Puppet Food: Lions and marionettes star in Karromato?s ?Wooden Circus.? Image by KARROMATO PUPPET THEATER

‘I’ve been a puppet… a poet, a pawn and a king.”

Frank Sinatra wasn’t talking about actual puppets when he sang those words in his 1966 song “That’s Life,” but festival-goers should expect puppets, kings, poets and more at Jerusalem’s International Festival of Puppet Theater, presented from August 9 to August 14 at the Train Theater.

The 18th annual event, making its return with stringed friends in tow, will have a variety of puppet shows and events for kids and adults. It will feature 28 different productions from countries all over the world, including Germany, Belgium and Holland.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Ilan Savir and Ornan Braier’s “The Magic Box” focuses on imagination and creative thinking as it follows the story of a young carpenter looking for work, a dancer looking for peace, and a quiet and lazy king looking to have some fun.

“Far Over the Sea,” created by Israeli Alina Ashbel, depicts a young girl’s search for lost poems that have disappeared from an old book. The poems eventually come to life through old objects and music.

“Wooden Circus,” put on by Karromato, a traditional marionette theater from Prague, includes wooden marionettes performing customary circus acts. Based on 19th-century variety shows, the marionettes will tame wild puppet animals and perform puppet acrobatics!

With multiple shows each day of the festival, these diva puppets better gear up for a long week of hanging around. Hopefully, the stress won’t get to the more highly strung marionettes.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount