The word “Mahapchaniot” is in Hebrew the feminine form of the English word Revolutionaries. This is also the name of a surprising and intelligent new Israeli theatre play, written by Josefa Even Shoshan and Dalia Shimko, directed by Dalia Shimko and performed by a cast of actors from the Aspamia Ensemble. In the play, three historical pairs appear on the stage – Martha and Sigmund Freud, Jenny and Karl Marx and and Xantippe and Socrates, sending a piercing arrow of sadness, yearning and hope into our era.

In a series of intermittent Post-historic encounters between the three couples as well as between the women and the men, smart, sensitive and thought-provoking dialogues appear before the audience as it becomes aware of the fate of three women who have been excluded from the stage of history.

This play will be the starting point of a symposium which will be held in the Anis theatre in Jaffa, Israel, on November 22nd, called: “psychoanalysis, philosophy and theatre – a day of study around the play ‘Revolutionaries’ “. The symposium is a product of a combined effort of the Yehuda Abarbanel mental health center and the Israeli Psychologists Association. The initiators and producers of this symposium are Mr. Ziv Rubinstein and Dr. Yaron Gilat. All the income from this symposium will be dedicated to the welfare of the patients at the Yehuda Abarbanel mental health center. “This may be a play of the Me-Too era”, say Rubinstein and Gilat, “but it also arouses feelings and provokes thoughts regarding human relationships, history, truth and fiction, historical truth and post-truth, being and death”. “It has also very much to do with the famous Freudian question ‘Was will das Weib?'”, they add, “as well as with questions about desire and jouissance, Lacan’s views regarding Discourse as put in his Seminar XVII “the other side of psychoanalysis”, and also his ideas about the fate of revolutions”.

As mentioned, this theatre play will serve as a platform for a day of study that will be consisted of a series of lectures in psychoanalysis and philosophy. Among the lecturers, Mr. Gabriel Dahan, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, member of the new Lacanian School (NLS) and The Israeli Society for Psychoanalysis in the New Lacanian School (GIEP-NLS), and founder of Tafsan – a psychoanalytic center for youth. Ruth Golan, a poet, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst. Dr. Dana Amir, the head of the interdisciplinary doctoral track in psychoanalysis at Haifa University, a clinical psychologist, supervising and training psychoanalyst at the Israel psychoanalytic society, a poet, and poetess and literature researcher. And Dr. Yaron Gilat, a psychiatrist, director of the adult clinic in the Yehuda Abarbanel mental health center near Tel-Aviv and a member of the GIEP-NLS.

After the lectures, a discussion between the writers of the play and Dr. Omri Bichovsky, a psychoanalyst and member of the GIEP-NLS, will take place.

 


Schedule

09:30 – Gathering and Registration

10:00- “Revolutionaries”

11:30 – Break; Coffee and refreshments

11:45 – Mr. Ziv Rubinstein

12:00 – Greetings;

Prof. Yuval Melamed, Director of the Y.Abarbanel Mental Health Center in Bat-Yam, Israel

Mr. Yoram Shliar, Chairman of the Israeli Psychologists Association

12:10 – Mrs. Ruth Golan

12:30 – Dr. Yaron Gilat

12:50 – Dr. Dana Amir

13:20 – Mr. Gabriel Dahan

13:45 – Lunch

14:15 – A conversation and discussion between Dr. Omri Bichovsky and the writers of the play, Josefa Even Shoshan and Dalia Shimko

14:45 – Dr. Yaron Gilat – Concluding Remarks

 


Photographer: David Kaplan