03.07.2011 01.Tammus, 5771
Feature:
Jewish carpet enthusiast Anton Felton recounts his 1967 trip to Israel that helped inspire him to make aliya.
Brought up as an extreme left-wing secular Jew by his fervently communist parents, the last place one would expect Anton Felton to immigrate is Israel. With no knowledge of Jewish tradition (“I didn’t have a bar mitzva,” he says) he nevertheless became a passionate lover of the Jewish state, enough to make aliya twice, the second time a year ago.
Two separate events set off his Jewish spark. The first was discovering and being intrigued by his first Jewish carpet, an experience that was to evolve into a lifelong passion for a category of objects that, until he came along, no one knew existed. He was told there was no such thing as a Jewish carpet – but now, as the world’s leading expert on the subject and author of several books, he has proved the naysayers wrong….