A Jewish museum director has written to a pre-eminent n theatre company announcing he is tearing up his subscription because of the lack of ‘moral clarity’ they showed over a ‘sickening’ onstage pro-Palestinian protest.
Daniel Grynberg, 54, will abandon the Sydney Theatre Company after three of their actors wore Palestinian keffiyeh scarves during a curtain call for a performance of the Anton Chekov play The Seagull on Saturday night.
While lead actress Sigrid Thornton did not wear the emblem associated with radical Palestinian causes, her castmates Harry Greenwood, Mabel Li and Megan Wilding sported the politicised neckwear at Sydney’s wharfside Roslyn Packer Theatre.
In his letter, Mr Grynberg, who is a director of the Sydney Jewish Museum and CEO of disability housing provider Specialised Accommodation Solutions, told the theatre company he would’ve felt ‘sickened’ had he been in the audience that night.
Sydney Theatre Company cast-members for a production of The Seagull made a curtain call wearing keffiyeh scarves
‘My two closest cousins in the world outside of (thanks the pruning of my family tree by the Nazis) are two beautiful women who usually live in small farming communities close the Gaza border,’ he wrote.
He said on October 7 his cousins only survived the murderous incursion by Hamas militants from Gaza into Israel because of a small civil defence team.
‘They spent 48 hours in their safe rooms with their children imagining they would die,’ he wrote.
‘They have been evacuated from their homes and are currently living as displaced persons in their own country. They are both school teachers, and literally hundreds of their friends, neighbours and students have been murdered or kidnapped.’
He said his parents, uncle and aunt were at the Sydney Opera House, as subscribers to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, on October 8 when a ‘gang of thugs’ gathered outside chanting ‘gas the Jews’.
Daniel Grynberg, whose relatives include Holocaust survivors, said he was tearing up his subscription to the theatre company because of their lack of ‘moral clarity’
‘I note that their grandparents, uncles, aunts and first cousins were, in fact, gassed,’ he said.
‘The event was triggering to say the least.’
Mr Grynberg said he supported the actors’ right to protest, but what dismayed him was the theatre company’s limp response, which was in keeping with a general abandonment of Jews by the ‘progressive left’.
‘The STC, which has done so very much to show care for so many other minorities and historically disadvantaged groups (First Nations, LGBTQIA, women’s voices), has done PRECISELY NOTHING to make this particular minority feel supported,’ he wrote.
‘As far as I can see, in response to the actors’ protest, there has simply been one unidentified ‘spokesperson’ being quoted in The n. Nothing on your website. Nothing on Twitter. Nothing on your socials.
‘So until I see or sense a serious response to the greatest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, and the most toxic rise of anti-Semitism across the globe, especially by those who drape themselves in the feel-good cultural shield of the Keffiyeh (no cultural appropriation there?), it’s goodbye from me.’
Mr Grynberg told Daily Mail on Tuesday he believes the theatre company and other cultural institutions are ‘in a world of pain’ because Jewish patrons will be voting with their feet over pro-Hamas stances.
Mr Grynberg is a director of the Sydney Jewish Museum and the child of refugees from the Nazi genocide
‘They have a major conflagration on their hands and they don’t know how to manage it,’ he said.
‘They have so totally misread the needs of their Jewish subscribers and patrons and donors, and they are trying to sit on the fence.
‘They are trying to speak out of both sides of their mouth at the same time and they have a problem on their hands.
‘The arts community are all died-in-the wool lefties, who all think Israel is “Zionist genocidal ethnic cleanser”, and they feel all so brave wearing a keffiyeh on stage because what’s the consequence?
‘Jews are not going to come and blow them up but Jews are going to say, “Actually that doesn’t sound like a nice night out for me so I would rather spend my $150 on something else.”‘
Mr Grynberg said his relatives did not hear the Palestinian protesters chanting ‘gas the Jews’ on October 8 but had been told by police to arrive early because of the rally on the steps of the Sydney Opera House.
‘NSW Police have made some apologies in that regard but I note no one has been charged,’ he said.
However, he added that compared to the horror inflicted on Israelis, ‘whatever we are putting up with here is annoying and stupid but I have some perspective’.
Mr Grynberg’s parents both came to Sydney as babies with his grandparents who escaped out of the European concentration camps where millions of Jews were murdered in the Holocaust during WWII.
‘Both my parents grew up without aunts or uncles or cousins, [and] in my father’s case grandparents,’ he said.
While he said he could ‘count on one hand’ the anti-Semitic incidents he had experienced in , he believed the ‘progressive left’ would ‘eat itself’ by not equally condemning atrocities committed against Jews.
‘For the progressive left to not visually and vocally condemn Hamas, the international women’s movement to not condemn the raids, for UNICEF not to condemn the abduction of children, for this to be seen by all those progressive institutions as merely another expression of legitimate Palestinian resistance to a brutal occupation is, in my view, morally bankrupt,’ he said.
He said for the left to pander to such viewpoints ‘renders them unelectable’.
‘One by one, sensible smart people are getting it and we will leave the Adam Bandts and Lidia Thorpes behind,’ he said.
‘Thirteen to 15 per cent of people sign up for this crap and that’s fine, but you can’t win government.’
He believes ns are ‘centrists’ and although they do not want ‘foreign wars’ brought into the country, when ‘push comes to shove’ they would more align with the Jewish community.
‘If they have a choice between lining up between me and my community, even if they don’t like Jews – and I think by and large ns don’t have problems with Jews – and a bunch of people cheering rapists and baby murderers, most ns will pick my community,’ he said.
‘I think the average n realises the threat of global Jihadism threatens this country too.
‘When we have preachers in western Sydney mosques calling for Jihad in broad n accents that’s scary to more than just the Jewish community.’
While Mr Grynberg did not write his letter for public consumption and had only initially shared it with family members, he is happy for it become more widely read – even if it makes him a political target.
‘As far as I am concerned, I am the grandchild of people who stepped out of the fire – concentration camps, refugees, their entire families were murdered,’ he said.
‘I have had the great privilege of being brought up in with all the luxury and privilege really that entails.
‘I think it is incumbent on us to speak responsibly and do what we can to protect this democracy, the civility of this country. I feel a great sense of responsibility but I don’t feel scared.’
After he appeared on stage wearing the keffiyeh, Greenwood, who is the son of actor and STC foundation director Hugo Weaving, shared a video of the moment stating it was a protest ‘against the genocide in Gaza and ongoing occupation of Palestine’.
On Monday, the STC apologised for ‘any distress caused’ by the actors’ actions.