Pro-Palestinian play triggers VCE review
The criteria for including plays and related texts on the VCE study list will be reviewed after students in years 11 and 12 were asked to attend performances of an “unabashedly one-sided play” about Israel’s conflict with Gaza, as part of their curriculum.
THE criteria for including plays and related texts on the VCE study list will be reviewed after students in years 11 and 12 were asked to attend performances of an “unabashedly one-sided play” about Israel’s conflict with Gaza, as part of their curriculum.
A spokesperson for Victorian Education Minister James Merlino told The AJN this week the minister has asked the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) to make sure all texts and performances on the curriculum are in line with community standards and that they take note of cultural and religious sensitivities.
“The VCAA will review the guideline requiring texts to be compliant with community standards, and extend it to ensure that views and sensitivities of cultural and religious groups are considered,” the spokesperson said.
Merlino’s move follows a meeting between the minister, Jewish Community Council of Victoria president Jennifer Huppert and B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission chair Dvir Abramovich to discuss the fallout from drama students being sent to see Tales of a City by the Sea, by playwright and pro-Palestinian activist Samah Sabawi.
The play, currently being staged at La Mama Courthouse, focuses on the relationship between a Palestinian journalist and an American doctor of Palestinian origin who visits Gaza in 2008, portraying Israel as an aggressor, without referring to Hamas rocket attacks and other provocations to Israel.
“This is one of the most disturbing and cleverly conceived cases of unvarnished anti-Israel propaganda and delegitimisation masquerading as art,” said Abramovich, who described the play as “unabashedly one-sided”.
A VCAA spokesperson told The AJN the body “will develop a proposal to review and elaborate on the community standards guidelines in response to the minister’s request. This will include consultation with key stakeholders. The revised guidelines will apply to the 2017 play list selection process.”
Huppert and immediate past president of Zionism Victoria Sam Tatarka also discussed the standards review with Multicultural Affairs Minister Robin Scott as, in Huppert’s words, the play’s inclusion on the VCE syllabus “did not meet multicultural values”.
The JCCV president told The AJN she welcomes Merlino’s decision to ask the VCAA to review guidelines, as “we fail to see how the inclusion of this play, with its anti-Semitic tropes benefits students”.
Abramovich welcomed the VCAA move, adding that Jewish students have been “placed in the poisonous and unfair position” of having to defend Israel and Jews against allegations of “immoral and cruel conduct in the face of the inevitable anger that will be felt by their classmates after watching the play”.
PETER KOHN
comments