For Israelis, Many a Show Isn’t Going On

The next time the Tel Aviv soccer team plays a home game, it will probably be in Bulgaria.

The reason: No professional soccer team has been allowed to play in Israel for months because the sport’s European governing body considers the country too dangerous. So Israeli teams must go elsewhere for their games, losing the home field advantage and the packed stadiums that go with it.

Take a game in which the northern Israeli city of Haifa played Belarus in Cyprus last month. A paltry 50 fans showed up for the game, which was played in a 22,000-seat stadium. But 500 Cypriot police were stationed in and around the stadium to guard the Israeli players.

“We play, but we don’t play in Israel, and it’s a huge disadvantage,” said Ronan Dorfan, a senior sports writer for the newspaper Haaretz.

It is not only sports that is affected by the ongoing violence. Entertainers have stopped coming to Israel, which until two years ago was a lucrative gig for musical groups and singers touring Europe.

In the summer of 2000, the big-name musical acts Rage Against the Machine, Radiohead, Alanis Morissette, Lou Reed and REM all staged concerts here in a single month. Last August, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were supposed to play here, but after three suicide bombings in as many days, the group canceled, even though 20,000 tickets had been sold.

“No one is coming,” said Yadidya Fraiman, an Israeli musician. “ ‘Isolation’ is certainly a word that fits.”

Concert promoter Shuki Weiss, who has brought the likes of Bob Dylan to Israel, said the hope was that the violence would stop and the shows would go on.

“But it didn’t get better,” he said. “We have to start from scratch again. We have to begin at the bottom.”

The problem now is twofold. One is that suicide bombers have transformed Israel into a place where safety is a constant concern. The bombers have targeted restaurants, nightclubs, hotels and buses, not only in Jerusalem but in all parts of the country.

The second issue is that Israel has come under harsh criticism, especially in Europe, for its treatment of Palestinians. That has led to entertainment being used as a forum for criticism, both here and abroad.

One performer affected was Achinoam Nini, one of Israel’s most popular singers, who was stunned when two protesters climbed onstage during a London concert in June and chided her about the Israeli treatment of Palestinians.

“It was a big trauma for Noa at the time,” said her manager, Asher Bitanski. “We were afraid it might repeat itself, but it didn’t in any of the venues we played.”

Bitanski said the hecklers apologized the next day after learning the singer was a leader in the Israeli peace movement. She had performed at the 1995 peace rally in Tel Aviv where Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated.

Israeli performers are also being shunned because of safety concerns.

Last month, the famed Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was forced to cancel an eight-week tour in the United States because no one would insure it. Zeev Dorman, the chairman of the orchestra, said fears of some kind of terrorist attack were a major part of the problem, so the orchestra will appear in Australia and Taiwan instead.

But Dorman also said he thinks the insurance question is something that can be worked out over time.

“I think it was show business,” he said. “They couldn’t work it out. I don’t think it’s a hint of the future.”

Within Israel, the effect on sports and entertainment has manifested itself in a number of ways. Last month, eight singers canceled their appearances in the opera “Salome,” played by the Israel Philharmonic, citing safety concerns. This year’s normally popular Jerusalem Film Festival attracted a relative handful of foreign actors, directors and other members of the film industry. The Tel Aviv film festival was canceled because so many in the industry were begging off.

In June, three foreign performance ensembles pulled out of the Israel Festival, one of the country’s largest cultural events. Two cited security reasons. The third, the Belgian-based Groupov Theater Ensemble, said the treatment of Palestinians had prompted the cancellation. Earlier this year, a professional basketball team from Turkey refused to play a game in Tel Aviv because of security concerns.

Dorman, the orchestra chairman, said he can understand how performers might want to cancel, particularly because Israel looks so dangerous from afar.

“It’s very serious to cancel, but again I cannot blame them,” he said. “When you see it on television, it’s frightening.”

Fraiman, the musician, said the flight of entertainers has created an atmosphere in which almost any celebrity visit causes a slight upswing in mood here.

“You hear of some second-tier movie star coming here, and people feel encouraged,” he said.

Matan Vilnai, the Israeli minister of culture, science and sports, believes performers and athletic teams need to return to Israel. He cited the fact that there has never been a terrorist incident at a concert or sporting event in the country.

“Professional sports leagues should raise the flag of freedom and give the chance for sports to bring people together,” he said. “Entertainers also should be loyal to their fans, and I think Israeli audiences very much appreciate performers who come to Israel in these times.”