Suddenly Last Supper...

This famous Untitled piece by Adi Nes, recently on display at the Israel Museum, cheekily references Da Vinci's 'The Last Supper.' Here, secular Israeli soldiers eat in an IDF cafeteria, and if this turns out to be their last meal, there is no real sense of their impending deaths. (We can't quite discern the feelings of the po-faced chap dead centre.) A New York art blogger, KMK mused that Nes's image evokes 'The Silver Platter', a poem by Nathan Alterman, posted below.

Personally, I prefer the pop icon Last Supper, with Marilyn as Jesus and Clark Gable as her Judas Iscariot, which is often on display in a gallery window on King David street and reproduced on posters everywhere. In fact, there are myriad commercial permutations of this rather lame idea, ranging from Lego brick renditions to The Last Happy Meal!

The Silver Platter

by Nathan Alterman
(Translated from the Hebrew by David P. Stern)

...And the land will grow still
Crimson skies dimming, misting
Slowly paling again
Over smoking frontiers

As the nation stands up
Torn at heart but existing
To receive its first wonder
In two thousand years

As the moment draws near
It will rise, darkness facing
Stand straight in the moonlight
In terror and joy

...When across from it step out
Towards it slowly pacing
In plain sight of all
A young girl and a boy

Dressed in battle gear, dirty
Shoes heavy with grime
On the path they will climb up
While their lips remain sealed

To change garb, to wipe brow
They have not yet found time
Still bone weary from days
And from nights in the field

Full of endless fatigue
And all drained of emotion
Yet the dew of their youth
Is still seen on their head

Thus like statues they stand
Stiff and still with no motion
And no sign that will show
If they live or are dead

Then a nation in tears
And amazed at this matter
Will ask: who are you?
And the two will then say

With soft voice: We--
Are the silver platter
On which the Jews' state
Was presented today

Then they fall back in darkness
As the dazed nation looks
And the rest can be found
In the history books.

Ancient Leper's Shroud Unearthed near Old City dates from time of Jesus

A team of archaeologists and scientists say they have for the first time found pieces of a burial shroud from the time of Jesus in a tomb located in Jerusalem. The BBC's Bethany Bell reports.

The researchers, from Hebrew University and institutions in Canada and the US, said the shroud was very different from the controversial Turin Shroud. (Might it belong to Lazarus, ask some evangelical Christians?)

Some people believe the Turin Shroud to have been Christ's burial cloth, but others believe it is a fake.

The newly found cloth has a simpler weave than Turin's, the scientists say.

The body of a man wrapped in fragments of the shroud was found in a tomb dating from the time of Jesus near the Old City of Jerusalem, above the Hinnom Valley.

The tomb is part of a cemetery called the Field of Blood, where Judas Iscariot is said to have committed suicide.

Researchers believe the man was a Jewish high priest or member of the aristocracy who died of leprosy, the earliest proven case.

They say he was wrapped in a cloth made of a simple two-way weave, very different from the complex weave of the Turin Shroud.

The researchers believe that the fragments are typical of the burial cloths used at the time of Jesus.

As a result, they conclude that the Turin Shroud did not originate from 1st-Century Jerusalem.

The Turin Shroud has been the subject of much controversy.

Tests 20 years ago dated the fabric to the Middle Ages, but believers say the cloth, which bears the imprint of a man's face, is an authentic image of Christ.
Last month a Vatican researcher announced that she had found the words 'Jesus Nazarene' written on the shroud, proving it was the linen cloth which was wrapped around Christ's crucified body. It is shown at the top of this post.

Read more.

Jerusalem's Judas Trees in Full Bloom

Here's how our local Judas Tree looked on Easter Monday. According to legend, nearly 2000 years ago, Judas Iscariot picked an old world relative of the redbud tree to hang himself after he betrayed Jesus -- this is why all the descendents of the ornamental tree developed weak wood; it refuses to grow strong enough to hang another person.
What's more, the tree puts out blossoms on its trunk to discourage the misuse of its beauty. Pragmatists say that this tree, brought back by Crusaders, became known in Europe as the tree from Judaea (l'arbre de Judée), so it's more likely that Judas tree is a corruption of 'Judaea tree'.
Whatever. The blossoms look gorgeous next to the white stone of Jerusalem, warmed by spring sunshine. And the Christian Zionist tourists in town for Holy Week seem most intrigued by this mystery tree.