A little while ago in New York’s East Village, I met the playwright David Zellnik to talk about the latest with his sweeping historical play: "Ariel Sharon Stands at the Temple Mount and Dreams of Theodor Herzl." The play offers a critique of Zionism-as-it-has-unfolded in a kind of conversation between Herzl and Sharon, and when I saw it at a workshop about a year ago, I found it thrilling and devastating. Then this summer it was performed at Theater J, a Jewish space in Washington, and got a rave review in the Wash. Post. It’s only a matter of time before this ambitious play gets the big production it deserves, and makes Zionism and prophecy a live subject at New York dinner tables and restaurants and offices. "Sharon/Herzl" is that powerful.
David Zellnik has lately visited Israel and the occupied territories; see his moving portrait of a Hebron Palestinian with a skin condition here. That portrait shows Zellnik as a universalist, someone who thinks about the human family, not just the Jewish family. And yet he writes from within a Jewish tradition, in a sense the tradition of Herzl, a playwright himself (and an assimilationist, for a while). Zellnik is an idealist, and the artistic vision he offers, of Sharon’s militarism as a golem figure, has transformative potential. Hey, we are still struggling with Leon Uris’s archetype of the macho Jewish male, which came out of the humiliations of the Holocaust.
What follows is a Q-and-A with the playwright:
When your play was first performed in upstate New York, people were enraged. Not this time. I gather the play has changed?
"I don’t know if it’s because the
world has changed, or the play has changed. Almost everyone in the audience
responded to it and seemed to get it. The whole epic scope of Zionism is looked
at less in anger and more with a sense of tragedy. Sharon became a more human monster."
Did some Jews respond positively to the play? "Especially the men over 50 seemed remarkably ready
to grapple with the costs of Zionism. My play aims to speak to those good
people who believed in Zionism and still do. I haven’t lost my sense that it
has much more to answer for… but if the play doesn’t honor the original dream,
then those people won’t listen to the history of how it actually got
implemented.”
Does Israel’s situation affect the reception?
“It strikes me people might be ready to hear
my play because it seems that Israel too in a coma. No one has any ideas. Most people believe disengagement
failed, and military solutions failed, and no one has a plan. The only one with
a strong idea is Lieberman."
Your first trip to Israel. Impressions?
"At first it seems like a nice, normal place. But I kept having this whiplash.
Haaretz is devastating to read. The articles were all like: polls
showing how many Israelis wanted to kick out Arab citizens, atrocities
in the territories….and then and then I’d look up and I’d see just nice people. And all of a sudden I had this understanding of how American Jews go there and think Israel is simply great. Cause if you don’t read the paper and don‘t go to, say, Hebron, it’s quite easy to miss what’s going on."
Talk about the religiosity of Zionism. "The golem in my play–Sharon–is a piece of clay made alive by the
word of God. One audience member made an association I thought was
interesting, he said in picking Palestine, Zionism enacts the same thing: a piece of clay ensouled by God. It’s why the Uganda plan [of
1903] would never have worked. Herzl offered clay to the Zionist Congress but
there was no God in it.”
What about Zionism as a militarist ideology? "My play is an argument about what happens when a man
takes a sweet friend and tries to make him strong enough to fight back in
hostile territory. The way the play moves back and forth between 19th century
Europe and 20th century Palestine, you start to viscerally understand how Jews are carrying the traumas of Europe to Palestine. In some ways
we’re living in our own psychic drama there. It doesn’t matter what the
Palestinians do, they’re always Cossacks and Nazis."
You and I both grew up with a sense of Jewish specialness, superiority. Is it sustainable now? “When you combine ethnic nationalism with a sense of Jewish exceptionalism, it’s trouble. Okay, so I like to think of New York as a Jewish town, but for plenty of
people it’s not, it’s a Latin town or Irish or whatever. The problem is if my
definition is tied to power. In New York I’m allowed to say that I like Jews and I think
Jews are smart. But in Israel, it becomes really problematic because it’s tied to a power structure that
favors Jews and all of a sudden you’ve taken my sweet little secret and it’s
something trashy, something with consequences for people who aren’t
Jewish.
"
Talk about young Jews. "The only Jewish guy in the cast in Washington played Sharon.
He had never heard of Herzl.
How did you use Sharon’s illness in your latest version? "At
the end of the play, Sharon asks Herzl’s spirit to put the word of God in his mouth and raise him up
again. Give me the chance, I can make peace, I can declare the borders of Israel. But
Herzl says, ‘You would give them ghettoes.’ A lot about modern Israel would
baffle Herzl but if there’s one thing he would know from, it’s a ghetto.”
You’re a calmer person than I am. You’re better at dealing with criticism. How do you do it? "I didn’t get into screaming
fights around my play, because I feel like with my play, I have to be better
than that. Because they want me to get into that. But I truly believe that in
any reasonable discussion my side will win. Reason is my friend. Let them see
my passion, let them see I care about it. Maybe even let them see my anger. But
never let my anger lash out, never let it insult."
Tell me about Jewish identity and Zionism/anti-Zionism. "Even people who believe in Zionism have to admit the cost. Ultimately I don’t think the current situation is
sustainable. I don’t Zionism offers a way forward that I as a progressive leftist can get behind, and I don’t think it’ll be through Zionism that Jews and Arabs live in peace in the Middle East. But I do understand
why people are Zionists. I think of myself as a post-Zionist. Not an anti-Zionist. A post-Zionist doesn’t trash Zionism at every turn. If you say you’re anti-Zionist what Israelis hear is: I wish you were never born. I don’t want to say that. I’ve been to Israel and I had a good time."
