Editor’s note: Due to the ongoing operation Roaring Lion, this week’s column will mostly offer highlights that can be enjoyed from the relative safety of the nearest bomb shelter. Follow the instructions of the home front command and stay safe.
FRIDAY, MARCH 13
Cook for the weekend ahead with a nod to the current moment by making Persian sholeh (mung beans) soup with Foodish, the culinary department of the Anu Museum in Tel Aviv.
Readers can follow the online recipe in English and watch a video of Israeli cookbook author and host on Israel’s Food Channel, Rotem Lieberson, making the soup in a Hebrew-language filmed event.
It is also possible to bake Magen David challah with Idan Chabasov, famous on social media as the “Challah Prince.” This artistic challah design was created for Operation Swords of Iron in 2021. Viewers can watch a Hebrew video to learn how to make this baked good.
Visit https://foodish.anumuseum.org.il//en/ for more. Free.
SATURDAY, MARCH 14
Video game creator Jordan Mechner, who made the iconic 1989 game Prince of Persia, is also an accomplished graphic novelist.
In his latest work, titled Replay, he explores four generations of one Jewish family, his own. The Mechner family escapes Nazi-annexed Austria to France, and from there to the US. Mechner had completed the circle and currently resides in France.
Replay: Memoir of an Uprooted Family, $15.99 via Kindle.
SUNDAY, MARCH 15
Watch the Hebrew-language musical Solika, winner of the 2017 Israeli Theater Award. The production is based on the life of Sol Hachuel from Tangier, Morocco, who was decapitated in Fez in 1834.
The reason for the public killing was this: Her neighbors claimed that she, a young Jewish girl, accepted the Muslim faith and then changed her mind.
While the legal reason for her execution is widely accepted as false, Hachuel is seen as a true martyr for the Jewish faith, and her final resting place is visited to this day by both Jews and Muslims, who admire her steadfastness.
The Beersheba Theater production is now available for free online viewing. As one user wrote in the comments: “Toda, this helps me take my mind off the news.”
Visit: https://shorturl.at/u7GK6 to watch. Hebrew only.
MONDAY, MARCH 16
Parents of young children might want to watch the fifth and latest season of Cramel, a Hebrew-language TV series for the young based on the books of Meira Barnea Goldberg.
While one would be foolish to argue with success, and with four million views, Cramel is surely that.
Uri Tuval, a father of a six-year-old girl, had this to say:
At the heart of this tale are three boys who lack for nothing due to the magic rings given to them by their uncle. As they are idle, all drama comes from outside, with three evil women who want to steal said rings.
Due to this logic, nothing actually happens in this series. Other than a hero with a thousand faces, the audience gets to watch one thousand episodes of the same plot line. A hero pushes back someone who wants to steal something.
He also wondered why there is no attempt to formalize the rules that govern the magical powers of Cramel, a talking cat also given to the boys by their uncle.
Tuval pointedly remarked that in the 1907 fantasy novel The Enchanted Castle by Edith Nesbit, not only was there a heroine alongside two boys, but the issue of girls getting an education alongside boys in the same school is touched upon.
Nesbit was a member of the Fabian Society.
To view, for free, visit https://www.kankids.org.il/. For an English audio book recording of The Enchanted Castle, visit https://short-url.org/1qx9e (Free).
TUESDAY, MARCH 17
Take some time to listen to the musical genius of Jewish-Iranian tar master Morteza Neydavoud. Born to a musical Jewish family, he learned at the feet of tar master Aqa Hossein-Qoli. A recording of him playing 297(!) traditional Persian radifs (radif, or “order,” is an important concept in the musical heritage of Iran) is kept at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The entire recording was aired weekly by Iran’s public radio in 1969 over the course of a year and a half.
Readers can sample this music with much less time by listening to A Century of Tar Music. Neydavoud is playing on track number eight; other masters are included (his teacher is featured on the second track).
To listen: open.spotify.com/album/0l8rsaoI5QLH4JDxJuxS2Z?si=s2J0Vn99TgmFxObw6zjO8g
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18
Tune in to an English-language lecture by Rabbi Dr. Joshua Berman, a professor of Bible studies at Bar-Ilan University, as part of the As Soon as the War Is Over exhibition at the Bible Lands Museum.
Berman’s Haggadah Echoes of Egypt takes a long look at ancient Egypt and suggests meeting points between the Hebrew telling and some of the grand ideals of the Nile civilization.
The lecture includes various Jewish understandings of what was the deeper meaning of being slaves in Egypt and what might be learned from the liberation from it.
7 p.m. Visit https://www.blmj.org/en/home-2/ for more.
THURSDAY, MARCH 19
Watch the 2024 comedy Bad Shabbos. Directed by Daniel Robbins and winner of the Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award, the movie stars Kyra Sedgwick, Method Man, and Jon Bass.
The plot combines the usual American story of Jewish attitudes toward romantic involvement with those outside the faith, and a murder.
Lev VOD service. The film is in English. NIS 19.90. Visit https://ticket.lev.co.il/ (Hebrew site) and see under New Films.
Throwing a special event? Opening an art exhibition or a new bar? Bringing in a guest speaker to introduce a fascinating topic? Email hagay_hacohen@yahoo.com and let In Jerusalem know about it. Write “Jerusalem Highlights” in the subject line. Although all information is welcome, we cannot guarantee it will be featured in the column.