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Telegraph
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Why this is a golden age for Jewish theatre
My Jewish mother does not go to the theatre often. But when she does, she sees Fiddler on the Roof. She has seen it so many times she could understudy any character at a moment's notice. In fairness she did attend a Pinter play once, but walked out at the first infamous Pinter Pause thinking it was the interval. Naturally she was ecstatic when the Open Air Regent's Park theatre revived Fiddler last year, even more so when a transfer to the Barbican (which has just opened) was announced. Garlanded with 13 nods at this year's Olivier awards, Jordan Fein's production matched the record set by Hamilton for the most nominations for a single show. Not bad for what Philip Roth once derided as 'shtetl kitsch.' In fact, Fiddler is not the only Jewish show to have become a critical hit in the past year. Principal among these was Mark Rosenblatt's Giant at the Royal Court, a fire-breathing study of Roald Dahl's virulent anti-Semitism; then there was Patrick Marber's production of What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, Nick Cassenbaum's After the Levoyah and the Marber-directed Nachtland. The popularity of Jewish-orientated shows seems incongruous when juxtaposed with skyrocketing anti-Semitism post October 7th. 2024 saw the second-highest recording of reported anti-Semitic incidents in a single calendar year according to the Community Security Trust, a charity which represents the UK's Jewish population. 'There have been countless examples of problems in the creative industries with soft boycotts and discrimination to anything with links to Israel' says literary agent and producer Neil Blair. 'I'm sure that Jewish writers have been scared to express their Jewishness as they fear they won't get published. It's been a tough time to be a proud Jew.' London theatre has seen numerous high-profile incidents of anti-Semitic controversies. Ken Loach 's 1987 production of Perdition was pulled from public performances at the Royal Court before the first preview. Historians declared Jim Allen's play historically unsound and deeply anti-Semitic. In 2011 Caryl Churchill's Seven Jewish Children also premiered to a chorus of opprobrium from across the British-Jewish community, once again at the Court. A recent new production produced by actor Brian Cox revived the contentious debate over the extent to which it straddles the murky line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. 'And look what happened with Rare Earth Mettle' says Blair. Once again attached to the Court, Al Smith's 2021 play sparked outcry over 'Hershel Fink' an Elon Musk-inspired character with an unmistakably Jewish name seemingly imbued with anti-Semitic traits, even though the character was not written to be Jewish. The original name surfaced in preview performances before it was changed. The production still went ahead. 'It's astonishing that the theatre had initially claimed that they didn't realise Fink is a Jewish name,' says Blair. A consequent internal report found that despite the fact that the name had been twice flagged as potentially offensive in the play's development and rehearsal period the creative team kept the name. The theatre would go on to apologise 'unreservedly.' Jewish creatives have played a significant role in theatre since the early 20th century. Immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe laid the artistic foundation stones of Broadway and the Jewish influence could be seen not only in explicitly Jewish shows like Fiddler, but also in productions which mirror the dynamics of the Jewish diaspora. Stories of overcoming the odds and forging a new home in America parallel the immigrant struggles of artists such as George Gershwin and Irving Berlin. Neither has there been a shortage of Jewish voices in the West End. Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard are arguably the two most influential dramatists of the 20 th century, then there are directors such as Peter Brook and Jonathan Miller, and even critics, Milton Shulman and Bernard Levin, the so-called kosher butchers. But it would be rare to see Jewish artistic self-expression in mainstream spaces that paralleled Broadway. The theatrical tradition in London was already richly established, with its own inheritance, traditions, and artistic canon. Jewish dramatists, usually second-generation immigrants, had to assimilate their storytelling, allowing it to lurk only beneath the surface. This was certainly the case with Harold Pinter. While the linguistic rhythms of Pinter's early work mirror the broken English of Eastern European immigrants, it's detectable on a narrative level too. Pinter drew from his childhood in Hackney for The Homecoming. Ruth can be easily interpreted as a non-Jewish woman marrying into a Jewish household overseen by a paranoid patriarch. Pinter took inspiration from a childhood friend who 'married out' – a transgressive violation considered to be a personal and cultural betrayal. Initial drafts set the action in the East End and referred to an unseen character named 'Berkowitz,' eventually exorcised from the final draft. Recent success at the Oliviers signals a paradigm shift in Jewish on-stage representation as dramatists openly interrogate the idiosyncrasies of contemporary Jewishness on mainstream stages. Rising anti-Semitism, war in Israel, consequent tension within the community are fertile dramatic soil ripe for theatrical exploration. Audiences, both Jewish and non-Jewish, are listening. 'Intelligent pieces of theatre are striking a chord because audiences want nuanced debate' says Tracy-Ann Oberman whose reworked version of The Merchant of Venice relocated the action to London's East End in 1936 under the looming shadow of Mosley's black shirts. After an initial run at the Watford Palace Theatre it embarked on a national tour as well as two West End runs. 'It's been on a journey for two and half years; the positive responses and interest from audiences across the country has warmed my heart,' she says. Oberman admits that its commercial success was unexpected, especially when compared with traditionally lucrative hits such as Fiddler on the Roof. Like Giant it was conceived before October 7 th but came to take on a new meaning in light of growing anti-Semitism. 'The Merchant of Venice showed what anti-Semitism looked like in 1936, that came to resonate with the rise of anti-Jewish racism today, especially how a lot of the vernacular about anti-Zionism bleeds into anti-Semitism' says Oberman. 'People understand that nothing is as black and white as some would have us believe. Art is the best way to show that.' Since the Hershel Fink debacle at the Royal Court, Oberman is adamant there has been significant progress around boosting awareness of Jewish culture. Questions over authentic casting and cultural appropriation are more prominent to the extent that the costume designer of the new production of Oliver! rang Oberman to run by ideas for Fagin's costume to ensure respect of cultural sensitives. 'The fact that he was willing to make that call with me was a huge step forward. If this is a Golden Age, then it's one of renewed understanding and consideration towards Jewish culture,' she says. As a consequence, Oberman has noticed more writers and artists wearing their Jewishness proudly on their sleeve. Perhaps other creative industries could take a leaf out of theatre's book. The ultimate test for this golden age is if Giant transfers to New York - not outside the realm of impossibility after its Olivier success. It is currently playing at the Harold Pinter Theatre – my mother has bought a ticket at my behest.
Vox
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Vox
What happened to the bestselling young white man?
Solid State Books, an independent bookstore in the H Street Corridor, is photographed in Washington DC in February 2019. Calla Kessler for The Washington Post via Getty Images Every generation has a small group of young fiction writers who make it: They top bestseller lists, win prizes, and become household names. And for decades — well, nearly every decade — they have all been straight white men. Philip Roth. Norman Mailer. John Updike. Jonathan Franzen. Jonathan Safran Foer. You get the picture. But in the last decade or so, that's changed: The up-and-coming writers capturing buzz and dominating critics' lists have largely been women. Think Sally Rooney or Emma Cline or Ottessa Moshfegh. And when men do break through, they usually aren't young, straight, or white. It's worth pointing out that, while women now publish more books than men, men are still publishing more books now than they ever have before. But the (relative) decline of the men in letters has led to searching discussions, first murmured, but now increasingly debated in places like the New York Times and the Guardian: Why does the decline of the young, white, male writer matter? And what do we lose — if anything — with this shift? 'We've seen a lot of great work being done to account for perspectives that were left out of literature for a long time,' Ross Barkan, a journalist and novelist, told Today, Explained co-host Noel King. 'But I also think it's important to know, for better and for worse, what the men of the 2020s are up to.' Barkan and King talked about how he feels young men have been shut out of literary fiction, what he thinks is lost, and his experience trying to get fiction published. His third novel, Glass Century, was released earlier this month. Below is a transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. Make sure to listen to hear the whole thing wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. We are talking to you today because you wrote an essay not long ago called 'From Misogyny to No Man's Land: The Vanishing Male in Contemporary Literature.' What's your argument in that essay, Ross? My argument in that essay is that among young literary writers today, there is a lack of men. This doesn't mean there are no male novelists of prominence under the age of 40 — that's the cutoff I use for young — but there are fewer of them than there were historically. And most of the prominent literary fiction writers today are women. I'm talking about a very specific type of fiction that is vying for awards or trying to vie for awards, trying to attain a certain level of prestige. You're 35, and you're a white man? Correct. I wonder about the kind of driving force for this essay and whether you are the vanishing male writer of which you wrote. I think so, yeah, I think there's less of me for sure. I mean, there'd be an era where there were a lot of novelists like myself, Jewish or not Jewish, but certainly white men. I am inclined to find your argument very compelling. I was a teenager in the '90s, a young adult in the 2000s. That's when you read a lot of fiction, right? And I do remember David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Safran Foer… Yeah. …Jonathan Franzen. Jonathan Lethem! And so what you're saying actually really does track to me. The question I wonder about is the why. And let me ask you first to answer the why from your personal perspective. You're a novelist. You're 35 years old. You're a straight white guy — do you feel like those identities are holding you back in some way? Not in the real world. In the real world, I have enormous privilege. But in the 2010s, the literary world was less interested in straight men. I think you have a general lack of the heterosexual male perspective in newer fiction. There's a long history of writers portraying toxic masculinity and rough male characters — and it feels like you see less of that today. I also think at the same time, young male writers, white and non-white, were taking less of an interest in fiction. It's a chicken-and-egg challenge: Is it the publishing industry deciding this is no longer something we're going to push or take a real interest in, or is it market forces as well? So some of it is internal — maybe there are fewer men who want to be great novelists, but maybe publishers are saying, 'Hey, we're just less interested in the perspectives of straight white men.' When you approached publishers with your novel Glass Century, did you hear that? I think you hear it behind the scenes. You're never told to your face. I'm not complaining — I don't consider myself a victim. I've had a successful career. I'm very happy with it. But what do you hear behind the scenes? To echo Joyce Carol Oates in a sort of notorious but not wrong tweet from several years ago — and I'm paraphrasing — agents and editors, at least in the 2010s and early 2020s, were just less interested in straight male fiction. I want to broaden it a little bit because you see even among Black, Hispanic, and Asian straight men — there are some, but [they're] less common. And, certainly, the white male is now even less common, so I think publishers in general in that era were trying to diversify, which was fine. You had social justice politics, you had what they call 'woke,' and in a way woke worked because it broadened things out and brought in new voices, but it is also zero sum. Some come up; some go out. And so for me, it's observing that trend. What do you think we lose when we lose the perspective of those young white men? It's a large part of the country. I think you have a lot going on with young men today. White and non-white alike, straight men — they are falling behind academically. They're increasingly alienated. They're increasingly angry. They are increasingly online. And fiction, in my view, is not grappling with all of that. I agree with you, but I did actually see that in one book in the last year, Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte. There were characters who were highly online. The most acclaimed story was about an incel. That book was incredibly powerful. And it got praise, right? What do you think about that? He's a fantastic writer. I'll start there. He's a great prose stylist. There's a short story I love about a young Asian man who is having these very lurid sexual fantasies about dominating other men. Fantastically written — he's sort of the Roth of our era in terms of his ability to make a sentence really sizzle. But this is the caveat that people seem to be afraid to point out: It's not a straight male fantasy. Could Tony have written a straight male fantasy of wanting to subdue a woman the way that character wants to subdue men? Tony himself is straight. It was an interesting choice there to inhabit a gay character. Nothing wrong with that. Writers should write about whatever sexuality. I don't believe in limiting anyone in that way. But I thought it was a choice, right? Because straight male lust is very disconcerting. It's not easy to write about. What do men think about? The modern novel is not addressing that enough. The nasty, nasty men. The men who are not — maybe they're good at heart, but they have a lot of bad thoughts. And they take bad actions. You don't see that much in fiction today, I would argue. Let me ask you about an argument that I think many people might have in response to what you've said, including many women. If you look at the stats going back to the year 1800, women made up about 5 percent of published authors. It's 10 percent through about the 1900s, and then in 2015, women surpassed men — more women are publishing books than men. Although both genders are still publishing a lot of books, it should be said. Are you at all sympathetic to the argument that you guys had your turn for centuries, the attention, the prizes, the accolades, so we're just leveling the playing field out? Yeah, I'm sympathetic, for sure. I think that it's reasonable to believe that — that's an honest argument. The problem is you'll hear from people who say this isn't happening, and I find that very tiring. I think the honest thing to say is that it's time to rebalance the scales or turn the tables. But there are winners and losers, right? Women were losing; now men are losing. I will say, there's no solace offered to the 26-year-old male who must pay for the sins of the past, right? The young male writer can't sit at home and think, Well, golly, it was good Norman Mailer and John Updike had such a great run.
The Guardian
11-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Given up on reading? Elif Shafak on why we still need novels
A recent YouGov poll found that 40% of Britons have not read a book in the last year. 'The literary era has come to an end,' Philip Roth prophesied in 2000. 'The evidence is the culture, the evidence is the society, the evidence is the screen.' Roth believed that the habit of mind that literature required was bound to disappear. People would no longer have the concentration or the isolation needed to read novels. Several studies seem to support Roth's conclusion. The average time that a person can focus on one thing has dropped in recent decades from approximately 2.5 minutes to about 45 seconds. I witnessed this when I gave two Ted talks almost 10 years apart. In 2010, we were asked to keep our talks to 20 minutes; in 2017, that was reduced to around 13 minutes. When I asked why, the organisers informed me that the average attention span had shrunk. Still, I kept my talk to 20 minutes. And I would similarly like to push back on the idea that people no longer need novels. The same YouGov polling shows that among those who read, more than 55% prefer fiction. Talk to any publisher or bookseller and they will confirm it: the appetite for reading novels is still widespread. That the long form endures is no small miracle in a world shaped by hyper information, fast consumption and the cult of instant gratification. We live in an era in which there is too much information but not enough knowledge, and even less wisdom. This excess of information makes us arrogant and then it makes us numb. We must change this ratio and focus more on knowledge and wisdom. For knowledge we need books, slow journalism, podcasts, in-depth analyses and cultural events. And for wisdom, among other things, we need the art of storytelling. We need the long form. I am not claiming that novelists are wise. If anything, quite the opposite: we are a walking mess. But the long form contains insight, empathy, emotional intelligence and compassion. This is what Milan Kundera meant when he said, 'the novel's wisdom is very different from that of philosophy'. Ultimately, though, it is the art of storytelling that's older and wiser than we are. Writers know this in their guts – and so do readers. In recent years, I have noticed a change in the demographics of book events and literary festivals across the UK: I am seeing more and more young people. Some are coming with their parents, but many more come alone or with friends. There are noticeably more young men attending fiction events. It seems to me that the more chaotic our times, the deeper is our need to slow down and read fiction. In an age of anger and anxiety, clashing certainties, rising jingoism and populism, the division between 'us' and 'them' also deepens. The novel, however, dismantles dualities. The long narrative, ever since the Epic of Gilgamesh, has quietly cast its spell. One of the oldest surviving works of literature, at least 4,000 years old, Gilgamesh predates Ovid's Metamorphoses, Homer's Odyssey and the Iliad. It is also an unusual story with an unlikely hero at its centre. In the poem, King Gilgamesh emerges as a restless spirit, burdened by the storm of his heart. He is a brute, a selfish creature motivated by greed, power and possession. Until, that is, the Gods send him a companion: Enkidu. Together they embark on journeys far and wide, discovering other lands, but also rediscovering themselves. It is a story about friendship, but also about many things besides, such as the power of water and floods to destroy or renew our environment, our desire to prolong youth, and our fear of death. In many classical myths, the hero returns home triumphant – but not in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Here we have a protagonist who has lost his dear friend, failed in almost everything, and has achieved no clear victory. But having experienced failure, defeat, grief and fear, Gilgamesh evolves into a kinder, wiser being. The ancient poem is about the potential for change and our need to attain wisdom. Since the Epic of Gilgamesh was narrated and written down, so many empires have come and gone, so many mighty kings – 'strong men' – have perished, and some of the tallest monuments have crumbled to dust. Yet this poem has survived the tides of history – and here we are, thousands of years later, still learning from it. King Gilgamesh, after journeys and failures, reconnects with his own vulnerability and resilience. He learns to become human. Just as we do when we read novels about other people. There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak is published by Penguin. To support the Guardian buy a copy at Delivery charges may apply.
New York Times
13-04-2025
- General
- New York Times
Books About Gaza and Israel and Jewish American Identity in Crisis
According to the version of Jewish history that I grew up with, Jews are not people like everyone else. This idea would never have been stated so succinctly, but many Jewish children were given to understand that we were special. An American Jewish child, Philip Roth once told an Israeli audience, inherited 'no body of learning and no language and, finally, no Lord — which seems to me a significant thing to be missing.' Instead, one got a psychology. 'And the psychology can be translated into three words — 'Jews are better.' This is what I knew from the beginning: Somehow Jews were better. I'm saying this as a point of psychology; I'm not pronouncing it as a fact.' If our history had been ghastly, persecution had come with a compensation, bequeathing us a unique sensitivity to injustice, a determination to heal the world arising from a purer set of motives that had perdured even in the absence of faith, as well as a dispensation from the rules that govern the behavior of other people. This is the narrative that the journalist Peter Beinart confronts in the opening pages of BEING JEWISH AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA: A Reckoning (Knopf, 172 pp., $26). The book is addressed to a progressive friend with whom Beinart has fallen out. After Oct. 7, he writes, 'one of our closest family friends asked my wife whether we believed that Israel bore any responsibility for the carnage. She answered yes. He said he would never speak to us again.' Every Jewish person who has spoken out on Palestine has such a friend, someone who believes that Jewish virtue translates into Israeli virtue, and exempts that state from the normal laws of humanity. 'We must now tell a new story to answer the horror that a Jewish country has perpetrated, with the support of many Jews around the world,' Beinart writes. 'Its central element should be this: We are not history's permanent virtuous victims. We are not hard-wired to forever endure evil but never commit it. That false innocence, which pervades contemporary Jewish life, camouflages domination as self-defense.' For years, and at great personal cost, Beinart has been one of the most influential Jewish voices for Palestine, even as he continues to attend a predominantly Zionist Orthodox synagogue. Beinart is often praised as courageous for speaking out on this subject, but the most courageous thing about him might just be his simple assertion that Jews might be 'fallible human beings.' Beinart used to describe himself as a 'liberal Zionist,' a position he has since left behind. He is sympathetic to the Jewish sense of vulnerability — he offers a granular accounting of the Hamas attacks — while nevertheless condemning the Israeli state. 'Again and again, we are ordered to accept a Jewish state's 'right to exist,'' he says, arguing that 'the legitimacy of a Jewish state — like the holiness of the Jewish people — is conditional on how it behaves.' Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Guardian
07-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
If Britain must rearm, how to pay for it? Stiffen the sinews; summon up the taxes
'A new era is upon us.' Ursula von der Leyen was not holding back. This is a world turned upside down, changed beyond recognition. Leaders across Europe are echoing the alarm sent out by the European Commission president, and rippling across the continent, Canada and elsewhere: that we face a 'clear and present danger on a scale that none of us has seen in our adult lifetime'. She has proposed a plan that would offer €800bn (£660bn) for immediate rearming, with a European sky shield to protect Ukraine. The hooligan Russian asset in the White House has changed everything so profoundly that it is hard to keep track. The US, whose coat-tails we clung to, whose culture we revelled in, whose cleverness dazzled and stupidity confounded, is now the enemy. The shock feels viscerally personal because American culture is deep in our veins at all ages, from Sesame Street to Marvel, from Philip Roth to Philip Glass, the Oscars to Silicon Valley, like it or not. In Iraq and Afghanistan, we obediently followed their blunders, and 642 British soldiers died, as Keir Starmer adroitly reminded JD Vance in parliament. Our glamorous friend has turned fiend. How do we cauterise that off us? Or reconfigure the map of the world in terms of friends and foes? Former UK ambassadors to Washington ruminated over this 'seismic' shift, which has shaken every norm from their Foreign Office days. 'This is not a blip in the relationship, something fundamental is going on,' one old knight warned a Lords select committee, while another cautioned that the US giving up on Europe in favour of Russia was likely a 'current reality'. Sir David Manning pinpointed Britain's specific anguish at this moment, the downside of the so-called special relationship: as Europe galvanises to rearm, unlike our continental neighbours, we depend on the US for our defence. With every new shock wave, Britain feels this trauma in its marrow. Yet there is hesitancy in government about addressing the nation with a call to arms, as French president Emmanuel Macron has done, warning: 'the innocence of these 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall is over.' Look at the remarkable response of Germany's chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz, lifetime financial conservative and fiscal dogmatist, as he grasps the severity of the times: he will reverse all his previous fiscal policies and his nation's usual dread over borrowing, breaking their 'basic law' with a huge €500bn loosening of debt rules to rearm. This amounts to 'one of the most historic paradigm shifts in German postwar history', according to Deutsche Bank. German borrowing costs shot up, but so have predictions of German growth from a sluggish 0.8% to 2%, with investors sending industrial stocks soaring. But note this: in his fiscal sea change, rearming will not be accompanied by any cuts to German social spending. How about Britain? Our government has announced no change to fiscal policy. Living within our self-imposed straitjacket, our rearming will be paid for by cuts to aid, benefits and most departments, as Rachel Reeves this week sends her plans to the Office for Budget Responsibility to prove the books are balanced. Yet the promises the government has made are impossible to keep: no more borrowing, no more tax rises and no return to austerity. These are terrible choices – the aid cut already breaks a manifesto pledge – destroying trust whichever way Labour turns. But which is the least bad? A copy of Duncan Grant's portrait of John Maynard Keynes hangs by my desk, a reminder to reach for his 1940 prescription How to Pay for the War, a book that spelled out the necessary financial sacrifices of the time. Emergency action needed then was draconian, rapidly increasing production while drastically reducing consumption, introducing rationing and diverting everything to the war effort. In comparison, what's needed in this new emergency is a pinprick, to raise the 3% of GDP for defence spending that Starmer is aiming for. Take just this one measure: in a disgraceful (and failed) act of crude election bribery, Jeremy Hunt cut 4p off employees' national insurance. Restoring that would cover the cost of this extra defence spending alone, says Ben Zaranko of the Institute for Fiscal Studies; so would 2p more on income tax for all. Labour's Treasury team winces at the very thought of any further tax rises, after the walloping Reeves got for the £40bn tax rise in October's budget. They are jumpy: remember Liz Truss's mini-budget, maxi-catastrophe, they say. Look how even small tax changes such as the farmers' inheritance tax can create a storm; some policies make absolute sense in economic and fairness terms, but crash politically. Besides, tax rises that cut people's spending money risk stunting growth, they say – but then so do cuts to public spending. Borrow more? That adds to the mammoth £100bn a year we spend servicing existing debt, they say. But we are now on the hunt for the least-worst option – and Britain still pays less tax than similar countries. Starmer has risen to the needs of the hour. But he has yet to address his citizens on what rearming means, and what it requires of them. We like to think of ourselves as warlike, and at the ready. We are good at displays of national pride and national parades, with a four-day celebration planned for the 80th anniversary of VE day in May. But tax and financial sacrifice were essential parts of that victory. The alternative – miserable cuts to benefits for the weakest, and stripping yet more from threadbare stricken public services – is the worst of all the bad options. In our finest hour, Britain shed its traditional tax-phobia. If ever there was a moment to stiffen the sinews and summon up the taxes, it is now: for the defence of the realm. Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
