Interfaith Bibliodrama in Israel by Yael Unterman

For all of my adult life I have been involved in teaching Jewish texts – Torah, Talmud, commentaries, Hassidut, and so forth. For me, this constitutes a wonderful, profound activity that connects Jews to their sources and to one another. It is a tremendous feeling when the texts give up their mysteries to one’s probing eye, and it makes me delighted to be a Jew.

My involvement with the sources, however, took a fascinating and unexpected turn when, back in the year 2000, I encountered a technique called Bibliodrama, invented by Dr. Peter Pitzele of the US. Pitzele, who is trained in the methods of therapeutic theater and has a Ph.D. in literature, imported techniques from psychodrama and combined them with his refined literary sensitivities to create a new experiential method for studying Torah stories. The technique shifts us from left-brain (i.e. analytical) to right-brain (i.e. imaginative) territory, through asking questions to the group members directly as if they were characters in the text. ………..

…….In February 2011, a different project hurtled out of the blue straight into my lap, when I received a surprise invitation from a woman named Maria, who is connected to a theatre in Poland. She invited me to join an EU-funded initiative to advance “Bibliodrama as a Multi-Cultural way of Learning for Adults.” I joined forces with the Elijah Interfaith Institution, and together we became the Israeli partner in the project, which also includes partners from Iceland, Turkey, Hungary and Poland…….. Read More