Shame on Tom Happold, network editor of The Guardian website, for putting Caryl Churchill’s racist play Seven Jewish Children on Guardian Unlimited over the weekend. In recent months the play has caused enormous offence to the Jewish community. It has rightly been described as “the old stuff – Jew-hating pure and simple” (Howard Jacobson); “a blood libel” (Melanie Phillips) and “antisemitic” (the Jewish Chronicle’s theatre critic John Nathan).
Happold personally approached Churchill and offered to broadcast it for her on The Guardian website. So, Mr Happold, what was it that first attracted you to the antisemitic, jew-hating blood-libel play?
His feeble justification for broadcasting Seven Jewish Children is: “People will have different views but they should at least base their views on having seen it.” Well, people also have “different views” about the Geert Wilders film Fitna, and the Danish Muhammed cartoons and The Jewel Of The Medina novel that Islamists firebombed a publisher’s home over.
Do we think that Happold will also be publishing all of them on the Guardian website so people are at least basing their views having seem/read them?
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We tend not to threaten the lives of publishers and newspaper people, so our feelings are usually ignored in these sorts of cases. What’s the worst we’ll do? Write a blog entry about it? At worst, an article about it in the newspaper. Who cares, huh?
True. That explains his cowardice when it comes to Islamists, but not his vindictiveness by showing Seven Jewish Children in the first place. Horrible man.
So “people will have different views”, I look forward then to seeing similar publicity about “Seven Other Children”
Good point Mike. Don’t hold your breath.
Shmuel, you’re right. That can only really explained by their general dislike of Israel and Jewish people.
Tom Happold, we salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability! We know you will do the same for Seven Other Children! Then the fearless unbiased Grauniad can lead the nation into a mass debate!
Очень занятные мысли, хорошо рассказано, все просто таки разложено по полкам )
There are so many reasons for the growth of antisemitism among the Guardian crowd.
However, I think back to the words of Neville Chamberlain, who said one of the reasons for the persecution of German Jews in the 1930s was: “a jealousy of their superior cleverness”.
There are few people in Britain more keen to think they are the cleverest kid on the block than Guardian-types and therefore likely to succumb to just that jealousy.
Why should we be surprised by the Guardian’s actions? At least one Jewish sponsored theater in the states, Theater J at the Washington DC Jewish community center has staged the play. And Jewish notables such as Tony Kushner have stood up for the play.
The play is anti-Semitism masked by anti-Zionism. For some reason, intelligent folk believe there is a distinction between them.
it’s not even masked: they are in fact 7 *Jewish* children, not *Israeli* children. But anyway, the anti-zionist / anti-Jewish line is not a clear one, and the Grauniad gave up caring about differentiation between the two long ago (if such a thing is in fact possible).