Young Jews in theatre subjected to ‘loyalty tests’ over Israel
Acclaimed Jewish theatre director Sir Nicholas Hytner appeared as a speaker at the Jewish Labour Movement's conference
Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor
Acclaimed theatre and film producer Sir Nicholas Hytner has said young Jewish workers in the industry are being subjected unsettling “loyalty tests” over their views on Israel.
Appearing at the Jewish Labour Movement’s annual conference in north London, where he was quizzed by JW3 chief executive Raymond Simonson, the former artistic director of London’s National Theatre said he was frequently asked himself what it was like being a Jewish theatre worker at the moment.
Hytner, 68, who grew up in what he previously described as being “a typical Jewish, cultured family” in south Manchester, explained that as a result of his own status within the theatre world today he was personally not subjected to the same treatment as those who were from a younger generation than him in the industry.
“I’m often asked what it’s like being a Jewish theatre worker at the moment,” he revealed. “Personally I don’t know, for not particularly reputable reasons.
“Because I am who I am nobody would dare do to me… I’m sorry I’m just being honest. What I know they do to younger Jews in the theatre, which is ask them where they stand. (on Israel),” he observed. “That’s the thing that really unsettles young Jewish theatre workers.
“‘Where do you stand?’ The loyalty test.”
Responding to Hytner’s observations, Simonson said he had noted how in his role as JW3 chief he had seen increased interaction with “young Jews who during the, let’s call it ‘the Corbyn years’ – I think that’s how it’s known in the community – they weren’t kind of siding with the mainstream Jewish community.
“These were more progressive, more left wing, young Jewish people who didn’t really feel the antisemitism at that point, who were still comfortably voting Labour, who were kind of keeping their heads down, getting into arguments with the generation above them.
“And yet, in the last year, for the first time, they have felt incredibly vulnerable, have been moved to tears, have been forced out of spaces where they felt with their people… mostly progressive spaces. And who have now sought mainstream Jewish community”.
Hytner’s inspirational decision to bring the play he directed, Giant, written by Mark Rosenblatt, to the Royal Court was also at the centre of Sunday’s fascinating discussion.
The play, which revolves around around an explosive book review that the antisemitic children’s writer Roald Dahl has written, railing against Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, has gone on to be London’s theatrical sensation of the year.
It explored pressures placed on Dahl to withdraw his racist slurs against Jews, and his conflation with Israel, and why he decided to instead double down on them.
Approaching the Royal Court, under new leadership showing signs of wanting to address its problematic past in relation to antisemitism Hytner said it was “encouraging it turns out that there’s a grown up audience that really wants to be told how complicated life is and complicated the Middle East is.”
He added: “It really isn’t susceptible to the kind of gross simplification tha motivates quite a lot of the yelling and the demonstrators, and the fury and the violence.”
The audience at the sell-out Royal Court run did have a significant number of Jews, but “that significant portion is never majority, unlike in New York where it is very often”, he added.
“This was not a Jewish audience falling great on a play written by a Jewish writer, with both Jewish roles played by Jewish actors, it wasn’t that. It felt at least tentatively a cause for optimism.”
Hytner also said Giant, which addressed a war involving Israel some 40 years ago was “as so often in drama as an as in fiction, one of the most effective ways of addressing the present is through addressing the past.
“The past repeats itself, but with 40 years of hindsight,” he added. ” A play about a particular, overtly antisemitic man and his response to the siege of Beirut is a pretty good way, it seems, of trying to be, as nuanced, honest and complicated about what’s going on now.
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