Adopting a form for their own ends: Israeli musicals of 1964–1966

In the mid-1960s the first two original Israeli musicals based on a Broadway model, Shlomo HaMelech v’Shalmai HaSandlar (1964) and Kazablan (1966), were mounted. This article argues that the imported musical form was adopted by Israeli creators and audiences as a way of continuing a theatrical push for a unified single ‘Israeli’ culture. The musical form offered an image of a culture to which one could aspire to belong, even as that reality was being challenged by changing demographics and questioning of this prevailing mentality.