In The Arts Fuse I comment on Israeli playwright Motti Lerner's At Night's End which was presented last week at the Goethe Institut by Israeli Stage, a theatre company devoted to presenting Israeli plays in translation. The play is presents a family in Haifa during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War. Because of the subject matter, I could not help but recall another play about Israeli families during wartime that has been making the rounds in recent years, Caryl Chruchill's Seven Jewish Children:
Though this family portrait is less-than-flattering, it is a far cry from the crude caricatures presented by English playwright Caryl Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children: A Play For Gaza, a short play that has been received considerable international success in recent years. In Churchill’s play, Israelis are not subject to real threats like daily rocket attacks, invasions, and neighboring states that openly endorse Holocaust denial and genocidal fantasies. Lerner, a critic of Israeli military culture, faces these pressures. But he, unlike Churchill, wrestles with the conundrum of how to integrate traumatized warriors into civilian life.
[...]
In order to inflame hostility towards Israel, Churchill’s play largely portrays Israelis as European interlopers who have been left morally stunted and psychologically infantile because of their experience and understanding of the Holocaust. Lerner’s work exposes the trauma that war places on Israeli families and civil society, but for the purpose of opening up serious dialogue about how to make Israel a better land for his grandchildren. In short, while Lerner’s Israelis are struggling under genuine historical and social pressures, Churchill’s Israelis have no real world context beyond how the dramatist imagines Jews and their approach to childrearing.
Read the rest in The Arts Fuse!
I previously wrote about Israeli Stage's presentation of Savyon Liebrecht's The Banality of Love.
Nota Bene: Meron Langser, who was also in attendance, discusses the importance of presenting Israeli theatre to American audiences as well as the play's portrayal of post-traumatic stress disorder.
13 comments:
As you know, Ian, I'm a fan of Caryl Churchill, and I'm also a fan of "Seven Jewish Children" (in fact I posted it on my blog). That play is quite short, and so, it's true, it's blunt, and I understand how it could offend; still, it puts a finger on an ethical dilemma that I think few Israeli partisans like to face: just how far does the terrible trauma of the Holocaust allow Israel a moral excuse for its actions today, nearly seventy years later?
I'm also slightly disturbed by the seemingly propagandistic tone of this festival. It seems to me that an American theatre festival devoted to Israel would at least bring up the central issue of the current US/Israeli relationship, which is probably: how closely aligned are the interests of the two states? Netanyahu has let it be known he hopes Obama is defeated in the fall, and there's little doubt that some influential American Jews are working toward that end. But do you feel that would be an optimal outcome for the United States? A Republican in the Oval Office would be best for Israel - but would it be best for us? I am quite sure it would NOT be, and I think it's time the Jewish community began to grapple with what what in the end could prove a painfully divided loyalty. It would be very interesting to see a theatre piece deal with that question.
Tom, I'm going to say this as a friend: I think that on this matter you are wrong on nearly all fronts.
I have been asked my opinion on Seven Jewish Children several times since it was first published, and thus I have read it several times. Based on what Churchill I have encountered, I have come to the conclusion that the quality of her output varies widely, and that it's definitely not one of the good ones. In fact, when I first read it, I mistook it for the work of pretentious undergraduate with the sort of upper-class connections to get her work disseminated despite lack of merit. Now I realize that she's actually a pretentious upper-class Englishwoman of my parents' generation.
Quite simply: 1.) the work is poorly researched, and only alludes to historical events to the extent that they can serve a pre-determined conclusion. 2.) No one ever uses the Holocaust to "justify" any of the more controversial policies of the Israeli government (except maybe the "controversial" insistence of existing); Israel's policies regarding the West Bank, Gaza, or any of its neighbors: Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, or Iran are, whether these policies are wise, foolish, effective, or ineffective, are responses to real security and foreign policy terms; 3.) Dismissing real world security issues in favor of making a pop-psychological explanation in diagnosing the behavior of democratic and pluralistic nation as Churchill does, is crude pseudo-intellectual racism.
Bluntly, I find the antisemitism in Churchill's play rivaling T.S. Eliot's "Burbank with a Baedeker; Bleistein with a Cigar" or "Sweeny Among the Nightingales" in its atavistic crudity-- perhaps worse since it pure agit-prop.
I find it ironic that you could "admire" me for "accurately describing [...] an eccentric crypto-fascism" in the work of Peter Schumann yet defend Churchill when I level the same criticism when she makes what is essentially the same argument Schumann makes.
I also think you misread the American-Israeli relationship. Sure there are a handful of rich Jewish-Americans who happen to be Republican, but a quick glance at Jewish-American voting patterns over the past few generations demonstrates that not only are the vast majority of Jewish-Americans democrats, but that this notion that "a Republican in the Oval Office would be best for Israel" is a notion of a.) Republican partisans; and b.) left-wing anti-Semites but not widely believed by Jewish-Americans. Netanyahu may not like Obama: so what? Obama also made it clear that he would have preferred Ehud Barrak or Tzipi Livni as Prime Minister. It was a public misstep by both of them Defense Minister Barrak at the same time of greatest public tensions between Netanyahu and Obama even noted that the policy differences between Israel and the United States are minor.
As to the notion that Israeli Stage's programming is "propagandistic": Propagandistic for what? Yes there was a representative of the Israeli Consulate to New England at the reading of At Night's End but at the same time, Motti Lerner is a fairly outspoken critic of much of what we Americans often perceive (perhaps mistakenly) as Israeli political consensus. Do you seriously believe that Netanyahu would want to promote the views Lerner articulates in his essay "Playwriting in Wartime"?
Tom, you are far too intelligent to be allowing Walt and Mearsheimer to so affect your world-view.
Oh, Ian, you're just talking silly. No way is Caryl Churchill an anti-Semite in the way that T. S. Eliot was, in fact, I don't think "Seven Jewish Children" is anti-Semitic at all (if I believed it were, I wouldn't have posted it). You're right that it is a polemic, and that it is biased against current Israeli policy. But I disagree with much of what Israel does, so I find that I agree with some of what Ms. Churchill says. And I just reread the script, and was struck how even in its brief span it offers many Jewish voices, arguing passionately over Israeli attitudes and policies. It's hardly "crude pseudo-intellectual racism," even if it's basically a pamphlet with a clear political attitude - one that I understand disturbs you.
And sorry, but even if there is no real political consensus within Israel, that doesn't change the fact that Israel has become a Republican talking point, and unquestioning support for its policies is now a litmus test for the far right, one that could lead many people into political decisions that would be disastrous for our country. And that's a dilemma for many liberal American Jews. I'm sorry, but that's simply the truth, and slandering Caryl Churchill doesn't change it.
It's only slander if it isn't true. I take antisemitism seriously and thus, do not use the word lightly. Rather than being biased against "current Israeli policy" (which it isn't, since it was written while there was a Kadima-Labor led coalition in power, while the current government is led by Likud) Seven Jewish Children is biased against Israel's founding, its right to self-defense, and right to self-determination: things that other democracies take for granted-- it has nothing to do with any specific policy beyond defending its right to exist. She also uses anti-Semitic tropes like the blood-libel. So yes, I stand by the notion that at least where Jews are concerned, Caryl Churchill, who is capable of subtlety elsewhere is crude.
What does the Republican litmus test have to do with it anyway? Arguably, Israel's security situation was actually made worse by the missteps of the last Republican in the Oval Office (like invading Iraq-- which Ariel Sharon disagreed with.) The Israel about which the American Christian right (or much of the Christian left for that matter, if we consider Jimmy Carter) isn't the Israel that Israelis live in.
Again, please. There's no "blood libel" in "Seven Jewish Children." And what bothers you about it, I think, is that it clearly, if quickly, limns a central paradox about Israel. Beyond the (totally justified!) sympathy with the Jewish people that came after the horror of the Holocaust, there are a slew of tricky moral questions surrounding Israel's founding and, yes, its very identity. In short, how is a "Jewish state" to be squared with Enlightenment ideals of democracy, in an area that is overwhelmingly non-Jewish? And how is one to ignore the troubling fact that Israel actually has military control over a non-Jewish population larger than its Jewish one? I don't want to call this "apartheid," as some have, because of course it's nothing like South African apartheid - but it IS nevertheless a moral problem. And when you plead self-preservation as the reason for ignoring that problem - well, that only begs the question even more urgently, doesn't it.
As for "What does the Republican litmus test have to do with this anyway?" - again, please! The Israeli consulate is sending staff to it just because it's a good show? I don't think so. This festival is on a small scale, I know, but it's obviously politicized, and it's obviously propaganda - to an outsider, it looks AT LEAST as propagandistic as "Seven Jewish Children." Which, you know, folks are free to do, as long as they admit what it is they're doing (while refraining from calling other propaganda "blood libel"), and also admit the full political ramifications of unquestioning support of Israel right now.
Israeli Stage promotes Israeli culture (which is separate from government) and that is sufficient reason for there to be a cultural attache at the reading. As I pointed out, Lerner's own politics are hardly in line with that of the Likud-led government, nor is At Night's End a particularly flattering portrait of Israeli society (it just has the nuance and grounding in reality that Churchill's work lacks.) It's certainly not "unquestioning" it its support of any particular government.
This is just as appropriate as when our State Department promotes American music, theatre, dance, or painting abroad. The fact that I love American jazz does not make me an unquestioning supporter of whomever might be occupying the Oval Office at a given moment, not does my appreciation of Persian classical music make me sympathetic towards Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The point is that whatever propaganda value these readings offer, it's fairly diffuse and does not serve
How is a "Jewish state" to be squared with Enlightenment ideals of democracy?
Of course, Karl Marx articulated the same question in his essay "On The Jewish Question" and argued that the Jews of Europe should abandon any cultural, religious, or ethnic distinction as a pre-condition of their emancipation (Voltaire also made a similar argument.) However, in 21st century Europe, ethnic democracies are fairly standard. If we can accept the concept of French democracy, Irish democracy, Czech democracy, Slovakian democracy, and Greek democracy (and each of these states have an interest in promoting their culture abroad), then "Jewish democracy" isn't really so outlandish.
Yes, there is a Jewish state in a region of the world where the majority isn't Jewish, but it's also a region where most states aren't democratic either. And while this does not change the fact that Israeli society has its share of problems, the opportunities for ethnic and religious minorities, educationally, politically, and economically, outpace those that its neighbors offer their minorities. At no point in Lerner's play, nor in the essays of his that I have read, nor in the Q&A does he evade these "paradoxes" that you cite-- he wrestles with them head-on. As Natan Sharansky notes: "It is acceptable to hold democracies up to a higher standard as long as you recognize that democracies, by definition, are already maintaining higher standards.”
We all know that the military control over parts of the West Bank (Gaza hasn't had an Israeli presence since 2005) is because of a failure to reach a final peace settlement-- that's a difficult position for a democracy to be in-- but given the circumstances, it is hardly unprecedented nor completely unjustified.
Don't worry: this conversation has further underlined to me the need to present a more in-depth analysis of Seven Jewish Children.
Okay, I just want to note that you haven't actually answered the question "How is a 'Jewish' state to be squared with Enlightenment ideals of democracy?" Instead, you have simply said, "Look, Israel is better than Saudi Arabia and Syria!!!" Which it certainly is. But then I don't much like Saudi Arabia or Syria either. And it's hard to keep playing the democracy card in Israel's favor after the Arab Spring. Democracy is struggling to be born in the Arab world now, which makes things more complicated for Israel.
And I'm not sure this festival is QUITE the equivalent of the US State Department sending jazz musicians overseas. If only because the current political moment is so fraught.
Well, I suppose I should throw the question to you: how do you reconcile any of the ethnic democracies of Europe with Enlightenment ideals of democracy, despite government policies to promote their indigenous cultures, languages, and rituals? Or are Europeans defined ethnically-neutral simply because they happen to be gentiles?
This is a tension we deal with in any democracy. The Enlightenment is based on the idea of a universal humanity, but humans are individuals and form particular communities. We always have to reconcile the cultural, religious, ethnic, linguistic, class, sexual, and gender affiliations of a democracy's citizenry with the universal aspirations? Why is it more problematic when the country has a Jewish majority as opposed to when the country is majority Catholic, Protestant, French, English, German, Italian, or Greek?
So, let's not compare Israel to its authoritarian neighbors. Compare Israel to any other democracy, then consider the context of constant military and terrorist threats: How well does it maintain its democratic institutions and protections for minorities while under threat? How does its military's behavior compare to that of any NATO member nation's military? Can you suggest a better means by which Israel can defend itself?
Point is that Lerner does ask these questions. Sometimes leaving them unanswered, but certainly not giving simplistic answers. I certainly get the impression from Churchill that she doesn't consider Israel entitled to any right of self-defense.
Democracy may be struggling to be born in the Arab world now (indeed, if it existed a half century ago, this conflict would likely have been settled peacefully decades ago) but it hasn't been delivered yet: We only have to look at how ethnic and religious minorities are faring in Egypt, for instance, or how Israel is making preparations to take in refugees from Syria as the fighting gets worse.
"And I'm not sure this festival is QUITE the equivalent of the US State Department sending jazz musicians overseas."
I also think you have to realize is that Israeli Stage is not a project of the Israeli Consulate, but a local project-- of course they are going to ask for support.
As to our own State Department and jazz musicians: Many of these tours were being conducted at the height of the civil rights movement in America. I have at least one live recording of the Duke Ellington Orchestra where Ellington introduces his Harlem Suite to a foreign audience as containing "our civil rights demands." The point is that he wasn't there to defend the political status quo in his own country-- and he didn't.
Well, I guess I'll throw out this answer - I don't think I have to reconcile various European limitations on citizenship, etc., because I disagree with them, too. I'm not making the case that such policies are okay for them, but not for you. And I would remind you that we're not shipping France and Germany millions of dollars every day in military aid, which in turn helps them currently occupy hostile territories. Although I understand how criticism by those powers must rankle, as they themselves do operate, in respect to "guest workers," etc., as exclusionary states. And there should be more pressure from the U.S. to correct that situation, particularly given the protections they enjoy from NATO, etc.
But that's not an argument for exclusionary statism per se, is it. And what's problematic about Israel's status is not that it's a Jewish state, but that it was imposed by international fiat on an area that doesn't seem to have wanted it - and then it has behaved, to varying degrees and in varying ways, as both an occupier and an exclusionary state.
And while you're correct that democracy has not quite "been born" in the Middle East, it is clear now that the actual populations around Israel hunger for democratic reforms. It therefore becomes more difficult for US observers to countenance Israeli saber-rattling, then, towards populaces which are clearly opposed to their ruling regimes. Surely that is also only fair.
we're not shipping France and Germany millions of dollars every day in military aid
That's a fairly illusory argument actually. Because when we consider how much it costs the United States to maintain bases, troops, ships, planes, missiles, tanks et cetera, both in the democratic states of Europe as well as in the authoritarian states of the Arab world, the cash voucher that Israel receives (which can only be spent on American-made equipment and thus supports our GDP) Israel comes across as one of our more cost-effective alliances. Those military bases the US maintained in Saudia Arabia, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain and elsewhere over recent decades have not been cheap.
Furthermore, as much as I'd like to see the occupation of the West Bank end, I don't see that as a realistic option for Israel to take until Palestinian society decides that Israel has the right to exist within secure borders. After all, when Israeli occupation of Gaza ended in the summer of 2005 the result was a neighbor that not only kept firing rockets across the border but also started ethnically cleansing its Christian minority (many of whom had to flee to Israel as refugees.)
Sure, a Jewish state may not be welcome by its neighbors in the middle east, but since the Jews were driven out other middle eastern countries (and note that the Arab/Israeli conflict actually created more Jewish refugees than Arab) but is that really a good argument? Israel doesn't continue to exist in the Middle East because it was "imposed" by the international community-- it continues to exist because it repeatedly succeeded in defending itself from invasion by hostile neighbors. So should the Kurds and Druze (to present just two examples) also be denied their national aspirations just because their neighbors don't like them? Perhaps the Kosovars should be denied their national aspirations because Serb nationalists didn't like them? What of the national aspirations of the Poles or the Irish?
I also would note that your attempt to draw an equivalence between populist uprisings against the current (or in some cases, recently departed) authoritarian regimes in the middle east and democracy is ludicrous. In many cases, the majorities are just as willing, if not more willing, to be just as oppressive, if not more oppressive towards the ethnic and religious minorities within their own country. Egypt no longer oppresses its Jewish population because it expelled its Jews two generations ago, and now the Coptic population is similarly threatened, meanwhile the Berbers are oppressed all across northern Africa.
Sorry, but these are hackneyed arguments that don't reflect reality.
In the mean time, we've gotten well away from either a discussion about the value of being exposed to the cultural product of countries (like Israel) that are outside the western cannon as it is conservatively defined or whether or not I am misguided about Caryl Churchill.
You know, Ian, you dodge and weave pretty well, but you're still stuck with the fact that we tolerate Israel's occupation of a hostile territory apparently in perpetuity because - well, why? Because it's "cost effective"? HOW is it "cost-effective"? What is the benefit to the United States of Israel's occupation of Palestine? I'm really curious what your answer to that question could be - and I'm even more curious if you can make your case without mentioning "blood libels" or insinuating that anti-Semitism must be informing what is, actually, an entirely rational mode of self-interest for the United States. Seriously - if Israel is so independent of international support, then why shouldn't it make its own way without US aid? And why is it attempting to influence the US election? And also, why shouldn't the US withdraw all aid from Israel unless it moves to support a Palestinian state? I mean if your answer is "the only way Israel can exist is to keep this group of people in political limbo forever" - well, then I'm sorry, that's no answer and you're doing far worse than Caryl Churchill, whatever her prejudices may be.
Other than the observation that Obama and Netanyahu are not BFFs, I don't think you have substantiated that Israel "attempting to influence the US election." I certainly have not seen any such evidence. There are plenty of instances where both administrations continue to work together on matters of mutual interest and make public statements praising each other's leadership. What I have seen is that American Jews who follow Israeli politics often prefer one Israeli political party over another-- and likewise, Israelis who pay attention to American politics also have their favorites. Arguably we see that in the US-UK relationship as well: it was quite visible when members of Clinton 1996 reelection campaign skipped over to Britain to run Tony Blair's campaign for Prime-Minister.
If anything, you're probably going to find far more Saudi money in American elections-- and let's not forget: The U.S. has actually gone to war to protect Saudi interests-- something the U.S. has never done for Israel.
Point is that you're getting into some seriously conspiratorial thinking that's based more in supposition than fact.
I'd also note that Israeli policy has supported the existence of an independent Palestinian state (implicit in the acceptance of the original 1948 partition plan and in the 1967 peace offering and explicit in the 1993 Oslo Accords.) If there is a stumbling block on the Israeli side it is that the Palestinian negotiators have refused to give up territorial claims on the entirety of Israel-- which is why the 2000 treaty failed, and various factions, like Hamas, which rules Gaza continues to not acknowledge the right of existence. The U.S. not only backs Israel's right to secure borders against Hamas but against Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah-- hence military funding.
Point being that Churchill's play legitimates staying away from the negotiation table, falsifies history, relies heavily on her upper-class white Anglo-Saxon privilege to present an infantalizing picture of Jews (and yes that is racism), and consequently demonstrates a contempt of Israel's right to self defense that even matches the EU's Agency for Fundamental Rights' definition of antisemitism.
While we're at it, I'll even toss in the report of the British All-Parliamentary Group Against Anti-Semitism.
So, once again, I'm not sure why this suddenly makes it not okay to present works by Israeli playwrights. If anything, don't you think Americans should know more about the cultures of nations with which they are involved? Or is it only okay to know about the cultures of some of those countries? So, even if I didn't feel that the geo-political aspect of your argument was facile, you're not even trying to make a good argument that Motti Lerner's plays shouldn't be better known to American theatre goers.
Anyway, I will be writing a little something about Ms. Churchill in the future, so even if we take a break right now, we'll pick this up again soon enough.
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