Two Jews Walk Into A War – A Reading

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The second of the series play readings from the West Coast Jewish Theatre focusing on antisemitism is Two Jews Walk Into a War by Seth Rozin was held at the Venice Methodist Church on August 25, 2024.

Starring Shelly Kurtz as Zeblyan and Howard Teichman as Ishaq with Charles Shapiro as the narrator. Howard is the artistic director, director and producer of the West Coast Jewish Theatre.

Labeled as a comedy, the story centered around two lone Jews, the last supposedly in Kabul just as the Taliban had taken over, sheltering in the remains of the last synagogue.

The pair argued back and forth about the future of Jews in Afghanistan and how they would recreate a Jewish community there. The two, who had a love-hate relationship, talked of finding a young woman to assist them with a population and then ended up with the idea of finding a new rabbi. To find a new rabbi they realized that they needed a Torah.

But the last Torah had been taken and destroyed by the Taliban and so the pair decide to recreate one since Ishaq says he remembers the five books verbatim and so after finding some parchment, Zeblyan takes dictation.

Howard Teichman – West Coast Jewish Theatre Director/Producer – photo from IMDB

While the acting was wonderful, and some of the dialogue was funny. The third act scenes were repeated several times with almost the same pace. The play could have been shortened quite a bit. While this was the second of the three plays about Anti-Semitism, and it did talk about the relationship of the men to the Muslims and local Taliban who controlled the area, it wasn’t a play that left you with a message as the first one had.

West Coast Jewish Theatre is a fabulous group that always features plays and readings with a Jewish theme and now more than ever, it’s crucial that we remain in touch and educated. I highly recommend checking them out for more than these few plays.

The final play in the series will be Israel Horovitz’s Lebensraum on Sunday, Sept. 8^th, 2024, questioning if history will repeat itself. Please contact the West Coast Jewish Theatre for tickets.