And the last word on Habima goes to David Hirsh

David Hirsh from Engage has written a thoughtful (ok, ok, bloody brilliant) review of Israel's Habima Theater and the failed attempts to censor and disrupt the Israeli troops performance of "The Merchant of Venice"

"Portia, Shylock and the exclusion of Israeli actors from the global cultural community"

To David, the audience at the Globe "was there to face down those who said that Israeli actors should be excluded from the global community of culture, while actors from all the other states which had been invited to the Globe were celebrated in a festival of the Olympic city’s multiculturalism." After all, the Globe had hosted theater troops from all over the world from such bastions of human rights as South Africa, Georgia, Palestine, Turkey and China.

First, he provides context:

"Since some rather nasty medieval stuff, London and Jews have got on fairly well. London stood firm against Hitler, and the local Blackshirts too; it didn’t mind much whether Jews stayed separate or whether they immersed themselves in its vibrancy; it didn’t feel threatened, it didn’t worry, it just let Jews live engaged lives. But London’s very post-nationalism, and its post-colonialism, has functioned as the medium for a rather odd new kind of intolerance.

Sometimes, we define our own identities in relation to some ‘other’. Early Christianity defined itself in relation to the Jews who refused to accept its gospel, and it portrayed them as Christ-killers. If people wanted to embrace modernity, then they sometimes constructed themselves as being different from the traditional Jew with his beard and coat, standing against progress. Yet if they were afraid of the new then they could define themselves against the modernist Jew. Nineteenth Century nationalists often defined the Jew as the foreigner. Twentieth Century totalitarianisms, which had universal ambition, found their ‘other’ in the cosmopolitan Jew.

These processes created an invented image of ‘The Jew’ and the antisemites portrayed themselves as victims of ‘The Jew’. Antisemitism has only ever portrayed itself as defensive."

He continues:

"Some people who love London’s relaxed, diverse, antiracism look for an ‘other’ against which to define themselves. They find Israel. They make it symbolise everything against which they define themselves: ethnic nationalism, racism, apartheid, colonialism. London’s shameful past, not to mention in some ways its present, is cast out and thrust upon Israel. London was within a few thousand votes last month of re-electing a mayor, Ken Livingstone, who embraced this kind of scapegoating...'

We can tell that this hostility to Israel is as artificially constructed as any antisemitism by looking at the list of theatre groups against which the enlightened ones organized no boycott. Antizionists have created a whole new ‘-ism’, a worldview, around their campaign against Israel. Within it, a caricature of Israel is endowed with huge symbolic significance which relates only here and there to the actual state, to the complex conflict and to the diversity of existing Israelis. If the Palestinians stand, in the antizionist imagination, as symbolic of all the victims of ‘the west’ or ‘imperialism’ then Israel is thrust into the centre of the world as being symbolic of oppression everywhere. Like antisemitism, antizionism imagines Jews as being central to all that is bad in the world.

One of the sources of energy for this special focus on Israel comes from Jewish antizionists. For them, as for many other Jews, Israel is of special importance. For them, Israel’s human rights abuses, real, exaggerated or imagined, are sources of particular pain, sometimes even shame. Some of them take their private preoccupation with Israel and try to export it into the cultural and political sphere in general, and into non-Jewish civil society spaces where a special focus on the evils of Israel takes on a new symbolic power. But the ‘as a Jew’ antizionists are so centred on Israel that they often fail to understand the significance of the symbolism which they so confidently implant into the antiracist spaces of old London."

Regarding the protestors, he asks

"Do the protestors think that this is an antisemitic play? Perhaps they felt that this was the ‘Zionists’ rubbing the history of antisemitism in the faces of London and then by proxy, the Palestinians. Isn’t that the source of Zionist power today? Their ability to mobilize Jewish victimhood and their ownership of the Holocaust. This, again, is an old libel, that the Jews are so clever and so morally lacking, that they are able to benefit from their own persecution. When will the world forgive the Jews for antisemitism and the Holocaust?"

Read David Hirsh's complete essay here .

Habima at the Globe. Another BDS fail

The Habima Theater Company, with its team of Arab and Jewish actors is precisely the sort of institution we'd expect the progressive community to support. But, no, anything or anyone from Israel is treated as though its the harbinger of the Zombie Apocalypse or the equivalent of a modern day leper. Its "demonization" - part of the "3D's" of anti-semitism.

And they just hate it when the real progressives fight back- when those who value democracy, diversity and plurality take to the streets in support of the most progressive nation in the Middle east.

Here's some great photos from our friends in the UK, who gathered by the Globe Theatre in support of Habima






When the dust settled today at the Globe theater in London, we had 2 sold out shows. We had a brilliant, critically acclaimed performance of "The Merchant of Venice". We had an extended standing ovation, and an appreciative audience. We had a handful of haters, both inside and out who proved themselves irrelevant. We also had “I do not consider myself an anti-Semite, yet I can also understand why some are” Ben White tweeting as fast as his little fingers could manage in an effort to "win" the social media game.

Today at the Globe was an overwhelming victory for the forces of light- for those who feel that culture should provide a bridge between people, and was yet another "BDS fail" for those opposed to tolerance and co-existence

UPDATE

Ben White has descended even further into the sewer with his abhorrent Twitter comment regarding acclaimed author Howard Jacobson "If you need another reason to support a boycott of Habima I present a massive picture of Howard Jacobson's face"



Is Ben implying the distinguished visage of Man Booker Prize-winning author and journalist Howard Jacobson isn't , oh, Aryan enough for him?

Juvenile, Ben. And damned close to anti-Semitism

Make Art Not War: Haters threaten to disrupt Hebrew language "Merchant of Venice"

Next week the historic London Globe Theatre will feature Israel's Habima Theater Company in "The Merchant Of Venice". Habima will be performing as part of the 37-play Globe to Globe Shakespeare festival. Having failed in their attempt to censor the production, anti-Israel bullies have threatened to disrupt the sold-out Hebrew-language play .

In response, the Globe is increasing its security, reserving the right "to refuse admission to anyone we have reason to believe may cause a disruption" and that "any objects or material which could be used in disrupting the performance will be deemed prohibited items".

A Palestinian theater group from Ramallah, Ashtar was at the Globe theatre earlier this month, performing 'Richard II', without incident. Human rights activists apparently turned a blind eye to Palestinians arrests of journalists and bloggers and persecution of gays and minorities.

Increasingly, as the BDS movement falters and stalls, we are seeing more of these extremist and counter-productive bullying tactics from anti-Israel activists.

From Divest this!

"As with most BDS tactics, this type of bullying almost seems designed to turn off those whom the boycotters claim they are trying to convince, demonstrating the fanaticism and rudeness of those who adhering BDS principles. And when such behavior has been rightly wrapped around the neck of the BDS movement as a whole, it has helped continue the process of de-legitimizing the entire effort to de-legitimize the Jewish state."

From reknowned author Howard Jacobson:

“If there is one justification for art - for its creation and its performance - it is that art proceeds from and addresses our unaligned humanity.

“Whoever would go to art with a mind already made up, on any subject, misses what art is for. So to censor it in the name of a political or religious conviction, no matter how sincerely held, is to tear out its very heart.

“For artists themselves to do such a thing to art is not only treasonable; it is an act of self-harm.”