{"id":96491,"date":"2026-05-04T03:45:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T03:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/96491\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T03:45:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T03:45:16","slug":"new-drama-the-eichmann-trial-at-jerusalems-beit-haam-takes-same-stage-as-actual-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/96491\/","title":{"rendered":"New drama ‘The Eichmann Trial’ at Jerusalem’s Beit Ha’am takes same stage as actual trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

The trial of notorious Nazi Adolf Eichmann was held from April 11 to August 15, 1961, at Jerusalem\u2019s Beit Ha\u2019am, then a recently completed theater temporarily reconfigured to serve as a courtroom capable of accommodating 750 observers.<\/p>\n

Until then, much of the younger Israeli generation had not known the details of what happened to Jews in the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

Foreseeing the horrific testimony, prime minister David Ben-Gurion insisted that the trial be held in a large hall with capacity for extensive media coverage. The premier wanted the world to hear what the Jewish people had endured during the Holocaust when, for the first time, Holocaust-survivor witnesses stood before the audience and told their harrowing stories.<\/p>\n

Several of those accounts are part of \u201cThe Eichmann Trial,\u201d a new play written by Motti Lerner and directed by Ilan Ronen about the Eichmann trial. Exactly where the senior Nazi party member was prosecuted 65 years ago as survivors shared emotional stories, the play reenacts chilling accounts of their testimonies about what happened in the war, in concentration camps, in ghettos, and in the forests.<\/p>\n

Well-known Israeli actor Igal Naor, in the role of Eichmann, sits onstage in a facsimile of the armored glass booth used at the trial, with the defense and prosecution on either side.<\/p>\n

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Behind the booth is a metal framework of platforms and stairways, used by the actors entering and exiting the trial, and where complex diplomatic relations between Israel and West Germany are acted out behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tIn the lobby of Jerusalem\u2019s Beit HaAm, the art center that was initially the courtroom for the 1961 Eichmann trial, now being staged as a play in the same hall, in May 2026, with a photo of the original trial (Jessica Steinberg\/ Times of Israel)<\/p>\n

\u201cI waited to write this,\u201d said Lerner. \u201cThe question was, how would I distill months of a trial into a play? That was the big question.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lerner is no newcomer to works about the Holocaust; \u201cKastner,\u201d \u201cKapo in Jerusalem,\u201d and \u201cSpring 1941\u201d are three of his productions about that time period.<\/p>\n

But he knew that handling 110 witnesses, \u201ca mountain of documents,\u201d and the trial of Eichmann, one of the main Nazi architects of the Final Solution, would be complex to wrangle.<\/p>\n

Historian Ora Herman\u2019s revelatory 2017 book, \u201cThe Furnace and the Reactor: Behind the Scenes at the Eichmann Trial,\u201d gave Lerner the dramatic angle he needed to write the play.<\/p>\n

Behind the scenes, on the platforms of the metal framework, are the conversations and discussions playing out between Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion\u2019s advisors and German policymakers who did not want the trial to ignite a wave of hatred for Germany among the Israeli public or to create an obstacle for Israel receiving financial aid from Germany.<\/p>\n

That intrigue was only revealed some 50 years after the trial.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tPlaywright Motti Lerner who wrote \u2018The Eichmann Trial,\u2019 a play staged at Jerusalem\u2019s Beit HaAm, on April 27, 2026. (CC BY 2.5\/ Gohar Barseghyan)<\/p>\n

Ben-Gurion\u2019s announcement of Eichmann\u2019s 1960 capture in Buenos Aires and upcoming trial in Jerusalem happened right as secret talks between the first Israeli prime minister and West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer were moving forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cBen-Gurion had decided he [would] receive money from Germany to build the nuclear reactor in Dimona,\u201d said Noam Semel, the play\u2019s producer.<\/p>\n

West Germany secretly financed a substantial portion of Israel\u2019s Dimona nuclear reactor project between 1961 and 1973, with total funding estimated at nearly 2 billion German marks, or roughly $5 billion in today\u2019s money.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tAdolf Eichmann standing in his glass cage, flanked by guards, in the Jerusalem courtroom during his trial in 1961 for war crimes committed during World War II. (AP Photo\/File)<\/p>\n

That drama played out during the real Eichmann trial, as it does in this staged version.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow it\u2019s clear and dramatic, and I hope it answers the big question framed by prosecutor Gideon Hausner, that we want to understand how it happened that Germany created such war criminals,\u201d said Lerner. \u201cEichmann called himself a regular guy; he didn\u2019t see himself as a monster.\u201d<\/p>\n

A play without a theater<\/p>\n

For now, tickets are available to a May 4 showing, though more dates may be added, following the production\u2019s successful run.<\/p>\n

When Lerner wrote the play three years ago, he discussed staging it at Tel Aviv\u2019s Habima with Semel, then the theater\u2019s interim CEO.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe brought us the play, and then I retired,\u201d said Semel.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tFormer director general of the Cameri Theatre, Noam Semel, on May 2, 2012. (Miriam Alster\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n

But when Semel later noted that the play still had not been staged at Habima or anywhere else, he wanted to ensure it was produced, and took on the task.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt deals with the memory of the Shoah, and the strongest way to remember it is with artistic works,\u201d said Semel. \u201cAll that\u2019s left for this generation is works like \u2018Schindler\u2019s List,\u2019 which, if Spielberg hadn\u2019t made, people wouldn\u2019t have known about the Holocaust.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tFrom \u2018The Eichmann Trial,\u2019 a play at Jerusalem\u2019s Beit HaAm, on April 27, 2026. (Jessica Steinberg\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n

Semel first staged \u201cThe Eichmann Trial\u201d in Romania, including an operatic version at the Romanian Opera House that is still being performed with a libretto written by Lerner and music composed by Gil Shohat.<\/p>\n

He then turned to Beit Ha\u2019am, working with the Jerusalem municipality, which renovated the building in 2021, redoing the interior and including a permanent display in the lobby featuring photographs and explanations about the Eichmann trial.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s appropriate that it\u2019s being staged here, where it happened,\u201d said Semel.<\/p>\n


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