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| One of our badly damaged manuscripts |
The British Library team of conservators will finish their job by this week. So will the Milan team preparing for the Spring exhibition. That will take a load off my work. The exhibition of Venice in Jerusalem is still on ... but with poor publicity, no one is coming. Well it was not organised by me or the library team but by the museum ... so I'm not taking responsibility for it. Anyway the British Library team have been a great help in restoring and conserving some of our badly damaged manuscripts ... damaged by time and weather. Once the team leaves, it's up to me to follow up with maintenance. That's time-staking, costly and needs a lot of patience. I doubt I have any of that.
Real bad news last night when the govt voted to legislate the annexation of palestinian land retroactively. That means land occupied by settlers in the past can now be legal. Palestinians whose lands have been occupied now cannot appeal to regain them. In effect Palestine will now be much smaller in size and Israel will be greater. Maps will be redrawn. We are not sure how the arabs will react to this but Israel is taking no chances. Lots of military presence to prevent any demonstrations or violence against this "land grab" as newspapers are calling it. http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.770099
Across the border, the Egyptian govt has made a surprising move by granting one month's paid leave to Coptic civil servants so they can make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem just as muslim civil servants are allowed to go to Mecca. http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/egypt/1.769803
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