Rachel's Words Silenced Again

In New York and Toronto the play was cancelled due to pressure from the Jewish community or those that claim to speak for the Jewish Community. The play was successfully staged in NYC at the Minetta Lane theater. It is currently enjoying an extraordinary run at the Seattle Repertory Theater and many more are planned.

Wherever it has been staged, there has been support from the Jewish community as well as criticism. The Jewish community is not monolithic and no one speaks for "it," though many claim to.

Much has been written about the play and though theater critics have mostly given glowing reviews, some have been lukewarm, and a scant few have even been negative. That is how theater works.

Unfortunately, the power behind the movement to silence Rachel remains nameless and faceless.

They work in the background by using blackmail and other forms of pressure on theater managers and owners. They do not have to justify their stance and we never get to know who "they" are.

I experienced this silencing first hand while volunteering in Bethlehem as the media coordinator for the International Solidarity Movement immediately after Rachel's death, and as British activist Tom Hurndall was mortally wounded, and as American activist Brian Avery was seriously injured. I saw that US journalists, under extraordinary pressure, pulled their punches while the British media helped push for the truth.

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