Jewish community centers in Washington, San Francisco, and New York City have become the target of protesters taking issue with the artistic programs about Israel that they offer.
In Washington, a new grass-roots organization is calling on the local federation to withhold funding from the JCC if the center’s theater puts on plays that “denigrate Israel and undermine its legitimacy.”
In New York City, a group called JCCWatch is taking aim at the JCC in Manhattan for partnering with such groups as the New Israel Fund, B’Tselem, and Human Rights Watch in supporting a film festival.
In the middle stand the cities’ Jewish federations, the communities’ philanthropic backbone, torn between their wish to maintain the artistic freedom of the community’s beneficiary agencies and their need to satisfy angry donors.
“I don’t want to infringe on anyone’s freedom of expression, but why should it be from my federation contributions?” asked Louis Offen, who describes himself as a “significant donor” to the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington.
Offen is a retired physician and lawyer from Chevy Chase, Md. He has demanded that the federation put Ari Roth, artistic director of the Washington D.C. JCC’s Theater J, on “a shorter leash.”
Two years ago, Offen reduced his contribution because of Theater J’s reading of the play “Seven Jewish Children” by Caryl Churchill.
The play speaks of Israeli wrongdoings toward the Arab population. The program coupled the reading with “dramatic responses” from other artists that presented Israel more favorably.
Offen increased his donation the next year, but said he again is threatening to slash support for the federation.
Roth, in response, said that intervening in artistic content “is not a prerogative of the donor.” Roth, who made Theater J a critically acclaimed company, added that attempts to limit the theater’s freedom amount to censorship or blacklisting.
Citizens Opposed to Propaganda Masquerading as Art, or COPMA — the Washington-area organization seeking to rein in Theatre J — has staged protests outside the JCC.
The group also opposed the theater’s invitation in January to Israel’s Cameri Theater to perform “Return to Haifa.” This play was adapted from a novella by Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani, who died in a Beirut car bombing in 1972. Kanafani was a spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which conducted terrorist actions during the 1970s.
The play, which won praise from Washington theater critics, tells the intertwining stories of an Arab family that fled its house in Haifa during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence and a Jewish family of Holocaust survivors now living in the house.
“Showing it in Israel is different,” COPMA treasurer Carol Greenwald argued. “Showing it in any theater in America is fine, but people don’t give money to the federation to support the denigration of Israel.”
In response, the Washington federation provided the Forward with a written statement saying, “Federation leadership considers this to be a serious matter and is taking the issue of funding guidelines under advisement.” The federation declined to comment on specific questions relating to funding the JCC and Theater J.
COPMA’s model for guidelines is the one adopted last year by the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco after similar debate there.
The guidelines state that the federation will not fund grantees that advocate or endorse the undermining of Israel’s legitimacy “as a secure, independent, democratic, Jewish state,” including through participation in boycott, divestment, and sanctions.
“There are things a Jewish community shouldn’t be doing, like serving a bacon cheeseburger on Yom Kippur,” said Andrew Apostolou, a local Jewish community relations council member who has asked for a public discussion over funding guidelines. “Putting on an anti-Semitic play is one of these things.”
But professionals in Jewish arts and culture view the San Francisco guidelines as bad news.
“They had a very chilling effect on the cultural community because they are too vague,” said Elise Bernhardt, president and CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Culture.
Her group, which funds programs in many fields of art, also has faced debates within its board about borders and rules. But only once was there a decision not to fund a film.
“If we tell artists what to say or what to do, we won’t get good art,” Bernhardt said.
The debate is not only over artistic principle. It is also about money.
The Washington JCC receives $600,000 a year from the federation, about 8 percent of its annual budget. A drive for guidelines that would deprive the JCC of federation money because of unacceptable Theater J shows could limit the JCC’s ability to provide other services.
The Washington debate echoes a similar discussion in New York.
John Ruskay, executive vice president and CEO of UJA-Federation of New York, in The New York Jewish Week of Feb. 15 defended the JCC in Manhattan. That JCC has come under attack after the Other Israel Film Festival, a showing of films highlighting the lives of Arabs and other minorities in Israel.
“This is the same JCC that hosts the only ongoing Ulpan program in New York, sponsors Birthright Israel trips for our young, undertakes annual leadership missions to Israel, created the Israel Film Center, presented a 24-hour ‘Israel Non-Stop’ cultural marathon, and far more,” Ruskay wrote.
Nevertheless, in 2007, UJA-Federation abruptly pulled out of co-sponsoring the Other Israel Film Festival at the JCC.
Speaking on background, federation sources told reporters that pressure from major donors had spurred the pullout. A statement issued later by UJA-Federation denied this, claiming incorrectly that “an Israeli political party” also was a co-sponsor, preventing the philanthropy from participating without compromising its nonpartisan status. The federation sponsorship then involved no funds.
JCCWatch, which news reports say is composed of a handful of JCC members, has demanded that the Manhattan JCC establish “public and transparent guidelines that will distance it from organizations supporting BDS.”
In an official statement, the JCC countered that it “does not support BDS, and we do not partner with organizations that support BDS. We stand with Israel against de-legitimization and support open and respectful dialogue within our community.”
The debate, said Stephen Hazan Arnoff, executive director of New York’s 14th Street Y, a community center not targeted by protesters, reflects similar trends in Israel, where tolerance of dissenting views is in decline.
“If the community cannot accommodate diversity,” Arnoff said, “the community is not healthy.”
(This article, originally published in The Forward, was provided by JTA.)
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