“We won’t succeed on Broadway if we don’t have any Jews,” according to Monty Python’s Spamalot the musical. This remark feels increasingly at odds with the landscape for Jews in the creative arts over the past year and a half. Whether it’s finding a venue for a film or play, or dealing with being put on the spot and quizzed about their views on the war in Gaza, directors, producers and actors have been vocal about the challenges of our current climate.
With this backdrop, the fact that both the Best Actor and Actress Oscars were won by Jews (Adrien Brody for The Brutalist and Mikey Madison for Anora), with many others both nominated for and presenting accolades, is notable and encouraging.
There is a lot of pressure on Jewish people in the public eye, and that pressure doesn’t only come from external sources. Much of the debate within our community focused on whether these nominees had used their platforms adequately to advocate for hostages, or whether they could have spoken more generally about the scourge of antisemitism.
With such an urgent cause, it makes absolute sense that it feels we have to take any and every opportunity to raise these vital issues. I also wonder if it’s possible that the pressure on this moment is creating a dynamic of unfair or unrealistic expectations of Jews in the public eye, who have the right to be creative, successful and for their views on Israel to be entirely incidental to their success.
The antisemitic litmus test that requires a person to be the ‘right’ kind of Jew for acceptance by wider society is deeply pernicious, and I fear that the discourse within the Jewish community about whether Jewish creatives could have done more risks creating a parallel dynamic and an utterly unfair expectation.
I dream of a situation where Jews freely can make art that centres the Jewish experience, and that has nothing to do with it, where they can choose to speak of and advocate for their people and community, and to have a separation between their public and private selves. The key word here is freely, where coercion or discrimination is not a driving force but rather creativity and passion.
It’s why I’m especially excited by projects like Rachel Gaffin’s Joyfully Jewish theatre project (joyfullyjewish.co.uk) which brings Jewish culture, community and joy to a wider audience.
When external forces seek to box our community in, it’s exciting to celebrate those who resist the shrinking forces of discrimination and represent Jewish talent, stories and identity in their multiplicities.
