A controversy is boiling in Holland over the scheduled opening of a play by the late Rainer Werner Fassbinder in which one of the principal characters, an exploiter, is known as “the rich Jew.”
Opponents of the play “Garbage, the City and Death” want it banned on grounds it is anti-Semitic. Supporters contend it is symbolic, not anti-Semitic, and argue that a ban would amount to censorship and an abridgement of basic rights guaranteed by the Dutch constitution.
As the play’s Nov. 18 premier at Rotterdam’s Lantern Theater approaches, the lines of debate have been drawn. On one side is virtually the entire Jewish community of the Netherlands, supported by many non-Jews, including the 40,000-member “Christians for Israel,” a Protestant organization.
The Netherlands Ashkenazi Congregation, which is traditional, was joined this week by the Liberal Jewish Congregation of Rotterdam and the Anne Frank Foundation in protests against the play. Earlier, objections were raised by Stiba, the foundation for combatting anti-Semitism, and Cidi, the center for information and documentation on Israel, which also fights anti-Semitism.
They lodged protests with the Rotterdam Municipal Executive and the Lantern Theater management, so far to no avail. The municipal authorities have tried to be neutral, but Rotterdam’s alderman for cultural affairs spoke out this week against “cultural censorship.”
He was promptly taken to task by Rabbi Lody Van De Kamp of The Hague, who recalled that, within living memory, the failure to exercise “cultural censorship” resulted in the murder of millions of Jews.
Leading supporters of the play include the Amsterdam Theatrical Academy. A recent graduate; Johan Doesburg, is producing the Dutch version of the Fassbinder play as his graduate project. He acknowledges the fear that the work may “foster hatred against the Jewish community,” but insists this does not justify a boycott.
Doesburg recently contended in an interview with the Dutch Jewish weekly NIW that the protests were unfair. “In this play, not only Jews are presented, but also dwarfs, pimps and whores, but of all these groups, only the Jews have reacted hysterically,” he said.
Doesburg’s drama teacher, Louk Zonneveld, has stressed that an artist must be free to give expression to controversies in society and said “we must not allow ourselves to evade discussion of these problems.” Other supporters have suggested that the play could be the source of discussion of anti-Semitism.
On Wednesday night, the Evangelical Broadcasting Co. allowed the Christians for Israel organization to explain why it objects to the play. It also opened its telephones to listeners. There were opinions pro and con, with two callers expressing anti-Semitic feelings.
One woman claimed Fassbinder, a West German, was a Jew and intended his play to be a warning to his fellow Jews of what would happen if they did not mend their ways. Another listener said the world should protest the actions of Israel, not Fassbinder’s play.
The play has a stormy history. Its original premier on Oct. 31, 1985 was cancelled after members of the local Jewish community occupied the stage of Frankfurt’s Kammerspiel Theater and held up banners charging anti-Semitism. The play was then withdrawn by its German impresario after a private staging for critics.
It remained in limbo until performed in New York last year. That opened the way for a scheduled tour of Holland following a premier at the Frascati theater in Amsterdam. But it was dropped by Frascati because of protests, to be reinstated by the Lantern Theater in Rotterdam.
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