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A monthlong celebration of Israeli arts and culture comes to the 14th Street Y
(New York Jewish Week) — For the three weeks between the first day of Rosh Hashanah and the end of Simchat Torah, it’s hard to get anything done in Israel. With so many holidays in rapid succession, businesses open sporadically, bureaucratic necessities remain pending and many cultural events are put on hold.
In New York, though, a community of Israeli artists is overflowing with activity: Throughout the month of October, the Israeli Artists Project (IAP) is hosting the Stav Festival: A Celebration of Israeli Arts and Culture at the 14th Street Y. Featuring dozens of artists working in an array of media, festival events include performances by standup comics and musicians alongside productions of award-winning Israeli plays. Artists will provide workshops on everything from folk dancing or belly dancing to painting.
Named for the Hebrew word for autumn, the Stav Festival was originally slated for May 2020, when it would have been the Aviv (or Spring) Festival, but the COVID-19 pandemic meant that it had to be postponed. In his opening remarks at last week’s kickoff event, IAP president Yoni Vendriger said that the more than three-year delay may have been for the best. “We’ve had plenty of time to curate a month of events that bring together artists from so many walks of life,” he said.
Among the many and varied events is the New York debut of “The Holylanders,” an original play by Moria Zrachia. Originally commissioned and presented by Israel’s Cameri Theatre in Hebrew as “Shalom Lach Eretz,” this new, English-language version was adapted and directed by her brother and longtime collaborator, Matan Zrachia.
Moria’s work presents four stories of Israelis who have left their homeland, seeking their fortunes in various locales. In Matan’s version, the storylines remain intact but the locations are all in the United States. The couple who opened a hummus restaurant in Berlin are now in New York; the techie start-up crew trying to sell their company to a sheik in Dubai are now in Silicon Valley.
“I kept a lot of the original text because the humor itself is universal,” Matan Zrachia told the New York Jewish Week. “It doesn’t matter if a person has immigrated from Israel, or Mexico, or Guatemala, or Berlin — the feeling of strangeness is common to everyone. It’s about experiencing a cultural divide, relinquishing certain habits or customs because they’re no longer acceptable in a new place — all of that is the comedic engine of the original, and I left that as it was.”
While it’s true that any immigrant experience is one of foreignness, “The Holylanders” is not just any immigration story — it’s a very Israeli play. The protagonists are passionate, hotheaded, loyal to a fault — all character traits that were important to Matan to portray. “The jokes are, first and foremost, based on myself and my friends,” he said, explaining that he especially wanted to “accentuate the emotional way in which Israelis speak.”
Each of the play’s four scenes is a standalone story; together, the individual “episodes” seem to tell a tale of a generation having an identity crisis. None of the characters feel at home in their chosen American city, though all are handling these feelings of displacement in different ways. In the final “episode,” a group of four young women are in Atlanta, where they’re conning unsuspecting Americans into buying more Dead Sea skincare products than they need, when one of them, Michi, becomes overwhelmed with a longing for Israel.
It’s Yom Kippur and the secular group of friends had been planning to go to the swimming pool. Michi insists on going to synagogue, despite having no connection to religious practice, just to feel a connection to home. Across a cultural divide, they find a connection to the American Jewish community once they join the praying community in the sanctuary.
“What we see with that interaction is how, even though there are cultural differences, when a Jewish person sees another Jewish person, there’s a click. That connection that Jewish people have is unlike any other I’ve seen,” said Michael Kishon, a lead actor in “The Holylanders.”
Kishon, who was raised in Manhattan by Israeli parents, said that, above all, the play is about connection. “In that first scene, which takes place in New York, you see how the couple is full of warmth, offering food and wanting to be themselves even though they also want to fit in.”
With their play, the Zrachia siblings aim to raise questions about identity, belonging and cross-cultural understanding. “Looking around, I see more questions than answers, both in the community in the U.S. and in the community I left behind in Israel,” said Matan, who has lived in Brooklyn for more than five years. “We’re trying to figure out how and why to go forward. Why is the second or third generation born in a country that was dreamed of for 2,000 years getting up and leaving? I think it’s important to represent the questions we’re asking through cultural events, and I think that can best be done through humor.”
There are no tense, quiet moments in “The Holylanders” — all interactions are aggrandized to the point of satire. The exaggerated comedic language also extends the American characters in the play: The dreamy Angeleno in episode three is fashioned after every stereotypical rom-com hero. The kindergarten teacher from New York is overly polite and cloying as she tries to wrangle Israeli parents into a conversation about their son. The rabbi from the synagogue in Atlanta might as well be a Christian pastor, standing in white robes and orating on seeking one’s way back to oneself. The effect is not one of viewing a reflection of Israeli and American interactions, so much as one of peering at the relationship in a fun-house mirror.
At a time in which Israel itself stands at a crossroads over its government’s effort to weaken the judiciary, among other controversial policies — trying to decide how and why to go forward — the play is a fascinating glimpse into the identity crises of those who choose to put down roots elsewhere.
“There were a lot of identity questions, especially in the Yom Kippur scene,” Bar Tenenbaum, an Israeli audience member who has lived in New York for three years, told the New York Jewish Week. “Who am I? Who am I missing? Am I Jewish? Am I an American all of a sudden? It felt like watching my group of friends — with all the secular Israeli culture. Usually when you go and watch a show about Judaism and Israelis it’s a different population, more religious, than the one that’s being presented here.”
Other notable events at the Stav Festival include a second New York run of “Best Friends,” a captivating take on the complexities of female friendship written by acclaimed Israeli playwright Anat Gov. The play, which won the 1999 Israeli National Theater Award for Best Comedy, had its NYC debut in March of 2023 to a series of sold-out performances, leading the cast to reprise their roles as part of the festival. Musical events run the gamut from the experimental, indie-jazz vocals of Chanan Ben-Simon and Noa Fort to traditional Yemenite music brought to stage along with intimate storytelling by Shlomit Levi. The calendar reflects an effort to curate a diverse experience that showcases the spectrum of Israeli creativity.
As Yael HaShavit, Israel’s Consul for Cultural Affairs in North America, indicated at the festival’s launch, there is no such thing as a monolithic Israeli culture — it’s complex and textured. “Our culture is the best form of diplomacy we have,” she said.
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Israel Strikes Hamas Leadership in Qatar Amid Gaza War
A damaged building, following an Israeli attack on Hamas leaders, according to an Israeli official, in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
Israel has carried out a strike targeting Hamas leadership in Qatar, marking an expansion of Jerusalem’s efforts to dismantle the Palestinian terrorist group as the war in Gaza continues.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Shin Bet security agency confirmed a “precise strike” in Doha targeting Hamas’s senior leadership, who orchestrated the Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel and directed the Islamist group’s operations for years.
“The IDF and ISA [Israel Security Agency, or Shin Bet] will continue to operate with determination in order to defeat the Hamas terrorist organization responsible for the Oct. 7 massacre,” the two organizations said in a statement.
The IDF and ISA conducted a precise strike targeting the senior leadership of the Hamas terrorist organization.
For years, these members of the Hamas leadership have led the terrorist organization’s operations, are directly responsible for the brutal October 7 massacre, and…
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) September 9, 2025
According to circulating media reports, senior Hamas officials — including leader Khalil al-Hayya — were targeted in the strike in Doha, though their deaths have not been confirmed.
A Hamas spokesperson said the group’s negotiating team was also targeted in the attack.
In its statement, the IDF assured that precautions were taken to limit civilian harm ahead of the strike, “including the use of precise munitions and additional intelligence.”
Qatar’s Interior Ministry said a member of the country’s Internal Security Force was killed and that other security personnel were injured.
Shortly after Israel claimed responsibility for the attack, Qatar denounced the operation, warning that “it will not tolerate this reckless Israeli behavior and the ongoing disruption of regional security, nor any act that targets its security and sovereignty.”
“The State of Qatar strongly condemns the cowardly Israeli attack that targeted residential buildings housing several members of the Political Bureau of Hamas in the Qatari capital, Doha,” Majed al-Ansari, a Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said in a statement.
“This criminal assault constitutes a blatant violation of all international laws and norms, and poses a serious threat to the security and safety of Qataris and residents in Qatar,” he continued.
The State of Qatar strongly condemns the cowardly Israeli attack that targeted residential buildings housing several members of the Political Bureau of Hamas in the Qatari capital, Doha. This criminal assault constitutes a blatant violation of all international laws and norms,…
— د. ماجد محمد الأنصاري Dr. Majed Al Ansari (@majedalansari) September 9, 2025
Alongside the United States and other regional powers, Qatar has served as a ceasefire mediator during the nearly two-year Gaza conflict, facilitating indirect negotiations between the Jewish state and Hamas.
However, Doha has also backed the Palestinian terrorist group for years, providing Hamas with money and diplomatic support while hosting and sheltering its top leadership.
According to media reports, Washington, which officially classifies Qatar as a “major non-NATO ally,” knew about the strike beforehand and gave it the green light, though the US did not participate in carrying it out.
The US Embassy in Doha issued a shelter-in-place order for all American citizens.
Earlier this year, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism Policy released a report exposing the extent of Qatar’s far-reaching financial entanglements within American institutions, shedding light on what experts described as a coordinated effort to influence US policy making and public opinion in Doha’s favor. The findings showed that Qatar has attempted to expand its soft power in the US by spending $33.4 billion on business and real estate projects, over $6 billion on universities, and $72 million on American lobbyists since 2012.
In a joint statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed they had ordered security agencies to target Hamas leadership following attacks in Jerusalem and Gaza.
They said the strike targeted Hamas in retaliation for the Oct. 7 atrocities, Monday’s terrorist attack in Jerusalem, which left six Israelis dead and several more injured, and a separate attack on an Israeli tank in northern Gaza that killed four soldiers
Yesterday, after the murderous attacks in Jerusalem and Gaza, Prime Minister Netanyahu directed all security elements to prepare for the possibility of striking the Hamas leadership. The Defense Minister fully supported this initiative.https://t.co/dQDySUqQJv
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) September 9, 2025
This latest strike came just two days after the Trump administration unveiled its newest proposals for a ceasefire to end the war in Gaza.
On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said that Israel accepted the new deal, which calls for the release of all remaining hostages and the disarmament of Hamas.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump gave Hamas what he called a “last warning” to agree to this latest proposal.
The terrorist group said it was ready to negotiate the release of all remaining Israeli hostages still held in the war-torn enclave in exchange for “a clear declaration to end the war, a full withdrawal from Gaza, and the formation of a committee of Palestinian independents to manage Gaza.”
However, senior Hamas official Bassem Naim said on Monday that the group will not accept disarmament — one of Israel’s core demands for ending the war, thus seemingly rejecting Trump’s ceasefire plan for Gaza.
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‘No Basis in Truth’: Authorities Reject Claim by Gaza-Bound Flotilla That Boat Struck by Drone at Tunisian Port
A Global Sumud flotilla vessel floats in the waters as Tunisian Maritime National Guard boats conduct an inspection in Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia, Sept. 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jihed Abidellaoui
Tunisian authorities have rejected as false a claim by the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) for Gaza that one of its main boats was struck on Tuesday by a drone at a port in Tunisia.
Tunisia’s interior ministry said that reports of a drone hitting a boat at its Sidi Bou Said port “have no basis in truth,” and that a fire broke out on the vessel itself. The flotilla had said that all six passengers and crew were safe despite the alleged strike.
The Portuguese-flagged boat, carrying the flotilla‘s steering committee, sustained fire damage to its main deck and below-deck storage, the GSF said in a statement.
In tandem with the denial from Tunisian authorities, video circulated on social media apparently showing that the fire was caused by a crew member misfiring a flare that landed back on the boat, not by a drone.
BREAKING: New footage from Greta’s boat shows a crew member misfiring a flare, which lands back on the boat.
These people lie for sport. There was never any drone. pic.twitter.com/GSSSvjy23I
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) September 9, 2025
The flotilla is an international initiative seeking to break Israel’s naval blockade and deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza using civilian boats supported by delegations from 44 countries, including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and Portuguese left-wing politician Mariana Mortagua.
A video posted by the GSF on X purportedly showed the moment “the Family Boat was struck from above,” capturing a luminous flying object hitting the vessel with smoke rising soon after.
After the incident, dozens of people gathered outside the Sidi Bou Said port, where the flotilla‘s boats were located at the time, waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Free Palestine,” a Reuters witness said.
Israel has imposed a naval blockade on the coastal enclave since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, saying it aims to stop weapons from reaching the internationally desgnated terrorist group.
The blockade has remained in place through the current war, which began when Hamas attacked southern Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages.
In June, Israeli naval forces boarded and seized a British-flagged yacht carrying Thunberg, among others. Israel dismissed the aid ship as a propaganda stunt in support of Hamas.
The GSF also said an investigation into the drone attack was underway and its results would be released once available.
“Acts of aggression aimed at intimidating and derailing our mission will not deter us. Our peaceful mission to break the siege on Gaza and stand in solidarity with its people continues with determination and resolve,” the GSF said.
The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, who was at the port, told Reuters: “We do not know who carried out the attack, but we would not be surprised if it was Israel. If confirmed, it is an attack against Tunisian sovereignty.”
Albanese has been widely accused by critics of using her position to denigrate Israel and justify Hamas’s use of terrorism against Israelis.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli side.
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Britain Concludes Israel Not Committing Genocide in Gaza
A picture released by the Israeli Army says to show Israeli soldiers conducting operations in a location given as Tel Al-Sultan area, Rafah Governorate, Gaza, in this handout image released April 2, 2025. Photo: Israeli Army/Handout via REUTERS
Britain has concluded that Israel is not committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza but criticized “utterly appalling” civilian suffering there, in a government letter, ahead of a meeting between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the Israeli president.
Israel has been accused of perpetrating genocide in Gaza despite its military campaign there targeting the ruling terrorist group Hamas, which openly seeks the Jewish state’s destruction and started the current war with its Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israeli communities.
Jerusalem rejects the accusation, citing its right to self-defense following the Oct. 7 attack, in which Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages.
Israel also says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.
Another challenge for Israel is Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
Starmer is due to meet Israeli President Isaac Herzog, a leader who has a largely ceremonial role, at Downing Street on Wednesday, his spokesperson said.
The Gaza war has strained Britain-Israel relations. The Israeli government is enraged by Britain‘s plan to recognize a Palestinian state and block Israeli officials from attending its biggest defense trade show this week.
Starmer is facing criticism from some of his Labour lawmakers for agreeing to meet Herzog.
Asked whether the government’s legal duty to prevent genocide had been triggered, David Lammy, Britain‘s foreign minister until Friday, wrote in a Sept. 1 letter to a parliamentary committee that the government had carefully considered the risk of genocide.
“As per the Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide occurs only where there is specific ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group,’” he said in the letter seen by Reuters.
“The government has not concluded that Israel is acting with that intent.”
Lammy was foreign secretary from mid-2024 until Friday when he was replaced by Yvette Cooper and appointed deputy prime minister as part of a reshuffle.
His letter added: “The high civilian casualties, including women and children, and the extensive destruction in Gaza, are utterly appalling. Israel must do much more to prevent and alleviate the suffering that this conflict is causing.”
The long-held British government position has been that genocide should be determined by courts.