British Activist Says Jewish Group Tried To Shut Down One-Woman Show
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(JTA) — An activist suspended by Britain’s Labour Party for saying Jews led the slave trade has accused the country’s top Jewish governing body of trying to shut down her one-woman show.
Jackie Walker, whose show “The Lynching” is to open Friday night as part of the Edinburgh Festival, accused the Board of Deputies of British Jews of attempting to have her show cancelled, London’s Jewish Chronicle reported.
“The Board of Deputies attempts to have The Lynching shut down,” Lynch wrote on Facebook page Friday morning. “[I] thought traditionally Jews were against book burning.”
Board officials told the Jewish Chronicle that they had contacted the Edinburgh Council, which owns the venue where the performance will be held, to express its concern that “this performance [is] being held on publicly-owned and funded premises.”
Walker has served as vice-chair of Momentum, a grassroots group supporting Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has been accused of tolerating a climate of anti-Semitic and harshly anti-Israel behavior among party activists.
Walker’s Facebook page is largely dedicated to attacks on Israel and support for its critics. Her show is expected to be about those themes. A poster advertising the show reads, “To oppose Israel is not to be antisemitic.”
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