“We reached another level of knowing the Bible--and ourselves--by being disconnected from social behavior,” said Schonmann, Head of the University’s Laboratory for Research in Theater/Drama Education. “It allowed everyone to concentrate totally on the project without any modern-day distractions.”

Schonmann and a colleague had guided 23 teachers of theater, drama, and Bible Studies in learning and experiencing a new way of teaching the Bible. The workshop was intended to show teachers how to aid their students in understanding the meaning of the biblical text, without any religious or cultural restraints, and then to present the stories as theater. With this project, Schonmann, a Lecturer in the Faculty of Education, brought together her two teaching specializations-- Bible and Theater. Her collaborator in the endeavor, the first such workshop she had ever organized, was Prof. Shimon Levy of Tel-Aviv University’s Department of Theater Arts.

After studying the Bible, the teacher-students chose the stories they wanted to perform. Using no props and relying only on their voices and the written word, the participants had to convey the stories to their audience.

“All improvisations, interpretations, and movements came from the words themselves, and our thoughts and feelings,” Schonmann continued. “The absence of all modern amenities proved to be a rewarding, inspiring, and a remarkably creative arena for the process of making theater from Bible text.

“Levy and I wanted to show our students how to use the natural environment and move teaching away from a four-walled classroom. Working with the desert as a backdrop gave us a spiritual feeling. But we pointed out that the desert was only a symbol, and it could work in other environments.”

“The feedback from the workshop has been very rewarding, not only from the participants but also from other teachers requesting similar workshops,” the educator said. “In fact, two of my students have already put into practice what they learned in the desert.” At a school in Haifa, the children put on a show of Bible stories for their parents; and children from a Jerusalem school journeyed north to perform Bible stories against the Roman background of Caesarea.

“The workshop was videotaped and will be of benefit in developing and elaborating other workshops,” Schonmann said. “I was fortunate to receive a grant from the Ministry of Education for this first stage, no pun intended, but hopefully I shall be able to obtain other grants and continue this line of research.

“In my opinion, this idea can be used not only for school children, but also for new immigrants and adult education. It gives all ages a chance to get close to the Bible as part of their culture--even secular people have been enthusiastic. I am, at present, in communication with Boston [the Combined Jewish Philanthropies] regarding a joint project on ‘the Bible in Theater.’”

A paper on her project has been accepted, and Schonmann was invited, together with Levy, to speak at the International Drama/Theatre Conference in Canterbury, England.