Ohel (Hebrew for "tent"), originally known as the '''Workers' Theatre of Palestine''', was established in 1925 as a socialist theatre: members of the company combined acting with farming and industrial labour. The theatre, founded by
Moshe Halevy, who had been a founding member of
Habimah in Moscow, was organised as a collective. The theatre's first production was a
Hebrew adaptation of stories by the
Yiddish writer
I. L. Peretz. ''Peretz's Parties'' depicted the decadence of life in the
Diaspora, compared to new Jewish life in the
Land of Israel. Set designers who worked with the company in its early years were European-trained painters and architects, among them architect
Aryeh Elhanani, expressionist painter
Israel Paldi and
Menachem Shemi,
Yitzhak Frenkel a painter of the
Paris school, as well as other important artists such as
Reuven Rubin and
Arie Aroch. in it was exposed the first abstract painting in Israel, by
Yitzhak Frenkel On a successful European tour in 1934, Ohel staged biblical and national plays. When the company returned to Palestine, it produced
The Good Soldier Schweik (1935), one of its most successful offerings. In 1961, Ohel staged a comedy by
Ephraim Kishon,
Ha-Ketubbah ("The Marriage Contract"), which played for three seasons. In 1964, under a new artistic director, Canadian-born Peter Frye, the company performed
Ammekha by
Scholem Aleichem, plays by
Ionesco,
Brecht, and young British playwrights. The theatre closed in 1969. ==See also==