While reading the articles by Suad Amiry, I came across some very interesting facts. In the first article, "Researching East Jerusalem," Suad discusses their exploration of the city, and all of the different cultures they encountered. She explains how they emerged themselves in each culture of East Jerusalem, whether it be Ethiopian, Christian, or Moslem practices. This particular passage surprised me. This shows that not only is Jerusalem divided by Israel and Palestine, but also within each part of Jerusalem lives subsets of cultures, which I find to be very intriguing. I think this shows how rich and full of life the city really is. I also enjoyed reading the second article, "Representing Jerusalem." What I found most interesting was how hard it was to represent the true culture of Jerusalem. Suad discusses how it was hard to represent the richness of the culture and not contextualize it. I think this became difficult because of the many identity issues that surround Jerusalem and its people.
The article written by Galit Hasan-Rokem intrigued me as well. I found it interesting that the folklorists from the Smithsonian rejected so many interesting cultural aspects of Jerusalem for the festival. Hasan-Rokem speaks of how the folk-dance groups were rejected by the Smithsonian folklorits. Why were the Smithsonian folklorists (who had no true cultural knowledge of Jerusalem) able to name what was folklore and what was not?
Professor Horowitz's article about the festival really enlightened me as well. She highlighted the background of how the festival originated, as well as the problems surrounding taking on this task. I got a better understanding of what ethnography is, as well as some of the reasoning as to why having this festival was so controversial. There are so many political and social problems in Jerusalem, that it is hard to paint an accurate picture without making some sort of political stance yourself, and that is what the Smithsonian Institute was trying not to do.
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