Written and performed by Benjamin Rivers
Directed by Linda Wise
This solo performance is based on the diaries of Yousef Nachmani - a Russian Jew who migrated from Tsarist Russia to Ottoman Palestine in 1907. Nachmani became Director of the Jewish National Fund in the Galilee, playing a central role in the forced displacement of thousands of Palestinians. The play offers a view into the origins of settler-colonialism, ethnic cleansing and apartheid in modern day Israel. It explores themes of loyalty, violence, ideology and grief. The play is written and performed by Benjamin Rivers, the great grandson of Yousef Nachmani.
DATES
> Thursday 30 November @ 4pm
> Friday 1 December @ 7pm
VENUE
Drama for Life eMakhaya Theatre
19th Floor Es'kia Mphahlele Building
(formerly known as University Corner)
University of the Witswatersrand (corner Bertha and Jorissen Streets), Braamfontein, Johannesburg
TICKETS
Free Entry
RSVP
Seating is limited. Please reserve your seats here:
> November 30th: https://forms.gle/SqkxGJAVxydHyS7Q6
> December 1st: https://forms.gle/NpfNDq2wneNXCZRv8
PARTNERS
Drama for Life, Wits University
South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP)
ABOUT YOUSEF NACHMANI
Yousef Nachmani was born in 1891 to a Jewish family in Oleksandria, Russia (now Oleksandria, Ukraine). At the age of 15, Yousef, along with his father and brother, were arrested by Russian authorities for their involvement in Poale Zion, a militant group that agitated against the Tsarist regime. In 1907 Yousef fled to Ottoman Palestine where he became an early member of the armed guard, Hashomer, and then later, a senior officer in Haganah (a precursor to the Israeli army). Nachmani went on to become Director of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in Eastern Galilee. In this role he acquired Arab lands for the JNF, often secretly and with the assistance of Arab collaborators. From 1935, Nachmani began a set of diaries that documented his involvement in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland. As the goal of Jewish Statehood drew closer, Yousef began to express his ambivalence towards the violent realities of the Zionist enterprise. Yousef Nachmani is the great grandfather of Benjamin Rivers.
TITLE
The title for this play, ‘The Invaders’ Fear of Memories’, is a line taken from ‘On this Land’, a poem by the Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish.