Latest news with #RachelCreeger
Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Jewish comics claim fringe shows dropped on mistaken pretext
Two Jewish comedians whose Edinburgh Fringe shows were cancelled say the decision appeared to have been made on an incorrect pretext. Rachel Creeger and Philip Simon told Times Radio that the Whistle Binkies venue told them the cancellation was linked to a 'vigil for IDF soldiers' held during Creeger's performance last year, something the venue later admitted had not happened. Creeger, Britain's only touring comedian who is also a practising Orthodox Jew, explained: 'They initially said that they believed we'd held a vigil for an IDF soldier, a fallen soldier, which is a thing that just hadn't ever happened in either of our shows. The shows are not political, we're not political performers and the IDF is not a relevant subject in either show. 'They later withdrew that and said they understood that that didn't actually happen. 'Last year they went to great lengths to tell us that it was a safe space for us and that they would ensure that we always had positive experiences there. So it came as something of a shock to suddenly be told last Friday that we were no longer welcome on the site.' Simon also said that a different venue decided to drop his performance after searching his social media, adding: 'My solo show, which has been at the same venue for the past two years, a different venue […] told me that my political views didn't align with theirs and therefore they were pulling that show. 'They've effectively done a trawl of social media to decide I didn't quite align with their views relating to the Israeli government. I've never posted about the Israeli government. I've posted about the situation because we're all horrified about what's going on in the Middle East but there's been nothing positive that I put out really about the Israeli government.' He added that he was concerned by the implication of their shows being cancelled. 'Of course people have a right to choose who gets to perform in their venue, but there are also surely protective groups and laws that prevent decisions being made against us for those reasons. 'It seems very much that the decisions that have been taken have not been done because 'we want a different show', it's because of who we are and who they think we represent.' Whistle Binkies was contacted for comment. An Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society spokesperson said: 'The Fringe Society's role is to provide support and advice to all participants at the Festival Fringe with a vision to give anyone a stage and everyone a seat. We stand for freedom of expression, which has been a core principle of the festival since its inception nearly 80 years ago. The Fringe Society don't manage or programme venues at the festival. 'We understand that the show cancellations have been a choice made by the venue. Our Artist Services team continue to support the artists affected, including in their search for an alternative venue. We understand that those conversations are ongoing and hope a resolution is found.'
Spectator
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Edinburgh Fringe is becoming a Jew-free zone
Is the Edinburgh Fringe a Judenfrei zone now? With just a week to go before the Fringe kicks off, Jewish comedians are being unceremoniously cancelled. One venue has allegedly cited 'safety concerns' from staff, saying the extra muscle to deal with the threats to Jewish acts made them feel more unsafe. So instead of protecting Jews, you ditch them? What a shameful capitulation to the anti-Semitic mob. Numerous Jewish-themed comedy shows have been binned at the Whistlebinkies venue in the city. Rachel Creeger, Britain's only practising Orthodox Jewish comedian, has been told her show Ultimate Jewish Mother is no longer going ahead. Jew-O-Rama was next for the chop. That's a comedy night that features a 'rolling line-up of Jewish and Jew-ish comedians'. It's been running at the Fringe for nine years. Not anymore. Seems funny Jews aren't allowed in 2025. And now the host of Jew-O-Rama, Philip Simon, says his one-man show 'Shall I Compare Thee in a Funny Way?' has been cancelled at the Banshee Labyrinth venue. 'I am still processing the concept that in 2025 I can be cancelled just for being Jewish', says Mr Simon. We should all be processing that. We should all be asking how it is possible that at a comedy festival in the 21st century, Jews are being booted off stage. The reasons given by the venues for their blitzing of the Jewish acts are ridiculous. They say it is not because the comedians are Jewish – I guess it is entirely coincidental that every one of the gagged comics is a Jew. No, it's because their bar staff said they would 'feel unsafe' in the presence of such acts and the beefed-up security Jewish performers tragically require in 21st-century Britain. Listen, here's what you do with members of staff who say Jewish performers make them feel unsafe – sack them. Get those people the hell out of your establishments. To prioritise the emotions of pint-pulling Gen Z fainthearts over the artistic liberty of Jews is a grotesque betrayal of the freedom to speak and the equality of Jews. Extra security for Jewish acts should make you feel furious, not 'unsafe'. Furious that a Jew can't even crack a joke these days without requiring an army of heavies. Philip Simon says he was told that his one-man show was scrubbed because his views on 'the humanitarian crisis in Palestine' do not align with those of the venue. What are his scandalous views? Well, he calls himself 'pro-Israel' and he has pleaded for the release of the Israeli hostages. Wanting Jews to be freed from the violent clutches of a neo-fascist militia is a cancellable offence now, it seems. There's a neo-McCarthyite vibe to these venues' erasure of Jews who fail to toe the 'progressive' line on the Israel-Hamas war. Perhaps next year, to save time, the Fringe should check the thinking of every Jew who applies to perform. 'Are you now or have you ever been a sympathiser with the Jews still being held captive by Hamas? Are you now or have you ever been a believer in Israel's right to exist?' Answer carefully, Jew – your livelihood is on the line. It really is that stark: Jewish comics are being robbed of income because Fringe venues are too cowardly to host them. 'We depend on performing for our livelihoods', said Rachel Creeger. And it's not just the Fringe that's rejecting Jewish acts. This is an 'ongoing problem faced by Jewish performers in this country', she says. 'We are being cancelled and often silently boycotted.' These are the awful wages of the Israelophobic frenzy that has swept the cultural establishment these past two years. It's all the rage now to boycott Jews. Last month two shows by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood and the musician Dudu Tassa were cancelled after threats were made against them. The problem? Tassa is a Jew from Israel. And we can't have that. Under the left's bigoted regime of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), Israeli performers have been banned or booed and Jewish film festivals have been cancelled. Imagine thinking you're on the right side of history even as you obsessively make your life Israeli-frei; even as you agitate for the shutting down of Jewish film nights and squeal about feeling 'unsafe' because a Jew with a mic is telling a joke. If a huge line-up of black comics were kicked out of the Edinburgh Fringe, we'd call it what it was. So let's say it here, too: it is heinous, intolerant and discriminatory to cancel Jewish acts at the behest of fragile bar staff or potential anti-Jewish mobs. It is the blackest mark against the Fringe that some of its venues would rather shut Jews down than take the necessary measures to let them perform safely and freely. Throwing Jews to the wolves – shame on you, Edinburgh.
Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Cancelling Jewish comedians is capitulation
The cost of bunking down in an Edinburgh August overtook our family resources a few years back, so not for me the exhilarating Fringe ordeal: six shows a day and falling asleep in the small hours with haggis-pizza in hair and keyboard. But exiled fans like to learn by proxy about occasional brilliance, embarrassing idiocies and streaks of perilous bravery. So far, though, the most downheartening news is about cowardice. Two Jewish comedians were taken off the Fringe listings and told by the Whistlebinkies venue, at two weeks' notice, that they were not performing there. Apparently its staff might feel 'unsafe', though the risk of antisemitic demonstration was recognised and security discussed. Seemingly there had been regular 'Free Palestine' graffiti left on toilet doors, needing to be cleaned. Obviously, it can't be worth standing by freedom and equality if it might cause inconvenience, can it? • Doctor who called for abolition of Israel allowed to keep her job Neither show was about Gaza, Israel or war. Rachel Creeger's 'Ultimate Jewish Mother' is, she says, a 'warm hug' about all mums. Philip Simon was to host a 'Jew-o-Rama' of comedic talents (and it is worth remembering how much poorer all showbiz would be without the Jewish contribution, comic or otherwise). His other show has been cancelled too. Creeger, incidentally, observed that she doesn't find 'Free Palestine' slogans a threat and mildly says, 'It's a common thing to see in places. It's people's political statement.' But as Simon says, 'We are cancelled and often silently boycotted. This would not happen to any other ethnic minority; there would be absolute outrage.' Shocked and destabilised, both say it's hard to sleep, and not only because of the financial and professional blow. Simon notes a change in the past year: 'I think people have perhaps got braver in what they feel they can say.' Indeed: last year Jewish audience members were booed for objecting to a Reginald D Hunter joke, and this did not cause the rest of his audience to walk out in contempt. A similar insult from the stage to Jews in the audience at the Soho Theatre did at least get that perpetrator banned. Routine antisemitism is getting easier, less shocking. Public entertainment is a canary in the cultural coalmine, but this is not just about fringe comedy. It is about the visible creep of raw, uncivilised, general contempt for Jews, notably in a generation too young either to feel disgraced by such attitudes or to bother studying the hideous complications of the Middle East. • Pro-Palestinian protesters are threatening me, says MP It is notably within higher education that this easy hate has increased four times faster than anywhere else: students and academics are more likely to commit verbal or physical attacks than the general populace. It is about the easy fashionability of flinging on a keffiyeh to denote that you are one of the good guys, lining up unthinkingly with Hamas's clear mission to destroy the state of Israel and all Jews everywhere. It is in tearing down pictures of hostages, and the laughable idiocy of waving banners saying 'QUEERS FOR PALESTINE'. As if the priority of a Hamas-led regime would be to facilitate Pride marches and transgenderism, rather than execute the lot of them. After the murders and kidnaps of October 7, attacks on Jews in the UK doubled extraordinarily fast: businesses and synagogues have been damaged, Jewish schoolchildren minding their own business have been threatened. Big organised demonstrations week after week are manipulated by leaders keener on ruckus than discussion. Hysterical, deluded individualism erupts, as in that young Irishwoman all over social media screaming 'I am a Palestinian and I am being silenced', when neither is the case. Or the one who last week trashed a table outside Reuben's Café in Baker Street (she was, at least, arrested). When one of the kosher diners, Yael, protested that the group didn't support the Israeli government's action the woman 'said she didn't care and that I was Jewish, so that's all that mattered to her'. • Does Israel's concession on Gaza aid bring a ceasefire any closer? Britain cannot be complacent about this. Warped, childish and moronic though much of it is, antisemitism is too ancient and toxic a rash to be allowed even a millimetre's spread. It is enraging that our government should be contemplating some probably ill-written and illiberal blasphemy law against 'Islamophobia' rather than spending its energy instructing public forces to give no quarter to routine insults against British Jews. One might even cynically point out one difference: extreme Islamist calls for sharia law are commonplace and shruggingly tolerated, while Judaism does not proselytise or demand public concessions but rather the opposite: traditionally resisting converts with care and questioning doubt. As the gentle rabbi Lord Sacks once said to me, 'Over centuries in many lands Jews have learnt to harmonise in a minor key', while the centuries-newer faith has yet to achieve that. It is right — inevitable — to care about the people of Gaza. Inevitable to wince and weep at the immense scale of torment and starvation of its people, near-unbearable to hear daily about innocents caught between Hamas ruthlessness and Binyamin Netanyahu's remorselessness. It is increasingly hard to look away, and reasonable to beg western governments forcibly to relieve the suffering at any cost. Right also to insist, as many Israeli citizens do and its candid friends have done in these pages, that Israel must bend to mercy and reconciliation. But it is not tolerable to convert your shock into cheap, enjoyable, hysterical hatred. No civilised democracy can delude itself that attacking Jews for Jewishness, or pigeon-heartedly discriminating, is forgivable. Or should go unpunished.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Outrage as Jewish comedians' Edinburgh Fringe shows cancelled ‘over staff safety concerns'
Two Jewish comedians have claimed their shows have been cancelled on the Edinburgh Fringe this year because of 'safety concerns' from staff at the venue. Rachel Creeger was set to perform her show 'Ultimate Jewish Mother' at Whistlebinkies during the annual arts festival, while Philip Simon was due to host a 'Jew-O-Rama' of Jewish comedic talents at the same venue. However, both acts claimed they were told their gigs would be cancelled because bar staff at the venue expressed fears of being 'unsafe'. Organisers of the Fringe said they were working to find alternative venues for the performers, but politicians and comedians have raised concerns about the move at a time when antisemitism is on the rise in the UK. 'This would have been the third year in a row of that specific show at that venue,' Ms Creeger told Times Radio on Sunday. 'When it comes to safety they said that they felt the extra safety precautions that many Jewish performers are subject to at the moment due to rising antisemitism made them feel, ironically, more unsafe. 'The precautions included [that] when the extra police allocated for the festival had their beat patrols allocated they would pass by the beginning and the end of where Jewish shows were happening, so nothing invasive to the venue, and having some contact numbers by the phone in case they needed advice or to report any kind of antisemitic incident. 'They also cited that they had increased graffiti in their venue since having us which they found threatening - we're not sure why, we certainly weren't the people creating the graffiti - but they claim that they had to repaint toilet doors where most of the graffiti was happening on a regular basis. 'The shows are not political, we're not political performers.' Ms Creeger said that just last year, the venue had gone to great lengths to say the venue was a safe space and they would ensure the comedians always had a positive experience there. While initially there had been plans to swap venues so they could still perform, it was too late to make these arrangements, The Telegraph reported. Their shows no longer appear on the Edinburgh Fringe listings website. Mr Simon - who said that another venue in the city had also cancelled one of his shows - claimed that he was being 'cancelled just for being Jewish'. 'Anyone who knows me will know I have never expressed support for anything other than freeing the hostages and finding a way for peace,' he said. 'It is sad to think that these views could conflict with anyone who wants to see a lasting peace in Gaza and Israel. 'As a Jewish person living in Britain it is possible, and increasingly common, to have a love for Israel without supporting the actions of the government.' Israel's deputy foreign minister Sharren Haskel criticised the reported cancellations. 'It's a shocking decision and it should be reversed,' she told The Independent. 'This is further proof of the normalisation of antisemitism in the UK.' And shadow Scotland Secretary Andrew Bowie told Times Radio: 'That is a shocking state of affairs. Everybody should be welcome to this country, regardless of their faith, regardless of where they've come from, to perform at the Edinburgh festival or anywhere else for that matter. 'The very fact that is happening in the United Kingdom in 2025 speaks very ill of the state of affairs in this country and demonstrates what we were warning of a few years ago in terms of the rise of antisemitism in this country is real and something we should be combating at the very highest level. The Independent has reached out to the Edinburgh Fringe, Free Fringe and Whistlebinkies for comment. PBH Free Fringe CEO Luke Meredith told Chortle: 'The decision not to host the two shows was taken by the venue alone. So far as we understand, this was a staff decision based on last year's experience when they experienced a significant rise in both 'Free Palestine' and Zionist graffiti, together with police notices that they said made them feel unsafe. 'The matter was first brought to our attention in late May, after the print deadline for the brochure had passed. I thought at the time that, having explained the police were only taking precautions and no actual threats had been made, and that moving them after they were already advertised in print might be detrimental, that the matter had been resolved. Apparently however it had been understood that we were to move the shows. 'I was made aware of this a week ago and since then we have been working with the shows to try and find them a suitable replacement slot, including approaching other organisations. Nothing has been possible so far but we welcome any offer of help. If anyone has a space in central Edinburgh that would like to host them, we would be happy to run it.' This is not the first time that the Fringe has faced questions over alleged antisemitism. Last year, American standup comedian Reginald D Hunter found himself at the centre of an antisemitism row at the Fringe when two Israeli people were heckled and booed at his gig after they objected to a joke comparing Israel to an abusive spouse.
The Independent
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Outrage as Jewish comedians' Edinburgh Fringe shows cancelled ‘over staff safety concerns'
Two Jewish comedians have claimed their shows have been cancelled on the Edinburgh Fringe this year because of 'safety concerns' from staff at the venue. Rachel Creeger was set to perform her show 'Ultimate Jewish Mother' at Whistlebinkies during the annual arts festival, while Philip Simon was due to host a 'Jew-O-Rama' of Jewish comedic talents at the same venue. However, both acts claimed they were told their gigs would be cancelled because bar staff at the venue expressed fears of being 'unsafe'. Organisers of the Fringe said they were working to find alternative venues for the performers, but politicians and comedians have raised concerns about the move at a time when antisemitism is on the rise in the UK. 'This would have been the third year in a row of that specific show at that venue,' Ms Creeger told Times Radio on Sunday. 'When it comes to safety they said that they felt the extra safety precautions that many Jewish performers are subject to at the moment due to rising antisemitism made them feel, ironically, more unsafe. 'The precautions included [that] when the extra police allocated for the festival had their beat patrols allocated they would pass by the beginning and the end of where Jewish shows were happening, so nothing invasive to the venue, and having some contact numbers by the phone in case they needed advice or to report any kind of antisemitic incident. 'They also cited that they had increased graffiti in their venue since having us which they found threatening - we're not sure why, we certainly weren't the people creating the graffiti - but they claim that they had to repaint toilet doors where most of the graffiti was happening on a regular basis. 'The shows are not political, we're not political performers.' Ms Creeger said that just last year, the venue had gone to great lengths to say the venue was a safe space and they would ensure the comedians always had a positive experience there. While initially there had been plans to swap venues so they could still perform, it was too late to make these arrangements, The Telegraph reported. Their shows no longer appear on the Edinburgh Fringe listings website. Mr Simon - who said that another venue in the city had also cancelled one of his shows - claimed that he was being 'cancelled just for being Jewish'. 'Anyone who knows me will know I have never expressed support for anything other than freeing the hostages and finding a way for peace,' he said. 'It is sad to think that these views could conflict with anyone who wants to see a lasting peace in Gaza and Israel. 'As a Jewish person living in Britain it is possible, and increasingly common, to have a love for Israel without supporting the actions of the government.' Israel's deputy foreign minister Sharren Haskel criticised the reported cancellations. 'It's a shocking decision and it should be reversed,' she told The Independent. 'This is further proof of the normalisation of antisemitism in the UK.' And shadow Scotland Secretary Andrew Bowie told Times Radio: 'That is a shocking state of affairs. Everybody should be welcome to this country, regardless of their faith, regardless of where they've come from, to perform at the Edinburgh festival or anywhere else for that matter. 'The very fact that is happening in the United Kingdom in 2025 speaks very ill of the state of affairs in this country and demonstrates what we were warning of a few years ago in terms of the rise of antisemitism in this country is real and something we should be combating at the very highest level. The Independent has reached out to the Edinburgh Fringe, Free Fringe and Whistlebinkies for comment. PBH Free Fringe CEO Luke Meredith told Chortle: 'The decision not to host the two shows was taken by the venue alone. So far as we understand, this was a staff decision based on last year's experience when they experienced a significant rise in both 'Free Palestine' and Zionist graffiti, together with police notices that they said made them feel unsafe. 'The matter was first brought to our attention in late May, after the print deadline for the brochure had passed. I thought at the time that, having explained the police were only taking precautions and no actual threats had been made, and that moving them after they were already advertised in print might be detrimental, that the matter had been resolved. Apparently however it had been understood that we were to move the shows. 'I was made aware of this a week ago and since then we have been working with the shows to try and find them a suitable replacement slot, including approaching other organisations. Nothing has been possible so far but we welcome any offer of help. If anyone has a space in central Edinburgh that would like to host them, we would be happy to run it.' This is not the first time that the Fringe has faced questions over alleged antisemitism. Last year, American standup comedian Reginald D Hunter found himself at the centre of an antisemitism row at the Fringe when two Israeli people were heckled and booed at his gig after they objected to a joke comparing Israel to an abusive spouse.
