Bezalel Academy of Art and Design
|Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design|
|בצלאל, אקדמיה לאמנות ועיצוב|
Bezalel's emblem, with the Ark of the Covenant
|Established||1906, by Boris Schatz|
|Religious affiliation||International Association of Universities|
Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design is Israel's national school of art, founded in 1906 by Boris Schatz. It is named for the Biblical figure Bezalel, son of Uri (Hebrew: בְּצַלְאֵל בֶּן־אוּרִי), who was appointed by Moses to oversee the design and construction of the Tabernacle (Exodus 35:30).
The Bezalel School was founded in 1906 by Boris Schatz. Theodor Herzl and the early Zionists believed in the creation of a national style of art blending classical Jewish/Middle Eastern and European traditions. The teachers of Bezalel developed a distinctive school 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.
The Bezalel School produced decorative art objects in a wide range of media: silver, leather, wood, brass and fabric. While the artists and designers were Western-trained, the craftsmen were often members of the Yemenite Jewish community, which has a long tradition of working in precious metals. Silver and goldsmithing had been traditional Jewish occupations in Yemen. Yemenite immigrants were also frequent subjects of Bezalel school artists.
Leading artists of the school include Meir Gur Aryeh, Ze'ev Raban, Shmuel Ben David, Ya'ackov Ben-Dov, Ze'ev Ben-Tzvi, Jacob Eisenberg, Jacob Pins, Jacob Steinhardt, and Hermann Struck. In 1912, the school had only one female student, Marousia (Miriam) Nissenholtz, who used the pseudonym Chad Gadya. The school closed down in 1929 in the wake of economic difficulties, but reopened in 1935, attracting many teachers and students from Germany, many of them from the Bauhaus school shut down by the Nazis.
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. It completed its relocation to Mount Scopus in 1990.
Bezalel Pavilion 
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 six years later.
In 2006, the Bezalel Academy of Arts 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, and two different Master of Design (M.des) degrees.
The academy has plans to move back to the city center.
Notable alumni 
- Baruch Agadati (1895–1976), Russian-Palestinian-Israeli classical ballet dancer, choreographer, painter, film producer and director
- Yaacov Agam (born 1928), sculptor and experimental artist
- Ron Arad (born 1951), industrial designer
- Netiva Ben-Yehuda (1928–2011), author, editor, Palmach commander
- Moti Bodek (born 1961), Architect, Lecturer
- Yitzhak Danziger (1916–1977), sculptor
- Nachum Gutman (1898–1980), painter, sculptor, author
- Yaron London (born 1940), media personality, journalist, actor, songwriter
- Avigdor Stematsky (1908–1989), painter
- Yehezkel Streichman (1906–1993), painter
- Gideon Amichay (born 1963), Communication Artist, Cartoonist, Writer and Ad Man
- Elisha Ben Yitzhak (born 1943), painter, songwriter
- Zvi Raphaeli (1924-2005), painter and Rabbi
Notable faculty 
- Siona Shimshi (born 1939), Israeli painter, sculptor, ceramist, textile designer
See also 
- List of universities and colleges in Israel
- List of Israel Prize recipients
- List of Israeli visual artists
- Jewish ceremonial art
- MUSEUM REVIEW | DERFNER JUDAICA MUSEUM, Jewish Art, the Hudson and Bingo in the Bronx, Edward Rothstein, New York Times, June 10, 2009 , 
- Ze'ev Raban, A Hebrew Symbolist, by Batsheva Goldman Ida, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2001
- I lived life to the fullest, Haaretz
- "Israel Prize recipients in 1958 (in Hebrew)". Israel Prize Official Site. Archived from the original on January 17, 2010 by WebCite.
- "המועצה להשכלה גבוהה - מאגר מוסדות" [Council for Higher Education Registry of Institutes]. che.org.il (in Hebrew). Retrieved August 4, 2010.
- Zohar, Gil (November 2, 2006). "Artful move". Jerusalem Post. Retrieved September 19, 2011.
- Milan's Furniture Whirlwind
Further reading 
- 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
External sources 
- Bezalel Academy web site
- Bezalel Catalogue of Student Works
- Timeline of Bezalel Academy history
- Zionism and Art: Bezalel Narkiss Speaks in 'Israel at 50' Series