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Beit Avi Chai, one of central Jerusalem's most edgy and vibrant major cultural institutions, has recently begun offering live webcasts of events and performances. The center, which aims to foster a new Jewish-Israeli cultural consciousness, has undertaken to provide a wide swath of the regular concerts and lectures hosted there to the public via streaming video and even archived, on-demand video on their website, meaning that what goes down at the center on King George Street in Jerusalem will now be available to anybody and everybody, connecting from down the block or across the world.

The initiative would be cool anywhere, coming from Beit Avi Chai, it's especially remarkable, as the center is known for offering music that usually can't be heard anywhere else and lectures on new areas of thought, exploring religion, identity and politics from brave perspectives. From post-Hasidic klezmer-jazz bands and classical North African oud music to contemporary Israeli femme-rock, Beit Avi Chai's shows are certainly varied and esoteric, while the institution also hosts series of shows such as the annual Piyyut Festival, which includes premieres of contemporary classical works, encounters with fringe Jewish sects and new musical projects blending the traditional with the experimental.

"The idea was born out of the principle of sharing the Beit Avi Chai vision and presenting the concerts and events of Beit Avi Chai to a wider variety of audiences," Ran Zeira, 40, Beit Avi Chai's director of IT and multimedia explains to GoJerusalem.com.

Zeira, who lives in the Kiryat Yovel neighborhood and was previously involved in launching the center's website, says that for each event the website offers on video, between 100 and 600 people have been streaming the video live (these attendance figures often rivaling the in-person audiences), with the average streaming session lasting from 30 to 60 minutes (eons in internet time). It all speaks to the engaging nature of the content in question.

While setting up the technological infrastructure has necessitated some major logistical and monetary hurdles, intellectual property laws have also represented challenges, with the artists' recording labels sometimes being picky when it comes to publishing and "broadcast" rights.

Zeira has ambitious plans for the future of Beit Avi Chai's webcasts. They've already been experimenting with using the video streaming technology to connect with audiences and artists in new ways, including a recent joint concert held between a choir in Jerusalem and one in California. "The conductor was not in either of the halls but actually conducted via audio, video and advanced communications systems connecting the venues," he said. "The event was successful and we intend to expand the format and make more such events available in the future live."

"We've found that people connect more to large musical events, and so we're planning on expanding our offerings in this field," he says. The video streaming functionality first went live in August, so that now, dozens of event videos are currently on offer on the Beit Avi Chai official website, www.bac.org.il. With an archives of streaming video content that's only growing, and the quality of the picture and sound being improved all the time, Zeira says he hopes to launch a dedicated section for browsing libraries of on-demand video content in the coming months.

Photos courtesy of David Dorphman for Beit Avi Chai.