William Phillips and Edith Kurzweil
AN INTERVIEW WITH TEDDY KOLLEK
EK:
Everyone knows you have been responsible for many of the wonderful
buildings ofJerusalem, and the cultural activities. To what extent have the
events during the last eighteen months somehow curtailed or influenced the
activities you planned for the growth of the city?
TK:
The last eighteen months have influenced a lot of things but they have
not stopped our cultural activities: a new very interesting museum was
opened in the Citadel, where the oldest buildings go back as far as the time of
Herod and the Romans, the Crusaders, the Mamelukes, and the Turks. The
museum shows the history of the city in an original way, by highlighting the
remnants of such buildings. Its opening was a cultural event. Very soon we
will start to build a central Arab library for the eastern part of the city. We
can do that now because we have finally found the money and the place for
it-we have freed the space where we think it should be built which had been
occupied by a bus depot. Whatever happened this year is not pleasant but it
does not affect cultural development. Last night I looked in to see the Riga
Ballet perform "Swan Lake" at the Hassenfeld open-air amphitheater. In
the fall the Bolshoi Ballet is coming here. And tonight the Sixth Jerusalem
Film Festival is opening with about one hundred-thirty films! It starts with a
commemofation of
Gone with the Wind,
including an exhibition of the cos–
tumes worn in the film. There is also a large exhibition at the Israel Museum
about the daily and religious life of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire. Last
night the museum opened with another outstanding exhibition of Egyptian
scarabs, with a beautiful catalogue. So I don't find any curtailment. Also, the
youth orchestras are continuing to play, people are reading books, going to
concerts and movies, to the cafes and parks, and more.
*At the end of the festival, the first Wolgin Prizes for Israeli Films were awarded. The two
categories were full-length feature films and short films. Only Israeli films are eligible for the
competition as the intention is to encourage quality film-making in Israel. The jurors' choice
for first prize in the short film category was also the film they singled out for the greatest
praise--The Shelter,
a short feature about the difficult conditions of Palestinian construction
workers in Tel Aviv, directed by a Palestinian Arab from Gaza and produced by a Bedouin
Arab, both of whom live and work in Tel Aviv.
