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| Alt Neuland |
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| By David Rapp |
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| After years of neglect, Jerusalem's Theodor
Herzl Museum is about to reopen, with the man's intimate possessions
expertly restored |
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The low desk is made of pine wood. It is
glossy black and in its center there is a small drawer. A simple
piece of furniture. But on a small metal plaque set into one of its
corners is engraved: "On this desk Theodor Herzl wrote his book `Der
Judenstaat' (`The Jewish State')."
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| If Herzl
turned over in his grave because of the fate of his possessions and
his heritage, it happened not far from his old desk: It, and the
rest of the family's furniture, was brought to Israel years before
his bones were brought to Israel, in 1949. The objects were lodged
at the Herzl Museum, alongside historical documents, on the mountain
that is named after him in Jerusalem. Over the years the table
became shabby, lost its gloss and was broken.
The Herzl
Museum was a disgrace to the memory of the man, says Shai Hermesh,
the treasurer of the World Zionist Organization. This body - which
Herzl founded in 1897 - built the museum in the 1960s and neglected
it thereafter. Hermesh is right.
The WZO's budget comes from
the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund. Were it not for
Herzl, these three bodies would not be able to move their money back
and forth among themselves - for the glorification of his deeds, of
course. Fortunately, he abandoned his earlier ideas about
established assimilation and sat down at his simple desk to put his
vision in writing.
Despite the groups' debt to the man, the
replica of Herzl's dwelling was neglected and finally closed down
seven years ago. Hermesh did not limit himself only to accepting
blame. A year and a half ago, he took up the post of WZO treasurer
and, apparently, during his tenure and that of the organization's
chairman, Sallai Meridor, the promises of opening the museum will
finally be kept. These promises, too, are not new: They were
affirmed from time to time on the occasion of one Zionist event or
another.
Anniversary celebration
The plan is
that the museum will reopen on the 100th anniversary of Herzl's
death at the age of 44, from a heart attack. "On the 20th of Tammuz
[July 9] we will go up the mountain and cut the ribbon to dedicate
the museum," says Hermesh enthusiastically.
A new building
for the museum has now gone up, on the ruins of the old one.
Gradually, several dozen items of furniture that belonged to Herzl
are being brought back there; they had been taken during the past
year for restoration and
preservation supervised by the Israel Museum. The overall cost of
this is about $100,000.
Furniture restorer Jeremy Zetland
feels a deep commitment to his client - and he doesn't mean the
Israel Museum, which gave him the job. This week he returned the
furniture to Jerusalem, from his studio in Moshav Basra, wonderfully
rehabilitated after having devoted nine months to working on it.
While doing so, he read a biography of Herzl, "Labyrinth of Exile,"
by Ernst Pawel (1992). "Herzl is the real client in this job," he
says. "I tried to learn as much as I could about him."
In the
pages of the book he also found a picture of Herzl. An ordinary
reader would not pore over the "marginal" details in this picture,
but Zetland saw two bookcases, a desk from the 19th century and a
wooden file cabinet. The bookcases and the file cabinet underwent
final touches this week at his studio in Moshav Basra, in the Sharon
region.
But Herzl, the client, would undoubtedly have posed
different demands concerning the refurbishing. Thus, for example,
Zetland received instructions to "reconstruct" the bookcases as they
were during the years of neglect, remarkably green, although in
Herzl's study their color was brown. Over the years someone painted
the bookcases green and hammered dozens of nails into the other
pretty wooden items of furniture.
Zetland restored them to
health. He worked for many months on two classical cupboards, which
once stood side by side. They are from Berlin and were made in the
19th century on special order. The paper on which the name of
carpentry firm and the destination were noted is still stuck on the
back of one of them.
Zetland identified at least four
different kinds of wood that went into the two units: The main part
is made of pine, with walnut integrated into the exteriors; the
backs of the cupboards are of oak and the drawers, which are made of
whole oak, have ornamented brass handles. Zetland repaired broken
corners, filled holes and cracks, cleaned and reconstructed the
delicate wood carvings, took apart pieces that had been affixed with
nails and covered the furniture with a delicate polish laquer. The
simple and captivating maple wood object was also found in Zetland's
studio, containing 26 cubbyholes for papers, over each of which
there is a letter of the Latin alphabet.
At the beginning of
this week in the studio it was possible to see the black desk on
which "The Jewish State" was written, a table for a telephone and a
chair made of oak with leather upholstery, made in
Vienna.
Prosaic possessions
Herzl's possessions
are perhaps historically laden, but they are among the most solidly
prosaic in Zetland's studio. An old cupboard stands there, in a
style similar to Herzl's furniture. The owners of the cupboard asked
the restorer to cover part of it in gold leaf, which Zetland will
lay into a hard but flexible layer of rabbit skin glue and gesso in
a centuries-old tradition.
In one of the rooms stands a
beautiful black chest of drawers made of ebony, into which delicate
brass strips have been inset. The chest gleams with brownish-red
hues. This is the third element that was used in it: tortoise shell
from the 18th century, when the chest was made. Zetland was also
asked to repair tiny places where the turtle shell had been broken,
but this material is unavailable in Israel. He thus contacted his
teacher from Florence, who is a member of the local restorers'
guild. There is a shop in that city that exclusively caters for
members of the guild: Real treasures can be found there. This week a
shipment arrived from there with pieces of tortoise
shell.
Zetland, 34, studied social work here in Israel, but
upon completing his degree he decided to specialize in furniture
design or restoration. He took a
trip to Europe and in 1998 went to live in Florence, with a family
of restorers. "I studied during the day and in the evenings I was an
apprentice," he says.
A year later he returned to Israel. He
joined restorer Igor Wissotzky, who was working at the time on one
of Herzl's pieces of furniture. "Wissotzky lived in Gilo. When the
intifada broke out, the shooting started," he says. "In the end he
got fed up and went back to Russia, after 12 years in Israel. In St.
Petersburg he received a senior position in the restoration department."
Zetland opened a private business in Ramat Hashavim. After a
few months he moved to Basra. His studio is located in a former
chicken coop, near a flourishing citrus grove. He lives in Tel
Aviv.
The senior people at the WZO have not visited Zetland's
studio. "We are busy raising funds for the project," says Hermesh.
"During the past three years about $600,000 were allocated to it
from the coffers of the WZO, but we still need a million dollars."
Before the opening "everything that survived the ruins at
Mount Herzl with be restored and shined and polished," he
adds.
The main donors to the museum refurbishment project are
the WZO and the Jerusalem Foundation. At the 1898 Congress Herzl
strove to set up an economic body - Otzar Hityashvut Hayehudim (the
Treasury of Jewish Settlement). This body ("the founding nucleus of
Bank Leumi," says Hermesh) has promised to donate its share to the
project, and Mayor Uri Lupolianski of Jerusalem also hastened
several months ago to announce that "the government" would also
donate its share. That is, the Austrian government . The explanation
given was that "Herzl lived in Vienna for many years." In the
meantime no contributions from the government of Austria have come
into the WZO offices. It is worth remembering, however, that Herzl
may have lived for several years in Vienna, but for many more years
he has been dead in Jerusalem. | |
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