11/11/09
Friends of Palestine WA
P.O. Box 1410
West Perth 6872
Ph: 0407 850 962
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
We have received information this afternoon which indicates the WA branch of Amnesty International made the final decision to cancel this Sunday’s performance of Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza, in part because the play’s controversial content did not fit in with the other events scheduled for the ARTillery Youth Arts Festival. However, the WA Branch President of Amnesty International has confirmed to us this decision was taken principally as a result of concerns raised by Kulcha about the controversial nature of the play. These concerns were raised by Kulcha following pressure being applied to the arts venue by representatives of the Jewish Community Council of Western Australia (JCCWA).
Notwithstanding this new information, Friends of Palestine WA unreservedly condemns Kulcha for its part in the decision to cancel the play. Furthermore, we are extremely disappointed that Amnesty International caved in to pressure from Kulcha and the JCCWA in ultimately deciding to cancel the performance.
Friends of Palestine WA and its many hundreds of supporters are incensed at this brazen act of censorship. It is partly as a conscious act of rebellion against this censorship that we intend to put on our own performance of the play in February next year.
FOR MORE INFORMATION OR COMMENT PLEASE WRITE TO friendsofpalestinewa@gmail.com OR CALL THE CONVENER OF FRIENDS OF PALESTINE WA, ALEX WHISSON, ON 0407 850 962
Jewish group slams ban
The left-leaning Australian Jewish Democratic Society today reacted angrily to news of interference with the intended Amnesty performance of Caryl Churchill’s play ‘Seven Jewish Children’ at Perth’s Kulcha centre. AJDS spokesperson, Les Rosenblatt, questioned the logic of the Perth Jewish Community Council of WA reaction: “Does this community feels so isolated that that it has to circle its wagons in fear of permanent siege from within as well as from without?”, he asked.
If true as alleged, the JCCWA putting pressue on the Kulcha venue to prevent the staging of this play by Amnesty was foolishly censorious, the AJDS contended. Seven Jewish Children: a play for Gaza had been performed in the Australian Jewish community annual scholar’s conference , Limmud Oz, held in June in Sydney, and in various places in Israel without any problems, Rosenblatt noted. “This ban seems to be evidence of a state of acute but very misguided anxiety” he said. Other Jewish communities, Rosenblatt pointed out have been stimulated to serious soul-searching and debate by the powerful mini-drama, but it appears the WA community will sadly have none of this, to its own detriment.
The AJDS was wondering if the play’s lines “tell her not to be sorry for them, tell her we’re the ones to be sorry for, tell her they can’t talk suffering to us” had prompted the act of censorship. “Whatever the explanation”, Rosenblatt continued, “our group, which over the last 25 years has been campaigning against the suppression of legitimate Jewish voices, deplores such self-defeating ostrich-like defensiveness”.