Culture war timeline: Boycotts and bigotry since 7 October
Jewish News tracks 21 months of hate and discrimination in Britain’s arts and culture scene
Sally Rooney, the Phoenix Cinema and Kneecap
October 2023
- Tracy-Ann Oberman, starring in Merchant of Venice:1936, reveals that the touring production has had to hire extra security due to the surge of antisemitism post-7 October.
November 2023
- At the Grierson Awards, held annually to celebrate British documentaries, a female guest makes antisemitic remarks to a number of Jewish TV industry figures present. The Grierson Trust subsequently apologises and announces a ten-year ban for the individual in question.
December 2023 – January 2024
- Channel 4 receives significant backlash in response to its alternate Christmas message, which featuring Stephen Fry talking about the sharp rise in antisemitism. Fry receives significant abuse and condemnation. Former Channel 4 Commissioner Tamara Abood describes Fry’s speech as was “disingenuous” and demonstrated “where the power lies” in UK media. In January the chief executive of one of the UK’s diversity bodies is accused of liking some of Abood’s other statements on social media, including posting a video of anti-Zionist Jew Alexei Sayle claiming that other Jews were “bloviating” over the Gaza conflict and parroting the narrative of the “ruling class establishment, saying “Unlike the disingenuous… Fry version, this is a Christmas message I can get behind.”
February 2024
- Comedian Paul Currie tells a Jewish man to leave his show at the Soho theatre after they did not stand and applaud him at the end of his show, due to his use of a Palestinian flag during his act. The theatre gave Currie a lifetime ban – the comic later attempted to sue the theatre. In August the comedian goes on to say that ‘Zionists’ shouldn’t attend his shows at the Edinburgh fringe festival.
- The BBC initially declines to do anything about an Apprentice contestant, Asif Munaf, discovered to have posted highly offensive social media posts, including referencing “the Zionist antichrist”, claiming “the Zionist PR machine is slimy” and posting the question: “Have you ever met even a semi-average looking Zionist? Aren’t they all odiously ogre-like?” He labelled Zionism a “satanic cult”. Eventually, after weeks of significant Jewish communal outcry, the BBC cuts Munaf from You’re Fired, the spin-off to the Apprentice, before his episode airs.
May 2024
- Comedian Dane Baptiste sends a public death threat to a female Jewish comedian – who he described as a “Zionist comedian” – on social media. He is subsequently let go by his agent.
- An organisation calling itself Fossil Free Books mounts a campaign pressuring literary festivals to drop their sponsorship agreements with Baillie Gifford, an investment management firm with some investments in Israeli companies. The initial focus is on the Hay Literary Festival, with Fossil Free Books convincing scores of prominent individuals, including authors and politicians, to sign up to their campaign. The Hay Festival capitulates and announces that it is cutting ties with Baillie Gifford. The company subsequently makes known that it is cancelling its sponsorship deals with a wide range of other literary festivals.
- The Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley, which is screening movies for the Jewish Film Festival, is targeted by anti-Israel protestors, who deface the cinema. Members of the Jewish community and other Israel supporters turn out in counter-protest.
- Tracy-Ann Oberman has to hire additional security after death threats.
June 2024
- Keshet UK, the British Jewish community’s LGBT+ charity, says that it has felt the need to pull out of London’s pride parade because the safety of Jewish attendees could not be guaranteed.
August 2024
- Comedian Reginald D Hunter gets into an altercation with two Jewish audience members who take issue with a joke about Israel at his Edinburgh fringe performance. A Daily Telegraph critic was present. Once the Jewish people left, the comedian tells a ‘joke’ featuring his wife, in which he quotes her as saying about a Jewish newspaper with a paywall: “Typical f***ing Jews, they won’t tell you anything unless you subscribe.”
- Anti-Israel campaigners are accused of harassing attendees of a performance of Fiddler on the Roof by the Regent’s Park open air theatre
- A gay nightclub in London publicly announces that it wants “no f***ing Zionists” in the venue, and that “Zionism has no place in queer spaces”. After significant anger, the nightclub apologises and retracts its “no Zionists” comments.
October 2024
- The Chief Executive of UK Jewish Film, Michael Etherton, warns that Jews are being “erased” from culture. He cites multiple examples of venues across the country who had previously screened UK Jewish Film festival offerings either ignoring contact or suddenly claiming to have no availability. He largely attributes this due to venues not wanting to deal with inevitable protests.
- More than 1,000 authors and artists, including Sally Rooney, Arundhati Roy and Rachel Kushner, call for a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions, and pledging not to work with any publishers, festivals or publications ‘complicit in violating Palestinian rights’. Another letter, also signed by more than 1,000 artists, condemns the cultural boycott.
- A campaign is run by an activist group called Bands Boycott Barclays, calling on music festivals to divest from the bank due to its ties to Israeli companies – and on bands to withdraw from festivals which maintain Barclays as a sponsor. Barclays subsequently withdraws from sponsoring a wide range of festivals
- The Grierson Trust appoints Oscar-winning documentary director Asif Kapadia as a patron, sparking considerable anger due to Kapadia’s highly inflammatory social media posts. These include a comparison between the Holocaust and Gaza, and a cartoon of Benjamin Netanyahu dining at a blood oaked table with a baby on it, with the caption overhead reading “Kosher”. Grierson subsequently removes Kapadia as a patron and apologises for a lack of due diligence.
November 2024
- Goldsmiths’ Centre for Contemporary Art at the University of London announces that it will remove the names of Candida and Zak Gertler from one of its galleries. In May and June, students from the ‘Goldsmiths for Palestine” group occupied the gallery for 27 days.More than 1000 artists call on the Tate gallery to divest from Outset, the arts charity co-founded by Candida Gertler, over the couple’s ties to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Candida Gertler subsequently resigns from all her positions in art institutions in the UK, including from the Outset board.She says her actions are “a principled protest against the alarming rise in antisemitism”, and that ”the failure to confront such hate compromises the very essence of what art stands for — a medium for empathy, exploration and shared humanity.”
January 2025
- Renowned theatrical director Sir Nicholas Hytner tells the Jewish Labour Movement conference that “younger Jews in the theatre” are being subjected to a “loyalty test” as to where they stand on Israel.
April 2025
- The band Kneecap have become known for their inflammatory statements on the Israel-Palestinian conflict (including sharing a photo of one of their members reading a book of statements by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in February 2025).At the Coachella festival in California, the group claims “Israel is committing a genocide…abetted by the US”, and state “fuck Israel – free Palestine.” Shortly afterwards, UK counter-police announce that they are opening an investigation due to other actions from Kneecap, including the statement that “the only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP” at a concert, and one of the trio’s members waving a Hezbollah flag on stage during another concert, as well as shouting “Up Hamas. Up Hezbollah”.• Numerous prominent bands and musicians sign an open letter condemning the opening of the investigation into Kneecap.
May 2025
- Keshet UK, confirms that it will not be organising the Jewish bloc at London’s pride parade this year either, accusing event organisers of failing to support the safety of Jewish LGBT+ participants.
- Following repeated protests by staff members, who object, among other things, to serving Coca-Cola due to links to Israel, the board of the Glasgow Film Theatre make it clear that the institution will not be participating in a full boycott of Israel. Multiple board members resign as a result of this decision, and the theatre faces calls for a boycott.
- Protestors repeatedly try to disrupt the London filming of a movie starring Israeli actress Gal Gadot, citing her service in the IDF and her support for Israel. Multiple people are arrested and Gadot has to be evacuated from a movie set. The actress is left reportedly “reluctant to ever film in London again”.
- Two planned concerts by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and Israeli Dudu Tassa are cancelled, in London and Bristol. The duo note that “while we have no judgment to pass on Kneecap, it’s sad that those supporting their freedom of expression are the same ones most determined to restrict ours.”
- Planned concerts by prominent Klezmer group Oi Va Voi are cancelled in Bristol and Brighton, due to claims by anti-Israel activists that the cover art of a release from one of the bands members was “anti-Palestinian” because it showed her harvesting watermelons, which have become a symbol of Palestinian resistance.
June 2025
- Comedian Dawn French posts a video on social media in which she appears to mock those who cite the mass murders which took place on 7 October. After outrage, French deletes the video and apologises, saying her intention was never “to mock, or dismiss, or diminish the horror of what happened”
- In an interview for the Radio Times, Rod Stewart engages in Holocaust inversion, stating: “What Netanyahu is doing to the Palestinians is exactly what happened to the Jews.”
- Despite a public outcry, Glastonbury refuses to cancel Kneecap’s performance. However, the band that attracts the most attention is punk/hip-hop duo Bob Vylan, whose frontman leads a Glastonbury crowd in chants of “death to the IDF” and rants about “Zionists”. The BBC is widely condemned for not cutting away from the performance, and later apologises, as do Glastonbury’s convenors. Local police announce that they are opening a criminal investigation into both Kneecap and Bob Vylan’s performances. Both the band’s talent manager and agent announce they are dropping the group, and the US state department announces revocation of a visa, effectively cancelling the live tour the group had planned for the US later in the year.
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