Thirty-nine years after famed French high-wire artist Philippe Petit captivated thousands by walking across Jerusalem’s Hinnom Valley, a new generation of aerial performers returned to the skies at twilight on Tuesday to recreate one of the most memorable moments in the history of the Israel Festival.
The opening event of the 65th Israel Festival, titled “Held By a String,” featured four high-line artists traversing cables suspended high above the Hinnom Valley, on the seam between east and west Jerusalem.
Accompanied by live music from the Jerusalem East and West Orchestra and the Jerusalem Youth Choir, the performance combined aerial artistry with an artistic message of dialogue, resilience and shared space.
Among the performers was Israeli high-wire artist Yonatan Tabachnik, who carefully balanced above the valley alongside fellow aerial artists as they crossed the cables stretching across the historic landscape in Israel’s capital.
The free public event marked the official opening of this year’s festival, which runs from July 28 through Aug. 20 in Jerusalem, the Western Negev and the Upper Galilee.
Revisiting a landmark moment
The performance paid tribute to Petit, the legendary French high-wire artist whose 1987 crossing above the Hinnom Valley became one of the defining images of that year’s Israel Festival.
Petit, 76, is internationally renowned for his unauthorized 1974 walk between New York’s Twin Towers, where he spent 45 minutes crossing the cable eight times, dancing, kneeling and even lying on the wire more than 1,300 feet above the streets below. The feat inspired the Academy Award-winning 2008 documentary Man on Wire and the 2015 feature film The Walk, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Petit, whose philosophy of high-wire walking has inspired audiences around the world, once remarked in a TED Talk that “life should be lived on the edge.” That outlook has defined a career spanning more than five decades, from his famed Twin Towers crossing to his symbolic walk above Jerusalem’s Hinnom Valley in 1987.
Long before his New York performance, Petit staged daring crossings between the towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1971 and Sydney Harbor Bridge in 1973. His 1987 Jerusalem feat, linking the Jewish and Arab quarters at the festival’s opening under then-Mayor Teddy Kollek, became a lasting symbol of artistic daring and coexistence.
Seeking balance
Festival organizers described this year’s production as more than a historical recreation.
“In a world that has gone slightly off-balance, at a point where we have nearly lost our equilibrium, we return to seeking a foothold,” the festival said in a statement.
Four aerial lines stretched across the valley invited audiences to look upward as artists navigated “danger and beauty, tenacity and strength,” creating what organizers called “a shared space for dialogue—between East and West, between voices, communities and human beings.”
The organizers added that the performance invites audiences to watch “the small human figure rise after a fall, continue walking above the abyss, weaving with every step threads of connection and hope.” That vision, they said, lies at the heart of a production that seeks to find balance in an uncertain world.
Israel Festival CEO Uri Vaknin said the event reflected the festival’s determination to keep bringing people together despite the challenges facing Israeli society.
“The Israel Festival is first and foremost a live meeting between artists, creators and audiences,” he said. “Its very existence cannot be taken for granted today. Continuing to create and gather is itself an expression of our commitment to one another.”
High-wire artists traverse cables suspended above Jerusalem’s Hinnom Valley during the opening event of the 65th Israel Festival on July 28, 2026. Video by Liam Forberg.
