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News of the Museum - September 1996
NEW MUSEUM EXHIBIT
Within the framework of changing exhibitions arranged by the Museum a new exhibit will open in October, called "Goblets and Soup Plates from Cornelia's Table". This will display vessels and dishes for eating, cooking and storage from the Roman Period in the Land of Israel.
The objects in the Exhibit are on loan from the Antiquities Authority. The photographs are by Yuval Seeton and "Shekef" and the enlargements are by "Shekef"; the designer of the Exhibition is Noa Amir, the Museum Designer; the Curator, Carmella Arnon; and the preparation of educational programs is by Ronit Bar.
10th ANNIVERSARY OF THE MUSEUM - The Opening of the Exhibition
At Succot the Museum will celebrate its 10th Anniversary, marked by the opening of the Exhibition on October 3rd, between the hours of 16.00 and 18.00 and accompanied by creative activities. Entry to the Museum is free while a fee will be charged for taking part in the creative workshops.
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS
1. We have brought out a leaflet on our activities for the coming year and in it is a list of all our educational programs. The leaflet contains details of each program, for which classes the program is suitable, and which learning skills are to be acquired during the course of the activity. To obtain a copy of the leaflet write to the Museum.
2. For the Exhibition "Goblets and Soup Plates from Cornelia's Table" we have prepared an activities program suitable for 7th-grade pupils. This program will deal with the material artefacts of the Roman Period found in this country and is intended to enrich the pupils' knowledge of those times. It includes activities and workshops.
3. "Learning About the Past as Bridge to the Present" 4 pairs of classes are entered in the project for this year:
- Two 4th-grade classes, from the "Nofim" School at Migdal HaEmek, with two 4th-grade classes from the "Bir El Amir" School from Nazareth.
- The 4th-grade class from "Nitzanei Tabor" at Kibbutz Gazit with the 4th-grade from "Al Amal" from Kfar Masr.
- The 6th-grade class from "Nofim" School with the 6th-grade from "Hilf" School; both these schools are from the same stretch of road near Tivon.
There is a difference in the age of the pupils as compared with the previous school year. We are starting to work with children of a relatively younger age, to permit continuation of the program whilst the pupils are still in the framework of elementary school.
The steering committees of the various schools met during the month of August. September will be devoted to preparing the pupils in each of the schools and to "getting acquainted" meetings including the parents.
A pamphlet has been prepared giving details of the aims of the program, the methods of working and the dates of the meetings. This can be obtained from the Museum.
4. Museums Pool. This educational program of repeated visits of the pupils to the various Museums in the District under the auspices of the Jezreel District Council, has been built up by the Museum Staff at Ein Dor and adopted by the Educational Department of the District Council.
A larger number of schools have joined the program for this coming year, 8 schools as compared with 4 last year.
At the end of August we held a meeting for the new participants together with those teachers who already took part last year. The matter of organizational difficulties encountered last year was brought up but it was agreed that these were overshadowed by the achievements it was felt the pupils had gained, and by the positive feedback received from the pupils, the teachers and the parents.
This year will begin with a visit of each staff of teachers to every one of the five Museums in the district, in order to familiarize the teachers with the exhibits and layout of each museum, its staff and its educational program. Such a visit will enable each school to draw up its own program, which will include three visits yearly to Museums for every one of the classes, from 1st-grade to 6th-grade, and to receive the acknowledgment of the Department of Education.
5. Lecture Series: "News From the Past" This annual series of lectures deals with archaeological news from our area. We began last year with the support of the Cultural Department of the Jezreel District Council and at each lecture 100-120 people took part, coming from all over the region, from the Jezreel Valley, the Gilboa and Lower Galilee.
This year we will continue to meet once a month on Thursday evenings at 20.30 in the Dining Hall of Kibbutz Ein Dor. The current series will center around the Roman Period (and before and after) with emphasis on the excavations at Bet She'an. This year will be the final season of digging at the site, concluding ten years of excavations there.
THE LECTURES
- October 17 "Roman Roads in the Lower Galilee" Professor Yisrael Roll, Deptartment of Classical Studies, University of Tel Aviv
- November 14 "Yodfat - Can the Archaeological Find Explain Why the Inhabitants of Yodfat Rebelled Against the Romans?" Motti Aviam, Archaeologist of the Western Galilee Area, Antiquities Authority
- January 16 "From Nissa to Scythopolis - the Beginning of Urbanization in Bet She'an from the Hellenistic to the Roman Periods" Rachel Bar Natan, Head of the Bet She'an Excavation Project, Antiquities Authority
- February 13 "The Beginnings of Christianity in Bet She'an" Gabi Mazor, Director of the Bet She'an Excavation Project, Antiquities Authority
- March 13 "Synagogues in the Neighborhood of Bet She'an" Professor Moshe Fischer, Department of Classical Studies, University of Tel Aviv
- April 10 "Commercial and Financial Life in the Roman And Byzantine Cities in the Light of the Bet She'an Excavations" Rachel Bar Natan, Head of the Bet She'an Excavation Project, Antiquities Authority
- May 15 "The History of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem" Dani Bahat, Research Specialist on Jerusalem
The Entrance Fee to Each Lecture - 10 Shekels. The Museum will be open on the evenings of the lectures from 20.00
AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS NEW YEAR THE MUSEUM STAFF WISHES ALL ITS FRIENDS AND BROWSERS A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR OF PEACE AND CREATIVITY
News of the Museum - August 1996
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During the last month we hosted visits of archaeologists both from Israel and abroad, who are working on excavations in the district. It was interesting to talk and to exchange news and information.
The temporary exhibition "A Stone in the Hand of the Creator" has been dismantled and the artefacts returned to the Department of Antiquities and the Rockfeller Museum.
The 10-year Jubilee of the Museum :
In October it will be 10 years since the Museum opened. We will celebrate the day with the opening of a new exhibition, which will provide yet another opportunity for the combined meeting of the inhabitants of our area.
Within the framework of our connections with the Detroit community, Carmella the Curator of the Museum took part in a course held in MSU. Lately the Museum has hosted groups and single visitors from Detroit and we hope to further strengthen the connection between members of the community and the Museum.
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Educational Activities:
The summer holidays provide a good opportunity to prepare for the coming School year. We are continuing with the projects we have begun and are widening their scope.
"Learning About the Past as a Bridge to the Present":
This year 4 pairs of classes will take part in the project. In addition to the two schools with whom we worked last year another school has joined the project.
Museum Pool
This involves repeated visits to the various museums in the district over the school year. Last year four schools took part in this program, which is carried out under the auspices of the Jezreel Valley District Council. The concluding meeting of the year will take place on August 22. Four additional schools are joining the program in the coming school year.
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News of the Museum - July 1996
ABOUT OUR COLLECTION
Temporary Collection: We are now preparing our coming Exhibition planned to open in October. The Exhibition will focus on food, utensils and tableware in the ancient world.
ABOUT OUR EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES
Program of Recurrent Visits to Museums in our District: We have just completed three years of experimenting with this project.This includes recurrent visits by pupils to the Museums in our area during the whole period they spend at school, and is planned according to a several-year spiral taking in the various Museums.
The aim of the program is to enrich the normal educational environment and to develop the pupils' ability to examine and appreciate the museum object. This ability will stand them in good stead as adults, developing good habits of independent Museum participation.
The program was proposed by Carmella Arnon, the Curator of our Museum, to the Educational Department of the Jezreel Valley District Council, which adopted the idea and now provides financial support. The project is being carried out in the schools at Nahalal, Hoshaya, Kishon and Givat Ella. The Museums participating are: the Museum of Pioneer Agricultural Settlement at Kibbutz Yifat, the Archaeological Museum at Kibbutz Ein Dor, the Wilfred Israel Museum at Kibbutz Hazorea, Beit Sturman and the Mishkan Le'Omanut, both at Kibbutz Ein Harod.
At the conclusion of the school year questionnaires for feedback and evaluation of the program have been distributed to the schools and museums taking part. These will be summarized during the month of August with the intention of increasing the number of schools working in this framework in 1997.
KAREV EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
The Museum took part in the "Educational Fairs" set up by this organization and held this year at Tiberias and Afule. The Karev Educational Program supports a wide range of enrichment programs to interest schools and is specifically aimed at increasing the involvement and participation of parents in school activities. It provides the Parents Committees with the opportunity to choose the actual enrichment projects the pupils will carry out the coming year.
The program suggested by the Museum "Meetings the Whole Length of the Journey" resembles the "Recurrent Visits of Pupils to District Museums" already implemented by the Jezreel Valley District Council. The intention is to widen the scope of Museum education to other districts and regional councils.
"LEARNING ABOUT THE PAST AS A BRIDGE TO THE PRESENT":
The concluding meetings between the schools of "Nizanei Tabor" from Kibbutz Gazit and "Al Amal" from Kfar Masr; and of "Nofim" from Migdal Haemek and "Bir Al Amir" from Nazareth, which took part in this year's project, were very successful. Over 350 people took part, includung pupils and their families and the staff of the participating schools.
The meetings took place in an excellent atmosphere and furnished a great opportunity for the adults, both Jewish and Arab, to see how freely their children mingled; and for the children themselves to see their parents in close contact. This whole experience strengthens the Peace Process, which we believe is best served by small but certain steps and meaningful contacts between individual persons.
In the discussions with the guiding staffs of the project which concluded this year's activities it was decided to continue the work with the schools and to engage additional schools in the project.
News of the Museum - June 1996
ABOUT OUR COLLECTION
The Department of Antiquities of the Northern District of Israel has handed over to us parts of stone agricultural implements found in the area. These include sections of an olive press, container bowls for liquids, a wine vat and parts of a well. We intend to restore these objects and adapt them for use by visitors to the Museum.
The head of a basalt statue found in the fields of Kibbutz Ein Dor in 1948, the year that the Kibbutz was established, is on loan to the Hecht Museum at the University of Haifa.(See photo elsewhere on this Web site.) According to the anthropologist Joe Zias the statue is that of a man suffering from leprosy. The Hecht Museum applied to us for permission to exhibit the statue head in their forthcoming exhibition "Illness and Healing in Ancient Times". The head has been sent to Haifa where the Exhibition is now being opened.
ABOUT OUR EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES
During the week of 9-13 June, the end of the school year, we are celebrating the completion of this year's projects arranged by the Educational Department of the Museum.
- "As Clay in the Hands of the Potter" - a course held at the School for Gifted Children in the nearby village of Kfar Tabor. The course, which related to ancient pottery artefacts, began with learning the types of soils from which the ancient vessels were fashioned. The pupils became familiar with the ancient ways of making pottery utensils and their various forms and purposes. The pupils themselves prepared pottery vessels by hand and decorated them, all in free interpretation of the ancient forms. The instructor of this course was Ronit Barr.
The celebration to mark the conclusion of the school year for all pupils of the School for Gifted Children at Kfar Tabor will take the form of a day of activities at the Museum. The pupils who took part in the pottery course will act as instructors and guides to their fellow pupils.
- "To Learn About the Past as a Bridge to the Present" - this is a cooperative educational project for Jewish and Arab pupils to learn together at the Museum at Kibbutz Ein Dor. Two pairs of schools took part in this program: (1) "Nizanei Tabor" from Kibbutz Gazit and "Al Amal" from Kfar Masr. (2) "Nofim" from Migdal HaEmek and "Bir al Amir" from Nazareth.
Two parallel classes of the same age-group participated from each pair of schools, one class from the Jewish school and one from the Arab school. They were instructed by a staff of Jewish and Arab counselors.
After a year's activities, comprising 10 meetings with each of the participating groups, we are coming to the final meeting in which the pupils and their parents will take part.
On Tuesday, 11 June, there will be a meeting of the "Nizanei Tabor" School from Kibbutz Gazit and the "Al Amal" School from Kfar Masr.
On Thursday, 13 June, there will be a meeting of the "Nofim" School from Migdal HaEmek and the "Bir Al Amir" School from Nazareth.
The guiding staff who counselled and led the meetings from the very beginning will get together after this concluding celebration to summarize the year's activities.
The instructors are:
- Mufleh Tatour from Kfar Reina
- Bashara Basharat from Yafia
- Ronit Barr, Coordinator of Activities of the Museum
- Carmella Arnon, Curator of the Museum
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