Sterling Silver Chanukah Menorah and Kiddush Shabbat Cup in Bezalel School Style. Menorah marked MADE IN ISRAEL and .925. Cup covered in floral patterns. 

Menorah: 6 X 2 X 5 1/4 in. 

#7105 . 

Cup: 2 X 2 X 3 1/2 in. 

#7106 . 

The Bezalel school was an art movement in Palestine in the late Ottoman and British Mandate periods originating from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, described as “a fusion of Oriental art and Art Nouveau.” The Bezalel school artists blended varied traditions and innovations in paintings and craft objects that invoked Biblical themes, Islamic design and European concepts in their effort to carve out a distinctive style of Jewish art. The founder of the school was Boris Schatz, who left his position as head of the Royal Academy of Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1906 to establish an academy for Jewish arts in Jerusalem. The first artists were primarily immigrants from Europe and the Middle East, hence the conglomeration of Art Nouveau, Symbolism, and traditional Persian and Syrian imagery in the beginning. The artists produced not only paintings and etchings, but also decorative objects sold as Judaica and souvenirs in a wide range of materials: silver, leather, wood, brass and fabric. While the artists and designers were European-trained, the craftsmen who executed the works were often members of the Yemenite Jewish community, which treated filigree jewelry making as a respected profession with cultural and religious applications. In the wake of financial difficulties, the school closed in 1929. Schatz died while fundraising on behalf of the school in the United States in 1932. After Hitler’s rise to power, the etcher Josef Budko fled Germany and recruited many artists from the banned Bauhaus School to join him in Jerusalem, where he opened the New Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in 1935 and served as director. The school continues to operate today, and although styles are always evolving the Bezalel school movement is still recognized as an important chapter in the history of Israeli art.