Morning all. I went to see a production of Fiddler on the Roof last week (check out my tribute username 😉) by a local am dram type theatre company. I was expecting it to be a bit cringily "fake Jewish" in this not very diverse corner of the UK and on that front it was as expected. I am deliberately not outing them since they are , as I said, a small company of local amateur actors and it seems a bit mean to do so.
However, leaving aside discussions of whether non Jews should play Jews, and how this should be done, what really bothered me was this little paragraph by the host theatre in the programme- hopefully attached.
I assume they are referring to Gaza rather than Ukraine - it very much sounds to me like they are apologising for putting on a play about Jewish people and probably wouldn’t have done so if they'd chosen their play after Oct 7th. That's my reading of it, anyway - although it is remarkable for what it doesn't say, raising more questions than it answers.
What are your thoughts? It's possible that the current backdrop, as they call it, has made me a bit oversensitive. That said, DH (not Jewish) immediately said, "Of course they mean Gaza" when he read it.