SidraTarbut 2025 - Ananeh. Photo by Yakov Buta
2021
Jerusalem has always been more than just a city. It is a source, a pulse, a place where language itself seems to gather force. For millennia, it has stirred songs, poetry, and prayer, drawing artists and thinkers into its orbit. While Jerusalem may be an ancient city, it is anything but a city of the past. It is continuously being re-made. Beneath the layers of history, a vibrant cultural life unfolds, offering new, unobstructed cultural views of the city. SidraTarbut: Art & Culture Events From and For Jerusalem brings that living culture into view, tracing the creative energy that runs through the city today while inviting it to circulate more freely across its diverse neighborhoods.
Established by the Jerusalem Foundation, with the support of the The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation, SidraTarbut (Culture Series) was born from a simple yet urgent understanding. Jerusalem’s cultural richness is not lacking. What is often missing is the connective tissue that allows it to be seen, accessed, and shared. The initiative was created to weave together what already exists, to make visible the breadth of artistic work taking place across the city, and to ensure that it reaches audiences who might otherwise remain outside its reach. It speaks both to seasoned cultural participants and to those encountering such spaces for the first time, opening doors that are as social and geographic as they are artistic. Each summer, over the course of roughly two months, the festival unfolds across the city, reaching as many as 34 neighborhoods and drawing culture out of central venues and into the fabric of everyday life.
Rather than centering on a single location, SidraTarbut operates as a platform that gathers a wide range of events under one framework. Its programming spans music, theater, dance, visual art, film, and literature, reflecting the diversity of the city itself. Performances and activities take place in major cultural institutions, community centers, and public spaces, as well as in smaller, local venues embedded within neighborhoods. Moving through SidraTarbut means moving through Jerusalem itself, encountering culture not as a destination, but as something that unfolds across the city.
A large-scale opening event might combine film and live music in a single performance, while elsewhere audiences encounter contemporary dance works, theater productions, poetry readings, and street concerts. Community-based events bring culture closer to home, from family performances and workshops to neighborhood concerts and storytelling evenings. In past editions, audiences have taken part in open-air musical performances, multidisciplinary shows drawing on Jewish traditions, and dance works that expand the boundaries of physical expression.
A defining feature of the initiative is its emphasis on local creation. SidraTarbut highlights work that emerges from within Jerusalem, offering artists greater visibility while situating their work within a wider cultural conversation. This creates a sense of continuity that does not rely on nostalgia, but instead connects the city’s past with its present through active, contemporary practice.
At the same time, the initiative is shaped by an awareness of Jerusalem’s social complexity. The city is composed of multiple communities, each with its own cultural habits and points of reference. SidraTarbut does not attempt to unify these into a single audience. Instead, it creates accessible entry points while encouraging movement across familiar boundaries, allowing audiences to encounter forms of expression they might not otherwise experience. In doing so, SidraTarbut has expanded access to culture across Jerusalem, bringing performances, exhibitions, and artistic events to audiences far beyond the city’s traditional cultural circles.
By connecting artists, venues, and communities, it strengthens the conditions for cultural life to grow and circulate. In doing so, SidraTarbut continues Jerusalem’s cultural legacy in a distinctly contemporary form. It affirms that the city’s story is still unfolding, shaped not only by its history, but by the creative work taking place across it today.
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