The First Habima Theater Audience

Habimah ha-‘Ivrit (the Hebrew Stage; known internationally as Habima) was established by Naḥum Tsemaḥ (Zemach) in Białystok in 1912 with the aim of creating a Hebrew art theater tradition in service of the ideals of Hebraist cultural revival. The onset of World War I led to the dissolution of the troupe until Tsemaḥ reestablished it as Habima (the Stage) in 1916 in wartime Moscow. Drawing the enthusiastic support and interest of the reemergent Hebraist and Zionist circles that flourished in Moscow after the 1917 February Revolution, the troupe also drew support from the Russian stage: the preeminent Russian director Konstantin Stanislavski assigned his Russian Armenian protégé Yevgeny Vakhtangov to direct it. Vakhtangov shaped its distinctive early aesthetic, which was marked by a mix of psychological realism, symbolist gestures, and expressionist intensity. In 1918, the troupe staged its first production, a series of short plays, under the title Neshef bereshit (A Festival of Our Beginning), featuring the actors who would become its most famous faces, Hannah Rovina and Menachem Gnessin. Remaining in the Soviet Union for some years thereafter, the troupe survived the Bolshevik and Evsektsiia repressions of Hebrew culture thanks in part to the protection of a powerful patron, the eminent Russian and Soviet writer Maxim Gorky. Having adopted Chaim Nahman Bialik’s Hebrew translation of S. An-ski’s The Dybbuk as a central project already in 1917, and having already gained acclaim for its readings of the play before Hebraist audiences, Habima’s full-fledged production of the play in 1922 was a great success and made the troupe’s name. In 1926 the troupe set out on a two-year tour of Europe and the United States that resulted in a rift: some members chose to remain in America, but most settled in Palestine, which became the theater’s permanent home in 1931. By then, its international success had become a powerful symbol of the extent and success of the Hebrew revival and of Zionism. In Palestine, the theater, which was managed collectively, performed an expansive repertory that included translations of Yiddish and European plays as well as a growing number of original works; it also established a drama school, something the founders had hoped to do since 1917. In 1946, Habima moved into a newly constructed building in Tel Aviv, which remains its home to this day. It was recognized as Israel’s national theater in 1958.