Anti-anti-semitism takes to the stage

Rehearsal photo: Manuel Harlan

Daniel Nelson

Jeremy Corbyn and the Royal Court Theatre are two of the targets in Jews. In Their Own Words.

There’s too much on the antisemitism controversy that took up so much Labour Party time under its previous leader and too little on the theatre that had to cancel a previous show because an avaricious character had been given a stereotypical Jewish name, Hershel Fink.

It’s unsurprising that writer Jonathan Freedland gives so much time to Corbyn-era prejudice because he is particularly intent on condemning  right-on, leftist anti-racists who have a blind spot when it comes to calling out anti-Jewish hate.

And it’s a pity the opening scene, that deals with the Fink row (at the time, the Royal Court was forced to consider how the name almost got through to opening night before it was outed), isn’t built on, because it’s the wittiest section of the script.

His 100-minute “theatrical inquiry”(a fair description since he’s a good journalist who doesn’t seem to have a theatrical bone in his body) takes the form of short extracts from 12 interviews he conducted with a variety of British Jews in a three-month period. They include MP Margaret Hodge, a decorator, a businessman originally from Iraq, a Black Jew (at double jeopardy of abuse), an actress, a socisl worker and a novelist.

”We wanted to listen not only to those who, admittedly, have a platform but only seldom get to talk fully and candidly about the experiences that shaped them – but also to those Jews who rarely get heard,” Freedland wrote in The Guardian, for which he is a columnist.

The evening covers a lot of ground, including name-calling at school; the Christian origins of antisemitism; the “blood libel”, miserliness and other myths; disturbing accounts of prejudice in political party meetings; the meaning (and defence) of Zionism; and the constant conflation of Israel and Jews in Britain (who number between 260,000 and 290,000).

He’s absolutely right to challenge antisemitism, to write about it and put it on stage, and particularly to pinpoint the blind double-think that leads to woke people treating it as separate from prejudice and hate speech.

The subject is worthy, in the best sense of the word, and an attempt has been made to jazz it up with props, and I definitely recommend that anyone unaware of their unconscious bias should be taken to see it. But it’s a little dull. 

+ 12 Oct, post-show talk

* Jews. In Their Own Words, #12-#49, is at the Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, SW1 until 22 October. Info: https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/jews-in-their-own-words 
+ https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/21/once-even-jews-would-utter-the-word-jew-in-a-whisper-now-it-is-up-in-lights?dm_i=1P0Z,81CAC,3P8YBT,WVSN3,1 Once even Jews would utter the word ‘Jew’ in a whisper. Now it is up in lights