I Woke in Jerusalem This Morning

ByPaul Sellers

P1210285 P1210299 Yes, I flew into Tel Aviv last night late and arrived in Jerusalem at 2am. At 9am my class in traditional handwork began and throughout the day we had the most amazing exchange of hands-on hand tool woodworking reaching way into every corner of Gil’s workshop. P1210339 Mishael Levron runs an on-line supply of traditional hand tools (at tooleden.com) people can buy and of course we decided a few weeks ago to run an event here in Jerusalem. I think with the limited spaces we had the classes filled within 24 hours so it was deemed a success by that alone but how do you measure the kind of success we had today  and how do you measure such success except by this one thing and that is we were all united by our craft and it didn’t matter what skill levels or skill sets we had. We just enjoyed our being together and learning from one another about this thing called wood and the working of it.

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Throughout the day there was great laughter and great encouragement, but beyond even that it was an inspiration of shared experience and getting to know one another when we had never in some cases met. P1210367 Mishael has a passion for what he does in providing hand tools to Israel but then there are other behind the scenes people who put a lot of effort into making the event a success. There was a camaraderie between benches that always seems to transcend different cultures, gender, age and all else. I am always amazed that this exists wherever I travel.

The weather is just fine and sunny so no complaints from me. I love being here with my woodworking friends.

9 Comments

    1. No, not yet at least, but I am here to teach so time is very limited for such searching I am afraid.

  3. Looks like a wonderful experience for you and your students. Hope you get a chance to see some of the beautiful country and its people.

    What did you think of the wood they use there and how does they differ from UK and North American hardwoods?

    1. We have been using a friend’s workshop who is both a gifted maker and woodworking teacher, Gil. Most of the woods he uses are woods I am familiar with using, woods like oak and walnut, poplar.

  5. Paul.. you are an inspiration… not only as a craftman, but also as a humen being.
    I enjoyed every minute of the time spent in your Jerusalem workshop, judging by the fact that after 10 hours of work-shop no one wanted to leave ! is a testement to how interesting and enjoyable the time with you has been..

    Looking forward to your September workshop in the UK.

    Very best wishes
    Ophir S. Tor

  6. This was an excellent blog edition, as all are, and, as a result, I went to the tooleden.com website mentioned and saw a very nice looking router plane that is sold there. Is it possible to find a company that sells this plane in the USA? It would appear to be an excellent alternative to the ones available here, possibly at a lower cost.

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