Habima theatre heads into cul-de-sac

This posting has three items:1) JTA’s basic report; 2) editorial in Haaretz expressing outrage at this ‘moral stain; 3) Facebook posts by Haim Weiss, lecturer, sparked the controversy.

The illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron. It is regarded as one of the hardline, ideologically driven, settlements.

Israeli national theatre under pressure

for upcoming West Bank performance

By JTA
October 25, 2016

The Israeli national theatre, Habima, will perform in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, sparking protests on social media by academics and artists.

The November 10 performance of “A Simple Story,” a play based on a Hebrew short novel by 1966 Nobel Prize winner S.Y. Agnon, reportedly will be the first time that the theatre has brought its actors to the settlement near Hebron, home to 7,000 Jewish residents.

“The theatre’s management rejects in disgust any call to exclude citizens and exclude towns, and condemns any attempt to culturally boycott any place where Israeli citizens live. The Habima Theatre is the national theatre of the state of Israel,” the theatre said in a statement, published in Haaretz.

Under Sport and Culture Minister Miri Regev, theatres and other cultural organizations that perform in settlements receive a 10 percent bonus, while those that refuse can face a one-third cut in their government funding.

Habima performed in the West Bank city of Ariel at the opening of a new community cultural centre in 2010, amid widespread objection. It is scheduled to perform “A Simple Story” in Ariel in March.

According to a classified 1970 document “The method for establishing Kiryat Arba” released in 2016, Kiryat Arba was established by annexing land to a military base for the purpose of civilian settlement, the first time this happened in the West Bank, from wikipedia.

Haim Weiss, a senior lecturer in Hebrew literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, first brought the performance to the attention of his followers on Facebook in a recent post.

“The willingness of the theatre, its employees and actors to take part in the process of normalizing the occupation and turning Kiryat Arba into just another city where they’re performing is very disturbing,” Weiss wrote.

“Are the theatre’s economic difficulties and the hope that a performance in Hebron will encourage the culture minister and other ministers to help the theatre what’s leading to the performance in Kiryat Arba-Hebron?” he also wrote.

Regev responded in a statement published on Ynet:

The decision to perform for the first time in Hebron exemplifies the national theatre’s being a central pioneer in treating all citizens of the state as equal in their right to experience culture. I encourage Habima for its strong stance against the wave of criticism from the left, and am sorry to see elements in our land act as the lowliest of BDS bullies. Since entering my office, I have led a policy of cultural justice as part of which culture in Israel will be made available to every citizen as a basic right, and I’m happy to see (this) vision made real.

Israel’s national theatre company prepares to breach the barbed wire to entertain the settlers of Kiryat Arba. Photo taken June 30, 2016 by Mussa Qawasma, Reuters

Israel’s National Puppet Theatre Heads to Settlements

Habima theatre’s consent to put on a show in Kiryat Arba is a ‘moral stain worthy of condemnation.’

Haaretz Editorial
October 26, 2016

There’s nothing new in the desire of the settlers, Israeli citizens living in territories that are not the country’s sovereign territory, to normalize their residence there, one way being through their demand that cultural institutions supported by public funds perform for them in their communities.

For that purpose several cultural centres were built there, which can accommodate complete shows.

Nor is there anything new about the fact that the Israeli government is promoting the appearance of “normalization” in a situation that is far from normal, in occupied territories, where in effect there is an apartheid policy.

One population enjoys full rights while another lives under conditions of oppression. Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev (Likud) even signed regulations recently that enable her ministry to punish cultural institutions by denying them a part of their budget for not performing in the country’s periphery, and to provide incentives for those performing only in settlements.

Until now few plays by the supported public theatres were performed in the cultural centres of the settlements, and the managements of those theatres made sure that there would be substitutes for the few theatre people who refused to perform there for reasons of conscience.

Since this activity is relatively marginal, they have refrained as far as possible from publishing declarations on the subject. At the same time, there is a considerable group of artists opposed to performing in the territories, and in addition there is evidence that such performances damage the foreign relations of Israeli theatre.

What’s new in the case of the scheduled performance by the Habima National Theatre in the cultural centre of Kiryat Arba – a place that has become a symbol of the injustices of the occupation and the settlements – is the declaration published by the theatre on the subject.
For the first time, the management of a public theatre is publishing a declaration that also links the fact that it is a “national” theatre to the idea that “we are interested in continuing to provide high-quality culture to all the citizens of Israel,” and also “rejects with repugnance any call to exclude citizens and to exclude communities, and condemns any attempt at a cultural boycott in any place where Israeli citizens live.”

In 1958 one reason why Habima received the title “national” from the Israeli government was to enable the government to provide financial support.

For over 20 years the theatre has been mired in a financial and artistic crisis, and receives regular and special financial assistance, contrary to the rules of proper administration, as the State Comptroller remarked in a severe report.

The culture and sports minister recently established a committee to examine the significance of the “national” aspect of the theatre, and she is regularly invited to its debut performances where she delivers speeches.
It’s clear that the theatre is totally dependent upon the good graces of the government and the minister, even if its directors had a viewpoint regarding the morality of the settlements.

The fact that the government and the settlers are using culture and its institutions to put a kosher stamp on a politically and morally unacceptable situation is another expression of the self-righteous policy of “robbed Cossacks.”

The Habima management’s provocative consent to this is a moral stain worthy of condemnation.

Israeli soldiers patrol the Kiryat Arba settlement. Photo by Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images.

Israeli Artists, Academics Protest National Theatre Performance in West Bank

Habima is due to perform in Kiryat Arba next month, sparking a war played out on Facebook.

By Yair Ashkenazi, Haaretz premium
October 25, 2016

A number of artists and academics want the Habima national theatre to cancel a performance next month in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba.

The November 10 performance of “A Simple Story,” based on a Hebrew short novel by 1966 Nobel Prize winner S.Y. Agnon, is due to take place at a community centre in Kiryat Arba near Hebron.

This would be the first time Habima stages a production in the settlement, a town of about 7,000 people. A performance of the same work, directed by Shir Goldberg based on an adaptation of the novel by Shahar Pinchas, is slated for March 8 in the West Bank city of Ariel.

In general, the country’s major repertory theatres have performed wherever they have been invited, including in West Bank settlements, despite declarations by some artists that they will not perform there.

Hebron is overwhelmingly Palestinian but has a small Jewish community in addition to the Jews in Kiryat Arba. The area has been a site of tension over the decades between the settlers and Palestinians.

The controversy over Habima’s performance in Kiryat Arba was sparked by two recent Facebook posts by Haim Weiss, a senior lecturer in Hebrew literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Cultural institutions that appear in the settlements receive a 10-percent bonus; those that stay away see ministry support cut by a third.

In his first post, Weiss alluded to the incentives and penalties introduced this year in the Culture and Sports Ministry’s criteria for financial support. Cultural institutions that appear in the settlements receive a 10-percent bonus, while those that stay away see ministry support cut by about a third.

Habima is likely to benefit from the new criteria, but the rules have been challenged by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel in a petition to the High Court of Justice. In a reference to the culture minister, Weiss wrote on Facebook: “It turns out that the spirit of the commander is working and the fear of Miri Regev’s open or concealed threats are doing the trick.”
The post was featured next to a picture of a fence with a poster advertising the Habima performance in Kiryat Arba.

 

 

 

 

 

Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev.

Even before assuming office, Regev promised that if censorship were necessary she would employ it, thus placing herself a priori as the person overseeing freedom of expression, as the one deciding who can say what and to whom. She subsequently stated that she wouldn’t lend a hand to tarnishing the image of the state or the IDF on stages that are supported by public funds, as if this is the way things now stand. Following that she adopted, on Facebook and in deeds carried out by her subordinates, a policy of intimidation and administrative retribution by cutting off budgets or threatening to do so , from  Michael Handelzalts, Harretz, September 2015. Photo by Tess Scheflan

“The willingness of the theatre, its employees and actors to take part in the process of normalizing the occupation and turning Kiryat Arba into just another city where they’re performing is very disturbing,” Weiss wrote.

“Are the theatre’s economic difficulties and the hope that a performance in Hebron will encourage the culture minister and other ministers to help the theatre what’s leading to the performance in Kiryat Arba-Hebron?”

As of Monday, Habima had not responded for this article.
In a later post, Weiss wrote about what he considered the significance of the theatre’s performance.

“When Habima, with its canonic (and complicated) standing in the Zionist and Israeli discourse, chooses to appear in a city that symbolizes more than any other the violence and racism of the settlement enterprise, it’s taking a step of major significance,” he wrote.

Habima’s own theatre in Tel Aviv. It was redesigned in 2012 by architect Ram Karmi. Photo from Wikipedia.

As Weiss put it, “The Habima Theatre is conferring validity, significance and legitimization upon the settlement enterprise, especially its most extreme and violent representation. Kiryat Arba’s residents understand this symbolic significance very well and are therefore very pleased about the theatre performance in their city.”

Weiss told Haaretz that Facebook users, in response to his posts, threatened to ask Ben-Gurion University to fire him. He also received criticism from people who said they had bought tickets for the Kiryat Arba show.

But Weiss drew support from academics and artists in various fields. “A curfew will be imposed on Hebron on November 10 (as if only then), because the theatre is coming to town,” film director Dina Zvi Riklis wrote. “Remind me how many Jews live in Kiryat Arba. Also remind me how many soldiers lose their human form there. And it’s not their fault.”

Musician Shosh Reisman wrote: “It’s not at all a simple story to perform in Hebron. How do you manage?”

Theatre director Ari Remez added: “Few performing-arts centres in Israel have attractions in the area as Kiryat Arba, where it’s the lot of the actors in ‘A Simple Story’ to be performing soon. Before the performance they could enjoy a visit to Rabbi Kahane Park or at the monument in memory of Baruch Goldstein, may the Lord avenge his blood.”

Kahane was the founder of the far-right Kach party that was barred from the Knesset. Baruch Goldstein was an American immigrant who killed 29 Palestinians at Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994.

See also
Israel’s national theatre company criticised for show in West Bank settlement, Peter Beaumonst, October 25, 2016.