Excellent article by Antony Lerman at the Guardian this morning on Caryl Churchill's Gaza play, Seven Jewish Children, which has seen its most recent international performance in Montreal, Canada, hosted by Independent Jewish Voices Montreal.
Lerman is the former director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and draws this powerful conclusion about why those that level the charge of anti-semitism at the play are so wrong:
How should we explain why they get this play so wrong? I suggest two reasons.
First, they're trapped in a self-generated atmosphere of extreme defensiveness. They genuinely believe that antisemitism is at such a high level, fuelled largely by anti-Zionism, which they regard as mostly antisemitism, that any critical discourse about Jews sets alarm bells ringing. Second, the continued insistence on unmasking anti-Zionist antisemites leads to fatal confusion about what antisemitism is.
I sympathise with those who watch the exchanges over this play's alleged antisemitism with bewilderment. The fight against antisemitism gains nothing from trying to turn the play into an antisemitic incident. All that's achieved is a further slide down the slippery slope towards rendering the word antisemitism meaningless. more
Caryl Churchill's play is anti-war not anti-semitic
Sorry, but the play is anti-Semitism masked by its anti-Zionism. Anti-Zionism is used by anti-Semites when in polite company. The fact that anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are the same was recognized as such by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr in the mid-1960s.
ReplyDeletePro-Palestinian supporters had a right to protest Israel's incursion into Gaza. But their true colors soon came out when they shouted "Jews to the ovens" as they did in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.