A Jewish mother who brought her 4-year-old son to a Lower Manhattan puppet performance expecting an entertaining show about New York City says she was stunned when the production abruptly shifted into attacks on Israel, including accusations involving Israeli military actions and references to U.S. taxpayer support for the Jewish state, the NY Post reports.
“The Cardboard Pizza Puppet Circus,” produced and performed by the Boxcutter Collective, appeared this month at the International Puppet Fringe Festival, a multiday event supported in part by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts. The troupe promotes the production as “a celebration of” New York City.
Promotional material presented the show as a whimsical tour through familiar elements of city life. “Featuring dancing skyscrapers, giant rats, fossil-fuel-fighting flowers, a live brass band, and Lady Liberty herself,” its description states.
But roughly 15 minutes into the Aug. 13 performance, according to a 43-year-old Brooklyn mother who attended with her young son and asked that her name be withheld, the production suddenly departed from its New York theme and began incorporating political messages aimed at Israel.
“The anti-Israel stuff came out of nowhere,” the mother said.
“It went from pizza rat and parallel parking to accusations of Israel bombing hospitals.”
The approximately hourlong performance was held in a crowded courtyard before what the mother estimated was an audience of about 200 people. One segment featured eight performers staging a flotilla scene, which she said prompted enthusiastic anti-Israel reactions from members of the audience. The production also included comments about U.S. tax dollars being sent to Israel, according to the mother.
The woman, who described herself as a “proud Zionist,” questioned why such material was inserted into a production otherwise advertised as a celebration of New York.
“How does anti-Israel propaganda figure into a play that’s otherwise entirely about New York? Is hatred for Israel as synonymous with the City’s brand as pizza rat?” she asked, adding that her 4-year-old son “kept asking what was happening when he saw I was taken aback.”
The mother, a refugee from the Soviet Union who now lives in Windsor Terrace, said she became increasingly alarmed as the performance continued and members of the audience appeared receptive to what she characterized as “the litany of accusations” directed at Israel.
“(I was) feeling like I was surrounded by my ideological enemies,” she said.
“This particular group had very antisemitic views,” she said of the Boxcutter Collective. “It felt like a mob – the hairs on your neck stand up.”
The Boxcutter Collective has previously participated in pro-Palestinian programming. In November 2023, weeks after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel in which approximately 1,200 people were killed, the troupe participated in a performance of the “Gaza Monologues” on “The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.” The event was presented in response to the “horrific war taking place in Gaza.”
The Brooklyn mother said she decided against challenging the performance because she feared how the surrounding audience might react.
“I knew that if I shouted something against Hamas, the crowd would turn against me, so I kept my mouth shut,” the mother told The Post. “My generation is now experiencing a fresh iteration of antisemitism here in New York that my family escaped back in the Soviet Union.”
Manuel Moran, founder and producer of the International Puppet Fringe Festival, told the Jerusalem News Syndicate earlier this week that festival organizers may not have known beforehand that the performance would contain the controversial material.
“As with many festivals, the full content of a production is not always known in advance, and the company premiered many elements of this work as part of the event,” Moran told JNS. “We stand behind our role in providing a platform for artists while recognizing that artists are responsible for their own work and should be able to speak to it directly.”
Moran also pointed to other programming at the festival, telling JNS that one performance incorporated Yiddish elements. He said the Israeli Hanut Theater Company had also been invited to participate but was unable to secure the necessary visas.
The controversy drew criticism from Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, who questioned the use of government funding for programming that left a Jewish attendee feeling threatened.
“This is an inappropriate use of public resources. Publicly funded cultural programming should never contribute to an environment in which Jewish New Yorkers feel unsafe,” Greenblatt wrote on X.
{Matzav.com}
