etb English
Theatre
Berlin International Performing Arts Center

everything you ever wanted to know about being Israeli in berlin

but were afraid to ask…

Join us for a very special one-night-only experiment on December 1st at 8pm Berlin time for a completely digital adaptation of The Land of Milk(y) and Honey?: Israelis in Berlin.

Thanks to a generous grant from Fonds Darstellende Künste, we are reenvisioning our intimate dinner party performance as a Zoom conference to be enjoyed from the comfort of your living room. Bring your dancing shoes, a container of pudding and your curiosity with you; this is not TV theater; our intrepid performers will join us from three different countries, connected via the world wide web. Interaction is possible but never imposed.

The performance text was created from transcripts of interviews with 60 Israelis in Berlin – Jewish, Muslim, Arab, secular, straight, queer, those that eschew all labels and everything in between.

To fully participate in this performance, all audience members are asked to bring a single-serving container of pudding, one whole lemon, freshly ground pepper and four fresh mint leaves.

“I pity those who no longer remember the Holocaust and abandon Israel for a pudding.”

This statement, made by Yair Shamir, then Israeli Minister of Agriculture, to the Jerusalem Post in October of 2014, marked the climax of the so-called “Milky protest”. In a post that launched a thousand ships, the Facebook page Olim L’Berlin (Aliyah to Berlin) urged Israelis to move to Berlin due to a markedly cheaper cost of living. The primary evidence? Aldi’s Dessertcreme & Sahne, a dessert comparable to Milky, the dominant pudding brand in Israel, sold for less than a third of the price. This Facebook post received more than one million likes within four days and created headlines around the globe.

Nearly 75 years after the end of the Second World War, Berlin’s Israeli community is estimated to number in the tens of thousands and impossible to verify due to issues of multiple citizenship. Is Berlin truly this promised land of milk and honey?  Are people from Israel really immigrating here only because of the standard of living, nightlife and Berlin’s fabled cultural reputation? What about those Israelis who leave the country due to the current political climate? And what affects do 20th century history as well as multiple reports of rising antisemitism have on emigration from Israel to Germany?

Three Israeli performers explore these questions using verbatim text from 60 interviews with the widest possible spectrum of partners; Israelis with an active religious background, Israeli Arabs, highly politicized Israelis as well as Israelis who have absolutely no interest in politics.

The ID Festival is funded by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Szloma-Albam Foundation and KIgA e.V. – Kreuzberger Initiative gegen Antisemitismus