Theater J in Washington, DC - Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy?

We have previously written about the Caryl Churchill play, "Seven Jewish Children, a play for Gaza" and have discussed its anti-Semitic undertone. We complained about its appearance at the New York Theatre Workshop. As feared, the play is now making its rounds, including a stop at Theater J of the Washington, DC Jewish Community Center.

It's one thing when a play such as this is performed at a public theatre, but when it's performed at a venue sponsored by the community that it attacks, where are we headed.

The director of Theater J, Ari Roth, is on record as having said he knows people would be offended by the play and that he was "upset" by it. Yet he appears to have bent over backwards to produce the play by adding two other plays to deaden the impact of Seven Jewish Children, by arranging for friendly posts on the theater's blog, and communicating with the play's author.

I think it's ludicrous for a Jewish, albeit nominally, theater to present a play that brings a message equating Israelis with the worst of mankind. Here is the letter sent to Mr. Roth:

"March 29, 2009

Mr. Ari Roth, Artistic Director
Theater J, Washington District of Columbia Jewish Community Center
1529 Sixteenth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036

Re Production of Seven Jewish Children, a play for Gaza

Dear Mr. Roth:

I am the father of Alisa Flatow a 20-year old woman murdered in 1995 by Palestinian terrorists who were raised since childhood on a never ending stream of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda to hate Israelis and Jews. By presenting “Seven Jewish Children, a play for Gaza” at Theater J, you have added another propaganda log to the bonfire of hatred that has been stoked by the Arab world since 1948.

Anti-Semitism has taken on a new face. It is masked by anti-Zionism. In other words, “we love the Jews, but hate what the State of Israel has done to the Palestinians.” Mr. Roth, in the former, its proponents shout “Jews to the ovens” as they did in Florida this past January. In the latter, they de-legitimatize the Jews’ 2,000-year old quest for a state of their own. In the end, there is no difference between the two because both seek the destruction of the Jewish people. Yet the latter is worse, because it hides under the mask of the theater arts. You have helped nourish hatred.

You reportedly said "people have a right to be offended, and I respect those who have read the play and are offended" and, that the script upset you. Unfortunately, you were not upset enough to decline production of the play and your silly attempt at balancing it with two other plays makes you the laughingstock of anti-Semites around the world because you have literally given them a stage from which to speak.

I believe in general that everyone has the right to make a fool of himself. You have done that here, but there is nothing to laugh about."

When will such foolishness--the desire to be open to all thoughts even those inimical to your own interests--be put to bed?

United Nations Continues to Weigh-in on Gaza Crossings

The U.N. weighed in with another demonstration of hand wringing over Israel's refusal to allow unfettered access to Gaza. Accusations flew across the Security Council table on March 25, 2009 as Israel was accused of making the humanitarian situation worse in Gaza.

B. Lynn Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, lamented that a " a worrying situation of impasse and uncertainty existed. Despite international engagement and support, very little concrete progress had been made on key issues outlined in Council resolution 1860 (2009), including the establishment of a proper ceasefire regime in Gaza, unimpeded access for humanitarian assistance, opening of the crossings, prevention of illicit trafficking in arms and ammunitions, and intra-Palestinian reconciliation."

No mention was made by Mr. Pascoe of the fate of Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier held hostage by Hamas for more than 3 years.

As the Palestinian representative charged that

"Everyone was now aware of the human and physical tolls of destruction deliberately inflicted by the occupying Power [Israel] over three weeks, the magnitude of which was unprecedented since the beginning of the occupation in 1967."

Gabriela Shalev, Israel's Ambassador to the UN, responded by agreeing that

"civilians on both sides, including children, had indeed borne the burden of the conflict. Children in the cities of southern Israel asked their parents why more than 1,000 rockets had been fired into their communities. Osher Twito, who had loved playing soccer, had been eight years old when he had lost both legs a year-and-a-half ago and asked his parents that question every day. Each side had stories to tell, but they should only be used to advance the cause of peace.

Interestingly, representatives from Uganda, Turkey, China, Costa Rica, Viet Nam and Russia did not waste their time criticizing Israel. Instead, they focused on the need to stop rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.

Here's the full briefing to Security Council.

A Price for Everything

There is no country on Earth as blessed as the United States of America. While no longer a melting pot where immigrants eagerly sought to speak the English language and adopt American customs, we still maintain the freedom of ideas of all shapes and colors and sizes and beliefs. However, as long ago stated by Justice Cardozo, freedom of speech is not absolute. He stated that there is no right to shout fire in a theater. That phrase has long been used to limit speech that we find hateful or derogatory or inflammatory.

So now we turn to the real topic at hand, the Caryl Churchill play "Seven Jewish Children." Don't let the title fool you. The play is not about little Jewish children running around a park. It's an attempt to mask anti-Israel and anti-Semitic attitudes.

Seen in London in February 2009, the play drew many complaints. Now it is making its way to the New York stage through the efforts of the New York Theatre Workshop that has scheduled three readings of the play followed by a panel discussion led by noted Israel basher Tony Kushner.

I think it's outrageous that the play is coming to NYC and wrote the following letter:

Mr. James C. Nicola, Artistic Director
Mr. William Russo, Managing Director
New York Theatre Workshop
79 East Fourth Street
New York, NY 10003

Re Seven Jewish Children

Gentlemen:

I am writing to ask you to cancel the readings of Seven Jewish Children now scheduled for March 25 & 27, 2009. I write as the father of Alisa Flatow a 20-year old woman murdered in 1995 by Palestinian terrorists who were brought up on a never ending stream of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda to hate Israelis and Jews. Seven Jewish Children is just another piece of such propaganda, masked as a play, and will add another log to the bonfire of hatred that has been stoked by the Arab world since 1948.

Despite your stated goal to encourage "public discourse about the myriad of issues surrounding" a "deeply complicated conflict," the play does not address the very context in which this "conflict" takes place. While there is an indirect reference to the Holocaust, the clear implication of the play is that Israel is the new Goliath, that Israeli parents do not want their children playing with Palestinian children, and that all humanitarian issues are on the Palestinian side. Nothing is mentioned of suicide bombers sent to attack innocent civilians on public buses, in restaurants and coffee shops, that the Palestinians declined the offer of a state 8 years ago, that the Palestinians have elected a government with the sworn goal of destroying Israel, or that Israel has left Gaza.

Seven Jewish Children does nothing to advance understanding between peoples or the cause of peace in the Middle East and has no place on the New York Theatre Workshop stage. I urge you to halt the scheduled presentation.

I hope you will join in my protest to the New York Theatre Workshop. You can find their page on the play here.

United Nations Creates Refugees

The United Nations has announced that the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) "tasked with assisting Palestinian refugees will be able to improve living conditions for thousands living in Lebanese camps thanks to a new partnership with the United Arab Emirates."

The money, $6,000,000, is coming from the United Arab Emirates Red Crescent (UAERC) and will go to UNRWA in accordance with two agreements signed on March 16, 2009. According to the UN,

"$5 million will go to rehabilitating 343 of the most structurally unsound, hazardous and unhygienic shelters in Bourj El Shemali camp in South Lebanon.The project is part of the Camp Improvement Initiative launched by the Lebanese Government and UNRWA in 2006 to improve the living conditions of Palestine refugees in Lebanon’s 12 refugee camps. Another $1 million will enable UNRWA to construct 149 temporary housing units for Palestinian families who were displaced from the Nahr El Bared camp nearly two years ago."

For those who may have forgotten, the UN points out that "the camp was basically a complete town of over 30,000 inhabitants before it was destroyed by intense fighting between the Lebanese national army and Fatah el-Islam gunmen between May and September 2007."

UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen AbuZayd welcomed both agreements, noting that much of the world’s attention recently has been on the situation of Palestine refugees in Gaza. “However, we must not forget refugees elsewhere in the region who may be living in deplorable conditions,” she stated.

This is not the first venture for UAERC. It has previously "funded major construction projects including Khan Younis in Gaza, Jenin in the West Bank, and more recently Neirab in Aleppo, Syria."

UNRWA notes that there are 4.6 million Palestinian refugees in camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Long used as pawns by the Arab nations in the Mid East, this latest "humanitarian" gesture does nothing to bring peace to the region. In fact, it will stoke the fires of hatred now being bred in the refugee camps. What other people keep their brethren in conditions of squalor? None. What other people keep their brethren out of society, employment and citizenship rights? None.

Rather than investing $6 million dollars to rebuild camps destroyed in internecine fighting, would not the money be better spent integrating these so-called refugees into the society of their host country?

For the full story, go to UN News Centre

History's Oldest Hatred - anti-semitism

Writing in the Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby writes

ANTI-SEMITISM is an ancient derangement, the oldest of hatreds, so it is strange that it lacks a more meaningful name. The misnomer "anti-Semitism" - a term coined in 1879 by the German agitator Wilhelm Marr, who wanted a scientific-sounding euphemism for Judenhass, or Jew-hatred - is particularly inane, since hostility to Jews has never had anything to do with Semites or being Semitic.

This week Jews around the world celebrated the holiday of Purim. The story takes place in Persia. It recounts how Haman, an advisor to the king, feels insulted when a Jew, Mordechai, refuses to bow down to him. That act led Haman to appeal to the king for a decree to destroy the Jewish community of Persia and all its provinces.

Jacoby asks "what drives such bloodlust?" The Jewish community had done nothing to Haman, "just as Jews in later ages did nothing that justified their persecution under the Church or Islam, or their repression at the hands of Russian czars and Soviet commissars, or their slaughter by Nazi Germany."

Of course Haman had his ostensible reasons for targeting Jews. So did Hitler and Arafat; so does Ahmadinejad. Sometimes the anti-Semite focuses on the Jew's religion, sometimes on his laws and lifestyle, sometimes on his national identity or his professional achievements. Ultimately, however, it is the Jew's Jewishness, and the call to higher standards that it represents, that the anti-Semite cannot abide.

With all their flaws and failings, the Jewish people endure, their role in history not yet finished. So the world's oldest hatred endures too, as obsessive and indestructible -- and deadly -- as ever.

Read the full article.