arts & culture
New Play
Explores Israel-Palestine
Confl ict
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
P hiladelphia’s InterAct Th eatre
Co. produces plays that “pro-
voke conversation” about sensi-
tive topics, according to a recent press
release. Beginning on April 1, it will take on
perhaps the most diffi cult conversa-
tion in Jewish life: the Israel-Palestine
confl ict.

“Settlements,” written by Seth Rozin,
a Jewish playwright and InterAct’s pro-
ducing artistic director, is about “a res-
ident theater at a Jewish Community
Center which fi nds itself pulled in con-
fl icting directions when it commissions
a new play about the Israeli-Palestinian
confl ict,” according to a press release
detailing the show.

Rozin wrote the play over several
years aft er reading a 2014 Washington
Post story about a similar incident,
in which a Washington, D.C., theater
director was dismissed from his JCC
home aft er commissioning a play about
Israeli soldiers killing Palestinians.

Rozin said he feels it’s important to
explore not who’s right and who’s
wrong in the confl ict, but why it’s so
diffi cult to discuss.

He summed up “Settlements” as a
meditation on society losing its politi-
cal center of gravity.

“If we can’t have civil, construc-
tive conversation about the insoluble
problem, how do we ever hope to get
anywhere?” he asked.

It’s a question Rozin asks in his
personal life, too.

During Donald Trump’s fi rst presi-
dential run in 2016 and his presidency
over the ensuing four years, Rozin grew
apart from his oldest friend. Th e friend
was a Trump supporter, while the
playwright was not.

Th e two became friends in second
grade, and it wasn’t until college that
Rozin learned of his buddy’s conserva-
tive political leanings. But at the time,
he found their ideological diff erences
stimulating. He described his friend
as “a Liz Cheney conservative” and “a
principled conservative.”
“We could disagree,” Rozin said.

“But I respected there were principles.”
But aft er Trump rode down the
golden escalator at Trump Tower in
2015 and announced his candidacy,
the playwright’s friend jumped on the
bandwagon. Th en, throughout Trump’s
presidency, they started fi ghting via text.

Th ey disagreed on everything from
Seth Rozin
Courtesy of Seth Rozin
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