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Juggling in Israel
I originally wrote this shortly after a juggling festival that was held in
Jerusalem in 1996:
There were over 100 attendees including public show headliner Yosef
(Jonathon) Rosenberg, 1989 IJA juniors winner.
Since then, there have been other conventions here in Israel with even more
people attending and lots of great activities. The 2003 convention topped
800 jugglers! There are photos from the last few conventions: 1998
and 2000. Here's information about the upcoming Israeli Juggling
Convention.
Part of the recent growth in juggling is due to the opening of Jugg (the
local juggling shop) in Tel Aviv a couple years ago. They were the first to
bring a wide selection of juggling props to Israel. Although they recently
closed, other entrepreneurs have started selling equipment in Israel.
The content of this page is frequently out-of-date as juggling clubs in
Israel change, so I'll just redirect you to some other pages that are likely
more up-to-date:
I will make a special case, though, of linking to The
Jerusalem Jugglers since I'm the webmaster, there, too. We have been
meeting regularly since before I moved here in 1993. I love going to Tel
Aviv and showing off the superiority of jugglers here in the capitol! Aside
from our weekly meetings, we also get together and do hospital shows nearly
every week.
Israeli jugglers are also making an impact outside of Israel. A number of
jugglers including Guy Lev and Charlie Sofair have been to circus schools
abroad. Israelis have attended numerous conventions around the world.
Foremost of those is Ron Atazky who attends several every year, including
the Dutch and EJC, among others. In 1998 the British Convention brought
Yaron Milgram to perform in their public show. In 1999, Perpetuum Mobile
(Eran Lavi and Shuka Bergman) and Mikhail Staroseletsky performed in the
public show at the European Convention. Recent European Juggling Conventions
have had several dozen Israeli jugglers.
The pre-eminent juggler in Israel is Mikhail Staroseletsky. He was on the
cover of Jugglers
World, Winter 1991 and his performances at our Israeli conventions have
been phenomenal. His routine includes: amazing tricks with 3, 4, 5 balls off
a tennis racket; 3, 5, and 7 huge balls; 3, 4, 5, and 6 clubs including very
long runs of 5 club backcrosses; and a finale of 2 basketballs, 2 rings, and
a tennis racket. Although Mikhail is in his late 40s, he's always trying to
learn new things. For example, until the Israeli convention in 2000, he
didn't think it was possible to hold 4 clubs in one hand. Just a few months
later he's already getting decent runs with 7 clubs. He's also always
challenging himself with creative and technically difficult moves with lower
numbers of objects.
Here are some links to Israeli jugglers with homepages: