Shocking Events at Fiddler Performance

It's a public post; you can read it here (it's the national tour of the most recent Broadway revival):




Also: alisasolomon.com/jew-hatred-returns-to-anatevka/

It's sad people with this mentality still exist

Shocking and very disturbing. I hope they were banned for life from the theatre.

I do feel the police should have been involved. There is a legal difference between free speech and hate speech, and you can make a very strong argument for this being the latter.

I wonder what level of security Fiddler had not just because of the Jewishness of it in an antisemitic environment, but it being a major theatrical performance in a large venue in a major city. Even at Hello Dolly in Chicago last week, there were bag inspections, and my native-Chicago friend said she'd never seen that before. Although checking if someone brought in a gun, a knife, or even a water bottle isn't going to check if someone is going to yell something terrible at intermission. I'm sure most of the people who were terrified by this guy didn't automatically think, "But we had bag checks!" because those often aren't even that thorough.

In general, US synagogues/restaurants/events don't have the level of security that UK/European ones do. American Jews have generally always perceived America as a very safe place and expressed a lot of (to me irritating) pity for Jews in Europe and incredulity that we don't just leave. Whether that's true or not is open to debate; America overall might be more culturally comfortable to be Jewish, whether that translates into physical safety is another matter. Just from personal experience, I get the feeling that Americans in general view America as being safer than Europe; I think they are profoundly wrong about that. 

Had no idea this was the case. How foul that any group of people are in this position. I mean the need for it, not that protection is there.

There's never been the need for that at THEATRE events in the US and given that the demographic for Broadway has been and always will be heavily Jewish, the mind boggles if we have to start arming Broadway shows -- in which case Trump and co will have won in their desire to arm everybody, from infants upwards. A sad time to be alive.

Erm, genuine question - this is satire, right? I was on the verge of typing a horrified response but then it occurred to me that you were probably joking. I've had wine and my subtlety detector isn't great.

Sounds like a typical trump fan. They really are scum

www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-ci-hippodrome-follow-20181116-story.html

Anthony M. Derlunas II, 58, said the play, which tells the story of a Jewish family facing persecution in tsarist Russia, reminded him of Trump’s immigration policies. His comparison “came out wrong” and was “beyond a mistake” he said during an interview at his home in Joppa.

“Instantly it was like, ‘Oh my God, what did you do?’ ” said Derlunas, who acknowledged he had been drinking heavily before the show. “The thing that I can’t stand is Trump spreading hatred, and what did I do? I spread hatred.”

Derlunas’ outburst came during the intermission of the show at the Hippodrome Theatre on Wednesday evening. He was escorted from the theater’s balcony by security, and police issued him a stop ticket — less serious than a citation.

and

Derlunas said he had consumed several glasses of wine at his hotel prior to attending the show, which contributed to his outburst.

“Any time you drink you lose all sense of reasoning,” he said, adding he rarely consumes alcohol. “That didn’t help my thinking one bit.”

WTF triblive.com/local/allegheny/14327865-74/security-guard-tackles-man-with-bb-gun-firing-at-benedum-center

I grew up in an area with very few Jewish people, before moving to a not particularly Jewish area of London for a few years. I later moved to an area with a high Jewish population, and it was only then that I fully appreciated just how anxious many Jewish people are about security and how naïve I was to think anti-Semitism was a thing of the past, or isolated to the odd joke about bacon sandwiches. If I attended an event (such as a public meeting) at one of the synagogues, there would be a thorough bag search at a time when this was unusual for anything other than booze at festivals, and when I needed to attend a Jewish school as part of my work, they insisted that I had a CRB check. I did think that the CRB check was a bit pointless (I wasn't going to be anywhere near the kids), but I already had one, and to be honest, if people have sincere concerns, then it's pretty tasteless to argue about it.

I'm not anything like qualified to speculate on whether American Jewish people are safer than British ones, but I do know that the murder rate in the US is higher than in the UK, so I'm going to take a punt and say that Americans are just used to a higher level of violence to start with.

I'm back living in an area with few Jews, and don't know if my experience of living in a Jewish area has made me more alert, but I have been conscious of worrying levels of anti-Jewish sentiment in the last few years. Some people seem to think it's OK to 'other' Jews, because they are assumed to be rich and powerful, what with all that being part of the global world order and all that. I find that attitude hugely disturbing.