The world in Jerusalem

The Hutzot Hayotzer festival: music, entertainment and cultural-political value too!

By BARRY DAVIS
Updated: JULY 30, 2015 15:03
Hutzot Hayotzer got its start in 1971 as a homey happening, in the passageway between the buildings of the area artist colony. (photo credit: DAVID HARRIS)
Hutzot Hayotzer got its start in 1971 as a homey happening, in the passageway between the buildings of the area artist colony.
(photo credit: DAVID HARRIS)
Once a year, Jerusalem takes on a truly cosmopolitan look with the International Arts and Crafts Fair Jerusalem – a.k.a. the Hutzot Hayotzer festival.
This year, the event kicks off August 3 at the Sultan’s Pool, and the array of arts and crafts that will be on offer at the pavilions and stalls is definitively global.
All told, over 70 artists will ship in from across the seas for the event. Fair patrons will be able to marvel at – and hopefully buy – exquisite embroidery from Uzbekistan, Uruguay, India, Macedonia, Mexico and Cameroon. There will also be deftly woven items from such far-flung places as Guatemala, Peru and Indonesia, and those with a penchant for wooden artifacts would do well to drop by the stalls of El Salvador, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Hungary and Kenya. Add to that embroidered ornaments and clothes from Romania, Ethiopia and fair debutante Ukraine; hats from Ecuador and Madagascar; and paintings from South Korea, Germany and China, and you have yourself a well-rounded arts and crafts festival by any standard.
The fair started life back in 1971, in far more modest circumstances, although it was no more than a stone’s throw away from its current berth.
“This project started out small and grew and grew,” says Sarah Malka, who has served as perennial artistic director since 1973.
Initially there were no plans to stretch the fair beyond the national borders.
“We had a regular group of artists who set up stalls and sold their work,” recalls Malka. “We wanted people to get to know Hutzot Hayotzer, and to get to know our artists. It was a sort of homey happening. It started out in the passageway between the buildings of [the] Hutzot Hayotzer [artist colony], and when I joined, we moved to the nearby lawn.”
For the first two years, the fair was a pretty parochial event. When Malka came on board, though, the project began looking to its neighbors.
“We started bringing in artists who lived in Yemin Moshe,” she explains. “At the time, [Jerusalem mayor] Teddy [Kollek] wanted to turn Yemin Moshe into an artist colony. They were the first [new] artists who took part in the fair – painters and sculptors – and we started bringing in guest artists.”
        Painting by Pepe Fainberg
The artistic spectrum continued to expand, and musical entertainment was gradually added to the lineup – not the megashows that the fair currently hosts, with commensurate staging and seating, but a program of more modest dimensions.
“We had classical music and jazz at the far end of the lawn,” says the artistic director. “We had wind instrument quartets with members of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and top-quality soloists.”
That’s a far cry from the musical lineup for this year’s fair. Singer Shlomi Shabat will open the show program, followed by some synergic concerts that will include veteran pop singer Gidi Gov hosting Yehudit Ravitz; long-running rock band Knessiat Hasechel, with equally seasoned diva Rita along for the ride; and singersongwriter Ivri Lider hosting stellar vocalist Ninet Tayeb.
Other big Hutzot Hayotzer draws will include Aviv Gefen, Mosh Ben-Ari and Sarit Hadad.
The project grew incrementally over the years, with the big leap taking place in 1992, when the fair moved down the road to the Sultan’s Pool.
“That’s when Hutzot Hayotzer became much bigger,” continues Malka. “We brought in artists from all over the world, and it slowly became a really international event.
We had three countries to begin with – America, Brazil and Russia – and the next year we had seven countries.”
The present-day fair visitor would probably struggle to envision such a compact affair.
“Today I tell people that they can come to Jerusalem and experience the world,” says the artistic director proudly. “I hear people talking to each other on cellphones, trying to meet up, and they’ll say things like, ‘I’m at Mexico,’ or, ‘I’m at Indonesia.’ You can really take a stroll around the big wide world.”
And there is some welcome cultural-political value, too.
“We have had artists from Indonesia at the fair for over 10 years, and we don’t even have diplomatic relations with Indonesia. That’s amazing,” she says. “We arrange visas and all the paperwork for them. Everything is above board. Through the arts, you can do all sorts of things that you can’t through politics. You can strike up personal relationships. I don’t believe there is anything you can’t do on a person-to-person basis. Art brings people together. As long as you’re not talking about countries, and the leaders of countries, everything is fine.”
She adds that the fair produces a beneficial ripple for all concerned: “Artists meet each other here, and they later invite each other to attend fairs and other events.
So you have Israeli artists going abroad, and they market Israel to the world. I think everyone wins out from that.”
LORNA SAKALOVSKY and her husband, Louis, made aliya from South Africa in the mid-1970s. They were delighted to grab the opportunity to set up a stall at some of the earlier editions of the fair.
“Louis and I came on aliya to teach pottery at Bezalel [Academy of Arts and Design],” she explains. “Hutzot Hayotzer was wonderful for us, because we could sell our stuff and make money. I think we participated from 1976 to 1979.”
Photo by Ronnie Ne'eman
It was around that time that the Sakalovskys met a friendly youngster who lived across the road.
“Nir lived with his parents across the road. He was about 16 at the time, and he adopted us,” recalls Lorna.
“He would come with my daughters to help us at the fair.”
The youth’s willingness to lend a hand would have an enduring effect: The Nir in question is now mayor of Jerusalem and is married to the Sakalovskys’ daughter Beverly, an artist in her own right.
Photo by Ronnie Ne'eman
The fair is, as noted, a much grander event than back when the Sakalovskys were selling their artistic wares there, and all the footwork the patrons put in as they wend their way around the site can burn a significant number of calories. To that end, sustenance requirements will be well tended to, with a wide range of edibles on hand – including a bona-fide beer garden for visitors who feel the need to quench their thirst.
There will also be plenty of kid-friendly activities and entertainment.
Tickets are reasonably priced at NIS 65 for adults and NIS 55 for students, soldiers and other discount-worthy individuals, while five-to-12-year-olds get in for NIS 35.
• For tickets and more information: (02) 623-7000, *6226226 or http://www.artfair.jerusalem.muni.il