If you’re looking for silly tsotchkes, you won’t find them at Shuk Yerushalyim.
That’s because the organizers of the popular “Israel in the Gardens” market have raised the bar for vendors this year by using a juried selection process to choose this year’s participants.
Some 1,200 applications were sent to local and Israeli Judaica artists. From that wide net, 32 vendors were carefully chosen based on the quality and variety of their work. Three seasoned volunteers from the art world comprised the jury and personallyselected artists that represented varied, unusual and exciting genres of art.
Juror Bev Alchek, curator of the Israel Collection Gallery in San Francisco, lent years of experience to the selection process.
“I buy art for my own gallery, so I know what sells and what appeals to the San Francisco population,” said Alchek, whose gallery carries Judaica fine art and jewelry.
The other jurors were Rhoda Wolfe, former owner of the Israel Collection, and Susan Libitzky, who has been active at the federation and in past Israel Independence Day celebrations.
The shuk will feature works in ceramics, metal, fashion, jewelry, books, children’s products and fine arts. The only attribute that ties it all together the art is a common Jewish flavor.
The shuk will feature many Judaica artists who are participating in the event for the first time.
One of them is Shonna Husbands-Hankin, an Oregon-based artist who’s been making custom designed and painted ketubahs and tallits with a feminist twist for 25 years. She uses vibrant colors and inspirational images drawn from Israel’s landscape, such as the country’s sea, mountains and flowers, as well as images expressive of Shechinah (the feminine presence of God).
“In the last 20 years, women have designed special prayer shawls to wear to synagogue that are also beautiful. My shawls feature colors that pertain to spiritual life and themes from the Torah such as the emblazoned Tree of Life,” she says.
There will also be familiar vendors, like Nina Bonos, who has shown her art and greeting cards at this event for the last six years. Her art is inspired by the Sonoma landscape, which she says is very similar to Israel’s Mediterranean vistas.
Bonos says she returns each year because she finds it exciting to interact with the people who buy her art.
“I love to connect with my customers. I sell online, so most of the time I don’t get to meet them or answer their questions,” she says.
Oakland artist Ann Karen Gitlis will be displaying her nomadic-inspired jewelry for the second year. Her designs are made with beads, supplies and ancient coins bought in the Bedouin markets.
Gitlis travels to Israel every year to buy the raw materials for her jewelry. Her earrings, pendants and necklaces have been featured in museums and bought by private art collectors because of their historical significance.
“I use artifacts and ancient coins that are hundreds of years old to make some of my jewelry, just as the Bedouins do. My art is inspired by their culture and the colors of the dessert,” she says. Her jewelry ranges in price from $25 to $500.
For couples about to be married, there are several vendors with custom-designed chuppahs and ketubahs this year.
Israeli-born artist Naomi Teplow sells ketubahs in Hebrew, English and Aramaic, featuring a new printing technique that renders her artwork as clearly as the original print. She says “Israel in the Gardens” is the only fair she participates in because she feels at home there with the Israeli music, atmosphere and Hebrew chatter.
The oldest and perhaps the most spirited artist in attendance this year will be 84-year-old Ruth Sipper, a sculptor and printmaker. She fled to Holland from Nazi Germany with her family at the age of 12, later immigrating to Israel and then to the United States in the 1950s.
An artist since the age of 19, Sipper says her work is meant to bring joy to the viewer. “Through my art I want to show people all the good things that happen in life,” she says. Her work can be found at De Anza College and the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley, among others.