them in their purest form, with the discipline of Arabic calligraphy itself. There is a Mattal, or phrase, for every situation. Captivating for their timeless quality and enduring witticism, the works reconnect us to a magnificent heritage through both language and art. 

By recording these phrases in her own way, Lenore ensures that they are never forgotten.

Dignified Belongings

Curator: Dr. Orna Segal

Artists: Matti Fischer, Shaked Aviv, Avner Bar Chama, Orly Azran, Michael Kokolevich, Hila Karabelnikov Paz, Sigalit Frid, Orit Koren Aharony, Efrat Shani, Kollet Ziv

The Talpiot College artists' exhibition Dignified Belongings deals with abstract conceptual baggage such as dignity and private property. 

The Hebrew word 'כבודה' can be read as “belongings,” or “property,” meaning a load carried voluntarily or forcibly, corresponding to the properties of inalienable assets. 

It can also be read as, “her dignity,” which is considered a convention, its boundaries defined by society, or reformulated and reinforced by the woman herself. 

Dignity and property are both expressed in ideas and values that create balance and sharpen identity, yet sometimes they weigh heavily and constitute a burden. The artists examine these concepts in Jewish, artistic, cultural, and gender-oriented aspects.

Fallen Chandelier

Artist: Jane Labaton 

The huge Chandelier, in it’s fallen grace and hinting of past grandeur, symbolizes a collapsing and unstable world.

A light cut off from it’s source, a lack of order and balance; it unsettles the firm foundation of our reality. 

The work is composed of thousands and thousands of moths, some whole, others only partially formed; all creatures that have metamorphosed out of a secure and protective cocoon into a cruel and treacherous world.

Stretch Out the Earth

Curator: Sophie Berzon MacKie

Artist: Noga Greenberg

The exhibition is a new interpretation of a body of Noga Greenberg’s work that was shown at the Be’eri Gallery in November 2021. 

Consisting of images shot with a 35 mm film camera and 9*6 slides, it deals with interior scenes of home and motherhood; those points of contact between spiritual, emotional, and national spaces, and the processes that unfold therein. 

These are places yearning for something higher, reaching for the ever beyond, even as they allow for intimacy, itself mirroring an overflowing desire for infinity.

Images of beds and houses transformed into white clouds, bold stains of color created by destruction of the film, landscapes, real or imagined: all share the discernible presence of a horizon that separates the sacred and profane, a boundary between within and without.