Seven Children of Antisemites: a very short play

Author’s note: Caryl Churchill’s 2009 play Seven Jewish Children, which no one needed sixteen years ago — not even antisemites — has been adapted and released as a fifteen-minute film no one needs now — not even antisemites. As was the case with the play, part of the film’s supposed intention is fundraising. But don’t worry: none of the money raised from this play or this film about the Jews has been or will be going to anyone Jewish; it’s all reserved for Palestinians. Approval for the film was given by Caryl Churchill. The film’s director has stated that “This play made me realise that I am Jewish.” Mazel tov. To mark this confluence of purpose between playwright and filmmaker, which will no doubt go down as a decisive event in cinematic history, I’m publishing Seven Children of Antisemites: a very short play, written sixteen years ago.

Seven Children of Antisemites: a very short play
Or Conveying to Young People (and Even Adults!) How Terrible the Jews Are

Dedicated to Caryl Churchill, who of course is not antisemitic. How could anyone possibly think that of her? I mean, really. Surely, she harbors nothing but love for Jews in her heart.

The speakers are adults, and there are no children in the play. The lines in each small scene may be shared out in any way among the actors and the same actors may appear in different scenes. Any number of actors (but at least two) may appear in each scene.

1
Tell her they killed Jesus
Tell her Pontius Pilate was a saint
Who wouldn’t harm an ant
Tell her he recognized a messiah when he saw one
And did the best he could
And washed his hands clean
But Jews were pushy then too
Just as now
And got their way
Tell her that’s why they lost their land
And wander the earth
Tell her Jesus wasn’t Jewish
Or the apostles
But the devil is
That’s why Jews have horns
Which they cover with their little caps.

2
Tell him they murdered Saint William of Norwich
And Little Hugh of Lincoln
And Simon of Trent
And the Holy Child of La Guardia
And Anderl von Rinn
And other innocents too numerous to mention
Tell him the Jews crucified and tortured them
And drained their blood for Passover cakes.
Tell him they kill women and children and babies
Poison wells and spread plagues
Enslave us with their money-lending
Rob us with their usury
Tell him they’re nothing but a venomous basilisk
That poisons and kills people merrily
And undoubtedly they do more and viler things
Than those which we know and discover
Tell him they should be expelled from the country
And go back to their land and belongings in Jerusalem
Tell him they must be driven out from here
As they were banished from France and Spain
Bohemia and Prague
Regensburg and Magdeburg.
Tell him that next to the devil,
You have no more bitter, vehement foe
Than a real Jew
Tell him they’re the Synagogue of Satan.

3
Tell her the Jews are sewer rats
Parasites that control the press and banks
And are behind all the wars
Tell her that if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe
Succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war,
The result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth,
And thus the victory of Jewry,
But the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!
Tell her they’re socialists and communists
Purveyors of liberal democracy
Bloodsuckers
Enemies of Aryan humanity
Adversaries of Germany and Europe
Of Mankind
Tell her the whole world now speaks of the Eternal Jew
He’s been exposed as a mass-murderer
Tell her no country wants them
No nation will offer them help
Tell her Golgotha hasn’t yet been avenged
But the day will come when humanity
Will free itself from the Jewish scourge
And will stretch its hands towards the eternal peace.
Tell her they are capitalists
Rootless cosmopolitans
Socially regressive bourgeois nationalists
Oppressors of the proletariat
Exploiters of the masses
Anti-communists
Tell her they control the media
And world finance
Tell her they are a chimerical nation
An unreal people
Tell her they are enemies of the workers of the world
Fascists
Tell her they are Zionists and criminals
Tell her they are imperialist militant chauvinists
Tell her they are racist fascists
Tell her they are colonialists
Neo-colonialists
Tell her they are Nazis
Neo-Nazis
Tell her they threaten the entire world.

4
Tell him they are greedy
Tell him they covet Arab land and water
And thirst for Arab blood
Tell him Israel is the Doberman of the Middle East
And all the Arabs are frightened postmen
Tell him Israel is the neighborhood bully
Tell him they drove out the Palestinians
Stole their soil and homes
Made them refugees
Locked them in ghettos
Constructed railways and transported them to death camps
Gunned them into mass graves
Gassed them and put their bodies into ovens to burn
Millions of them
Women, children, old, and young
Chopped their hair and tore out their teeth
Tell him if they haven’t yet, they will soon, one day
They are Jews after all —
They are Nazis
Tell her what is happening in Palestine
Is a crime we can put on the same plain as what happened at Auschwitz
Tell her there are no gas chambers yet
But that doesn’t mean there will never be gas chambers.

5
Tell her they said it was a land without people
Tell her the Palestinians are the Jews of the Middle East
Tell her Muslims are the Jews of Europe
Tell her all claims of historic and spiritual ties between Jews and Israel
Are false
Tell her Jesus was a Palestinian
There were no Jewish Temples in Jerusalem
Arabs built the Western Wall
And the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron
Rachel’s Tomb is a mosque
Tell her Jews are white Europeans
Tell her they’re Khazars
Tell her they’re not native to the Middle East
But from someplace else
And should go somewhere where they’ll be accepted
Tell her they’re a foreign implant
And should be returned to Europe.
Tell her they’re members of a gutter religion
A guilty arrogant racist ethnocentric chosen-people
land-grabbing crime-against-humanity religion
Tell her they’re maybe a religious community, an ethnic group
But not a nation or a people
Or even really flesh and blood
They’re a metaphor, a simile, the leg of an analogy, a concept, an idea
Tell her their whole history is a fundraising trick
Their Shoah is a business
They want to have a monopoly on pain and suffering
Along with all their other monopolies
Along with the banks and businesses and media
And governments they control
Tell her they can’t have that
Tell her there’s a Holocaust in the Holy Land
Gaza is the Warsaw Ghetto
Zionism equals Racism
Zionism = Nazism
They have almost the same letters —
What more proof is needed?
The Jews are Zionazis, new-fangled Nazis
Except they’re worse than the Nazis.

6
Tell her the Zionists made the Mufti of Jerusalem die in exile
Tell her Israel assassinated Ahmed Yassin in cold blood
A helpless old cripple
A spiritual leader
A man of goodwill
Of peace
Tell her they drove Arafat, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, to an early grave
Probably poisoned him
Tell her they raped Rachel Corrie
And used her menstrual blood for Purim pastries
Tell her they drained James Miller’s blood for matzos
And then dropped a thousand ton bomb on his head
While he waved a white flag.
Ask her: Who can list their crimes?
Who can enumerate them?
Tell her they’re war criminals
Mass murderers
Entitled
Show her pictures of the aftermath of a blast in Jabaliya,
of Hamas’s weapons exploding during a rally,
but tell her the pictures are of when the IDF attacked the town
killing shoppers in a Gaza market
Show her a picture of an Israeli policeman near a gas station
shielding a beaten, bloodied Jew from his Palestinian attackers
but tell her the picture is of an Israeli policeman
beating a defenseless Palestinian on the Temple Mount
Tell her their little girls write “To the children of Lebanon with love from Israel”
On missiles
Before their soldiers launch them at babies in Lebanon and Gaza
Tell her little Israeli girls aren’t cute when they strut with glee
Tell her little Zionist boys are ugly when they smile
Tell her Jews don’t look right when they breathe
It doesn’t suit them somehow
And something must be done about it.
Tell her Demjanjuk’s trial was a greater miscarriage of justice
Than the Dreyfus affair
Tell her they rammed the Dignity
And tried to sink it
Tell her again about Ahmed Yassin
Then tell her about Deir Yassin
Tell her thousands of Palestinians were murdered in Jenin
Tell her one thousand were murdered
Tell her nine hundred
Tell her five hundred
Tell her a hundred and fifty
Tell her one hundred
Tell her about fifty, but they were all civilians
Tell her about fifty, but some were unarmed
Tell her there was a massacre in Jenin
Tell her they shot al-Durrah in the arms of his father for sport
Tell her they blew up the Ghaliya family
On a Gaza beach
For fun
While the family picnicked
Tell her they steal the organs of dead Palestinians
And dead Haitians
And drink the blood of Palestinian children
And Christians
Tell her Jews kill for money and kicks
And to please the devil, their father
They believe in racism for a religion
and take pleasure in bathing the world in blood.

7
Tell him we’re not anti-Semitic
Tell him Hitler had a Jewish grandmother
Or grandfather
Something about him must have been Jewish
Tell him Jabotinsky wore a fascist uniform
Tell him Israel is to blame for global warming
Tell him Jews invented AIDS
Tell him Israel was behind 9/11
Tell him no Jews were in the Twin Towers
Ariel Sharon tipped them off
Mossad warned them all to stay away
The attack was on a Jewish holiday
The Jews were all at home and in their synagogues
Tell him Likudniks orchestrated the war in Iraq
Tell him the control of America,
Just like the control of most Western countries,
Is in the hands of Jewish money
Tell him the Jews invented socialism, communism,
Human rights and democracy
So that persecuting them would appear to be wrong
Even though it’s right
What could be more right?
Tell him the Zionists instigated World War I and World War II,
The French Revolution and Russian Revolution and the war in Afghanistan
Tell him Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world
Tell him they are terrorists
Tell him Jews invented terrorism
Tell him Zionists introduced it to the Middle East
Tell him the sixth of their vaunted ten commandments says, “Thou shall not kill”
But they kill and kill
And the Zionists produce new kinds of diseases
to spread around the globe
Tell him Leo Frank was guilty
Tell him Israel’s neighbors live in never-ending, mortal fear
Of its aggression and its weapons
Tell him Israel is the greatest threat to international peace and security
The source of all tension and turmoil in the Middle East
The source of all tension and turmoil in the world
The impediment to peace on earth
The prime example of human rights violators on the globe
Tell him this small nation is at the root of evil
Tell him we owe Hitler a debt of gratitude
Except he didn’t finish the job
Hitler didn’t do enough to these Jews
Tell him there was no Holocaust
Tell him it’s a Zionist myth
A Jewish lie
Tell him Israel has forfeited its moral right to exist
The Star of David is a Swastika
The Jews are arch-racists
Tell him Israel has done lots of terrible things in the past,
But what happened recently in Gaza is particularly extreme
Tell him they won’t get away with it, though,
with genocide and ethnic cleansing
The world will be Judenstaatrein
They’ll be wiped off the map
They’ll wander once more
Tell him we’ll welcome Israel’s refugees back to Europe with open arms, and give them milk and honey. Even though they should be sent to the gas. Tell him we’re all Hezbollah. We’re all Hamas. Tell him the world stopped Nazism and apartheid and we’ll stop Zionism. Tell him the real holocaust is taking place in Gaza. The Jews are crucifying Palestinians. The Jews the Jews the Jews the Jews the Jews the Jews the Jews. Tell him we’re not anti-Semitic. Tell him the Arabs are Semites. The Zionists are anti-Semites. Tell him anti-Semitism is an empty charge. Tell him the Jews are better haters. Israel is the Fourth Reich. Tell him Ariel Sharon. Tell him it’s a badge of honor to detest such people.
Tell him the Jews killed Jesus.
Don’t back down.
Tell him Jesus was a Palestinian.

——-

Shai Afsai has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Performing Rights: The play can be read or performed anywhere, by at least two people. Anyone who wishes to do it should contact the author, who will license performances free of charge provided that no admission fee is charged and that a collection is taken at each performance to help defray the costs of security for Jewish institutions under threat due to antisemitism.