Miami J-CAT Production of CROSSING JERUSALEM Shut Down After Complaints From JCC Members

"Jews told me, 'You're very tough on us.' Palestinians said, 'You portray us all as terrorists.' People tend to bring their own attitudes to the play," British playwright Julia Pascal says of her 2003 drama CROSSING JERUSALEM, currently the subject of controversy after a production from the Cultural Arts Theatre (J-CAT) at the Michael-Ann Russell Jewish Community Center in North Miami was shut down midway through its run.

"I see right and wrong on both sides," Pascal explained, "and I get it in the neck from both sides."

As reported by Howard Sherman, director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School College of Performing Arts, the play takes place during the intifada of 2002 and focuses on an Israeli family that chooses to take the risk of crossing Jerusalem to dine at a favorite restaurant to mark a family birthday celebration. This restaurant owned by, as described in the text, a Christian Arab and is staffed by two Palestinian Muslims.

The characters are meant to represent a microcosm of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"I've been examining what plays have been done on Israel [in Britain] over the past 50 years," she explains, "and almost all of them have been from an anti-Zionist point of view. So, because of who is allowed to write about Israel and who is commissioned to write about Israel, you only get the simplistic Israel-bad/Palestinian-good point of view through the plays we have seen. I feel it's my duty to show all sides. Whether that's comfortable or not is another question. It's the kaleidoscope that's important."

The production's program contained notes to audience members stressing the goal of even-handedness, however, after four of the scheduled nine performances, Gary Bomzer, the JCC president and CEO, terminated the run, writing, in part, as an explanation, "We have heard the voices of many in our community advocating passionately to put an end to the show because they feel the message is inappropriate and troublesome. Please know that our intentions in presenting Crossing Jerusalem are good ones, and yet we realize that we have unintentionally caused pain to many in the audience; for this we are sincerely sorry."

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