Israel Story

Love, Revisited

Three couples look back at their time together—on a kibbutz, in verse, and in a hospital

February 17, 2016


The stories in today’s episode are from Israel Story’s most recent live show, “Israel in Love.” We meet three couples looking back at their love affairs from very different vantage points. Zvi and Regina Steinitz’s romance has been going on the longest—in fact, since the birth of the state of Israel. Danna Harman shares their story in Act I, “Like A Stone.”

Act II, “There’s a Wall Between Us,” began as a radio piece called “Jerusalem Love Story,” by Daniel Estrin, which was featured on Vox Tablet a few years back. Estrin’s piece followed the winding love affair of two men, an Israeli Jew from Jerusalem and a Palestinian Muslim from the West Bank, which began in an online chat room. Israel Story gave Estrin’s original recordings over to composer Or Matias—the musical director of the electro-pop opera Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, which will go up on Broadway this coming fall. Or, in turn, adapted the piece into a mini-musical, with entirely original music, performed here by Alaa Daka and Eyal Sherf, with Mike Cohen on flute, Dillon Condor on guitar and mandolin, and Dan Weiner on percussion.

The final story, “When Time Will Fold Over,” takes place in a tiny village called Mevo Modi’im, midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The 254 people (according to Israel’s latest census) who live there look like a cross between the Lubavitch Rebbe and Jerry Garcia. This is the story of two of them, Michael and Leah Golomb, and their 37-year marriage. This is an updated version of a piece that aired in Israel Story’s first season. It’s by Benny Becker and Yochai Maital, with original music by Collin Oldham.

Israel Story, the English-language version of the popular Israeli radio program Sipur Israeli, is distributed by PRX and produced in partnership with Tablet.

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