Reflexes & Reflections

The Berliner Festspiele will devote 4 days to focussing on the debate around Israel, Palestine and the war in Gaza that followed the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. The interdisciplinary programme featuring international experts from academia, civil society and the arts will be curated by the political scholar Saba-Nur Cheema and the historian and author Meron Mendel, who have spent many years engaged in Jewish-Muslim dialogue and in combatting anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

The curators’ objective is to facilitate a contentious and nuanced exploration of the debate about the Middle East conflict – without adopting reflex positions on one of what is assumed to be only two possible sides. By doing so, they wish to fill a vacancy in a German discourse dominated now more than ever by hardened fronts that militantly encourage polarisation and division. Together with our co-operation partners – the Anne Frank Zentrum Berlin and the Young Islam Conference – the programme is deliberately aimed at a diverse and young target audience. “Reflexes & Reflections” has been conceived in collaboration with the Federal Agency for Civic Education..

Here the German premiere of the production of “House” by Amos Gitai is an integral part of the week. This guest performance by La Colline – théâtre national in Paris based on Gitai’s trilogy of documentary films with the same title portrays the residents of a house in West Jerusalem whose personal biographies reflect the history of the Middle East conflict and reveal the many layers of different memories.

4-day focus Reflexes & Reflections
curated by Saba-Nur Cheema and Meron Mendel
13 to 16 June 2024

Theater “House” by Amos Gitai / La Colline – théâtre national, Paris (German premiere)
15 June, 19 h
16 June, 18 h

Berliner Festspiele, Schaperstraße 24, 10719 Berlin

www.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/reflexe-und-reflexionen