timesofisrael.com/send-in-the-clown-a-slap-happy-policewoman-is-a-gas-at-israels-many-protests/

A colorful clown has been a ubiquitous yet intriguing figure at Israeli demonstrations in recent years. Her oversized boots and ruby-red nose commingle with the trappings of a parodied police uniform: a baton holstered to her waist holds soap bubbles, a heart-shaped sponge serves as a walkie-talkie and dotted red hearts on her shoulder straps indicate her rank.

Hashoteret Az-Oolay (Policewoman Then-Maybe), as she calls herself in a comic bow to a classic Israeli movie, may appear to be a buffoon. But both the demonstrators who know her and the police officers who occasionally arrest her will tell you otherwise.

“I first met her at Balfour,” says Chen Givati, a Tel Aviv actor, referring to the anti-corruption demonstrations on Jerusalem’s Balfour Street outside the Prime Minister’s Residence that began in 2020. “The situation would be getting violent and then she comes along and puts her heart stickers on a row of police officers, one after the other. Things start to calm down.”

Givati is one of many demonstrators coming over to greet Hashoteret Az-Oolay at a mid-January rally for the kidnapped hostages in Tel Aviv. Shay Dickman, a cousin of hostage Carmel Gat, and other hostage family members warmly hug her.

“She has been there for us since back in November when she organized a march from Jerusalem to the Gaza border to support our campaign,” says Dickman.

A few days after the Tel Aviv rally, the character’s creator, a 30-something Jerusalem actress named Idit (she declined to provide her last name), explains to a group of pre-army preparatory college students how Hashoteret Az-Oolay got her start.

“In August 2020, I decided to attend one of the Balfour Street demonstrations, just out of curiosity. Somehow I knew that I had to come playing a role,” says Idit, who studied at California’s Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre, a study center rooted in the Italian Commedia Dell’arte tradition of improvised performances using slapstick, mime and physical comedy.

“I started giving out hearts and talking to people. I had no idea how this character would develop. I just wanted to bring a softer voice, to be a different sort of police officer,” she says.

Idit explains to the college students that her character’s name is an allusion to the kind-hearted policeman who is the hero of the eponymous classic 1971 Israeli film “Hashoter Azoulay.”

Azoulay is a common name among Jews of Moroccan descent, but Idit changed the spelling to Az-Oolay, a play on two Hebrew words meaning, “then maybe.” She explains it’s shorthand for the character’s full name, which is Az-Oolay Yehiye Yoter Tov, meaning, “then maybe it will be better.”

In the past four years, Hashoteret Az-Oolay has reached out to protesters of all stripes — she has joined anti-judicial overhaul demonstrators blocking the Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv, stood with Haredi Jews objecting to the construction of a light rail transit line in their neighborhood, and accompanied Palestinians at Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate protesting the eviction of families.

All of these encounters are documented in posts on her Facebook page, which she calls “police reports” (“duchot” in Hebrew). As of early February, she has filed 322 of these reports.

What sets Hashoteret Az-Oolay apart from other participants at demonstrations are her efforts to build relationships with police officers — many of whom know her quite well.

In one encounter captured in a television clip, she can be seen trying to restrain a police officer. “Calm down neshama,” she reprimands him, using the Hebrew word for soul. “We are in this together. Take a deep breath.”

Her shenanigans sometimes bring out smiles on the faces of the law enforcers; they have also led to her being charged with disorderly conduct and detained for a weekend in a Jerusalem jail.

Despite these setbacks, Idit points out that her character’s mischievous behavior has sometimes brought unexpected results.

“One time at a Balfour demonstration, the police pushed everyone behind a barrier and a policeman knocked me to the ground,” Idit tells the students. “So I walked up to him and said, ‘Would you like to hear a poem?’”

She goes on to describe how she recited a rhyming ditty that she had made up about giving and receiving. The punch line was the word love.

“Several months later at a demonstration near the President’s Residence, the same police officer came over to me and said, ‘Nu, let’s hear that poem,’” Idit continues. “I began to recite it, and when I got to the last line he finished it for me by saying the word love. All this happened in the middle of a chaotic situation in which water cannons were being used to disperse the demonstrators.”

When asked to explain the raison d’etre of Hashoteret Az-Oolay, Idit references both traditional Jewish texts and modern champions of peace.

“In the Zohar we learn about the need to make our inner world stronger than the external world, to live with a sense of hope,” she says, quoting from the Kabbalistic text.

She also offers her interpretation of a well-known maxim from Ecclesiastes.

“When we say, ‘There is nothing new under the sun,’ if we only believe that what we see around us is all there is, then we can sink into depression thinking we will live by the sword forever. But if we believe that something can happen that we don’t now see, that there are things beyond the sun, then it’s possible to change things and for something new to happen.”

Turning to people from whom she has drawn inspiration, she mentions Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian proponent of nonviolent resistance, Charlie Chaplin and Etty Hilsome.

Her inspiration from Chaplin comes from his parody of Hitler in his film “The Great Dictator,” which he made during World War II.

“I know his final speech by heart,” Idit says, referring to the scene where Chaplin speaks directly to the audience asking that people rise against dictators and unite in peace.

Another strong influence on her is the diary of Hilsome, a young Dutch Jewish woman who perished in Auschwitz in 1943.

“I carry her diary with me,” says Idit. “She writes about how a person’s inner world can change reality, a belief she went with to the very end. She could have stayed in hiding but she wanted to support the others.”

At the end of the college workshop, a student asks Idit if her vision isn’t a bit naïve.

“Well what is preferable, weapons, bullets, stun grenades?” she responds. “If it’s between all that and being naïve, I choose to be naïve. What I’m asking from everyone is to be naïve like me.”