Mass at the Church of Zion .. Artist Kamal Balata buried in Jerusalem

Aseel soldier - occupied Jerusalem

The body of the historian, writer and plastic artist Kamal Balata was buried today in occupied Jerusalem, 16 days after his death in Berlin.

A mass was held at the Church of Zion inside the walls of the Old City on his soul, headed by Bishop Atallah Hanna.A number of his relatives and his Lebanese wife, Leila Farhoud, who had been associated with him four decades ago, were determined to carry out his will to bury him in Jerusalem, which he has been deprived of since 1967.

Born in Jerusalem in 1942, Balata grew up and left in 1967 to Beirut to open one of his art galleries and was unable to return to her after her occupation.

He then left for Italy to complete his education and from there to America where he lived for 25 years, then moved to France and obtained citizenship and lived 14 years, and the last stop was the city of Berlin in Germany, where he lived seven years.

Great experience
He learned painting and painting at the Khalil Halabi Studio in Jerusalem's Bab al-Khalil neighborhood. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and later studied at the Museum of Fine Arts in Washington.

He lived in the United States, France, Morocco and Lebanon, and received a full-time scholarship to study Islamic art in Morocco from the Fulbright Foundation in 1993.

Balata held personal exhibitions in many cities around the world and is best known for drawing some magazine covers in Beirut.

Visited as a stranger
He visited Jerusalem as a tourist for the first time since he was denied entry shortly after the war in 1984, and his cousin, Terry Balata, who attended the funeral, said it was painful for Kamal to visit his city as a stranger.This visit deeply affected himself and was only able to return to Jerusalem twenty years later. His last visit was in 2003.

"The occupation was forcibly absent from his hometown, and today he is returning to embrace the wealth of his body.

In a speech before the burial, Bishop Atallah Hanna said that he met the late artist in several countries, and was the first question to ask him how is Jerusalem? The bishop touched on the life of Balata, rich in honorable cultural experiences for every Palestinian.

In the cemetery of Zion, adjacent to the church, the coffin of the late artist was opened and the clergy and his wife sprinkled on his body a handful of Jerusalem dust. Grandmother tonight. "