Kaiser Wilhelm II, Vincent van Gogh and Herod the Great: Exhibitions of Genius and Madness

For 2,000 years it has been thought that there is a connection between genius and mental illness.  Seneca, the 1st century Roman philosopher, wrote “There is no great genius without some touch of madness”.   Does the evidence support the idea?  The jury is still out but, even if geniuses are more prone to mental illness than the rest of us, to have psychological problems is no guarantee of genius.

There are three outstanding exhibitions showing in Israel at the moment - two in Jerusalem and one in Tel Aviv.  Each focuses on an individual who was important and influential in his own way despite psychological problems and episodes of mental illness.  Two achieved greatness.  One led his country and the world to disaster.

The Kaiser is Coming!

Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1905

Kaiser Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor.  Wilhelm was undoubtedly intelligent but he was also insecure, bombastic, autocratic and prone to bouts of depression and hysteria.  He was quite unfit to be a ruler.  In 1898 he visited Jerusalem.  His aim was to cement relationships between the German and Ottoman empires. 
 
The Turks were as determined to honour their imperial guest as he was to strengthen his relationship with them.  He was welcomed with great pomp and ceremony.  Three great decorated arches were set up along his route to the Old City.  The section of the city wall between the Jaffa Gate and the Citadel was torn down and the moat filled in to allow his entourage, complete with horses and carriages, to pass through.  Beggars and stray dogs were banished from the city lest they give a bad impression. 

Wilhelm's Entourage by the Sultan's Arch

Wilhelm saw himself as the patron of the Protestant church and wanted to leave a religious and architectural legacy of his visit to the Holy City.  During his visit he dedicated the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the Old City, acquired the land for the Augusta Victoria Hospice on the Mount of Olives and, in a gesture to German Catholics, laid the cornerstone of the Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion. 



Wilhelm's Tent Camp Jerusalem

On November 2nd Wilhelm formally received Theodore Herzl in the elaborate tent camp that had been set up for him in Jerusalem.  Herzl had timed his visit to coincide with that of the Kaiser and hoped to enlist his support for the Zionist cause.  The brief encounter left Herzl deeply disappointed.

Wilhelm’s erratic and reckless foreign policy led to the carnage of the First World War and the downfall of his empire.  He died in exile in the Netherlands in 1941.

There was huge press interest in the Kaiser's visit.  An exhibition in Jerusalem's Tower of David cleverly combines 21st century technology and contemporary reports and photographs to bring this encounter between European and Levantine empires to life and to explore its impact on the city.

“The Kaiser is Coming!” is at the Tower of David in Jerusalem until April 6th 2013.
 

Van Gogh Alive

Van Gogh - The Potato Eaters

In his own lifetime Vincent van Gogh’s work was not fully appreciated.  Today however he is considered one of the greatest artists in history.  He was born in the Netherlands in 1853 into a family in which art and religion were formative influences.  He began to draw as a child but worked as an art dealer, as a missionary in a poor coal mining district in Belgium and, briefly, as a teacher in London before applying himself more seriously to his art from 1885.  That year he produced his first major work The Potato Eaters.  It reflected the poverty of peasant life and was executed in dark, sombre colours.  His work changed radically when he moved to Paris in 1886.  Here he became interested in Japanese wood block prints and was exposed to the work of the Impressionists and the company of Post-Impressionist artists, notably Toulouse Lautrec, Seurat and Paul Gauguin whom he befriended.  He experimented with their brush techniques and adopted a palette of brighter, primary colours.

Van Gogh - Self Portrait With Straw Hat

In 1888 van Gogh moved to Arles in the south of France.  For a time he worked there together with Gauguin but their relationship became increasingly tense.  Van Gogh threatened Gauguin with a razor blade, but fled and used the razor to cut off his own earlobe.  He descended into delusions and hallucinations and was admitted to an asylum in nearby Saint-Remy where he remained for a year.  In May 1890 he moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, a suburb of Paris.  On 27th July 1890, at the age of 37 he shot himself with a revolver and died the next day as a result of his wounds.

Van Gogh left a vast artistic legacy.  He worked quickly producing over 2,000 works of art in ten years and averaging a painting a day during his last two months.  He used bold, dramatic brush strokes that gave a sense of movement and emotion and often applied paint directly from the tube.  Uniquely he used colour to express mood rather than realistically.

Van Gogh Alive is not a regular art exhibition.  It is a dramatic multi-sensory experience.  Large scale projections of over 2,000 of van Gogh’s works are synchronised with classical music.  It takes you on a spellbinding journey through his life, his work, his thoughts and his state of mind.

“Van Gogh Alive” is at the Maxidome, Israeli Trade Fairs and Conventions Centre, Tel Aviv until April 30th 2013

Herod the Great: The King’s Final Journey

Herod the Great

Herod the Great was King of Judea from 37 – 4 BCE.  He was one of the most ambitious builders of the classical world combining the most modern building techniques with a determination to defy nature.  In Jericho he diverted a river through the middle of his winter palace.  At Masada, in the middle of a desert with scarcely any water, he built a swimming pool.  In Caesarea Maritima he used hydraulic cement that hardened underwater to create a port where no natural harbour existed.  In Jerusalem he rebuilt the Temple of which the rabbis of the Talmud wrote "Whoever has not seen Herod's Temple has not seen a beautiful building in his life". 

Model of Herod's Temple Israel Museum

Herod was far more than a builder.  He was a skilful and effective ruler - the most successful client king of the Roman Empire.  He was also a difficult and dangerous man, famously paranoid.  Descended on his father’s side from Idumean converts to Judaism and on his mother’s side from Nabatean Arabs he married Mariamne, a princess of the royal Hasmonean line, to strengthen the legitimacy of his kingship.  She and two of Herod’s sons were put to death for Herod suspected even his closest family of plotting against him.  Caesar Augustus commented that it was “better to be Herod’s pig than his son”. 

Josephus the Jewish historian of the Great Revolt describes in graphic detail Herod’s death in Jericho and the procession that accompanied him to his last resting place in Herodium. 

 “There was a solid gold bier, adorned with precious stones and draped with the richest purple.  On it lay the body wrapped in crimson, with a diadem resting on the head and above that a golden crown, and the sceptre by the right hand.  The bier was escorted by Herod's sons and the whole body of his kinsmen, followed by his Spearmen, the Thracian Company, and his Germans and Gauls, all in full battle order.  The rest of his army led the way, fully armed and in perfect order, headed by their commanders and all the officers, and followed by five hundred of the house slaves and freed-men carrying spices.  The body was borne twenty-four miles to Herodium, where by the late king’s command it was buried.” Josephus, Wars, I, 33, 9.

Herodium from above

For over 40 years Ehud Netzer, architect and archaeologist, excavated sites that had been built 2,000 years before by Herod.  Herod’s tomb however remained elusive.  It wasn’t until April 2007 that Netzer and his team discovered the remains of a magnificent mausoleum and three sarcophagi on the slope of the hilltop palace fortress of Herodium facing Jerusalem.  Together with staff from the Israel Museum Netzer began to plan an exhibition of these recent discoveries.  Sadly whilst working on this plan at Herodium in October 2010 he fell to his death.

This world class exhibition represents Herod’s final journey from Jericho where he died, through the Judean Desert to Herodium where he was laid to rest.  The richly decorated throne room of Herod’s Winter Palace in Jericho and the royal box of his theatre at Herodium have been reconstructed together with his sarcophagus and elaborate mausoleum.  These and many other original artefacts are on display for the first time. 

“Herod the Great: The King’s Final Journey” is at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem until October 5th 2013

Keep It Under Your Hat!

As I write it’s raining hard in Jerusalem and snow has been forecast.  You might expect the hats to be coming out here to protect people’s heads from the weather but if that’s what you think hats are for you are badly mistaken.  You may even see some orthodox Jews wearing plastic bags over their hats to protect the hats themselves!  Hats have a much more social purpose altogether especially here in the holy city of Jerusalem.  “Fashion”, someone once wrote, “is a kind of communication.  It’s a language without words”.  We talk about someone “wearing many hats” and we mean that they have many roles in life.  We mean that a hat is really a piece of uniform.   It signals a person’s role and status; their position in society.  Think of crowns for kings and queens, police officers’ or soldiers’ hats and you’ll get the idea.

Jerusalem society is many layered and therefore it is a place of many different hats - figuratively and literally.

Detail from a mediaeval Hebrew calendar

Over the centuries Christian or Moslem authorities turned customary forms of dress into badges of shame for the Jews.  Some Jewish communities took these badges of shame and made them symbols of their pride in their own identity.  In the year 1215 under Pope Innocent III the Fourth Lateran Council ruled that Jews and Muslims must be distinguishable by their dress.  The Jewish hat was a cone-shaped pointed hat often white or yellow, worn by Jews in Mediaeval Europe and some of the Islamic world. It was initially worn by choice.  After 1215 it became compulsory in some places in Europe for adult male Jews to wear this hat whilst they were outside a ghetto so that they could easily be distinguished from others.  

Orthodox Jew wearing a shtreimel
Photo: Boaz Gabriel Canhoto

Enter an ultra-orthodox area on Shabbat and you will see many men wearing round fur hats - shtreimels.  The shtreimel is a black velvet cap surrounded by sable or fox tails.  It is worn on special occasions such as Shabbat and festivals by married men from many Hassidic groups and, in the old Ashkenazi community of Jerusalem, by boys from the age of bar mitzvah.   The number of fur tails used gives the shtreimel an added, mystical significance; 18, for example is the numerical value of the Hebrew word חי – life, and 26 the numerical value of the name of G-d.  The origin of the shtreimel is obscure.  Tradition has it that an anti-semitic ruler in Europe decreed that Jews should wear a tail on their heads on Shabbat to identify themselves.  This form of discrimination had been seen before.  In 16^th century Holland lepers had been forced to wear fox’s tails on their backs to mark themselves out.  The Jews complied with the decree but turned the tail into regal headgear rather than a badge of shame.  The shtreimel is worn with pride, and it does indeed resemble a crown.  

Herbert Samuel British High Commissioner
 for Palestine with kavasses 1923

The fez or tarboush probably has its origins in Greece but for about 100 years it became the most common form of hat in the Ottoman Empire.  It was what my great-grandfather wore when he moved from mainland Turkey to Egypt before the First World War.  In 1826 the Sultan Mahmud II made a fez with a cloth wrapped round it the official headgear of the Turkish army.  In 1829 he ordered officials of the empire to wear a plain fez.  This was a symbol of his modernisation of the army and of the civil administration.  The wearing of the fez soon spread to the general population.  After the demise of the Ottoman Empire Kemal Ataturk, the first President of the Republic of Turkey, banned the wearing of the fez in Turkey in 1925 as decadent, Ottoman dress.  Nowadays you will only see the fez worn in Jerusalem by the kavasses walking at the head of important religious processions.  During Ottoman rule these officials of the empire were armed escorts who accompanied consuls of foreign powers and heads of religious groups in the city including the Hakham Bashi, the Chief Rabbi.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef
Photo: Michael Jacobson

In 1842 Rabbi Haim Gaguin was appointed the first Hakham Bashi or Chief Rabbi of Eretz Israel under the Ottoman Empire.  Just over 100 years later his great-great- grandson, Rabbi Dr Maurice Gaguine officiated at my parents’ wedding.  The title Hakham Bashi was not new but it had never before carried this kind of governmental authority, over education and matters of religious ritual and marital status.  Rabbi Gaguin was granted a firman (a royal mandate) from the Sultan, and with it a hat and embroidered robe of office as well as an escort of kavasses.  The Jews called the Hakham Bashi “Rishon LeZion” (literally “the First in Zion”), a title still used by the Sephardi Chief Rabbis of Israel.  The hat of the Hakham Bashi was a black tarboush with a long blue cloth wound round it.  A black hat like this was worn by all the Sephardi rabbis but that of the Rishon LeZion had a silver thread woven into it.  The Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel is today known as the Rishon LeZion.  His hat and robe recall that of the Hakham Bashi.  The current Rishon LeZion is Rabbi Shlomo Amar.  Rabbi Ovadia Yosef who held the post from 1973–1983 is also called by this title.

Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem 1900

There are about 20 ancient Christian communities and some 30 more Protestant denominations in Israel.  The Armenian Orthodox Church is amongst the oldest here.  Armenia was the first nation to adopt Christianity in the year 301.  Like the Druze the Armenian Orthodox Church does not accept converts.  There have been Armenian Christians in Jerusalem since the fifth century.   In the past there were many Armenian institutions in the city.  Armenian mosaics from the Byzantine period were uncovered on the Mount of Olives during the building of the Russian Church of the Ascension.  The community is now concentrated mostly around St James’ Cathedral in the Armenian Quarter - the smallest and most private of the four quarters of the Old City.  Senior Armenian priests wear a characteristic high black triangular cowl.  Some say that it represents Mount Ararat in Armenia where Noah’s Ark came to ground.  Others say that it is taken from the lines of construction of the dome of the church and represents the “point of perfection” where the cross is suspended.

I have only just scratched the surface of the hat culture here.  Jerusalem is wonderfully rich and diverse; a mosaic of different cultural, religious and ethnic groups.  Each one makes its unique contribution to the sights, sounds, tastes and aromas of this amazing city.

Sahhteen!

Sahhteen is best translated from Arabic as “bon appétit” but its literal meaning is “two healths”. This is a tale of two healths – two bathhouses each called “the Health Bathhouse. The “Hammam Al-Shefa” and “Beit Hamerchatz Beri’ut” were built in different eras and represent different worlds: a 14th century Muslim building in the Old City of Jerusalem and a 20th century Jewish building in the newly developing city.


One of the most impressive places to visit in the Old City is the Souq al-Qattanin or Cotton Merchants Market that runs eastwards from El Wad Street in the Muslim Quarter to a magnificent entrance onto the Temple Mount. This covered street of shops was built by the Mameluk emir Tankiz in the early 14th century. On the south side of the market Tankiz built a khan or traveller’s inn with two bathhouses; the Hammam al-Ein or Bathhouse of the Spring and the Hammam al-Shefa, the Health Bathhouse. The bathhouses functioned for 600 years. Now Khan Tankiz is home to the Centre for Jerusalem Studies of Al Quds University.

Souq al-Qattanin

A hammam is a cross between a Roman bathhouse and a sauna. In the Roman Empire a bathhouse was much more than a place to bathe. It was a community centre, a place to socialise and to conduct commercial and political negotiations. In the Arab world a hammam was often located near to a mosque and served the needs of ritual washing before prayer as well as social and hygienic purposes. The hammam became known to Europeans through the spread of the Ottoman Empire. That’s how they came to call it the “Turkish bath”. 

 Hammam al-Ein Entrance

The Hammam al-Shefa got its name “the Health bathhouse” because of the excellent quality of the water that was pumped up to it from a very deep well. As a result people with all sorts of aches and pains used to come here. It was said that the well was connected by an underground channel to the Gihon Spring by the side of Ir David. Locals said that not only did the waters from both sources have the same taste, just a little salty, but that they would rise and fall at the same time.

۞۞۞۞

Walk along Bezalel Street and, on a building at the corner of Nissim Behar Street in the Nahalat Zion neighbourhood, you will see a rusting and faded sign directing you to “the Health Bathhouse”. Turn the corner and you will see a newer sign with the name “Pargod Theatre”. The bathhouse is long gone but the building and one of the heroes of its story remain. Stand outside for long enough and Arye Mark, founder of the Pargod Theatre, will bounce down the stairs, introduce himself and tell you the story of his life and of the building in which he still lives.

Pargod Theater 2006 Photo by Esther Inbar

The Health Bathhouse was built in the 1930’s by Yohanan Ezra, a plumbing contractor whose image is engraved in the memory of all those who grew up in the neighbourhood at that time. He would ride around the area on a white donkey with bells on its saddle. This donkey instinctively knew where Ezra had to go and would take him on his route without any instruction – to the grocery store, to the pickle shop, wherever he needed. It was said that it would even take him up the stairs to his living room on the second floor of the bathhouse.


In 1901, when Nahalat Zion was first established at the edge of built-up Jerusalem a filthy cesspool sat at this corner. There was no piped water and no proper sewage system in the city. It was only in 1925 under British rule that the first piped water arrived. So when Ezra built his bathhouse it offered many people in the nearby neighbourhoods their only possibility of a proper wash - apart from the mikvaot. Here, in separate suites for men and women, people could relax after a hard day’s work and wash or bathe in hot water. 


When the State of Israel was established most houses were provided with running water. The bathhouse was no longer needed. The building was abandoned and remained empty for 25 years until 1973. Then Arye Mark arrived, cleaned out the cistern in the basement and turned it into a small auditorium. The Pargod Theatre, “the theatre behind the screen”, was always outside the establishment. It staged theatrical and musical performances until it closed its doors in 2005 while the building’s owners went to court to apply for permission to redevelop the site.