IN A khaki blur of bad taste, SS uniforms and prancing Führers, the Mel Brooks Broadway farce The Producers has come to Israel for the first time.

The show, in Hebrew but replete with swastikas and Nazi salutes, is playing nightly in Tel Aviv to chuckling audiences of Holocaust survivors. Even as they chat during the interval about the best lines from A Gay Musical with Adolf and Eva, many recall the horror of Kristallnacht.

“If ever there was a place that has full licence to make fun of Hitler, it is probably here,” Micah Levensohn, the Israeli director of the musical, said as the 920-seat Cameri Theatre filled up behind him.

“We don’t shy away from the images. If you look at Israeli television every night, there are swastikas and Nazi footage on one programme or another. It’s not as if seeing a swastika is a shock for Israelis. The main objective is to make people laugh.”

Acutely sensitive to their audience, the creators have tweaked the original script. The most prominent alteration is that whenever Hitler’s name is mentioned, the Jewish characters Bialystock and Bloom do a shtick spit and stamp on the ground in unison, uttering the ancient Hebrew curse yimakh shmo (may his name be erased).

“I was a little bit worried before we put the show on stage,” Noam Semel, the manager of the Cameri and one of the creators of the show, said. “I didn’t know what the response would be. We discussed it many, many times.

“Most of the people here are second or third-generation Holocaust survivors and, of course, we know that half the audience are, too. But, in my opinion, Israeli audiences are much more mature than audiences in America.”

His project — delayed for years by a struggle to secure the rights — was rewarded with positive reviews and excellent word of mouth. The £500,000 production is sold out until the end of May.

During the interval on Tuesday, Miriam Bobash, 78, a Dresden-born Holocaust survivor, said that she had not told her husband, Benny, about the content of the play beforehand.

“It’s fun,” she said with a grin. “It actually is very good.” Mr Bobash, 81, was altogether less enthusiastic. He said: “It’s not a subject that we should even laugh about. If I had known, I wouldn’t have come.” His view was clearly in the minority.

“The biggest fun on earth,” said Frances Marcus, 74, who survived the Holocaust in her native Netherlands.

“You couldn’t have put this on twenty or even ten years ago. And now to see this Hitler dancing and not feel offended. Attitudes to Germany have changed totally. Both sides have grown up.” After a pause she added: “And with this whole business of the [Prophet Muhammad] cartoons — isn’t this just the biggest, super-mega cartoon, this show?”

THE SHOW GOES ON

Many of the film’s extras appeared in exchange for making a charity donation

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