8 May 2026
UK JEWISH ARTISTS SAY: ANTISEMITISM IS BEING WEAPONISED – AGAIN
This letter is in response to Keir Starmer’s statement which calls for tangible action to make this country safe for Jewish people (‘ACE must claw back cash from antisemitic projects, Starmer declares’, Arts Professional, 5 May) which we regard as a wrongheaded and opportunistic attempt to interfere with Arts Council funding and silence the Palestine liberation movement, in the wake of the rise in anti-semitic attacks.
Jewish Artists for Palestine is a network of hundreds of UK Jewish artists and creative industries professionals whose eyes are wide open to the bad faith weaponisation of antisemitism being used to clamp down on solidarity with Palestine and on expressions of Palestinian cultural identity in the arts.
Jewish people in the UK right now are scared. And to cynically take advantage of this fear and fan its flames is reprehensible and dangerous. We believe the UK is, on the whole, safe for Jewish people and we mustn’t let the very real, frightening and unsettling rise in antisemitic violence be used as a political football.
JEWISH ARTS ARE THRIVING
For Keir Starmer to suggest ACE funded organisations are “platforming antisemitism” is unevidenced scaremongering.
There is sadly antisemitism in the arts, as in wider society, but the number of instances is miniscule. Indeed, the reality is that Jewish representation in the arts is thriving. We are just 280,000 people in a country of 70 million people. Our tiny 0.4% of the population was represented by over 50 shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last summer, whilst Regents Park Open Air Theatre’s Fiddler on the Roof transferred to the Barbican last year. Yentl has just made its premiere at the Marylebone Theatre and Mark Rosenblatt’s Giant just transferred to Broadway. Jewish plays in the last 12 months include Christmas Day (Almeida), The Producers (The Garrick), Cable Street (Marylebone), Broken Glass (Young Vic), The Holy Rosenbergs (Menier Chocolate Factory), The Price (Marylebone), Soldiers of Tomorrow (The Finborough), Bad Jews (The Arts), We Had a World (Hampstead), Here There are Blueberries (Stratford East), Revenge: After the Levoyah (Soho Theatre), The Assembled Parties (Hampstead), The Wanderers (Marylebone)… and this is just theatre.
Following Keir Starmer’s speech, we can now expect a wave of far-fetched media responses, like this from the Spectator:
“When 1,200 musicians signed a letter demanding festivals drop Barclays’ sponsorship due to its investments in defence companies that supply Israel, ACE provided no guidance to the festival managers facing pressure to Distance themselves from the Jewish community”
Using ‘Jewish community’ as a synonym for a bank financing arms to Israel is jaw dropping. It is also antisemitic. This example typifies the crude, lazy and dangerous conflation of antisemitism with anti-zionism being made by politicians, journalists and those who seek to shield Israel from accountability. This needs to stop.
We now expect a wave of pressure designed to provoke Arts Council England to make kneejerk reactions. We implore ACE and the wider arts sector to consult a diversity of Jewish perspectives so as to ensure action on antisemitism is taken seriously and meaningfully, and not used as cover for silencing Palestinian voices or those standing in solidarity with Palestine. ACE should be deeply concerned about the work of groups like UK Lawyers for Israel who regularly pressure arts leaders to cancel or censor Palestinian artists or expressions of solidarity with Palestine, with baseless allegations of antisemitism.
FIGHTING FASCISM TOGETHER
Right now the biggest threat to Jewish safety is, without any doubt, prompted by the actions of the government of Israel, a rogue state committing violations of international law in our name, with the complicity of the UK government. A vicious, grotesque genocide that has gone from the cruelest warfare to a slow, suffocating strangulation of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, the terrifying, murderous acts by armed Israeli civilians in the West Bank and the unchallenged illegal invasion of Lebanon decimating multiple villages.
For the last two and a half years, hundreds and sometimes thousands of Jewish people have been out on the streets to protest against the genocide. During these marches we have never experienced any antisemitism towards us – quite the opposite, in fact, with people from all communities thanking us for taking a stand.
Since the onset of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, the UK has been an increasingly less safe place for Muslims and Jews. Our safety in this country is entwined – and our common enemy is fascism. Making a call for a further crackdown on freedom of speech and the right to protest is tantamount to caving in to fascism, not by any means securing our safety.
OUR RECOMMENDATIONS
Amid rising fascism in the UK, Jewish Artists for Palestine strongly urges ACE to:
- Recommend arts organisations undertake anti-antisemitism training as part of a holistic, intersectional antiracism training programme that looks at racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism together
- Adopt the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism
- Publish and share the Jewish Artists UK ‘Courage & Care Guidelines’ on what is and isn’t antisemitism in the arts
- Undertake due diligence when consulting external organisations on antisemitism, to ensure they are aligned with the pursuit of racial justice for all racialised groups
- Consult with Palestinian cultural groups concerning the censorship of Palestinian arts, speech, forms of cultural expression and acts of solidarity with Palestine in the UK arts sector.