Caryl Churchill's play Seven Jewish Children: A Play About Gaza will open in Toronto this Friday amid controversy over whether it promotes anti-Semitism.

Frank Dimant, executive vice-president of B'nai Brith Canada, shown at a news conference in Ottawa in March 2005, appealed to Toronto's mayor to stop readings of the play Seven Jewish Children. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)Earlier this week, B'nai Brith Canada called on Toronto Mayor David Miller to prevent readings of the play at Theatre Passe Muraille, arguing it should not put on in a theatre supported by public money.

The play is being read as part of the Directors' Showcase and Exchange festival. It is the work of Caryl Churchill, a British dramatist who wrote it in reaction to the Israeli attacks on Gaza last December. It stirred controversy when it debuted at London's Royal Court Theatre in February and at its Canadian premiere in Montreal earlier this month.

"It's very rare that we speak on art," Frank Dimant, executive vice-president of B'nai Brith Canada, told CBC Radio's Q cultural affairs show.

"We're much more concerned with political pronouncements and so on. It's only when the art, as in this case, makes a horrific statement about the Jewish people. It evokes the old blood-libel. When this kind of art is used to demonize the Jews, then we speak."

But B.H. Yael, a Jewish artist and professor at Ontario College of Art and Design, argues that the attempt by B'nai Brith to stop the play amounts to censorship.

"Caryl Churchill's play, which was a response to Gaza, is very much a work addressing how do we talk to children about war, when we are being attacked and when we are the aggressors," Yael said in a debate with Dimant on Q. "It renders Jews not solely as victims but also as aggressors, and I don't think it has anything to do with blood-libel."

Yael argues there is a "chill" being cast on any artist who criticizes Israeli politics.

"I think a lot of artists, Jewish and not, are being critical of the state of Israel," she said. "It's related to the state's actions regarding occupation, regarding the recent attacks on Gaza. And the Jewish community is afraid of the criticisms that have been brought to bear."

Dimant denied the objections to the 10-minute play were censorship. He pointed out that readings of the play in Toronto are going ahead, with a cast that includes Rosemary Dunsmore, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Jeff Meadows and R.H. Thomson.

"We were denied, end of the story," Dimant said. "We've made our point. We're not going any further; we're not going to stifle it. We're certainly very unhappy because we know what the theme is. We know the kind of emotions that will be brought forth from the play. But what we did is not censorship."

Churchill's status as a hot playwright and the reception the play received in London will strengthen the negative message of the play, he said.

"People liked the play, therefore people walk away with the impression that the Holocaust survivors now become the Holocaust committers," Dimant said. "And that's what happens in this play, a very short play — we move from the Jew who is a victim to the Jew who enjoys victimizing others."

Israeli-Palestinian conflict also at heart of gallery dispute

The debate about arts censorship has been deepened by another conflict between Toronto's Jewish community and a visual artist.

The Koffler Centre of the Arts has issued a statement "disassociating" itself from artist Reena Katz, who currently has an exhibition about the cultural history of the Toronto neighbourhood Kensington Market.

The Koffler Centre had granted $20,000 to Katz for the exhibit but will no longer be promoting the artist after learning of her support for a pro-Palestinian cause called Israel Apartheid Week.

The gallery plans to honour its grant commitment but said it "will not support any individual who actively seeks the demise of Israel as a Jewish state."

Dimant defended the Koffler's decision to express its distance from the artist, saying it cannot be seen to be supporting a cause that is anti-Israeli.

"Israeli Apartheid Week is really the classical phrase for the destruction of the state of Israel," he said. "What we have is creating one of the most vile falsehoods in the world. It means the following: that Israel is the worst nation on the face of the earth."

This is a different issue from the Seven Jewish Children debate, in part because Katz's exhibit has nothing to do with Middle Eastern politics, Yael said.

"It really begs the question whether ... any artist, Jewish or not, who will be associated with the Koffler will have to sign some kind of agreement saying that they hold Zionist principles," she said.

"Many artists who have been critical of Israel's policies have been called anti-Semitic, self-hating, all of that. I would counter that our positions, our art, come out of a profound love of Jewish culture and history."

Readings of Seven Jewish Children will be held May 15-17 at Theatre Passe Muraille.