The Summer of Aviya, Habima

This mostly autobiographical one-woman play starring famed Israeli actress follows Aviya, the ten-year old protagonist, as she comes home from a boarding school in the summer of 1951 to be with her mother in Petach Tikva. Aviya’s mother Henia is a Holocaust survivor and partisan heroine who is dealing with severe mental illness caused by her experiences during the war. Based on Almagor’s 1985 book, which was made into a play in 1988. The play is a production of the Israeli National Theater Company. Originally in Hebrew, the play highlights the difficult situation that many survivors went through after coming to Israel, along with the scars that stay with survivors and also affect their children. In 2003, Almagor starred in the play at Symphony Space in New York.