Inside the big Jewish theatre fightback

Yiddish renaissance: Amy Hack in Yentl, which makes its UK premiere at Marylebone Theatre next month[Missing Credit]Dahl tale: John Lithgow in Giant, which is transferring to Broadway next month (Photo: Manuel Harlan)[Missing Credit]

But in response to this depressing state of affairs, community-led organisations Friends in the Arts (FIA)  and Jewish Arts Foundation have sprung into action with initiatives to support Jewish creatives. And others are focusing on giving a platform to Jewish creatives in theatre: the Jewish Dramatic Association of London (Jdal), the Jewish Literary Foundation, and Steve Furst’s new theatre space, Circle and Star.

“It’s a very polarised moment just now, but something is changing,” says Natalie Stone, director of Friends in the Arts, a London-based network of support, guidance, and collaboration for Jewish creatives facing rising antisemitism. Since its launch last year, Stone says the FIA has seen “a lot of incidents and heard from victims of antisemitism and of boycotting, and what we call soft boycotting”, which includes theatres not platforming Jewish plays without explicitly saying so.

“What I’ve seen, and what is so reassuring, is that the Jewish arts community is rallying to support Jewish artists who are facing politically motivated cancellations or protests, so rather than pulling back, actors, producers and theatres are coming together to protect creative freedom.”

Stone adds: “There’s so much conversation around: let’s work together to ensure that Jewish stories are being told on the stage without intimidation and without distortion. I’m seeing so much resilience. Pressure has been increasing on Jewish cultural expression, but the Jewish arts community is responding with solidarity not with silence.”

Natalie Stone[Missing Credit]

The organisation connects with subgroups and grassroots activists in each of the arts sectors. Those would include the Jewish Dramatic Association of London (Jdal), a new theatre organisation devoted to spotlighting early-career Jewish creatives, launched in 2023 by Finchley-based actor Natan Paul-Collis. “I wanted to set up a safe theatre space where we’re proud to say that we’re Jewish, and that doesn’t make us political, it just makes us human beings,” says Paul-Collis, 20. In July, Jdal debuted six new short plays, all written, directed and performed by up-and-coming Jewish creatives, at Upstairs at the Gatehouse theatre. Following three such sold-out showcases, the association returns on Sunday with Jdal Sings! a one-night celebration of Jewish songwriters, with music by Bernstein, Sondheim, and Frederick Loewe, and featuring contemporary songwriters including Estee Stimler and Alexander S Bermange.

In 2024, Rachel Gaffin, through her Echoes Theatre Company, launched the project Joyfully Jewish, “to remind people what being Jewish in the UK is really about, taking a break from conflict, antisemitism and trauma and instead focusing on culture, family, relationships, food, humour – the joys of being Jewish”.

In collaboration with theatre group THE JEWish CABARET, there are three productions planned for 2026, each amplifying under-represented stories and voices within theatre – older Jewish characters; being Jewish and LGBTQ+; and Jewish migration. Each production, under the overarching heading “Joyfully Jewish”, showcases new, short comedic plays on the same theme, interspersed with original musical theatre songs.

“Jewish joy is an act of resistance,” says Gaffin, an actor whose day job is at Finchley Reform Synagogue. “Joyfully Jewish allows Jewish creatives and audiences to celebrate their Jewishness and share the joy.”

Then, in NW3, not far from Hampstead Theatre where recent plays have included a revival of Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink and the UK premiere of The Assembled Parties, about a secular Jewish family on New York’s Upper West Side, we have the Circle and Star – an intimate 50-seat theatre recently opened by actor Steve Furst partly to platform new Jewish writing. It was at the launch of the Jewish Arts Foundation, set up by fringe festival Tsitsit’s Alastair Falk and actor-director Tania Black to support Jewish creatives in the UK, that Furst decided to spotlight emerging Jewish creatives. 

“I suddenly realised the importance of younger voices not being heard as easily as they might have been,” says Furst. “Younger people are in the maelstrom of it in terms of identity and social media and not being comfortable to stick their head above the parapet in the same way that they would have been ten years ago. So, the Circle and Star is somewhere you can proudly say: ‘This is a Jewish piece. I am a Jewish creative.’”

Steve Furst[Missing Credit]

He stresses that this does not mean new theatrical writing has to be political. “This is a place where artists do not have to hide their identity, where there will be a listening ear and a welcoming home.”

Also giving a platform to emerging Jewish writers is the Jewish Literary Foundation’s inaugural Jewish Playwrights Programme, whose goal is to support the next generation of Jewish voices on stage and champion stories that reflect the diversity and richness of Jewish life in the UK. Mentored by industry professionals including Mark Rosenblatt and director and writer Daniel Goldman, the first cohort on this six-month development initiative will showcase their work at Jewish Book Week.

We know that British theatres have turned down Jewish-themed plays. Director Patrick Marber said that Nathan Englander’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank was turned down by “quite a big” London venue, despite its artistic director wanting to stage it, before it found a home at the Marylebone Theatre in 2024. And the JC’s own critic John Nathan says Moisés Kaufman co-writer and director of the play Here There Are Blueberries (see overleaf) told him he contacted “many” theatres in London before Stratford East took on his play.

“That’s surprising for a Pulitzer-nominated play and a director of his reputation,” says Nathan, adding, “You rarely know why a venue turns down a play. Sometimes you can only sense the reason. My sense is that Jews can be represented in British theatre but there is a resistance to plays that directly address current Jewish anxieties. Particularly if they challenge widely held negative attitudes to Israel, which those who hold them consider inviolable even if they make attacks on Jews more likely. But as a critic I only see what gets put on, not what gets rejected.”

Ryan Craig’s The Holy Rosenbergs premiered at the National Theatre back in 2011, and tackles the diaspora’s relationship to Israel. Nathan wonders if that play would be commissioned now.

David Babani, artistic director of the Menier Chocolate Factory, has long been a passionate producer of theatre that showcases Jewish themes and issues, ranging from classics such as The Producers to Fiddler on the Roof and new writing like Paula Vogel’s Indecent. He is producing The Holy Rosenbergs, he says, because even though it was written and first performed 15 years ago, it feels like it was written yesterday.

The Holy Rosenbergs team: (left to righ) Alex Zur (Rabbi Simon), Dorothea Myer-Bennett (Ruth Rosenberg), Tracy-Ann Oberman (Lesley Rosenberg), Nicholas Woodeson (David Rosenberg), Nital Levi (Jonny Rosenberg) and director Lindsay Posner[Missing Credit]

“Given the incredibly challenging and fractious times we find ourselves in, producing a play like this is incredibly important. This play educates, it entertains and it moves its audience. It helps by exploring and debating issues at the core of being Jewish and our relationship with Israel. It also, and vitally with great compassion, shows its audience the other side of the coin. It asks many questions without offering any easy answers.”

As such, he says, it will “promote healthy and necessary debate and discourse around its subject matter no matter what your political viewpoint or religious beliefs. I believe that is very much needed in today’s society and I am proud, as a Jew, to play my part in supporting our audiences to participate further in discussing and evaluating their observations as a result of learning and experiencing different viewpoints through the magic of live theatre.”

As a playwright, lyricist and advocate for “Israel and the Jewish people”, Estee Stimler had anticipated running into problems when booking theatres for her two upcoming Jewish-themed shows, but was pleasantly surprised. “I’m grateful. There are problems in film, TV, publishing… everyone’s having a problem, but theatre has some really positive stuff coming up.”

She says it is important to use the stage to tell stories and present characters that do not reinforce unsavoury stereotypes. “If the audience connects with a Jewish character in a way that’s positive, then there’s no lecture in the world that can be as powerful as that. In the wrong hands, it’s propaganda.”

It doesn’t mean that antisemitism in theatre is going away. It does mean Jewish theatre is finding its place again

Stone agrees that there is an appetite among Jewish creatives and audiences to tell their own stories at a time when the community has seen the damage caused by the propagation of tropes and untruths. “It’s like the Jewish theatre sector has become a safeguarding space for Jewish stories to be told.” She believes the abundance of Jewish plays is the happy result of the arts community coming together in an act of mutual support which, in turn, gives theatre makers and actors the confidence to create.

“Artists, other individuals and organisations are supporting each other to keep Jewish work visible and creatively ambitious, even in this charged political climate. It’s about collaboration, the sharing of resources, and also very public solidarity.

Whenever someone has a play opening, the minute they post on a WhatsApp group about it, she has observed a “rallying cry for solidarity”. People are eagerly buying tickets and spreading the word, and not just among the community but with their non-Jewish networks, too. “There are 650 people on one of my Jewish arts support networks, and 250 in another. And if all these people are helping with the marketing and selling tickets, that increases the confidence of the artists, actors, producers or theatre.

“We’ve gone from fear and a real knock in confidence to light at the end of the tunnel. It doesn’t mean that antisemitism in theatre is going away. But it certainly means we’re growing in confidence, and that Jewish theatre is finding its place again.”