Israel Festival at The Jerusalem Theatre

The Israel Festival was founded in 1961 by Aaron Zvi Propes as a summer music festival taking place in the ancient Roman theatre in Caesarea. The program was later broadened to include all the performing arts, and the location was enlarged to include venues all over the country. It was not until 1982 that the country's capital decided to adopt the Festival as its own, and since then the majority of performances are held in Jerusalem.

The Festival takes place annually for a few weeks in the spring. Throughout the festival, audiences are able to enjoy performances by artists from all over the world, as well as premieres of Israeli works and tributes to leading Israeli artists. The public can also attend a large selection of free performances, including street theatre, children's shows and a nightly jazz club.

The festival’s staff and all those involved in its production view the festival as a means to promote artistic encounters crossing all political and national boundaries, to encourage collaborations between Israeli artists and their colleagues from abroad, and to introduce the public to emerging forms of art.

The Festival is a non-profit organization headed by a public board chaired by Dan Halperin. Yossi Tal-Gan has been general director of the festival since 1992. Gil Shohat is the classical music adviser, Apart from the above, the festival runs on a small staff of five, which is supplemented during the festival period by extra production staff.