Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Our Diamond Wedding Anniversary
BEIT TICHO
Tucked away
in the very centre of downtown Jerusalem, just off the bustling Jaffa Road and
overshadowed by a block of flats in the
process of construction is a small oasis in the form of a beautiful garden
which belongs to one of the first buildings in Jerusalem to have been built
outside the city’s walls. Beit Ticho or
Ticho House, has been for many years an excellent fish and dairy restaurant and
the garden is a favourite venue for
summer parties Over the years, we have enjoyed many wedding, Bar and Bat mitzvah
celebrations there. On summer evenings, the garden is the perfect
place to eat, in cooler weather the dining room is always warm and cheerful,
the excellent quality of the fish and
dairy menu never varies.
Ticho House
was built in 1880 by an Arab dignitary, Aga Rashid Nahishibi who built it as a
summer villa. Among the house’s first occupants was the family of a notorious
antiquities forger by the name of Shapira whose daughter described the house in
her memoires, La Petite Filles de Jerusalem. In 1924 the house was
bought by the Ticho family, Dr Avraham Albert Ticho and his cousin, Anna, were
born in Moravia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, at the end of the
last century. Dr. Ticho studied medicine
in Vienna where he specialised in ophthalmology, Anna studied art, also in
Vienna. In 1912, Dr. Ticho came to
Jerusalem to open an eye-clinic, Anna followed him and they married in the same
year. They converted the lower floor of
the house into an eye-clinic which served the population of Jerusalem, rich and
poor alike, until Dr. Ticho died in 1960.
At first, the then barren landscape of Jerusalem had such a negative
impact on Anna that she was unable to draw or paint at all but during the time that
her husband was stationed in Damascus in World War 1, she took up drawing
again. On their return, as well as
serving as assistant to her husband in his clinic, she began going out into the
Jerusalem landscape, using different mediums to record what she saw. Her work became widely acclaimed and examples
are displayed in many museums around the world.
Our particular favourites are her delicate paintings of spring time
scenes in Jerusalem portraying almond blossom in full bloom. She won many awards for her work, among them
the Israel Prize which she received in 1980. She continued to live and work in
the house after her husband’s death until her own death in 1980, when, as a
token of her love for Jerusalem, she bequeathed it together with its library
and collection of art of antique Chanukah lamps, collected by her husband, to
the people of the city to serve as a public centre of art.
Now Ticho
House, as well as being a restaurant, is the downtown section of the Israel
Museum, part museum, part, art-gallery and also has an extensive library of
books about Jerusalem, art and literature.
It is also the venue for concerts and varied cultural events. If you
have not already visited it, both for a delicious meal or to enjoy Anna Ticho’s
paintings and sketches and the various other collections, we strongly recommend
that you do so.
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