Last update - 00:00 05/04/2007
Theater of the absurd
By Haim Handwerker
NEW YORK - Tuvia Tenenbom, the man behind the Jewish Theater of New York, has done it again. He has created yet another provocative play. This time, he has put the subject of Polish anti-Semitism in the spotlight. No, not the anti-Semitism of the past, but a living, breathing Jew-hatred that he claims thrives today in the country. The Israel-born Tenenbom has a knack for infuriating people with his productions; this time it is the Poles who are angry: the Polish consul in New York has called "Last Jew in Europe" a "terrible" piece of theater. That reaction is hardly surprising, considering that audience members are left with the impression that the Poles have learned nothing from their history, and that the country today seethes with anti-Semitism.
The comedy, as the Jewish Theater describes it, tells the tale of Jozef, a young accountant in contemporary Poland, and Maria, a dancer and actress, who are planning to marry. As Tenenbom writes it, Jozef is a Jew who is attempting to conceal his origin, whereas Maria is the daughter of a priest, who suspects her future husband is Jewish. Into this flammable mix comes a young Mormon, from Utah, on a mission to "convert" the Jews who were murdered or died in Poland during the Holocaust. To that end, he must record the names of Jews found in Polish cemeteries and bring them back to the United States, where the actual conversion will take place.
Jozef is worried. He fears that his religious background will be disclosed. His father, a pathologist, tells him about the visiting Mormon, and about the fact that he has met Maria in a local bar. Maria shares her suspicions about Jozef with the Mormon, who has in the time being fallen in love with her, and she asks him to find out whether Jozef is indeed Jewish. If Jozef does turn out to be Jewish, she will marry the Mormon.
But that's just the beginning. As the play proceeds, it turns out that Jozef the Jew is none other than Josef Mengele's grandson, and that the anti-Semitic priest's daughter is herself Jewish; in the dramatic finale, it is revealed that the two are in fact brother and sister.
The play makes almost nonstop use of anti-Jewish phrases, especially through the voice of Maria, and as the plot evolves, also through Jozef. When he understands that there is Aryan blood flowing in his veins, and that Maria is a Jewess, it is he who refuses to marry her. The viewer can only be left with the impression that contemporary Poland is rife with Jew-hatred. Anti-Jewish graffiti filmed by Tenenbom in Lodz, during a visit to Poland, is screened on the walls of the stage of the Triad Theater, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
From yeshiva to university
Tenenbom, 49, was born in Bnei Brak, Israel, to an ultra-Orthodox family. At the age of 14, he began the process of questioning his faith. He remained in yeshiva until the age of 18, when he decided to go to New York to attend university. "For the family, going to study in a university was a complete shock," he recalls. He studied computers and math, among other things.
Tenenbom set up the Jewish Theater in 1994, and in fact it is the only English-language theater company dealing exclusively with Jewish subjects, often provocative ones. In one play, it looked at the experiences of an ultra-Orthodox young man who discovers sex. Another dealt with two children born in the same hospital on the same day. One is the child of an Arab sheikh associated with Hamas, the other of an Israeli intelligence officer. Tenenbom has had the nurse who cared for the newborns in the hospital switch them; 20 years later, the Jew has become a Palestinian freedom fighter and the Arab an Israeli soldier. In another play, the actors read love letters women had written to Hitler.
The theater's penultimate play, "Kabbalah," dealt with an Israeli rabbi who brings large numbers back to religious observance. He promises his followers eternal life if only they will return to their natural state and remove their clothes. Into this scene arrives Madonna - the singer - who comes to Israel to meet with the rabbi. The play sparked many reactions in New York, not necessarily because of its quality, but because it was disclosed on the Internet that t he actress who plays Madonna (who disrobes on stage) was Emily Stern, the daughter of shock-radio host Howard Stern. (Tenenbom had apparently promised her that her identity as Howard Stern's offspring would not be publicized.) The young Stern was frightened by the uproar and pulled out of the play when there were concerns that the theater would be flooded with fans and opponents of her father.
Tenenbom says the idea for "Last Jew in Europe" came to him during a visit to Poland, where many of his relatives were killed during the Holocaust.
"I went to Lodz and my eyes clouded," he says. "I saw lots of anti-Semitic graffiti. When I met Poles, and this includes intellectuals, it was impossible not to feel their hatred of Jews. You could hear stories there about the Jewish money that controls the world, and about the fact that the Jews are making every effort to turn Poland into an outcast country. Among others, I met a Jewish boy who was about to marry a Christian woman. He said he had not told her that he was Jewish, nor did he plan to, for fear that she wouldn't marry him. That's where the idea for the play came from."
Amateur and awful
Krzysztof Kasprzyk, the Polish consul general in New York, didn't much like "Last Jew in Europe" when he saw it. "It's a terrible play, it's very weak and not convincing. I understand what Tenenbom wanted to do. He wanted to raise awareness of the anti-Semitism that exists in one place or another, but all in all it was done in an amateur way," he says.
"Even from a factual perspective, the play is problematic. He took a few graffiti and blew them out of proportion. The problem among young people in Lodz, for example, is hatred between two soccer clubs. The young fans use graffiti and anti-Semitic phrases as a weapon. They are anti-Semitic in their phraseology, but not necessarily in their essence.
"There is of course anti-Semitism in Poland's history and I can understand his sensitivity," Kasprzyk continues. "After all, he lost part of his family during the Holocaust. But I think he interpreted things incorrectly. I didn't feel comfortable with the fact that a Polish flag flew in the background onstage, nor with the fact that the Polish pathologist turns out to be Mengele's son. I don't think it's possible to say that the Poles were Nazis. In the history of Poland, we didn't have Nazis. There were even non-Jewish Poles, including some of my relatives, who were murdered in the death camps," adds Kasprzyk.
Tenenbom's plays show in New York and occasionally are performed in Europe as well, but he has yet to bring the Jewish Theater to Israel. He says he has tried, but has "given up. Look, Germans and French people approach me about staging performances of my plays, but I reached the conclusion that theater in Israel is based on complicated deals. Why do you think we have such a prime minister and such a defense minister? The problem is not just in politics, it's part of Israeli culture and the theater world suffers from it, too. They should all be healthy."
When asked what his next project will focus on, Tenenbom responds: "Meir Kahane comes back to life." And what will happen in it? "Wait and see," he says.