Spring inspiration from Tel Aviv

When the most parts of Europe and North America are still dominated by cold weather at this time of year, it is spring on Israel's Mediterranean coast.

I love to walk on the Tel Aviv streets in spring. The sun is still gentle and the trees look magnificent in bloom. I often photograph my work on the streets of my lovely city.
 

 This cheerful Mediterranean metropolis is a country's largest business and cultural center and it is often described as "The City That Never Sleeps". You can always find something unusual and interesting here!
 

Tel Aviv is more than 100 years old. It was founded in 1909 by the Zionists right on the sand dunes of the beach near old Jaffa and was named Tel Aviv ("Hill of spring"). The population grew extensively and the city has that special look thanks to the Jewish immigrants who receive their education  in modern architecture in Europe and moved to Tel Aviv in 1920-1930's. The Bauhaus style goes well with the city's culture & climate. The White City of Tel Aviv declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004, includes over 4,000 buildings in the Bauhaus style.
 

Let me take you for a walk on the southern part of Tel Aviv.
 

The first neighborhood of Tel Aviv is Neve Tzedek (Oasis of Justice). It is a simply quiet oasis and the coziest area of the city. The low old houses and luxurious modern mansions are side by side here on the narrow streets.
 

Come visit and you will forget you are in the metropolitan city. There is a surprise for you on every corner, a tiny cafe with only two tables or a sweet homelike shop with bath accessories and essential oils or a lovely fashion shop with the entrance protected by the lazy dog.

In the heart of Tel Aviv are Allenby, Shenkin, King George and Nahalat Binyamin streets. They are like rays from a small square in all directions. The famous Carmel Market begins here with a wealth of southern fruits and exotic smells of spices.

We walk on the Nahalat Binyamin path, which on ordinary days is a street of fabric shops. Here oriental silks and exquisite laces are laying side by side with the low-cost cuttings and remains. For a break you can stop for a delicious coffee at the open cafe. Everything changes on Tuesdays and Fridays when it's time to decorate for the craft market. This is a festival of arts, crafts and street performances where you will find fine jewelry, unusual kaleidoscopes, decorative gourds, painted ceramics, glass Passover plates, delicate bells, fun toys and handmade soap. The indescribable atmosphere of the market will give your imagination a thousand new ideas!
 

Allenby street is full of souvenir shops. Go to the store of the Cohen brothers, who owned it for over 45 years, and everyone will find something here to suit your taste and wallet. You will see a unique Jewish wall handing for the home and lovely post cards. The friendly owners who are fluent in 5 languages will be glad to tell you some family and country stories. 
 
Jaffa and ha-Aliya streets are the crossroad of Allenby Street. They will take you to the Treasure Island where dozens of jewelry and craft shops are located. You will find semi-precious stones, colorful crystals, natural pearls, corals, glass beads of all shapes, metal charms here. There are simply no words to describe the abundance of shops and products! You might spend all day here!
 

Come visit Tel Aviv, the new city for the enthusiastic traveler that is is like a grandmother's attic with old chests full of treasures. You never know what can be found but any discovery will bring a great joy!


By Marina (miopupazzo)

Russian Artists team meeting in Israel

It seems that our first meeting was not long ago but  it was actually almost a year ago. Our team has grown and we have a lot of new members. The life for many of us has changed or we have had some new things in our lives. I had some new things also! 

My name is Natalya and I am running the bonbonland shop on Etsy - welcome to my boutique! This was a second meeting of the Israeli division of the Russian Artist Team on Etsy. Like the first time, I had the pleasure and honor to host the meeting. 

So there we were, gathered together to share our news and experience. Let me introduce my guests!

Perhaps the most exciting news was from Sveta Nes from the nesaquarelle shop on Etsy. She has a new baby boy named Tom! Well done, mate!  

A person can see so many wonderful little works of art in Marina’s miopupazzo shop on Etsy! For example, this doll: 

 This summer the American publishing house C & T Publishing is going to release Marina's book called Enchanting Art Dolls and Soft Sculptures. There are 8 projects there. You will find out how to make a doll by yourself, the main points about sculpting, costume crazy quilting with embroidery and more. Hip-hip hooray to Marina!!!

Now, I would like to introduce two friends of mine. Please welcome Ira and Lena "Simsisters". They are two sisters and beautiful ladies who run the kimuka shop on Etsy and make the wonderful toys and excellent pictures. They bring smiles and positive energy to my life and to the life of everyone who are lucky enough to be in their circle.

Take a look at Svetlana's (Lirigal) work. Her beautiful jewelry pieces are simply masterpieces made from thousands of beads in different shapes and colors. 

Anna (polskyanna) came to our meeting from Ashqelon which is very far away in southern Israel.

A very good friend of mine and a beautiful lady is Lena Strozhenko (justlena) who also has a wonderful shop with about two thousands sales. She makes more and more beautiful items!

I am happy to introduce a new member of our team, Ira who runs irushka shop on Etsy. I found her a very charismatic lady and a wonderful artist. This is what I love about meetings of this kind, you can always meet a new friend!

Our meeting was great and I am looking forward to see my old and new friends again.

Happy ETSY-shopping!

By Natalya (bonbonland)

Hanukkah

Hanukkah or Chanukah (both spellings are right) is the eight day festival of lights that begins on the eve of the 25th of the Jewish month of Kislev. It celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, of purity over adulteration, of spirituality over materiality. This year Hanukkah begins at sunset on Tuesday, December 20th and ends at sunset Wednesday, December the 28th.

 More than twenty-one centuries ago, the Holy Land of Israel was occupied by the Seleucids. At the start, their rule was fairly benign. But the troubles began in earnest when Antiochus "the madman" ascended to the throne over the Syrian-Greek empire. He enacted a series of harsh decrees. Jewish worship was forbidden; the scrolls of the Jewish Law (Bible) were confiscated and burned. Sabbath (Saturday) rest, circumcision and the dietary laws were prohibited.

One day Mattityahu, the old priest from village of Modyin, rebelled against the invaders. Together with his sons, relatives and friends (called Maccabees) they exclaimed: "Let us fight unto death in defense of our motherland, our freedom, our souls and our Temple!" Against all odds, a small group of these faithful Jews, leaded by Judah, son of Mattityahu, and his brothers, defeated one of the mightiest armies on earth, drove the Seleucids from the land, and liberated Jerusalem. The Maccabees entered the Temple and cleared it of the idols placed there by the Syrian vandals. Judah and his followers reclaimed the Holy Temple and built a new altar, which he dedicated on the twenty-fifth of the month of Kislev, in the year 3622 (remember – there is the 5772 year now) after creation of the world . And they completely rededicated the Temple to the service.

But when they sought to light the Temple's menorah (the seven branched candelabrum), they found only a single cruse of pure olive oil bearing the seal of the High Priest. It was sufficient to light only for one day. By miracle it continued to burn for eight days, till new oil could be prepared under conditions of ritual purity. To commemorate and publicize this miracle and heroism of Maccabees, the Jewish sages instituted the festival of Chanukah. 

 At the heart of the festival is the nightly hahukkiah lighting: a single flame on the first night, two on the second evening, by increasing the number of candles each night till the eighth night of Chanukah, when all eight lights are kindled. By the end of the festival forty-four candles should have been kindled in total. Why not 36 (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8)? Because each time we first light a special service candle and then light the other candle or candles from it. This special service light called ‘shamash’ - the “servant” candle that kindles the other lights—it should be placed apart from the rest (higher, outside the row, etc.). And even there is no prescribed design for a chanukiah (Chanukah menorah), but the common is that all the lamps or candles should be arranged in a straight row, and should be of equal height and shamash should be set at a different elevation from the others so that it may be easily distinguished and recognized.

  You can see not only family Chanukah menorahs but a lot of large public menorahs all around the world – Columbia University, New York; Barcelona, Spain; Berlin, Germany; Brussels, Belgium; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Miami Beach, Florida; Kiev, Ukraine – and of course in Israel – in all these places and many others you can see public Chanukah menorah lightings usually hold by local Chabad-Lubavitch organizations.

On Chanukah Jews also add to their prays especial thanksgiving to G-d for "delivering the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few... the wicked into the hands of the righteous".

Chanukah customs include eating foods fried in oil like potato pancakes called ‘latkes’ (in Yiddish) and doughnuts called ‘sufganiot’  (in Hebrew).

Kids play with the special Chanukah toy called ‘dreidel’ in Yiddish or ‘sevivon’ in Hebrew. It is a spinning top, whirligig on which are inscribed the four Hebrew letters. The letters are ‘nun’,’ gimmel’, ‘hei’ and ‘shin’ or ‘pei’, depending on the place. These letters is an acronym for Hebrew sentence ‘Nes Gadol Hayah Sham’ means "a great miracle happened there". But in the Land of Israel the last letter ‘shin’ changed by letter ‘pei’ and the meaning of the sentence changes to ‘Nes Gadol Hayah Poh’ means “a great miracle happened here’! 

One of the loveliest Chanukah customs is the giving of Chanukah 'gelt' (gifts of money) to children.

 Story by Natalya (bonbonland)

Places to see: Caesarea, Israel

There are a lot of historical places in Israel and there is also a lot of information about these places. I invite you into short trip to very special city – Caesarea.


Caesarea, the ancient port city is located mid-way between Tel Aviv and Haifa. In general it takes about 25-35 minutes on high way from Tel-Aviv to get there (if there is no traffic jams).


A little bit of history: The ancient port city was established in the 3rd century B.C.E. as a small Phoenician harbor called Strato’s Tower. In the year 90 B.C.E. the Hasmonean king Alexander Yanai took over the place and by the end of that century, King Herod the Great constructed magnificent city – deep sea harbor. The city got its name in honor of Herod’s Roman patron, Augustus Caesar. Caesarea was serving as one of the most important maritime centers in the eastern Mediterranean during Romans and Crusader periods.

As you can understand each inch of this city is full of reminders of forgotten greatness of ancient Empires.

To me, it is the place with atmosphere of old port-city.


I like to visit it, just a couple of hours before the sunset.


The smell of the sea, the fresh wind and the rustle of palm trees create a magnificent scene for the main act – the sunset. The mysterious moment – is so stunning, a little bit sad and completely unpreventable.






But before it – there is a lot of time to enjoy the old streets of the ancient city.


You can enjoy historical excavations, visit local gift shops, enter in to the sea (in season) or just enjoy the breeze from the sea sitting on the bench looking over the horizon.




If you are hungry, there are several restaurants overlooking the sea shore. They serve mostly Mediterranean cosine but there is also a sushi restaurant (OMG, think about it you can eat sushi in the tower built by Crusaders :) ).



There are a lot of places where from you can have amazing sea sight.


On my walk I met a wonderful cat. I called him a royal cat – he was full of dignity and had very self-sufficient look.




And yes, the civilization is just behind the corner – the power station. Many people would have claimed that this closeness of “civilization” ruins the atmosphere of old city but I disagree with them. I think it creates effect of the time machine – depending where you are standing you can see either future or past.


When you plan visiting Israel, I suggest you to add Caesarea to you “places to see” list.

Story by Maria (CallOfEarth)

Russian team members meeting in Israel

As you know, all our team members speak Russian. However, only some of us live and work in Russia, we are really worldwide team!

A lot of us, of course, live in Israel. After a long online communications we decided to meet together in the “real world”. Israel is a small country, so distance is not put a crimp to enthusiasm! So in one sunny and hot Friday in June we all were invited into Nataly’s (Bonbonland) beautiful house.


We gathered around the table to see each other and talked just like girls: about fashion, sales, children’s education, recipes of delicious pies...


But at the same time we are artists and Etsy-shop-owners, so we discussed a lot of HOT stuff: taxes and shipping, blogs and PR, materials and creativity…and boasted our new creations!


Lena’s (Elenushka) daughter made this fun blue beaded lizard


Inna’s (Leris) new felted scarf.



Maria’s (CallOfEarth) wonderful bracelet


Ira’s (TomBjornDesigns) eye-catching earrings

Lena’s (Justlena) and Maria’s bracelets


And our Sweden guest Ira had time to make her lovely earrings and necklaces even at the table!


After several great hours we all had to go home, but we agreed to meet again many times!

Elena (Elenushka), Ira (TomBjornDesign), Maria (CallOfEarth), Svetlana (NESJewelry), Nataly (BonBonLand), Inna (Leris) и Elena (Justlena)