Pre-Gathering

Yitzhak In Preparation: The Israel and American Pre-Gatherings

Prior to the Yitzhak Gathering that will be held in the Western Galilee June 17-23, 2005, two Pre-Gatherings were held, one on each side of the ocean.

The goal of these activities was to bring people together, in order to get to know each other personally and professionally. These activities are enabling us to build a group that will be able to learn and work together, focusing on the individual on one hand and sharing ideas through creative works, on the other.

Israel Pre-Gathering

On October 13, 2004, 60 Israeli artist participants met in the Western Galilee College for the Pre-Gathering.

The program included:

Presentation of the Yitzhak idea as an Interdisplinary and International Arts gathering.

Presentation of Partnership with Israel (Partnership 2000).

"Yitzhak - the Person and the Personality", a session by Rabbi Shlomo Ben Eliyaho

A view of the art proposals from Israel and the communities

Two "tastes" of artwork from the visual art as well as from the performing arts

The evening ended with a session leaded by Rabbi Menashe Veiner on "Issues in the relationship of Biblical Yitzhak and Rebecca".
The evening was well received by the participants and increased the awareness of Yitzhak in general.

American Pre-Gathering

    
Twenty-five American artists and three members of the Israeli Arts Task Force met in San Antonio for three days of activities from January 15-17, 2005. The San Antonio Jewish Federation at their JCC hosted all the activities.

The first day began with the Havdala service, continued with icebreaker activity and ended with a lecture on the "Binding of Yitzhak in the Mirror of Art" by Nurit Cederbuam, the head of the Interdisciplinary Arts Program at the Western Galilee College and the chair of the Arts Task Force of the Partnership.

The second day included:

Partnership presentation

"Yitzhak - the Person and the Personality" by Rabbi Stahl

Israelis artists' presentation by Nurit Cederbaum

Americans artists' presentations - each artist gave ten minutes of an overview of his/her artwork that he/she is planning to bring to the Gathering in Israel.

At the end of the day, there was a visit to the gallery of three of the San Antonio artists, a tour of the River Walk and dinner at the Rio Rio restaurant.
 

   
The third day of the event started with a workshop led by Danny Abekasis, a photographer and a teacher in the Western Galilee College. As a continuation of Nurit Cederbuam's lecture about the Binding of Yitzhak and presentation of Boaz Tal's art works, the artists were asked to create improvisations on the subject of binding and sacrificing using the spaces in the JCC. The works were photographed and processed by photoshop.

The artists and participants were very enthusiastic about the meeting and are preparing for the Gathering in the Western Galilee.

The Pre-Gathering ended with a preparation for the Gathering in terms of practical issues and brain storming on the program.

More pictures ...