Racism

Hytner: Othello's race 'not a big deal' to the Venetians

Jennifer Lipman — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:24:34 +0100

The racism in Othello is not as pronounced as the antisemitism in the Merchant of Venice, the director of the National theatre said this week.

Sir Nicholas Hytner, whose critically acclaimed production of Othello starring Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear is currently selling-out at the National, expressed his view in conversation with JC theatre critic John Nathan at the London Jewish Cultural Centre on Monday evening.

Discussing how the interpretation and reaction to William Shakespeare's work has changed over time, he noted that in 1604, London audiences would have had a very different response to a man with black skin than they did in 1804 or 1904.

"It was written before we had learnt to be as racist as we became," he said. "I give you as evidence of this the Merchant of Venice. Same city, same world, there isn't a page in Merchant of Venice which isn't obsessed with Shylock's Jewishness."

Sir Nicholas, who is only the second person to have run the National Theatre for more than a decade, described Merchant as "an antisemitic play which contains within it a criticism of antisemitism".

"Everybody in the play is antisemitic, they ascribe everything bad that is done to Shylock's Jewishness," he said. "You can't imagine Shylock being appointed commander of the armed forces.

"In Othello it's not a big deal to the Venetian duke and the senators of Venice that they are appointing a Moor. Not many people in Othello are vocally racist."

Sir Nicholas, who announced earlier this year that he was standing down from the National in March 2015, said he hoped his swansong would be a production of a new play by an up and coming writer. Although he gave no indication of who his preferred successor would be, he said it was great "for a theatre to have an artist as chief executive".

His tenure at the National has seen collaborations with Habima, the Israeli theatre company that faced boycott calls when it performed at the Globe Theatre last year. "I don't personally agree with boycotts," he said. "None of my colleagues said let's not work with them."

But he also revealed that as a young pupil of Manchester Grammar School, he initiated his own boycott – of the school's Jewish choir, joining the non-religious one instead. "The standards were not high enough in the Jewish choir so I boycotted it on musical grounds."

Jerusalem football club to change racist culture

Nathan Jeffay — Thu, 02 May 2013 13:00:00 +0100

This afternoon, a Jerusalem football team will battle on the pitch for promotion to the professional league — and to change the culture of the game in Israel.

Many fans are sick of clubs’ reliance on tycoon owners, who can send their fortunes up and down like yo-yos. So six years ago, a group of Jerusalemites established a football co-operative.

Today, all 420 owners of Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem will be cheering them on for a victory which, given the required goal difference, will put it in the Israeli equivalent of the Football League Championship.

“The whole base of the system is different with our club,” says chairman Omri Sheinfeld. “The team is the fans, which means they feel involved, not just like spectators, and they also have responsibility.” The owners pay NIS 1,000 (£180) a year, providing almost a quarter of the club’s annual budget of NIS 2 million.

For general manager and founder Uri Sheradsky, the co-operative model is an antidote to the destabilising effect of big money in football. He says: “Few people want to invest in clubs, and many of those who do are strange people and you can’t rely on them. Now, you don’t rely on one person, you rely on hundreds.”

The progressive ethos at the club is not limited to its ownership structure. It seeks to change the demographic attending football, from a predominantly adult male crowd. All under-13s attend games for free, and they have become family affairs with far more women and children than elsewhere in Israeli football. In a bid to be a team for all local residents in a city with such a large religious population, Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem has insisted in holding games on weekdays, not on Shabbat. As a result, it has a large religious following.

The club is also running the only girls’ team in jerusalem.

In terms of Arab involvement, the club is a stark contrast to the dominant Jerusalem team.

Beitar Jerusalem has never had an Israeli Arab or Palestinian player. In fact, some Beitar fans were so outraged by the signing earlier this year of two foreign Muslims that there was an arson attack at the club and a mass walkout from the stadium when one of them scored his first goal.

At Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem there are Arabs among the owners, and on the senior and youth teams.

Mr Sheinfeld says: “There are all sorts of peace programmes, but that isn’t what this is — it’s just people from different sides who would never normally co-operate doing so for football.”

Twitter faces £33m suit over hate messages

Jennifer Lipman — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 06:30:00 +0000

Social networking site Twitter is facing a £33 million lawsuit for refusing to divulge the identities of antisemitic users.

The site is being sued by the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF ) for ignoring a court ruling to hand over details of the users.

Twitter was told to work to help identify the authors of a string of abusive and antisemitic tweets, posted by various users under the tag #unbonjuif (#agoodjew) in October last year.

But the January court ruling was not binding, since the company does not have an office in France, and it has so far not complied.

Jonathan Hayoun, UEJF president, criticised the site for “playing the indifference card”.

He said: “In protecting the anonymity of the authors of these tweets it is making itself an accomplice and offering a highway for racists and antisemites.”

The group has filed a claim with a Paris tribunal and is now seeking more than £33 million in damages, which it said would be donated to the Shoah Memorial fund.

A spokesman for Twitter criticised UEJF for being “more interested in these grand gestures than in finding an adequate international procedure to obtain the requested information”.

Boys battle racism in football

Sandy Rashty — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:22:01 +0000

Two 13-year-old schoolboys have embarked on a mission to combat racism in football.

Jack Sullivan, the son of West Ham Football Club co-owner David Sullivan, has teamed up with his Jewish schoolfriend Joshua Klein.

Both boys, who attend Chigwell School, participated in the BBC-led School Report initiative, which involved young people making and submitting a news report on Thursday.

Joshua, who celebrated his barmitzvah at the kotel in Jerusalem last October, said they “are mad football fans.

“Jack supports West Ham and I support Spurs, but it doesn’t make a difference because we both go to games and see the same things. Sometimes you hear racist chants from the opposition.”

As part of the report project, the boys interviewed West Ham players at the club’s training ground in Chadwell Heath, including captain Kevin Nolan, as well as manager Sam Allardyce.

Joshua said the players “told us the press sometimes blow things out of proportion but it’s important that we raise racial awareness and stamp out abuse”.

Joshua emphasised that the boys were intent on combating prejudice across the board, including antisemitism. “A lot of people think Jews own football because of people like Daniel Levy [chairman of Tottenham Hotspur] — but it’s not true.”

His father, Andrew, a member of Newbury Park Synagogue, has arranged to have Mr Allardyce speak at a fundraising breakfast next month.

“I think what the boys have done is great,” said Mr Klein. “Josh is doing his part to get the message across, and that’s the message of tolerance.”

Yeshivah teacher shame over ‘schvartze’ remark

Anna Sheinman — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 10:23:57 +0000

New York’s Yeshiva University has condemned one of its senior professors of rabbinic studies for his offensive remarks about “schvartzes”, made at a recent conference of United Synagogue rabbis in London.

Rabbi Hershel Schachter —speaking about mesirah, Jews informing on the crimes of other Jews — warned that in the United States, prisons might “put you in a cell together with a schvartze, with a Muslim, a black Muslim, who wants to kill all the Jews”.

That, he warned, might be mesirah, “because you’re punished more than the law requires”. The taped remarks were posted on the website FailedMessiah, which reports Orthodox scandals.

A spokesperson for Yeshiva University said: “The recent use of a derogatory racial term and negative characterisations of African-Americans and Muslims, by a member of the faculty, are inappropriate, offensive and do not represent the values and mission of Yeshiva University.”

Rabbi Schachter also made controversial remarks about the child abuse scandal that rocked Yeshiva University High School last year. He appeared to pin some of the blame on one of the victims for not reporting the abuse to the school counsellor.

The rabbi also discussed the controversial practice of metzitzah b’peh, orogential suction following brit milah. He claimed 15 babies die from it each year in New York because they contract herpes.

His assertion directly contradicts a 2012 study by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, which found only two baby deaths resulting from a metzitzah b’peh-caused herpes infection between 2000 and 2011. Rabbi Schachter was unavailable for comment.

His London talk was recorded by the US Rabbinical Council and circulated to members but its appearance on FailedMessiah remains unexplained.

Livingstone to deliver anti-racist talk

Jennifer Lipman — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 11:30:16 +0000

Ex-London mayor Ken Livingstone is to address a National Union of Students conference later this month looking at challenging antisemitism, racism, Islamophobia and fascism.

He is one of several speakers invited to address the NUS Anti-Racism, Anti-Fascism event, with MP Margaret Hodge and the president of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies also on the bill.

His appearance will take place almost a year to the day after his alleged remarks about wealthy Jews not voting Labour, which led prominent Jewish Labour supporters to complain to Ed Miliband that “Ken determines Jews as a religious group, but does not accept Jews as an ethnicity and a people”.

Participants include the Union of Jewish Students, Searchlight, Unite Against Facism and the Jewish Council on Racial Equality.

UJS said it was aware of Mr Livingstone’s involvement. UJS campaigns director Judith Flacks concentrated on the issue of “the urgent need to combat antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism and fascism, not just in the student movement, but in our local communities”.

But Reading University student Jack Mendel was one of a number to question Mr Livingstone’s involvement.

He said: “It doesn’t seem appropriate for NUS to ask a speaker to talk about anti-racism, when that speaker has made remarks that would fall under the NUS’s own definition of antisemitism. His public remarks about the Jewish community make his appearance at an anti-racism event inappropriate.”

Swansea red-faced over Shechter’s Dubai ban

Marcus Dysch — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 19:30:34 +0000

Premier League club Swansea City has admitted it considered cancelling a training trip to Dubai after striker Itay Shechter was refused entry because of the country’s ban on Israelis.

Swansea said last Wednesday’s trip had been “hastily arranged” and the state of the United Arab Emirates’ diplomatic relations with Israel was only brought to the attention of club officials “at a late stage”.

Mr Shechter, 25, instead flew to Israel, where he trained with former club Hapoel Tel Aviv and visited his family.

Swansea’s decision to go ahead with the trip without one of their players was heavily criticised by the Board of Deputies and anti-racism campaign Kick It Out. Board chief executive Jon Benjamin initially said the club’s actions were “disgraceful”.

Speaking before the club explained its reasons for going ahead, Mr Benjamin said: “By choosing to train in the UAE, Swansea City has tacitly accepted the discrimination against one of their players. This sends a terrible message at a time when racism and antisemitism are sadly real problems in world football.”

The Board will now write to the Football Association and leading clubs to make them aware of the community’s disappointment over the issue.

Mr Shechter’s absence was the latest in a number of similar cases. In 2009, Bolton Wanderers midfielder Tamir Cohen was left in Lancashire while his team-mates trained in Dubai. Yossi Benayoun and Yaniv Katan were in the same position when West Ham held a training camp in the UAE two years earlier.

Israel defender Tal Ben Haim has also previously been barred from entering Dubai, but he has now obtained British citizenship and used his new passport to enter the country on a Queens Park Rangers trip earlier this month.

Kick It Out said that Mr Shechter’s absence was at odds with the organisation’s “fundamental anti-discrimination message”. It also contacted Swansea to complain.

Swansea manager Michael Laudrup discussed the problem with Mr Shechter and agreed that he should spend the time visiting Israel for the first time in five months. Mr Laudrup added: “Cancelling the trip was a possibility, but we had just made the arrangements and it was too late to change."

Should Twitter block hate speech?

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 19:30:31 +0000

NO - ROBIN SHEPHERD

True defenders of free speech will have mixed feelings about recent discussions over social media’s responsibility to police “hate speech”, made ever more relevant by last week’s ruling against Twitter by the Grand Instance Court in Paris.

The issue of incitement is relatively straightforward: if publishers of whatever description carry messages directly encouraging people to commit crime, violent or otherwise, the law is clear in holding them responsible for what they publish.

But “hate speech” can be very much in the eye of the beholder. Is the sustained campaign of vilification against Israel and the Jews in — ever more — significant sections of the UK media “hate speech”? It certainly comes from a hateful mind-set. Should it be banned? Not if you believe a free society stands a better chance of defeating such prejudices by exposing its perpetrators to public shame, rather than forcing them underground where they may fester and grow.

But here’s the rub. The French court ruled that Twitter had an obligation to reveal the identities of the people perpetrating hate speech. That looks like an advance. After all, if one of the classic liberal defences against restrictions on free speech is that society is capable of policing itself by using the weapon of publicity against transgressors, that only really applies if the people in question are known, and thus have a reputation they feel they need to defend.

Many on Twitter and other social media sites operate anonymously. If their identities are withheld, they are immune from the fear of being exposed.

And yet, one twists and turns again. Why, in a free society, should anonymity not be respected? Many people, with perfectly respectable motives, have jobs that prevent them from publishing their names along with their opinions. Why should those people be excluded from the public domain?

That conundrum becomes all the more vexing with the acknowledgement that so many people and organisations already abuse the notion that a remark is “offensive”.

If it became an offence to offend someone, free speech would quickly be smothered.

The hard truth is that there is no easy way out of the conundrum. One either trusts in free speech or one does not.

Incitement must be punished. But punishing “hate speech” is a recipe for curtailing controversy of all shapes and descriptions. The answer is to unite and to fight; not to dial 999 over a group of unpleasant bigots with an account on Twitter.

Robin Shepherd is director, international affairs, at the Henry Jackson Society

YES - MIKE WHINE

the Paris court’s decision to force Twitter to reveal the identities of antisemitic tweeters highlights that company’s comparative reluctance to internalise European concerns over cyberhate.

These have grown over the past 10 years, and reflect the realisation that, with all its blessings, the internet also brings a host of new problems. Foremost among them is the fact that social networks are now the primary vehicle for promoting hatred against others, and that there is a correlation between incitement and violence.

In Britain, the courts now recognise this, and recent statements by officials warn that cyberspace is no law-free zone. Behaviour that is criminal offline is also illegal online. We have therefore seen a series of criminal convictions of those who incite racial and religious hatred against Jews, Muslims, and gays on Facebook, YouTube and other sites.

Twitter representatives have participated in discussions on internet hate but have been slower than others to realise that, in Europe, they bear some responsibility for what passes through their systems. Other websites do so, and now express their determination to ensure that they neither breach European laws nor that they develop reputations for hosting hate sites.

It is well to remember that none of the social networks is more than 10 years old, that they grew out of youthful enterprises aiming to push technology and ideas as well as make money, and that it is only with maturity that they will realise that they also have social responsibilities.

Mike Whine is director, government and international Affairs, CST

Arab signings spark racism at Beitar

Simon Griver — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 12:47:52 +0000

The Israeli FA and public opinion in the country have come down heavily against Beitar Jerusalem’s racist fans who reacted angrily to club owner Arkady Gaydamak’s decision to sign two Chechen Muslim players.

No Arab has ever played for Beitar and the only Muslim ever to play for the side, a Nigerian defender who arrived in 2004, left after two months.

Last Saturday, fans unfurled the banner “Beitar pure forever” and sang anti-Muslim chants in response to the planned signings. One fan from the La Familia ultras gang, identified as N, said: “We will burn down the club if they bring the Muslim players.”

However, Beitar manager Eli Cohen was forced to apologise after urging fans to distinguish between Arabs and European Muslims. The Israel FA closed the East Stand at Teddy Stadium — where the ultras congregate — for five matches and banned 50 fans from attending Tuesday night’s potentially explosive cup match when Beitar beat Arab side Maccabi Umm El Fahm 5-0.

Beitar fan and Knesset speaker Ruby Rivlin said: “How would we feel if an English or German team refused to have a Jew in the side?” Another fan, former prime minister Ehud Olmert, said he was disgusted by the racism and would no longer attend games.

The Chechen players were due in Israel ahead of the closing of the transfer window last night.

Malmo: 480 crimes, 0 convictions

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 10:09:18 +0000

Out of a record 480 reported hate crimes in Malmo between 2010 and 2011, only 16 led to an indictment and none led to a conviction, according to statistics from the Swedish Crime Prevention Council. None of the 44 antisemitic hate crimes reported in Malmo in the two-year period even made it to a prosecutor.

Malmo mayor Ilmar Reepalu, widely berated for failing to address growing antisemitism in the city, said that the new report is “alarming and has deeply upset me, and not least the fact that the police cannot investigate the crimes to the degree required for bringing in indictments”.

“Every hate crime is one too many,” said Mr Reepalu. “It is also a particularly serious crime since it is an attack on who you are as a person.”

Malmo, Sweden’s third-largest city, has received international media attention for attacks on both Jews and Muslims in recent years.

Between 2009 and 2011, hate crime reports in the city nearly doubled.

Fred Kahn, president of the Jewish Community in Malmo, said he is “frustrated” by the situation.

“We have worked with the authorities and local politicians to try and make sure that Malmo operates under a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to hate crimes… It is not just the Jewish Community that is affected. We are talking about 480 hate crimes in Malmo against Jews, Roma, Muslims and LGBT individuals.

“Either the police are failing in their reporting or the prosecuting authorities have a hard time comprehending that these are hate crimes. Something is not working here.”

The rise in the number of reported antisemitic hate crimes also coincides with the Malmö Jewish Community’s decision to be more vocal about the rise of antisemitism.

“While antisemitism has unquestionably grown in Malmo over the past five to 10 years, I can’t say whether or not there has been an explosive increase since 2010.

“Three years ago we decided to change our approach and tackle the problem head-on. We now encourage our members to report all antisemitic incidents because as long as it doesn’t show up in the statistics, it remains hidden.”

Regional newspaper Sydsvenskan’s analysis of the data shows that in all but seven of the hate crimes reported in Malmo, the prosecutor chose to remove the hate crime motive.

In the cases that were tried in the Malmo district court, the judge ruled they were not hate crime incidents.