Churchill's Seven Jewish Children - Is This Play Anti-Semitic?

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 2:21am

You can read the 10-minute play here and also find a well-acted one-woman presentation of the play at this website.

What do you think?


Seven Jewish Children Updated On: 6/18/09 at 02:21 AM

[dramamama611]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 4:48am

I only read it and did not watch the clip. I'm not sure what to think of it, but it's interesting.

From my quick read it SEEMS to start off talking about Germany and WWII and the Holocaust but switches to talking about being in Israel and the current state.

I think it's trying to show the switch in power or cirucmstance. The sad story to being the victims OF Hilter's Germany to being warlike Israel today-- the irony of the situation. I don't know if that makes it anti-semetic or just something to think about.

The problem I see is that it ignores that the Palestinians behave the same way it is "accusing" the jewish people of behaving.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 7:18am

It's told from the perspective of Jewish parents "explaining" to their children whats going on in Palestine.

[Ole Chum]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 1:15pm

Offensively so.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 1:22pm

Oh, hell yeah.

There's no way around the antisemitism in the piece, no matter who denies it.

Quite frankly, it wouldn't bother me as much (as a Jew) as it does if it were better written. Some of it is just clunky.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 1:22pm

I've very disappointed in Churchill for this play. I think it is either Anti-Semitic or that she has lost her way in reasoning and fairness.

This line in particular screams out to me:

"Tell her we're the iron fist now"

indicating she is equating modern day Israelis to facists in the allusion to the "iron fist."

The Israelis, however, have a very vocal, participatory democracy and a free press. Updated On: 6/18/09 at 01:22 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 1:32pm

Is it antisemitic of anti-Zionist? Is there a difference?

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 1:35pm

Need all Israelis be called Zionists?

I do not know, but I don't think so.

And this is specifically the spoken text of Jewish parents, not Christians or Arabs who live in Israel. Updated On: 6/18/09 at 01:35 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 1:38pm

I don't think so either, but that wasn't my question.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 1:42pm

Then I see its vagueness, Phyllis, as underscoring a slamming of all Israeli Jews rather than one particular idealist or political group of Jews.

That to me identifies the play as one of prejudice and unworthy of a great playwright.

© 2009 nomdeplume by pseudonym, all rights reserved Updated On: 6/23/09 at 01:42 PM

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 1:42pm

It is VERY anti-Israel. Not sure if I would say anti-Semitic.

It comes across as manipulative to me, though. Like... all pathos and no ethos. Granted, it's a play and not a dissertation, but good writers show--they don't tell.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 1:44pm

A playwright is great only as long as they produce plays I agree with.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 1:50pm

It seems such a far cry away from Far Away, but now one wonders.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 2:01pm

I don't even think it's well-written, though. It comes across as more of an angry blog post than a piece of art.

I mean, the words are pretty and flow nicely, but there's more to writing than just word usage IMO.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 2:15pm

I might have actually respected you a little, nomdeplume, if you'd actually stated your apparently strong opinion in your orginal post. Instead you did your usual wishy washy thing. Lord knows what you went back and edited in to your subsequent posts once you figured out which way the wind is blowing on the topic.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 2:21pm

I think it could be easily dramatized in Pinter-esque fashion with seven scenes of parents and relatives outside the door of what is intended to be a child's bedroom or even in a living room just alluding to the presence of a sleeping child in the house. Change of costumes and actors for different periods in history if desired.

I see no problem with the work in staging or in being a play or having dramatic form.

The problems I see with it are entirely with its content and its premise. Since it's set-up is all about how you raise children, and she is stuck on the idea of it always being a female child, she is creating a scenario of implying there must be Jewish "hiding" of things from the child with a strong indication of implied Jewish guilt.

The fact she is using, and I really mean using in the manipulative sense, a female child is also troubling to me. The female child is generally considered the more vulnerable that parents try harder to protect, but also under strict Jewish law, only a Jewish woman can bear Jewish children so the continuity of Judaism itself has traditionally depended upon her. The implication is that the parents are discussing withholding facts or truth from those who will continue Judaism. There is a perversity and nastiness in this manipulative set-up of the play that I don't like, as though to attempt to distract and manipulate the audience response to Churchill's personal beliefs by a cagey no-win set-up.

The equivalent of asking the question "How many times a week do you beat your wife?"

Yes, that is what I do not like about the play and the play reflects upon the author. Now some authors have had periods when they felt a certain way and wrote about it and then changed their minds, and you look at an overall body of work, but that doesn't insulate from being taken to task when they do something lousy.

© 2009 nomdeplume by pseudonym, all rights reserved Updated On: 6/23/09 at 02:21 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 2:53pm

I think the question is faulty.

Criticism of Israel is not necessarily the same thing as criticism of Jews if it is simply criticizing a government and not singling a people.

But criticism of Israeli brutality in the absence of criticism of the brutality it faces IS singling out a people.

Does Caryl Churchill also criticize Palestinian terrorism or the Arab governments that ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Jews out of Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon and North Africa, where they had lived peacefully for centuries?

If not, then I would think the question is: Does Caryl Churchill simplistically and disproportionately blame Israel for the complex problems in the Middle East? And does she do so because of an animus toward Jews in general?

Updated On: 6/18/09 at 02:53 PM

[defyingravity11]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 3:05pm

I think PalJoey hit the nail on the head. Unlike her other works, there is no other point of view. Where are the Arab parents? I don't think her writing here is particularly dangerous (or well written). It's certainly not a call to arms against Jews. Still, as a Jew and a huge Churchill fan, I'm very disappointed in this.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 3:27pm

It is not the telling of the story from ONLY the mouths of Jewish parents that bothers me so much. It is possible to write a play that is not manipulative even if all the dialog comes from one side.

There are slivers of the Palestinian point of view discussed in the "don't tell hers" about the stone-throwing, bulldozers, Arabs used to sleep in her bedroom.

There does seem to be a distortion of history by the manipulation, however. For example, after Israel was attacked by both Egypt and Syria and managed to save its very existence by fighting them off, surprisingly well, backing them into their own lands acquiring Golon Heights and Gaza, it can hardly be described as a land grab attempt by Israel in keeping those lands won by blood in self-defense which provide a buffer from further attack. Yet Churchill manipulates that self-defense into appearing to some greedy land grab by having the Jewish parents say to tell her we've "got new lands." That is very irritating.

© 2009 nomdeplume by pseudonym, all rights reserved Updated On: 6/23/09 at 03:27 PM

[Unknown User]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 3:27pm

Clearly, this play would never have been written if Hillary Clinton were president.
Updated On: 6/18/09 at 03:27 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 3:32pm

I notice you've stayed out of the threads about the DOMA brief, Joe.

[Ole Chum]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 4:16pm

Paljoey hit the nail on the head.

Its hard for Churchill to hide behind the good ole "I dont hate JEWS, i just object to the Israeli government" canard when she clearly creates a character as equally connected to World War II as she is to the modern Israeli state.

i was mortified when i first read it, for her, and for the many mindless "theater folk" who creamed themselves over this drivel in London.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 4:41pm

Do you think "Fiddler on the Roof" presented a biased picture of Russia under the Tsar? Don't you think Sholem Aleichem was obligated to show the GOOD things the Russians did for the people of Anetevka?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 5:39pm

Like?

[Ole Chum]

Posted: 6/18/09 at 6:07pm

I think if the Jews in Russia were routinely firebombing Russian citizens' homes or attacking Russians on the street, AND Fiddler On The Roof was a sweeping generalization of the entire history of Jewish settlement in Russia, then yes, such a failure to include the "good" that the tsar showed towards the Jews would be one-sided and unfair.

yet again, paljoeys point is well taken: what good did Sholom Aleichem and crew leave out?