Theatre and censorship above and within: Censorship and self-censorship in Israeli theatre

Theatre censorship in Israel was the legacy of the British mandate on Palestine: in 1948, the year of the establishment of the state of Israel, the new legal system adopted the British mandatory law, from 1927 (amended 1937), which was based on the British law legislated in 1843. Three years later, A Storm at Sea by playwright Yehoshua Bar-Yossef became the first play to be banned, because it depicted the arrogant, contemptuous to the point of racist treatment of sailors by their commanders on board of Israeli battleships. The case involved not only the official committee whose function it was to license theatre plays for production, but also higher authorities such as the Chief of Staff of the Israeli army and the Prime Minister himself. If it was banned for its criticism of the navy of the young state, the case also revealed elements of self-censorship on the part of the playwright and the theatre which contracted the play. From this point of departure the chapter explores cases of official bans on plays until the law of censorship was abolished in 1991 as well as the mechanism of self-censorship, arguably rampant in the Israeli theatre until these very days.