A couple of weeks of marvelous sounds, a new museum, exciting artwork, and capping off with the announced agreement to formally allocate the land for the permanent US embassy in Jerusalem, signed by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. It’s a cultural and historic whirlwind.

As a hyphenated person, an Israeli-American, it is sometimes hard to combine those 2 sources of what makes me. But these last 2 weeks have given me much in the way of enriching the experience and helping me understand my multi-cultural reality better.

I was chuffed to be an invited artist to lead off the first exhibit in the new gallery of the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel, now the home of the Israel Antiquities Authority, which is newly consolidated. Instead of being spread out among three locations in Jerusalem, (The Rockefeller Museum, the Israel Museum, and Har Hotzfim), the new building brings the various sections together in one stunning location.

Next door to the Bible Lands Museum, and adjacent to The Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book dedicated to the research and display of the Dead Sea Scrolls – the earliest known text of the Bible –­ the building also houses objects from the Archaeological State Treasures and the National Archaeological Library (the largest archaeology library in Israel) and Archives, as well as opening the National Archaeological Conservation and Restoration Laboratories to the public for the first time.

The planning process was started in the early 2000’s, so perhaps somewhere along the way, a marketer thought it a great idea to include Jerusalem’s artist “artifacts.” Under the very capable eyes and hands of youthful curator Or Avramovitch, 7 artists........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)