Life After Death: On the Works of Aner Shapira

Aner Shapira never dreamed of becoming a tragic hero. He was a creative artist, a musician, composer, and a writer starting to find his way in the world. In notebooks, on scattered pages, or in computer files – his work filled his home. But he never got to show it to the world. “If I die, publish this,” he wrote to his family, and since his heroic death on October 7, they’ve been doing just that, working to tell not just the story of Aner’s death, but also the story of his life’s work: an album of his songs was released months after his death, and another is on the way.

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Aner Shapira, photo: IDF Spokesperson.

The young man’s head rests on the window pane. It’s raining outside, but he doesn’t see the drops pouring on the glass beside his cheek, nor does he hear the groan of wheels on broken asphalt as the bus makes the long way north. Large headphones cover his ears, and he is busy with his phone. He isn’t idly scrolling through social media posts, he’s writing. Fragments of thoughts, shards of his soul being formed into words. This is his art. His songs.

He is young, but he already has great dreams of the musician he wants to become in the future.

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Aner Elyakim Shapira was born and raised in Jerusalem by a family with deep Zionist roots, the eldest of seven children born to Moshe and Shira.

He was born on the 17th of the Jewish month of Adar, which was also the birthday of his grandfather – Haim-Moshe Shapira, one of the leaders of the religious Zionist Mizrahi party and a signatory to Israel’s Declaration of Independence. In an unsettling coincidence, his great-grandfather was seriously injured by a grenade thrown into the Knesset building, the same month that Aner was killed by a grenade on October 7, 67 years later.

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Aner’s grandfather Haim-Moshe Shapira. Photo: the Boris Carmi Archive, the Meitar Collection, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection at the National Library of Israel]

Already as a small child, Aner was creating and writing. In those early years, he wrote stories rather than songs: piles of notebooks filled with imagination and hair-raising tales of monsters and dragons, accompanied by lively illustrations. He also played classical piano from the age of six and was exposed to the works of the great composers.

A bit later on, during his early adolescence, Aner began to combine his creative imagination with his musical talent. This is when he found his way into the world of hip-hop and rap. The youth possessed a serious mind, walking this earth with a sense of justice and social awareness which burned within him. Having been exposed to entirely different types of music at home, Aner discovered that this musical genre, with its biting social commentary, fit him like a glove.

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One of Aner’s fantasy-inspired monster drawings. Photo courtesy of the family

When he enlisted in the army, he dreamed of serving in the IDF’s elite Sayeret Matkal unit, but was wounded during tryouts. Twice. The injuries led to a year and a half of rehabilitation at home. During this period, he bought recording equipment, researched how to build a home studio and then proceeded to build one for himself. He started recording the texts he wrote and composed using his own voice, and also began to dream and plan how he would one day release them.

Alongside music, Aner continued to work on drawing and art, designing a logo and a visual language for himself which was meant to accompany his future music career.

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Not just a musician. “Red Marker,” by Aner Shapira. Courtesy of the family

On October 6, 2023, on the eve of Simchat Torah, Aner – then a soldier in the Nahal Brigade’s Orev Company, came home for holiday leave. After the family holiday dinner, he joined a group of friends, including his good friend Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and made his way to the Nova festival – a dance rave being held near Kibbutz Re’im.

When the attack began, he got a phone call from his army commander – it’s war, come quickly. Aner gathered his friends and they left the rave, but then came under heavy fire while on the road to Re’im, which would later become known as the “road of death.” Then they stopped and entered a public bomb shelter placed beside a bus stop, which already contained almost 30 other young people.

Hours later, most of these panicked young men and women were murdered. Three of them, including his good friend Hersh, who was wounded by the grenade which killed Aner, were taken captive to the Gaza Strip.

But in the meantime, as they huddled in fear in the small space, terrified at the sounds of shooting and shouting in Arabic, Aner took charge. He stood at the entrance, with a broken bottle as his improvised means of defense, and tried to calm the terrified people around him. “I’m in the army,” he said, penetrating the fog of anxiety behind him, “I spoke with my commander, and they’re on their way.”

He explained to them very simply, as though he was doing something entirely routine, what he was going to do: When the terrorists throw the grenades inside, I will grab them and throw them back out. If something happens to me, someone else will have to do it instead of me. A picture that was published later on shows people lying on the ground, protecting their heads with their hands, with Aner standing tall and waiting for whatever comes.

He managed to throw back seven grenades with his bare, stable hands. The eighth took his life.

Aner left behind hundreds of texts and dozens of recorded songs at various stages of completion and production. These were complex, sensitive, soul-baring texts. In them, he never spared himself or the world any criticism, but he also imbued these writings with hope and faith.

Aner never admired anyone blindly, but he greatly appreciated art itself. In his work, he drew from an enormous range of influences and inspirations. His songs, full of intelligence and wordplay, contain a heartening and amazing mixture of musical, cultural, and historical references from a range of genres and periods – Psalms alongside Jerusalem hip-hop slang, classical French composers alongside sentences like “children in the [Gaza] Perimeter, in the shelter on their butts.”

Among the songs he left behind, his parents found a simple sentence which became his will and testament: “If I die, publish this.”

The first single to be released was Jerus, just weeks after his death. This is a song entirely devoted to the city which was Aner’s great love, Jerusalem.

Aner – Jerus (classical version):

“I never understood,” his mother Shira said, “how you can love a city like that, to consider it your identity,” but something about its scrambled and complex chaos captured his heart. The Jerusalem experience of a meeting of worlds was also his. He believed with all his heart that this friction, this passion, was a great opportunity for repair and growth.

Less than half a year later, with the help of his friends and producer Avri G., the album Introduction to Anerchism was released. It will not be the last.

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Cover of Introduction to Anerchism. Courtesy of the family

One of the people who helped produce the songs on the album was Sha’anan Streett, lead vocalist and rapper for the well-known Israeli hip-hop group Hadag Nachash. Streett, a proud Jerusalemite himself, came across one of the songs Aner wrote, Sin’at Achim (Brotherly Hatred), and asked permission from his parents to add a verse to the song, and to effectively join in on Aner’s project, in a kind of posthumous duet.

I’ve never done a duet with a dead person

And to tell you the truth, Aner

I’m not sure that was something I needed

At first, they didn’t feel comfortable with this addition, which underlines the great absence and void left by Aner’s death. Aner’s music was about life, not death, his parents told Sha’anan. It speaks of our world with open eyes, adopting a bright worldview. But in the end, Streett managed to convince Aner’s parents to let their longing for their child to also enter into the song.

The following lines (originally in Hebrew) refer to Aner’s favorite hangout spot – the Sirah pub located in downtown Jerusalem:

And they’re still saving you a seat at the Sirah

So don’t worry, if you come there’ll be someone there you know

We’re saving you a seat at the Sirah

And there’s one chair for you at the bar, and one chair for Hersh

The last line in the song refers to Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Aner’s friend who was with him in the bomb shelter. When Sha’anan Streett wrote these words, Hersh was still a hostage in Gaza. After the album’s release, Hersh was murdered in captivity, and this line, the last line of the last song on the album, has become even more chilling.

Aner – Sin’at Achim (Brotherly Hatred), feat. Sha’anan Streett:

Aner’s parents do not intend to let his voice disappear or be forgotten. They spend their time these days selling his drawings, as well as prints based on them, in a shop they’ve set up, while also working on producing the next album.

One of the songs on the next album is called “Just Believe”, and its chorus speaks to all of us, in Aner’s name:

I’m a person who believes in change
Forget change
It’s enough to be a person who just believes.
Well,
So I’m a person who believes.
Forget belief.
It’s enough to be a person…
 

Lives Lost: The Works of the October 7 Fallen – A Special Project

Marcel Freilich-Kaplon: The Scientist Who Brought Chemistry to Israeli Schoolchildren

Some teachers just have that extra "something" - a true passion for what they teach and for making it accessible to their students. These are the kinds of teachers who dedicate themselves to passing on their knowledge with burning enthusiasm and immense determination. Dr. Marcel Freilich-Kaplon was exactly this kind of teacher. She embodied a rare combination of wisdom, passion, and boundless dedication. The vitality and love that burned deep within her came to a tragic end on October 7. However, the books that Marcel and her colleagues authored remain with us, carrying on her legacy.

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The late Dr. Marcel Freilich-Kaplon, from a private album, and the 9th grade textbook that she helped write, which is preserved in the National Library of Israel

“Every encounter with Marcel was an inspirational experience, and whether it was in the classroom, in a science project, or during a personal conversation, she touched hearts and left an indelible mark,” Dr. Yael Schwartz of the Weizmann Institute of Science says about her colleague and dear friend Marcel Freilich-Kaplon, who was tragically murdered on October 7. From conversations with those whose hearts she touched, we discovered that Marcel was not only a scientist and writer but also a dedicated and professional educator who had a noble goal of making chemistry accessible to Israeli schoolchildren.

Marcel Freilich-Kaplon immigrated to Israel from Morocco with her parents, Hanna and Nissim Medina, when she was three years old. She was the 13th of 14 siblings. The family settled in a transit camp (ma’abarah) in Be’er Sheva and later moved to Neighborhood Dalet (D) in the city. Her favorite subject in high school was chemistry. After serving in the IDF as a teacher-soldier, she completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry at Ben-Gurion University before embarking on a career teaching chemistry to high school students. In the late 1990s, she met Dr. Miri Kesner of the Weizmann Institute, who invited her to take part in some of the Institute’s projects. Miri told us that she was immediately impressed by Marcel’s unique personality and abilities: “I suggested she become invoved in our projects advancing chemistry education across schools in southern Israel. She was intelligent, dedicated, organized, with creative ideas and positive energy that she gave to everyone who worked with her. She was a wonderful teacher for students as well as for teachers. We were always looking for people like her and I was sure she’d go far.”

Later on, Marcel enrolled in a doctorate program at the Weizmann Institute, focusing on groundbreaking research in chemistry education using interactive online tools, under the guidance of Prof. Avi Hofstein and Dr. Miri Kesner. “Marcel dealt with every element of the teaching of science – as a high school teacher, as a developer of educational materials, as a researcher, and as a trainer of teachers – a variety of skills that are rarely embodied in a single person”, says Prof. Hofstein. After completing her studies in 2007, she continued working at the Weizmann Institute and later at the Davidson Institute of Science Education. Miri adds: “We stayed in touch after we parted ways and later on we were academic writing partners. Working with her was always focused, efficient and enjoyable. That last thing we wrote was published in September 2023, a few weeks before the terrible massacre.”

Marcel married Nuriel, and together they raised three children: Mor, Ziv, and Amit. The family moved to Kibbutz Be’eri, where she became a full-fledged kibbutznik—so much so that she was offered the management role of kibbutz secretary-general on several occasions. But Marcel preferred to expand her knowledge and dedicate herself to her life’s work—teaching chemistry, developing educational materials, and training teachers. Not only did she deepen her understanding of science, but she also worked with care and sensitivity to make it accessible to her students, colleagues, and anyone else who happened to be around her. After Marcel and Nuriel decided to separate, she was set up with her partner, Dror Kaplon, and the two embarked on what was a second chapter for both of them. They were deeply in love, curious, and passionate about nature and travel. In their later years, they delved into the dietary principles of Maimonides and were dedicated to maintaining an active and healthy lifestyle.

Marcel developed educational materials, was actively engaged in establishing the “We Have Chemistry” (Yesh Lanu Chimia) competition for high school students and was deeply involved in teacher training. She led numerous projects, including the development of professional learning communities for science and technology teachers. Over the last 15 years, she was a partner in developing science and technology textbooks, digital tools, and various projects, including chapters on materials science. Along with her colleagues, she published scientific articles and books, the most recent of which was published in September 2023.

Many Hebrew books co-authored by Marcel can be found at the National Library of Israel, including Exploring Living Materials, Journey to the Elements for Eighth Grade, and Exploring Matter and Energy. Her fascinating doctoral dissertation, Semiempirical Calculations to Examine the Effect of Geometric Changes on the Properties of Charge Transfer Complexes, written in Hebrew, is also kept at the Library. All of these are evidence of Marcel’s significant contribution to making the field of chemistry accessible to students.

Dr. Yael Schwartz of the Weizmann Institute describes Marcel as a “ball of energy,” a woman who committed herself to her role with the utmost professionalism and dedication, outspoken with a can-do attitude. “These books were the first project she was involved in with middle schools. The idea was to turn the material into something interactive, and that’s what she did until she was murdered. There was a brief period when she worked at the Davidson Institute of Science Education, where she was involved in a project creating short, engaging videos,” Schwartz says. “Working with her was a complete pleasure. She was the kind of woman who pushes you to new heights. When we worked together on teacher training, during summer workshops, the teachers were thrilled by her. She also played a significant role in the communities. She ran a science project that focused on teacher discourse on practices.”

Schwartz and Marcel were not only colleagues but also close friends. Schwartz recounts that even in her final hours, Marcel expressed concern for Schwartz’s son, who had been called up to Gaza. On the Saturday when the disaster occurred, Schwartz was exposed to what happened to Marcel and Dror, step by step, in real-time. “We have a WhatsApp group, and we asked Marcel what was happening and if she was okay,” Schwartz says. “She said they were in the safe room, and that’s how it started. We were in constant contact with her every few minutes. She described the gunfire aimed at her window and her house, and the shouting around them. She said she was scared, and then contact was severed. We knew that something terrible was happening. I so hoped that her phone had died. I hoped she had managed to escape. Every few minutes, I tried to call and text her to send us a sign. The next morning, I searched for her children online. I found her son Ziv, and he said they were assuming that Marcel and Dror had been kidnapped to Gaza. After a few days of waiting, we received the heartbreaking news.”

The couple spent about four hours in the safe room before terrorists broke into their home. Marcel’s son, Ziv Freilich, told us that on the same day, he and his siblings saw a video showing Marcel and Dror being led away, bound, outside their home. The following day, the siblings received another video showing them lying lifeless. “With our assistance, the process of identifying my mother’s body was expedited, and within a few days,  representatives from the army came to inform us officially. By then, we were pretty sure we knew what had happened to her.”

Schwartz also saw those distressing videos of her beloved friend. “I can’t get that video out of my mind. For months, as I tried to fall asleep, I couldn’t rid myself of that image of her being led out to her death. It still haunts me to this day,” Schwartz recounts.

Marcel had other dreams she never got to fulfill. She was fascinated by Maimonides’ dietary principles, and she had planned on writing a book about his ideas on nutrition and medicine from a modern scientific perspective, and to give lectures on the subject. Her colleagues at the Weizmann Institute, still devastated by the tragedy, are using the programs and content she created and are continuing to help develop her legacy. “I learned a lot from her about total commitment. About what it means to be a totally dedicated person,” Schwartz says with sadness. “Total dedication in work, in friendships, in family. An indescribable loyalty. But it’s so much more than that—Marcel was impossible to miss. She was my friend, and I miss her. Her absence hurts me every day.”

Lives Lost: The Works of the October 7 Fallen – A Special Project

The Kaminitz Hotel: Where Theodor Herzl Couldn’t Get a Room

If you were visiting Jerusalem in the late 19th century, and were a person of means and stature, you might have enjoyed the accommodations of the city's first modern Jewish hotel. Unless of course, your name was Theodor Herzl... We dug through the hotel's guest book and went on a journey back in time.

Theodor Herzl, studio photograph. The photograph is preserved by Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (Israel Revealed), the L'Avenir Illustre ("The Illustrated Future") newspaper collection, Morocco, and is made digitally available on the website of the National Library of Israel thanks to the collaborative efforts of Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage, and the National Library of Israel. In the background: drawing for an advertisement for the Kaminitz Hotel.

The Middle Eastern sun beat down on the crowded, filthy streets of the Holy City. Towards the end of Ottoman rule, Jerusalem wasn’t a particularly attractive tourist destination to put it mildly, though certain groups of Jewish and Christian pilgrims did embark on the risky journey even during this period, for primarily religious reasons.

Winds of change began to blow over the city during the latter half of the 19th century. The great colonialist powers helped the Ottoman government wrest back control of Jerusalem, after a brief period of Egyptian rulership under Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim Pasha. In exchange for this aid, the international powers were given a foothold in the famous city, which still struggled to display the grandeur many expected of it.

Britain, Prussia, and France were the first to establish their own institutions and compounds in Jerusalem, and other superpowers followed. Churches and cathedrals were built alongside consulate offices, and this helped attract visitors from all over the world.

The Jews weren’t sitting idly either; Jewish philanthropists who made their fortunes abroad (the most famous being Sir Moses Montefiore) invested in land purchases, sparking a building boom that extended beyond the walls of the Old City. Thus, the “New City” was born. While it was perhaps a bit dangerous in those early days, the living conditions in the new neighborhoods were far better than those within the Old City walls. Meanwhile, the Zionist movement was growing stronger, and it too set its sights on the city from which it drew its name. People like Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the reviver of the Hebrew language who arrived in 1881, came to settle in Jerusalem, breathing new life into the stone alleyways.

All this led to a lively influx of tourists, visitors and guests of different sorts– Jews, Christians, and Muslims, traders, statesmen, and religious pilgrims. There were people and families in quantities and types that the city hadn’t seen for centuries. Among them was a man named Herzl, whose peculiar story we will elaborate on further down.

One individual by the name of Menachem Mendel Boim of Kaminitz realized that anyone would could provide a decent place to stay in the city would be exploiting a tremendous economic opportunity. Menachem Mendel grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family in Kaminitz (also spelled Kamyenyets or Kamenets), Lithuania, but dreamed of raising his children in the Land of Israel. When he was betrothed to Tzipa, the daughter of Rabbi Uri Lipa, he conditioned their marriage on her family’s acceptance of their immigration to the Holy Land. But a few years later, when the young couple finally fulfilled the husband’s dream, things began to go awry.

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The Kaminitz family at the entrance to the hotel on Jaffa Street. This picture is from the Jacob Wahrman Archive, the National Library of Israel.

The Kaminitz family, who adopted the name of their original hometown, settled in Safed, where they faced an assortment of tribulations: During the 1833 plague, Tzipa and Menachem Mendel lost their firstborn son; during the 1834 Syrian Peasant Revolt (the region was considered part of Ottoman Syria at the time), they experienced physical violence and their home was looted; and the 1837 earthquake left them destitute and homeless.

They decided to move to Jerusalem. There, in the Holy City that was slowly beginning to show signs of modern development, they built their guest house – the first Jewish hotel in the modern Land of Israel. It was quite a modest inn, but it was clean and respectable with its European stylings, providing accommodation along with Tzipa’s excellent home-cooked meals to tourists of all religions who made their way to Jerusalem.

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opening its gates to our brothers, lords and counts, who come to visit our holy land, and who find their tables here finely prepared for their pleasure…” – a pathos-drenched advertisement for the Kaminitz Hotel in the Havatzelet newspaper, January 1, 1909 [Hebrew]. From the National Library’s Historical Jewish Press Collection.

Although it was the first of its kind, this modest establishment wouldn’t have entered the annals of history had it remained as it first was. It was Menachem Mendel’s son, Eliezer Lipman Kaminitz, who took the family business to the next level. First, he moved the hotel to Jaffa Street (it was located in a previous incarnation of what is now Jerusalem’s well known Clal Center), but he wasn’t satisfied with that location. In 1883, he rented a building situated between Ha-Nevi’im (The Prophets) Street and Jaffa Street from the Volhynia Kolel and officially opened the new, modern “Hotel Jerusalem”. Despite Eliezer’s attempts at rebranding, the establishment quickly became known to all as the newest incarnation of the, by now familiar, “Kaminitz Hotel”.

This was no longer a modest inn offering only clean beds or a decent breakfast. A garden was planted in the courtyard and a wide path was paved for carriages. The hotel rooms were equipped with all the comforts of the era: chamber pots, mosquito nets, and bathing basins awaited travelers who often arrived dusty and tired. The hotel lobby offered a daily page summarizing the latest international headlines from the Reuters News Agency. In the center of the room stood the pinnacle of modern technology in the form of an elegant telephone device. The telephone number was 53.

Modernization took over all aspects of the hotel’s management, including its marketing. Advertising posters were designed and sent to selected newspapers in Europe, and the Kaminitz family signed deals with travel agents who met tourists arriving at the train station and offered them tour packages that included the finest accommodations to be found in the area – the Kaminitz Hotel.

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Drawing for an advertisement for the Kaminitz Hotel, Jerusalem. The image is preserved by Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (Israel Revealed), the Shoshana Halevi Collection, and is made digitally available on the website of the National Library of Israel thanks to the collaborative efforts of Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage and the National Library of Israel.

Business was booming and the guests, for the most part, were very pleased with the service, the cleanliness, and the excellent food, which had a good reputation among local Jerusalemites as well. For example, as the British consul’s wife Elizabeth Finn wrote, European bread could only be obtained at Kaminitz.

Although the meals at the hotel were strictly kosher and one of the spacious rooms was designated as a synagogue and Beit Midrash (Jewish study house), guests came from all over the world and from a wide range of religions and nationalities.

In the hotel guest book, preserved today at the National Library, you can find the complements showered upon the establishment by its guests (mostly male, since the custom of the time mandated that when couples and families arrived at the hotel, it was the man who was given the privilege of inscribing his impressions). The guest book entries were written in Yiddish, 19th-century Hebrew, Arabic, English, French, German, and many other languages.

Alongside plenty of unclear signatures and unfamiliar names, one can also find the autographs of a range of well-known figures. Among the hotel’s guests were people like Baron de Rothschild, Ahad Ha’am, Nahum Sokolow, Lord Herbert Samuel, Joseph Carlebach, Menachem Ussishkin, Dr. Joseph Klausner, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Henry Morgenthau Sr., Naftali Herz Imber, and others.

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The Kaminitz Hotel’s guest book, preserved at the National Library of Israel. A stunning variety of languages and handwriting styles

There is only one dubious guest experience at the famous hotel that we’re aware of, and it involved Theodor Herzl.

Herzl arrived in Jerusalem to meet with the last German Emperor, Wilhelm II, who was then visiting the Holy Land. Given everything described above, the Kaminitz Hotel was Herzl’s preferred choice of accommodation. He booked rooms in advance – for himself and for the several companions who joined him.

But the Emperor’s visit was an Olympic-scale event for Jerusalem, which, despite its historical significance, was still a relatively small city. The demand placed on tourism and transportation services was immense, and Herzl, who had fallen slightly ill with a fever during the trip, ran into complications.

The train that was supposed to arrive on Friday afternoon in Jerusalem was either delayed or at full capacity, and the Zionist visionary had to wait for a later train that was not on the original schedule but was added due to the overload. Reports on this are somewhat contradictory, but one thing is clear – the train with the ailing and miserable Herzl only arrived at the Jerusalem station in the evening, after the Jewish Sabbath had already begun.

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Herzl at the Western Wall during his visit to the Land of Israel. This photograph is preserved in the Rosh Pina Archive and is digitally available on the website of the National Library of Israel, thanks to the collaborative efforts of the Abraham Blum Rosh Pina Archive, the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage, and the National Library of Israel.

The hotel carriage that was supposed to be waiting for him at the station was no longer there, and Herzl adamantly refused to use any other carriage so as not to offend the Sabbath-observant Jews in the city. Lacking any other option, the small group set out on foot, at the slow pace of someone feeling unwell and unused to the Middle-Eastern weather and rough roads.

The travelers weren’t too bothered. They were sure they would soon arrive at the hotel and enjoy a good meal, a bath, and a warm bed, where Herzl could recover for his meeting with the German Emperor. But an unpleasant surprise awaited them. Once the Sabbath had begun, the hotel staff assumed that Herzl wouldn’t be arriving that day. There was a long waiting list full of German nobles and military men who had accompanied the Emperor to Jerusalem, so the staff figured there was no need to leave the rooms empty. When Herzl arrived, someone else was sleeping in his bed.

There is general consensus about the story so far, but from this point on, it differs depending on the teller. It was late at night and Herzl had no place else to go, so he had no choice but to stay within the confines of the hotel. What happened next seems to be a matter of opinion.

According to the most uneventful version of the story, he was given a tiny, uncomfortable room to share with one of his companions. Other versions claim that he had to make do with an old bed that was dragged out of storage and placed in a corridor without any privacy, or that Herzl simply slept on a pool table in the lounge since there were no beds available.

Either way, the members of Herzl’s small entourage were less than impressed with the hotel after this miserable experience. The next morning, they left and spent the remainder of their time in the country at “Stern House” near the Mamilla neighborhood.

This unpleasant incident didn’t affect the business of the Kaminitz family, who by then had become successful hoteliers, opening establishments in other cities including Hebron, Jaffa, Jericho, and Petah Tikva.

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The next generation expanded the family business. Pictured: Abraham Bezalel, Eliezer Lipman Kaminitz’s eldest son. This picture is preserved by Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (Israel Revealed), the Julius Jotham Rothschild Collection, and is made digitally available on the NLI website thanks to the collaborative efforts of Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage, and the National Library of Israel.

As for the hotel itself, by the early 20th century, the building was too small to meet demands, and it moved to a more spacious building near the Old City’s Jaffa Gate.

When World War I broke out, the Ottoman authorities confiscated the building on Ha-Nevi’im Street. Since then, it has served as a post office, school, residential building, and workshop.

If you make your way to Ha-Nevi’im Street in Jerusalem, you can see a faint shadow of this once magnificent hotel. The building still stands today, neglected and gloomy, with the threat of demolition looming over it due to insufficient interest from the authorities.

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Impressions in Arabic of a different era in Jerusalem: “… when I arrived at this place, I found only comfort and tranquility,” from the guest book of the Kaminitz Hotel, which is preserved at the National Library of Israel.

“Israel’s Miss Manners” Extends an Outstretched Hand

While researching the history of Israeli social etiquette at the National Library, Noa Bavly accidently stumbled across a particular book that had once belonged to her great-grandmother, Hanna Bavly - Israel's own "Miss Manners"…

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Hanna Bavly, Israel's queen of etiquette, and the book "Hanna Bavly is Rolling in Her Grave", written by her great-granddaughter Noa Bavly - images courtesy of Noa Bavly

When I was about to graduate from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, I started thinking about my final project. I decided to create a book from scratch – designing it, forming the concept, choosing the format, the fonts and the images as well as the type of paper. I even made the book cover myself using several techniques and stitched and bound it by hand. In a digital age, I wanted to go back to the fundamentals and create a book whose pages cannot be swiped with a finger.

In order to choose a subject, I looked at my family and surroundings. I wanted to choose a personal subject that would also be relevant and timely. This led me to the idea of writing about current Israeli society from a historical and personal perspective, using the writings of my great-grandmother, the late Hanna Bavly, who was nicknamed “Israel’s Miss Manners.”

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Hanna Bavly visiting a chemical plant in South Africa, photo courtesy of Noa Bavly

The production of the book required extensive and serious cultural and historical research. In my research I went to the National Library of Israel. Searching for books on manners and etiquette, I found an American book from the 1980s (The New Etiquette by Marjabelle Young Stewart, St. Martin’s Press) and took it out. Upon opening the book, on the inside cover, was a surprise. An outstretched hand from the past. In the first page of the book was an inscription that noted the book had once been a part of my great-grandmother Hanna Bavly’s personal collection (she had hundreds of books on the subject), and was donated to the National Library by her son after her death.

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Noa Bavly was surpised to learn that the book she had loaned from the National Library of Israel (The New Etiquette by Marjabelle Young Stewart, St. Martin’s Press) was donated to the NLI by her own great-grandmother, Hanna Bavly

But as I said, Hanna Bavly’s meticulous manners were just a starting point for a timely and relevant statement. The book I designed focuses on manners—or more precisely—the lack of manners in Israeli society. It draws a line between the iconic figure of Hanna Bavly (whose name became synonymous with manners and etiquette) and contemporary Israel.

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Hanna Bavly was Israel’s leading expert on etiquette and manners. Above is a page from The New Etiquette by Marjabelle Young Stewart, which Bavly donated to the National Library of Israel

The book’s third chapter, titled “The Dream and Its Downfall” contrasts Hanna’s manners and etiquette advice from her “Questions and Answers” column that she wrote from the early 1960s until the late 1980s with cringeworthy, embarrassing, humorous, vulgar, and iconic moments in Israeli culture and public life. The chapter focuses on four aspects in which vulgarity prevails: interpersonal relationships, politics, table manners and road rage.

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Two of Hanna Bavly’s newspaper columns on etiquette – on the left Hanna advises one of her readers not to intervene in the work of the waiting staff at a restaurant, even when a pile of dirty dishes is waiting to be removed. On the right – Hanna advises a woman who is consistently ignored by her husband during social encounters to take initiative and not wait to be introduced – “Introduce yourself, with your full name and position, to any person whom you feel it is right and necessary for you to know. It is likely that after a few such independent introductions, your husband will change his practice.” – courtesy of Noa Bavly

The other three chapters include an introduction to the history of manners in both Israeli and universal context, a chapter on the life and work of Hanna Bavly and a closing chapter featuring relevant academic articles that broaden the perspective and view.

Poster
A poster promoting a lecture and Q&A session in Tel Aviv with Hanna Bavly, titled “Our Manners – What We Have and What We Desire”, November 11, 1967. The Tel Aviv – Yafo City Archives, available via the NLI digital collection

I tailored the design to match the content of the chapters: the first two chapters, focusing on the history of manners, etiquette, and Hanna Bavly herself, as well as the fourth (academic) chapter, are designed with restraint and sophistication. The third chapter however, which contrasts Hanna’s polite advice with Israeli reality, is designed in a wild style reminiscent of trashy tabloids.

I designed the book in a way that recalled Hanna’s columns – just like Hanna, I too decided that a serious message can best be conveyed with a healthy dose of humor. I kept the original titles and Q&As of Hanna Bavly’s columns and incorporated them in my book ironically. This choice contributes to the critical, ironic and amusing language of the book.

Hanna Bavly is Rolling in Her Grave, by Noa Bavly

The book Hanna Bavly is Rolling in Her Grave is my final project for the Department of Visual Communication at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. I am grateful and appreciative to my final project mentor, Idan Vaaknin, for his close and enriching guidance. He was the perfect role model teaching me a lot and providing me with a significant experience. I am hoping to publish my book soon so stay tuned.

You can find more of Noa Bavly’s art at: instagram.com/noartnb/