The Karov Theatre - the week after Yom Ha Shoah, IDF Memorial Day and the build towards independence...

It is a bitty time of year in Israel. First we have Pesach - a two-week holiday, then the weeks following are consumed with memory and looking backward, forward and at the present in the light and darkness behind the fun that is Tel Aviv and Israel.

I have just submitted an application to the Paideia Project Incubator in Sweden...an institute sponsored by the European Jewish Cultural Fund to link Israel with European Diaspora. On behalf of the Karov Liron and I could go and learn how to take things further with our international applications and initiatives.

PK (or Project Kanafayim - The Wings Project) comprises the following ventures for a 2-3 year series:
- She London - a twin mini-festival at the New End Theatre, Hampstead, providing a collaborative platform and creative education for female performers and practitioners in Israel and the UK.
- The Man From There (Paris production and workshop) - a revival of the Holocaust play in the French capital next Yom Ha Shoah.
- The Karov at InFoMaT, Athens (International Festival Of Making Theatre) - an opportunity for Dorit to teach a variety of European directors, actors and drama students about the importance of Israeli community theatre beyond its immediate location.
- Communism As Taught To The Mentally Ill and Hotel Europe in a special Eastern European teaching tour in community centres, schools, fringe theatres and institutes of higher education.
- Wings Internship and Education program - an accompanying opportunity to each project for two young Diaspora to work alongside the Karov in their home community, to build a unique perspective on international arts and Israel.

So fingers crossed. If I don't get the Paideia thing, Liron, Linor and I will hopefully go to Edinburgh for August. I want so badly to show them the playground on the Meadows and all the other stuff.

Last night the program took us to a memorial ceremony at a naval base in Haifa. It was the perfect place for it by the sea and it was incredible to see the navy kids and older people as well as the Army. It was a very difficult day thought-wise, that is all I can say really in writing. There were 2 silences, one in the night and one at 11 this morning.
Tonight there are parties everywhere to build up to Independence Day tomorrow. I will be again I think in Kikar Rabin with the Brazillian contingent. Moaan told me today she also is learning Spanish. I must work more on the Ivrit-Espanol swap-love with Liron as it is so much fun and I learn a lot from her. I wonder if it is connected to the fact that we both have teacher mothers.

Anyhow, I would really like your thoughts on the Wings Project and if anyone has any ideas to add. Gems of Mazal is coming on grand. I have a business plan to do before Thursday which is a huge old document but I like doing them because I am a freak. xx

היש משם - The Man From There. Holocaust Memorial Day at the Karov

National Holocaust Day in Israel is like nothing on earth. I went to three commemorative events, the first being a beautiful evening ceremony at the Cameri. Opening with a children's choir, followed by candle-lighting by survivors and solo vocal and guitar performances, the ceremony was incredibly moving. I liked that it was all in Ivrit although I only literally understood 20-30%...but the meaning of everything was clear. Even clearer though was the indescribable union of every person present. I went with J, L and others from the South American contingent. I loved this because after a particularly special piece of music or story J would lean to me and say, "Beautiful, so beautiful." and it was all my favourite moments too.

A lot of people here of my generation and situation are in Israel for the memory, purpose and carrying the word of their great-uncles, aunts and others who died in the Holocaust. My father's family, although Ashkenazim, were okay because they left Eastern Europe (to our knowledge) in the late, er, 20s maybe. My mother's uncles, however, both suffered acutely in the Second World War although they were Sephardic and grew up in Iraq, Persia then Palestine - moving around with my great-grandfather's work as he travelled as principal of the Alliance Francaise. In the late 30s my grandmother went to study at the Surbonne in Paris but then had to leave to go to England because of the war. She had two younger brothers. The middle one, Sammy, was captured and had half his face destroyed in the Second World War. I don't know how long he was imprisoned for. After the war, however, he went on to marry and have children but his wife died when they were 12, 9 and 4 and Sammy sought even further refuge in the shop he owned. He died in 1996. I don't ever remember meeting him but there is one photo of him holding me as a baby. His middle daughter Timna (my mother's first cousin) is my mother in Israel and one of my best friends. My youngest great-uncle Marco took his own life shortly after being sent to fight in France at the beginning of the Second World War. He was 21. My grandmother was the last family member to see him alive. It is him I remember (or rather don't) with particular...I don't know what, but something.

On the morning of 12 April itself a siren sounded at 10am to mark the start of a minute's silence. The whole Oranim program was at a special memorial at Ironi Yud Bet - the school where we have Ulpan. To be honest, it was something of a shambles because the construction work going on outside was so loud we could hear neither the siren nor the speeches or songs by teachers and pupils which followed.

The Man From There (היש משם) was written by Holocaust survivor Tuvia Ornan and directed by Dorit. In it we see the quintessential young Israeli couple at the start of their married life. They are brash and materialistic, she is pregnant, and there is a questionable third party involved - a young man returning at intervals from business abroad, laden with various bits of eurotrash. Amongst all this we have Grandma whose survival of the Shoah is best forgotten or at least ignored...who knows what cans of worms it might open up.

And finally, as we suspend disbelief and peel the layers of our own doubt, we have Moishe: a young man who has lived through Auschwitz to the present day, witnessing the creation of Israel and maintaining his youth and memory. Whilst maintaining an age-old friendship with the grandmother, Moishe proposes an unusual business plan to his contemporary counterparts: a present-day Auschwitz to educate the Israelis of the 21st Century complete with original layout, function and Nazi commanders. Sensing a monetary opportunity, the present-day men comply and relationships, friendships and moral judgement are thrown into chaos.

The kind of modern play which merges time-travel, family drama and social commentary doesn't generally wash with me. However, in the context of Yom Ha Shoah, The Man From There trod the fine balance of past and present, fantasy and reality, and the inevitable questions for modern Jews, particularly in Israel:

In giving birth to our children and then our grandchildren and their children, how do we lighten this burden from prejudice and scapegoating that is so recent? We must never, never forget and this must never happen again. And in the State of Israel - a developed homeland with a democracy where Western living is permitted and modernisation a key component, how can we look back to look forward without the gross intervention of materialism?

Afterwards the writer answered questions which was very moving, particularly those of the young Israelis soldiers in the audience (18-24ish) who started the evening looking bored as whatever and ended it completely engaged and full of thoughts and questions. I can't remember what they were now (they had to be translated for me) but there is something very warm about Israeli audiences on nights such as this. There are tears without sentimentality and people say things they mean.

If you are reading this and are in Israel, please, please come to the Karov. It's a very special place.

With love,

Alexa.

The SHE Festival goes live on Kadmus, and daddy meets dorit...

Gerald got poorly in the throat and didn't come to hear Alexa's thrilled, spilled and pilled up thoughts about eating twins and subtitling the mentally ill or whatever I mentioned last time

Oh, you can change the font colour and see how it looks when you type. How exciting. Now I am going to write something that is really difficult to see hahaa oh but I can't see it either so never mind.

So thoughts for Gerry will have to wait. Instead, I took Brian to meet Dorit and co. It was great although we couldn't get any proper cookies because it is Pesach. I showed dad all the nice backstage and the wide stage and the foyer and office and tea and coffee and we talked about twinning the She Festival in particular with the New End. Ann has since made a page for this year's SF on Kadmus which is ever so nice of her. I will add some pictures here next week.

Increasingly I am excited about The Woman In The Wall. I think I would like to have a tyre as my swing, or something round-ish. They have now those wide round swings with three pieces of rope and they go round as well as up and down. The Sailor pushed me in one at Edinburgh and it was so much fun. Also, I always prefer round and round to backwards and forwards.

As a result of going to the Karov and meeting Dorit, B has an idea for a play about families in theatres, especially fathers and daughters. It sounds quite interesting actually. Anyway, we shall see. I also want to get Alef Alef to London in some shape or form, to promote the work of Jewish artists on the issue of domestic violence.

My dad said he was happy I went to the Karov and not somewhere like the Cameri, which I thought was nice. Also I felt very proud in a general way. It is sad he won't get to see anything there this time.