The real reason two Jewish comedians had their Edinburgh shows canned

Spectator

6 days ago

Two Jewish comedians have had shows cancelled by venues hosting the Edinburgh Fringe. Whistlebinkies told Rachel Creeger that she and her show Ultimate Jewish Mother were no longer welcome, while Philip Simon's Jew-O-Rama, a rotating line-up of Jewish comedians, was also barred. Another venue, Banshee Labyrinth, followed suit, cancelling Simon's solo show, Shall I Compere Thee in a Funny Way?
The reason? 'Safety concerns' for staff. Those of us with the Jewish mothers of Creeger's title can certainly understand why others might have concerns over our mental safety, but I don't think that's quite what the venues had in mind when they banned a Jewish son and a Jewish daughter.
You don't have to be a comedian or an expert in decoding sophistry to understand what's going on here. You just have to have a basic knowledge of history, because it's what has been going on for millennia. Jews have been banned for being Jews. Here we go again. They can dress it up in any drivel about health and safety they want, but when you translate 'concerns over staff safety' into reality it means, 'Jews are banned unless they manage to sneak in because no one has realised they are Jews'.
The excuses used by the venues to justify the bans gave the game away. Creeger was told it was because of a supposed 'vigil for IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers'. The only problem with that is that there was no such vigil in either of their shows. As Creeger – an Orthodox Jew, who is open about that in her act – said at the weekend: 'They initially said that they believed we'd held a vigil for an IDF soldier, a fallen soldier, which is a thing that just hadn't ever happened in either of our shows. The shows are not political, we're not political performers and the IDF is not a relevant subject in either show. They later withdrew that and said they understood that that didn't actually happen.'
Simon added that the venue had trawled his social media and then told him that his 'views concerning the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Palestine…are in significant conflict with our venue's stance against the current Israeli government's policy and actions.' But just as the objection to Creeger was spurious, so with Simon: 'I have never expressed support for anything other than freeing the hostages and finding a way for peace…I've never posted about the Israeli government. I've posted about the situation because we're all horrified about what's going on in the Middle East but there's been nothing positive that I put out really about the Israeli government.'
It could hardly be more blatant: two Jews have been cancelled because they are Jewish. The rest is noise. The fact that neither Creeger nor Simon have expressed anything other than a desire for peace and freedom for the hostages is irrelevant, because one of the strongest lessons of Jewish history is that they come for the 'good' Jews too. It doesn't matter if you think you're behaving as they want you to behave: in their eyes, all that matters is that you're a Jew.
Politicians are wont to repeat the phrase, 'There is no place for antisemitism in [add the name of a city or country]'. In reality, however, in Britain in 2025 there is every place for antisemitism. Always and everywhere.