Regev backtracks on threats against actor

Culture Minister Miri Regev walks back her threat against the Elmina Theater run by Israeli-Arab actor Norman Issa and his wife, Haaretz reports.

Regev on Tuesday published a post on Facebook where she threatened to remove state support from Issa’s theater because the actor said he would not perform in a Haifa Theater production of a play called “Boomerang” scheduled to take place in the Jordan Valley, beyond the Green Line.

In a meeting between representatives of a forum of cultural institutions, including theater managers, it was clarified, as Issa himself claimed two days ago, that there are agreements according to which performing artists who refuse to go on stage in certain venues cannot be forced to do so.

According to Haaretz, Issa agreed to come with his own troupe, the Elmina Theater, to perform in the Jordan Valley following a request from head of the Jordan Valley Regional Council David Elhiani who was quoted as saying, “I called the Elmina Theater this morning and said ‘come, let’s put politics aside – this is your theater’.” Elhiani says he “read on the [Haaretz] website that they are all for coexistence and these are the values they cherish – I invite them to us. We, as leaders – we have responsibility on the issue of coexistence and tolerance. In invited them to come and speak, to perform.”

His Elmina performance will “make up” for not acting in the production of “Boomerang” by the Haifa Theater. Regev was quoted as saying during the meeting “I gave him a ladder to climb down, and he used it.”

According to some of the representatives at the meeting with Regev, the whole scandal was “cooked” by the Haifa Theater trying to take revenge against Issa for leaving their permanent cast in favor of the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv.