At the weekly rally Jan. 14, Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, called on attendees to take action around the latest flashpoint of anti-Israel activism locally.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the week, the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival announced they were canceling the scheduled presentation of The Runner<\/i>, a play by a Canadian playwright Christopher Morris. The move followed an earlier decision to cancel the play at Victoria\u2019s Belfry Theatre after a chaotic public meeting and vandalism of the theatre building. (See jewishindependent.ca\/canceled-play-should-not-be-canceled.)<\/p>\n
The PuSh decision, according to a Jan. 11 statement, was the result of pressure from another festival artist, Basel Zaraa, who threatened to pull his installation, Dear Laila<\/i>, rather than have it appear at the same festival as a play that he describes as not depicting the \u201cfundamental context of Israel\u2019s occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a Festival, we respect Basel\u2019s perspective,\u201d wrote the festival organizers. \u201cWe will honour the artist whose work reflects their lived experience and cancel the presentations of The Runner<\/i> by Canadian playwright Christopher Morris, whose work is rooted in years of research but who has no religious or cultural ties to the region.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the same dispatch, Morris released a statement.<\/p>\n
While saying, \u201cIf removing The Runner<\/i> is the only way Canadians can hear Basel\u2019s crucial voice, then there is value in stepping aside,\u201d Morris concluded, \u201cIt\u2019s unsettling when Canadian theatres cannot be a space for the public to engage in a dynamic exchange of ideas. I believe theatre must be a place where contrasting perspectives are programmed and celebrated. Now more than ever, we need to listen to each other, engage in different viewpoints, and find our shared humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Runner<\/i> is, Shanken said, \u201can acclaimed play by a non-Jewish playwright, one that actually talks about the challenge of what\u2019s going on on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
He told attendees at the Sunday rally that the PuSh Festival\u2019s decision is \u201ca new front\u201d in which \u201cthey are trying to silence other voices.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you don\u2019t have the facts on your side, you silence the opposition,\u201d said Shanken. \u201cEach one of us should take a moment today when we get home, write an email to the PuSh Festival. Tell them enough is enough. We ask not for the other play to be canceled but just for our own equal billing. We allow for their voices to be heard, all we ask is for peaceful voices of ours to be heard, too. We ask for nothing but equality.\u201d<\/p>\n
The PuSh Festival receives funding from the City of Vancouver, the Province of British Columbia and the Canada Council for the Arts, as well as numerous businesses and foundations. Sponsors of the event can be found on the festival\u2019s website \u2013 pushfestival.ca<\/a> \u2013 under \u201cPartnerships.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the weekly rally Jan. 14, Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, called on attendees to take action around the latest flashpoint of anti-Israel activism locally. Earlier in the week, the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival announced they were canceling the scheduled presentation of The Runner, a play by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[22912,9502,22881,4280,22729,20191],"class_list":["post-43305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-basel-zaraa","tag-censorship","tag-christopher-morris","tag-ezra-shanken","tag-israel-hamas-war","tag-push-festival"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}