Akko

and the artist village of Ein-Hod

November20th - Day 8

Today was our first trip outside of Tel Aviv. We took a train north to Haifa, where we took a side trip to Ein-Hod, a unique village founded by a group of artists, including Marcel Janko, an influential Romanian painter who settled in Israel in 1941.

From there, we took the train further north for about 30 minutes to Akko, also called Acre, an ancient city and a UNESCO Heritage site. There, we met Andrew, a local tour guide, who took us through a city that has been shaped by the Romans, Ottomans, Crusaders, Mamelukes, Byzantines, and British. It was a long, but very interesting day!

Shortly after we arrived in Ein Hot, we met Tova and Hanya, identical twin sisters, who share a common passion for ceramic art. Their father, who, together with Marcel Janco, was one of the founders of Ein-Hod, where they live today. Tova demonstrated how she creates fire glazed ceramics with such fine coloring and detail there, in studio where we met them.

Ein-Hod is a small village located north of Haifa. We arrived by taxi after taking the train to Haifa, and climbed the last part of the road on foot. The village consists exclusively of artists, the only one of its kind in Israel.

Jaffa orange tree at the artist village in Ein-Hod

The mosaic is by Hanya's son, an accomplished artist in his own right.

Lunch at an Argentinean restaurant, just across from the Janco Dada Museum, our next destination

The entrance to the Dada Museum

Marcel Janco was a Romanian and Israeli visual artist, architect and art theorist, who was considered one of the leading Romanian Jewish intellectuals of his generation . We learned about him through a Romanian friend in Vancouver, and decided to try to find more examples of his work while we were in Israel.

Self portrait,1911. Here are some of Janco's works of art that are on permanent display at the Dada Museum, in Ein-Hod.

More examples of his work, can be found here.

Janco was the co-inventor of "Dadism", a movement consisting of artists who rejected the logic, reason, and aestheticism of modern capitalist society, instead expressing nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois protest in their works. The table, created by Janco, is a perfect example.

The "meal" is a rather unappetizing collection of white faces peering up at the person seated at dinner.

Ma'abara, 1949. Janco often expressed Art Nouveau, Futurist and Expressionist styles in his paintings and sculptures .

Another, rather humorous example of Dadism. BTW, there really was a house designed by the philosopher Haus Wittgenstein, who apparently was not a very good architect, and it looked a lot like this!

Janco was, in addition to an artist, an accomplished architect and urban planner, so clearly he enjoyed having a bit of fun at Wittgenstein's expense.

Strait of Messina, 1970's

After our visit to Ein-Hod, we took the train to Akko. It was not without a bit of drama however. It turned out that buses didn't run from Ein-Hot, so Hilary and I had to walk for about twenty minutes to the highway, where, 20 minutes later, a bus finally arrived. We missed the train we intended to catch, but made it to Akko in time for our tour.

Israeli soldiers were frequently at train depots. It was not uncommon for them to commute via train to their posts from homes nearby.

Inner garden with large Fiscus trees, originally created by Zahir al-Umar al-Zaydani, and is a lovely entrance courtyard to the Hospitaller Fortress. Al-Zaydani ruled northern Palastine, including Akko in the mid 1700's. It is said that he oversaw a relatively efficient administration and maintained security, with flexible taxation policies that made him popular among the local people. Zahir's tolerance of religious minorities brought Christian and Jewish immigrats to Akko during that time.

The walls of Akko, viewed from above. The cannon came from a time later than the attack from Napoleon.

A ramp leading from inside the city up to the top of the walls surrounding Akko. A heavily fortified structure, it withstood an attack from Napoleon's army in 1799, resulting in a humilating defeat. Napoleon's failure to take Akko became the turning point of the French invasion of Egypt and Syria.

Andrew, our guide, explaining that the structure below was, in fact a prison for up to four prisoners, in a space less than 3 feet square.

The only gate into Akko during the Ottoman Empire.

The original water conduit used to supply water to Akko during the Ottoman empire.

A grim site greeted visitors entering Akko after they passed through the gate. Executed prisoners hung from this post, a warning to all that they needed to obay the law while they were in the city.

The Crusader fortress, built in the 12th century.

Magnificant halls, and chambers that were built, and rebuilt during successive conquests.

And below these halls, another fortress was found, likely dating back to the times of the Greeks.

A cannonball, found in the back corner of the excavation, evidence that the early fortress fell to an invader that has yet to be determined by archaeologists.

A crusader bowl. Beautifully ornate, it had a fatal flaw. The bowl has been found to contain lead glaze. Apparently, in addition to being used as a glaze, when added to food, lead tastes sweet. And so, unwittingly, it was often used as a food sweetener. Crusaders had no idea that they were being poisoned. Interestingly, Akko became a major exporter of sugar cane, which eventually led to better health.

Can you guess what these are? Yes. And apparently they were used by males, as well as females in the same room. For their personal safety, females were frequently escorted by a male as the need arose.

No caste would be complete without a secret tunnel. This one, built by the Crusaders, was normally as part of their sewer system. But it also led from the fortress to the nearby cathedral, where a stair led up and out of it into the church itself.

Click on the "play button to get a feeling of what it was like to walk through it.

If needed, escape from the fortress could offer an opportunity for temporary safety, as churches were considered a place of sanctuary. Andrew, our guide suggested however, that if it were ever used, it would truly be a 'sh..tty' day for that person.

The last part of our walk led through the Arab market, and past some beautiful homes, one of which has been turned into a hotel, where the most inexpensive rooms cost close to $700 CDN/night

This was once the home of the parents of Yasser Arafat's wife. Apparently her father was so wealthy that he was known to smoke cigarettes rolled with $100 bills. Yassar Arafat's wife inherited a huge amount of wealth after Yasser Arafat's death, and eventually settled in France. But her father apparently wasted the money he had through gambling and other vices, and died homeless.

Ornate wall near the Arab market. Akko has been upgrading its facilities in an effort to attract tourism, however it has many challenges, in part due to the rise of strict Islamic observance in the region.