Three years ago a few childhood friends met up on the balcony of one of their homes in the heart of the Nahlaot neighborhood where they happened to start talking about a dream they had once had—a dream of creating a radio show. Not just any radio show, a contemporary show, the kind that people get addicted to. The kind of radio that knows how to tell stories and to take the medium one step further. Radio that exposes another Israel, the Israel that is not usually picked up by the mainstream, that rises above politics and reaches deep into the hearts of its listeners.

When childhood friends meet on a balcony, it doesn’t always work out, but this time, it did. The podcast  “Israel Story” turned from fantasy into reality. The army radio station Galei Zahal quickly adopted the show, and after the first season ended and was immediately followed by a second, they were invited to New York and Boston for a series of broadcasts. The stories from here became a big hit there too. People listened and got hooked.

The 2015 In-House Festival returned to the same balcony in the same neighborhood in order to launch the third season of the podcast entitled “Israel Story.” This time, however, in front of an audience in a completely new type of radio lab. Whoever was sitting on the balcony on the evening of the performance took an active part in the creative process and experienced up close the birth of a radio show. The stories were the heart of the show and provided participants with a listening experience that preceded any visual interpretation. Performance radio filled the space with characters, voices, perspectives and electrifying sounds, all of which related, in one way or another, to the neighborhood and its surroundings. The entire event, which began with interviews and stories and ended with the clinking of glasses and the munching of watermelon, were recorded and turned into a soundtrack.