Writings

Piyyut Ensemble by Geoffrey Clarfield After the fall of the Second Temple (70 CE) the Jews were still a majority in the Land of Israel. First, they lived under the authority of the pagan Romans. When the Romans then converted to Christianity, these same Jewish communities found themselves living under the religiously hostile regime of the Byzantine Empire. This corresponds to the period of the finalization of the Talmud during the first five centuries CE. Ethnomusicologists a

Lake Naivasha, Kenya (photo by Geoffrey Clarfield) Kenya was my home for ten years, from 1985 to 1995. I was sent there as an anthropological researcher for McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I was tasked with chronicling and understanding social change among a non-literate, non-industrialized group of camel nomads called the Rendille, who live in the desert wastes of Northern Kenya. Simply put, the Rendille, like their other pastoral neighbors the Samburu, Turkan

Silan on stage in Jerusalem He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise… Psalm 49 I have met young Israeli musician and song writer Gal Amar a number of times during the last two years. Most of these meetings were musical. That is because every year when I visit Israel, I stay in a town in a beautiful valley, hiding in plain sight on the edge of Jerusalem, which is to say, the village of Ein Kerem, the place where John the Baptist was born. There I have fallen in with a

Canaanite Sculpture-Israel Museum, Jerusalem (photo by Geoffrey Clarfield) Every year, I spend time in Israel. This year, I am here as a film producer and writer for two documentary films and two books that will be based on these documentaries, all on Jewish themes of one sort or another. And every year my wife Mira and I visit the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem. It is a marvelous place dedicated to exploring the relationship of the Bible to its wider Egyptian and Mesopotami

Mosaic Floor from Byzantine Synagogue in the Land of Israel (photo by Geoffrey Clarfield) The secular men and women, and the modern Orthodox soldiers of the IDF deserve our gratitude and praise. They have fought and continue to fight an on and off war on seven fronts, against implacable enemies of the Jewish People and the State of Israel. Many of their best friends and close relatives have died in battle or have been wounded. And, they are fighting during an exponential rise

Israelis shopping in Mahanei Yehuda Market, Jerusalem I once used to live and work in Israel. Since that time I have come back for regular visits. Of course, close family and friends draw me back. But I also come just to watch and absorb what is going on around me for Israel is always changing and yet, I would like to think at some level it does not. Year to year, it is almost physically unrecognizable. What was once an open field, plain or hill, is suddenly covered with hou