Sephardic Orchard
The musical “Bustan Sepharadi” at the Habima Theatre, Tel Aviv. It portrays life in a Sephardic neighborhood in Jerusalem at that time, with the Castel family at the center of the story.
The musical is based on melodies from an anthology of Sephardic liturgical music and Isaac Levy’s Book of Romances.
The play depicts the life of a Sephardic neighborhood in Jerusalem in those days, focusing on one family—the Castel family. Relationships between men and women, fathers and sons, folk philosophy, a sun that calls out to Selichot, a fortune-teller, relations between neighbors, a promiscuous young woman ordered by the rabbi to leave Jerusalem and the dilemma surrounding her burial, Ben-Zion, an eccentric searching for Elijah the Prophet, and finally, the tragedy of Victoria, accused of having failed to preserve her virginity.
Between the scenes are songs of love and pain, joy and sorrow—romances that have stood the test of many generations and are still sung today by members of the Sephardic community with deep emotion and longing.
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