The Jewish Community Council of Orange County charged today that a “New Left” radical theatre group, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, was guilty of anti-Semitism in its presentation of a distorted adaptation of an 18th Century Italian farce. The production was given here on the Irvine Campus of the University of California.
The Council’s bulletin pointed out that in its original form, the farce, “L’Amant Militaire,” portrayed a money-hungry Italian profiteer. In the version presented here, the troupe depicted the villain “as a Jew with an exaggerated hook nose, a Yiddish accent, sexually deprived and obsessed with making money.” The San Francisco group whose presentations are directed to creating anti-war feeling, is popular in underground and “hippie” circles in major American cities.
The Council bulletin noted that “unfortunately, young college students unaware and uninterested in the history of anti-Semitism, do not recognize that such stereotypes build racial and religious hatred.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
