POSNER: How antisemitism is infecting Canada's theatre scene

It is not necessary that people be wicked, but only that they be spineless. ― James Baldwin, The Fire Next TimeA few years ago, Canadian playwright Christopher Morris wrote a mind-bending play: The Runner. Its sole character, an orthodox Jew named Jacob, is a volunteer member of ZAKA Search and Rescue, the UN-recognized non-governmental Israeli agency that helps identify victims of terrorism (Jews, Muslims, Druze, Christians, anyone). Arriving at the scene of a probable terror attack, Jacob makes an instinctive decision: to treat the presumed perpetrator, a wounded Palestinian woman, instead of the Israeli soldier she may have killed. In doing so, he obeys his conscience but violates ZAKA’s express purpose, service to victims.It’s a controversial premise, one that might offend Jew and Arab alike. But Morris is not particularly interested in taking sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He’s more interested in the basic human impulse, examining how it behaves under pressure and what the consequences are.As Canadian drama goes, The Runner enjoyed an enviable life — successful productions at no fewer than five theatres and glowing reviews. Moreover, not a single production stirred even a whisper of social protest. Victoria’s Belfry Theatre had scheduled a new production for March of this year. Vancouver’s PuShFestival had slated it to run in January, in tandem with Dear Laila, an installation piece by UK-based Palestinian artist Basel Zaraa — a miniature model of his childhood home in Yarmouk, a refugee camp in Syria, to which his grandparents fled during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.Then came October 7, when Palestinian terrorists — members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad as well as ordinary Gazans — butchered, raped, beheaded and incinerated some 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped about 250 others, including children. It was the country’s largest single-day death toll since the Holocaust. And then came Israel's ferocious response, an air and ground campaign designed to destroy Hamas’ military capability and its billion-dollar network of underground tunnels. In the process, thousands of Gazans have been killed, including innocent civilians.The conflict, in turn, ignited a global firestorm of antisemitism. In Canada, Jewish institutions were vandalized, and there were shootings, physical violence and intimidation. In Victoria, anti-Israeli protesters petitioned The Belfry to cancel The Runner, spray-painting its building with “Free Palestine” graffiti. Soon after, the theatre’s leadership caved, saying, “This is not the time for a play which may further tensions.”Actually, this is precisely the time when a play such as The Runner is needed, one that appeals to the better angels of our nature. Instead of honouring its pledge to generate dialogue, The Belfry opted to censor the dialogue.At PuSh, after initially insisting The Runner would go ahead as scheduled, alongside Dear Laila, organizers quickly capitulated. The coup de grâce was Zaraa’s threat to pull his installation piece unless Morris’ play was withdrawn. His work, Zaraa claimed, had originally been created to tell his family’s story, “starting with the massacre in our village of Tantura in Palestine, in 1948.”Except there was no such massacre. Not a single document from the period — British, Israeli or Arab — mentions any atrocity at Tantura. The allegation was the invention of a far-left Israeli graduate student who claimed the Israel Defence Forces’ Alexandroni Brigade had killed 250 innocent Palestinians. Promptly sued for defamation, under examination, the student confessed he had concocted the entire libellous narrative.Zaraa’s letter to the PuSh Festival also complained that, “While the Israeli characters are vividly portrayed, the Palestinian characters don’t even have names and barely speak.” Of course, some of the most memorable characters in modern fiction are nameless, among them Joseph Conrad’s protagonist in Heart of Darkness and the father and son duo in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Their very anonymity makes these voices more powerful and helps to universalize the author’s message. And, by the way, the dead Israeli soldier in Morris’ play has no name, either.Morris himself, incidentally, took the high road, graciously accepting the cancellation. He’s clearly a better man than I. I would have been outraged. The festival organizers chose a piece of propaganda over a calibrated work of ethical complexity. Let’s call this travesty what it is: censorship of free speech, a craven surrender to bullying, cultural and historical illiteracy, and, yes, antisemitism.If you want to witness the decline of Western civilization in microcosm, look no further than The Belfry and PuSh, erstwhile champions of “dialogue” and “communion.” Now, just as in 1930s Germany, a Jewish theme, a Jewish writer, a mere connection to Israel, is at risk of being judged contaminated. This debacle is a small marker, to be sure, but it’s part of a growing pattern of indicia that testify to the moral sickness plaguing Western society.The original, full-length version of this article was recently published by C2C Journal. Michael Posner is a Canadian journalist who has worked principally at Maclean’s Magazine and the Globe and Mail. His work now appears on Michael’s Substack at substack.com.