Further to what I wrote about the piece by the Guardian Readers’ Editor on Caryl Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children, here’s a communication sent to her yesterday. I post it with the author’s permission:
Dear Siobhan Butterworth
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/jun/15/caryl-churchill-seven-jewish-children
You write: “It is not for me to challenge this analysis [that the piece is anti-Semitic] and I accept that it is one possible interpretation. What I don’t accept is the complainant’s suggestion that it is the only possible reading.”
As long as some people say it isn’t anti-Semitic, that’s all right, is it? No need for the Guardian to make up its own mind?
There was a time – too many years ago, alas – when the Guardian would have understood that if a suggestion of anti-Semitism was made, it must form a view of its own about the material in question, and be prepared to defend it.
Not any longer. Anti-Semitism is just another issue to be fudged. How completely pathetic.
Yours sincerely
Gaby Charing