SHELLY ZER-ZION

THEATER FOR KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN IN THE : TOWARD THE FORMATION OF AN ERETZ-ISRAELI CHILDHOOD

Abstract which became known as “The Children’s Theater near “The Children’s Theatre by the Kindergarten Teachers Cen- the Kindergarten Teachers’ Center.”3 This institution, ter,” that was founded in 1928, was the first Hebrew repertory which operated continuously until 1955, was the first theatre exclusively addressing the audience of children attend- Hebrew repertory theater that exclusively addressed ing kindergarten and the first grades of elementary school. the audience of children attending kindergarten and This article explores how The Children’s Theater conveyed a the first grades of elementary school. Moshe Gorali, set of performative practices that consolidated a habitus of who documented the activity of this theater, stressed Eretz-Israeli childhood. The theater articulated the embodied its significance in the context of the culture of the repertoire of Eretz-Israeli childhood and established it on two Yishuv—the Jewish-Zionist settlement in Mandatory pillars. First, it epitomized the concept of an innocent and :4 secure childhood. The world performed on the stage created a utopian notion of childhood. Second, it encouraged the children A special feature distinguishes the theater audience to participate in the world of adults, but in a way suited to attending children’s theater from that of adults and their age and psychological needs. The ability of this theatre that is its frequent change. Namely, this audience, upon to create an enriching and a secure environment for children growing up and leaving the age of childhood, leaves the was deeply needed in the Jewish settlement of Palestine of the (children’s theater) institutions for good. And thus, one 1930’s and 1940’s, which was constituted of immigrants strug- cohort after another of citizens of the Yishuv arrived at gling to build a future in the land. the theater as children to receive their initial artistic edu- cation. Due to the fact that first impressions in the child’s In 1928, Tova Khaskina,1 a Hebrew kindergarten teacher life are inscribed deeply in his heart, the obligation and based in and the head of the kindergarten responsibility borne by children’s theater is more than three times [that of ordinary theater].5 teachers’ union, founded an artistic committee aimed at organizing concerts for kindergarten children.2 Gorali linked children’s theater with civic education. In 1930, the committee started producing short dra- In his mind, the Children’s Theater, as an institution, matic sketches, and in 1933 it expanded its activities was among the first institutions that not only shaped to include the production of full-length plays. At the artistic awareness of Israeli children but also con- that point, the members of the artistic committee tributed to their future citizenship. Following Gorali’s understood that they had founded a theatrical group, argument, I investigate how The Children’s Theater

1 Tova Khaskina (or Khaskin) changed her last name during Kindergarten Teachers’ Center (generally referred to in this article the 1940s from Khaskina, a Jewish name with a Russian ending, as The Children’s Theater). His articles on this theater appeared to Khizki-Na, a Hebrew name. As most of her activity was carried under several names. His original surname was Bronzaft. Later, pre- out under the name Khaskina, I chose to refer to her by this name sumably during the mid-1940s, he changed his name to Gorali—a in this article. Regarding Khaskina’s biography and name change, name under which most of his publications appeared. But while see Shimon Lev-Ari, “Khizki-Na (Khaskin, Khaskina) Tova,” in Mad- writing about The Children’s Theatre during the 1930s and early rich me’a shana la-te’atron ha-ivri [Guide to one hundred years of 1940s, he used other pseudonyms such as R. Alroi. In this article, I Hebrew theater] (Tel Aviv: Israeli Center for the Documentation mention each reference under the name in which it was published, of the Performing Arts, N.D.). Available at https://www30.tau.ac.il/ but the reader should note that all of these entries were actually by theatre/view_pritim.asp?id=996. Gorali. In the body of the article, I refer to Gorali solely under this 2 This article is dedicated with love to Miriam Snapir. This study name. The information about the changes of his names and use of is supported by the Israeli Science Foundation, grant no. 953/17. pseudonyms is taken from Shimon Lev-Ari, “(Bronzaft) Moshe,” in 3 Razi Amitai, Te’atron yeladim be-yisra’el [Children’s theatre in Madrich me’a shana la-te’atron ha-ivri [Guide to one hundred years ] (Tel Aviv: Safra, 2013), 59–76; Moshe Bronzaft, Te’atron le- of Hebrew theater] (Tel Aviv: Israeli Center for the Documentation yeladim leyad merkaz ha-gananaot [The Children’s Theater near the of the Performing Arts, N.D.). Available at https://www30.tau.ac.il/ Kindergarten Teachers’ Center] (Tel Aviv: Hed Hagan, 1942), 6–11. theatre/view_pritim.asp?id=2243. 4 Musicologist and educator Moshe Gorali (1910–1996) 5 R. Alroi, “Ha-te’atron le-yeladim,” Hed Hagan 11, no. 5–6 documented the activities of The Children’s Theater near the (1947): 51.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 IMAGES Also available online—brill.com/ima DOI:10.1163/18718000-12340110 Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 07:29:23PM via free access Theater for Kindergarten Children in the Yishuv 71

(and hence children’s theater) shaped the notion of an tive behavior and habitus that together capture a new Eretz-Israeli childhood located in Tel Aviv. ideology not merely as a system of thought but as an During the 1930s, as The Children’s Theater made embodied practice. its first steps, the children it addressed did not share a Following this theoretical approach, I explore in common culture. The children of Tel Aviv were mostly this article how The Children’s Theater conveyed a set the sons and daughters of families that had only of performative practices that consolidated a habitus recently arrived in Palestine. Thus, by the mid-1930s of Eretz-Israeli childhood. Indeed, this theater can be Tel Aviv was a migration city, with about 100,000 of seen as a niche phenomenon: a theater that operated its overall 150,000 inhabitants arriving in the Land on the margins of both the local Tel Aviv theater scene of Israel during the previous six years, mostly from as well as the Hebrew education system. In my mind, Poland and Central Europe, and with about one-third however, this theater can serve as a litmus test for of them coming from Nazi Germany.6 For most of the understanding the ways in which theater participates children attending this theater, Hebrew was not their in the shaping of a new collective identity, especially mother tongue. In addition, they had not yet acquired because its activity was so specific. I would like to show the ability to read and write Hebrew. In this context, that this theater created an Eretz-Israeli habitus of the theater, due to its oral and performative nature, nurtured and protected childhood, thus constructing was a highly significant tool for conveying knowledge the Zionist/Eretz-Israeli space as a secure environment of the new Hebrew culture of the Yishuv. In addition, and a place associated with well-being. the performativity exhibited in the theater was echoed This article consists of three sections. The first sec- in the educational routine of the kindergarten. tion deals with the affinities between the educational What characterizes, then, knowledge that is con- philosophy of the Hebrew kindergarten and a new veyed by performance? Performance, argues Diana understanding of performance. The second section Taylor, is a cultural mode that exists not only within the presents a close reading of an exemplary play put on framework of the theater but also in everyday life. It is at The Children’s Theater while analyzing the ways in constituted by scenarios exhibiting symbolic behavioral which it encapsulated practices linked with the utopian practices, thus capturing cultural traditions, ceremo- world of childhood. Finally, the third section follows nies, and beliefs. These scenarios are taught, rehearsed, Khaskina’s description of the entire theatrical event as and transmitted from one generation to the next, it was experienced by the kindergarten teacher and the and they form living museums of indigenous culture children. I also look at the ways in which the children that exist in the bodies of the community members. adapted the performative repertoire from the theater Thus, conventional theater is merely one of many to their everyday lives. possible forms of conveying performative, embodied knowledge. However, performative knowledge refers Between Pedagogy and Performance not only to already existing traditions, but also to the invention of new ones. Mary Luckhurst, for example, The Children’s Theater by the Kindergarten Teachers’ argues that the eighteenth-century National Theater Center was founded with three divisions. The first divi- of Hamburg encapsulated performative knowledge sion was the educational one, and it was led by Tova that formed a new civil habitus.7 The shaping of a new Khaskina (1893–1948). The second division was the lit- habitus does not refer only to the function of a theater erary one. The children’s poet Levin Kipnis (1894–1990) within a society. Zohar Shavit argues that, in the Jewish was the dramaturge of the theater, and was in charge Enlightenment, educators and thinkers shaped and of all the literary material performed there. And the publicized a new, modern habitus in society, especially third division was the theatrical one, and it was led by via children’s education.8 Therefore, children’s theater Yosef Oxenberg (1897–1967), an actor and the director lies at the junction between theater and education and of the Eretz-Israeli satirical theater Ha-Matateh (The enables us to observe the creation of a new performa- Broom).9 Whereas the involvement of a dramaturge

6 Deborah Bernstein, “Tel Aviv: ‘Ir shel mehagrim” [Tel Aviv: 7 Mary Luckhurst, Dramaturgy: A Revolution in Theatre (Cam- City of Immigrants], Zemanim 106 (2009): 48–63; Diana Taylor, bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 24–44. “Performance and Intangible Cultural Heritage,” in The Cambridge 8 Zohar Shavit, “Ha-habitus shel ha-yehudi ha’khadash shel Companion to Performance Studies, ed. Tracy C. Davis (Cambridge: tenu’at ha-haskala” [The habitus of the new Jew of the Haskala Cambridge University Press, 2008), 91–106. movement)], Israel 16 (2009): 11–38.

Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 07:29:23PM via free access 72 Shelly Zer-Zion and stage director in a theater is to be expected, the emerged that children are complete human beings with role of Khaskina in this project was intriguing. specific age-based needs. As such, they are in need of Khaskina was a Zionist activist, a kindergarten cultural programming—literature and theater—that is teacher, a lecturer at the Levinsky Teachers Seminary, designed specifically for them.13 In addition, Froebel and, eventually, the head of the kindergarten teach- and other early childhood pedagogues that followed ers’ union. Her life project was the modernization of him changed the understanding of games and plays. Jewish education for young children and the creation They were no longer perceived as mere forms of enter- of the Eretz-Israeli kindergarten system.10 Oxenberg tainment, but as ways of learning and exploring the recalled that her devotion to The Children’s Theater world.14 Khaskina herself viewed sociodramatic plays, “was without limitations. Her enthusiasm was trans- games, and the experience of creating art as crucial ferred to all members of the (artistic) committee.”11 factors for the development of children.15 The Chil- What had brought Khaskina to initiate and operate a dren’s Theater echoed this philosophy as an institution children’s theater? The answer, in my mind, lies in her designed for an audience of children that was devoted educational philosophy. to the craft of the play. Khaskina acquired her training as a kindergarten Khaskina’s interest in children’s theater echoed a teacher at the St. Petersburg Froebelian Society in a worldwide trend. By the mid-nineteenth century, the- pedagogical school that was molded after the edu- ater performances that addressed the entire family had cational theories of Friedrich Froebel (1782–1852). gained much popularity. However, these performances, Froebel, the German pedagogue who coined the term which celebrated the angelic-like image of children as “kindergarten,” believed that childhood is a unique a metaphor for class mobility, were perceived first and period in and of itself and that, therefore, a child should foremost as an unsophisticated form of entertainment.16 not be rushed into the world of adults. On the contrary, Only by the beginning of the twentieth century, along young children are like plants in a garden: they should with the consolidation of a public education system, be raised in a rich and stimulating environment that did educators begin to perceive theater as being a legiti- enables them to naturally develop their personality, mate pedagogical tool. The first theater for children was moral sense, and wisdom. The kindergarten teacher founded in 1903 in New York by Russian immigrants should encourage the children to explore their world wishing to prepare their children for their future lives in an unmediated way, to observe the nature surround- in a new country by introducing them to the culture ing them, to experience various crafts, and to engage of their new country.17 in plays.12 Children’s theaters were especially significant Froebel and his peers changed our understanding of in revolutionary societies. Shortly after the Russian childhood. During the end of the nineteenth century Revolution, Nataliia Sats established a flourishing and the early twentieth century, the understanding children’s theater that aimed to shape children as the

9 Amitai, Te’atron yeladim, 59–76; Bronzaft, Te’atron le-yeladim, “Framing Children’s Theatre: Historiography, Material Context, 6–11. and Cultural Perception,” in Key Concepts in Theatre/Drama Edu- 10 Miriam Snapir, Shosh Sitton, and Gila Russo-Zimet, Me’a cation, ed. Shifra Schonmann (Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2011), shnot gan-yeladim be-eretz-yisra’el [The Israeli kindergarten in 277–282. the twentieth century] (Beer Sheva: The Ben Gurion Research 14 Snapir et al., Me’a shnot gan-yeladim, 18–38; Eugene F. Institute for the Study of Israel and , 2012), 39–87; Tova Provenzo, Jr., “Friedrich Froebel’s Gifts: Connecting the Spiritual Khizki-Na, “Kavim li-demuta” [The outlines of her character], in and Aesthetic to the Real World of Play and Learning,” American Tova Khizki-Na: Khayeha ve-po’ala [Tova Khizki-Na: Her Life and Journal of Play 2, no. 1 (2009): 85–99. Deeds] (Tel Aviv: Hed Hagan, 1963), 7–19. 15 Tova Khaskina, “Ha-yeladim mesakhakim” [The children 11 Yosef Oxenberg, “Le-zikhra: mi-divrey khavetor” [To her play], Hed Hagan 8, no. 3–4 (1941): 34–35; and “Pinat ha-yeled memory: Words of girlfriends], in Tova Khizki-Na: Khayeha ve-po’ala ba-mishpakha” [The child’s corner in the family], Hed Hagan 4, (Tel Aviv: Hed Hagan, 1963), 35–36. no. 3–4 (1939): 46–51. 12 Snapir et al., Me’a shnot gan-yeladim, 18–38. 16 Marah Gubar, “Entertaining Children of All Ages: Nineteenth- 13 Zohar Shavit, Poetics of Children’s Literature (Athens, GA: Uni- Century Popular Theater as Children’s Theater,” American Quarterly versity of Georgia Press, 2009), 1–62; Shifra Schonmann, Theatre 66, no. 1 (2014): 1–34. as a Medium for Children and Young People: Images and Observa- 17 Schonmann, Theatre as a Medium for Children and Young tions (Dordrecht: Springer, 2006), 29–50; Manon van de Water, People, 29–50.

Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 07:29:23PM via free access Theater for Kindergarten Children in the Yishuv 73 subjects of the new Soviet society.18 In Germany, Walter Khaskina defined two objectives for the artistic Benjamin, a socialist philosopher, took much interest committee that she helped found: (1) to educate the in the theater as a tool for approaching working- children in an aesthetic-artistic spirit through activi- class children and developing their critical thinking ties conducted beyond the confines of the educational skills.19 Thus, given the revolutionary Zionist climate institution; and (2) to insert musical content into the in the Jewish settlement of , the kindergarten curriculum and thus to link the main interest of Khaskina in children’s theater was not artistic institution, The Children’s Theater, with educa- exceptional. tional institutions.23 However, creating an appropriate Another factor linking performance with education repertoire for this theater was an especially challenging was unique to the evolution of the Hebrew kindergar- task. Manon van de Water stresses that, even in the ten, both in the Yishuv as well as in Eastern Europe. case of Sats’s theater in the Soviet Union and in the The main challenge was educating in Hebrew chil- children’s theater in New York, the creation of a reper- dren whose mother tongue was not Hebrew.20 Yaacov toire that would suite the children’s needs (which, as Epstein, a linguist and lecturer at the Levinsky Teachers we have seen above, depended on their age) and the Seminary, developed a method of teaching Hebrew in ideological objectives of the theaters as institutions was Hebrew that engaged young children with the new a demanding task: these theaters were innovative and language by creating a Hebrew soundscape. In this way, therefore could not rely on existing artistic materials.24 Hebrew could be taught without the need to system- In the context of the Hebrew children’s theater, creating atically teach the new language and thus to harm the a suitable repertoire in Hebrew was a demanding task concept of free exploration that dominated kindergar- not only because of the need to relay the objectives of ten pedagogy.21 Similar pedagogical initiatives were led Zionist ideology and to meet the psychological needs by local Eretz-Israeli kindergarten teachers as well as by of the children, but also because of the language bar- their colleagues who taught Hebrew Froebelian courses rier: it was the first time that such a theater performed in . In order to arrange a Hebrew soundscape, plays in Hebrew. teachers initiated short Hebrew performances held at Levin Kipnis, who served as the dramaturge of the public balls and ceremonies. These teacher training Israeli theater, was in 1928 already an acknowledged programs turned into dramatic laboratories for Hebrew children’s author. Ever since his arrival in the Land in performances.22 It is no wonder, therefore, that Hanna 1913, he had written excessively for the Hebrew kinder- Rovina, the great star of the Hebrew stage, attended gartens. He wrote short poems, adaptations of biblical the Hebrew Froebelian courses in Warsaw before she stories and European tales, and short stories for the joined Habima, which would become Israel’s national holidays and the seasons of the year. In fact, Kipnis theater company. In this respect, The Children’s Theater was such a prolific children’s author, that he personally echoed the performative practices employed in educa- shaped the literary canon of the Hebrew kindergarten tion systems around the world. curriculum for decades. He often disguised his artistic

18 Manon van de Water, “Raising the Soviet Citizen: Natalia Sats’s be-itot mashber ve-temura khevratit [Children as avant-garde: Revolutionary Theatre for Children and Youth,” in Nationalism and Childhood and adolescence in times of crises and social change], Youth in Theatre and Performance, ed. Angela Sweigart-Gallagher ed. Yael Darr, Tal Kogman, and Yehudit Shteiman (Tel Aviv: Tel and Victoria Pettersen Lantz (London: Routledge, 2014), 85–89; Aviv University Press, 2010), 39–69; Yehudit Shteiman, “Morim ke- and “Framing Children’s Theatre,” 277–282. yazamei tarbut: mikre mivkhan: morey beit ha-sefer lebanot ve-yafo 19 Jack David Zipes. “Political Children’s Theater in the Age of be-reshit ha-me’a ha-esrim” [Teachers as culture entrepreneurs—A Globalization.” Theater 33, no. 2 (2003): 3–25. case study: Teachers at the girls’ school in in the early twen- 20 Tsvia Walden and Zipora Shehory-Rubin, Lo mi-beten ela tieth century), in Yeladim be-rosh ha-makhane: yaldut ve-ne’urim mi-gan: Trumat gan ha-yeladim ve-ha-gananot le-hitkhadshut be-itot mashber ve-temura khevratit, ed. Yael Darr, Tal Kogman, ha-ivrit ki-sfat em, 1989–1936 [From kindergarten, not from birth: and Yehudit Shteiman (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2010), The contribution of the Hebrew kindergarten and its teachers to 71–124; Olga Levitan, “Ha-tzagot ba-lashon ha-ivrit be-batey ha- the renewal of Hebrew as a mother tongue, 1898–1936] (Beer Sheva: sefer be-eretz-yisra’el 1889–1904” [Plays in the in Ben Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2018), 97–150. schools in Eretz-Israel 1889–1904], Bama 159–160 (2000): 33–46; 21 Snapir et al., Me’a shnot gan-yeladim, 39–87. Shelly Zer-Zion, “Beyond Habima: Hebrew Theater Performances 22 On theatrical activity and its connection to Hebrew instruc- in Eastern Europe,” Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe 2, no. 57 tion, see Basmat Even-Zohar, “Shituf ha-yeladim ba-yozma ha-ivrit (2006): 85–110. 1880–1905” [Children’s participation in the Hebrew enterprise, 23 Bronzaft, Te’atron le-yeladim, 6–11. 1880–1905], in Yeladim be-rosh ha-makhane: yaldut ve-ne’urim 24 Van de Water, “Framing Children’s Theatre.”

Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 07:29:23PM via free access 74 Shelly Zer-Zion signature, using pseudonyms, while aiming to create a dialogue with the ways in which the holidays were “folk art” for the kindergarten classroom. In addition, celebrated in the kindergarten classroom.28 A few plays he encouraged musicians to compose his poems and dealt with the events of the day. One example is the turn them into songs to be sung by the children. In 1919, 1936 play Ma’ase be-Namal (“A Tale of a Port”), which he started publishing the journal Gilyonot (“Sheets”) dealt with the heroic building of the Tel Aviv Port in for kindergarten teachers. The poems were printed in the days of the Arab riots.29 Another example is a play the journal and were accompanied by musical notes in based on Yitzhak Damiel’s Khanale ve-Simlat ha-Shabat order to help the teachers present the songs.25 As the (“Hanna’le and the Sabbath Gown”), which premiered dramaturge of the theatre, he contributed a great deal in 1945 and was associated with .30 to the intimate connection between the materials per- Yosef Oxenberg, who was in charge of staging the formed in the theater and the kindergarten curriculum. plays put on by The Children’s Theater, served, as we The dramatic poetics of Kipnis, argues Selina saw above, simultaneously as an actor at and the direc- Mashiah, evolved from his short play-songs for infants, tor of the Eretz-Israeli satirical theater Ha-Matateh. He as these songs possessed a dramatic basis as well as had done so since its founding in 1928 and until the concrete scenarios and playful rhythms.26 The theatri- theater company was dismantled in 1953. Due to the cal performances from the early 1930s were based on dominant role he played in both theater companies, a collage of scene-poems such as Eliezer ve-ha-Gezer The Children’s Theater was structured as a branch of (“Eliezer and the Carrot”) and on adaptations of tales Ha-Matateh. Some of the actors, such as Azuva Epstein and songs taken from the world of the kindergarten. and Esther Gamli’elit, participated in both companies. Kipnis’s first full-length play for children, Ha-Dakhlil Immanuel Amiran, Nahum Nardi, and other musicians (“The Scarecrow”) premiered in 1933. This play marked who turned the songs of Ha-Matateh into the hits of the a change in the development of The Children’s Theater. Yishuv, also wrote the music for The Children’s Theater, After its production, Khaskina, Kipnis, and Oxenberg no and their work for children was no less successful. But longer perceived their aim as putting on performative the main similarity between the two theaters was actu- collages for children, which they termed “concerts”; ally a stylistic one.31 instead, they perceived their aim as producing high- The repertory of Ha-Matateh differed from that of quality plays. But even in this play, as in those that the two other repertory theaters, Habima and the Ohel, followed, Kipnis embedded songs that he had written which consisted of full-length plays that were mostly and that were already being sung—and loved—by the translated from European languages. Ha-Matateh children in the kindergartens.27 produced mostly satirical revues related to the events Most of the plays put on in The Children’s Theater of the day. These revues were originally written for were original plays written by Kipnis himself. The performances in this theater and gained their final themes of these plays echoed the curriculum of the textual form during the rehearsal process. These revues Hebrew kindergarten. Some of the plays were short boasted neither psychological characters nor a well- sketches based on anecdotes and jokes; some were structured plot. Rather, they presented caricature-like based on adaptations of folktales and fables. In addi- types in scenes that were only loosely connected to tion, the theater put on holiday plays that referred to one another; some of the scenes were based on cho- the themes of specific holidays, such as Purim and reographed songs. The actors developed light, physical Hanukkah. These were seasonal performances that held improvisation-based acting techniques, and were used

25 Yael Darr, The Nation and the Child: Nation Building in Hebrew 27 Amitai, Te’atron yeladim, 59–76; Bronzaft, Te’atron le-yeladim, Children’s Literature 1930–1970 (Amsterdam: John Benjamin Pub- 6–11. lishing Company, 2018), 71–79, and Doda shel shum ish—klasika 28 Ibid. ve-klasikonim be-sifrut ha-yeladim ha-ivrit [Nobody’s aunt: Classics 29 Ben-Ami Feingold, Lama drama? Te’aron be-khinukh [Why of Hebrew children’s literature] (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2014), 37–42. drama? Theatre and education] (Tel Aviv: Itel, 1996), 90–148. 26 Celina Mashiach, “Mi-shirey miskhak le-drama: Levin 30 Darr, The Nation and the Child, 81–90. Kipnis—kavim le-reshito shel ha-makhaze ha-ivri le-yeladim 31 On the actors in The Children’s Theater, see Bronzaft, Te’atron be-eretz yisra’el” [From play poems to drama: Levin Kipnis—Lines le-yeladim, 16–43. On Ha-Matateh Theater, see Ya’acov (Yan) Timen, to the nature of Hebrew play for children in Eretz-Israel], Bama Ve-ele toldot ha-mtate: ha-te’atron ha-satiri ha-isre’eli [And this is the 116 (1989): 43–50. history of the Matateh: The Israeli satirical theater], Israeli Center

Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 07:29:23PM via free access Theater for Kindergarten Children in the Yishuv 75 to shifting quickly from acting to singing. In addition, gentleman and terribly arrogant about it, did not they often played more than one character in a play. answer the hedgehog’s greetings.”33 Instead, he mocked The scenery for these performances was light and him for his crooked legs and his laziness. The offended, illustrative, and was based on painted boards.32 The infuriated hedgehog challenges the hare to a race. The Children’s Theater shared the same characteristic: two depart, and the hedgehog, returning home, forces it put on original plays based on short scenes with his wife, almost violently, to assist him with a plan to loosely delineated characters, physical acting, quick deceive the hare: the hedgehog conspires to switch shifts between singing and acting, and light scenery. identities with his wife. Later, he meets with the hare Thus, we may assume that the acting style and staging for the race. The hedgehog and his wife switch identi- were highly similar as well. This light, playful theater ties, making the hare believe that the hedgehog has language conceptualized the notions of an Eretz-Israeli won the race. After seventy-three rounds, the hare childhood. finally collapses and dies of exhaustion. At the end, the tale stresses a reactionary moral, stating that “no one, Performing Childhood however distinguished he thinks himself, should make fun of a lesser man, even if this man is a hedgehog. The interconnections between performance, edu- And second, when a man marries, it is recommended cational philosophy, and the conceptualization of that he take a wife from his own class, one who looks Eretz-Israeli childhood found expression not only in just like him. In other words, a hedgehog should the grand design of The Children’s Theater, but also always take care that his wife is also a hedgehog, and in the “stage language” of the individual performances. so forth.”34 To better understand the poetic mechanism of Israeli Kipnis’s adaptation was part of an ongoing trend childhood, I closely analyze a short play by Levin Kip- that started in 1897 with authors such as Shlomo nis, Ha-Kipodim ve-ha-Arnav (“The Hedgehogs and the Berman, David Frishman, and Hayim Nahman Bialik Hare”). This short play premiered between 1931 and translating the Grimm tales into Hebrew and adapting 1932, and belongs to the period in which the theater them for a Hebrew-speaking readership. The authors produced collages of short plays and songs. The play of the Hebrew renaissance era believed that adapting was based on the Grimm Brothers tale with the same European folktales would lead to the formation of title and belonged to the repertory thematic cluster a Hebrew literary canon that would be open to the that dealt with fables and folktales. The fact that we world and that would educate young Jewish readers can compare the original tale with Kipnis’s adaptation about universal aesthetic norms associated with the enables us to see not only his artistic preferences, but “new Hebrew man.” The tales were not translated liter- also how he designed a performative and behavioral ally into Hebrew, but were freely adapted while being repertoire that conceptualized the notion of modern appropriated to the Eastern European Jewish culture. Hebrew childhood. Notably, the performative char- Christian themes were omitted from the tales, and the acteristics in this play appeared in other plays of his characters were often “Jewified”—namely, they received from the 1930s. Hebrew names and the authors inserted references In the original Grimm Brothers tale, the class to biblical stories.35 Kipnis’s choice of adapting The tension between the two characters is the trigger of Hedgehog and the Hare indicates that he followed the plot. The hedgehog and the arrogant hare meet the tradition of the Hebrew reception of the Grimm in the garden. The hedgehog warmly greets the hare, Brothers and its association with children’s culture. In but the hare, “who was in his own way a distinguished addition, the choice to adapt a canonical text for the

for the Documentation of the Performing Arts, file 229412; Ilana 33 Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, “The Hare and the Hedgehog,” Kleiman, Hamatateh—he-te’atron ha-satiri ha-eretz-yisra’eli (The Trans. D. L. Ashliman, in Professor D. L Ashliman—Folklore and Matateh—The Eretz-Israeli satire theater), MA Diss., The Hebrew Mythology Electronic Texts (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, University of , 1991. N.D.), https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm187.html. 32 On the performative poetics of Ha-Matateh, see Timen, 34 Ibid. Ve-ele toldot ha-mtate; and Shelly Zer-Zion, “Hard to Be a Jew 35 Shimona Fogel, “Megamot le’umiyot be-ibudim le-ivrit in Mandatory Tel Aviv: Relocating the Eastern European Jewish le-yeladim shel ma’asiyot ha-ekhim grim” [National tendencies Experience,” Jewish Social Studies 24, no. 1 (2018): 75–99. in Hebrew adaptations for children of Grimm Brothers’ tales], Moznayim 3–4 (2008): 24–27.

Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 07:29:23PM via free access 76 Shelly Zer-Zion theater may indicate that Kipnis aimed at canonizing these speech acts that took place on the stage enabled this innovative institution. even children that had only recently been exposed to A comparison between the original tale and Kipnis’s the language to identify with the characters, follow the play reveals that Kipnis continued with the line of radi- plot, and absorb the new vocabulary. cal adaptation that dominated the Hebrew reception Oxenberg’s staging exhibited a variety of children’s of the Grimm tales. His adaptation epitomizes the games that were associated with the world of the essence of “innocence,” one of the primary concepts child, and as such were linked with the natural world associated with the nineteenth-century bourgeois of childhood that was nurtured in the culture of the notion of childhood.36 Thus, he omitted from the kindergarten. The first game was evident in the visual play the violent relationship between the hedgehog design of the characters. Azuva Epstein as the male and his wife, the class tension between the hare and hedgehog, Rivka Pepper as the female hedgehog, and the hedgehog, as well as the brutal death of the hare. Ruth Reznik as the hare were dressed in furry suits He turned the characters into lovable figures whose designed by Zvi Goldin.39 A single existing picture from negative characteristics—the arrogance of the hare the performance indicates that the actresses created and the vindictiveness and deceptiveness of the furry, doll-like characters, and turned the performance hedgehogs—can be chalked up to being examples of into a liminal space between a live actor’s performance harmless, childlike mischief. An example of this atti- and a puppet show (fig. 1). This character design was tude can be seen in Kipnis’s naïve and naughty dialogue evident not only in Ha-Kipodim ve-ha-Arnav, but in between the two hedgehogs, as they scheme to deceive other performances of The Children’s Theater of the the hare: time that were based on Kipnis’s plays and that dealt with animal characters. Hava Carmi expressed her Male hedgehog: (calling): Mrs. Hedgehog! Mrs. Hedgehog! / impression of the play Iza Pziza (“Hasty Goat”) that Female Hedgehog: (coming) What is it? / Male hedgehog: I am going to race with the hare / Female Hedgehog: ran parallel to Ha-Kipodim ve-ha-Arnav: You? With the Hare? / Male hedgehog: Yes, me! / Female The playroom was alive! The funny velvet dog, the soft, Hedgehog: Impossible! / Male hedgehog: Possible! / still cats, the shepherd with the flute, all were taken down Female Hedgehog: Impossible! / Male hedgehog: Possible from the shelf and put on the stage…. So here they are and possible, if you just listen to me!37 all standing on the stage, and a house, a paddock, and a The brutal revenge of the original tale turns into a cowshed made of toy blocks stand by them. A magic stick has touched them, enlarged and animated them, as if they harmless lesson that the arrogant hare has learned. had fallen from the caressing hands of the children—thus Kipnis’s specific use of language was another way in they are set and move about on the stage.40 which he appropriated the tale for young children. Instead of the high, biblical-register Hebrew typical of Another example of the centrality of toys in the visual former Hebrew adaptations of the Grimm tales,38 he language of this theater can be seen in the logo of the used a formal yet simple Hebrew that was written in theater. The frame of the logo is the Hebrew letter Tav, short and rhythmic verses and that contained many which stood for “theater” (fig. 2). Within this frame repetitions. The ping-pong dialogue between the male appears the caption “Theatre for Children.” Underneath and female hedgehogs indicates how the language was the Tav, in underline, the caption continued: “Near the turned into a rhythmic, playful element in and of itself. Center for Kindergarten Teachers.” Inside the frame, The children could easily be carried away by the musi- there was an iconic illustration that symbolized the cality of the language and could understand what was theater: a teddy bear opens an ornamented theater said due to the many repetitions. The performativity of curtain. This logo appeared already in 1942 on the cover

36 On the construction of childhood as a period of innocence 37 Levin Kipnis, Ha-kipodim ve-ha-arnav [The hedgehogs and the during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Shavit, hare], in Hava Natziga vol. 1, ed. Moshe Gorali (Jerusalem: Reuven Poetics of Children’s Literature, 1–62; Gubar, “Entertaining Chil- Mas, 1942), 73–74. dren of All Ages”; and Gary Cross, “Toys and Time: Playthings and 38 Fogel, “Megamot le’umiyot be-ibudim le-ivrit.” Parents’ Attitudes toward Change in Early 20th-Century America,” 39 Bronzaft, Te’atron le-yeladim, 28. Time & Society 7, no. 1 (1998): 5–24. 40 Hava Karmi, “Te’atron le-yeladim ba-gil ha-rakh” [Theatre for young children], Hed Hagan 11, no. 5–6 (1947): 50.

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Fig. 1. Photo Ha-temuna Studio, Azuva Epstein and Rivka Pepper as the Hedgehogs in Ha-Kipodim ve-ha-Arnav. (“The Hedgehogs and the Hare”) at The Children’s Theater, 1942, Tel Aviv, photograph. First published in: Moshe Bronzaft, Te’atron le-yeladim leyad merkaz ha-gananaot, (Tel Aviv: Hed Hagan, 1942), 28. of the monograph produced by Hed HaGan41 that was geois parents no longer saw in their children merely dedicated to this theater. We may assume that the logo future contributors to the family’s income, but rather was in use since the 1930s, and that it coincided with priceless and adorable creatures, innocent and pure, the institutionalization of this theater. in whom they should invest money and for whom they These cute furry toys began to be manufactured in should purchase toys. The cute furry toys symbolized the first decade of the twentieth century, both in the the natural innocence of the child. It was a romantic United States and in Europe. Gary Cross argues that image, in which the child was associated with the these toys can be considered to have indicated the cub in the wild. Moreover, the furry toy expressed the changing status of children in bourgeois families. Bour- parental desire to protect the child by establishing an

41 See above, note 2. 42 Cross, “Toys and Time.”

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Fig. 2. Artist unknown, The Logo of The Children’s Theater near the Kindergarten Teachers’ Center, 1942, Tel Aviv, print. Published in: Moshe Bronzaft, Te’atron le-yeladim leyad merkaz ha-gananaot, (Tel Aviv: Hed Hagan, 1942), Cover. environment of phantasy and naiveté that was strictly could easily see. Thus, the actresses played “hide and separated from the demanding world of adults.42 seek” with the audience of children. In addition, the actresses played “peekaboo” with the child audience The image of the toys was only one of many references and often used the traditional comic device of the to children’s games in the performance of Ha-Kipodim “aside” in order to teach the arrogant hare a lesson. ve-ha-Arnav. At the heart of the plot was the running And last but not least, the Hebrew language itself was contest between the hedgehogs and the hare—now turned into a playful element in this short text, as can no longer a cruel competition but rather a fun, athletic be seen in the rhythmic dialogue that was discussed game. In addition, the male and female hedgehogs per- above. form a sociodramatic play of pretense: they pretend to Sportive and children’s games appeared not only in be only one character. During the running contest, the this play, but in other plays of the period. For example, actresses portraying the male and female hedgehogs the mise-en-scène in Eliezer ve-ha-Gezer (“Eliezer and hide behind small curtains, an act that the audience the Carrot”) was based on the game “tug of war”: the

43 Levin Kipnis, Eliezer ve-ha-Gezer [Eliezer and the carrot], Gilyonot 2 (1930): 23.

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Fig. 3. Photo Ha-temuna Studio, Ha-Dakhlil (“The Scarecrow”) at The Children’s Theater, 1942, Tel Aviv, photograph. First published in: Moshe Bronzaft, Te’atron le-yeladim leyad merkaz ha-gananaot, (Tel Aviv: Hed Hagan, 1942), 29. From right to left: Grandmother (Bat-Ami Pugatchov/Rivka Pepper), Uzi (Rita Goldberg), and Grandfather (Yosef Oxenberg). entire family and the farm animals join forces to pull a universities, saw in the practice of sports a means to huge carrot from the ground.43 In the play Ha-Dakhlil create a new, sturdy Jewish subject—one who exhibits (“The Scarecrow”), the character of the grandmother a muscular body and healthy soul and who is cured pretended to be the scarecrow—in other words, she of the mental neuroses that were typical of Jews due performed a game of pretense (fig. 3). As the scarecrow, to what was perceived as an exilic existence. During she played tag with the naughty birds, preventing them the early 1930s, the practice of sports enjoyed grow- from damaging her garden.44 In a photo taken from the ing popularity in Tel Aviv. In 1932, the first Maccabiah play, we see Rita Goldberg as Uzi, the grandson, imitat- Games took place in the city. For months before the ing the scarecrow. Thus, she creates not only an act of event, the city, and especially its sport clubs, celebrated presence, but animates the liminal space between the and publicized all kinds of sporting activities, both scarecrow—a still object—and the living presence of amateur and professional.45 The running contest in the actors. Thus, the mise-en-scène constructed the Ha-Kipodim ve-ha-Arnav mediated this sporting culture theatrical space as a playground. for young children. But what were the ideological (i.e., Zionist) mean- Yet the most important cultural and ideological ings of these mise-en-scènes? The most obvious significance of this performance lies, in my mind, component in Ha-Kipodim ve-ha-Arnav that referred in the accumulation of children’s games. Jill Dolan to the Zionist ethos was the running contest. Zionist claims that theater performance may create a utopian leaders, especially those educated at Central European sociopolitical experience, thus enabling the audience

44 Levin Kipnis, Ha-Dakhlil [The scarecrow], in Hava Natziga 46 Jill Dolan, Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope in the Theatre vol. 3, ed. Moshe Gorali (Jerusalem: Reuven Mas, 1962), 149–161. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005), 1–34. 45 Nina S. Spiegel, Embody Heberw Culture: Aesthetics, Athletics, and Dance in Jewish Community of Mandate Palestine (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2013), 57–96.

Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 07:29:23PM via free access 80 Shelly Zer-Zion members to widen and explore their own identities.46 protect children from hardship and to maintain their This play, by exhibiting many forms of children’s innocence.49 games, created a utopian experience of playfulness that served as a cultural metonym for childhood. But how do the games characterize childhood? Theoreticians Practicing the Repertoire of plays and games, such as Johan Huizinga and Roger Caillois, view all manifestations of plays and games— Contemporary theater and performance studies schol- including sporting games, artistic plays conducted in ars agree that the impact of a theatrical event exceeds the theater, and sociodramatic children’s plays—as a the mere mise-en-scène taking place on the stage at the single yet wide phenomenon that has certain charac- time of the performance. Rather, it contains additional teristics. First, all games are framed by a specific time factors taking place before and after the performance, and space that are separated from the routine of daily such as the audience’s horizon of expectations from life. Second, all games and plays apply a certain set the play, the path of the audience to the theater hall, of rules unique to the game, even if, as in the case of the hall’s location in the city, and the historical con- sociodramatic plays, the players decide these rules in ditions in which the performance takes place.50 This an ad hoc fashion. And third, participation in play is scholarly perception characterizes quite accurately always an act of free will.47 Khaskina’s own attitude toward children’s theater. She Theatrical performances that associated the world viewed theatrical performance as a holistic experience of the child with games and plays conceptualized the for the children that began with the preparation for culture of early childhood by manifesting boundaries the play, which takes place in the kindergarten, and that were incorporated into the praxis of playing. On that concludes with the days after the performance, the one hand, the world of games and plays is charac- a period during which the children can process the terized by a space that is open to the free participation event. In an article published in Hed ha-Gan in 1936, of children. It is a place where they can experience she documented the entire process of going with her the free movement of their bodies, where they can kindergarten children to the theater. This document choose to participate in the games and to express enables us to understand the ways in which the chil- their creativity. Khaskina believed that this world of dren perceived the theatrical event, reperformed it, and children’s games is crucial for the optimal develop- memorized it as part of their somatic and performa- ment of children. She used to hold lectures for parents, tive repertoire. Khaskina begins the description as she encouraging them to make room (and time) in their informs the children of the play that they will watch houses for their children’s games and their creativity.48 later that week: Thus, the performance in Ha-Kipodim ve-ha-Arnav echoed this ideological line, legitimizing this world of Already on the first day of the week, I informed the children of the play that is to take place on Wednesday games. On the other hand, this world of games, by its at the Mugrabi Theater. “What play will it be? The Scare- very nature, was strictly separated from the outside crow? Silly Statue?” the children asked. “No. This time world, namely, from adult reality. Thus, the world of they will perform ‘Tzili and Gili’ and ‘The Bear,’ which children is confined within boundaries that protect you have seen in the Bialik book” (which had stood on them from the hardships of everyday life. The strict the table for about a month). “What else will they per- separation between the world of adults and the secure form there?” asked some of the children. “They will also world of children was in accordance with the bourgeois show ‘The Swing.’ I showed them the picture and read perception of childhood that stressed the need to them the song.51

47 Yair Lipshitz, “Miskhak” [Acting], Mafte’akh: Lexical Review of The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Historiography (Cambridge: Political Thought 8 (2014): 125–152. Cambridge University Press, 2009), 89–195; Bruce McConachie, 48 Khaskina, “Ha-yeladim mesakhakim” and “Pinat ha-yeled Engaging Audiences: A Cognitive Approach to Spectating in the ba-mishpakha.” Theatre (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). 49 Shavit, Poetics of Children’s Literature, 1–62; Cross, “Toys and 51 Tova Khaskina, “Hitrashmut ha-yeladim me-ha-hatzaga Time.” ha-akhrona: ‘he-atzel’ (al pi ma’ase yaldut) ve-‘sefer ha-temunot’ 50 On the concept of the theatrical event, see, for example, Mar- (me-shirey Bialik)” [The impression of the children from the last vin Carlson, The Haunted Stage: Theatre as Memory Machine (Ann play: ‘The Lazy’ [after childhood deeds] and ‘The Book of Images’ Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001); Thomas Postlewait, [The Poems of Bialik]], Hed Hagan 3–4 (1936): 47.

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The Children’s Theater was already part of the chil- itself did not take place during the school day, but in dren’s educational landscape. They asked Khaskina if the afternoon: they were going to watch Ha-Dakhlil (“The Scarecrow”), the last play they had seen in this theater. But this At a quarter past two, the children began to assemble time, she prepared them for watching the play titled in the kindergarten, all cheerful and dressed in holiday Sefer ha-Temunot (“The Book of Images”), which was outfits. With great enthusiasm, yet solemnly and quietly, they waited. They are about to travel together in a bus based on the children’s poems of Hayim Nahman to the theater, and already they are singing Pesel-Kesel Bialik. The play premiered in 193552 and was a part (“Silly Statue”) and Gina Li (“A Garden for Me”), prob- of an ongoing process of adapting Bialik’s work to the ably as an association from the last play—Ha-Dakhlil Eretz-Israeli children’s literary canon and making him (“The Scarecrow”).54 into a national icon appropriate for young children to venerate. The impression from the former production that the This trend had already begun in 1933, after the children had seen in the theater accompanied them publication of Bialik’s volume of collected poems for now in their current visit. Levin Kipnis’s Ha-Dakhlil, children, Sefer ha-Shirim ve-ha-Pizmonot (“The Book which premiered in 1933, dealt with two naughty of Poems and Songs”), and was intensified less than a birds that ignore the presence of a scarecrow in the year later due to the poet’s sudden death. Appropriat- garden of grandmother and grandfather, and pick at ing his poems to the canon of Eretz-Israeli children’s the vegetables. In order to teach the birds a lesson, literature was not an easy task, according to Yael Darr. grandmother pretends to be a scarecrow, catches the Bialik’s poems delineated the landscapes of Jewish birds, and threatens to punish them. Eventually, she Eastern Europe and were far from the Eretz-Israeli accepts their apologies and lets them go after they ideological model as shaped by the local children’s promise not to destroy the garden.55 Khaskina recalled press and publishing companies. However, in light of that the children were charmed by the beautiful birds the growing antisemitism in Europe during the mid- and enchanted by the dance of the actresses portraying 1930s, Bialik was perceived as a cultural and poetic them.56 While preparing to return to the theater and bridge between Eastern European Jewish culture and see another play, Ha-Dakhlil did not remain an abstract Eretz-Israeli Hebrew Zionism. Nahum Gutman, the memory. Rather, it constituted the performative rep- illustrator of le-Yeladim, which was the most ertoire of the children. They were all familiar with the popular children’s weekly at the time, illustrated his songs from that play and sang them together on the poems, a fact that facilitated their reception by local way to the theater. It was artistic knowledge etched Eretz-Israeli readers.53 Bialik’s play, performed by The into their bodies and into their sense of belonging to Children’s Theater, was also part of the cultural effort to a group of peers. adapt Bialik’s poems to the sensitivities of Eretz-Israeli On the way to the theater, the children spontane- children and make them into a local literary canon. ously created what David Wiles calls “a processional This effort at canon formation did not begin with performance.” The processional performance, accord- the theatrical performance but about a month before ing to Wiles, is a participatory event with several in Khaskina’s kindergarten classroom. Khaskina cre- characteristics: it is a parade, it maps the area in ated for the children a set of intimate performances which it takes place, sometimes it forms a pilgrimage, based on Bialik’s book of children’s poems: she intro- and, finally, it creates a narrative. The processional duced them to the book, showed them the illustrations, performance of the children in this case functioned and read them the poems. In addition, she told them in a similar way.57 By going to the Mugrabi Theater, about the performance they were about to see at the the children conducted a small-scale pilgrimage to it. Mugrabi Theater, and even invited Akiva, the adminis- It was the main theater hall in Tel Aviv of the 1930s. trative director of the theater, to talk with the children At the time, the Mugrabi was of national significance, about the preparations for the play. The performance as both Habima, the national theater company, and

52 Bronzaft, Te’atron le-yeladim, 26–27. 55 Kipnis, Ha-Dakhlil. 53 Darr, The Nation and the Child, 45–55 and Doda shel shum 56 Tova Khaskina, “Te’atron le-yeladim al yedey ha-va’ada shel ish, 15–70. merkaz ha-hananot,” Hed Hagan 3–4 (1936): 10–13. 54 Khaskina, “Hitrashmut ha-yeladim me-ha-hatzaga ha- 57 David Wiles, A Short History of Western Performance Space akhrona,” 48. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 63–91.

Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 07:29:23PM via free access 82 Shelly Zer-Zion the Ohel, the workers’ theater company, performed formance increases significantly when the performed there regularly. Consequently, this theater hall was repertoire is already familiar to them and when identified with the dominant Zionist project and with they have a feeling of understanding what is being the hegemonic socialist-Zionist political context.58 The performed on the stage.61 They were familiar with active act of mapping the public/national locations in the theater building of Mugrabi and with Akiva, its the city enabled the children to experience the urban administrative manager. They knew the text on which public sphere and to collectively participate in it. The the performance was based, and they recognized the visit to the theater was not only an artistic experience actors performing in the play, especially “Sarah the but also a civic act.59 Nonetheless, the participation of kindergarten teacher,” who would eventually be better the children in the public sphere was appropriate for recognized as “Sarah Levi Tanai, the choreographer.” their age and psychological needs. The engagement of the children in the performance In the theater hall, the children were eager to watch differed from that of the adults, which was evident in the play that Khaskina had introduced to them, but Khaskina’s description. They reacted verbally to the the first act of this performance was based on Bialik’s occurrences on the stage, talked with the characters, dramatic poem Ma’ase Yaldut (“Childhood Deed”), and participated in the songs.62 The performers of The a poem that they had not yet learned. The children Children’s Theater encouraged the participation of the got frustrated, but Khaskina assured them that in the children in the theatrical event. During the intermis- second act they were about to see what they had been sion, pianist Pnina Goldin, who served as the musician expecting: in the plays, used to teach the children the songs from the plays. Often one of the actors assisted her in this And [the bell] rings again. Darkness. The curtain rises, task.63 In a picture taken in one of the performances from here or there one can still hear the sound of weep- ing. From a distance, joyful music is heard. And now (fig. 4), we can see that all the children were wearing the small curtain of the first page rises, and a girl with a origami paper hats. This indicates another aspect of stroller and two dolls enters. Here is “Tzili and Gili”—the their participation in the performance, a visual aspect news spreads from one to the other. And as the girl asks that was based, presumably, on the craft they had cre- “Whom should I love more, Tzili or Gili?” the answer ated especially for the event. “Both! Both!” is heard from our seats and emerges into a As the children attended kindergarten in the fol- general emotional consensus among all the children in lowing days, they processed the play that they had the auditorium, as well as the girl on the stage. Only a just seen: few voices were heard saying “This one! That one!” And again, the children recognized that the “girl” was Sarah, The next morning, as soon as the children arrived in the the kindergarten teacher.60 kindergarten, immediately they ran to the table, opened the Bialik book of poems, and declared joyfully: “Here are Now the children were fully content with the perfor- Zili and Gili! And there is the Bear!” And when they found mance. Shifra Schonmann and Jeanne Klein explain “The Swing” they started singing “Nad Ned! Nad Ned!” and that the engagement of children in a theatrical per- from a distance one could hear “Yossi on the violin, Pessi

58 On the importance of the theatrical space in constituting the 59 Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience meaning of the theatrical event, see Marvin Carlson, “Space and (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1977) 19–84; Christopher Theatre History,” in Representing the Past: Essays in Performance Balme, “Playbills amd the Theatrical Public Sphere,” in Represent- Historiography, ed. Charlotte M. Canning and Thomas Postlewait ing the Past: Essays in Performance Historiography, ed. Charlotte (Iowa City: Iowa University Press, 2010), 195–214; Susan Bennett, M. Canning and Thomas Postlewait (Iowa City: Iowa University Theatre Audiences: A Theory of Production and Reception (London: Press, 2010), 37–62. Routledge, 1997), 86–165. On theater buildings in Mandatory Tel 60 Khaskina, “Hitrashmut ha-yeladim me-ha-hatzaga ha- Aviv, see Dorit Yerushalmi, “Towards a Balanced History: ‘Ohell, akhrona,” 49. the Workers’ Theatre of Eretz Israel’ as a Cultural Alternative to 61 Jeanne Klein and Shifra Schonmann, “Theorizing Aesthetic Habima (1935–1946),” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 13, no. 3 Transactions from Children’s Critical Values in Theatre for (2014): 340–359 and “Po’alim bi-sde ha-te’atron: be’ikar al ha-ohel Young Audiences,” Youth Theatre Journal 23, no. 1 (2009): 60–74; (ve-ktzat al habima) be-tkufat ha-mandat” [Working in the field of Schonmann, Theatre as a Medium for Children and Young People, theater: Mostly on the Ohel and slightly on Habima in the times 69–86. of the Mandate], in Habima–Iyunim khadashim be-te’atron le’umi 62 Schonmann, Theatre as a Medium for Children and Young [Habima—New studies on national theater], ed. Gad Kaynar- People, 51–68. Kissinger, Dorit Yerushalmi, and Shelly Zer-Zion (Tel Aviv: Resling, 63 Bronzaft, Te’atron le-yeladim, 46–49. 2016), 261–290; and Zer-Zion, “Hard to Be a Jew.” 64 Khaskina, “Hitrashmut ha-yeladim me-ha-hatzaga ha- akhrona,” 50.

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Fig. 4. Photo Ha-temuna Studio, The Audience of Children at a Performance at The Children’s Theater, 1942, Tel Aviv, photograph. First published in: Moshe Bronzaft, Te’atron le-yeladim leyad merkaz ha-gananaot, (Tel Aviv: Hed Hagan, 1942), 50.

on the drums”—and the book was transferred from one ments, etc. They did not forget the audience either: they hand to the other and each [child] found within what arranged the chairs row by row throughout the room and they were looking for.64 seated the audience of children…. To sum up, these plays granted the children full satisfaction, a profound impres- Bialik’s The Book of Poems and Songs became a post- sion, and nonstop delight, and the aim of merging the theatrical performative site back in the kindergarten “outside” with the “inside” was definitely accomplished.66 classroom. The children identified the songs in the book by looking at the illustrations; they cited the The process, argued Khaskina, of turning the theatrical poems and turned them into their personal performa- event into the behavioral and cultural repertoire of the tive canon while using a text they had orally learned children was fully accomplished with the spontaneous but were not yet able to read. During music class, they performance that they organized. They turned the asked the music teacher to play the entire musical cor- poems of Bialik into their own embodied Hebrew- pus of the performance. They repeatedly rehearsed the Zionist repertoire. show they had seen, turning it into their own intimate embodied knowledge—a knowledge that combined Conclusion linguistic, musical, and spatial aspects.65 And eventu- ally, the rehearsal led to a spontaneous performance The Children’s Theater near the Kindergarten Teachers’ that the children put on in the classroom: Center was the educational legacy of Tova Khaskina. Once, on a rainy day, as the children could not go out- This theater articulated the embodied repertoire of side to the yard, they arranged—solely on their own Eretz-Israeli childhood and established it on two pil- initiative—two plays in the dining room. And here lars. On the one hand, this theater epitomized the everything that was in the room was inserted into the concept of an innocent and secure childhood. The performance: the chairs, the toy blocks, musical instru- world performed on the stage created a utopian notion

65 Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire, 1–52. 66 Khaskina, “Hitrashmut ha-yeladim me-ha-hatzaga ha- akhrona,” 51.

Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 07:29:23PM via free access 84 Shelly Zer-Zion of childhood. It was a world of sociodramatic plays, Khaskina vividly described the unbearable tension various games, and imagination. The characters and between the turbulent times during the second half scenery in the theater were modeled on dolls and furry of the 1930s and the innocent, utopian, naïve world toys, and the mise-en-scène was inspired by children’s of the children’s theater that she and her colleagues athletic games such as “hide and seek” and “tug of war.” directed. The ability to create such a protective and The theater legitimized the desire of the children to innocent world for children via the theater, to enable imagine, to experience music, and to enjoy the free them to participate in the civic act of going to the the- movement of their bodies. Moreover, the theater cre- ater while maintaining their protected space, was a real ated a shared communal culture—popular songs and achievement. The theater served as a tool not only for short fables—for the children and their parents in enriching their world but also for creating a protective an immigrant society. On the other hand, the theater and supportive environment despite severe politi- encouraged the children to participate in the world cal conditions, economic hardships, and the anxiety of adults. The children were shepherded through the of war. city in a partly organized and partly spontaneous The theatrical events encouraged the children processional play to the Mugrabi Theater, and thereby to openly explore their world, to practice physical conducted a small-scale pilgrimage to the auditorium activity, to imagine joyous adventures, and to initi- that constituted a national public sphere in the Hebrew ate activities—all these were acts of self-expression city. Some of the plays that they saw there created a and free choice that became linked with the personal clear reference to Zionist ideology. and communal well-being associated with the Zion- What was the impact of The Children’s Theater ist promise and the settlement of the Land. For the near the Kindergarten Teachers’ Center on the general adults—educators and parents alike—the very ability Hebrew-Zionist culture of the Yishuv? A short article by to create such an enriching environment for children Tova Khaskina, published in Davar in February 1940, and an appropriate avenue for participation in public refers to this matter: life was a genuine achievement and a promise for a better future. This was deeply needed in a land of For years, since the Yishuv in the Land experienced the immigration, where adults struggled to build new lives nightmare of the “events,” our children have created a for themselves and their families, and particularly so special folklore: the plays were full of Jewish policemen in the 1930s and 1940s, which were times of insecurity, (notrim), bombs, and shooting. The time had not yet arrived to summarize the entire spiritual damage caused war, and distress. to the children by the riots, and the children had not yet recovered from the fear that enveloped them, and then Shelly Zer-Zion is a faculty member at the department came the war with all its horrors, which added more to of theatre and performance studies at the University the nervousness that children have been experiencing of . Prior to this position she was a Fulbright in recent years. The economic distress, unemployment, post-doctoral scholar in NYU, and the director of the the stockpiling rush—all of these add difficulties and Israeli Center for the Documentation of the Performing tension to the lives of our children. How can we bring Arts. Her research focuses on the history of modern them back to their own world—the world of the child? Jewish theatre in Hebrew and , and its role The child needs a special atmosphere even outside the in the formation of Jewish national culture. She pub- school and the kindergarten that they attend every day. lished numerous articles on the subject in journals They need an artistic environment that transfers them to the world of imagination and mental peacefulness. such as Journal of Modern Jewish Studies and Jewish In many respects, The Children’s Theater can fill this Social Studies. She is the author of the book Habima lacuna [and create a space] in which the child may find in : The Institutionalization of a Zionist Theatre recreation, healthy laughter, and the triumph of justice (Magness Press, 2015). A German version of the book over evil…. The Children’s Theater is not merely a luxury was published in Fink Verlag in 2016. She is a co-editor suitable for days of prosperity; rather, it is an educational of the volume Habima: New Studies on National Theatre tool highly valuable in times of distress.67 (Resling, 2017).

67 Tova Khaskin, “Te’atron le-yeladim” [Theatre for children], Davar, February 28, 1940.

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