By Judy Lash Balint
JERUSALEM — A sellout crowd of women packed the prestigious Jerusalem Theater a few weeks ago for, Sisters!The Daughters of Tzelofchad, the latest production of the Raise Your Spirits Theatre group. If someone just gave you a ticket without telling you the background of this all-female group of performers, you would be justified in thinking that you were witnessing a talented, lively and polished cast of women who just love to perform.
The reality of Raise Your Spirits is quite different.
The women who are the founders, cast and production crew of Raise Your Spirits almost all live in Gush Etzion, a bloc of more than twenty Jewish communities located a few miles south of Jerusalem. Gush Etzion may sound familiar if you follow news from Israel — over the past several months the area has been the scene of deadly attacks against Jews that have occurred every couple of days in the latest wave of attempted terror that started last October.
For the almost 70,000 Israelis who make their home in the Gush, as it’s known, the 2015–2016 terror cycle is nothing new. Few of those who live there now were alive in 1948 when the area experienced its first 20th century terror attacks. But many residents do have vivid recollections of the period between October 2000 and 2005, when what became known as the Second Intifada played itself out.
Cheryl Mandel was one of those I interviewed in 2001 for an article about how women in Gush Etzion were holding up under the constant barrage of violence during that period. She was articulate and open and held little back.
At the time, she told me how she worried about Gabriel, then a 12th grader, who finished basketball practice in Jerusalem too late to catch the bullet-proof bus back to their home in Alon Shvut, one of the larger communities of Gush Etzion. Cheryl related how she kept in constant touch with Gabriel by cellphone as he hitched a ride back home.
Cheryl didn’t say much about her other four children. Two of her sons, Daniel and Jonah, were already serving in the IDF, a married daughter lived close by.
But thirty six hours before Passover 2003, Cheryl and her husband David received the devastating news that one of those two sons, Daniel, 24, had been killed while commanding an operation to rout out terrorists in Shechem.
Cheryl, a talented choreographer and dancer, was already a valued member of the women’s theater group at the time of Daniel’s death. She went on to perform in several of the succeeding Raise the Spirit productions.
One of the objectives of the troupe is to give expression to the talents of women in the Gush; another is to involve as many women as possible to provide a creative outlet for people who were afraid to take their lives into their hands to drive to Jerusalem or Tel Aviv for cultural enrichment and activities. A third objective is to bring stories with a Biblical bent to light in a fresh, engaging way — particularly those that have something to say about women.
Raise Your Spirits co-founder, Toby Klein Greenwald, is the author and director of the recent production. A veteran educator, writer, journalist and director, Toby wrote the show after taking in a series of inspiring Torah teachings from renowned female scholars.
The production, based on characters in the books of Exodus and Numbers, is filled with color, passion, singing and dancing, with women playing male characters and an engaging ensemble of young girls who obviously relish their first taste of being on stage. Leading roles are played by women with professional backgrounds in theater and opera.
Flipping through the program, it’s clear that community involvement is a priority. Seamstresses, sound and lighting technicians, make-up,the choreography team etc. etc are all given credit in putting together this 9th production of the Raise the Spirits Theatre group.
At the end of every production, when the performers have taken their final bows, the audience rises to join in the singing of Hatikva, the Israeli national anthem, as well as Ani Ma’amin “I believe” — a statement of Jewish faith penned by the medieval scholar Maimonides and sung by defiant Jews in the Nazi death camps.
Raise Your Spirits, indeed — as relevant in 2016 as in years past.
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Balint is a freelance writer based in Jerusalem and the author of Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times.