'Symposium #3: The Censorship Committee' at Tmuna Theater

"Symposium #3: The Censorship Committee" is a one-time stage event seeking to clarify the burning questions regarding freedom of expression and creativity in Israel: what is permitted and what is forbidden, how censorship, political pressure, and self-censorship operate, and what artists and cultural institutions can do when their freedom is restricted.

The symposium is a multidisciplinary event combining lectures, personal testimonies, music, and theater around the burning questions of freedom of expression and creativity. For approximately two hours, the event will connect short lectures by Adv. Sharon Abraham-Weiss and Itay Doron; excerpts from Hanoch Levin's play "The Patriot"; music and songs that sparked public and political storms; and personal stories of artists and cultural figures who experienced censorship and restrictions from various angles.

"The Symposium," produced by Tmuna Theater and ETI (Israeli Association of Theater Artists), joins forces with the Forum of Cultural and Art Institutions and serves as the opening event for a new initiative by the Forum, designed to provide creators, institution directors, and the audience with knowledge and practical tools to maintain independence and freedom of creation even in times of controversy, pressure, and uncertainty.

The third symposium (following symposia on Iranian theater and Lebanese theater) is not a convention or panel in the standard format. For about two hours, personal stories, lectures, theater, music, and performative actions will alternate on stage and in the space. Together, they will examine how censorship actually operates: in law and budgeting, in institutional decisions, in public and political pressure, and especially at the moment when the fear of reaction begins to affect what artists and institutions choose to create, present, or say.

Symposium #3 Program: Freedom of Expression

* Stories from the front lines of freedom of expression:

Throughout the evening, short stories from artists, creators, and cultural figures who experienced the question of freedom of expression from different angles will break into the event: those whose works were censored or canceled, those who found themselves under public or political attack, those who were required to decide whether to restrict a work, and those who found themselves practicing self-censorship. Instead of talking about censorship only as an abstract concept, the stories will reveal the moments when it enters the daily life of the local cultural world: when an artist decides what not to say, when an institution director is required to decide whether to present a work, when an exhibition is canceled, and when the fear of losing support or public attack starts to affect the content even before anyone ordered its removal.

Speakers: Sophie Abu-Shakra, Ofira Henig, Rachel Leah Jones, Itai Mautner, Yossi Zabari.

* Lecture: What does the law actually say?

A lecture by Adv. Sharon Abraham-Weiss, Director of the Commission for Equality, Diversity, and Community at Tel Aviv University and former CEO of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. She will clarify the legal infrastructure within which artists and cultural institutions in Israel operate today: what is protected by law, what are the limits of state intervention, the relationship between freedom of expression, freedom of creation, and public funding, and which legal precedents shaped these boundaries. Through legislation, rulings, and case studies, the lecture aims to provide cultural figures with tools to distinguish between actual legal restrictions and threats or pressure, and to understand how the fear of censorship might create self-censorship even without an explicit ban.

* Lecture: What can be learned from the world? Or what do artists do when freedom is restricted?

In another lecture, Itay Doron, Co-Artistic Director of Tmuna Theater, will examine how artists and cultural institutions worldwide deal with various mechanisms of restricting freedom of creation. From Russia and Iran to Poland and Hungary, from regimes where censorship is overt and direct to places where more complex mechanisms of political, economic, and institutional pressure are applied, the lecture will examine not only how artistic freedom is restricted, but mainly what artists and institutions do in response: how they resist, bypass restrictions, invent new strategies, and continue to create.

* Staged readings and live music: Hanoch Levin and the songs that were forbidden to be sung:

Alongside the lectures and testimonies, a particularly excellent cast of actors will perform excerpts from "The Patriot" by Hanoch Levin, directed by Yair Sherman. The play, which ran into trouble with censorship when it was first performed in the early eighties and caused a public outcry, became one of the most identified cases in the history of Israeli theater regarding the struggle for the boundaries of freedom of expression and creation.

Additionally, songs that were banned, censored, or stood at the center of public controversies will be performed during the evening.

Acting: Benny Eldar, Ariel Bronz, Ala Dakka, Sarah Vino Elad, Itay Zvolon, Yoram Toledano

Live singing: Miri Aloni, Sarah Vino Elad, Ala Dakka

* The Mountain of Shredded Papers:

The audience themselves will be invited to participate in an action that is the opposite of censorship. In the center of the space is a mountain of paper composed of texts, images, and materials that censorship committees and power mechanisms in Israel and around the world have tried over the years to hide, erase, or shred.

At the entrance and exit, everyone will be able to choose from them, connect and edit them into a personal fanzine, and take home materials that were intended not to circulate in the world. Instead of shredding knowledge, reassembling and distributing it.

"Symposium #3: The Censorship Committee," with the participation of: Sophie Abu-Shakra, Sharon Abraham-Weiss, Benny Eldar, Miri Aloni, Ariel Bronz, Itay Doron, Ala Dakka, Ofira Henig, Sarah Vino Elad, Itay Zvolon, Yoram Toledano, Rachel Leah Jones, Itai Mautner, Yossi Zabari

Curators: Avi Gibson Bar-El, Itay Doron, Erez Maayan Shalev, Yair Sherman

When: Sunday 25.10.2026 | Doors open 19:30 | Event starts 20:00 | Tmuna Theater, Tel Aviv

Duration: Approx. 120 minutes

Price: 50 NIS

Tmuna Theater

8 Soncino St., Tel Aviv

www.tmu-na.org.il

03-5611211

(Photo: Sharon Abraham-Weiss. Photography: Maayan Amzallag)