Help! Xenu landing in Jaffa
Way before 1948 Jaffa was a Palestinian cultural center, "arus el bahar" (bride of the sea in Arabic) as Jaffa was known. And as befitting a lovely bride, Jaffa was richly bejewelled: Book printing houses, theatres, poetry clubs and a few cinemas, one of them the beautiful (if you're able to look beyond today's grime) art deco "Al Hambra" cinema.
Famous Egyptian singer Om Kolthoum performed there during one of her 2 Jaffa visits. People paid as much as two monthly salaries to attend the performance.
The Al Hambra, located in Jaffa's fancy Nouzha neighborhod (today's Jeruselam Boulevard) was the fanciest of all Jaffa theatres.
The AlHambra is a protected building, owned, so it is said (not sure it is true), by the Israel Discount Bank. Apparently the previous owner went bankrupt and the bank confiscated the building or some such. The building is in dire straits and in need of a serious renovation. In the mean time, it is used by two wonderful fringe theatres, the "Notzar" theatre and the "Klipa" theatre.
Todays Ha'aretz carries an article about a new central branch of the Scientology cult to be opened in Jaffa, in the Al Hambra Theatre. Ouch. Hell. That's really what we have been waiting for in Jaffa.
Now writing something even slightly critical of that particular cult on the web is often answered by legal demands immediately removing it "or". The "or" implying legal fights.
So it this post goes awol sometime soon, it will be because i really do not have the finances to fight them (Scientology) legally.
If you want to know what Scientology appears to be all about, you can do it two ways, pay a hell of a lot of money to become "clear" on an "advanced level" after so many years of "auditing" or read the "Xenu" leaflet" in one of many languages:
However, why oh why the AlHambra? Let's turn it into a pasta place!
Famous Egyptian singer Om Kolthoum performed there during one of her 2 Jaffa visits. People paid as much as two monthly salaries to attend the performance.
The Al Hambra, located in Jaffa's fancy Nouzha neighborhod (today's Jeruselam Boulevard) was the fanciest of all Jaffa theatres.
The AlHambra is a protected building, owned, so it is said (not sure it is true), by the Israel Discount Bank. Apparently the previous owner went bankrupt and the bank confiscated the building or some such. The building is in dire straits and in need of a serious renovation. In the mean time, it is used by two wonderful fringe theatres, the "Notzar" theatre and the "Klipa" theatre.
Todays Ha'aretz carries an article about a new central branch of the Scientology cult to be opened in Jaffa, in the Al Hambra Theatre. Ouch. Hell. That's really what we have been waiting for in Jaffa.
Now writing something even slightly critical of that particular cult on the web is often answered by legal demands immediately removing it "or". The "or" implying legal fights.
So it this post goes awol sometime soon, it will be because i really do not have the finances to fight them (Scientology) legally.
If you want to know what Scientology appears to be all about, you can do it two ways, pay a hell of a lot of money to become "clear" on an "advanced level" after so many years of "auditing" or read the "Xenu" leaflet" in one of many languages:
"The Xenu leaflet tells in some detail the story the big secret that is in the OT III level. It tells of the alien galactic ruler Xenu who was in charge of Earth and 75 other planets in this part of the galaxy some 75 million years ago and how he cured overpopulation by paralysing the people of the other planets, flying them to Earth in DC-8 space planes, arranging them round a volcano to murder them with H bombs. Not done with that these souls of these murdered people were gathered up and boxed, taken to cinemas and shown films for several days. The end result being that the souls clustered together and now inhabit people in their thousands. And of course they must be removed at huge expense."I really don't mind if people like to believe in ancient green aliens as the source of all evil. Although i personally favour the Flying Spaghetti Monster as a more plausible way of explaining why and how we are here. (Besides, doing a little piracy is more fun than being "audited" as any true pastafarian knows).
However, why oh why the AlHambra? Let's turn it into a pasta place!
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3 comments:
that building is a true gem and its state is truly decrepit.. all i can hope is that it will be renovated..
im not so concerned about scientology.. 90% of the earth seems to think that we are products of money and that having a lot of it guarantees heaven on earth and incidental immortality..
however my preference would have been for the building to be restored to its greatness and opened as a cultural hall for all of yaffo's residents and to serve as an example for communities around us..
was wondering why bank discont cancelled the atm that was installed there.. :S
Because they moved their branch to the banking junction, where there are already branches of poalim, mercantile discount, benleumi and mizrahi (who changed their name due to a merger, with tefahot).
So now we have one junction with 5 banks and the rest of that long street bank less until the poalim branch in the 14-floor building, oh the logic of planning
there is also a bank in חצרות יפו and another one on eilat street.. and there is an ATM just next to abulafia bakery..
its not too bad..
the neglect o fthat building is a sadder story..
one of my neighbours told me that the building was one of the first on the entire boulevard.. its begging to be a cultural hall.. i reckon this is a form of architectural rape.. i hope they impoe crazy heritage presevration constraints on it sdevelopment.. i will be very disappointed otherwise..
why isnt the green forum intervening.. does that thing even exits still..
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