Well it’s not really an empire and this is barely a strike, but I like a bit of mild table turning. I don’t support any cultural boycotts and obviously not when they’re uniquely directed at Israel. So it’s nice to hear that a few civic minded Israel supporters gave a leading BDS-hole a taste of her own medicine.
Miriam Margolyes has been mentioned here at Israellycool a few times. Most recently she was one of the more prominent names on a mainly C and D list of celebrities calling for Israel’s Habima theatre company to be boycotted when they performed at The Globe theatre in London.
My earlier postings about how anti-Zionists are really just racists seem to be completely on the money with Miriam. It may be unintentional because their own stupidity causes them to hate Zionism based on the Jew haters definition of Zionism instead of what it really is. And the clip of her on Richard’s page saying how few of her friends are black to Will.i.am is particularly foul.
The indefatigable Richard Millet reports on the flag waving protest outside her latest show in London, head to his post for video and more.
Early Saturday evening a small group of pro-Israel activists stood outside Arts Depot in Finchley, north London handing out leaflets to people going into see Miriam Margolyes’ show Dickens’ Women.
The activists explained to them that Margolyes had signed a letter to The Guardian that asked The Globe to withdraw its invitation to Habima (The National Theatre of Israel) to give two performances of The Merchant of Venice as one of its 37 Shakespeare plays in 37 languages season.
The letter was silent on performances to be given by theatre companies from China, Russia, The Palestinian territories, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Turkey etc. despite human rights atrocities in those places.
BTW, taken from a comment on that post by Jonathan Hoffman, here is a brief run down of her anti-Israel CV.
Miriam Margolyes –
– Appeared in the antisemitic play “Seven Jewish Children” in Australia and as a result was dropped from Jewish Care fundraiser event
– Tried to stop the appearance of Israel’s National Theatre Company Habima at the Globe Theatre in London last month
– Made an antisemitic comparison of the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust and the current conditions for residents of Gaza (Andrew Marr Show, BBC TV, 2010)
– Supported the Enough! Anti-Israel rally in London in 2007
– Has said “The people who run Israel now can look at Arabs and see vermin, and that is what the Nazis did”
Nice lady. She’ll need more than Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility to hide from that list.
