Published: 14 December 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
DAVID FELDMAN and YAIR WALLACH: Antisemitic thinking surfaces with extraordinary frequency in UK public discourse, from lawyers to playwrights and pop culture
WHAT CONNECTS A playwright at London’s Royal Court theatre, an indie rocker from the north of England, and a senior lawyer working for the University of Bristol?
It may sound like the set-up to a joke but, sadly, it isn’t. All three have recently displayed a remarkable blind spot for antisemitism, and provide an indication of how common this problem is. Our culture is saturated with racism, including racism directed at Jews. Sometimes these instances make headlines but at others they pass unnoticed.
Last month, the Royal Court, a West End theatre specializing in emerging playwrights, delivered one briefly notorious example. In a new play, its main protagonist, an unprincipled billionaire, was called Hershel Fink, despite the play making no reference to Jews and its main character having been inspired by the (not Jewish) Elon Musk.
Following protests, the theatre acknowledged that it was "perpetuating an antisemitic stereotype" and that it was a case of "unconscious bias." This provoked protest across a spectrum of opinion; critics of left-liberal metropolitan political culture made hay.
But what about North Shields indie rocker, Sam Fender and his "unconscious bias"? The lyrics for "Aye," from his number 1 album "Seventeen Going Under," have passed without critical comment, even though the song has garnered five million hits on Spotify and YouTube alone.
They don't act up for the camera
They just sit back and command them
And collect and deflect and abandon
They even wrote all the Ten Commandments
They watched Jesus get nailed at the cross
In real time and in their heads
