What Happened to the World:

The session offers a global take on some of humanity’s burning issues – from the loneliness epidemic in modern society and the breakdown of the traditional family structure, to the crisis of democracy, geopolitical wars, climate change, and AI technology. All of which compels us to wonder: Where is humanity heading?


Moderator: 

Shifra Cornfeld, author, screenwriter, columnist, radio broadcaster, and television host.

Duration: 40 min

 

Participants:

Tamar Keenan is a theatre director, playwright, translator, dramatist, and winner of the Yosef Millo Award for Outstanding Director, 2022. Since 2016, she has directed over a dozen plays in Israel’s leading theatres. Tamar also serves as the artistic director of Tzavta Theatre in Tel Aviv, and co-artistic director of the theatre’s celebrated One Act Play Festival.
Director of What Happened to The World, a Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv production.

Dr. Carmel Weissman is a researcher and lecturer on digital culture in the multidisciplinary program and the Cohen Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel Aviv University. Her areas of interest are a critical reading of the discourse on technological futurism, and examination of the religious aspects of technology. She owns the podcast “The Post-Human Condition”.

 

Ilan Ronen was the artistic director of Habima National Theatre from 2004 to 2016, after running two other theatres – The Jerusalem Khan Theatre and The Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv. In the past decade, Ilan has paid considerable attention to the expansion of Habima’s international activity.

Director of (R)Evolution, a Gesher Theatre production.

Zvi Sahar is a director, actor, and puppeteer. Sahar established PuppetCinema in 2009, presenting Planet Egg at Puppet Lab at St. Ann’s Warehouse, NYC.

His works have participated in numerous international festivals, including BAM Next Wave Festival, Hong Kong Arts Festival, Taiwan International Festival of Arts and more. Sahar was named Artistic Director of Itim Ensemble, established by director Rina Yerushalmi.

Director of Step, performed by Itim Ensemble.

Guy Gutman is an artist and director. His works have been featured in many international and Israeli festivals. He is the director of Miklat 209, and former head of the School of Visual Theatre.

Co-creator and director of Because the Night, performed by Ensemble 209.

Binyamin Yom Tov is a multifaceted actor and creator from Tel Aviv, known for his award-winning performance in the show Tavas. Binyamin’s artistic exploration is often themed around identity, stereotypes, archetypes, and blurring the lines between autobiography and fantasy.

Creator and performer of Narkis.

Nataly Zukerman is an independent performance artist, dramaturg, artistic director, and lecturer. She has created and participated in numerous theatre, dance, and performance works, globally, spanning her twenty-year career. Nataly’s work deals with notions of body, identity and disability, as she creates autobiographical and interdisciplinary works.

Co-creator and co-director of Blueberry.

Tomer Koppel is a professional actor who has appeared in television and numerous theatre productions. Since 2020, Tomer has been working as a guide for healthy sexuality and sex education for teens in schools.

Co-creator and co-director of Blueberry.

THEATRE IN TIMES OF CRISIS AND WAR

Opening session addressing the current situation in Israel, reflecting on the role of theatre in these uncertain times.


Moderators:

Noam Semel, Chairman of The Hanoch Levin Institute of Israeli Drama

Hadar Galron, Israeli playwright, screenwriter, director, and actress. Her plays have appeared on esteemed stages both in Israel and worldwide.

Duration: 75 min

 

Participants:

Moshe Kepten is one of the most renowned directors in Israel, currently the artistic director of Habima National Theatre. For three consecutive years, he was the artistic director of the Israel Festival in Jerusalem, an interdisciplinary celebration of art from around the world.
Director of The Labour of Life, performed by Habima National Theatre.

Michal Rovner is a renowned painter, photographer, video artist, and writer who exhibits a varied and evocative body of work. Rovner offers a seamless blend of photography, video, digital art, and painting, in order to express the intensity of her personal experience while applying appropriate symbolism to reflect the broader human condition.

Shirili Deshe has been acting, directing, and writing for the stage and television for the past twenty years. She is a graduate of the Jacques Lecoq Physical Theatre School in Paris.
Co-writer and co-director of A View of the Sea, a Jerusalem Khan Theatre production.

Ariel N. Wolf is a theatre director, movement director, teacher, and actor. In recent years, he has been creating works with his ensemble of performers, an independent group of actors and dancers. Wolf works as a director, choreographer, and dramaturg in different theatres, dance ensembles, and films.
Director of The Lake.

Yigal Azrati is a director, playwright, and the artistic director of Jaffa Theatre, which has been operating since its inception as a home for the joint creation of Arabs and Jews.

Officer Az-Oolay is a clown policewoman who has served on more than 260 shifts during demonstrations around Israel. In 2023, following the war, she initiated a walk from Jerusalem to Gaza.

Yadin Goldman is a theatre and television actor, currently performing in The Death Imprint as part of this year’s program. Yadin was wounded while serving in the IDF’s elite Sayeret Matkal special forces unit.

Articulating Pain:

The session will invite this year’s leading IsraDrama artists (some of whom have made a name for themselves abroad as well) to discuss their latest work, stretching the boundary between the personal and the social.


Moderator: 

Lucy Aharish, acclaimed news anchor, reporter, television host, and actress.

Duration: 40 min

 

Participants:

Atay Citron is a director, and an emeritus professor of theatre and former chair of the Theatre Department at the University of Haifa, where he founded the pioneering academic training program for medical clowns in 2006. His research interests include shamanism, ritual clowning, medical clowning, and the history of avant-garde performance.
Co-creator and director of Third Person, preformerd by Ebisu Sign Language Theatre.

Ronnie Brodetzky is a director and writer. She is a recipient of the 2020 Rosenblum Performing Arts Award. Her unique works have been performed in leading theatres in Israel, including The Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv, Haifa Theatre, and Beer Sheva Theatre.

Director of Short Circuit, a Beer Sheva Theatre production.

Yair Sherman is an award-winning theatre director and one of the most promising fresh voices in Israeli theatre today. His works have been presented in numerous theatres in Israel and abroad. Sherman teaches at three of Israel’s leading theatre academies.
Director of Hamlet, a Beit Lessin Theatre in Honor of Baruch Ivcher production.

Anat Dreamer is a multidisciplinary performer, writer, director, spoken word artist, workshop facilitator, and creative consultant.
Co-creator and performer of A Good Place Everything Is Bad, an Incubator Theatre production.

Nurit Dreamer is a director, creator, and performer. She received an award for excellence from the Jerusalem Foundation in 2016 and 2018.

Co-creator and performer of A Good Place Everything Is Bad, an Incubator Theatre production.

Hana Vazana-Grunwald is a director, playwright, and theatre group facilitator. She is a recipient of the Rosenblum Prize for Performing Arts (2022), and the Minister of Culture Award (2023). She is the founder and artistic director of Frechot Ensemble. Her work promotes a theatrical language emphasizing multiculturalism and oriental femininity. Her shows are performed in Israel and abroad.

Director and dramaturg of A Consensual Homicide.

Meirav Gruber is a versatile playwright and actress. She has played many roles in film, television, and theatre, among others in the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv, Habima National Theatre, and Beit Lessin Theatre. She ventured into playwriting with her autobiographical play The Death Imprint.
Playwright of The Death Imprint.

Achinoam Mendelson is a multidisciplinary artist, theatre director, musician, and performer. She creates performance and theatre shows, video art, and also works as a performer, violinist, and dramaturg for several independent Israeli artists. Her works have been shown at Hanut 31 Theatre & Gallery, The Israel Museum, Hazira Performance Art Arena, Habait Theatre, and others. 

Creator of I Love You Special.

 

A Consensual Homicide

A Consensual Homicide, which received an honorable mention in The Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre, 2021, deals with the issue of violence against women that culminates in murder.

The story is based on a poem by Iris Elia Cohen, written following the murder of the late Esti Aharonovitz, and biographical materials written by Tehila Azulay-Shaul, inspired by meetings with women at the Center for the Prevention of Domestic Violence.

A Consensual Homicide touches on the mechanism of murder from different points of view: Can murder by consent even exist? Who agrees to such a murder, who cooperates? It raises questions, and confronts us with the place each one of us has within this social reality.

Four actresses cry out not only for the loss of women’s lives, but mainly for the reality of our lives that allows violence, which is becoming more and more normalized.

The texts remind us that gender violence crosses boundaries of identity, and threatens the freedom of all of us.

Hana Vazana-Grunwald is a director, playwright, and theatre group facilitator. She is the recipient of the Rosenblum Prize for Performing Arts (2022), and the Minister of Culture Award (2023). She is the founder and artistic director of Frechot Ensemble. Her work promotes a theatrical language emphasizing multiculturalism and oriental femininity. This is an artistic and political commitment to the silenced voices in Israeli society. Using community theatre tools, she underpins a new genre, poetic-documentary theatre, accentuating her personal, social, and historical experience. Her shows are performed in Israel and abroad.

 

Iris Eliya-Cohen is an artist, writer, and poet. She received the Yitzhak Navon Heritage Award (2018), and the Prime Minister’s Creativity Award (2015). She has published prose, poetry, as well as children’s books, including bestsellers Makatub, Galbi, Pele – Poems and Songs, and Grandma Turbo series. Her book Galbi and her poems Maternity and A Consensual Homicide were adapted for the theatre, and are currently performing in Israel and abroad.

 

Tehila Azulay-Shaul is a playwright, actress, and creator of activist and social documentary theatre that works mainly with silenced populations, such as female victims of violence and ultra-Orthodox women. She is the founder of Hashar Theatre for youth from the Ethiopian community. Her works include Thoughtful and Consensual Murder. She is a high-school teacher, a poet, and a producer of spoken word performances. She graduated from the Mandel Program for Cultural Leadership in the Negev, 2021-2022.

Special thanks to EVE, The Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre, Jaffa Theatre, Avi Gibson Bar-El.

Hamlet

This Hamlet belongs to the current generation. Director Yair Sherman bewitches his Generation-Z audience with his Generation-Z interpretation, and merges a political drama with a sharp satire about a young generation that prefers to sit back and not take sides in the political events that threaten to alter Denmark’s values. At the heart of the production lies a passion for theatre that uncovers hopes, anguish, and fears, all of which are the basic patterns for our family life and our society. It is a theatrical evening full of surprises, twists, and inventions. The Beit Lessin ensemble leads the audience on a riveting journey of cultural associations and exciting discoveries. It’s relevant, it’s beautiful, it’s funny – and it forces us to rediscover what we have almost forgotten: that high art can be communicative, and that with the right communication, we can elevate ourselves to become more human, rather than less.

Yair Sherman is an award-winning theatre director, and one of the most promising fresh voices in Israeli theatre today. Sherman was born in San Jose and grew up in Jerusalem. In 2003, he moved to NYC where he studied at The American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA). After completing his studies, Sherman returned to live in Tel Aviv. He has been working as a theatre director in numerous venues in Israel and abroad, and teaches at three of the country’s leading theatre academies.

In February 2023, after working on contemporary productions of Israeli and international classics, Sherman became Director in Residence of Beit Lessin Theatre in Tel Aviv. In 2016, he won awards for two separate productions: Best Director for his production of The Bacchae at Golden Hedgehog Fringe Theater Awards, and Best Director, Best Play, and Best Supporting Actor for The Endless Mourner at The Kufar International Festival in Minsk, Belarus. In 2019, he was invited to Beijing to direct Hanoch Levin’s epic play Requiem. Selected works: Death of a Salesman and Indecent – The Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv; The Seagull and The Bride and the Butterfly Hunter – Gesher Theatre; The Maids – Elad Theatre; Requiem – Beijing; A Winter Funeral – Beer Sheva Theatre; and The Bacchae – Tmu-na Theatre.

Model

 

Alit Kreiz invites three distinctive women of different ages to be her friends on stage for just one hour. What they all have in common is the magnetizing passion to exist within a work of art, in front of an audience. Their identity is built and dismantled by the audience’s gaze at them, and their gaze at the audience. They play remembering and forgetting, exile and belonging, beginnings and endings. Their personal narratives become entangled; the layers of their stories are revealed as part of an emotional striptease, and accumulate on stage as a pile of underwear alongside bouquets of flowers from a never-ending premiere. The performance looks at the models in our life; it empowers us to overcome expectations about our identities and roles, and leads us to truly understand what inspires us to be ourselves.

Model is a work that will read your thoughts, a work that will fantasize about you, that will make you its best friend. It will take care of you, and in the end also thank you.

Alit Kreiz is a performance art creator, an actress, and a lecturer. For the past twenty-five years she has been devising multidisciplinary performance-based, autobiographical, audience participation, and site-specific works. Her devised projects aim to investigate an open and honest way of communication, in order to reach a mutual humanistic understanding. Alit has been performing both in Europe and Israel. As artistic director of A2 Company, a London-based performance collaboration (1999-2015), Alit presented works in London, Paris, Vienna, Barcelona, Dortmund, Ljubljana, and Jerusalem. Alit also co-created works as a member of The People Show Company, the legendary UK performance art group. In Israel, Alit created solo autobiographical performances at Tmu-na Theatre and Tel Aviv Museum. Her recent autobiographical ensemble creation is performed at Habait Theatre. Her site-specific and participatory works have been presented at Tel Aviv Museum, The City Museum, Tel Aviv, Hulda Forest, Petach Tikva Museum for Modern Art, The Pussycat – ExStrip Club, Israel Festival, Mekudeshet Festival, Loving Art-Making Art Festival, Haifa Museum for Modern Art, Hazira Performance Art Arena, and Tel Aviv Site-Specific Festival, among others.

Name Drop: Hacameri

Name Drop: Hacameri is an event that examines the moments in which music becomes the soundtrack of our lives. Or is music just an excuse? Six performers with a cache of defining moments tied inexorably, almost involuntarily, to music, attempt to bring into words the connection between the wound and its tune – whether that tune is Nina Simone, Charlie Megira, techno, or the fantasy of becoming a musical theatre soloist… Love and disappointment, death and separation, sex and personal crusades – all of our lives have soundtracks. Unique, singular, burned into our psyches, ungoverned and unequivocal. The journey of Name Drop is a verbalization of life – intimate, painful – through the music that has always been there, that suddenly pops up, that will always take us back. Like a scent from our childhood, like mother’s cooking… Name Drop: Hacameri is an unusual move in the established repertoire theatre, that has adapted and re-produced a show that was born in fringe theatre. 

Jason Danino Holt is an interdisciplinary artist known for his roles as a theatre maker, writer, visual artist, teacher, and artistic director. In 2019, after a decade as an independent theatre maker, he formalized his work into a theatre company, expanding its reach both nationally and internationally. He is also the co-artistic director and founder of Habait Theatre in Jaffa. Jason’s projects span various artistic mediums, consistently exploring new forms of expression. His signature style combines autobiography with fiction, embracing diversity in the pursuit of progressive ideals. His work delves into complex narratives, employing art as a powerful tool to navigate intricate dimensions of existence, particularly emphasizing underrepresented stories, and promoting inclusivity.

A Good Place Everything Is Bad

Winner of Best Director and Best Playwright Awards at the Ephraim Kishon Comedy Festival.
A theatrical piece about a father, who is actually a child, and his two daughters. This is a fantastical autobiographical show where fiction, humor, and sorrow are the substance of everyday life. The protagonist is seventy-four-year-old Nachmi Dreamer, a controversial social media influencer, a rebel, a widower, a lonely man who dreams of becoming a writer. Through his many writings, personal diary snippets, failed plays, and fantastic pieces of prose that have never seen the light of day, the audience is exposed to a funny, sad, and absurd chain of existential moments. These are both touching and distressing at the same time.

A fourteen-year-old boy plays Nachmi, while the two sisters, Anat and Nurit Dreamer, play themselves. Together they seek to reveal the experience of growing up with a single parent who never actually behaved like a father; childish, helpless, mischievous, and without boundaries. Through this fascinating personal family story, the creators raise questions about the relationship between loss, madness, theatre, and love.

 

 

Nurit Dreamer is a director, creator, and performer. A graduate of the School of Visual Theatre, Jerusalem (2018), she received an award for excellence from the Jerusalem Foundation in 2016 and 2018. She studied and trained in various programs, including Jan Fabre, Yasmeen Godder, and Itzik Giuli. Her stage works: Kushelirabak and You’ll Never Walk Alone. Public art works: Intimately at the Football Stadium and Talking with Strangers on the Bus. She has performed her own works in several festivals, including The Train Festival, Intimadance, and Israel Festival. She has exhibited in various spaces, including The New Gallery Artists’ Studios Teddy, and Ma’amuta Art Center in Jerusalem. She is currently studying cinema and history.

 

Anat Dreamer is a multidisciplinary performer, writer, director, spoken word artist, workshop facilitator, and creative consultant. She studied dance theatre at Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and the Arts, and trained in various programs including Jan Fabre, Ivo Dimchev, Sharon Zuckerman Veizer, and Yasmeen Godder. Stage works: The Rest of Cherub, a live poetry and animation show, Saving Shifuk, Lilith: A Fantastic Mythical Thriller, and Flour Ball – A Surrealist Celebration of Death. Street performances: The Chariot, a traveling street performance, and Star Mail, a community art project. She participated in Basic Instinct, a satirical musical cabaret show based on the testimonies of female soldiers who served in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Death Imprint

The Death Imprint delves into Eva’s complex world as a second-generation child, born into a legacy of trauma resulting from her mother surviving Libya’s horrors, and her father’s Holocaust orphan past. He attributes his abusive behavior to Hitler’s lingering presence, which he believes controls him. Eva’s turbulent journey begins in childhood, when she “inherits” Hitler from her father following his serious injury in a suicide attempt. Hitler offers an agreement – if she hides him in her head, he will save her father in return. And so, Hitler inflames her anger and distances her from her family. As she grows older, her rage increases, leading to a suicide attempt and psychiatric hospitalization. A compassionate young psychiatrist offers hope, determined to free Eva from Hitler’s grip. Can she sever her deepest, most troubling relationship?

The play alternates between Eva’s stark present and her haunting past, using surrealism, circus elements, and psycho-drama to explore the human psyche. It delves into historical trauma, abuse, and mental health with sensitivity and humor, engaging the audience in a thought-provoking journey. The Death Imprint is an emotionally charged exploration of Eva’s life, inviting reflection on the enduring legacy of historical trauma, and the power of resilience.

Meirav Gruber is a versatile playwright and actress. At the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv, her roles include Sheindele, The Merchant of Venice, Murder, Mother Courage, and The Rebels (Actress of the Year), among others. At Habima National Theatre: Tamara, Betrayed, and The Ad. At Beit Lessin Theatre: A Streetcar Named Desire, and many others. Tahel Theatre featured her in All About My Mother and Vincent River. She ventured into playwriting with The Death Imprint. Her television presence includes series such as The Comedy Store, Scandal, Saturdays and Holidays, In Treatment, The Champion, The Dreamers, New York, Malaby Express, and Virgins, as well as many films, including Purple Grass and Real Time.

 

Sivane Kretchner is the co-founder of Tahel Theatre, and was its co-artistic director and dramaturg from 2012 to 2016. Her directing credits include Only The Distressed Remains, Inverted Sky (a rock opera, winner of the Golden Hedgehog Award for Best Performance), and The Death Imprint. She created Alterman in French, and performed in it under the name Siv-Anne. She performed in numerous theatre productions, and is currently part of the Mediatheque Theatre. Cinema credits include Sarah in The Reports of Sarah and Salim (Muayad Alayan), and Kochi in Single Plus (Dover Kosashvili). Television: Mikmik in The Secret of Michal’s Songs, and Dina in Johnny and the Knights of Galilee.

 

Produced with support of:

EVE, a non-profit organization of independent theatre and the performance arts creators

Ministry of Culture

Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts

Because the Night

Because the Night is a one-off art event. Twenty-one participants board a dark ride built especially for the event in a south Tel Aviv hangar, and go on a journey through the misty and starry darkness of the night. The journey inside the train cars carries the passengers/participants into a world of animals and nocturnal creatures, ghosts and spacemen. Traveling between rooms and forests, planets and stars, the ride slowly builds up into an all-encompassing, mesmerizing experience that echoes contemporary realities and dreams.

Because the Night is an invitation to an extraordinary mystery tour, an immersive art and performance experience in which we’re pulled into the depths of night, and fly into the future. A dark ride through a parallel universe.

Guy Gutman is an artist and director. His works have been featured in many international and Israeli festivals. He is the director of Miklat 209, and former head of the School of Visual Theatre. 

 

Gabi Kricheli is a multidisciplinary artist, and holds a BFA from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem. Alongside his visual practice, Kricheli is also a musician and a set designer for dance and theatre.

Ensemble 209 is a contemporary theatre company that operates in a wide artistic field. The group includes artists, performers, researchers, and intellectuals who work as a collective.

*Number of passengers: 21

*Participation is by advance registration with the Isra-Drama production staff.

Narkis

With his follow-up piece to the cult hit show Tavas (Peacock), Binyamin returns to the stage. This time, he engages with his own reflections. He explores his body, the way he walks, and the glint in his eyes. As a homosexual man, he plays with the possibility of being attracted to himself, taking himself on a date, and having a romantic relationship with himself. Blurring the boundaries between the biographical and the imaginary, Binyamin embarks on a psychedelic journey that starts at a nightclub in Tel Aviv, and winds up on Mount Olympus. He uses ancient and contemporary archetypes to redefine the common perception of “narcissism” as self-love that may lead to healing rather than destruction. Accompanied by live electronic music, Binyamin fuses stand-up comedy, classic theatre, and visual theatre, transforming the tragic myth of Narcissus into a contemporary and absurd comedy. Winner of Best Actor Award from the Israeli Comedy Festival, and at The Ephraim Kishon Comedy Festival in Jerusalem. 

 

Binyamin Yom Tov is a multifaceted actor and creator from Tel Aviv, known for his award-winning performance in the show Tavas. Binyamin’s artistic exploration is often themed around identity, stereotypes, archetypes, and blurring the lines between autobiography and fantasy. He grew up in Netanya, a city in Israel’s geosocial periphery, steeped in a conservative atmosphere, the youngest of four children in a traditional Jewish-Persian family. Following his military service, he began studying and practicing different aspects of the performing arts, dreaming of someday creating his own show. Together with Shani Shabtai and Daniel Magon, he created the autobiographical fantasy Tavas, which encapsulates his colorful origins and rich background.

 

Shani Shabtai is a creator, actress, director, and teacher of performance and theatre.

Daniel Magon is a creator, actor, musician, singer, voice actor, director, and translator.

The production is grateful to Ariel Bronz and Danny Carmi Panov. 

Produced with the support of the Israeli Lottery Council for Culture and Arts, Habait Theatre, and Incubator Theatre. The production premiered at the Ephraim Kishon Comedy Festival, where it won Best Actor Award.

I Love You Special

When my mother ends a phone call with me, she always says: “I love you special”. When I was thinking about a name for the show, I knew this was it. Because this isn’t a normal love between a mother and her daughter, and this isn’t an ordinary love for the theatre.

It’s funny, it’s cruel, it’s twisted, it’s special.

My mother worked at Habima National Theatre for forty years as a casting director; so, when I was six years old, she gave me my first role. My own mother casted me to be one of the children Medea is about to murder. This memory encouraged me to invite her to perform on stage with me. She is seventy-two years old, and this is her first role ever. Using masks of my mother’s face and my own, we exchange our identities, do forbidden things, and create a visual and dramatic ceremony. As you will discover, in my ceremonies, people lose their heads.

Awarded Best Show and Best Director at the Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre, 2022. 

Achinoam Mendelson is a multidisciplinary artist, theatre director, musician, and performer. She creates performance and theatre shows, video art, and also works as a performer, violinist, and dramaturg for several independent Israeli artists. Her works have been shown at Hanut 31 Theatre & Gallery, The Israel Museum, Hazira Performance Art Arena, Habait Theatre, and others. She is a member of the Quantum Choir ensemble that has performed in various museums and theatres in Israel. During her military service as a “Distinguished Musician” (violinist), Mendelson performed with the Tel Aviv Academy Orchestra, and went on a tour in Israel, Germany, and Brazil, under the baton of maestro Zubin Metah.

She holds a degree in Philosophy and Liberal Arts from Shalem College, where she founded the college’s choir. In addition, she holds a degree in Visual Art Creation from the School of Visual Theatre. Her show I Love You Special received Best Director and Best Show Awards at the Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre, 2022. In 2023 she created and curated a series of performance events that took place in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.