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for nature and the land. All of us had a strong sense of belonging to one another. In those years I was very happy." And emotionally healthy as well, or so it seems, for long before there was much talk of group therapy, Gila claims that the couple who ran her Village--"encouraged us to look into ourselves, to help one another find in the past a psychological explanation for our behavior."
For many of the years of her growing up Gila shared the group dream of being first a soldier (in Israel young women as well as young men are conscripted into the army) and then a [[italics]]Kibbutznik[[/italics]] on one of the agrarian communes which have proved to be both an idealistic and practical success in the country. Then when she was 14, a professional theatrical company came to the Children's Village to give a play. The first act had scarcely concluded before Gila had made a positive decision about her future. "I knew I was going to be an actress. For a long time though I told no one...it seemed such a frivolous decision in our country at that time."
In spite of Gila's attempts at secrecy, one of her teachers noticed her decreasing interest in her schoolwork and her waning enthusiasm for farming. When she confessed her theatrical ambitions, he suggested that she might want to get into Habinmah, the country's national repertory theatre, which was organized over half a century ago by some early settlers whose theatrical roots were in Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theatre.
In Israel--wonder of wonders--where there are more acting jobs than actors to fill them, this was not such a preposterous suggestion. A day or two later Gila took a bus to Tel Aviv, announced to her mother--"I'm not going to be a soldier. I'm going my own way." She softened the blow by promising she would one day put her mother's story on the stage or on film...a promise she has just recently fulfilled with her successful film [[italics]]Siege[[/italics]].
Gila was accepted by Habinmah where, like aspiring young actresses everywhere, she played bit parts and walk-ons--always with an eye to "the big break" ([[italics]]Ha Hatz-laha HaG'-dola[[/italics]]). It came when the 40-year-old actress playing Anne Frank became ill. "Can you believe that when I applied for the part, they told me I was too young?" said Gila credulously. She prevailed, however, landed the part and made an enormous success of it.
Gila stayed with Habinmah for a number of years. Then she came to America to study at the Berghof Studio. "In my classes were the most beautiful creatures in the world and they had to scrape to get parts. Here in Israel we have a saying that it is enough to declare yourself an actor to get a job."
When she returned home, Gila did indeed get jobs. She played the leading role in a number of independent productions such as the musical [[italics]]Peter Pan[[/italics]], which was produced by her husband. ("Physically that was the most difficult part in the world, but people loved it. I got thousands of letters.") She also wrote and acted in films including the current box office smash [[italics]]The Highway Queen[[/italics]] about a Tel Aviv prostitute. This season she has returned once more to the Habinmah as the guest star in [[italics]]St. Joan[[/italics]].

Gila's career has been enormously satisfying but certainly not easy. One reason is that in Israel an actress is almost constantly on the road. Only the repertory companies--Habinmah, Cameri and the Haifa Municipal Theatre have permanent buildings. All other attractions take turns in various theatres and halls. But rep companies and independents alike spend as much as half the time touring the smaller cities, Kibbutzim, or Absorption Centers. (In the last, immigrants to Israel are given orientation, temporary housing and a crash course in Hebrew.) As Gila tells it, on one night a performance might be presented in the rough-hewn dining hall of an army outpost along the border; the second night the company might tour to Haifa and play the magnificent new Municipal Auditorium;

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a third night might find them at one of the more prosperous Kibbutzim, which boasts a modern elaborately-equipped theatre.
Audiences vary as well. "Kibbutzniks are the best audience we have," says Gila. She considers these voluntary communes where all the property is owned by the community--"the most cultured groups in our country." (If a Kibbutz becomes profitable--and many of them which have gone into industry or run resort complexes do indeed show a profit--the money they earn will very often go into a theatre or concert hall.)
But in direct contrast to these audiences are the immigrants from Yemen and North Africa, many of whom have never seen a play before. "It's beautiful," says Gila, "the way the Government is educating these newcomers to Israel to enjoy theatre. At first they ate, fed their babies, walked about as we performed. But gradually they're becoming a good audience."
In Israel an audience, as well as almost everything else is frequently affected by the political situation. Israelis are constantly reminding visitors -- "It's a tiny country"--which, of course, it is (little more than the population of Philadelphia). So it's really not surprising that when there are a number of people killed in a border skirmish, the whole country feels the loss. But the new Jew of Israel almost never ostensibly shows these feelings (possibly, it has been speculated, this is the result of an almost total rejection of the self-pitying "Oy vey" of the ghetto). "Only when you know Israelis very well," said Gila, "do you see the disruption. I know the struggle we all put up to keep life normal on the surface. I also know when there's an announcement on the radio that five people have been killed there will be too many empty seats that night in the theatre and the spirit will be very low. On the contrary after a successful action there will be an excitement, an enthusiasm that isn't ordinarily there."
For Gila, as well as all other Israelis, the excitement ran highest after the 6-Day War. As she sees it that war made some profound psychological changes in her country. "Before the war we felt as Israelis, not as Jews. We wanted to get rid of the past and start a new nation. We sabras didn't want to hear about the Second World War, or try to understand why the Jews had not resisted. Then came the 6-Day War and we began to see very clearly it was only other Jews we could count on. Now everyone is looking for the past."
Gila believes that this search for the past is clearly reflected in the theatre. For instance, this season for the first time there are a number of Yiddish plays running in Tel Aviv. (Although Yiddish was the language common to most European immigrants to Israel, its use was disparaged as not in keeping with the spirit of the new modern Hebrew-speaking nation.) Another example of the quest for the past, Gila believes, is the success of [[italics]]Once There Was a Hassid[[/italics]], a long-running musical play produced by her husband and based on the stories, songs, legends and fables of the Hassidic Jews of Eastern Europe. "We used to laugh at the Hassids living in Israel," said Gila. "Now we see their culture as part of our own."
Of course, not all the changes Gila has seen take place in her country have been psychological. There have been incredible physical changes as well. For instance, the hills that were grey and barren when she was a child are now covered with trees--80 million of them, all planted within 25 years. There's a university on Mt. Scopus now and a technical institute at Haifa (Technion, which has graduated 2/3 of all Israel's engineers). In Jerusalem there's a million dollar Hadassah medical complex and a Hebrew museum, which among its other treasures boasts the prized Dead Sea Scrolls (and if you've ever questioned Israel's wisdom in reviving Hebrew as a national language there's a powerful argument to be found in observing a small child read a 2000-year-old religious scroll in his native tongue). [[right arrow symbol]]