Boycotting Actors: Stay Home!

Moshe Feiglin
Manhigut Yehudit
7 Kislev, 5771
(Nov. 14, '10)

Editor's Note: Over the past few weeks, a number of actors and performing artists have announced their intention to boycott the new theatre just built in Ariel, due to their objection to perform over the Green Line. The Right's knee-jerk response was to angrily attempt to force the artists to perform in the new theatre. The Minister of Sport and Culture vowed to withhold government allocations from those artists who will not perform in Ariel. Moshe Feiglin has an entirely different perspective.

I would like to make a heartfelt request of all the actors who do not want to appear over the Green Line. Please – don't come. If the show cannot go on without you, then let there be no show. The very thought that one of the actors on stage is performing against his will dissolves any desire I may have had to see the play. If I even suspect that there is an actor on stage who is there against his will, I will forgo the entire experience and not buy a ticket.

Artists are not service providers. If the Phone Company sends a technician to my home, his feelings toward me or toward the place to which he has been dispatched really do not interest me. But an actor who is forced to act against his will?

True, they receive government funding and the settlers also pay taxes and are entitled to enjoy theatre as much as any other tax payer. True, by the letter of the law, they must appear in Ariel. All the technical and legal claims that the Right has made are true – but completely irrelevant. To force artists to fall in step with state dictates against their will is true Bolshevism. Stalin kept the authors and artists in Russia under surveillance. Soviet art carefully poured itself into the party mold. Is this what we want for the performing arts over the Green Line?

By insisting that the artists perform over the Green Line against their will, the Right is actually endorsing the dubious fact that Israel's spirit and culture are represented by the Left. If the settlers were really confident in their place as part of Israeli society – as they should be – this boycott would have amused them.

I do not believe that the art of an estranged artist is really worth anything. Art and hatred do not go together. When art stems from estrangement and theatre is coerced – nothing good is going to emerge from them.

There are excellent performing artists out there just waiting for a quality stage like the one built in Ariel; artists who exude brotherhood and bonding – not estrangement and egocentricity. If all that has come out of Ron Nachman's tremendous investment in the Ariel theatre is that we can now force estranged actors to perform in Ariel, it is doubtful that the investment was worth the 30 minute drive to Tel Aviv.

But if the Ariel stage will be home to artists who are not at odds with their identity; if true, new and original artistic content will be poured into the beautiful new theatre building; content that is original in every sense of the word – authentic and Israeli: then we will have to thank the actors who boycotted it.

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