Relocation

In late 1995 the lease on the premises in Salahudin Street expired and a decision had to be made about whether or not to continue with the gallery. Given the function that the space had started to serve, losing it would have been quite a blow to the emerging network. Persekian made a decision to relocate the gallery to the Old City where he had a space that used to be the workshop of his father's bookbinding business.

There were concerns with having the Old City as a location. Unlike Salahudin, it was not on a main street and was only accessible by foot so it was possible that less visitors would come. However, these premises meant that the gallery could continue without the constant need for huge amounts of money. So after giving the workshop a good clean, the new Anadiel was established in January 1996. Once again unanticipated things started to happen:

It became the most amazing thing being inside the old city. To work and to have artists visit here and to be part of that history and that environment. It meant that when the decision came to found Al-Ma’mal there was no question about where it would be - inside the Old City. (Jack Persekian, 2010)

This was echoed in a recent comment by another of Al-Mamal's founders, Khalil Rabah, who had also been with Anadiel right from the beginning: 

Losing Anadiel in Salahudin Street was painful but suddenly there was a new vision. Around this time I remember we took part in an exhibition in Geneva connected to the 50th anniversary of the UN. This highlighted the aspects of our art that already had an international identity. Given the international identity of Jerusalem particularly the Old City, Anadiel’s move made perfect sense and was absolutely the right place to be for the next stage of our development. (Khalil Rabah, 2010)