Playhouse Cinema drops Hamilton Jewish Film Festival over safety issues

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A film theatre in Hamilton, Ont., is refusing to host an upcoming Jewish movie pageant, citing “safety and security considerations at this significantly delicate second.”

The Playhouse Cinema was slated to host the Hamilton Jewish Movie Competition (HJFF) from April 7 to 9, which included six movies produced in France, Poland and Israel geared toward representing “the modern Jewish expertise,” in keeping with a press launch issued by the Hamilton Jewish Federation, which organizes the annual pageant. The films touched upon various subjects from Holocaust denial to an Arab-owned hair salon in Haifa, and included a commemorative screening of a movie by director Yahav Winner, who was murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7 whereas defending his spouse and new child daughter at a kibbutz in Israel.

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Rising backlash led the theatre to achieve “a tough choice,” the corporate mentioned in its statement launched Tuesday night time.

“After receiving quite a few safety and security associated emails, cellphone calls, and social media messages, the Playhouse Cinema reached a tough choice to postpone the Hamilton Jewish Federations’ venue rental,” it mentioned.

“The Playhouse Cinema’s mission is to be a welcome residence to quite a lot of cultural teams, serving the Hamilton space by our movie programming.”

The choice was shortly condemned by the Hamilton Jewish Federation.

“In withdrawing its help of a Jewish movie pageant based mostly on outrageous claims by just a few people that any movie produced in Israel is a type of ‘Zionist propaganda,’ the Playhouse Cinema is prioritizing the desire of antisemites over an apolitical cultural pageant that stands for creative excellence and integrity,” the neighborhood group mentioned in a press release.

“The Hamilton Jewish Federation rejects this try to sever Jewish from Israeli identification at a time when 50 per cent of the world’s Jewish inhabitants resides in Israel and to categorize Jews into ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable.’”

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The neighborhood group mentioned on its web site that it will announce a brand new time and placement for the pageant.

Playhouse Cinema didn’t reply to Nationwide Submit’s request for remark earlier than publication.

The movies scheduled to be screened on the HJFF additionally included Hope With out Boundaries, which follows an Israeli area hospital serving to Ukrainian sufferers following the Russian invasion, and Kids of No one, which explores troubled youth on the margins of Israeli society.

The theatre’s choice was denounced by native Conservative MP Dan Muys, who referred to as it “fairly merely antisemitic.”

“All of the extra cause for the Movie Competition to go on, greater and higher when rescheduled,” the Flamborough-Glanbrook consultant wrote.

Melissa Lantsman, deputy chief of the federal Conservative Get together, said that is “the brand new regular politicians are appeasing.” She urged Canadians to “get up.”

Union boss Joseph Mancinelli, the Canadian director of the Labourers’ Worldwide Union of North American (LiUNA), blasted Playhouse Cinema’s “appalling choice.”

“This shameful try to silence the voice, illustration and lived experiences of the Jewish neighborhood is divisive, it’s harmful and it’s blatant antisemitism. Sufficient,” he wrote on X late Tuesday, shortly after the announcement.

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The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) mentioned that Playhouse Cinema’s choice bowed “to mob rule” and failed to face up within the face of antisemitism.

“What a small Hamilton theatre has skilled is a fraction of what our neighborhood has skilled over the previous 5 months. When the theatre obtained some threatening cellphone calls and letters over renting their venue to the Hamilton Jewish Federation for a Jewish cultural movie pageant, as an alternative of standing as much as the hate, they caved to it,” Judy Zelikovitz a vice chairman at CIJA overseeing college and companion providers, instructed Nationwide Submit in a press release.

“We’re angered and disgusted by the entire scenario. It’s a tragic day for Canadian values, the humanities and for the folks of Hamilton.”

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