Israeli Theater Takes Center Stage after Settlement Show
A performance by Israel's national theater company in an emblematic Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank has drawn praise from the right-wing government and sharp criticism from its detractors.
On Thursday night, the Habima Theater took to the stage for the first time in Kiryat Arba located near the flashpoint Palestinian city of Hebron, where a few hundred settlers live under army protection.
The area is regularly the scene of violence between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians.
Around 400 people from Kiryat Arba and nearby Jewish communities showed up for the performance, including smartly dressed women and many men who carried arms.
Israel's Culture Minister Miri Regev, who has been at war with much of Israel's cultural elite since taking the role in 2015, sat jubilantly at the front row.
"This performance tonight is a revolution, a historic moment for the Israeli theater and better late than never," said Regev, one of the most outspoken members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party.
"I'm glad that this theater has not yielded to pressure and I promise you many other nights like these in Judea and Samaria," the minister said to applause, using the Israeli name for the West Bank.
Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967 in a move the international community considers illegal.
More than 400,000 Israelis now live in West Bank settlements, despite continuous condemnation from global powers who see settlement building as one of the largest obstacles to peace with the Palestinians.
Rightwing Israelis say the settlements should be treated the same as any other part of Israel, while leftwingers say that amounts to recognizing an illegal occupation.
Parts of Israel's cultural elite have put up fierce resistance to the national company performing in Kiryat Arba -- which more than any other signifies the settlement movement.
Habima has occasionally performed in settlements before but Kiryat Arba has a particularly controversial reputation.
Among its former residents is Baruch Goldstein, who in 1994 entered a Hebron mosque and shot dead 29 worshipers.
- 'A simple story' -
Tension had mounted in the weeks leading up to the performance.
On Thursday, Breaking the Silence, one of Israel's most prominent anti-occupation NGOs, organized a tour of Hebron with actors who had refused to perform on stage, Israeli media reported.
These actors told the Israeli press they had been forced by Habima's leadership to give up one-third of their salaries to pay for their replacements.
Shlomi Bertonov, one of the actors, wrote in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz they refused to take part in the performance and "play Miri Regev's game."
Regev has called for an end to public funding of cultural institutions considered hostile to Israel.
Thursday's play, based on Israeli Nobel literature laureate Shai Agnon's book "A Simple Story", depicted the trials and tribulations of a small Jewish community in eastern Europe.
Habima director Odelia Friedman told Israeli public radio the settlers had as much right to access government-subsidized culture as other Israeli citizens.
But veteran actor-director Oded Kotler disagreed.
"When we say the nation, Israel, or 'national' this does not include the occupied territories," he told public radio.
"By carrying out a so-called purely cultural activity in these places, we are intensifying the suffering of others, which has been going on for years and years and actually prevents us from making peace."
Residents, however, stressed it was about culture, not politics.
"There is never anything cultural happening here, but we also want to be able to go to the show near us," said Yudith Weinstein, who like many in the area is of Russian descent.
"Tel Aviv is far away and we do not care that this company is considered leftist," she said. "We came to see theater, not talk politics."
Source: Agence France Presse
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