DC Jewish center decreed, ‘No Palestinians on stage… no plays on Israel’

More developments in the firing of Ari Roth, the artistic director of Theater J, the Jewish theater sponsored by the Washington Jewish Community Center. The theater’s new management says it is going to build on his artistic legacy; while Roth says that he was being censored over the last eight months, and that he was ordered to leave his office within 24 hours last week, and security escorted him out.

Roth gave an interview to Polly Carl at Howlround, in which he said he believes in Israel’s right to exist and accepted the red line on BDS not being mentioned in a JCC program. But the edicts hardened after he did a play about the Nakba last year and after the Gaza war of last summer.

We began to understand that the perspective that could hold the plight of Israelis and the plight of Palestinians simultaneously was no longer welcome in our community centers, and indeed, since summer the JCC has not had one program that would present a perspective from a Palestinian point of view, even if it was presented by an Israeli artist or journalist. So things have changed in a fundamental way since the summer.

Roth then describes his quandary: should he give in to JCC censorship on one issue so that he could keep up programming in other progressive areas?

We were really involved in conversations on race, whether it was through Jacqueline Lawton’s The Hampton Years [about Jews and blacks in the segregated south], or David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face, or Mamet’s Race. We started a conversation on race back in 1998. In canceling one small but significant part of the season [the Voices of the Changing Middle East festival]  you endanger so much of the rest. The question of principle really was do I let the battle of the festival go in order to fight for and ensure the good work of all of the other things that are out there? What is the relationship between the one hot button issue that perhaps crosses the institutional line? No Palestinians on stage, that’s the new JCC edict let’s say, but what about all of the other races, and all of the other conversations? But if you restrict one, you are really restricting everything.

Roth is describing a PEP policy, progressive except Palestine.

Roth goes on to describe censorship of his own work, and says in the end he was “escorted out by security guards”:

I found that out myself in May. We were supposed to have a seven play season even though the edict was no plays on Israel, we want a quieter year, but the seventh play was a workshop of a play I was writing, the third installment of the Born Guilty cycle. Born Guilty is based on interviews of children of Nazis by Peter Sichrovsky that I adapted for Zelda Fichandler in 1991. The sequel was The Wolf in Peter, and then I was in the middle of writing a third play, Reborn in Berlin, which is exploring how a new generation, what we call the third generation of children of perpetrators—along with new Israeli expats living in Berlin, and Turkish Muslims, South Asian Muslims, all young people living in Germany today—are wrestling with questions of identity, how they recognize and honor the legacy and history, the meaning of the Holocaust in a very complicated twenty-first century. My CEO cut that play from the season, in a punitive sense, because of the success of Motti Lerner’s play The Admission and our desire to see that play continue its success at Studio Theatre against the wishes of the CEO and the executive committee of the JCC. Then they turned around and would not allow Reborn in Berlin, the workshop of my new piece, to happen as part of the season. That was in May and we were announcing the season two days later. We went from a seven play season to a six play season. Because it was personal and the play was still a work in progress, I did not go public with that. I absorbed that horrible sting and that horrible act of censorship. I would be deftly bringing in the Arab/Israeli conflict in a season where the CEO did not want the Arab/Israeli conflict to be mentioned on stage. ..

In the end the cancellation of the [Voices of the Changing Middle East] festival meant that I was going to move on. Again, I was hoping to move on in an elegant and orderly way after these world premieres were produced. There were other issues that precipitated the immediate firing, but why on earth would I have to vacate my office and remove everything and be escorted out by security guards within twenty-four hours. It was handled wrong.

I would note that the 92d Street Y canceled an appearance by the author/doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish three years ago after his Jewish co-panelist canceled; the New York cultural center did not want a Palestinian appearing on stage by himself, without balance. Also: Theater J’s circumspection is reminiscent of the ban that Brant Rosen reported in Chicago congregational life: Please don’t talk about Israel and Palestine.

The following statement was sent out today by Roth’s replacement and the theater’s managing director to friends of the theater:

The past several days have been difficult ones at Theater J. We are still absorbing the departure of our Artistic Director of 18 years, Ari Roth. It was his inspirational leadership that shaped the Theater J we all know and love – an award-winning and internationally respected theater that produces thought-provoking work and engages the community in deep and necessary dialogues.

What has not changed at Theater J is the commitment of our entire staff to producing the relevant theater and meaningful discussions that have always characterized our company. We will bring all of the passion, creativity and energy we have to the rest of the 2014-2015 season and beyond.

All of the artists we have committed to deserve to have their artistic visions fully realized. This talented, distinguished, diverse group includes Aaron Posner, Renee Calarco, Jenny Frederick McConnell, Eleanor Holdridge and many, many more. At Theater J, our artists are at the heart of everything we do and that will always be one of our core values.

Now begins the hard work of beginning a new chapter of Theater J that continues and builds on the legacy Ari Roth helped create, and which looks toward an artistically rich and dynamic future. All of us on staff are proudly striving to live up to these standards. In this time of transition, we must not lose sight of the most essential thing – the art we produce. Please stand with us in support of our artists.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Ende, Managing Director
Rebecca Ende

Shirley Serotsky, Acting Artistic Director
Shirley Serotsky

How many are on board with this “next chapter.” Roger Bensky, a professor in the French Department at Georgetown, took exception to the email:

Ari did not leave — and so many have not reacted to his leaving — out of any lack of appreciation for the artistic merit of those who perform and create on stage…

Very frankly, now :  The only way you will be able to win back large chunks of audience you have alienated is to show us that you are not going to shy away from anything controversial and meaningful to us as Jews living in the 21st century just to placate those one-eyed reactionaries who forced Ari out by their rigidity and abusive power of the purse, both of which remain unworthy of them as educated Jews and as supposed defenders of theater. 

May I remind you — and any of them who care — that Western theater only began in Ancient Greece when it was possible to stand back and question society’s relationship with absolutes and inherited mythologies.  While agreeing that theater should not be squatted by a narrow ideological agenda of whatever stripe, it remains true that a viable playhouse should not be interdicting dissident voices just because some holier-than-thous are made uncomfortable thereby.

I strongly disagree with the actions of DCJCC in this matter and to decision to fire Ari Roth.
Your protestations in this message simply add insult to injury.  Even the artists you purport to support have spoken out against the theater.
The actions of DCJCC on this matter were cowardly and unprincipled.
Yielding to pressure from a very small and extreme segment of the community sets a dangerous precedent for the artistic integrity of a theater project within the Center, and to potential future support for DCJCC as a whole.