Benjamin Netanyahu's brother talks Iran, his brother and his off-Broadway play 'A Happy End'

Benjamin Netanyahu's brother talks Iran, his brother and his off-Broadway play 'A Happy End'

 

Iddo Netanyahu is a doctor and playwright who happens to share a last name with a man at the center of the news this week. Iddo is the younger brother of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose address before Congress this Tuesday has drawn equal parts praise and criticism. In fact, Susan Rice, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, has called the prime minister’s visit “destructive” to U.S.-Israel relations.

Iddo Netanyahu’s play “A Happy End,” now being performed in New York, is the story of a Jewish family in Berlin deciding if they should leave Nazi Germany in the early 1930s. The play also relates to a lot of issues around the world today, especially in Europe. When asked about that, Iddo Netanyahu tells Yahoo News and Finance Anchor Bianna Golodryga, “There’s been a severe growing problem for the Jewish people living in Europe.” And while he cannot say if Jews around the continent would be safer living in Israel, he does say that he truly believes “a Jew feels comfortable in Israel.”

Asked about what he sees as the biggest threat facing Israel, Netanyahu the playwright is quick to say, “All Israelis certainly consider Iran as the current and most extreme existential threat, there’s no question about it.”

And when asked if his brother may take some time out from this week’s trip to the United States to come to New York and see his play, Iddo laughs and says the small off-Broadway theater would have trouble handling all of the prime minister’s security staff.

“A Happy End” is in previews now at New York’s June Havoc Theater and opens March 11.