Ore's Album

I never show a card or album here until after the date of the celebration has passed and so I have several albums to show you all in due course. Ore's Bar Mitzvah party has now taken place so I can start by showing you the one I made for him. He actually celebrated his Bar Mitzvah here in Israel at the end 2014 but his party was in London at the end of May! Working out which date to put on his album was a bit tricky, so my solution was to simply put the Jewish year.

The Jewish calendar not only has its own unique months, but it also numbers years differently from the Gregorian calendar. The Gregorian year 2015, for instance, is roughly equivalent to the Jewish year 5775. The Jewish Year does not begin on January 1st but on the festival of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year). This year Rosh Hashanah fell on September 2014 and marked the transition from 5774 to 5775. The date I put on Ore's book is תשע"ה. Hebrew letters are sometimes used to express numbers. For example, Aleph stands for 1, Bet for 2, and so on. When a Hebrew year is written using letters, you simply add up the values of the letters. Often the year is written with an implied addition of 5,000. So the year 5775 is written as 775. The year number on the Jewish calendar represents the number of years since creation, calculated by adding up the ages of people in the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) back to the time of creation. To calculate the Jewish year from the Gregorian calendar, you subtract 1,240 then add 5,000. For example, if the year is 2015, subtract 1,240 to get 775, then add 5,000 to obtain the Jewish year of 5775.

Ore is into his computer, making films and using the microblogging platform Tumblr and the video-sharing website You Tube. He apparently likes eating lemony things and has a thing about Nutella hazelnut chocolate spread too! I have shown Ore sitting at a desk, using his computer. The screen on the computer is open on Tumblr and there is a photo of an iPhone on it, another of his great interests. On the desk there are a couple of lemons and a jar of Nutella. To his left is an Israeli flag and the You Tube logo, and above the computer is his school's badge.

I decorated several pages inside the album based on Ore's hobbies. The opening page shows his school's badge, some pencils and a sharpener (top). Next I crafted a paper version of the Jerusalem skyline, since Ore has strong links with Israel. More Nutella and lemons follow, along with the Tumblr and You Tube logos, and, finally, a hand holding up an iPhone completes his list of favourite things! I added a gold Star of David (Magen David) to each page, and featured them on the cover too.

My customer emailed to say "It's amazing! We love it!" when she received the album.
Happy dance.

Jonny and Herbie

Jonny recently celebrated his birthday and I was asked to create a card for his big day. This year his wife asked me to show him sitting at his desk in his new position as Marketing Director at Unilever. The well-known Israeli food manufacturer Telma is one of Unilever's leading brands and I was asked to add a box of Israeli Telma Cornflakes breakfast cereal to the picture. 

Jonny is wearing his favourite blue cap, which I have shown him wearing several times before. Unusually there is no mention of football on this particular card. We stayed away from mentioning Reading FC, his favourite team, this time.

Another customer asked me to make a 60th birthday card for a very special family friend, Herbie. Herbie, she told me, is lots of fun. He is always in the kitchen (he's a caterer), though he keeps busy as the dishwasher as well as the chef. Oh and he also has a great smile! My customer sent me a photo of Herbie wearing this, ahem, very "tasteful" apron and asked me to incorporate it into my design as well.
I suggested the chef's hat and the tea towel in his hands, and added some cooking utensils and pots and pans around him. In the background you can see that the kitchen sink is full and that Herbie has his work cut out. At least he has got his apron on to cheer himself up!

The Weizmann House

Back in May, on International Museum Day, the youngest son and I decided to visit the Weizmann House, the home of the first President of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, and first First Lady, Vera Weizmann. Chaim Weizmann was a world-renowned scientist, President of the World Zionist Organisation (1921-1931 and 1935-1946), first President of the State of Israel (1949-1952), and founder and first President of the Weizmann Institute of Science. Vera Weizmann was a paediatrician. Their home sits up on a hill in Rehovot, one of the first communities founded in the modern State of Israel. It was designed in 1937 by the acclaimed Jewish architect Erich Mendelsohn who had fled Germany when the Nazis came to power. Mendelsohn set up an office in Palestine and built some of Israel's most important buildings including the Hadassah Medical Centre on Mount Scopus and the Rambam Medical Centre in Haifa. He later decamped to the U.S. in 1941. The Weizmann House was considered ultra modern in its day and is a rare architectural gem in Israel. The house gives a glimpse into the world of the Weizmanns and the famous people they received in their home.

The Weizmanns were born in Russia, studied in Germany and Switzerland, and lived for some 30 years in England. They chose to build their home in Israel, in Rehovot, next to the Daniel Sieff Research Institute, which later became the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel's foremost scientific establishment and think tank.

In 1934 Chaim Weizmann, who was then living in England, asked Mendelsohn to plan his home in Israel. After negotiations which lasted for about a year and much discussion over costs, the Weizmanns took residence in January 1937, and from 1949 - the election of Dr. Weizmann to the Presidency of Israel - until his death three years later, the house functioned as the official residence of the President of Israel. After Weizmann’s death, the presidential residence moved to Jerusalem. Weizmann's Rehovot home was adapted into a museum in 1978 and underwent further renovations in 1999, during the presidency of the Weizmanns' nephew, Ezer Weizmann.

The Weizmann House was designed in keeping with the International Style. The structure is simple and is designed to stringent proportions. In the centre of the house is an airy sinuous stairwell, designed like a tower looking out into the distance. The spiral structures seen in the shells of sea mollusks served as the basis for Mendelsohn's design. At the stairwell's base are three rectangles: an extensive and lavishly furnished library, a drawing room, and, outside, a columned courtyard containing a swimming pool. High on the thick white walls are small round windows resembling portholes of a ship, which let in soft light while preventing overheating.

The interior design of the house, combining the atmosphere of the Weizmann's English roots with their Zionist aspirations and international relations, was decided upon by Vera Weizmann, much to the dismay of the architect, who wanted to plan both its furniture and its interior decoration. Vera Weizmann thanked Mendelsohn for the splendid house he had designed but insisted on decorating its interior, rather unfortunately introducing Victorian furniture into this pearl of modernism. All the furniture and objects in the house are original pieces; most were imported from England or France. Some of the items date from the 18th and 19th centuries. The art collection includes items bought by Vera Weizmann and gifts received by the couple, including the portrait of Chaim Weizmann by Sir Oswald Birley, 1934, below, which was a gift to Chaim Weizmann on his 60th birthday from Lord Marcus Sieff.

The house has been preserved intact, with the library, rugs, paintings and gifts received during the President’s period of office all displayed in their original location, as they would have been when the Weizmanns lived there. You can even see the GE refrigerator still in the kitchen, said to have been the first refrigerator in Israel!
Our tour of the house included the entrance floor (entrance hall, dining room, library, drawing room, and kitchen area) and the upper floors (bedrooms and washrooms). The cloakroom at the front entrance now contains an exhibit on members of the Weizmann family, Dr. Vera Weizmann’s public activity, and the Weizmanns’ son Michael, a pilot killed in World War II. It also displays some of Dr. Chaim Weizmann’s personal belongings including his Israeli passport, numbered ‘00001’. Never has founding a country had so clear an effect on one’s travel papers!
There is no memorial in Israel in the name of Michael Weizmann, the younger son of Chaim and Vera Weizmann, who fought in the Royal Air Force during World War II and his plane was shot down over the Bay of Biscay. Vera planed to build a sanatorium in Michael's name for wounded soldiers on a piece of property the family owned, but when a donor came with an offer to significantly extend the size of project in exchange for naming the sanatorium in his name, she readily agreed, for the sake of soldiers she so much cared about.

After touring the house we stepped outside to visit the grounds and take a close look at the Royal Ford Lincoln Cosmopolitan car, displayed inside a temperature/humidity-controlled glass enclosure. In 1950, Henry Ford II presented Dr. Chaim Weizmann with the car, one in a series of 18 of its type, manufactured according to specifications drawn up for the President. It served as the official car of the President of Israel. 

The Weizmann estate includes an expansive garden sprawling over 44 dunams and was also designed by Erich Mendelsohn, who was known as a great lover of nature. The vegetation is varied and includes numerous plants common to the region such as citrus, olives, figs and oaks, as well as tropical plants such as mango and persimmon. In contrast to the house’s straight lines, the garden’s trails are curved. An exception is the straight path leading to the graves of the Weizmanns, paved after the President’s death. Weizmann asked to be buried in the garden of the estate next to his house. At the request of Vera Weizmann, in memory of their son, his tombstone, designed by sculptor Moshe Ziffer, was fashioned after the tombstones of missing soldiers in Great Britain, where their son’s name is engraved. Chiseled in the centre is the emblem of the Weizmann Institute of Science (the Tree of Life). In 1966, fourteen years after Chaim Weizmann’s death, Vera Weizmann was buried by his side.

The Mighty Whites and more

So the 2014–15 Premier League season is over and Hull City, my family's favourite football team, have been relegated back to the Championship after two seasons in the Premier League. In the last two years they have played at Wembley in the 2014 FA Cup Final, and in Europe for the first time ever, but yesterday saw the ultimate low and next season they will once again be playing Yorkshire rivals Leeds United, The Mighty Whites, in a lower league.

Neill, above, might well be happy about it. His Mum tells me that he is a die-hard Leeds United fan, so the club's badge, which features the White Rose of York, and their traditional colours of blue, gold and white, just had to feature on his birthday card.

Shai recently celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. My customer told me that he likes to draw and that he also plays the piano. I carefully crafted a piano keyboard and some music notes for his customised card, and added a paint palette and some pencils and paper. A gold Magen David, or Star of David, and the number 13 (the age that a Jewish boy automatically becomes a Bar Mitzvah) add a little Jewish content.

Finally, this tie design is an old favourite but on this occasion I gave it a funky edge with some rather Seventies-inspired floral paper. I think it made for a fun card but, hopefully, one with a masculine edge to it too.

60 Years

A new customer asked me to create a customised card for her very special sister who was celebrating her 60th birthday. Her sister, she told me, was born in London and made aliyah (in Hebrew "ascent" or "going up"; the immigration of Jews to Israel) where she joined a kibbutz near Eilat, the resort city on the southernmost tip of Israel. She is now the regional librarian for the Eilot region, where she encourages reading and teaches the information sciences in the library. According to her sister, the birthday girl puts her heart and soul into all her enterprises. She wants library books to be read and, to achieve this, has put on drama presentations at library conferences, in other kibbutzim, and at regional council activities, on one occasion dressing up as a cook and, another time, pretending to be Queen Elizabeth II. She encourages the kids to find information and to appreciate books in all spheres - both fiction and reference. As her sister puts it, "She's on a mission..."

Books clearly had to feature predominantly on the birthday card. I have shown the birthday girl surrounded by books, with desert hills, a palm tree and a big crescent shaped moon - the logo of her Kibbutz - in the background. A Union Jack and the flag of Israel, representing her place of birth and the country which she has adopted as her own, are gently waving in the breeze.

When my customer received this card amongst a selection of others, she wrote to tell me that she thought it "brilliant." "Thank you, Lisa, so much." she wrote, "It's perfect. One very satisfied customer." She later told me that her sister "LOVED LOVED LOVED the card."
I like a happy customer.

There is less of a tale behind these cards, but hopefully they were appreciated just the same. Another customer asked me to create something pretty for a good friend, and a special 60th birthday card for her daughter-in-law. Flowers and presents always fit the bill.

Tel Gezer

Tel Gezer National Park, located half way between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, in the foothills of the Jerusalem Hills, houses some impressive archaeological ruins. Gezer was one of the most important sites at the crossroads of the Via Maris (Latin for "Way of the Sea"), an ancient trade route dating from the early Bronze Age. The Via Maris linked Egypt with the northern empires of Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia (modern day Iran, Iraq, Israel, Turkey and Syria), and the road to Jerusalem and Jericho, both important trade routes along the Mediterranean. There were strong commercial connections between Gezer and Egypt and pictures of the ancient city have been found in both Egypt and Mesopotamia (Iraq).
Gezer was built, destroyed, and rebuilt over thousands of years and 25 layers of settlement have been found there. In the beginning of the 20th century the "Gezer Calendar" - a 10th century BCE inscription on a small limestone tablet - was found there. It is considered the oldest ancient Hebrew document so far discovered and is today displayed in a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. There is a replica of the tablet at the entrance to the site, above. (Just to make clear, the "replica" is the stone and not my youngest son!)

All around Tel Gezer there are remnants from the Middle Bronze Age and the Canaanites. We followed green trail markings and took a circular route around the park where we saw the remains of an ancient water-system with a deep water shaft, the original bricks from the gate that surrounded the Canaanite city, as well as a beautiful gateway lined by three guard rooms from the time of King Solomon, above and below, (according to the Old Testament, Gezer was rebuilt and fortified by Solomon). There is also the destroyed tombstone of a 16th century sheikh, and a shrine area including one stone basin and 10 monoliths, or Standing Stones, each different from the other in size and shape.

The park is large - just over 32 acres - though only small parts of it have been excavated. The views from the top of the tel, or mound, which rises to the height of 210 metres above sea level, are breathtaking. The day we visited we could see Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, Ashdod and Modi’in very clearly, so it is easy to see why Gezer assumed such importance because of the strategic position it held.

In ancient Israel Gezer was about as important a city as you could get. It is mentioned many times in numerous historic writings, including the Tanach (the Jewish Bible) and the Amarna letters. The Canaanite and the Israelite periods were the main periods of prosperity for the ancient city, but the Roman period was the last time in which it thrived. 

Inhabitants of the first settlement at Gezer, toward the end of the 4th millennium BCE, lived in large rock-cut caves. In the Early Bronze Age, an unfortified settlement covered the tel. It was destroyed in the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE and abandoned for several hundred years. In the Middle Bronze Age, Gezer became a major city. The tel was surrounded by a massive stone wall and towers. During the Hellenistic period, Gezer was fortified by the Maccabees and was ruled by the independent Jewish Hasmonean dynasty.

Undoubtedly Gezer’s most mysterious and impressive treasure is the collection of Standing Stones - Israel's very own Stonehenge! The exact purpose of these stones, or monoliths, is still being debated. Some scholars believe them to have been built as a Monolith temple in the Middle Bronze Age (about 1600 BCE), which served as a venue where alliances between tribes or city states were forged or renewed. The ten monoliths, the tallest of which is 3 meters high, may have symbolised the city of Gezer and nine allied cities in its vicinity. A large, square, stone basin also discovered in the area may have served as a container for a blood libation poured during an alliance ceremony. A ritual of this type is described in the Bible after Moses brought the Ten Commandments down Mount Sinai:

"Moses then wrote down all the commands of the Lord. Early in the morning he set up an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel  [... ] Moses took one part of the blood and put it in the basins, and the other part of the blood he dashed against the altar" Exodus (24:4-6). 

As well as being a major archaeological site with a fascinating and rich history, Tel Gezer is also a place of great beauty. We visited on a warm April afternoon, as the spring flowers were just beginning to fade, but a special time to visit is during the early months of spring when the ground is carpeted with red poppies and lilac cyclamen flowers. Tel Gezer was the perfect place to absorb some history and enjoy a gentle hike. I'm sure we'll be going back there again.

Micah's Album

Micah loves to read - his Mum says that he's "obsessed" - and he would rather read than do almost anything else! Therefore I had to show him with a book on the cover of his Bar Mitzvah album. He also loves Pokemon and the computer game Minecraft. In addition, Mum mentioned that he enjoys cooking and also likes making potions, building things and creating. Micah uses his Mum's laptop on a regular basis and so I showed it next to him, with Minecraft on the screen.

I added Micah's name and the date of his Bar Mitzvah celebration, with the words בר מצווה (Bar Mitzvah in Hebrew) underneath.

I decorated several pages inside the album based on Micah's hobbies. The opening page features a pile of books, since that seems to be the thing that occupies him the most. Next I crafted a paper version of a Minecraft Creeper, followed by some cooking equipment, since he likes to cook up a storm. The final two pages in the album display his school's badge, and then two little glass jars and a test tube, all full of some interesting coloured potions! I added a tallit (a Jewish prayer shawl) to each page, and featured them on the cover too. Traditionally some boys begin wearing the tallit for the daily prayers from the age of Bar Mitzvah, whilst others wait till after marriage.

Whilst Micah's Mum supplied my customer with all the information about her son, she did not know what I was creating. "I am so curious about this present!" she wrote. I hope that both she and Micah were surprised by and pleased with what he received.