Jonathan Freedland’s Jews: In Their Own Words
A Review
The most remarkable thing about the Royal Court’s production of Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland’s first play is its premise that its characters are talking about “an issue that is too often swept under the carpet”. The quote, from one reviewer, speaks for most of the others as well as for Freedland himself. The issue we have apparently not heard enough about recently is antisemitism.
Freedland is a successful, skilled writer. I’m in the process of reading his latest book, The Escape Artist, about a young man who lived through the terrors of Auschwitz. The story-telling is harrowing, to the extent that I found myself physically unable to persist with some episodes. Could he transfer his literary power to the stage to teach us something new about what is sometimes called “the oldest hatred”?
The dozen interviewees whose words form the basis for Freedland’s piece of verbatim theatre include Margaret Hodge MP, former Labour MP Luciana Berger, Booker prize-winning novelist Howard Jacobson, Union of Jewish Students former president Hannah Rose, Dave Rich, Policy Director at the Community Security Trust, Edwin Shuker, vice-president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, New Stateman editor Stephen Bush and zealously pro-Israel actor Tracy-Ann Oberman who is credited with dreaming up the idea that Freedland has brought to the stage.
What we have here – notwithstanding the four frankly more interesting testimonies from less high-profile individuals (a social worker, a paediatrician, a decorator and a Talmudist) – is essentially yet another a platform for famous Jews who have spent the past six years telling audiences for every broadcast, print and online medium available what may or may not be said about Israel, to reiterate their attacks on the pro-Palestinian left. The conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel, as a means of crushing solidarity with Palestine, reaches its peak on the Royal Court stage.
Why is this happening? Putting on Jews: In their own words – A theatrical inquiry is an act of contrition by the London theatre for a blundering error in November 2021 when an antisemitic stereotype – a money-grubbing billionaire called Hershel Fink – appeared in a production called Rare Earth Mettle. The character was renamed and mea culpas issued, but theatre director Victoria Featherstone has been persuaded to atone for her transgression with the current production.
Hershel Fink is the first character to appear in Jews: In Their Own Words, rolling onto the stage to an accompanying flash of lightning, wearing nothing but a small towel about his loins. He has a dialogue with his Creator, about the prevalence of antisemitism, how it’s acceptable in left-wing circles among people who call themselves anti-racists and how this production is meant to put the record straight by giving Jews a voice. The Fink character says (I paraphrase from memory) – “Oh so you’ve got a demographically balanced cross section representing the wide spectrum of views across the community?” To which the Creator replies bluntly, “No”. This little joke lets us know from the get-go that there will be none of the wrong sort of Jew in this production.
Seven actors giving voice to the 12 characters introduce themselves, their names projected onto the back wall. They take turns relating their personal stories and their experiences of antisemitism, using three large moveable screens for related visual displays.
Some of them dress as if in a medieval mystery play to enact explanations of antisemitic stereotypes which have served to demonise and persecute Jews over many centuries, each theme projected in large letters on the back wall – MONEY, BLOOD, POWER. There’s even a song and dance number. As an attempt to bring to life the real horror of historic antisemitism, I found this section, narrated by the Dave Rich character, quite effective, though it inexplicably omits some points JVL educators invariably refer to in our workshops. Why no mention of the extraordinary fact that Jews were expelled en masse from England in 1290 and not permitted to return until the 1650s; and why no mention of the traumatic experience – common among Jewish schoolchildren until quite recently – of being taunted with chants of “You killed our Christ”?
Some of the testimony is heartfelt and genuine, for example painter-decorator Phillip Abrahams’ account of a local Turkish shop keeper telling him that “the Jews” were responsible for Covid. He displays on one of the moveable screens the “proof” the man offered on his phone – a clear example of the persistence of ancient conspiracy theories about Jewish power and malign intent, amplified by 21st century tech and social media.
Many reviewers have noted the play’s didactic character, the absence of dramatic conflict, the lack of a narrative arc or any clear idea of who it was addressing. None however have dared point to the great flaw, which largely accounts for its inadequacies as a piece of theatre – it is essentially a 1hr 40 minute polemic (with no interval) in which familiar arguments are hammered home by one character after another, each attempting to drive a nail into the coffin of so-called “left-wing antisemitism”.
Most of the time is taken up with talk from and between the characters, sometimes addressing the audience directly, sometimes sitting in pairs, and for one extended sequence, gathered around a large table discussing the prevalence of anti-Israel ideas suffused with antisemitism. The overarching narrative is that Jews are routinely held responsible for Israel’s treatment of Palestine, opposition to Zionism is nothing but thinly veiled hatred of Jews, life in the UK has become insufferable, Jews are always in danger from a unique, eternal hatred quite different to other forms of racism, and therefore we need to keep our bags packed “just in case”. Jeremy Corbyn is mentioned, in highly uncomplimentary terms, more than once, with no hint of the controversy surrounding many of the allegations heaped upon him.
Playwright Caryl Churchill is berated for an alleged “blood libel” in her play Seven Jewish Children, performed at the Royal Court 14 years ago. This has prompted a letter to the Guardian from Churchill and director Dominic Cooke rejecting “the absurd idea” that their play “echoes the medieval blood libel in which Jews are said to have killed Christian children and consumed their blood.” Linking this profoundly antisemitic myth to references to the actual deaths of Palestinian children (200 were killed by Israel’s bombing of Gaza in 2008/9) is “outrageous”, Churchill and Cooke wrote. Their work was praised as well as pilloried when it was first staged.
This altercation is pivotal to understanding Freedland’s play. If challenges to Israel and/or Zionism are indistinguishable from the expressions of hatred of Jews we see in classical antisemitism, there is no place for the views of Jews who dissent, and certainly no platform for Palestinians who cannot express who they are without reference to what they have suffered since the establishment of the state of Israel. Jews: In their own words perfectly reflects the dissonance (brilliantly explained by Antony Lerman in his book Whatever Happened to Antisemitism?) between the eternal victimhood claimed by Freedland and his chosen mouthpieces, and their concept of Israel (despite a few minor peccadilloes) as the apogee of Jewish achievement and the core of their identity. This is why the play compounds, rather than dispels, confusion about what antisemitism is. No wonder the non-Jewish friend who came with me to the show emerged baffled about what the blood libel is really about.
In one important sense, there is truth in the proposition noted with incredulity in my opening paragraph – that antisemitism is an issue “too often swept under the carpet.” Freedland’s play epitomises the hot mess we have been living through since the end of 2015 – a period when the word “antisemitism” has been bandied about almost endlessly without the reality it represents being honestly elucidated. Those who tried to examine contending definitions of antisemitism – such as ourselves and academic experts in the field like Antony Lerman, Brian Klug and David Feldman – were almost entirely blanked by mainstream media, or drowned out by Freedland and friends. How about a play giving voice to those who have genuinely been silenced? That could make for interesting theatre!
What an excellent and balanced appreciation of this show Naomi. Others have already noted the depths plumbed by this dire piece of non-theatre, notwithstanding anything it has to say about antisemitism.
I write as a theatre practitioner, director, composer and musician, latterly a university teacher specialising in 20th century political music theatre, in particular the works of Bertold Brecht. Brecht is often described as didactic but I can think of no example where he descended to this level of non-dialectical infantilism.
I believe Freedland is a senior leader writer for the Guardian, a paper that dare not speak the name of Julian Assange, that employs the apologist for the IDF, Hadley Freeman, and played a major role, more so even than the Daily Mail, in the undermining and destruction of the Corbyn project.
It is only in 2022 Britain, a failed state guided by morons such as Truss, Starmer and Charles the Turd, that once could expect to see staged such a pathetic pageant of self-pitying drivel pretending to the title “theatre.”
Royal Court out perhaps?
There appears to be powerful people protecting the ‘myth’ about Jeremy Corbyn’s involvement in anti-Semitism, however even stating that is anti-Semitic according to IHRA definition.
The constant reference to Antisemitism is becoming overworked, overworked that is unless you have an axe to grind.
I admire the poise with which you have addressed this play, since you have been a target of the reactionaries behind it.
“How about a play giving voice to those who have genuinely been silenced? That could make for interesting theatre!”
It could indeed.
Excellent review of an attempt to smear critics of Israel with the risible charge of anti Semitism. The British Empire and Zionists colluded to rob the Palestinian people of their birthright , now they seek to make a virtue out of it.
Excellent review. Incisive, eloquent & very to the point. I don’t understand how seemingly intelligent & certainly educated people can continue to fail to see the illogicality & obvious flaws in their arguments. The reluctance to criticise the government of Israel, & indeed loud support of the regime, baffles me. Apartheid, wherever it is used, is so obviously abhorrent.
An excellent analysis. And if opposing oppression of ordinary men, women and children by organised state power is antisemitic where the state is semitic, what does this say about semites? Israel and supporters shld stop and think about the consequences on all Jews of their racist brutality; that it might create antisemitism where none existed in the first place!
Thanks for the review, Naomi. I’m only surprised that you could bear to go, sitting through that would be a penance too far for many of us.
No doubt the other contributors felt the pressure of silence, imposed from goodness knows not where, before they put pen to paper, I certainly did when confronted with this topic, how bad is that?
The title of the play should be “Some Jews in their own words”. Antisemitism has become a weasel word, it can mean whatever the user wants it to mean a bit like patriotism. It should be replaced by “Jewdophobia”.
How sad that the Royal Court, once a champion of radical dissent, has sunk so low. What exactly is brave about providing a mouthpiece for someone who already has the leading columns of a national newspaper at his disposal? Clearly ‘an act of contrition’ for the shameful Hershel Fink episode, it appears to compound the obfuscation. If drama is supposed to be a means of exploring contradiction, then why no Jewish voices of opposition, from the Jewish left, Black Jewish voices? ‘Jews: In Their Own Words’ is one heck of a presumption. A run of Wesker, Pinter, Kushner, Mamet or Wasserstein would have been better contrition, even more entertaining.
You are too generous, Naomi. Personally, I can no longer bring myself to read anything by Freedland. His high-handed myopic victimism is more than I can bear.
The same goes for The Guardian in general, which I used to read avidly.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
If Israel is allowed to dispossess Palestinians of their land then why can’t Russia occupy Ukrainian land. The Serbians had their land taken from them by force and given to the Kosovans. Why is that deemed acceptable? One law for some and another law for others. Depends on who your friends are.
And now another contributor, Tariq Rafique above, has hopped onto the spurious dissection of the word “antisemitism” to spout “semite” nonsense. JVL should either call out such comments or just not print them because it emboldens others to jump on the same bandwagon.
Thank you, Naomi. Solidarity to you and your own issues with those hammering home the antisemite message. Time for balance maybe? A show entitled: Palestinians in their own words?
I haven’t read anything which will encourage me to see the play. I do though think that a lot of the charges of anti Semitism laid at the door of Labour have been entirely politically motivated. Israel, for example is a state, not a religion, and not beyond criticism. If anyone disagrees, let’s here their reasoning please.
Thank you for your dispassionate, dignified review of a production that you would certainly be in your rights to loathe. You’ve done a good job.
Even the few favourable reviews of Freedland’s play criticise its curious deadness as a piece of theatre. They approve the message, but fail to find it entirely convincing. The reason for this is not difficult to find. The following quotation from Freedland’s self-penned puff piece is long but every word is illuminating.
“Some will expect a stage show to operate like a survey, representative of every corner of British Jewish opinion. But no play could do that. Besides, as Bush points out, there was much less disagreement among British Jews during those bruising years of 2015 to 2019 than you might have guesed, at least if TV discussion programmes were your guide. Again and again, two opposing Jews would be brought on to debate antisemitism on the left, as if Jews were split down the middle on the matter. In fact, polling evidence suggests a striking degree of unanimity: 86% of British Jews regarded Jeremy Corbyn as antisemitic, according to a Survation study in September 2018, with just 8% disagreeing. Purely as a matter of numbers, explains Bush, “the positions of pro-Corbyn Jews were overcovered” in that period. There was no need to repeat that mistake.”
No need indeed, since the object of the play – its message – was determined from the start. No need to interrogate characters like ‘Margaret Hodge’ or ‘Luciana Berger’ about their one-sided version of events. No need to allow even a whisper of dissent from those like Naomi and other Jewish members of JVL. They don’t merit representation; they have been given too much airtime already. They are ‘the wrong kind of Jew.’
Freedland justifies his decision to exclude the wrong kind of Jew by stating, absurdly, that a play is too limited a vehicle to express more than the consensus point of view. What he means, I suspect, is that dissenting voices might well torpedo the all-important message, namely that the left is integrally and unavoidably antisemitic. Is this something he genuinely believes? It is difficult to tell. Certainly the picture he gives, via ‘Bush’, of the debate over antisemitism in Labour is not one that anyone who has witnessed these events from the other side of the argument would recognize. But Freedland is not really interested in truth – truth does not serve his purpose.
Falsehood, said George Eliot, is easy; truth is difficult. Art of the highest order thrives on complexity, on giving voice to the full spectrum of experience. Belonging to a minority should not debar someone from contributing something of vital significance. As Naomi generously acknowledges, Freedland is a novelist of some ability; he understands the need for balance as well as anyone. He must also know that by ignoring a view he disagrees with he is consigning his play to the dubious status of propaganda.
But Freedland shrugs it off – lets his play be propaganda, since that serves his larger purpose. His deliberate, even boastful, refusal to allow even a hint of dissent through the smothering curtain of propaganda renders his project dead on arrival.
Freedland was at the forefront of attacks on Corbyn and is now prominent in persisting with views through anti-semitic engineered glasses, countered rather tamely by Forde and now demolished by Al Jazeera’s “The Labour Files”. He is apparently ‘not for turning’, as set in stone by his self-satisfied photo accompanying his columns in the G/Obs. I wonder how he and his fellow columnists now feel having watched “The Labour Files” or do they profess not to have seen them as have several LP MPs when questioned?
That no one has even challenged let alone threatened court action re. the AL Jazeera docs speaks volumes.
Incisive and courageous as always Naomi. Their can be no hierarchy of racism in a just world. Solidarity.
My thoughts, firstly the word antisemitism has lost legitimacy, its overuse and its political use principally against Corbyn has nullified it. Linking it to Corbyn was a political mistake and one with larger ramifications, a man who is arguably the least racist person in public life, who has demonstrated time and time again his support for the Jewish community, that is an injustice that needs righting, then we have the identity of Jewish people the close relationship with a country and a religion is problematic, as has been demonstrated many times you can’t criticise one without offending the other, so a government can’t be held to account internationally, I will say I don’t believe this to be purely a Jewish problem, there are other countries who’s religious beliefs rule their politics, such a situation is bound to create issue.
Responding to Tariq Rafique and Jaye above. Many sincere supporters of Palestine pick up on the use of the term “antisemitism”, assuming that it refers to prejudice against people speaking Semitic languages and that it therefore does not apply solely to Jews. This is a misunderstanding. Around 1880 a German agitator, Wilhelm Marr, coined the term “antisemitism” based on pseudo-scientific ideas about Jews as a race rather than as a religious group. His organisation, the League of Antisemites, was a political movement based entirely on hatred of Jewish people, regardless of whether they were secular or religious. Marr proudly defined himself an antisemite who hated Jews for being Jews, and that is how the term has been understand for well over a century.
I went to see the play to top up my experience of the sectarian conflict between Jews. Interestingly that does not figure in the play. There is no recognition of the particular bile spewed over left wing Jews, the license given to right wing and establishment Jews and anyone else to do what I call “whackaJew” without being accused of antisemitism. The interview of Jenny Manson by Kirsty Wark with Louise Ellman cheering in the wings, was a perfect example. There was an interesting symmetry in the play – the first half documenting the experience of antisemitism of these characters and the history of the demonising of Jews and the second half attacking the left – picking on examples of abuse – and using them to create a view of widespread left antisemitism orchestrated by the devil himself: Jeremy Corbyn. The Margaret Hodge character led the charge, repeating the claim – which I thought was originally Ruth Smeeth’s – that she had had 90,000 abusive messages in two months. Luciana Berger managed to avoid saying that the worst of the abuse she had received, leading to criminal conviction came from the far right. Near the end of the play Hodge says that she had failed to become a good Jew despite the efforts of her parents, a rabbi, her Jewish friends at LSE, until Jeremy Corbyn stepped up and put the finishing touches to her Jewish identity. As I sat in the theatre I felt under abusive exaggerated attack as a socialist and as a Jew. The process of demonisation had simply been transferred from the Jews of the first half to the left of the second half. Jeremy simply mirrored the archetypal hate figure. By the end I was ready to share my mild trauma and noticed that the person next to me had not clapped. So I assumed she might share some of my criticisms. She agreed that Jeremy had become a hate figure – but this was totally justified: “He was like Hitler, orchestrating hatred against Jews…he lifted up the stone and the antisemites crawled out … if he has become prime minister 50% of UK Jews would have left the country…that’s all that can be said.” I suggested that there might be other opinions, but she and her friend did not wish to explore them. All in all, a good night out.
I went to see this yesterday evening. What a depressing hour and a half. Naomi’s review and analysis is absolutely brilliant.
As Jeremy said, the anti-semitism claims and allegations were dramatically over-stated, so why not theatrically overstate them too, so as to keep the Big Lie going and make some dosh out of people who were conned and duped and deceived on a scale unparalleled in British political history. And I expect there are more than a few who go to see it so as to be amused!
Yes, it makes perfect sense that those who aspire to and campaign for a better world and human rights and peace and against injustice etc, would harbour bad feelings and hatred towards Jewish people. Hmm…..
Just like Freedland’s play, it’s PURE fiction! And HE knows it!!
PS In a nutshell, the play is, in effect, a celebration of the biggest smear campaign ever contrived and orchestrated in this country AND the exorcism of the left from main-stream politics AND the subversion of democracy. In a word, Victory (or should that be spelt Vic-tory!).
Thankyou Naomi for this & all the comments. Personally I have never liked Freedland or his comments which seem to persist in calling out people who critisise Israel & Zionism!
When I was young I lived in London & would visit my grandmother in Aldgate East I loved it there it consisted of people who came from much of Europe post war they were poor & worked hard as did my family. I loved Sundays as people of all races & religions stood talking, waving their hands about putting the world to rights. This was whilst the odd chicken escaped the Jewish abattoir & the smell of the bakery with cheesecakes & bagels escaped! It was a place where everyone struggled to earn a living.
I loved watching the old Jewish men in their fine black hats stand & argue about goodness knows what but it seemed important. Saturday was dull as most stayed home.
My grandmother was Polish & a Catholic as all Europeans then in the 50s & 60s escaped the war either German annihilation or Russian annihilation. Each prayed to their own Gods.
Freedland feeds on a hatred & even promotes it by keeping company that has stirred up antisemitism themselves. Hodges hatred of Mr.Corbyn maybe started when the Jewish fight to develop flats on a Jewish graveyard didnt interest her as she had financial interest so they went to Jeremy Corbyn & the fight to save that graveyard was a success!
Any form of hatred is an abomination but sometimes some people use hatred to further their own ambitions.
For some Jews to be ignored not listened to & expelled from a political party is in itself an apartheid a segregation of individuals whose views are individual. It was the working classes who created the Labour Party & Jews were part of that.
Now as an old person it makes me sad. Jews who survived the Holocaust, they saw the worst & the best in people but they never forgot how easy it was to whip up hatred for the smallest , stupidest things. Freedland , his associates are on the brink of doing that again with misinformation, arrogance & ignorance.
Long live JVL…..a thinking, compassionate organisation with intelligence & empathy.
Naomi’s post is interesting in that she argues for the continued usage of the term ‘anti-Semitism’, based upon its origin in a specific long dead racist cult which had…
“pseudo-scientific ideas about Jews as a race rather than as a religious group”.
However, modern sociological reality would suggest that maybe some extensive rethinking is required?
Currently, in public/media-discourse, if a member of the Israel-lobby is involved in any form of public dispute with a Muslim, who is most often a person-of-colour, then the term, anti-Semitism will be invoked.
This means that against all logic behind the invention of the term ‘racism’ which is to do with a historic and social structural subordinate experience, the white participant will automatically be deemed the victim. Moreover the Muslim will even be denied his/her status as a Semite person.
And we have seen this in recent media coverage!
The historic exclusive usage of the term anti-Semitism, in all white, pre-multicultural societies, is perhaps understandable. But our era is more complex.
Sadly hierarchies of racism are not just about weaponised fake claims of anti-Semitism about Corbyn et al, it is about who is allowed to qualify as a victim, or in this example who is even allowed to cite their historic cultural identity.
A typically thoughtful comment from Gavin. I’d just like to clarify – the purpose of my comment was not to advocate for continued use of the term antisemitism, just to explain the background to how it IS used. Given the obfuscation that now surrounds it, there is certainly a discussion to be had about other terms that might better be used to designate behaviour motivated by hatred of or hostility towards Jews because they are Jews.
Tony Booth notes that in Freedland’s play the demonization of Jews dramatized in the first half is transferred in the second onto the hate figure of Jeremy Corbyn. This is a trick as old as Stalinism, where the archetypal hate figure was Trotsky, the advocate of international socialism. In his two political novels George Orwell created a Trotsky-like figure on whom all the bungling & corruption of the state could be blamed. In Animal Farm he is the pig Snowball, in 1984 the ‘traitor’ Emmanuel Goldstein, the object of the Party’s daily Two Minutes Hate. In 2016 – 2022 that character is Jeremy Corbyn.