Panim- Faces of Art and Culture in Israel- January-February 1999

Great Minds Thinking Together

"Everyone is aware of the sensitive relationship between blacks and Jews in America," says Tali Samash, Director of Academic Affairs at the Divison of Cultural and Scientific Affairs of the Israel Foreign Ministry. "It is extremely important to us to encourage relationships between Israeli institutions and black schools in the US; we hope that by showing these leaders our situation here in Israel, they will understand the American Jewish community better."

This ambitious goal is the driving force behind the upcoming visit of 13 American university presidents, who have been chosen by the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) to travel to Israel in January. The special initiative between UNCF and Israels Foreign Ministry, now in its second year, involves high-level meetings, forums and activities that work toward bringing together the leaders of the two groups, whose relationship is historically complex.

The presidents, including the leaders of Howard and Clark Universities, will spend ten days in Israel, accompanied by William Gray, head of UNCF, and the Israeli Consul for Academic Affairs in New York, Dan Kutner. During this time they will hold policy meetings with prominent Israeli leaders including President Ezer Weizman, MK Shimon Peres, MK Yossi Beilin, MK Benny Begin, the IDF spokesperson, and with the leaders of at least five of the major Israeli universities. They will also be shown joint Palestinian-Israeli initiatives, and will visit immigrant absorption centers.

"We will encourage personal contacts that can be maintained in the future," emphasizes Samash. The program is part of her departments goal of broadening Israels academic horizons through expanded activities with foreign communities. Apart from the Foreign Ministry-UNCF project, several other major events this winter exemplify the Ministrys initiatives to deepen international academic relations.

In February, the six-year old "Intellectual Exchange Dialogue" will take place in Jerusalem. An idea that was first conceived by Japan, Israel has run the dialogue each year with a different country, most recently with India. In the fall of 1997, a group of Israeli professors involved in a variety of disciplines traveled to India to meet with their counterparts.

In the second part of the program, a different group of Indian scholars will be hosted by the original Israeli participants, at the Truman Institute at the Hebrew University. During a one-week visit, they will hold discussions on comparative studies of Israeli society, in fields ranging from law, theater, economy, Middle East studies, and politics. One of these nights will be open to the public an event that in past years has filled the venue.

"One of the main goals is to show academics from abroad the sociological perspectives of Israeli culture, literature, industry, relations with Arabs; in sum, it is to show them the faces of Israel, as they do for us when the Israelis visit," explained Samash. "But we also hope that they will continue the personal relations, and that their mutual understanding will influence the work of both groups." She believes that increased contact with the international academic world is an essential element for broadening the perspective of Israeli intellectual life, increasing its depth, and enriching its level of scholarship.

Special efforts have also been made to reach out to countries with little or no previous knowledge of Israel. Four years ago, the Israeli embassy in Beijing, working with Omer Caspi and Ruth Kahanoff in the Ministrys South Asia Division, began a program to bring groups of Chinese scholars of the Middle East to Israel for an academic exchange and dialogue. Now every year, a different group of Chinese professors is hosted by one of the major research institutes (The Begin-Sadat Center, The Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, The Truman Institute for Peace, The Leonard Davis Institute, The Dayan Center). This years group will be visiting in February. Over the last few years, scholars have been sent from major research institutes in Beijing, Shanghai, and other urban centers.

Why China? Samash replies: "China is such an important country today, especially in its relationship with the Middle East. A few years ago, the Chinese barely knew anything about Israel, and we want them to understand our perspectives. We also think it is very important to learn their perspectives." To this end, the Ministry also sends Israeli lecturers to China yearly, mostly to Beijing University, to give three to six-week seminars on the Middle East. This is important, she says, because there are few Middle East departments in Chinese universities.

Perhaps the most far-reaching and continuing activity the academic department runs is sending Israeli researchers, instructors and professors abroad to participate in the intellectual life of other countries. Lecturers have been sent recently to China, Romania, France, Italy, India and Turkey; certified Hebrew teachers are sent abroad to ensure not only capable teaching of the language, but the very existence of Hebrew classes in places where previously there had been no such opportunities. "These Hebrew classes" says Samash, "are also a good way to slip in some education about Israeli culture."

After shedding the persona (and costume) of a domineering and querulous mother, Orna Porat emerges from the stage door (after three curtain calls) in the same time it takes for the last of the audience to leave the hall. Sitting comfortably in a café adjacent to the theater where she has just starred in Beersheba Theaters production of "The Beauty Queen," the most striking aspect of this seasoned actress is just how unglamorous she appears. In jeans and a T-shirt, her gray hair pulled casually back, at the age of 74 Porat looks more like an enthusiastic grandmother (which she is) just back from watching a school play, than a grand-dame of Israeli theater, which she most undoubtedly also is.

It is this switching on and off of roles that Porat especially likes about acting. "I can live out so many different lives and still remain myself," explains Porat, who is comfortable acting in Hebrew, English, German and Yiddish. She admits a preference for serious roles "for drama that has something to say" and has performed the whole gamut of tragic possibilities, from Joan of Arc to Electra to Mary Stuart.

Not one to be put on the shelf, Porat, whose career on stage (and to a lesser extent in film) spans half a century, believes acting improves with age. "I bring to the stage a lifetime of experiences, as well as the attitude that I dont have to prove myself any more. At my age," says Porat, her eyes revealing mischievous good humor, "so what if I dont succeed?"

She has already done so. The list of prizes and awards she has earned is so long it almost sounds like a shopping list: She has won the Israel Prize (1979), the Israel Theater Critics Award (1983), Kinor David (three times), a Knesset citation and a Bnai Brith Award, to name but a few. She has honorary doctorates from Bar Ilan University and the Weizmann Institute of Science, and last year was awarded Haifa Universitys Humanitarian Award of Merit. She won the Israel Theater Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.

Porat sips a glass of white wine, and describes her transformation from a German-born Protestant to one of Israels leading theatrical personalities.

Born Irena Klein in Cologne, Porat studied drama there, but having lived in Germany throughout the war, had but one desire when it was over: to get out. Allied forces occupied Germany at the time, and in order to leave she was interrogated by a German-born British intelligence officer, Yaacov Porat (then Joseph Fruter) who, in a Cinderella-style turn of fate, was to become her husband.

The Porats immigrated to Israel in 1947 and after their application to join a kibbutz was turned down, they settled in Tel Aviv. She converted to Judaism, and they eventually adopted two children. Yaacov Porat joined Israels intelligence services ("he was the greatest actor, no one could believe what he hid behind his innocent eyes") and Orna pursued her career on stage, joining the Cameri Theater in 1949 as a regular member of the ensemble.

"During the early years of the state, theater was a collective endeavor," recalls Porat, her throaty voice betraying nostalgic yearning. "No one was paid and everyone cared for everyone else" a cynical jab at what Porat calls todays professional dog-eat-dog world of contracts and egos. When Israel Bonds gave her a $5,000 bonus in 1956, following a three-month fund-raising stint in the US, she simply handed the check over to the Cameri.

Porat insists that she has never abandoned her socialist principles. In 1970, under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, she established, and for 19 years managed, the National Theater for Children and Youth her way of touching the hearts and minds of all children, she stresses. The perfect educational tool ("I used to have to fight with principals on that one"), the Orna Porat Theater for Children and Youth reaches 400,000 youngsters annually in 250 cities and towns throughout Israel, performing socially-conscious, moral-oriented plays.

Yaacov Porats death two years ago was a severe blow to the actress. "He was my staunchest critic and most enthusiastic fan," sighs Porat, who somehow has found the inner strength to carry on. She exercises twice a week ("a combination of Feldenkreis, Yoga and Tai Chi") and, weather permitting, takes a daily (6:30 a.m.) dip in the ocean. At work on her autobiography, she has recently completed filming "White Lies," an Israeli production in which she plays a Holocaust survivor who cant help but smother her sons aspirations. She will soon begin rehearsals for "Two Sisters," a Yiddish-language (also Holocaust-based) drama, written by her daughter, Lital.

Aside from acting, Porat says her greatest passion is travel. She has been to South and North America and Alaska, East Asia, and Europe, and spends ten days every winter in the Alps. "I love the sound of walking in freshly fallen snow, the colors of icicles hanging from the trees, the fresh air, the tranquility," she says dreamily, already transposed at the thought of it. "Ach, it is so beautiful."

- Shelley Kleiman

SHALOM-SALAAM

It has taken decades for Middle East leaders to begin making peace. The actors in "The Last Enemy" took two years to create their product. The play only takes 90 minutes to conclude what takes politicians eons: the need to struggle for peace and cooperation for the shared future of Israelis and Palestinians.

A play within a play, "The Last Enemy" tells the story of a charismatic, optimistic director who challenges her Palestinian and Israeli actors to overcome their differences for the sake of the theater. In her own role as director, she must battle the forces of fate and history, personified by the "Old Actor," who jeers at her with the claim that history proves only the human capacity for conflict, not reconciliation. She struggles to keep the evil Old Actor at bay while goading the reluctant group into performing unaccustomed roles: in her play, an Israeli girl falls in love with a Palestinian boy; a Palestinian woman falls in love with an Israeli man both translators for diplomats at the United Nations and they fight to define their relationship while their leaders battle out the political realities. An Arab actress is asked to play simultaneously the mother of an Israeli teenage girl and of a Palestinian boy, as well as the role of mother to terrorists on both sides.

Masking no metaphors, the actors in the project were almost identical to those in the sub-plot; and the process the "director" must endure mirrored the one that actually took place. "The [actors] overcame personal and political problems to work as an ensemble; by the end, they definitely gelled as a family," reflected the playwright, James Mirrione.

"The Last Enemy," is the work of an ambitious international project called "Crossing the Bridge," part of the conflict resolution program at the Creative Arts Team (CAT) at New York University. The project brought Israeli Jewish and Arab actors together with Palestinian and Jordanian actors, for conflict resolution workshops and theater seminars in New York, Connecticut and England. The actors participated in CATs "at-risk youth" program with New York kids as well.

The intensive training was part of their preparation for the perfect conflict resolution play. Mirrione, who is the playwright-in-residence at CAT, wrote "The Last Enemy" following three years of travel in the Middle East. He hopes that his actors will be seen as "Ambassadors of Reflection."

They will definitely be seen. The play has already had an international run: It first opened at the American Place Theater in Manhattan, then continued on a Middle East tour in October and November, performing in Amman, Ramallah, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jericho and Jaffa. Performances will be held in Tel Aviv on January 10,11,12, and there will likely be a tour in Amman in February; the company has recently been invited to Paris and Germany.

"Urban Feel." (Feature) Jonathan Sagalls film is a dark, contemplative examination of love and self-fulfillment. Seven adults lives overlap due to their shared sense of profound dissatisfaction: Robby feels that his wife has never really loved him, and in desparate loneliness, he begins an unfulfilling relationship with Nili, through a personal advertisement. Nili, who is wiling away her youth with an older man she both loves and hates, is also painfully alone. Robbys problems with his wife, Eva, are exacerbated by the return of his former best friend and Evas ex-lover Emmanuel, from the Far East. Emmanuel brings havoc into Evas life, and destroys whatever small comforts of family life Robby had left. Torn between past and present, Eva and Emmanuel isolate themselves from the world, alienating their loved ones. The characters betray each other selfishly and relentlessly, while all their misery is absorbed by Evas eight year-old son, the innocent Jonah, whose father might be any one of three main male characters. Far from a "love child," Jonah seems to symbolize all the unhappy relationships in Evas lonely life. The film won first prize at the Haifa Film Festival in October, as well as two Israeli Film Academy Awards. Produced by Eyal Shiray, David Mandil, Michael Tapuach and Jonathan Sagall.

Academy Awards

"Palestine Circus" has dazzled the Israeli Film Academy, which awarded its highest honor this year best feature film to this peace-promoting work (see Panim, May/June 1998). The script, which chronicles the tribulations of a forlorn Russian circus and its lion, who goes missing in the West Bank, also won the Best Script award (written by Eyal Halfon); Shlomo Gronich got the Best Music Award for his score, and the film went on to win the Best Leading Actor and Best Supporting Actor awards (Yoram Hatav and Amos Lavi, respectively). "Palestine Circus" was produced by Marek Rozenbaum and Haim Sharir. It did not, however, win the greatest number of awards; this distinction went to "Dangerous Acts" (see Panim, Nov/Dec 1998), which won Best Director, Sound Track, Photography, Wardrobe, Artistic Director and shared the Best Music prize.

Haifa Theater Takes on International Projects

Euphoric from its successful run of performances in eastern Europe, the Haifa Theater has continued building its reputation abroad by participating in an international project based in Italy, involving actors from five nations.

As of mid-October, Haifa Theater became a participant in a project of the "Dionysius Center" in Rome, together with actors from Italy, France, Hungary, and a Palestinian theater company. The group will begin rehearsals in June 1999 for a new play written by Slobodan Snajder, based on Boccacios Decameron, to open in the year 2000. Performances directed by Paolo Magelli will be held in each of the participating regions, with the Israeli première in Acre.

In mid-October, "Teybele and her Demon" was performed to a full house in Lasa Ukraina, a theater in Kiev. The responses were so successful that the Ukrainian theaters administration promptly invited the company for a tour of shows in Odessa and Kharkov. At the end of November, the Lasa Ukraina company visited Haifa for a special performance of "Games in the Back Yard," by Edna Mazia, directed by Oded Kottler.

Curtains Up!

The annual fall festival of movement and creativity displayed the countrys best modern dancers and their newest productions. Liat Dror and Nir Ben Gal (see Panim, Nov/Dec 1998) performed the Israeli première of "The Dance of Nothing," a hypnotic sequence of movements repeated in thematic cycles, interspersed with activities somewhat outside the routine of typical dance performances: costume changing, bread-baking (perfect for an after-the-show snack), and dramatized embracing and fighting. Noa Dar presented an original work with the unusual theme of historical drama. Eyezaurus Frida narrates the life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo through dance and imagery, depicting Kahlos traumatizing physical obstacles and her stormy emotional life, including her complex relationship with her husband, the artist Diego Riviera. Tamar Borer presented a new work, Hara, with a Japanese-style, meditative character; Yossi Yungman performed his latest, "Duologue."

The celebration of Israeli cultural life on the occasion of the States 50th anniversary has been immortalized by the words of its writers, artists and thinkers in a special double issue of the quarterly cultural magazine Ariel: The Israel Review of Arts and Letters. The range of subjects covered spans new translations of recent Hebrew short stories and poetry, a vibrant account of the signing of the Israeli Declaration of Independence and includes a commentary on the state of the Jewish people, in historical perspective. The visual arts are analyzed by an Israeli artist, and some new Israeli sculpture is displayed in a color-plate photo gallery. The magazine is available from Israeli embassies and consulates.

The ancient Arab community of Jaffa has existed despite upheavals through to the present. It seems only natural that there should be an Arab theater in Jaffa, but remarkably, the city has lacked a permanent Arabic-language company. To right the situation, a few devoted professionals actors, directors and administrators have taken the intiative to establish the brand-new Arab Theater in Jaffa.

The initiative emphasizes Jewish-Arab cooperation. The first production, a translation of Lyle Kesslers "Orphans," was performed in November by three Israeli-Arab actors Sohil Hadad, Dirar Saliman (who translated the play) and Norman Issa and was directed and designed by Jewish Israelis, Yigal Ezrati and Uri On, respectively. The Tel-Aviv-Jaffa Municipality is a main supporter of the theater. "Jaffa was once a cultural metropolis of the Middle East... Fifty years after the creation of Israel, this group of artists seeks to break the artistic silence...and lay the foundations for a professional Arab theater in the cultural capital of Israel."

"Orphans in Jaffa" tells the story of two young orphans, who live alone in their familys apartment. The older brother supports the two of them through thievery, and has brainwashed his younger brother into believing that, in order to keep him safe, he must never go outside the house. When an adult stranger from the outside world also an orphan enters their lives, the foundations of their fragile existence are shaken; the barriers between the boys and the real world are brought into sharp relief, and ultimately, they are painfully shattered.

Reviews were enthusiastic. "The play is enthralling, what happens on the stage is very rich ... the heroes express changes in their lives and in their behavior, and expose the tragedy of an existence caught between two different cultures," wrote one critic.

This performance was the work of Teatron Mekomi ("Local Theater"), a fringe company, working under the auspices of the new theater. In the future, says Issa, the theater will perform original Arabic drama.

Artistic Exchange with Tennessee

A sculptor from the ancient city of Jerusalem and a painter from the home state of Elvis Presley Tennessee might not have much in common. But working on the premise that cultural exchange is a creative stimulus, a group of Israeli and American artists have embarked on a precedent-setting journey into each others lives.

The program was fostered by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport and the Foreign Ministry, working with the cultural attache in Atlanta, Ruth Mekel. In cooperation with Bennett Tarleton of the Tennessee Arts Commission, six Israeli visual artists visited a group of colleagues in Tennessee in October, for a 10-day whirlwind professional exchange, including lectures and studio visits, touring and even some entertainment. In their turn, the group of seven American artists from the deep south journeyed to Israel most of them for their first time for a similar experience.

Intense personal contact was emphasized through a "buddy" system of pairing each artist with a counterpart of similar artistic interest. This interpersonal element was complimented by extensive historical and cultural tours, which the participants claimed helped to highlight areas of similarity and difference between them: what indeed do the artists, and the societies of Israel and the American deep south, share?

American installation and wood artist Richard Painter explained: "Exchange has influenced my work a great deal, which has been heavily involved with life and death. My last exchange was in Germany, and coming here is like seeing the opposite side of history." He was paired with Haim Maor, a visual artist whose main medium is photography. Yehudit Sasportas Koriat, an Israeli sculptor and teacher at the Bezalel School of Art and Design, exclaimed that "when we were in Tennessee, we had a wonderful dialogue. I gave a lecture at the studio and I held a master class. The worlds are so different its almost frightening, but we connect on the artistic level."

Others felt that simply experiencing the lives of their fellow artists abroad gave them a sense of connection. Ibrahim Nubani, an Arab-Israeli artist, reflected that "we had a lot in common, although it may not seem so from the outside, in our treatment of the different groups in our societies, for example." Mikki Tropper felt that going about daily life with his "buddy," Greg, including to Tennessee night-spots, was a critical aspect of the trip; others said that this very element allowed the hosts to view their own communities in a new light.

Sylvia Hyman is one of the foremost ceramicists in Tennessee; she found that visits to individual habitats were inpsirational. "Visiting Mikkis kibbutz made me understand him as an artist." Yehudit was similarly inspired by what she saw in Tennessee: "Im now working on a project called Elvis Presleys kitchen!"

What is the product of such an exchange? The most visible result was the desire to combine professional resources. Yehudit suggested teaching exchanges for the art instructors in the group. Already the group is planning a joint exhibit that would be shown in the US. Such a show might display older works of each artist; but others have raised the idea of creating new art together. Talia Tokatly, an Israeli sculptor, says: "We must continue the goal of the program by working together, using our deep knowledge of each other to create something in common, something new in our fields of art."

The theme of such an exhibit could go in many directions. But the artists were intrigued by the concept of viewing each others country through the eyes of the other. They were captivated by similarities between the two histories, such as the fact that both the US and Israel are immigrant nations; others noted the common factor of the two lands that seem to be bursting with potential. The goal of the artists, first and foremost, is to realize their joint creative potential, and continue the momentum of this, and hopefully future projects.

Ministry of Education Prizes for Visual Arts

Prizes for Israeli plastic arts were bestowed by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport to a group of artists this year. Larry Abramson, a minimalist painter whose work has been widely shown in solo shows in Israel, and in numerous group exhibits abroad most recently appearing in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in an exhibit that continues until mid-January was awarded the prize for his Giornata series. Hila Lulu Lin is a multi-media artist who works humor and irony into her art. "One Spoonful of Sugar" is a video work which has been displayed over the last year in a single exhibit in France and in the Tel Aviv Artists Studio, and won her the Ministry prize. Other winners were Avner Ben Gal, also a modern video artist; Michael Sagen-Cohen, for his triptych of paintings called "Wings"; and Uri Katzenstein, a sculptor who created the work "Sky Dub" of plastic; and "Bird of Paradise," with mixed materials. The works are being shown in a special exhibit at the Herzliya Museum, until January 2.

Habamah Students Steal the Show

Students from Habamah School of Visual Theater took first prizes at international festivals in Zabreb, Croatia, and Lublijana. In the "Pif" Festival of Puppet Theater held in Zagreb, now in its 31st year, Habamah students Miriam Salzberg and Tzippor Fromkin won the prize for the best play, for their production entitled "I Murdered Tommy." The director of the school, Dr. Etti Tzitron, was awarded a special prize at the festival for the presentation of the best artistic program. The schools delegation also won a prize for high marks at the international festival in Lublijana, the capital of Slovenia.

German Prize to Zvi Avni

Zvi Avni, a composer who has won numerous prizes and recognition for his public and pedagogic roles over the years, will receive the Culture Prize of the Saar (Germany), awarded every three years. At a ceremony in February, several of his works will be performed as the prize of 15,000 Deutschmarks is awarded. In November, Avni was a winner of the Prime Ministers Life Achievement Award.