BEZALEL SCHOOL

   Jerusalem-based academy of arts and design named for Bezalel, the man who is traditionally believed to have been appointed by Moses to build the Tabernacle to hold the Ten Commandments given to the Jews at Mount Sinai. The original school was founded by the German Jewish immigrant Boris Schatz and opened in 1906 with the help of German Zionists. Schatz viewed the school not only as a means of enabling Jews of the early Yishuv to find an alternative to charity by working in arts and crafts but also of developing a uniquely Jewish national style of artistic expression consistent with Zionism's spirit of national renaissance. Closed by Turkish imperial authorities on the eve of Jerusalem's being overrun by Allied forces in 1917, the school was able to reopen after World War I with the assistance of the World Zionist Organization, but it closed again in 1929 because of lack of funds. In 1935, it was reopened as the New Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts. Relocated to Mount Scopus in the 1990s, it remains one of Israel's leading centers of excellence in visual arts and design.

   See also Theater.