(Arabic). Journal of Israeli Affairs. (66): 128-142, (2017).
This Article examines Zionism’s art institutions during Ottoman and Mandate Palestine (1906-1939). Using archival material from three Israeli Archives, I examine the genesis behind the transformations in the production and circulation of art in two Zionist art institutions: Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts (established in 1906 as one of the first Zionist institutions in Ottoman Palestine) and Tel Aviv Museum (established in 1932, later to host the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948). By studying these two institutions I highlight the contradiction between two prominent conceptions of what the Zionist movement then called Jewish Art: the early romantic biblical art of Bezalel which took Jerusalem to be its center, vis-à-vis the museum’s modern secular art which was celebrated by the middle-class European immigrants in Tel Aviv.