‘Seven Jewish Children’ — Provocative Playlet or Agitprop?
Caryl Churchill’s “Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza” is inciting more controversy stateside since it jumped the pond.
Last week, Washington’s Theater J, staged two free readings of the 10-minute playlet that the The Washington Post called “a beautifully crafted cheap shot” and “an effort to compress to black-and-white a question of conscience of infinite complexity.”
Churchill’s work has spurred a couple of critical copycats. Robbie Gringras’s “One Israeli Child” and Deb Margolin’s “The Eighth Jewish Child” mimic Churchill’s format, yet represent opposing political views. Theater J’s director Ari Roth, added the readings of these scripts in addition to “Seven Jewish Children,” and engaged actors and audience members alike in post-show debates.
Before the scripts were read at Theater J, The Atlantic’s Jeffery Goldberg (a Forward alum) argued with Ari Roth about “his decision to provide Churchill’s play with Jewish oxygen” while Theater J posits its mission is to “celebrate the social vision that [is] part of the Jewish cultural legacy.” Roth stands behind his decision. From their conversation on Jeffrey Goldberg’s blog:
JG: [Churchill] says that we’re “better haters.”
AR: Jeffrey, Jeffrey –
JG: That’s Shylock, right?
AR: I want your very, very smart blog readers to understand that the way to discuss this play is not to lift lines from the last page and a half of it. That is not how to fully experience and understand the meaning of any drama. I can’t cede this to journalists who don’t love theater enough to understand what’s going on here. That is not a sophisticated way to regard art, by picking out a sentence here and then going apes—t over it!
JG: It’s not just a sentence.
AR: She could have said worse.
JG: Oh, that’s a great standard to have. She could have said worse.
AR: This is why you don’t work in the American theater.
JG: This isn’t even the line that insinuates the blood libel.
The Forward had hoped to post a YouTube video of a staging of “Seven Jewish Children,” presented by Rooms Productions in Chicago, but the clip was removed Friday morning. Instead of charging admission, the Chicago production facilitated donations to the British charity, Medical Aid for Palestinians, at Churchill’s request.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 3
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 4
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
In Case You Missed It
-
Yiddish ווידעאָ: היסטאָריקער שמואל קאַסאָוו דערציילט מעשׂיות פֿון זײַן משפּחה־געשיכטעVIDEO: Historian Samuel Kassow shares stories about his family history
דער ווידעאָ איז טשיקאַווע סײַ פֿאַרן אינהאַלט סײַ פֿאַר קאַסאָווס נאַטירלעכן ליטוויש־ייִדיש
-
Culture I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
-
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.