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"Eat Drink and Be Merry"

Summer 2011

our twenty fifth anniversary year 

We are celebrating our twenty-five years with this festive exhibit.  Since we began in 1987 mire than 70,000 visitors have enjoyed our garden.  Thousands of them have attended our lectures and  public tours.  We have hosted dozens of garden clubs, school, and church groups. Each year we have mounted a different special exhibit which augments our collection of biblical plants.  Each of those exhibits deals with an aspect of daily life ands shows how our Near Eastern ancestors dealt with the problems of their life.  Each exhibit has made the biblical world and that of the surrounding societies real to our visitors.  Mounting those exhibits, finding and growing the plants continues to be a challenge especially as they need to be sufficiently large to be enjoyed by our visitors.  This means that we need to work at least a year in advance.

Equally important is our endeavor to show that the Bible can be read in a different way - as an easy tie to our own lives.  We, of course, see the Garden continuing the long Rodef Shalom tradition of interfaith standing, so the world of plants can bring us closer to each other.

Our special exhibit brings us the plants which were used to create clothing. In the colder parts of the Near East, it was easy so wrap yourself in the fur of animals or to cut their hairy fur and create wool, but such heavy garments were useless in most of the hot Near East.  Plants provided a better solution, but this was a long and difficult process.  Equally hard was coloring them appropriately.  

Perfume and simple good smelling soap also relied heavily in plants.  Although some kind of soap with plant ingredients was available even for the poor.  Perfumed soap was another matter; there plants played a major role.  The seasons in the Near East are harsh as a desicating wind sweeps in from the desert and the skin becomes brittle.  Salves, lotions from wonderful plants not only keep it from cracking, but add beauty. 

Visit the our special exhibit and discover how you and the ancient Pharaoh use the same stuff, just rebottled fancier for our time. This exhibit will be added to the normal display of biblical plants and plants with biblical names.

For further information contact Irene Jacob E-mail Jacob@Rodefshalom.org  (412) 621-6566; FAX (412) 621-5475.