Corridors of power: Creative Solutions?

Two theater productions with political angles have set the stage for protest.

By PEGGY CIDOR
puppet Jerusalem 521 (photo credit: Tzaphira Stern)
puppet Jerusalem 521
(photo credit: Tzaphira Stern)
Art and politics are not necessarily opponents, but they do, quite often, create some delicate situations. Such has occurred in two cases in Jerusalem, in which politicians who are not specifically experts in theater are possibly making use of events to promote their political agenda.
Last week, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch ordered the cancellation of a puppet festival for children scheduled to take place in east Jerusalem. This was because of its planned location in El-Hakawati Palestinian National Theater, which has been outlawed from holding any activity due to its owners’ use of it for political assemblies linked to the Hamas movement.
One may ask why the organizers, who probably knew about the status of the theater, decided to hold the festival there. The answer was that there was no other venue in east Jerusalem suitable for such an event.
The news quickly reached the right people on the western side of the capital, and a call to protest and express solidarity with all the parties involved – the theater, organizers and children who would miss out on the activity during their summer vacation – was launched through Facebook. Meretz’s representatives – albeit in the middle of their own drama, due to the decision to cancel the results of the recent party primary – came to demonstrate earlier this week.
Former deputy mayor Pepe Alalu, until last week a defeated candidate on his way to retirement and now perhaps back in business, even sent an urgent protest letter to Mayor Nir Barkat that he shared with the media. In it, Alalu hinted that since the public security minister apparently didn’t bother to announce his decision beforehand, the mayor and the city were humiliated and should request compensation.
The festival is still frozen but thankfully, another scandal involving the arts has come up that will divert attention from the puppet-show affair. The Khan Theater, Jerusalem’s only repertory theater, last week announced a new play, My Name is Rachel Corrie, about the left-wing American activist who was killed by an IDF bulldozer in the Gaza Strip, in what her parents and friends claim was a deliberate action but which the courts ruled was an accident.
With controversy is still surrounding the issue, the questions that this new show raised have been largely political. Deputy Mayor David Hadari announced Sunday that he would vote against the renewal of the NIS 900,000 allocation to the Khan Theater at the upcoming city council meeting, because of the decision to run the play. At the head of the committee stands Shlomo Rosenstein of United Torah Judaism, who is not a great fan of secular theater himself. In a phone call Sunday afternoon, Hadari didn’t hide his expectation that Rosenstein would follow his lead – which might lead to a total dissolution of the Khan’s budget and activity.
Asked why would he mix his political opinions with the right of residents to have a professional theater company in the city, Hadari admitted this would be a problem, but nevertheless insisted that he could not in good conscience vote in favor of an institution that would provide a stage for Israel-bashing.
In fact at this week’s city council meeting, Hadari was absent and the funding for the Khan was approved. And, it turns out, though My Name is Rachel Corrie is playing at the Khan, it is being staged by Hazira Interdisciplinary Theater.
Hadari indeed holds right-wing views, but is also at the moment struggling to hold on to his position as head of Bayit Yehudi’s city council list –which has been impacted by the fact that he is far from being in party leader Naftali Bennett’s inner circle. Fighting fiercely against the Khan’s subversive program might help him in this endeavor.