By Niv Elis
Sukkot of 5771 may go down in history as the most architecturally innovative holiday in Jewish History, thanks to the Sukkah City competition in New York. The competition, which was dreamed up by Joushua Foer, a journalist, and Roger Bennett, co-founder of the Reboot network, asked for submissions for re-imagined, modern-day Sukkot that followed all the biblical rules and traditions for building a kosher Sukkah. Among them: it must have three walls, the roof (through which stars must be visible at night) cannot be made of anything conventionally functional, but a whale or living elephant may be used in constructing the walls.
Although there were hundreds of submissions judged by an impressive panel of experts, a dozen Sukkot emerged the victors. Erected in New York’s Union Square, the modern day tabernacles offered an invigorating, artistic, modern take on the holiday.
A photo with all the winning designs appears below, but these are some of Moment’s favorites:
BloPuf - Winner of Sukkah City contest
Gathering - Sukkah City Winner
Star Cocoon - Winner of Sukkah City contest
The Twelve Winners:
The Twelve Sukkah City Winners
You can read more about the project here or take a video tour.
Reminds me the Israeli narrative of another city – Tal Aviv which houses estimated 280 brothels.
Last year, more than 65 Jewish and Christian artists, academics, and filmakers – signed the Toronto Declaration: “No Celebration of Occupation – have called the showing of Israel’s movie Tel Aviv at TIFF – “The Israeli propaganda machine.” The ten-day, 34th edition of ‘City to City’ festival, kicked-off on September 11. The signatories include John Greyson, Jane Fonda, Wallace Shawn, Danny Glover, David Byrne, Ken Loach, Eve Ensler, Harry Belfonte, Viggo Mortensen, Udi Aloni, Naomi Klein and Howard Zinn…..
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2009/09/13/tiff-protest-irks-israel-lobby/