Before there was a nation called Israel, there was Bezalel. The mythical sounding but real man was called by God to work as artist and craftsman in the original Tabernacle. He and his assistant Oholiab were the first Jewish artists.
Almost 4,500 years later Israel is now restored, but the name of the man Moses employed lives on.
Originally in the form of a crafts school, Bezalel returned to Israel in 1906 and is now the national art school. For the second time the work of “Bezalel” preceded the existence of the Jewish state – this time by only 42 years.
As God honored these artists, even calling them by name, so did the early Zionists. The Bezalel School was founded by Boris Schatz, who along with E.M. Lilien were the first openly Zionist artists, similar to artists working for patriotic reasons elsewhere. Shatz envisioned a new national style of art, blending traditional Jewish styles with European work. They hoped to foster visual expression of the “much yearned-for national and spiritual independence.”
Shatz, a Lithuanian sculptor and painter, was a visionary who communicated with other Zionists. Fabled founding father and linguist Eliezer Ben Yehuda taught art students Hebrew, so they and Jews worldwide would have a common tongue.
Bezalel’s motto was, “Art is the bud, craft is the fruit.”
Schatz’ mission was for a pragmatic arts-and-crafts school and workshop – no pampered, elitist artists there – and the ethic still lives. Students created jewelry, carpets, vases and plaques while receiving a classical art education. Bezalel’s style was highly influenced by Art Nouveau for decades as well as Persian and Syrian pattern.
Not religious himself, yet Shatz seemed to take these words from Exodus 31 to heart: “Then the LORD said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts – to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship.”
Shatz’ most renowned work was a sculpture of Mattathias, priest and Maccabee dynasty patriarch who stands railing against oppression, refusing to be a victim. Connection to Zionism was very strong in the school’s early days, though that has cooled as Israeli political feelings grew polarized.
Bezalel School gained new departments and disciplines, many craft workshops and a museum, which became the Israel Museum. Dotted across Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and now a full blown college, the school now focuses on architecture and applied arts rather than fine art. But the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design offers degrees in all types of art – such as a ceramic vest created by a student this year.
Just as any contemporary art school, there is no truly dominant style or movement now in the fine arts or painting. This year’s MFA portfolios are heavy on photographers such as Eyal Assulin, who offers a photo of a young man down on his knees challenging a car.
Mayan Angelman works with screen-based or digital applications, exemplified by still from her 2014 work “Seam,” below. And harking back to the early craft days at Bezalel is fourth-year jewelry and fashion student Anat Uziely’s woven bag merging traditional techniques with “advanced industrial techniques.”
Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design has won attention and awards with high tech, futuristic and sustainable design. They’ve also participated in International groups shows such as Biennale Interieur, which focuses on creative innovations from the contemporary design world.
An important selling point for starving artists, Bezalel’s tuition is rock bottom. Forbes reported that tuition ran at $3,000 for an entire year in 2011 – which may cover a class or two elsewhere. Finding a roof over your head in Jerusalem may be much tougher slog, but they offer help.
Israeli art students face the same bomb and missile threats as the rest of the population, and this survivalist mode appears in some of their work. Arthur Brutter, a 2010 graduate student of Bezalel, became concerned over the tragic loss of life in the Haitian earthquake. In response, he designed for his final project an earthquake-proof table, the “Protectable,” which can withstand massive weights. An example of Brutter’s Doomsday furnishing is now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York (department of architecture and design).
“Protectables” are also being sent to Israeli towns bordering Gaza, where they are sorely needed by children to make it through the school day. It is interesting to know that one of the most likely interpretations of the name “Bezalel” is “in the shadow (or the protection) of God.”
Just this year a group from Bezalel Academy created “Hotspot” – a device a “for efficient, low-cost crowd management,” which sounds a little ominous. It’s a security project, funded by an EU grant for natural disasters or terrorism. “Hotspot” is a large, lit, balloon shape that rises to signal, send directions or communicate in crowds or urban spaces. It sounds clever, but can any good come from the European Commission? We can hope.
Shatz died in 1932, far before re-establishment of the State of Israel, his great dream. He never doubted it would happen though, even writing an odd, sci-fi, futurist novel “The Rebuilt Jerusalem (Yerushalayim Ha-Benuya)” during World War I.
In his “vision” the master artisan Bezalel ben Uri appears to Shatz on the roof of the school, and they travel about an Israel he imagines of 2018. The novel (written in 1918) is a discordant mix of socialist politics, traditional Jewish beliefs and projected technologies such as moving sidewalks and solar energy. Among other controversies from his literary experiment was a forecast Third Temple that is more a museum to “guard the nation’s sanctities.” Religion vs. secularism is still battled out in the Knesset and in daily life.
Shatz grew yet more grandiose with a prediction that 30 percent of the future population of Israel (which he forecast at 10 million) would be employed in the arts, all related to his Bezalel School somehow. But if Shatz’ stats as a prophet and seer are off, he still qualifies as visionary. Few persons on earth 110 years ago could believe or even imagine a rebuilt Israel.
We are only three years from Shatz’s date, and the world’s eyes are focused constantly on Israel. An elegant old home on the corner of Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard and Allenby Street bears a plaque by Yaakov Eisenberg, who was a student of Shatz from 1925. Over a large ceramic painting of Jerusalem’s Old City it declares (in Hebrew), “Again I will build you, and you shall be built, virgin daughter of Zion.”
SOURCES: www.emanuelnyc.org / www.timesofisrael.com / www.bezalel.ac.il / www.forbes.com / Caroline Howard / www.timesofisrael.com Shmuel Bar-Am / “The Temple of Jerusalem: From Moses to the Messiah,” edited by Steven Fine.
