Armenian ceramics artist keeps ancient craft alive in Jerusalem
The ancient art of ceramics and tile making lives on in Jerusalem, where the artistic tradition has become part of the treasured local heritage.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — In his shop in the middle of the Old City market in Jerusalem, Hagop Antreassian sits among an array of colorful ceramic pottery and tiles, a craft that has been practiced by Armenians for 100 years in Jerusalem.
Antreassian, 73, is Armenian-Palestinian and lives in the Armenian Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. For 40 years, he has taken great pride in the craft he taught himself, although he fears that the ceramics and tile-making, the mark of the Armenian presence in Jerusalem, may now be disappearing.
