It had been a harrowing week.
On Wednesday, a suicide bomber on a crowded Haifa bus
killed fifteen Jews, most of them teenagers on their way home from school.
On Friday night, two Arab terrorists infiltrated the
security fence around Kiryat Arba. First they sprayed bullets on a family
walking on the street, injuring five. Then they forcibly entered an
apartment where Rabbi Eli Horowitz and his wife Dena were enjoying a quiet
Shabbat dinner. They murdered the middle-aged couple.
On Saturday night, Anatoly Brikov, aged 20, died of
his wounds from the Haifa bombing.
On Sunday night, I went to a show.
It was no ordinary show. My daughter and I and most
of the audience had to travel there in a bulletproof bus. The production
was being staged in Gush Etzion, an archipelago of 23 communities south of
Jerusalem. Although Efrat, the largest of the communities with a
population of 7,000, is a mere twenty-minute drive from Jerusalem, the
road, winding between Arab villages, was so treacherous that the Israeli
government built a bypass road, cutting tunnels through two hills.
They needn't have bothered. From the very beginning
of the Oslo War, the "tunnels road" became a popular target for Arab
snipers. Eight Jews driving from the bedroom communities of Gush Etzion to
Jerusalem were murdered in their cars. Residents of Gush Etzion adapted by
installing shatter-proof glass on their car windows (bullet-proof glass
and armoring the car doors were prohibitively expensive and too heavy for
most private cars) and staying home at night. Gush Etzion became an area
under siege.
GUSH ETZION
It wasn't the first time. Gush Etzion, perhaps more
than any other place in Israel, embodies the tragedy and resilience of the
Jewish people.
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| Gush
Etzion embodies the tragedy and resilience of the Jewish
people. |
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Between 1928 and 1943, three contingents of Jewish
pioneers tried to settle the barren, rocky, waterless hills between
Jerusalem and Hebron. Plagued by recurrent outbreaks of Arab violence,
they all failed.
In 1934, a Jew named Shmuel Holtzman bought the bloc
of land which would become known as Gush Etzion. (Holtz in Yiddish
and etz in Hebrew both mean "wood.") In 1943, the religious kibbutz
of Kfar Etzion was established. With much sacrifice and hard work, it
thrived. By the autumn of 1947, the bloc comprised four villages with a
total population of 450 Jews, including 142 women and 69 children.
The United Nations vote, in November, 1947, to
partition the Land of Israel into a Jewish and an Arab state was furiously
rejected by the Arabs, who launched a fierce war to drive out the Jews. On
December 10, 1947, Arab militias attacked a convoy bringing food and water
to Gush Etzion, and killed ten Jews. After that, Gush Etzion was
effectively under siege. Only convoys escorted by British forces managed
to safely reach the bloc of settlements.
On January 5, 1948, the mothers and children of Gush
Etzion were evacuated to the safety of Jerusalem. The men, and women with
vital skills such as nurses and radio operators, stayed behind to protect
their settlements and to defend the southern approach to the holy city.
They were too few, with too few guns and too little ammunition.
On May 12, two days before the State of Israel was
declared, Gush Etzion was attacked by the full strength of the Jordanian
army, known as the Arab Legion. The defenders fought - and died - until
they ran out of ammunition.
The surviving fighters surrendered to the Arab
Legion. Leaving behind their precious, now empty, guns, they came out
waving white flags, and assembled in an empty lot next to the school
building. A photographer wearing a kaffiyeh came and photographed
them. Then the Arab forces massacred all the survivors, except three who
managed to escape thanks to the aid of humane Arab individuals.
In the two-day battle, 240 Jews fell, including 21
women.
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| "Children, you may return home." |
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The Six-Day War in 1967 liberated the area of Gush
Etzion. Immediately after the war, the orphaned children of Gush Etzion,
now grown, approached the government of Israel and asked to be allowed to
start again on the land that their fathers had died for. Although the
Labor government was averse to any Jewish settlements in the newly
liberated territories, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol could not resist the
entreaties of the children of Gush Etzion. He gave them his consent with
the words, "Children, you may return home."
Three months later, the new generation was ready to
carry on the vision of their parents. They visited their fathers' graves
in Jerusalem, and directly from the cemetery, a line of cars set out for
Gush Etzion. The same armored car which had evacuated the children in 1948
led the cavalcade home.
THE RAISE YOUR SPIRITS
COMPANY
Our bulletproof bus traced the same route through the
hills of Gush Etzion on our way to the performance of "Esther and the
Secrets in the King's Court." The show itself had been born out of a
similar phoenix-like spirit.
After two Efrat residents were murdered on the
tunnels road in May, 2001, a stifling depression gripped the community.
Even after the month-long mourning period for 20-year-old Esther Alvan and
53-year-old Sara Blaustein (who had made aliyah from New York less than a
year before) had expired, the residents of Efrat found that they could not
banish their tears and sense of hopelessness.
The terror was ongoing. An Arab construction worker
who had been building a house in Efrat entered the local supermarket on a
crowded Friday morning with an explosives belt under his coat. An alert
shopper took out his gun and managed to shoot the terrorist before he
could detonate his bomb. A short time later, another suicide bomber was
caught making his way through the town.
Sharon Katz, an Efrat resident who had made aliyah
from New York nine years before, decided that something had to be done to
lift the morale of the local residents. She understood that redemption
issues from prayer and repentance, but prayer and repentance cannot issue
from depressed hearts. As the Talmud asserts: "The Divine Presence can
dwell only in an atmosphere of joy." Sharon sent an email out to the Efrat
list announcing, "We're putting on a show."
The result was "The Efrat/Gush Etzion Raise Your
Spirits Summer Stock Company."
Their first production was "Joseph and the Amazing
Technicolor Dreamcoat." Since most of the Gush Etzion communities are
religious, they adhere to the principle of "Kol Isha" (men not
listening to women sing). Therefore, the entire cast and production crew,
as well as the audiences, were women. The once-a-week show (because most
of the cast were busy mothers and working women) played eleven
performances, plus a presentation for the Women's Caucus of the
Knesset.
During the period that "Joseph" played, Israel
experienced a terror attack almost every day. The cast would literally
race from funeral to stage. "We would cry our eyes out," Sharon recalls.
"Everyone back stage would be crying and reciting psalms, then we'd have
to go on stage and make the audience laugh."
The show's director, Toby Klein Greenwald, made
aliyah from Cleveland 37 years ago. Toby's experience with theater as a
response to terrorism dates back to 1975, when she worked with teenagers
who survived the P.L.O. attack on a school in the northern town of Maalot
in which 16 of their classmates were slaughtered. "It's frightening to
think," reflects Toby, "that that was more than 25 years ago, and the
necessity still exists to use drama to help people overcome the stress of
living in terror."
"ESTHER"
A year later, the terror had not abated. The "Raise
Your Spirits Company" decided to create their own original show. They
chose as their theme the Book of Esther, because it is a true story of the
Jewish people being in dire straits and being redeemed.
The Jews of the Persian Empire in 357 BCE were a
comfortable and complacent minority. King Ahashverosh's edict of
extermination of every Jewish man, woman, and child filled them with
shock, fear, and despondency. "In each and every land, wherever the king's
word and decree reached," records the Megillah, "there was great mourning
among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing."
While summoning the Jews to pray and repent,
Mordechai sent secret messages to his niece Esther. Five years before
Esther had won a sordid "beauty contest," and had become the Queen of
Persia, not revealing to anyone her Jewish identity. Now Mordechai
entreated her to go to the king and plead for the lives of her people.
Esther balked. To appear before the king unsolicited
was courting death.
Mordechai's reply reveals an often overlooked key to
redemption: "If you remain silent now, relief and salvation will come to
the Jews from another place."
Mordechai believed absolutely that the Jewish people
would not be eradicated. If Esther would not act to save them, God would
use a different avenue. Belief in redemption is the prerequisite for
redemption; despair breeds defeat.
This is why the central Jewish prayer, the Shemona
Esrai, is preceded by the blessing, "Blessed are You, Hashem, Who
redeemed Israel." The Talmud asserts that prayer for the future redemption
must follow a reminder that God has redeemed us in the past.
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| Belief in
redemption is the prerequisite for redemption; despair breeds
defeat. |
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That is the essence of the "Esther" show: a vivid
reminder that God has redeemed us in the past in order to galvanize our
faith that He will redeem us this time as well.
The women of Gush Etzion conceived, wrote, and
choreographed "Esther"; they also composed, arranged, and play the 34
musical numbers which constitute the show. The cast of over 100 ranges in
age from 6 to 60. Everyone who wanted to participate was given a job: from
the onstage pianist to the women who sewed the capricious costumes, from
the little girls who do cartwheels to the comics who act out the hilarious
"beauty contest."
The two shows have raised over $60,000. All profits
from "Esther" are donated to the non-profit, tax-deductible Gush Etzion Foundation, which
distributes the money to the families of terror victims and to local
community projects to counteract the effects of the ongoing terrorism.
THE PERFORMANCE
On Sunday night, the show starts late. The funeral
procession of Rabbi Eli and Dena Horowitz that afternoon wended its way
through Gush Etzion en route to Jerusalem, tying up traffic. We wait for
the latecomers.
The show is introduced by the director, Toby Klein
Greenwald, whose daughter is a close friend of the daughter of Dena
Horowitz. Lest any of the audience are wondering how to justify a musical
comedy on a day when four terror victims are buried, Toby asserts: "At the
very beginning, we decided that we would not cancel rehearsals nor
performances because of terrorist attacks or funerals. We are not
politicians. We are not soldiers. This is our way of fighting back."
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| "We are
not politicians. We are not soldiers. This is our way of fighting
back." |
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I am dubious. I understand theater as catharsis, and
theater as diversion, but theater as fighting back?
The musical unfolds: the gaily-clad citizens of
Shushan, the bombastic King Ahashverosh, the sassy Queen Vashti, the
Eunuchs in Tunics, the sage Mordechai, the ethereal Esther, the villain
Haman in black leather portrayed like a West Side Story gang leader.
The dramatic climax is Esther's moment of truth, when
she summons the courage to risk her life for her people. Rachel Abelow,
who plays Esther, made aliyah from New York at the height of last year's
worse wave of terror. She sings plaintively:
Give me the courage, O Lord, I pray,
Give me the
strength, show me the way,
Though my heart trembles, I'll overcome
my fear.
For I know you are always near.
Then the denouement proceeds topsy-turvy. Haman is
exposed and hanged. Mordechai is elevated in his place. Messengers are
dispatched with new edicts. The Jews of Shushan celebrate.
The production's most emphatic statement comes with
the final scene. The full cast pours onto the stage singing:
They'll come down from the mountains,
They'll come from
the skies,
They'll come up from the valleys,
With music and with
sighs,
They'll walk across the desert,
With laughter and with
prayer.
Their sisters and their brothers
Will be waiting
there.
The scenery has shifted from the palace of Shushan to
the hills of Gush Etzion, those fought-for, died-for, returned-to hills of
Gush Etzion. And when the ensemble repeats the lilting refrain, they
change the final line to:
Our sisters and our brothers
Will be
waiting here.
Suddenly the performers are playing themselves: women
who have faced off with terrorism and death and their own fears, and who
have remained steadfast for the sake of their ideals. Every one of them
has lost a friend or a neighbor or the child of her friend or the friend
of her child. Yet, instead of giving in to despair and depression, every
one of them is standing on the stage, hands uplifted, belting out the
finale culled from the Prophets and fulfilled in recent history. These
women are not performers playing heroes. These women are heroes
themselves.
The whole audience is clapping and crying. Because
it's a true story. Just as God redeemed us in the past, He will redeem us
in the not so distant future. In fact, it's happening before our eyes.
"Esther" was written by Toby Klein
Greenwald, Sharon Katz, and Arlene Chertoff. Composer: Rivka
Epstein-Hattin. Musical Director: Sara Halevi. For more information about
"Esther" and to order the CD, visit their website: http://www.theesthershow.com/