CINEMA THAT WOULD RATHER REMAIN IN THE DARK

I wrote to the Tricycle this week as follows. “In the light of your recent decision to boycott the UK Jewish Film Festival I would like to inform you that I will no longer support the Tricycle Theatre in any manner whatsoever.

I will also actively encourage all my friends and supporters of the arts to do likewise. I wonder how much money from Jewish supporters you have taken and benefited from over the years?

You do not know me, I am a British Jew. You do not know my views on Israel. You have made an appalling mistake to equate the Jews of Britain with Israeli Palestinian politics.

I ask you, did you boycott anything related to any Muslims in Britain when President Assad of Syria started to murder his own people? Do you hold the entire Muslim population of the UK responsible for the actions of Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, Isis and all the other fundamentalist Muslim terror groups and dictatorships who regularly commit atrocities against their own Muslim brothers, women and gay men? No, I didn’t think so.

You do not deserve to receive the support of a liberal, charitable and tolerant community such as is the Jewish community of London”. Lucy Smouha Wedderburn Road, London NW3

I have been an avid audience member of the Jewish Film Festival in London for many years. How very disappointing that the Tricycle has taken the appalling step to eject the festival, because of partial Israeli funding.

Paradoxically, it would seem to the Israeli Embassy’s enormous credit that it sponsors a festival that embraces films from all parts of the political spectrum. Some indeed reflect the polar opposite attitudes of current Israeli government policy.

This festival has shown several films portraying the Palestinian point of view as well as the Israeli. And some of the films sympathetic to Palestinian desires, are created by Israeli Jews.

Last year alone, films shown as part of the Jewish Film Festival, included Room 514, addressing the case of a senior officer accused of abusing a Palestinian family; State 194, an exploration of the intricacies of achieving a two state solution; and an Israeli-Palestinian cinematic project.

Would a Palestinian cultural event include material reflecting an Israeli perspective, let alone one sponsored by the authorities.

The Tricycle has chosen to censor this eloquent and balanced medium of expression. Shame on them. Dr Sharon Kleinberg London