Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Israel News

Puppets Perform, No Strings Attached

‘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.

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.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

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 the protests on college campuses.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version