Andrew Guckes | Staff Writer
For Omer Mor, a sound designer with the Bristol Riverside Theater, the play “Fires in the Mirror” was one that he was meant to work on.
The Israeli only moved to the United States a little less than a decade ago, and since then, he has spent most of his time in New York City. Then, last year, he took a job with the theater and began to split his time between Bristol and New York.
“Fires in the Mirror” recounts the 1991 Crown Heights riots, which came after a motorcade that included the Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson crashed and struck two Guyanese children, killing one of them.
It represents a seminal moment in racial tension between two communities that have lived with and next to each other in Brooklyn for decades.
Mor, in addition to spending time in New York, is a hip-hop artist who has worked extensively with artists from the other communities involved in the events of 1991.
“This production fits my profile pretty well — I’m Israeli and Jewish, and at the same time I work in the hip-hop world and I’m familiar with African American and Caribbean culture and music, specifically the music of these places and worlds,” he said. “It turned out well.”
The play is a unique one and presented an interesting challenge for Mor. As a pioneering piece of verbatim theater, in which the dialogue is taken directly from interviews conducted by the play’s author of people involved, the play in some ways more closely resembles a documentary than anything else. This meant that the sound design was different from that of more traditional productions.
Mor said that the most unique thing about this play is that it does not attempt to lead the viewers to any conclusion. It is more or less just a compilation of witness testimonies, which allows the audience to see how the events affected different people without being shepherded toward an opinion.
“The play is really interesting because it doesn’t really tell you what happened,” he said.
“And I think that is because nobody really knows what happened exactly; there are just different points of view and different sides of the story. It really teaches you a lot.”
Mor doesn’t currently belong to a synagogue — he prefers to interact with Judaism in other capacities. Working at Bristol Riverside Theater has been enlightening because the directors are Jewish and Jewish values inform much of the work as well as the content there. The opportunity to combine his interests in theater, music and Jewish values was a perfect one.
“This place was so interesting to me,” he said.
He added that “Fires in the Mirror” specifically called to him, especially considering the state of the world for Jews.
“I wasn’t familiar with the story of the riots until recently, and it kind of resonated with me in a way because this conflict is still kind of felt,” he said. “After Oct. 7, we [have] felt it recently, [just] not necessarily in the same way.”
With that in mind, Mor said that art that can cross cultural boundaries to speak to different communities is essential. The interplay of cultures is something that has always been central to his life, not just as an Israeli but also as a hip-hop artist.
Rap began to play on the radio in Israel when Mor was a teenager, and he immediately gravitated to the sound and wordplay of the genre. He and his friends started rapping for fun before he eventually formed a band and produced his own hip-hop. His rap moniker is “Isaac DaBom,” under which he has released a host of music.
Mor said that he has had the pleasure of watching Israeli hip-hop through its development and that a wonderful moment came after its mass commercialization in Israel in the early 2000s.
“It kind of disappeared for a while and went underground and I think that led to it being a more authentic thing in Israel,” he said. “We told our own story instead of just trying to be like American hip-hop.”
Today, Israeli hip-hop has dozens of subgenres and its own unique appeal. Mor said that whether it’s the Middle East-inspired production or social messages on the constantly tenuous state of life in the country, Israeli rap is creating its own lane.
“Today, hip-hop is huge in Israel just like it is in pretty much any place in the world,” he said. “The big step that it took was starting to tell its own story.”
After a career of working with people from different backgrounds, Mor knows how to listen and understand another point of view. Now, he is taking that experience and applying it to the world of theater in Philadelphia, with a uniquely Jewish and Israeli lens.
“I really love theater. I have always loved theater because it’s a medium that’s very unique. The power of movement is something that I really like. It’s not like watching Netflix; there is energy that’s in the room,” he said.
