Last year, London's Court Theatre was embroiled in an anti-Semitism storm. Their latest show, Al Smith's Rare Earth Spirit, depicts a billionaire CEO of an electric car company who specializes in manipulating puppets in the shadows, and named the character Hershel Fink. The play does not explore Fink's background, it has nothing to do with Jews or Jewish sexuality, Smith simply decides to give the chaebol evil forces in the play a name that clearly sounds like Jewish.
London Court Theatre
After a public outcry, the name was hastily changed to Henry Finn – but the damage was irreparable. The theater issued a statement acknowledging "unconscious bias" and two businesses that supported them withdrew their sponsorship. After internal investigation, the theater found that "concerns about the name were raised with the director [Hamish Piri] twice in the relatively late stages of the production process" and that such concerns "were not properly addressed". It seems that Piri either does not understand the meaning of the name, or it does not matter. He has since "sincerely apologized."
The royal court theater has a long history of harassment of members of the Jewish community. In 1987, Jim Allen's play Destruction, directed by Ken Roach, had to cancel its premiere after harsh criticism, accusing Zionists of collusion with the Nazis. (It's also a favorite routine of former Labour MP Ken Livingstone; Both he and Allen were heavily influenced by the fabricated Trotskyist historian Lenny Brenner). The theater staged Carlisle Churchill's skit "Seven Jewish Children" in 2009, in which the entire Jewish community appears to be implicated in the recent Israeli military operation in Gaza. Several critics called it "bloody slander."
However, "Finkgate" is somewhat different. Part of it stems from gratuitous malice. This has nothing to do with complex Middle Eastern politics and contemporary Zionism, but rather with the ancient slander that equates Jews with the forces of evil. The whole affair also coincided at a good time: after five years of anti-Semitism-based turmoil in the Labour Party and elsewhere, with the rise and fall of Jeremy Corbyn, British Jewish patience had reached its limit.
The royal court theater heard these sounds. Artistic director Vicky Featherstone had a lengthy discussion with Jewish actor Tracy-Ann Oberman, which resulted in Featherstone's decision to commission a non-fiction play on antisemitism. Featherstone approached journalist Jonathan Friedland and asked him if he would be willing to conduct an interview and compile it into a play. Hence The Jews. in their own language" – a masterpiece of political response, social exploration and stage play.
The show starts by going straight to the center. The opening scene is in heaven, where a person stumbles towards the light. His name is Hershel Fink. A voice sounded: "I am the Creator." "Did you create me?" Hershel asked. "No," the voice replied, "it's someone else." Subsequent in several passages on different themes ("money", "blood", "Israel"), the play explores the historical and cultural context of the "unconscious bias" of the royal court theater. But its content is not preachy, nor is it self-pitying. Seven actors serve as microphones for twelve voices, each of which moves between Judaism and anti-Semitism, while Friedland clings to the characters' personal experiences.
Philip is a painter and interior designer from the Stoke Newington area. His Eastern European colleagues thought he must be rich and didn't understand why he was still doing the job. They also "don't understand why I'm not a lawyer." (Actually, my mother didn't understand either)." Victoria is a social worker. She remembers a colleague ranting at a Jewish client ("They all have money"). Stephen Bush (at the Financial Times) is a mixed African-Jewish man. He didn't know what white people would say about black people when he wasn't there, but he knew what non-Jews would say about Jews because they thought he wasn't Jewish. This is not always a good thing. When he first started working, he was encouraged by a mentor. "We need more blacks for journalism — but good luck to the Jews, because they take all those best jobs."
Joshua was a Haredi Jew. His decisive experience of antisemitism is even closer. One minute he was still crossing the street, and the next minute several garbage cans were smashing at him, forcing him to take a detour. He was punched in the head. He still feels dizzy today. He had been plagued by chronic pain before, and he felt that God deliberately chose him as a victim rather than someone else because God knew he could "handle it." Philip has also rubbed shoulders with violence. He grew up in Camden in the seventies, at the height of the UK's far-right National Front. He wore the uniform of the Jewish Free School, making him vulnerable to targeting, and one of his classmates had his face shattered. Edwin Shook saw the situation worse than that, he grew up in Baghdad in the fifties. In his teenage years, the few Jews who remained in Iraq were almost all under house arrest. Nine Jewish "spies" were publicly hanged in January 1969. The family fled to England, where he attended university in Leeds. It was a sanctuary, but people still called him "Jewish Boy."
Two politicians also joined the chorus. "I used to be a congressman," Luciana Berger said, looking dejectedly at Margaret Hodge, who is still a congressman. Both found themselves drawn to the heart of the British Labour Party's debate over anti-Semitism during the Corbyn era. Their story runs through the play, holding a flexible narrative for this intricate and polarizing event.
Despite doubts about Corbyn's record of dealings with anti-Semites, including Hamas members, Berger joined the shadow cabinet headed by him in 2015. Corbyn's subsequent support for a painter who publicly displayed antisemitic paintings was publicly revealed, with murals depicting Fink-like figures conspiring to achieve global domination. Berger asked Corbyn to respond. After a period of silence, she waited for the response to admit the mistake, but obfuscated in the name of free speech. She then publicly denounced the Labour leader, often accusing him of his procrastination in dealing with anti-Semitism within the party and among the wider supporter. Some of his supporters also opened fire on Berger, and insults and death threats poured in.
Hodge had a similar experience. A large mobile screen on stage was shown in a vicious tweet directed at her, denouncing those on the left who seemed "more interested in anti-capitalism than anti-racism," when the left should value both equally. (This point seems to be underscored by the now-suspended Labour MP Rupa Hooke, who recently commented on plans for tax cuts, former Conservative chancellor Kwasi Kwarten, who is only "ostensibly" black.) Hodge was born in Cairo to refugee parents from Germany and Austria; With the rise of antisemitism, the family left Egypt for England in 1948; Her father kept a packed suitcase in the living room. Ken Livingstone once greeted her at a Labour meeting by saying "Oh, Oppenheimer is coming". Oppenheimer is the surname of Hodge's maiden family, the same surname as a wealthy diamond merchant family. This would have made Hodge uncomfortable in the past, but she would say to herself, "You're just overly sensitive." The Corbyn era cured her of this problem. It was Corbyn who "turned me into a Jew."
The play "The Jew" is well-paced, tightly structured and full of fun. The history of antisemitism in Britain – from Thomas in Monmouth to the coronavirus conspiracy theory – unfolds in the form of a brisk foxtrot, joined by masquerade and vaudeville slapstick. (There is a cheerful episode in the play that repeats the phrase "The Jews did it.") It makes us think about the trauma inherited by Jews and why Jews are often asked Palestinian-Israeli questions. (Britain's United Synagogue may also want to consider this, as one of their core values is "Israel's centrality in Jewish life.") Other characters in the play include Tracyan Oberman, novelist Howard Jacobson, and a pediatrician named Tammy, whose family's history of persecution has led her to pursue a "take-and-go" profession. Under the direction of Featherstone and Audrey Sheffield, the actors brilliantly recreate these real, and often recent, experiences. Notable performances include Debbie Chason's offensive yet fleshed out for the character of Hodge (she also played Tammy), and Steve Fast, who seamlessly transitions between the taunting Manchester Jacobson and the thoughtful East End resident Philip.
The reviews the show received when it first went on were ambiguous. Nick Curtis's main complaint about it in The Evening Banner is that "Jews and their supporters already know the substance" and that "anti-Semites or those with unconscious prejudices ... [It's] unlikely to come." Knowing its "substance" in advance did not diminish my enjoyment of watching the show. I find this chorus of first-hand experience really engaging. As for anti-Semites, the idea that the play can't change people's minds is a bit uncomfortable. It's primarily aimed at the liberal left, like David Badir's Jews Don't Count (published in 2021 by The Times Literary Supplement), and if its influence can be as large as a fraction of that book, then Friedland (and Featherstone) can be satisfied. Alifa Akbar, who was relatively satisfied with the play, argued in a commentary in The Guardian that the impact of the Holocaust was underestimated ("too brief") and that the question of Israel ("shunned"). Okay, these two points do exist and are important, but what strikes me what's fresh is that the play called The Jews isn't dominated by either of these two topics.
I have one or two problems myself. Given that the play focuses on Corbyn's time in the Labour Party, it may endorse the exploitation of Labour's antisemitic struggle by right-wing (and centrist) politicians whose "anger" does not seem to focus on the harm suffered by Jews, but rather to score points in the political sphere. Sometimes this just fanned the flames and increased the discomfort of the Jews. In addition, Friedland should probably try to show a more representative profile of the Jewish community. Six of the play's twelve voices are already more or less public figures. In this case, one might mistakenly think that other British Jews work in the media or in politics. Just as The Jews did not intend a thorough historical or political investigation of an extremely complex subject, it did not pretend to represent the experience of all British Jews; That instinct to integrate everything is the underpinning of countless prejudices. Creators understand this quite well.