From the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
NO ISRAELI FUNDING OF THE ARTS
IJAN
is centrally involved in the No Israeli Funding of the
Arts initiative – we want everyone we are in touch with to
know that the Israeli-funded UKJFF (UK Jewish Film Festival) is taking place
this year (6-23 November) in cinemas in Glasgow, Leeds, London, Manchester
and Nottingham.
We have written to all the cinemas – see our
letter below – and we are asking that you contact your local (or even a
distant) cinema by phone, email, website, leaflet or street protest, and let
them know what you think of them hosting an Israeli-funded event. (All cinema
contact details are at end of this email.) Call or write to the local press
or call-in radio to tell them what you think of their not caring for the
Jewish films, only for the Israeli rebranding (see below).
Check the UKJFF calendar to find when
each cinema is hosting UKJFF films.
The opening gala night is at the London BFI on 6 November – we are planning
to protest their collaboration with the slaughterers of the Gazan people.
Note: IJAN workshop,
From Gaza to Ferguson @ Anarchist Bookfair,
18 Oct, 3-4pm
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NO ISRAELI FUNDING OF
THE ARTS
LETTER
TO CINEMAS HOSTING THE UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL
We are writing to you as
one of the cinemas hosting the UK Jewish Film Festival (UKJFF) 6-23 November,
2014, to ask that you reconsider.
Who we are
We are a diverse group, including Israeli and other Jewish people, most of us local to, and often in the audience of, the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, northwest London. In 2012 local residents leafleted the cinema to oppose its hosting of the Israeli-sponsored UKJFF; in 2013 we protested outside the Tricycle when it again hosted the UKJFF. (The protests were called by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.)
Tricycle / UKJFF
This year, many including ourselves, welcomed the Tricycle’s stand against the festival’s funding by the Israeli Embassy during Israel’s 50-day slaughter on Gaza.
The Tricycle had offered
the organisers of the UKJFF replacement funding so that the film festival
could go ahead at the Tricycle. But the UKJFF refused their offer and
to dissociate itself from the Israeli government – the priority was Israeli
sponsorship, rather than the film festival.
Is the UKJFF merely a means to a political end, to give Israel a
humanist image?
Who attacked the
Tricycle
The Government’s Chief Whip, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and the Israeli Ambassador, each publicly attacked the Tricycle for having refused Israeli sponsorship. They slandered the Tricycle by accusing it of antisemitism; as did donors and local councillors who threatened to withdraw funds and involve the Charity Commission.
Who defended the
Tricycle
Support came from National Theatre director, Nicholas Hytner, acclaimed director Lenny Abrahamson; over 500 artists, including prominent theatre directors and playwrights, some of whom affirmed “We artists have a right to boycott” (letter to the Stage); and note the artists’ solidarity page: “The Tricycle Theatre is Not Anti-Semitic.
In July, Scottish artists, including National Poet Liz Lochhead, signed an open letter in The Herald protesting an Israeli-funded theatre company at the
Edinburgh Fringe. After vociferous
public protest, the show closed after one performance.
Following the Tricycle’s refusal of Israeli funding, the Encounters Film
Festival in Bristol and artists from the 31st Sao Paulo Art Biennial in
Brazil also refused Israeli funding.
What
Israel’s
apologists did
While crying antisemitism, Israel’s apologists used their attack on the Tricycle to try to distract the public from Gaza: from seeing Israeli politicians, religious authorities, journalists and the public, calling for mass rape, mass murder, even genocide of Palestinians; from the bloodied tanks, F16s, drones, bunker busters, sea-to-land missiles, remote-controlled machine guns, that blasted schools, hospitals, mosques, blocks of flats, children playing football; and from the 2,200 Gazans killed -- over 500 children, and half a million displaced.
The
Russell Tribunal on Palestine found evidence of war crimes, crimes against
humanity, crimes of murder, extermination and persecution and also incitement
to genocide.
What happened to the
Tricycle
Even while Gaza was being destroyed, the Tricycle was forced to retreat. But actress Maureen Lipman, advocating for the UKJFF admitted that they knew the depth of the community’s support for the theatre’s stand, announcing that the festival was unlikely to go back to the Tricycle any time soon.
That
stand reaffirmed that the arts
are social and political. It was
welcomed by anti-racists everywhere. And please note: both the local council
and the Arts Council ruled out loss of funding.
What
we want you to do
The assistant manager of the Everyman cinema insisted that “refusing to host any arts festival on political grounds will cause more harm than good.” (Email, 10 September 2014.) The Everyman’s is not a principled position – it is complicity and appeasement. It is the argument of those who refused to boycott South African apartheid.
Who
knows better than Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a proponent of cultural boycott,
who said, “We in South Africa know about oppression and occupation and know
about the power of BDS” (Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions)?
We
ask that you take direction from the anti-racist, non-violent,
Palestinian-led BDS movement.
We
ask that you refuse to host the UKJFF
– not because it is Jewish, of course, but because it is funded by the
Israeli Embassy. The embassy’s job,
especially in London (the boycott “hub”) is to promote what it calls Brand
Israel – state-sponsored propaganda, designed to camouflage Israeli brutality
within a smokescreen of culture, including film festivals.
We
ask that you side with the victims and survivors of the assault on Gaza – not
be part of the cover-up of war crimes being committed against them.
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CINEMAS
HOSTING THE UKJFF
Glasgow
Venue CCA (Centre for Contemporary Arts)
Address 350
Sauchiehall St, Glasgow G2 3JD
Email gen@cca-glasgow.com
Telephone 0141
352 4900
Venue Glasgow Film Theatre
Address 12
Rose St, Glasgow, Lanarkshire G3 6RB
Telephone 0141
332 6535
Leeds
Venue MAZCC
Address 311
Stonegate Road, Leeds LS17 6AZ
Telephone 0113
268 4211
Venue Seven Arts Centre
Address 31(a)
Harrogate Road, Chapel Allerton, Leeds, LS7 3PD
Email info@sevenleeds.co.uk
Telephone 0113
26 26 777
London
Venue Arthouse Crouch End
Address: 159A
Tottenham Lane, N8 9BT
Telephone 020
8245 3099
Venue BAFTA British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Address 195
Piccadilly, W1J 9LN
Email info@bafta.org
Contact form http://www.bafta.org/contact-
Telephone 020
7734 0022
Venue Barbican
Address Barbican Centre, Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS
Email film@barbican.org.uk
Telephone 020 7638 4141
Venue BFI Southbank
Address Belvedere
Road, South Bank, SE1 8XT
Email director@bfi.org.uk
Contact form http://www.bfi.org.uk/form/
Telephone 020 7255 1444
Venue Ciné Lumière
Address 17 Queensberry Place, SW7 2DT
Telephone 020 7871 3515
Venue Curzon Mayfair
Address 38
Curzon Street, W1J 7TY
Venue Odeon Muswell Hill
Address Fortis
Green Road, N10 3HP
Contact form http://www.odeon.co.uk/
Telephone 0207
321 6237 (conferencing & events)
Venue Everyman Maida Vale
Address 215
Sutherland Avenue, W9 1RU
Telephone 0871
906 9060
Venue Everyman Hampstead
Address 5
Holly Bush Vale, NW3 6TX
Telephone 0871
906 9060
Venue JW3
Address 341-351
Finchley Road, London NW3 6ET
Email info@jw3.org.uk
Telephone 020
7433 8988
Venue LJCC (London Jewish Cultural Centre)
Address Ivy House, 94-96 North End Road, NW11 7SX
Telephone 020
8457 5000
Venue Odeon South Woodford
Address 60/64
High Road, South Woodford, E18 2QL
Telephone 0207 321 6237 (conferencing & events)
Venue Odeon Swiss Cottage
Address 96 Finchley Rd, NW3 5EL
Telephone 0207 321 6237 (conferencing & events)
Venue Phoenix Cinema
Address 52
High Road, East Finchley, N2 9PJ
Telephone 020
8444 6789
Manchester
Venue Cornerhouse
Address 70
Oxford St, Manchester M1 5NH
Email info@cornerhouse.org
Telephone 0161 228 7621
Venue Cineworld Didsbury
Address Parrs Wood Entertainment Centre, Wilmslow Rd, Manchester
M20 5PG
Telephone 0208
742 4010
Venue Menorah
Address 198
Altrincham Rd, Wythenshawe, Manchester M22 4RZ
Email filmclub@menorah.org.uk
Telephone 0161
428 7746
Nottingham
Venue Broadway Cinema
Address 14–18
Broad St, Nottingham NG1 3AL
Email info@broadway.org.uk
Telephone 0115
9526 611
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