Nick Hytner: Young Jewish theatre workers face Israel ‘loyalty test’ 

Young Jewish theatre workers are being subjected to unsettling “loyalty tests” over their views on the conflict in Israel and Palestine, theatre director and producer Sir Nick Hytner has claimed.

Speaking at the Jewish Labour Movement’s annual conference as part of a conversation called Antisemitism in the Arts, the former artistic director of the National Theatre said, “I’m often asked what it’s like being a Jewish theatre worker at the moment.” 

“Personally, I don’t know, for reasons that are not particularly reputable. Because I am who I am, nobody would dare [ask me that question]… I’m sorry; I’m just being honest.

“What I know they do to younger Jews in the theatre is ask them where they stand [on Israel].

“That’s the thing that really unsettles young Jewish theatre workers. ‘Where do you stand?’ The loyalty test.”

He continued: “Because I am perceived as being powerful… it doesn’t come right in my face. Which as I said, I think is pretty disreputable. I think they’re cowards apart from anything.”

‘Part of the progressive agenda’

Discussing different “variants” of antisemitism, Hytner said that in addition to “the old English antisemitism… that just doesn’t like Jews”, there was also “a form of antisemitism which ignorantly conflates the state of Israel with Jews more widely”, later adding that to those “on the receiving end of it, it really makes no difference”. 

Hytner went on to describe “a passionate, sincere, but partly ill-informed attachment to the justice of the Palestinian cause” as “part of the progressive agenda”.

“The visual and performing arts world has, as long as I’ve been working in it, and probably for quite a long time, attracted those who sign up to whatever the particular menu of fashionable progressive causes are at the moment,” said Hytner.

“They include, to the really grievous cost of young Jewish theatre workers, what feels to those who espouse it, a passionate commitment to the justice of the Palestinian cause to the exclusion of any consideration of what it might feel like to be an Israeli.” 

‘Inherent totalitarianism’

The “progressive agenda”, Hytner said, included belief in the abolition of fossil fuels and “a particular way of looking at gender politics”.

“You have to sign up to the whole lot,” said Hytner.

“There’s a kind of inherent totalitarianism about the way you’re supposed to think and feel. If you work in the creative industries and have achieved a degree of status … you are, to a certain extent, immune from it,” said Hytner.

“But I think a lot a lot of the people who demand the loyalty test of young Jewish arts workers, a lot of the people who are out screaming ‘from the river to the sea’ without knowing what the hell it means, they would be just as happy – and probably go out on – the climate marches as well.”

‘The rise of antisemitism in the arts’

During a Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee meeting last month Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy discussed a rise of antisemitism in the arts.

“I am obviously very concerned about it, particularly the way in which the conflict in Israel and Gaza is playing out in the UK in a domestic context,” Nandy said.

“There are obviously people who have heartfelt and very strong views on all sides.

“I’ve met with the families of hostages… I’ve also met with the families of Palestinians who’ve lost loved ones, and for many people in this country, it’s personal.

“But what is never acceptable is when that results in a rise in antisemitism in our country and on the streets. And I am concerned about the way in which we’ve seen that playing out in the arts world.”

Nandy noted that Labour peer Lord Mann, a government advisor on antisemitism, will shortly host a roundtable with a number of affected organisations and artists.