Art Israel

ISRAEL MUSEUM'S PRICELESS HOLDINGS, from the Dead Sea Scrolls to works by Renoir and Van Gogh, have been put away for safekeeping. Yards and yards of the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls, which include the first known biblical texts, lie in a vault with a foot-thick steel door. On the floor are racks of Impressionist and modern paintings. Jerusalem, with its large Arab population, has not been hit by any of Iraq's Scud missile attacks, but the museum is taking no chances.

"Dysfunctional" is an overused adjective in an age in which almost any family seems to fit the description. The Bardayan family of Tel Aviv, the center of Shemi Zarhin's affable Israeli comedy "Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi," however, may be an exemplar of functional dysfunction. They're a mess, but somehow they get by. As noted previously in Screening Room, the heart and soul of the family is Shlomi, a sensitive 16-year-old struggling through school while holding together his eccentric household.

The image of the Iraqi people dancing in the streets, celebrating our election results, was a little disturbing. I'm sure Saddam Hussein couldn't be more pleased with the choice that the narrow-minded media-brainwashed Americans made. If we don't have long lines and high prices at the fuel pumps during this next Administration, it won't be because of Bill Clinton's changes.

The origins, the whys and wherefores of film producer Sam Spiegel's collection of Impressionist and modern art are lost among the many myths that made him a larger-than-life figure even in Hollywood. One story has it that Spiegel was competing with his friend Edward G.

An archeological team digging through the ruins of a Roman palace in Galilee during the summer of 1986 made an interesting discovery--the border of a mosaic floor design. "The black and white border disappeared into an unexcavated portion," said the students' supervisor, the Rev. Mary June Nestler, a Los Angeles Episcopal priest studying for her doctorate at UCLA. "We knew what direction to dig this year, but we had no idea it would be so spectacular at its center," Nestler said.

"Dysfunctional" is an overused adjective in an age in which almost any family seems to fit the description. The Bardayan family of Tel Aviv, the center of Shemi Zarhin's affable Israeli comedy "Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi," however, may be an exemplar of functional dysfunction. They're a mess, but somehow they get by. As noted previously in Screening Room, the heart and soul of the family is Shlomi, a sensitive 16-year-old struggling through school while holding together his eccentric household.

The origins, the whys and wherefores of film producer Sam Spiegel's collection of Impressionist and modern art are lost among the many myths that made him a larger-than-life figure even in Hollywood. One story has it that Spiegel was competing with his friend Edward G.

Benjamin Tammuz, 70, a prominent Russian-born Israeli author, sculptor and proponent of Jewish-Arab coexistence. Tammuz was known as one of Israel's foremost modern writers whose books contained humorous and introspective portrayals of that nation's pioneer generation. He published dozens of books, short stories and satirical columns in the prestigious Haaretz daily. Among the most popular is a humorous sketch of pioneer days called "The Life of Elyakum."

An awareness of internationalism has marked discussion of contemporary art at least since the stunning return to prominence of German art well over a decade ago, following a long, postwar stretch of American dominance. Generally, internationalism has meant the universal acceptance of a formal language embodied in the postwar work of European and American artists.

The image of the Iraqi people dancing in the streets, celebrating our election results, was a little disturbing. I'm sure Saddam Hussein couldn't be more pleased with the choice that the narrow-minded media-brainwashed Americans made. If we don't have long lines and high prices at the fuel pumps during this next Administration, it won't be because of Bill Clinton's changes.

ISRAEL MUSEUM'S PRICELESS HOLDINGS, from the Dead Sea Scrolls to works by Renoir and Van Gogh, have been put away for safekeeping. Yards and yards of the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls, which include the first known biblical texts, lie in a vault with a foot-thick steel door. On the floor are racks of Impressionist and modern paintings. Jerusalem, with its large Arab population, has not been hit by any of Iraq's Scud missile attacks, but the museum is taking no chances.

An archeological team digging through the ruins of a Roman palace in Galilee during the summer of 1986 made an interesting discovery--the border of a mosaic floor design. "The black and white border disappeared into an unexcavated portion," said the students' supervisor, the Rev. Mary June Nestler, a Los Angeles Episcopal priest studying for her doctorate at UCLA. "We knew what direction to dig this year, but we had no idea it would be so spectacular at its center," Nestler said.

Yaacov "Zeev" Farkas, called the founder of the political cartoonist's art in Israel, has died. He was 79. Farkas died Tuesday at a hospital in Petah Tikva, Israel. The cause of death was not announced. Before television came to Israel, politicians and other public figures competed with each other to appear in his full-page spread in the weekly supplement of the newspaper Haaretz.

Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier's movies are infused with an intimate concern for family yet often play out on a global stage. "Brothers," which won an audience award at Sundance in 2005, revolved around two siblings, one of whom was sent on a mission to Afghanistan. Her Oscar-nominated 2006 drama, "After the Wedding," concerned a man managing an orphanage in India. Now she's back with "In a Better World," up for an Oscar this year for foreign-language film. It centers on a Swede who works in Kenya and is struggling to raise two sons.