Boulder Jewish Community Center cancels a performance of “Standing for Humanity in Gaza and Israel” because one of the participants, Evan Weissman, was a founder of Jewish Voice For Peace in Colorado.

Evan Weissman “cancelled” from performing at the Boulder Jewish Community Center.

_____________

Below is a letter from Evan Weissman, local actor (a founding member of and long time actor in the Buntport Theater, an experimental theater group in Denver). He is also a well known, respected and talented social movements activist who has spearheaded the ongoing activities of what is called “Warm Cookies of the Revolution” which brings together youth of all colors, genders and creeds – and an occasional alte kocker like me – for civic discussions. With a name like that you’d have to see it in motion to believe its substantial contribution to civic dialogue here in Denver. 

Weissman was to be a part of a panel to come right after the performance of a play called “Standing for Humanity in Gaza and Israel” that has already been produced in several venues. It was scheduled to be produced at the Boulder (Colorado) Jewish Community Center but was cancelled after the Center’s administration learned that Weissman, a Jewish critic of Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians, was involved.

The administration refused to permit the play to be shown if Weissman participated and the cast refused to put the production on without him. 

Finally, adding to his other “high crimes”, he is a long time personal friend which probably didn’t help his cause.

Below is Weissman’s letter protesting the cancellation of the play and requesting a meeting with the BJCC administration. 

_____________

To the decision-maker(s) at the Boulder Jewish Community Center,

After being told of your decision to cancel the performance of Standing for Humanity in Gaza and Israel event, because the artists involved would not remove or replace me, I’ve been trying to understand how and why you came to this decision.

As you know, no one spoke to me. No one asked me who I was. No one asked me about what I think or feel or anything about my connection to Israel/Palestine, to Boulder, to the Jewish community, to theater, to art, to humanity. Nothing. You created a story of me.

A story where I’m a monster so hideous, with powers to infect the minds of the Boulder Jewish Community Center’s attendees, that you were compelled to keep me away so that my poisonous ideas couldn’t take hold. Is that right? I can only guess because we never spoke.

Taken at face value, asking for someone to be removed means you think their participation is so objectionable that allowing them to take part would spoil the purpose of the event. The obvious question is: What is it about me that you find so objectionable? And further, who at the JCC actually made this decision?

As far as I was told, you demanded I be removed because you would not host someone who “did not believe Israel has a right to exist”. Is that what I believe? You don’t know. The only thing you know is that 20 years ago I was a co-founder of our Denver/Boulder chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, and you have an opinion about JVP (based on… what exactly?) and made a decision by association. I wonder if you see the problem with that process?

So, let me tell you a bit about myself. (I am going to ignore my history and experience as an artist and how hilariously ironic it is that you have canceled a staged reading of a play and panel specifically designed to embrace critical and differing perspectives. The absurdity is so obvious there is little point in dwelling on it. If you have any practice of introspection, you should promptly let the troupe know this was a mistake.)

My family were refugees, as far as we can tell, over and over again. They shared a similar history as many other American Jews. At the turn of 19th century, fleeing antisemitic terror in the Pale of Settlement of Europe, part of my family escaped to Palestine, the other part to the US. My cousins and all of their family are 5 generations deep in Israel, settling in Palestine about a half a century prior to the formation of the State of Israel.

I am named after the kibbutz my parents lived on, or more precisely, the name of one of the founders of the kibbutz, Evan Yitzhak. My parents named me after him because they felt and feel a deep sense of freedom and strength in their experience of Zionism, Israel, and their time on the kibbutz. They were born just a few years after the Holocaust when 1 out of every 3 Jews worldwide were systematically killed in less than a decade.

What they did not know is that the kibbutz was built on the remains of a Palestinian village called al Butaymat. There were people who lived on that land prior to the settlement of the kibbutz. Some were Jewish, most were Muslim, all were displaced. Jewish tradition puts heavy significance on the naming of a child. It is a way for the parents to feel a bit of divine energy. So, as you can imagine, a curious person will explore what their name means. And I have done that for most of my life. Truth and humility are good places to start on that journey.

The history of Zionism, like most of Jewish history, is one of arguments about the best way to be free. Oppression does that to people. It is not unique to Jews but it was a marker of Jewish life in most of the world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Zionism was created by Christians, and later a segment of Jews mostly within Europe saw it as an answer to antisemitism and oppression. Others found it to be antithetical to Judaism. They argued about it. A lot.

For the last 27 years I’ve lived along the front range and participated in Jewish life. What you should know is that Jewish life is quite varied. If there is any agreement amongst the diverse Jewish streams, it is that Judaism values practice more so than belief. The practice varies massively, from Conservative to Orthodox to Reform to Reconstructionist to the “Jew-Bu’s” in Boulder! (The same can be said for Jewish history, and for that matter, the relatively short history of Zionism: There are many, many ways that Jews practice Jewish ethics, Jewish daily life, Jewish prayer, etc…).

I have been quite involved in efforts for Jewish social justice:

• I was the founding organizer of Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice where we pushed for LGBTQ inclusion in the Immigration reform legislation at the Federal level. We pushed our local representatives to vote for this legislation, including getting 17 local Rabbis to sign on to a letter to these representatives, led a Jewish “buy-cott” of businesses who supported the legislation, and organized many public demonstrations, Shabbat services, and other spiritual acts of solidarity.
• In recent years I have helped organize Jewish participation in the Immigrant rights movement, supporting our friends who were in Sanctuary, fighting against the ICE/GEO detention center in Aurora, and a host of other Jewish justice-based actions in support of our immigrant neighbors.
• Being a public, Jewish justice activist has some drawbacks (I had two racist neo-nazis write me threatening letters for years, and our public events often draw extra scrutiny by white supremacists: ask any of the 200 or so Jews who were in downtown Denver during the pandemic for an immigrant rights action where some Proud Boys showed up on foot while some car drivers circled around the blocks yelling “6 million more!”) but it’s also nourishing,
• I have enjoyed the public discourse I’ve had on local radio shows, public gatherings, synagogue events, and Jewish programs like Limmud, Roots & Branches, the Center for Judaic Studies, and many more—all focused on the role of Americans, Jews, and American Jews on Israel/Palestine policy and culture. I have been and continue to be a critic of US/Israeli policies regarding Palestine, and specifically from a Jewish perspective. A lot of people agree with me, and a lot of people don’t. That’s a pretty human experience. My four nieces and nephews grew up in and graduated from Boulder High. My sister probably taught your kids Hebrew (and she certainly disagrees with me).

All this is to say: I am a member of this community, and you trying to silence me or anyone else who understands that Jewish safety is not predicated on Palestinian oppression, has not, and will not work.

I can’t think of something less Jewish than stopping a conversation, an argument, true “god-wrestling”, before it has even started. I ask again, who made this decision?!

What are you afraid of?

Would you meet me in person for a taco?

I have so many questions! We could talk about Ahad Ha’am. We could talk about nonviolent resistance movements in Palestine and Israel, which breaks us out of the IDF/Hamas paradigm.

I could introduce you to many Palestinians who live here in Colorado and you could learn about their family histories and what is going on right now to their families. I could introduce you to the large and growing population of anti-zionist/non-zionist/just-not-okay-with-Jewish-militarism Jews we have in our community. We could talk and probably disagree. What a luxury! What a privilege!

I am quite busy raising my kids and working and trying to stop the US/Israeli war on Palestinians, but I think it’s important and I haven’t given up on the institutional Jewish community yet. I know many individuals who work at the JCC and some of the synagogues in Boulder who haven’t either.

So let me know if you’re willing to meet with me. And, if you have the courage, let me know if you’re willing to apologize to the troupe who worked on the reading, and even further, agree to reverse your decision and host it and the panel afterwards.

with respect,

Evan (Weissman)