The New York Times commits outrages against Israel and the Jews so frequently that it’s hard to keep track, so when the newspaper gets one right, I try to notice that, too.
The surprising and rare thing is when the Times handles a Jewish issue well. I spend a lot of time and space calling out the Times for its faults, so when the newspaper performs admirably, it’s worth pointing out. It was wonderful to see the chief theater critic for the New York Times, Jesse Green, review the play “The Doctor,” running at the Park Avenue Armory, with a piece faulting the play for being “somehow not Jewish enough.”
Green writes, “‘The Doctor’ is not very serious about antisemitism. How could it be, when the sentimental attachment to identity of any sort is precisely its boogeyman?”
“This has been a season of Jews blamed or blaming themselves for the emotional, physical and indeed genocidal violence against them,” Green writes. “And now ‘The Doctor’ subjects its main character to antisemitic dog whistles but, in the end, sees her downfall as her own fault and an opportunity for growth.”
It’s so refreshing to see the Times defend the Jews as a particular identity group and to denounce antisemitism in particular rather than subsume the issue into a general tolerance-versus-bigotry universal framework. So much of the Times coverage of, say, yeshivas, or Israel seems to be animated by underlying complaints that the subjects are too Jewish. When a theater critic comes in to complain that something isn’t Jewish enough, it seems almost revolutionary, a countercultural breath of fresh air at the Times. I appreciated it.
Here’s hoping the spirit spreads to some of the rest of the newspaper, though my expectations, based on experience, are low.
Original Article: https://www.algemeiner.com/2023/06/27/the-doctor-is-not-jewish-enough-says-new-york-times-chief-theater-critic-in-a-surprise/
