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DAILY SHVITZ
They Tried to Cancel My Play |
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 by Aaron Davidman, December 11, 2007 |
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TAGS:
Israeli Security Fence: Ensuring security or ensuring separation?The plastic surgeon who specializes in breast implants had issues with my play. He intimidated the director of the theatre hosting the reading into canceling! In an email he wrote, “The last thing we want to do is offend the local Jewish community by showing some progressive lefty self-hating Jewish propaganda.” Only after 24 hours of intense lobbying by the artistic director of the Sundance Institute Theatre Program, who has nurtured the play and was producing the reading, and a letter from me to the artistic director and board of the theatre did reason prevail. The reading was back on.
Art: 1, Thought Police: 0.
In e-mails the surgeon disparaged me, the author and professor who would lead the post-show discussion, and the artistic director of the Sundance Theatre Program. We were either “self-hating Jews,” “anti-Semites,” or just plain ‘ole “ignorant.” The plastic surgeon hadn’t even read or seen the play.
But he did come to the reading.
What were his issues once he saw the play? That while I presented both literary and visual images of the controversial separation barrier that divides the West Bank from Israel, I did not present gruesome images of children killed or injured by suicide bombers that the barrier is there to prevent. During the Q&A, he told me and the rest of the audience in the crowded theatre that, as a plastic surgeon, he’s worked on such victims in Israel and he offered to provide me with x-ray images of ball-bearings, screws and nails embedded inside the skulls of children, to add to the projected images in the play.
I thanked him for his offer. And we heard from a number of other audience members who were not missing such imagery.
Sad to say, while he came to the reading—and I do give him credit for that—the surgeon didn’t hear my play. He didn’t hear the very personal story of an American Jew who loves Israel deeply and fears for her survival. He didn’t hear the story of internal conflict that so many of us share as we try to untangle the competing interests of our allegiance to our tribe and our commitment to social justice. I do respect and honor his efforts to help Israeli victims of terror attacks. But there is no gruesome imagery in the play. None. To present such imagery would be to use violence as pornography. A few years ago I spent a day with a sweet and broken-hearted father of a ten year-old boy who was murdered in a bus bombing in Haifa. He would be as outraged that an x-ray of his son’s remains would be used for someone’s political agenda as he was outraged that Israeli politicians have used funerals of suicide bombing victims to make speeches to bolster support.
That’s the theatre of politics, not political theatre.
For more information on my play, “A Jerusalem Between Us” go to: http://aarondavidman.wordpress.com
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Aaron Davidman is the Artistic Director of Traveling Jewish Theatre, the 29 year-old ensemble company based in San Francisco. He has written, performed and directed plays professionally for twenty years. He is a graduate More... |
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Anonymous
You could take your pro-Hamas play and stick it up your ass! I'm sure the father of the little Israeli Jewish boy, murdered by your Arab terrorist friends, wouldn't approve of your pro-terrorist play. Most of the security barrier is a fence and not a wall. ISRAEL BUILT IT TO PROTECT IT'S PEOPLE AGAINST TERRORISTS! Your propaganda is straight out of Hamas. How much are the leaders of Hamas paying you to demonize Israel and the Jews? You are an evil individual. You don't give a shit about Jewish children being murdered by terrorists because you want street cred among your anti-semitic Israel-hating friends. It's so trendy among the Commie elites to hate Israel and the Jews nowadays. I'm sure your next play will be about how the Nazis were actually victims and the Holocaust was the fault of the Jews. "The traveling Jewish theater" should be re-named "The Nazi traveling theater that wants Jews dead" There is nothing even remotely Jewish about you or the theater. Fuck Off!
Anonymous
The comment is a joke, right? Nobody can be this vile and stupid, correct?
Just checking.
Ismail
Memo to Jihadi Central:
An anonymous poster at Jewcy, an American website devoted to the spread of Zionist disinfo, is apparently on to us. He's exposed Hamas payments to the Jewish playwright Davidman, who, for a few dollars and my Baba Hamdi's baklawa recipe, was willing to glorify our efforts in his work.
As far as we are able to tell, our attempts to destroy all copies of "Galaxy Quest" as payment to Alan Rickman for writing the Corrie play remain secret, but who can tell for how long?
Be aware, my brothers. We must prevent the Americans from realizing that they idolize Hamas only thanks to our ceaseless efforts to manage their media. We must become even more stealthy in the future.
In struggle,
Farfur
Anonymous
And Jew-haters like yourself. You're just not used to a Jew defending Israel. Go away Ismail. All you do is lie about Israel. You're an idiot anti-semitic Islamofacist!
Izzy Grinspan
Please keep the ad hominem attacks out of the comments section. Usually Jewcy editors remove anything that calls the author "vile and stupid," since it's needlessly insulting and doesn't take the debate anywhere. But there is material for debate here, so as long as the attacks stop, we won't delete anything...yet.
Anonymous
I didn't call the author vile and stupid, I called a commenter vile and stupid, the first comment. Sorry about misunderstanding.
You can delete it, I don't mind.
Izzy Grinspan
Recursive Prophet
Izzy: First, kudos on editing the most interesting interactive site I've discovered in 5 years of surfing. As I understand format changes are in the works to be implemented in January, might I suggest that only those willing to take the 2 minutes it takes to register here be allowed to post comments? Not only does it get confusing, (example above) I suspect it courages trolls to have so many anonymous contributors.
I fully support uncensored exchange in cyberspace. But doesn't online identity help to reign in outlandish behavior while making it easier for others to skip over those regularly making specious comments and ad-hom attacks?
Anonymous
Away with the anons!
And especially with the 'captcha' thingy.
Anonymous
Its all about the profits. Izzy gets a commission for each anonymous posting she can generate here. When you type in the code it sends your IP to companies that pay big bucks to augment their targeting of the gullible.