It's time to raise the curtain

Alon Kupererd

The Khan Theatre is the city theater of Jerusalem. In 2015 it hosted 66,608 theater guests, who paid to attend any of 16 productions. It is a relatively small city theater compared with Israel’s other city theaters: The Haifa Theatre produced 22 shows, attended by 126,611 paying visitors. The Be’er Sheva Theater produced 14 shows for a total of 154,512 paying visitors, and Tel Aviv’s Cameri Theatre produced 41 shows for audiences that totaled 844,151 paying visitors. 

With the exception of the Cameri Theatre, which held 1,478 performances of its shows, the numbers of performances across the theaters are comparable: the Khan had 302 performances, Haifa had 339, and Be’er Sheva had 396. Thus it appears that the discrepancy in the number of theater guests results from the size of the main auditorium of the respective theaters and the number of shows produced outside the main auditorium.

In terms of geographical distribution of performances, we find that most performances produced by the Khan and Cameri theaters (73% and 72%, respectively) take place at the home theater. In contrast, city theaters located farther away from Israel’s center, which have smaller home-based audiences, have fewer performances in their own city. The Haifa Theatre held 54% of its performances in Haifa and its surroundings, while the Be’er Sheva Theater held only 46% of its performances in Be’er Sheva and its surroundings. 

Of the theaters noted, the Khan has the smallest auditoriums: its main auditorium seats 232, and its small auditorium seats 69 (totaling 301 seats). The Haifa Theatre has three auditoriums, with 160, 158, and 767 seats respectively (totaling 1085 seats). The Be’er Sheva Theater, whose main auditorium is the city’s center for performing arts, has two auditoriums, with 430 and 885 seats respectively (totaling 1,315). The Cameri has four auditoriums with 910, 414, 267, and 156 seats respectively (totaling 1,747). Thus, even when the Khan has a full house, its audience is about one-third the size of an audience at the Haifa Theatre. The combination of a small auditorium and small number of performances outside the main auditorium explains the low number of attendees.

The small size of the audiences is not, however, an indication of public opinion: Jerusalemites are very fond of their theater. For example, 42% of the paying theater guests at the Khan were subscribers with season tickets, compared with 24% of the audience members at the Be’er Sheva and Cameri theaters and 19% at the Haifa Theatre. Likewise, the relatively low percentage of theater guests who attend performances using tickets sold to institutions indicates that Jerusalemites come to the Khan out of choice (48% of the Khan’s paid-for theater guests had tickets that had been sold to institutions, compared with 64% for the Cameri, 66% for Haifa, and 72% for Be’er Sheva).

  

Sources: Pilat, websites of the theaters

Translation: Merav Datan

It Belongs in a Museum!

Omer Yaniv
Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research
en.jerusaleminstitute.org.il

Jerusalem is a city of museums. In the past, archaeological findings discovered in Jerusalem would be displayed in small exhibit halls primarily in the Old City’s churches and monasteries. This practice changed in 1938, when the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum was built outside of the Old City walls. Later, after the State of Israel was founded, cultural institutions opened throughout the city, including the Israel Museum in 1965, the Museum for Islamic Art in 1974, and the Bible Lands Museum as well as the Science Museum in 1992. Throughout these years museums were also opened in existing buildings, including the Tower of David Museum, the Natural History Museum, and the Old Yishuv Court Museum. In the near future Jerusalem is expected to see additional museum openings in the new “Museum Complex” surrounding the Israel Museum, where the National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel and the National Library are slated to open in the coming years.
The Israel Museum, which is Israel’s national museum, is the most popular of Jerusalem’s museums, and for good reason. In 2015 it displayed more than 290,000 collection items in 34 different exhibits, and had some 730,000 visitors. Other Jerusalem museums that drew large crowds in 2015 were the Bloomfield Science Museum with 291,000 visitors, the Tower of David Museum with 266,000 visitors, and the Bible Lands Museum with 228,000 visitors. In 2013, about 37% of all visitors to Israel’s recognized museums had visited a museum in Jerusalem. In other words, Jerusalem’s museums had more than 1,630,000 visitors, compared with 1,070,000 visitors to museums in Tel Aviv and the surrounding area (24% of all visitors to museums in Israel) and 530,000 visitors to museums in Haifa and its surroundings (12% of all visitors).

Sources: PILAT and Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research
Translated by Merav Datan

I Love the Cinema

Alon Kupererd

Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, www.jiis.org

Who doesn’t love the cinema? The massive silver screen, the exciting movies, the dark, the smell of popcorn, and … the accessibility? In the past there were plenty of movie theaters throughout Israel’s city centers and local neighborhoods. There were theaters near one’s home, and one could easily and quickly reach them. With the decline of city centers and emergence of shopping malls during the 1990s, city cinemas also declined, to be transformed into multi-screen complexes located within these malls. During the 2000s movie theaters underwent another evolution, turning into multiplex cinemas with dozens of screens, alongside various other forms of commerce – usually near the outskirts or actually outside of the city. A romantic stroll to the movie theater is no longer practical; rather, one must get into the car or board the bus and take a journey to the massive complex.  

Let us illustrate this trend using the example of the Gush Dan region. Cinema Industry Association data show that a decade or so ago Tel Aviv had 47 movie screens. Today 18 remain. The demand for the cinema has not disappeared, but it has been redirected by movie theater chains to the outer layers of the metropolis. The cities that now welcome moviegoers are Ramat Gan, Ramat HaSharon, and Rishon LeZion. The country’s first multiplex cinema was built in Ramat HaSharon (at the Glilot Junction), and by 2005 it already had 19 screens, which became 30 within a decade. In Ramat Gan, where the second multiplex cinema was built, the number of screens grew from 8 in 2005 to 17 in 2015. In Rishon LeZion the number of screens increased from 12 to 47, the largest number of screens in an Israeli city. Most of the new theaters are located in the outskirts of these cities (in Ramat HaSharon – Glilot Junction; in Ramat Gan – Ayalon Mall; and on the western edge of Rishon LeZion).

In other cities, too, multiplex cinemas resulted in movie theaters vanishing from the city center. In Haifa the number of screens declined from 29 in 2005 to 23 in 2015. All are concentrated in the multiplex near the Check Post Junction on the outskirts of the city (it should be noted that in 2016 Haifa will again have a movie theater inside the city, when a complex with 17 screens will be opened within a shopping mall). In Jerusalem the opening of two new multiplexes during the past two years – which, in contrast to other cities are actually rather centrally located (Givat Ram and Hebron Road) – increased the number of screens from 16 in 2005 to 29 in 2015.

As to the number of moviegoers, the decrease in number of screens in Tel Aviv resulted, as expected, in a sharp decrease in the number of moviegoers, from about 1.2 million in 2005 to only about 818,000 in 2015. In contrast, in Haifa and Jerusalem the emergence of multiplexes resulted in a significant increase in the number of moviegoers. The opening of Jerusalem’s first multiplex in 2014 sparked an increase in the number of the city’s moviegoers, from some 497,000 in 2013 to about 1.04 million in 2014, and rising further to 1.23 million in 2015. 

In sum, it seems the People of the Book are not afraid of a long trek for a good movie.

Source: Cinema Industry Association in Israel

What's so special about the Israel Festival?

Ruth Abraham
Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies    www.jiis.org

The program of the fifty-fifth Israel Festival was unveiled on April 11, and tickets have started to be sold. The festival originally began in 1961 as a festival of classical music, and over the years it grew into a multidisciplinary event. Today, it hosts dance, theater, music and art performances. The festival takes place during an eventful month, beginning in the end of May. The goal of the festival is described on the official website as "enriching the cultural landscape of Jerusalem and Israel, encouraging international cultural relationships, and promoting discourse on art".

Up until the 1980s, the festival, financed mainly by institutional funds, stood out in Israel as one of the main importers of international culture. In July 1983, however, Davar described a situation in which other private and institutional bodies were also bringing shows to Israel throughout the year: "The main difficulty [of the Israel Festival] and benefit for the consumers of culture is that a yearlong festival is taking place, unofficial, and unsponsored by national agencies."(Mai Paz). Unlike the Israel Festival, these shows were based mainly on self-generated income, namely commercial sponsorships and ticket selling.

According to the report Festivals in Israel, 2011 by the culture administration of the Ministry of Culture and Sport, the Israel Festival was the longest in Israel: it lasted 27 days, hosted 66 productions, and was the second largest in terms of number of productions and of Israeli shows specially produced for it. The number of paying visitors reached 28,600, which was second only to the dance festival in Karmiel, visited by over 53,000 paying visitors.

A look at the Israel Festival programs since 2007 reveals that visiting (international) productions form approximately 55% of the hosted acts, and 35%-70% of the running shows (see graph). At the most recent festival (2015), the international shows formed 59% of the hosted acts, and 69% of the running shows. Budget reports of the last seven years show that the self-generated income covers approximately one-third of the festival's budget, and number of tickets sold is around 40,000. The year 2014 was an exception, with 59,000 tickets sold.

To conclude, in its over thirty years, the Israel Festival is not the single actor in the arena of culture imports to Israel; as such, its task is not only to maintain high standards of both local and international acts, but also to include an exceptionally large volume of work.

How Do Jerusalemites Spend Their Leisure Time?

Aviel Yelinek

This year the annual social survey published by the Central Bureau of Statistics included questions that address the culture of recreation among Israel’s residents. Survey participants were asked whether they had attended theater plays, entertainment shows, or children’s plays during the past year, among other questions. The data reveal that only 28% of Jerusalem’s residents attended one of the types of shows listed above during the past year. This figure is much lower than the percentage among residents of Tel Aviv-Jaffa (63%), Rishon LeZion and Petach Tikva (59%), and Haifa (52%).

The low rate of attendance is a function of the composition of the city’s population. For example, within the Jewish sector, only 9% of Jerusalemites who define themselves as ultra-orthodox (haredi) attended cultural events of the sort listed above, as compared to 46% of religious residents and 68% of secular residents. Rates of attendance differ between Jerusalem’s Jewish and Arab residents as well. Among Jews the rate of attendance was 38%, whereas among Arabs it was only 7%.

Likewise, the percentage of Jerusalem’s moviegoers is influenced by the composition of the city’s population. The percentage of moviegoers among Jerusalem’s residents was 25%, lower than the rate in Tel Aviv (66%), Rishon LeZion (55%), Haifa (50%), or Petach Tikva (49%).

And what about book reading? A total of 63% of Jerusalemites said that they had read books during their leisure time over the previous year, lower than the figure for Petach Tikva (64%), Rishon LeZion (65%), Haifa (67%), or Tel Aviv-Jaffa (72%). The extent of religious observance among Jews does not especially influence the percentage of book readers, which is similar across the various groups. In contrast, there is a significant difference between Jerusalem’s Jews and Arabs on this question: the percentage of Jews who had read books during the previous year was 72%, higher than the figure for Arabs, which was 43%.

It is interesting to note that among Jerusalemites who reported reading books, 40% devoted two hours per week to book reading, 29% devoted between two and five hours weekly, 12% devoted between five and ten hours, and 10% spent ten or more hours per week reading books. An additional 9% reported that they do not read books on a regular basis. 

Source: Analysis of data from the Central Bureau of Statistics’ 2011 social survey