Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design

Boris Schatz, founder of Bezalel

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, professor of Hebrew at Bezalel

Boris Schatz outside the Bezalel campus, Jerusalem, 1913

Bezalel drawing class under direction of Abel Pann, 1912

The Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts was founded in 1906 by Boris Schatz, who envisaged the creation of a national style of art blending classical Jewish/Middle Eastern and European traditions. The school opened in rented premises on Ethiopia Street. It moved to a complex of buildings constructed in the 1880s surrounded by a crenelated stone wall, owned by a wealthy Arab. In 1907, the property was purchased for Boris Schatz by the Jewish National Fund. Schatz lived on the campus with his wife and children.[1] Bezalel's first class consisted of 30 young art students from Europe who successfully passed the entrance exam. Eliezer Ben Yehuda was hired to teach Hebrew to the students, who hailed from various countries and had no common language.[2] His wife, Hemda Ben-Yehuda, worked as Boris Schatz's secretary.[3]

In addition to traditional sculpture and painting, the school offered workshops that produced decorative art objects in silver, leather, wood, brass, and fabric. Many of the craftsmen were Yemenite Jewish silversmiths who had a long tradition of working in precious metals, as silver- and goldsmithing, which had been traditional Jewish occupations in Yemen. Yemenite immigrants were also frequent subjects of Bezalel artists.

Many of the students went on to become well-known artists, among them Meir Gur Aryeh, Ze'ev Raban, Shmuel Ben David, Ya'ackov Ben-Dov, Zeev Ben-Zvi, Jacob Eisenberg, Jacob Pins, Jacob Steinhardt and Hermann Struck.[4]

In 1912, Bezalel had one female student, Marousia (Miriam) Nissenholtz, who used the pseudonym Chad Gadya.[5]

Bezalel closed in 1929 in the wake of financial difficulties. After Hitler's rise to power, Bezalel's board of directors asked Josef Budko, who had fled Germany in 1933, to reopen it and serve as its director.[6] The New Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts opened in 1935, attracting many teachers and students from Germany, many of them from the Bauhaus school shut down by the Nazis.[7] Budko recruited Jakob Steinhardt and Mordecai Ardon to teach at the school, and both succeeded him as directors.[6]

In 1958, the first year that the prize was awarded to an organization, Bezalel won the Israel Prize for painting and sculpture.[8]

In 1969, Bezalel became a state-supported institution. In 1975 it was recognized by the Council for Higher Education in Israel as an institute of higher education.[9] It completed its relocation to Mount Scopus in 1990.

Bezalel tiles on the facade of the Moshav Zkenim Synagogue

Bezalel tile scene, Lederberg House

Decorative ceramic tiles with figurative motives with both biblical and Zionist scenes were created in the 1920s at the Bezalel School, with some surviving until today. In Tel Aviv some of the best known examples are the following:

• Lederberg House (1925) at the corner of Allenby Street and Rothschild Boulevard, ceramic tiles designed by Ze'ev Raban
• Moshav Zkenim Synagogue (also spelled Zekenim), 89 Allenby Street
• Municipal School, 37 Ahad Ha’Am Street (built 1924)
• Bialik House, or Beit Bialik

There are Bezalel-made ceramic street signs surviving in Jerusalem.

Bezalel Pavilion near Jaffa Gate

Bezalel pavilion was a tin-plated wooden structure with a crenelated roof and tower built outside Jaffa Gate in 1912. It was a shop and showroom for Bezalel souvenirs. The pavilion was demolished by the British authorities six years later.

Bezalel developed a distinctive style of art, known as the Bezalel school, which portrayed Biblical and Zionist subjects in a style influenced by the European jugendstil (art nouveau) and traditional Persian and Syrian art. The artists blended "varied strands of surroundings, tradition and innovation," in paintings and craft objects that invokes "biblical themes, Islamic design and European traditions," in their effort to "carve out a distinctive style of Jewish art" for the new nation they intended to build in the ancient Jewish homeland.[10]

Bezalel on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem

In 2006, the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design celebrated its 100th anniversary. Today, it is located on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem and has 1,500 students. Faculties include Fine Arts, Architecture, Ceramic Design, Industrial Design, Jewelry, Photography, Visual Communication, Animation, Film, and Art History & Theory. The architecture campus is in downtown Jerusalem, in the historic Bezalel building. Bezalel offers Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.), Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.), Bachelor of Design (B.Des.) degrees, a Master of Fine Arts in conjunction with Hebrew University, two different Master of Design (M.des) degrees and Theory and Policy of art (M.A.)

The academy has plans to move back to the city center.[11]

In 2011, the Bezalel student show at the Milan Furniture Fair was described as a "lively runner-up" for the best exhibit.[12]

• Baruch Agadati (1895–1976), Russian-Palestinian-Israeli classical ballet dancer, choreographer, painter, film producer and director
• Yaacov Agam (born 1928), sculptor and experimental artist
• Gideon Amichay (born 1963), communication artist, cartoonist, writer
• Ron Arad (born 1951), industrial designer
• Avigdor Arikha (1929–2010), painter
• Netiva Ben-Yehuda (1928–2011), author, editor, Palmach commander
• Moti Bodek (born 1961), architect, lecturer
• Elinor Carucci (born 1971), photographer
• Yitzhak Danziger (1916–1977), sculptor
• Uri Gershuni (born 1970), photographer
• Yoni Goodman (born 1976), animator and illustrator
• Nachum Gutman (1898–1980), painter, sculptor, author
• Vania Heymann (born 1986), film director
• Nir Hod (born 1970), artist
• Anat Hoffman (born 1954), executive director of Israel Religious Action Center and director and founding member of Women of the Wall
• Itshak Holtz (born 1925), painter
• Gurwin Kopel (1923–1990), artist
• Yaron London (born 1940), media personality, journalist, actor, songwriter
• Joshua Meyer (born 1974), painter
• Roy Nachum (born 1979), contemporary artist
• Itay Noy, watchmaker
• Ran Poliakine (born 1967), serial entrepreneur
• Zvi Raphaeli (1924-2005), painter and Rabbi
• Ophrah Shemesh (born 1952), painter
• Avigdor Stematsky (1908–1989), painter
• Yehezkel Streichman (1906–1993), painter
• Lidia Zavadsky (born 1937), sculptor

• Samuel Hirszenberg (1865–1908), painter
• Yaacov Kaufman (born 1945), industrial designer
• Aaron Marcus, (born 1943), graphic designer and computer artist, Visiting Faculty, 1977–78
• Abraham Neumann (1873–1942), painter
• Abel Pann (1883–1963), painter
• Ze'ev Raban (1890–1970), painter, decorative artist, and industrial designer
• Siona Shimshi (born 1939), painter, sculptor, ceramist, and textile designer
• Sari Srulovitch (born 1964), artist and silversmith
• Joshua Neustein (born 1940), contemporary visual artist

• Jewish ceremonial art
• List of Israel Prize recipients
• List of Israeli visual artists
• List of universities and colleges in Israel

• Gil Goldfine, "Zeev Raban and the Bezalel style," Jerusalem Post, 12-14-2001
• "Dalia Manor, Biblical Zionism in Bezalel Art," Israel Studies 6.1 (2001) 55-75".
• The "Hebrew Style" of Bezalel, 1906–1929, Nurit Shilo Cohen, The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Vol. 20. (1994), pp. 140–163
• Manor, Dalia, Art in Zion: The Genesis of National Art in Jewish Palestine, published by Routledge Curzon (2005)
• "Crafting a Jewish Style: The Art of the Bezalel Academy, 1906–1996", 2000-08-26 until 2000-10-22, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts

• Official website
• Bezalel Catalogue of Student Works
• Timeline of Bezalel Academy history
• absolutearts.com/artsnews
• Zionism and Art: Bezalel Narkiss Speaks in 'Israel at 50' Series