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pieces, and theatre productions. Here’s a selection of some of the

most anticipated. Music People

Opening the festival will be “Music People”, a musical project born immediately after October 7. Young artists from the north of Israel will join forces with well-seasoned musicians, such as Leah Shabat, Amir Lev, Jane Bordeaux, Daniella Spector, and more, on the stage of an open-air amphitheater in the Jerusalem Theater Plaza built especially for the occasion, and designed by artist Muhammad Abo Salme. Speeches Against Despair Guri Alfi and Eli Haviv host a dream team of performers that each reinterpret great historical speeches, from a range of times and places in the world, including speeches by Martin Luther King, Charlie Chaplin, David Foster Wallace, Leah Goldberg, Amos Oz, and more, creating an inspiring hybrid of powerful speeches and one-off original performances. Al-Malab (The Pitch) On July 27, 2024, a rocket struck the football pitch in Majdal Shams, taking the lives of 12 children. Raed Shams and Yonatan Blumenfeld, through the original creation of a performative documentary, invite the audience to reflect on the disaster and the questions that arise from it. Brother Tuval Chaim, brother of Yotam Chaim who was kidnapped into Gaza, and who after successfully escaping captivity was accidentally killed by IDF fire, is launching his album, “Brothers” in Kibbutz Tze’elim. Influenced by many different styles, the album blends hip-hop, funk,

Photo: Yair Meyuhas

Michal Vaknin and Itay Mautner, the artistic directors of the Israel Festival: "Our hearts are broken, and our eyes are still far from dry. And amidst all this, life asks us to infuse it with meaning; to make it worthy of the weight it carries. This year’s festival seeks to offer another perspective on our circumstances, spark a bit of light in the darkness"

Ashes to Gold Award-winning Israeli international trumpeter Avishai Cohen will be performing music from the album he wrote in the wake of October 7. The album’s title evokes the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, kintsugi. Indeed, “Ashes to Gold” moves along the axis between despair and rage, hope and optimism, and contains within it the great aspiration of transforming bad into good, ugly into beautiful, lowly into sublime. Cohen and his quartet will be joined on stage by the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra to perform a spectacular orchestral arrangement of the album for 60 musicians. The festival will take place July 16 th to August 14 th . For more information check the festival website: israel-festival.org ■

metal, and rock music, and includes a moving drum duet he recorded with his brother Yotam z”l, who was a gifted drummer. Fusion This autobiographical dance piece by Gal Bruck Gorfung combines dance, video projections, singing, and drag. “Fusion” seeks to coalesce not only the convalescent, but also the internal contradictions: the duality that exists between masculinity and femininity, between movement and paralysis, between life and death. Bruck Gorfung creates a new language that relies on contrasts - ranging from dance virtuosity to disease-driven reflexes - tremors, spasms, and asymmetry. In its quest for wholeness, “Fusion” seeks out the ability to undergo change, transformation, and transcendence.

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ATMOSPHERE JULY 2025