A Jewish Theater Drops a Zionist
Chicago's Arts Judaica shelved Naomi Ragen's play. Her politics were the problem.
Mamdani's Oct. 7 statement accused Israel of genocide. In an X post, New York's mayor mourned the Israelis killed and kidnapped, then turned to Gaza. "Not once do you say 'Jews,'" the ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt answered. At the Union Square vigil he attended Wednesday night, pro-Palestinian protesters chanted "Traitor" at him. 12
A Haverford religion professor is charged with stalking a Jewish person online. A federal indictment says Guangtian Ha sent about 50 messages from at least four X accounts, calling the victim a "Jew pig" and posting a photo of their mailbox. He was arrested Tuesday. Haverford, which settled a 2024 antisemitism suit naming Ha in August, put him on leave. 3
About 50,000 people came to an Oct. 7 memorial in Tel Aviv run by survivors and bereaved families. Former hostage Eli Sharabi, whose wife and daughters were murdered in Be'eri, co-hosted. No ministers were seen. A call for a state commission of inquiry, which Netanyahu has resisted, drew loud applause. 4
Arts Judaica, a Chicago Jewish theater, shelved its March revival of Naomi Ragen's Women's Minyan, a play about a haredi woman trying to leave an abusive marriage, because actors, directors and designers feared that working with a "pro Zionist Jew/Israeli" would hurt their careers. A would-be funder was uncomfortable too. 5
We call that a blacklist, and a shanda. A Jewish theater whose mission statement includes Holocaust education told an Israeli writer her Zionism was the problem. Habima commissioned the play, and it has been staged in the U.S. before.
Ragen calls it a "return to McCarthyism" and cites Germany in 1938. We'd leave 1938 out of it. Her other line is the one Arts Judaica should have taken to heart: "be a little brave." 5
Reply and tell us we're meshugeneh.