Jerusalem highlights: January 23-29

Visit Hasbon, a new coffee shop focused on urban issues. It boasts a study space for students, a library, and even a seamstress who mends clothes.

Visit the Jerusalem Cinematheque and watch the 2007 film The Visitor. Written and directed by Tom McCarthy, the movie follows a burned-out academic (Richard Jenkins) who enters his seldom-used New York apartment to find a young unmarried couple living there – a Syrian man and a Senegalese woman.

This is a somewhat sweet and naive depiction of a very complicated and politically brutal topic, and patrons might enjoy this humble and human tale as a much-needed break from current events.

Visit Underground, a group exhibition at the Tarbut Gallery featuring works by Naomi Leshem, Ron Amir, Lena Gomon, Anya Kropiakov, Lian Sharkia, Alma Ben David, Liron Harel, and Shira Tamari. The exhibition is curated by Oz Zloof and Rotem Amitai.

Visit the Jerusalem Theatre to watch one of the most unusual films to make it to the Oscars this year. The Brazilian neo-noir thriller The Secret Agent is based on historical events that took place during the military dictatorship in Brazil, installed in the mid-1960s with U.S. backing. It was dismantled in the mid-1980s when the last dictator, Joao Figueiredo, completed his term.

Directed by former film critic Kleber Mendonça Filho, this is a personal movie based on his own experience of these decades.

8 p.m. Portuguese with English and Hebrew subtitles.

Enjoy free entry to the Bloomfield Science Museum as part of Israel’s Space Week to watch how astronauts train. Be sure to view a simulation of how our blue planet looks from the window of a spaceship as part of the exhibition Over the Horizon – A Journey to Space.

This unique exhibition is based on the experiences of private astronaut Eytan Stibbe, who purchased a 17-day stay on the International Space Station. Children and adults alike can get inspired by this display.

Take in an evening of English-language theater with the production of Once Upon a Mattress, the 1959 musical comedy that includes a gutsy princess, a bashful prince, a dictatorial queen, a mute king, a singing minstrel, a wizard, a knight and his lady, a jester, and an ensemble of ladies, knights, and people of the royal court.

The lyrics by Marshall Barer and the music of Mary Rodgers have consistently made this show a hit since it first opened in 1959. Miri Fraenkel plays the role of Princess Winnifred in this production by the Encore Educational Theatre Company.

Visit Kehilat Kol Haneshama’s art charity auction and bid for prints by artists such as Igael Tumarkin, Ivan Schwebel, Avner Moriah, Joyce Schmidt, and Ward Davenny.

Of special note are the 1960s and 1970s Fillmore West posters. This significant San Francisco music venue was managed by Jewish-American rock music promoter Bill Graham. This is a unique opportunity to bid on, for example, a poster of Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention (bid starts at NIS 200).

Collector Sally Oren will discuss the offerings at 7:30 p.m. (15-minute talk), and Susan Nashman Fraiman will discuss the Jerusalem Print Workshop and its role in the local print-making scene (7:45 p.m., 30-minute talk). The final bidding will take place from 8:15 p.m. until the end of the evening.