{"id":42486,"date":"2023-10-27T01:57:59","date_gmt":"2023-10-27T08:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=42486"},"modified":"2023-10-26T16:44:39","modified_gmt":"2023-10-26T23:44:39","slug":"the-opposite-of-death-is-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2023\/10\/27\/the-opposite-of-death-is-love\/","title":{"rendered":"The opposite of death is love"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hadar Galron in Whistle, which is at the Firehall Arts Centre <\/em>Nov. 14-15, as part of the Chutzpah! Festival. <\/em>(photo by Nathan Yakobovitch)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAs a child I was never hugged or kissed; I think my parents did not even see me. I wrote this story to stop being an invisible child,\u201d Israeli author Ya\u2019akov Buchan has said about Whistle: My Mother was Mengele\u2019s Secretary<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The play Whistle<\/em> is part of this year\u2019s Chutzpah! Festival, with performances Nov. 14 and 15 at the Firehall Arts Centre. Writer, director and actor Hadar Galron, who adapted Buchan\u2019s story for the stage, stars in the monodrama.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuchan was born to two Auschwitz survivors, and began writing after he was injured in the Yom Kippur War. He\u2019s written 18 books \u2013 four concerning the Holocaust \u2013 but he felt that people don\u2019t read so much anymore, and that he wanted to write a play about second generation Holocaust survivors,\u201d explained Galron in an interview with the Independent<\/em>. \u201cDramatic writing and prose are very different techniques, and Ya\u2019akov sent me about 30 pages of interesting and well-written content, but not dramatic enough for stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first meeting with him was out of respect \u2013 I thought I\u2019d give him a few tips and let him take it from there,\u201d she continued. \u201cI remember the turning point: I said, \u2018You mention twice in these pages the name Mengele. You can\u2019t just throw in a name like that, it needs to have some dramatic payoff, or not to be mentioned at all.\u2019 Ya\u2019akov said nothing, just nodded. And, suddenly, I thought that maybe Mengele had tortured one of his parents. \u2018Were any of your parents somehow … (how to say this?!) \u2026 connected to Mengele?\u2019 Ya\u2019akov looked me squarely in the eye and said, quietly, \u2018My mother was Mengele\u2019s secretary.\u2019 That was when I knew I would take the task, and help him tell his story and the story of the second generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent years, Galron has been working on several plays that deal with the lasting impacts of trauma. \u201cWe tend not to consider [the] second generation as traumatic,\u201d she said, \u201cbut something as horrendous as the Holocaust leaves some people so scarred that they cannot really love anymore, even their children. Or, they love but in a different, obsessive way. The children who grow up without feeling love are traumatized, too, but their wounds are invisible.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to understand that, whilst the trauma lasts a minute or a year or five years, post-trauma lasts a lifetime and, when considering [the] second generation, then even more than a lifetime. Long-term traumas such as [the] Holocaust are not a swing of the sword, they are more like the bite of a snake \u2013 the venom penetrates the body and mixes with the blood of the victim.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though she generally directs her own works, Galron said, \u201cWhen I\u2019m the actress, I need someone on the outside. At first, I thought maybe I\u2019d direct and not act. It was Ya\u2019akov who begged me, after seeing my stand-up cabaret Passion Killer<\/em>, to act the part.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaffa, Israel-born director and playwright Hana Vazana Grunwald was the first person who came to Galron\u2019s mind to direct.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe studied theatre together at Tel Aviv University, but that was decades ago! I had no idea where to find her,\u201d said Galron. \u201cWe\u2019d met a couple of times in festivals, etc., along the years. I was thinking of her on my morning walk-jog in the park by my home. In the distance, I saw a woman that reminded me of Hana and then we got closer and I saw it actually was Hana! She lives five minutes away from me, but that was the first day she decided to go out and take a power-walk before work. I don\u2019t believe in coincidence \u2013 it\u2019s only God\u2019s way of remaining anonymous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grunwald started out in community theatre more than 25 years ago. She is the director of the Frechot Ensemble, a collective of women creators, which she founded some 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see myself as a feminist Mizrahi<\/em> (Middle Eastern Jew) writer, who brings to the forefront my personal story,\u201d she told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cBut my personal story is never just my own, it\u2019s an inherent part of my political story, my family\u2019s story and the collective which I belong to. I feel that my world isn\u2019t really represented in Israeli theatre. I don\u2019t see the household I grew up in, I don\u2019t encounter complexities and dilemmas that interest me. I realized I have the responsibility to represent myself \u2013 I have to write these texts, I have to tell these stories. My job is to search through history and prose and to bring back the voice of all those whose voice was taken away from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Galron sent her the script for Whistle<\/em>, Grunwald said, \u201cI was immediately hooked. But, after we met again, I felt that the opportunity to work together and find connections would also be reflected in the play\u2019s dramaturgy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge that the play Shirika<\/em> [Whistle, in Hebrew] brings to our door is how to retell the story of the Holocaust and the story of the members of the second generation, who feel transparent. Two images guided me in my search for the keys to directing the play,\u201d said Grunwald.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first: whistle. Tammy, the protagonist, lost her ability to whistle, she lost her ability to love and feel loved and, as she says in the play, \u2018The opposite of death is not life, the opposite of death is love.\u2019 The way this whistle is expressed on stage is through the prop of a kettle full of boiling water. The boiling and bubbling kettle and the whistler on stage metaphorically tell the story of the Holocaust, a story that never ends.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second image we chose is the painting. Tammy is a painter and, when we wondered what was painted on the stage, we realized that the body is the canvas, the body treasures and carries the wounds of the past, the memories \u2013 the actress jumps from limb to limb and with the help of simple means such as brushes and paints Tammy marks national history\u2026. This is the way in which the trauma is present again on the stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems that precisely now the spectacle of a whistle is given a relevant meaning,\u201d Grunwald added. \u201cWe find ourselves facing a terrorist attack in which again Israeli Jews are brutally murdered and mass murdered because of their Jewishness. We again witness horror stories in this war against Hamas. We find ourselves again, 75 years after the establishment of the state of Israel, in a shocking event that reminds us of the fear of being destroyed. The harsh scenes from both sides shake the soul, sow terror and fear, and remind us that the feeling of security is a temporary illusion and we must not forget it. I work at the Hebrew-Arab theatre in Jaffa, a theatre that gives a stage to the binational discourse, it gives a stage to both narratives, and I feel that, these days, it is the first to be hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Galron also works with artists of different backgrounds and shared one of her experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween 2016 and 2018, I was artistic director of the Shalom Festival, a small festival that was an official part of the Edinburgh Fringe fest,\u201d she said. \u201cWe created this festival after an Israeli production, in 2014, was shouted down by the BDS [boycott, divest and sanction movement] and, in 2015, there were no Israeli productions.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was inspired by Sir Rudolf Bing, founding director of the Edinburgh International Festival, from which the Edinburgh Fringe Festival has its roots. Galron explained that Bing, a Jewish-Austrian opera singer, who fled Nazi Germany, \u201ccreated the festival as a cultural bridge, inviting, firstly, German artists to take part! With that in mind, I told the sponsors of the Shalom Festival that we cannot make a one-sided Shalom (Peace) Festival and that, as the artistic director, I would like to bring artists from all of Israel, including Israeli Arabs \u2013 both Muslim and Christian \u2013 and also some Palestinian artists. At first, there was big objection but, eventually, I convinced them that these are Palestinians who believe in peace, in dialogue. Until today, even in these times, I am in contact with my Palestinian friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe art is a bridge,\u201d she said. \u201cI believe art and culture and theatre have the power to heal \u2013 to give us insight and create empathy. From my very first performance as a stand-up artist \u2013 my show was on the status of women in the Jewish law \u2013 I made a decision to make my art meaningful, to merge life and stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks on Israel, Galron has been posting related videos and other items on Facebook, including \u201cCreativity in place of survival\u201d writing challenges. She got the idea from a course she took during COVID with Dr. Joe Dispenza. \u201cIn one of the online digital courses, he speaks of how our brain can be either in \u2018survival\u2019 or in \u2018creativity\u2019 mode,\u201d said Galron. \u201cThe moment I heard this, I understood many things about myself and how creativity has always been for me a way of surviving. Now I know that, when we begin to be creative, we actually begin to pull ourselves out of \u2018survival\u2019 [mode] even if we are being creative whilst we try to survive. A bit like Baron Munchausen explains that he pulls himself by his hair out of the pit.\u201d<\/p>\n

About how she is doing since the attacks, Galron said, \u201cI didn\u2019t have a real answer to that question until yesterday, because everything is so chaotic. But I was speaking to a university student of mine who answered, \u2018I\u2019m committed to the good.\u2019 I was so moved by this. She told me she adopted it from her yoga teacher. I adopted it from her. I\u2019m committed to the good.\u201d<\/p>\n

For tickets to Whistle<\/em> and other Chutzpah! shows, visit chutzpahfestival.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hadar Galron in Whistle, which is at the Firehall Arts Centre Nov. 14-15, as part of the Chutzpah! Festival. (photo by Nathan Yakobovitch) \u201cAs a child I was never hugged or kissed; I think my parents did not even see me. I wrote this story to stop being an invisible child,\u201d Israeli author Ya\u2019akov Buchan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42490,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[573,22681,22683,53,9402,6208,22682],"class_list":["post-42486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-chutzpah-festival","tag-hadar-galron","tag-hana-vazana-grunwald","tag-holocaust","tag-second-generation","tag-theatre","tag-yaakov-buchan"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}