The non-nationalistic theaters are in a state of moral and financial bankruptcy. The hundreds of millions of shekels that the government funnels to them through the Ministry of Culture, headed by Limor Livnat, simply aren’t enough to cover their managers’ outlandish salaries and the operation of their deluxe studios.
It’s true that there are actors who are having a rough time. But when there’s no market, you don’t artificially generate one. Let the actors find other work. They can learn from the national-religious theaters, which function differently, with much greater efficacy and efficiency.
Be that as it may, the actors’ lobby did its work well and found itself meeting with MK Dov Henin. Henin, like any good communist, knows the secrets of instigating revolution in places that are not under the influence of his type. He found a classically Soviet solution for the theaters’ collosal losses: turn them into ideological institutions serving, and funded by, the revolution. And since people otherwise aren’t going to see enough of these plays, provide funding for busing in organized groups. And who could be more organized than the schools?
The Ministry of Education has a huge budget, second only to that of the Ministry of Defense. So it was that this week, Henin succeeded in passing a bill he called the student’s “Cultural Basket.” Education Minister Rabbi Shai Piron congratulated him on the initiative.
As of now, children from patriotic secular homes and national-religious homes will be subjected to the poison of these warped political plays at a set rate of six servings per year, courtesy of the Cultural Basket Law.
Will theaters such as Aspaklarya also receive funds? Nope. Take a look at the budget they just received and compare it to that of institutions on the “correct” side of the spectrum—the ones whose managerial committees are aligned with the Israeli extreme left.
Zionist actors, keep founding theaters. Fight for funding. Every shekel that you receive is a double victory, both diminishing funding for additional plays by the left and bringing Jewish values to our schools.