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In Article

Gene Simmons and other Entertainment Industry Heavyweights blast anti-Israel boycott of Sydney Festival

An anti-­Israeli protest boycotting the Sydney Festival has been slammed as censorship for political purposes by celebrities around the world, including KISS frontman Gene Simmons.

By: Christopher Harris

Hollywood heavyweights have clapped back at anti-­Israeli protesters boycotting the Sydney Festival after the Israeli embassy handed over $20,000 to help the arts ­festival put on a series of ­contemporary dance performances by a world-renowned choreographer.

So far 11 events have been cancelled from the festival’s line-up of plays, concerts and other performances due to ­artists pulling out.

A Jewish leader on Thursday said nobody batted an eyelid when the Chinese Communist Party-controlled China Southern Airlines sponsored the festival for seven years but the latest partnership triggered outrage, including from comedian Tom Ballard who said the money should be handed back.

“I respectfully ask that (the Sydney Festival) review its ­decision and return the funding in question, and I call on other artists to consider joining this boycott, too,” Ballard said.

The cast and crew of the play Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner also pulled out, saying that remaining involved would mean being complicit with “the art-washing of their star sponsor’s apartheid state”.

But Hollywood heavyweights, including Nancy Spielberg, as well as KISS frontman Gene Simmons signed an open letter yesterday urging Australians to resist ­attempts at censorship for political purposes.

“While art can reflect politics and artists can choose to reflect their politics in their own art, art should never ­become subservient to politics, and artists and cultural events should never be forced to be politicised,” the letter said.

Warner Records chief executive Aaron Bay-Schuck and Australian ­musician Nick Cave were also among the 120 signatories to the letter, co-­ordinated by the Creative Community for Peace — a non-profit group promoting the arts as a means to counter anti-Semitism and oppose the cultural boycott of Israel.

The $20,000 reportedly paid by the Israeli embassy went to supporting the presentation of Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin’s Decadance at the Sydney Opera House from Thursday.

A festival spokesman said the performance was close to selling out, and of the 133 events originally scheduled, 11 were not proceeding.

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Darren Bark said China had indirectly backed the event for years.

“Despite the accusations against China’s government regarding the genocide against the Uyghurs and the Tibetans, there were no similar boycott campaigns like we are seeing this year,” he said.

Cover photo: By gdcgraphics, <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0″ title=”Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0″>CC BY-SA 2.0</a>, <a href=”https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5218425″>Link</a>

For additional coverage visit:

Sky News

The Sydney Morning Herald 

NME Music

The Jerusalem Post 

CCFPeace
In Press Release

Entertainment Industry Leaders Stand United Against Cultural Boycott of Israel and In Support of Sydney Festival

120+ celebrities and entertainment industry professionals to sign open letter in support of artistic freedom and against boycott of Sydney Festival.

 

More than 120 leaders from the entertainment industry have signed an open letter released by the non-profit entertainment industry organisation Creative Community For Peace in support of the Sydney Festival and participating artists.

After suffering through two years of border closures, extended COVID lockdowns, the most catastrophic bushfires on record and devastating floods, this iconic Festival, celebrating its 45th year, is supposed to celebrate Sydney’s diverse history and rich culture, reuniting Sydney as a community.

The open letter comes in response to attempts by anti-Israel activists to boycott the Sydney Festival because the Israeli Embassy in Australia is sponsoring the performance of a world-renowned Israeli dance ensemble.

The entertainment leaders stand united in rejecting the cultural boycott of Israel as yet another roadblock to peace and its subversion of art for nefarious political purposes.

“While art can reflect politics, and artists can choose to reflect their politics in their own art, art should never become subservient to politics and artists and cultural events should never be forced to be politicised,” the letter reads.

Signatories to the open letter include: Gene Simmons: Artist, KISS; Aaron Bay-Schuck: CEO/Co-Chairman Warner Record;  Diane Warren: Songwriter/Producer; Craig Emanuel: Partner, Paul Hastings LLC; Emile Sherman: Co-Founder, See-Saw Films; Rick Rosen: Co-Founder, Endeavor; Ben Silverman: Chairman & Co-CEO, Propagate Content; Orly Marley: President, Tuff Gong Worldwide; Jacqueline Saturn: President, Virgin Music; Stephan Elliot: Director; Emmanuelle Chriqui: Actress; Dan Rosen: Music Executive; Michael Rotenberg: Partner, 3 Arts Entertainment; David Zedeck: Global Head of Music at UTA; Gary Gersh: President, Global Touring, A.E.G.; David Draiman: Artist, Frontman of Disturbed; Haim Saban: Chairman & CEO, Saban Capital Group; and Sherry Lansing: Former CEO of Paramount Pictures. A full list of all the signatories can be seen below.

The letter’s signatories believe strongly in the power of art to bring people together, transcend boundaries, broaden awareness, and affect positive societal change. They also call on their friends and colleagues to join in expressing support for the artists of the Sydney Festival and against this counterproductive boycott call.

“We, the undersigned, believe the cultural boycott movement of the Sydney Festival is an affront to both Palestinians and Israelis who are working to advance peace through compromise, exchange, and mutual recognition. While we all may have differing opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the best path to peace, we all agree that a cultural boycott is not the answer.” the letter continues.

“The organisers of the Sydney Festival boycott intentionally misrepresent the truth about Israel and make provocative statements, to try and bully artists into backing out of the festival. Their messages deceptively involve an element of dishonesty and deny the truth of Jewish indigeneity to the land of Israel. Their actions only further hostility and dampen hope for peace, which all of us so urgently desire,” stated Ari Ingel, Director of Creative Community for Peace.

Mr. Ingel added that “the Sydney Festival is a beautiful event celebrating Sydney’s diverse and rich culture – bringing the entire community together. Unfortunately, it’s now being used for political purposes to divide, rather than unite. The boycott movement is also counterproductive and instead of amplifying the voices of coexistence trying to effect real change on the ground, those who support the calls for a boycott are only creating more hostility, division, and mistrust.”

Creative Community for Peace aims to promote the arts and culture as a means to peace and to counter and educate the entertainment industry about rising antisemitism. To learn more about their work, visit www.creativecommunityforpeace.com.

 

OPEN LETTER

We, the undersigned, believe that cultural events are vitally important vehicles to bring people together of different backgrounds under a shared love of the arts.

The annual Sydney Festival embodies this unifying power. Every year, thousands of Australians make common cause in a massive display of cultural exchange and celebration of our diverse cultures and histories.

Unfortunately, this year, the spirit of the Festival is under attack by those calling for a boycott because the Israeli Embassy is sponsoring a world renowned Israeli dance ensemble. This call for a boycott turns the festival from an opportunity for unity into a weapon of division.

We also reject the boycott activist claims that Jews are not indigenous to the land of Israel. The Jewish people have over a 3,000 year connection to the land of Israel, and many Jewish families have lived in the land for hundreds of generations. This fact does not deny any other groups claims of indigeneity.

While art can reflect politics, and artists can choose to reflect their politics in their own art, art should never become subservient to politics and artists and cultural events should never be forced to be politicized.

We believe the cultural boycott movement is an affront to both Palestinians and Israelis who are working to advance peace through compromise, exchange, and mutual recognition.

While we all may have differing opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the best path to peace, we all agree that a cultural boycott is not the answer.

As Nick Cave stated: “The cultural boycott of Israel is cowardly and shameful. Israel is a real, vibrant, functioning democracy – yes, with Arab members of parliament – and so engaging with Israelis, who vote, may be more helpful than scaring off artists or shutting down means of engagement.”

We call on all our friends and colleagues in the entertainment community to express their support for an exciting and successful Sydney Festival 2022 and to purchase a ticket and attend the festival itself to understand the power of arts to bring people together first hand.

 

SIGNATORIES

Gene Simmons: Artist/ co-lead singer KISS

Aaron Bay-Schuck: CEO/Co-Chairman Warner Records

Jason Adelman: Vice President, Brand Innovators

Orly Adelson: Producer, Orly Adelson Productions

Marty Adelstein: CEO, Tomorrow Studios

Benjamin Adler: Violinist (CHUTNEY)

Michael Adler: Partner of Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Adler, Feldman & Clark Inc.

Nate Auerbach: Partner, Versus Creative

Eric Balfour: Actor

Eve Barlow: Music/Culture Journalist

Richard Baskind: Partner & Head of Music, Simons Muirhead & Burton

Miles Beard: Senior Vice President, A&R at Artist Partner Group, Inc.

Aton Ben-Horin: Global Vice President of A&R for Warner Music Group

Pablo Bendersky: Producer/Artist

Steven Bensusan: President, Blue Note Entertainment Group

Adam Berkowitz: Founder and President, Lenore Entertainment Group

Luc Bernard: Director, Voices of the Forgotten

Josh Binder: Partner, Rotherberg, Mohr, and Binder LLP

Neil Blair: Partner, The Blair Partnership

Evan Bogart: Songwriter & Co-Founder of Boardwalk Entertainment Group

Josh Brill: Writer, Producer

David Byrnes: Partner, Ziffren, Brittenham, LLP

Markell Casey: Music Executive

Brian Celler: Bravo Charlie Management

Pamela Charbit: A&R Manager, Atlantic Records

Garry Charny: CEO/Producer, Spotted Turquoise

Deborah Conway: Artist

Leanne Coronel: President, The Coronel Group

Emmanuelle Chriqui: Actress

Raye Cosbert: Managing Director, Metropolis Music

Ian Daly: Head of Brand Strategy, Live Nation

Greg Daniels: Writer and Producer

Josh Deutsch: Chairman/CEO, Premier Music Group

Avi Diamond: Director, Film & Licensing Warner Chappell Music

Kosha Dillz: Artist

Craig Dorfman: President and Owner, Frontline MGMT

David Draiman: Artist, Frontman of Disturbed

Stephan Elliot: Director

Craig Emanuel: Partner, Paul Hastings LLC

Ron Fair: Record Producer & CEO, Faircraft Inc.

Sharon Farber: Composer

Daniel Federman: Owner, Maccabi Tel Aviv

Ken Fermaglich: Partner, United Talent Agency

Josh Fluxgold: President, One Way MGMT

Erica Forster: VP of Music Partnerships, DanceOn

Gary Foster: Principal at Krasnoff Foster Productions

Jordan Frazes: Founder, Frazes Creative

Daryl Friedman: Former Chief Advocacy & Industry Relations Officer for The Recording Academy

Siri Garber: President, Platform Public Relations

David Gardner: President, Artists First

Andrew Genger: Manager, Red Light Management

Gary Gersh: President of Global Talent, AEG

Gary Ginsberg: Former Senior VP, SoftBank Group Corp.

Daniel Glass: President and Founder, Glassnote Records

Karen Glauber: President, HITS Magazine

David Glick: Founder & CEO, Edge Group

Elon Gold: Comedian

Michael Goldwasser: Producer & President/Co-Founder, Easy Star Records

Lara Goodridge: Musician, (FourPlay/Baby et Lulu)

Andrew Gould: Senior Music Executive

Cary Granat: CEO, Immersive Artistry

Trudy Green: Trudy Green Management/HK

Steve Greenberg: President, S-Curve Records

Scott Greenberg: Manager and Partner at LBI Entertainment

Ronnie Harris: Partner, Harris & Trotter LLP

Jo Hart: Founder, Hart Media

Avi Hirshbein: Associate, Sony Production Music

Richard “BournRich” Ingram: Artist, Creative Director

Ilya Isakovich: Australian Chamber Orchestra

Neil Jacobson: Founder, Hallwood Media

Jonathan Jakubowicz: Writer and Director

Rick Kalowski: Screenwriter/Producer

Zach Katz: President, Raised In Space

Ilan Kidron: Songwriter/Musician

Scott Kluge: President, Tremendous Entertainment

Amanda Kogan: Agent, The Gersh Agency

Rick Krim: Co-Founder, Worldwired Music

Romi Kupfer: Artistic Director (RK Collaborations)

Gabz Landman: VP of A&R, Warner Records

Sherry Lansing: Former CEO of Paramount Pictures

Colin Lester OBE: Founder/Chairman, JEM Music Group

David Levy: Partner, William Morris Endeavor Entertainment

David Levy: Former President of Turner/WarnerMedia, Founder of Back Nine Ventures

David Lonner: CEO, The David Lonner Co.

Ben Maddahi: SVP A&R, Columbia Records

Gabriel Mann: Composer/Producer

Susan Markheim: Manager, Full Stop Mgt., The Azoff Company

Orly Marley: President, Tuff Gong Worldwide

Nancy Matalon: VP of A&R, Spirit Music Group

David Mazouz: Actor

Julia McCrossin: Broadcaster/Comedian

Leetal Nissenbaum: VP of Synchronization and Licensing, Ultra Records

Lisa Nupoff: Manager, IMINMUSIC Management

Scott Packman: SSP Partners

Mike Praw: Music Executive

David Renzer: Former Chairman/CEO of Universal Music Publishing

Jaimison M. Roberts: Attorney

Hanna Rochelle: Founder & President, Lyric Culture

Dan Rosen: Music Executive

Rick Rosen: Co-Founder, Endeavor

Michael Rotenberg:  Partner, 3 Arts Entertainment

Autumn Rowe: Songwriter, Producer, DJ

Haim Saban: Chairman & CEO, Saban Capital Group

Jacqueline Saturn: President, Virgin Music

Ayelet Schiffman: SVP Head of Promotions, Island Records

Paul Schindler: Senior Chair of the New York Entertainment and Media Practice

Steve Schnur: President of Music, Electronic Arts

Jordan Schur: CEO & Chairman, Mimran Schur Pictures & Suretone Entertainment

Sam Schwartz: Partner, Gorfaine/Schwartz Agency

Camila Seta: Marketing & Content Strategy, Rogers & Cowan

Emile Sherman: Producer, See-Saw Films

Noah “Westside Gravy” Shufutinsky: Artist

Ben Silverman: Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer, Propagate Content

Ralph Simon: Chairman & CEO, Mobilium Global Limited

Marty Singer: Attorney, Lavely and Singer

Jeff Sosnow: EVP A&R, Warner Music

Donna Spievak: Director of Strategic Marketing, Interscope Records

Nancy Spielberg: Filmmaker

Jonathan Steinsapir: Partner, Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert LLP

Gary Stiffelman: Founder, GSS Law

Aaron Symonds: Composer

Traci Szymanski: President, Co-Star Entertainment

Adam Taylor: President, APM Music

Noa Tishby: Actress, Producer

Fred Toczek: Partner, Felker Toczek Gelman Suddleson

Eric Tuchman: Writer, Producer

Jeremy Vuernick: Executive VP of A&R, Capitol Records

Diane Warren: Songwriter, Producer

Joshua Washington: Artist, Producer

Jon Weinbach: President, Skydance Sports

Nola Weinstein: Global Head of Culture & Experiential, Twitter

Evan Winiker: Managing Partner, Range Media

Jeffrey Winter: Executive Director, The Film Collaborative

Sharon Tal Yguado: Founder & CEO, Astrid Entertainment

David Zedeck: Global Head of Music, United Talent Agency

Willy Zygier: Artist

Signatories as of January 9, 2021:

Alex Voihanski: President Unity Through Sport

Anthony Bregman: Producer, Likely Story

Avi Goldstein: Rockaway Nissan

Deborah Harris: The Deborah Harris Agency, Founder and Director

Dr. Evgeny Sorkin: Performer

Dror Shaul: Filmmaker 

Efrat Lev: Foreign Rights Director, the Deborah Harris Literary Agency

Fay Sussman: The Klezmer Fivas Band

Geoff Sirmai: Arts Publicist, Actor

George Eltman: The Deborah Harris Agency

Immanuel Suttner: Poet

Isser Feiglin: Performer

Jennifer Hillman: H S Consulting, Waterhole Art

Lloyd Morris: Lloyd Morris Promotions

Nick Shay Deutsch: Former Artistic Director Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM)

Ole Bohn: A/Professor Sydney Conservatorium of Music

Roger Velik: Director, Leopard View Pty Ltd

Sam Weiss: Composer for Film & Television/Saxophonist

Sean Marks: Partner, Marks Law Group

Sheldon Sroloff: VP Creative Artist Agency

Sondra Gordon: Quest/CCNY, New York City, N.Y. U.S.A.

Tamar Simon: Mean Streets Management

Victoria S Cook: Partner, Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz

Vladimir Fanshil: Conductor, Producer

Jack Eppington: Artist, Epmusic

David Bernard: Senior BP, CHEAR CENTER 

Jackie & Steven Worth: The Mighty Music Machine & Mighty Mixes

Mohammad Baqlawa: Composer, Film & Television/UAEspoort

Hilda Feinstein: Quest Lifelong Learning

Michael Nebenzahl: Managing Director, Playbill Group

Dr Gene Sherman AM: Founder and Director, Sherman Centre for Culture and Ideas

Tony Weinstein:        DePauw University

Ilana Wernick:           Writer/Producer

Susan Fisher:            Actress

Valerie Nissim:          Writer

Talia Harris Ram:      TV and Film Manager at the Deborah Harris Agency

Jennifer Herzog:       Theatre Practitioner/Arts Educator

Nicola Furst: Producer Furst Class Productions 

Roderic Wachovsky: Playwright/Director, Happy Guy Theater

Michael Zweig: Attorney

Sonya Lifschitz:  Head of Music Performance and Creative Practice, University of NSW

Alyson Fishbein: Singer/Songwriter and Biological Anthropologist 

Jeanne Pepper Bernstein: Founder #BlazeitForward

Josh Roehl: Singer/Songwriter

Daniel Scharf: Producer/Talent Agent

Austen Tayshus: Comedian

Jonathan Shteinman: Bluewater Pictures

 

ABOUT CREATIVE COMMUNITY FOR PEACE:** Note – The signers of this statement do so as individuals on their own behalf and not on behalf of their companies or organizations. All organizations and companies listed are for affiliation purposes only.

Founded by entertainment industry executives, Creative Community for Peace (CCFP) is a non-profit organization comprised of prominent members of the entertainment industry who have come together to promote the arts as a means to peace, to counter antisemitism within the entertainment industry, and to galvanize support against the cultural boycott of Israel. CCFP is apolitical and does not stand for any government official or party. Instead, CCFP believes in artists and their ability to affect lives and effect positive change in the world. For more information please visit: creativecommunityforpeace.com

 

Add your name to our letter by visiting http://ccfpeace.org/?SydneyFestival

For more information please contact us directly at info@creativecommunityforpeace.com.

CCFPeace
In Article

Anti-Jewish Bias Is Spreading in Arts and Culture

Hadassah Magazine
By  January 2022

There is little doubt that antisemitism in America has intensified recently. In the world of arts and culture, it may be more subtle than a scrawled swastika or a torched synagogue, but anti-Jewish bias in that realm is nonetheless a growing phenomenon.

This bias plays out in multiple ways, according to those looking at culture through a Jewish lens. One of the most recognizable is the marginalization—even demonization—of Israel, with Israeli narratives and artists who perform in Israel targeted by cultural boycotts. At the same time, debate persists among academics and media industry professionals about the degree to which Jews and Jewish stories are excluded from current diversity conversations.

Controversies around Israel “happen every year,” observed Shayna Weiss, the associate director of Brandeis University’s Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and a scholar of Jews in popular culture. “I think we see it more now because it’s easier to find these things online.”

Photo from ‘Happier Than Ever,’ Mason Poole/Disney.

A prime example is the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), in whose name pro-Palestinian activists have bullied entertainers who perform in Israel for years. Yet today, we watch the back-and-forth in real time on social media platforms that weren’t as popular, or weren’t around, back when the movement first emerged in the early 2000s. Announcements of a November concert in Israel by will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas were met with instant boycott calls on Facebook and Twitter. And last July, singer/songwriter Billie Eilish’s Instagram account was targeted by antisemitic trolls after she promoted the launch in Israel of her album Happier Than Ever.

Social media has amplified other recent dustups, including popular Irish author Sally Rooney’s refusal to allow an Israeli publisher to translate her latest novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, into Hebrew; comedian Sarah Silverman calling out “Jewface,” a neologism to describe non-Jewish actors playing Jewish roles, in a September podcast; and in spring 2021, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators issuing, and then apologizing for, a statement that condemned antisemitism.

The entertainment community for the most part is very liberal. And on the left, unfortunately, if you support Israel, you’re being pushed out of those spaces,” said Ari Ingel, director of Creative Community for Peace, a nonprofit arts industry group that combats antisemitism, specifically the cultural boycott of Israel.

Ingel is among those who bemoan a progressive tendency to critique Israel’s complex, multicultural society in terms of America’s charged racial paradigm—“white oppressors, brown victims,” he said, with Israeli Jews cast as the oppressors. “It has been lumped into: If you’re a Zionist, that means you’re a colonizer. When you have Israel labeled a genocidal state and 90 percent of Jews in America support Israel, then all of a sudden Jews support genocide.” At a time when racial issues dominate American discourse, this perception has led to the increase in anti-Jewish sentiment.

On her podcast, Sarah Silverman discussed issues around ‘Jewface,’ when non-Jews are cast as Jewish characters, such as Rachel Brosnahan as Midge Maisel and Tony Shalhoub and Marin Hinkle as Midge’s parents in ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.’ Photo courtesy of Kast Media.

“We’ve seen these views emanate online from influencers in the entertainment community,” Ingel added. In 2020, rapper Ice Cube tweeted antisemitic images of a mural with large-nosed men playing Monopoly on the backs of Black people. The same year, Nick Cannon, host of the reality competition show The Masked Singer, shared classic antisemitic conspiracy theories on his podcast, asking why “we give so much power to the ‘theys,’ and ‘theys’ turn into Illuminati, the Zionists, the Rothschilds.”

In response, ViacomCBS canceled Cannon’s improv comedy television show, Wild N’ Out. The entertainer apologized and engaged in dialogue with the Jewish community. His show is now back on the air.

Ingel said his organization provides “balance” to what is often a strongly anti-Jewish discourse, supporting entertainers and sports figures who work in Israel. Last October, the group published an open letter protesting a boycott of TLVFest, the annual Tel Aviv International LGBTQ+ Film Festival. The 200 entertainment industry signatories included actors Neil Patrick Harris, Billy Porter and Helen Mirren (who, for her upcoming film role as Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, has been showered with antisemitic hate online). And nearly 50,000 artists have signed the group’s online petition against the cultural boycott of Israel since 2012, when Creative Community for Peace was founded by David Renzer, then CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group, and Steve Schnur, who heads the music division of Electronic Arts, the world’s largest video game company.

Courtesy of TLVfest.

Such high-profile signatories “demonstrate to the public that there’s still broad-based support for understanding and dialogue,” Ingel noted. “Where politics can be so divisive, arts, sports and music can really bring people together.”

Some observers like Weiss, the Brandeis scholar, suggest that BDS and its offshoots may be louder than they are successful. “Israeli culture has unprecedented amounts of money and attention,” said Weiss, citing Israeli shows that have become international hits—Tehran, Fauda and Shtisel among them—as well as the many Israeli series optioned for American remakes. “Money talks, and there’s a lot of money to be made working with Israeli films and television.

“It’s easy to freak out about Sally Rooney, but that is one book versus thousands that are translated into Hebrew every year,” Weiss continued. “The internet loves outrage, but these things have to be taken in context.”

In a different sector of the arts world, anti-Israel sentiment sparked internet outrage last June when the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, one of the largest international children’s literature organizations, apologized to its Palestinian and Muslim members after they objected to a post declaring that Jews should have the “right to life, safety, and freedom from scapegoating and fear.” The original statement was posted on Facebook in response to a surge in antisemitic violence in the United States; it asked readers to join “in speaking out against all forms of hate, including antisemitism,” and made no mention of Israel or its war with Hamas that same spring. Even so, pro-Palestinian members of the society complained that the “painful” lack of a parallel denunciation of Islamophobia amounted to taking sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—an argument that caught the attention of the children’s literature community on Twitter and Facebook.

Several weeks later, Lin Oliver, the society’s executive director, apologized on Facebook to everyone in the “Palestinian community who felt unrepresented, silenced, or marginalized.” (The society declined repeated requests for comment.) The controversy led to the resignation of the society’s chief equity and inclusion officer, April Powers, who is Black and Jewish. It also prompted many Jewish writers to voice discontent over their exclusion from industry diversity conversations and heightened their concerns about being targeted on social media.

Helen Estrin, a past president of the Association of Jewish Libraries, said this marginalization occurs because Jews, who are historically well represented in cultural industries, “are seen as having enough privilege and power that they don’t need support. It is unconscious—people aren’t walking around, for the most part, with swastikas—but I absolutely think it’s antisemitism.”

What Jewish authors notice in particular, Estrin said, is that they are excluded from minority grants and diversity programs, such as the ones run by the society, and that they are frequently harassed online. Authors also have complained that mainstream publishers reject Jewish- and Israel-themed books, a topic often discussed in the Jewish Kidlit Mavens Facebook group that Estrin administers with Susan Kusel.

“Frankly, we feel gaslit,” said Kusel, a member of the society whose most recent book is The Passover Guest. Jews are not being included in the diversity conversations, she believes, because their non-Jewish colleagues feel that “Jews do not need the boost. At the same time, we’re being persecuted as a minority.”

Photo courtesy of Sophie Macdonald.

Even before her debut young adult novel, Once More with Chutzpah, was published, writer Haley Neil confronted a torrent of online hatred for her story of a girl grappling with Jewish identity on a trip through Israel, which she based on her experiences growing up Jewish in an interfaith home. “This book supports genocide” is typical of many antisemitic comments Neil found about her book on Goodreads, a major online book platform that features early reviews of upcoming titles. “I worried my book would never reach an audience, because people who haven’t read it made false accusations about its contents,” Neil said of the novel, due out this February.

“The increasing focus on diversity in the kidlit space is wonderful,” said Tzivia MacLeod, a Canadian-Israeli author who has won awards from PJ Library (which published two of her titles) and is a regional adviser for the Israeli chapter of the society. “But it has created questions and resentment for authors.” Jews, she said, “need to start demanding a place at the [diversity] table for our own unique and underrepresented background, whether from North Africa, the Middle East or Europe.”

Tensions around presence and visibility complicate issues like “Jewface,” according to Shaina Hammerman, associate director at Stanford University’s Taube Center for Jewish Studies. With its reference to the history of white entertainers putting on blackface, Jewface refers not only to non-Jews cast as Jewish characters, but also to particular mannerisms or references that are uncomfortably close to ethnic caricature—roles “where Jewishness is front and center,” the Jewish comedian Sarah Silverman said, addressing the topic in the much-debated September episode of The Sarah Silverman Podcast.

The Jewface complaint also highlights how frequently non-Jews are cast in high-profile Jewish roles—especially those involving conventionally attractive or refined characters, like Midge Maisel and her parents in the Amazon series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, or historically important figures, like Helen Mirren as the titular character in an upcoming biopic of Golda Meir or Felicity Jones as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the film On the Basis of Sex.

Courtesy of Amazon Studios.

In his recent book Jews Don’t Count: How Identity Politics Failed One Particular Identity, which discusses anti-Jewish bias in media and culture, British television personality David Baddiel calls the issues around Jewface a “passive” antisemitism.

“Look for the absence: the absence, in this case, of concern” and outrage in the public discourse, he writes, when non-Jewish actors play Jewish characters.
Indeed, on her podcast, Silverman insisted she was not calling for change so much as pointing out an uncomfortable double standard: Authentic representation is now de rigueur for virtually every minority group but Jews. Unlike other minority groups, however, Jewish actors have found work playing a range of characters.

“It’s been really important to make sure that a Native American plays a Native American character, or that an Asian play an Asian, because otherwise, historically, they weren’t getting jobs,” Hammerman, of the Taube Center for Jewish Studies, noted. “But Jewish actors are cast all the time to play non-Jews.”

In Hammerman’s view, how a Jewish character is written—as “a rich and interesting human”—is more critical than who plays the role. The larger question, she added, is how to ensure that Jews and antisemitism remain part of American conversations around racism and ethnic discrimination.

For many in the arts world, “it’s hard to hold in your mind at the same time that many Jews in this country have power and access—and also, that antisemitism is real,” Hammerman reflected. “The more we can address this complexity, the better off everybody is.”

Hilary Danailova writes about travel, culture, politics and lifestyle for numerous publications.

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