The China Anniversary

May-June is birthday and anniversary time in the Handmade in Israel household. Mister Handmade in Israel's birthday is coming up soon, mine was in May, and our 20th wedding anniversary was a week or so ago. Of course I made a special card to mark the day.

The 20th anniversary is the china anniversary and the anniversary colour is emerald green and white. I made Mister Handmade in Israel this card with some "china" on it - a teapot covered in little hearts pouring tea into a cup - and added our names and 20 Years. Those teeny tiny hearts were very fiddly to cut out! I added a bright green paper inlay and cut the card out of white stock. The 20th wedding anniversary symbols were well and truly covered.

On my birthday Mister Handmade in Israel took me horse riding. It is something we have done once or twice before, though I am certainly no great expert. We went to Chava BaKfar in the nearby moshav of Kfar Rut, which is named after the ancient village of Kfar Ruta that appears on the Madaba Map in the area of the new settlement. Chava BaKfar was founded in 2006 and specializes in several types of horse riding including therapeutic riding, jumping and dressage, Western riding and nature treks. We took a nature trek and our guide led us through a local area, where he pointed out mosaics and the ruins of Khirbet Kfar Rut. We spotted birds of prey, many butterflies and saw several beautiful deer. It was a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon. 

My birthday present was tickets for the play סימני דרך (Road Signs) at the Jerusalem Theatre. It is a musical play about the life of Naomi Shemer, the composer of the Six-Day War anthem "Jerusalem of Gold". The play depicts Shemer at four junctions in her life, when she is forced to fight for her personal and professional future. It incorporates songs she wrote and composed, and portrays Shemer not as a national icon but rather as she really was: a complex artist, a revolutionary feminist, a woman who was not afraid to make herself heard, a private individual - who was funny, witty and warm - and the great woman of the songs.

Mister Handmade in Israel and I haven't seen so much Hebrew theatre in the years we have lived here but we both thoroughly enjoyed the play. I now see many more theatre visits on the horizon.

Naomi Shemer wrote the song "Jerusalem of Gold" for the Israeli Song Festival held on 15th May 1967, the night after Israel's nineteenth Independence Day. The song described the Jewish people's 2,000-year longing to return to Jerusalem. At that time, the Old City was still controlled by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and under its sovereign rule. Jews had been banned from the Old City and the rest of Jerusalem east of it, losing their homes and possessions and becoming refugees. All Jews were barred from either returning or entering the areas under Jordanian control, and many holy sites were desecrated and damaged during that period. Only three weeks after the song was published, the Six-Day War broke out, and the song became a morale-boosting battle cry of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Shemer herself sang it for the troops before the war and the festival, making them among the first in the world to hear it.
On 7th June, the IDF wrested East Jerusalem and the Old City from the Jordanians. When Shemer heard the paratroopers singing "Jerusalem of Gold" at the Western Wall she added a new verse to the song, about shofars sounding from the Temple Mount, a reference to an event that actually took place on that day.
For those of you not familiar with Naomi Shemer's beautiful song, here it is, sung by Shuli Natan, who, in 1967, was a young unknown singer. When Naomi Shemer heard her voice, Shemer knew that Natan was the one to sing her new song about Jerusalem.

* This post has been shared on Sweet Inspiration Link Party, All Seasons, {nifty thrifty sunday}, Happiness is Homemade, The Good. The Random. The Fun., Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday) and The Keeping It Real Link Up.