Actress Vanessa Redgrave, An International Leftist Legitimizing Palestinian Terrorism While Delegitimizing Israel; Why?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                       

            Actress from England, also Hollywood:  Vanessa Redgrave

 Vanessa Redgrave, in full Dame Vanessa Redgrave, (born January 30, 1937, London, England), British actress of stage and screen who received numerous accolades—including an Oscar, two Emmys, a Tony, and a Laurence Olivier Award—for her performances. She was also a longtime political activist, supporting the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Her film career began in earnest in 1966; within the space of two years, she appeared in four films that established her reputation as an intelligent actress with a commanding presence. The first of her six Academy Award nominations was for Morgan! (1966), her first motion picture in eight years. She then had a role in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966), a psychological mystery that became a cult favourite. Redgrave’s unbilled cameo as Anne Boleyn in A Man for All Seasons (1966) and her performance as Guinevere in Camelot (1967) further secured her status as one of the most popular and respected actresses of the era.

   Born January 30, 1937, is Vanessa Redgrave in Blackheath, London, England. She became known through Julia.   Julia is a 1977 American WWII drama  It is based on a chapter from Lillian Hellman's 1973 book Pentimento about the author's relationship with a lifelong friend, Julia, who fought against the Nazis in the years prior to World War II.

Vanessa is 2  1/2  years younger than myself, so we share quite a lot of the same history.  How was it that she turned into such a spiteful woman towards Jews of Israel?  First thing I think  of is that she was born and raised in England, which was the start.  England had kicked out (expulsed) all Jews from England from 1290 to 1655, allowing them to return after 365 years during the time Shakespeare wrote about a Jew not having ever known any himself.  The Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan on behalf of Bassanio, his dear friend, provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock.    Vanessa had acted (July 4, 1961)  in William Shakespeare's play, "As You Like It" in the Royal Shakespeare Company production in the Stratford Theatre Festival at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England with Ian Bannen, Ian Richardson, Colin Blakely, Rosalind Knight, Max Adrian, Peter McEnery.  Actors may have sided with Shakespeare, it's hard to tell.  She was involved in others.  Her father acted in Shakespeare plays often.    

Being she was also sympathetic to the IRA, I think she simply was swayed by what was talked about, not what she read about.  She was too busy with acting, memorizing lines to be an avid student of social affairs.  She was for the underdog and Israel and Jews to her were the bad guys, not the underdogs.  The PLO were the underdogs.  She saw herself if the role of the great savior of the PLO. 

 Had she grabbed a Kalashnikov  rifle  from someone and started dancing?   

For some strange reason to me, she was actively pro-PLO who were known terrorists.  She attended training sessions at their camps where their attacks were staged, and she called for the total destruction of Israel; saying that "I don't think there is room for a State of Israel." She then involved herself in a few short films similar to Nazi film director Leni Riefenstahl was doing, that extolled the coming destruction of the Jewish state.  She was filmed at a PLO camp dancing while holding a Kalashnikov above her head.  A picture of this was circulated around the world, unavailable today.

In 1977, Redgrave produced and starred in a controversial documentary film, The Palestinian, about the activities of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). She funded the documentary by selling her house. I can't find out who wrote this film.  It could have been her; obviously someone close to her.  

The Anti-Defamation League's honorary chairman criticized the film,

1. Highlighting that some of the responses of the people she interviews were not translated from Arabic.   

2. That the film showed children training with guns and that 

3. The phrase, "Kill the enemy!" kept being repeated. The president of Actors Equity in the United States 

4. Criticized the film's interview with the chairman of the PLO, Yasser Arafat, in which he said that the only solution to the Middle East problem is the liquidation of the State of Israel, and Redgrave responded with, "Certainly".  

She was 40 years old by then and mature enough to know she was leading the world into hating Israel, which must have been her goal.  

                                     

 In June 1978, at one theater showing the film, a bomb exploded, causing damage to property, but screening of the film resumed the following day. Two months later, a JDL member was convicted of the bombing and sentenced to a three-month "thorough psychological examination" with the California Youth Authority. In a 2018 interview, Redgrave stood by her acceptance speech (which included the "Zionist hoodlums" remark) during the 1978 Academy Awards ceremony.New York Times ran an article about it.  LOS ANGELES, June 15--1996—A Beverly Hills movie theater that last night contracted to show “The Palestinian,” an allegedly anti‐Israeli documentary film by Vanessa Redgrave, was bombed at 4:26 A.M.today..The bomb, which exploded the outer lobby, doors, Caused damage estimated by Gerald Peters, Manager of the Doheny Plaza theater, at $1,000.Despite this, the theater said it would start showings of the film tomorrow night.

“The Palestinian” was originally scheduled to be shown tomorrow night at the theater of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences under the sponsorship of the Workers League, which had rented the theater for one night for the usual $800 fee. There have been several political parties named the Workers League:

• Workers League (Ireland), sister organisation of the Workers' Revolutionary Party (UK)
• Workers League (Lebanon) (Toilers League)
• Workers League (UK), a split from the International Socialists (UK)
• Workers League (US), now known as the Socialist Equality Party

However, that screening was abruptly canceled yesterday when academy officials found out that the Workers League was selling tickets for $4 apiece.                  

Redgrave won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Julia. Her nomination drew attention and criticism, and the ceremony was picketed by both the Jewish Defense League (JDL) and counter-protesters waving PLO flags. In her acceptance speech at the Oscars, Redgrave made a short speech, saying "In the last few weeks you have stood firm and you have refused to be intimidated by the threat of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums, whose behaviour is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world, and to their great and heroic record of struggle against fascism and oppression". Regarding her use of the phrase "Zionist hoodlums", the Daily Telegraph later said, "It’s clear now that she was referring to the extremists of the Jewish Defense League who had offered a bounty to have her killed. Yet in the context of her support for the PLO, this was a spectacularly ill-chosen phrase, one that made it possible for Redgrave’s detractors to imply that she meant the whole state of Israel, and thus damn her as an anti-Semite for years to come". 

                                         

                 Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky who created writers awards.  Sidney Chayefsky was born in the Bronx, New York City, to Russian-Jewish immigrants Harry and Gussie (Stuchevsky) Chayefsky.

Academy Award winner Paddy Chayefsky responded later during the ceremony while presenting an award, saying "if I expect to live with myself tomorrow morning" he had to address the ceremony being exploited for politics.

Later that year, at 4:26 a.m on June 15, 1978, a bomb exploded in front of the Doheny Plaza theatre in Los Angeles, where the film's scheduled opening later that evening was postponed a day. A member of the JDL was later convicted for the incident and sentenced to a three month "thorough psychological examination" with the California Youth Authority.

Redgrave was against a 2 state solution since she was for a military solution under which the nation-state of the Jewish people would be destroyed.  So she wasn't just being political, she was darn-right hateful and anti-Semitic!  All those involved had to do was look at her record involving Jews and Israel.  

Her immediate family consisted of  the Redgrave family of actors, as she is the daughter of Sir Michael Redgrave and Lady Redgrave (Rachel Kempson), the sister of Lynn Redgrave and Corin Redgrave, the wife of Italian actor Franco Nero, the mother of actresses Joely Richardson and Natasha Richardson and of screenwriter and director Carlo Gabriel Nero, the aunt of British actress Jemma Redgrave, the mother-in-law of actor Liam Neeson and film producer Tim Bevan, and the grandmother of Daisy Bevan, Micheál Richardson and Daniel Neeson.

Vanessa's father was bisexual, and so was her husband, Tony Richardson.  Vanessa was a Communist. So was her father.  Sir Michael and his wife, Rachel Kempson, were both involved in the Unity Theatre Communist Group and by 1944 he was a leading member of the Actors Group of the Communist Party. In the 40s, Hollywood had a blacklist of known Communists.  

Redgrave, who had long advocated a cultural boycott of Israel because of its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, had agreed to come to Haifa after Israel and the PLO signed an agreement on Palestinian self-government and Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza.  “In our naivete, we thought the time was appropriate (to bring Redgrave to Israel), that something had changed in the Israeli public,” Eyal said. “Regrettably, we were wrong.”   JERUSALEM  July 13, 1994—  Bowing to public pressure and an almost total boycott of advance ticket sales, the Haifa Municipal Theater on Tuesday canceled two scheduled performances by British actress Vanessa Redgrave, whose years of militant support for the Palestine Liberation Organization led many here to view her as an enemy of Israel and anti-Semitic.  

Resource:

Book:  Defending Israel by Alan M. Dershowitz, Chp 8-p.109- -132 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_Redgrave

https://www.nytimes.com/1978/06/16/archives/threater-for-redgrave-film-bombed.html

https://asawinstanley.substack.com/p/lost-revolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_League

Roman Christianity and How Popes and Emperors' Laws Hurt Jews

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

                                Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, who went to Palestine.  She was considered a saint in the eastern and western churches, reported to be the discoverer of the "true cross." His mother, Helena, was Greek and of low birth. Dates: About 248 CE to about 328 CE; her birth year is estimated from a report by the contemporary historian Eusebius that she was about 80 near the time of her death. I would guess that she was born in 276 CE.   Over time, the Christian church and faith grew with the help of Helena, emperor Constantine's mother,  and was more organized.

                                               

 In 313 AD, the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which accepted Christianity: 10 years later,  In 323, Christianity  had become the official religion of the Roman Empire.  Constantine I, also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from 306 to 337. Born in Naissus, Dacia Mediterranea, he was the son of Flavius Constantius.                                                

892 years later at the 4th Lateran Council, at a meeting of Catholic officials in 1215, Pope Innocent III announced measures designed to keep the Jews in permanent state of humiliation.  His goal was to break the soul of the Jews and force them to baptism, or, failing that, to reduce them to a condition which would prove that the Lord hated those who refused to worship Jesus as the son of G-d.   

1. According to these new laws, Jews were to be totally isolated from the Christian world.  

2. Jews and Christians were forbidden to live in the same house.

3. No Jew was to be appointed to any office which gave him control over a Christian.                               

4. Jews were forbidden to leave their buildings or even to open their shutters on Easter, to make sure that they would not "insult" Christians on that holiday.  

Finally, to make sure that no Christian would accidentally become friendly with an unbeliever, Jews were required to wear a special hat or badge whenever they appeared in public.  Like the the Blood Libel, this anti-Jewish practice survived to modern times:  Jews were again forced to wear distinctive badges by the Nazis. 

Christians tried to destroy Jewish scholarship.  In France a wave of book-burning was begun by King Louis IX, a man whose Christian zeal earned him the title of "Saint Louis."  

                                               

     

The Talmud, a book written by rabbis, explaining the records of academic discussion and judicial administration of Jewish Law, among many Jewish books, were burned in Paris by the church on June  17, 1242 when 24 cartloads of Talmud mss were burned as a sequel to the religious Disputation there 2 years earlier.  This burning of Jewish books recurred intermittently thereafter, like in Italy in 1322, and again in the 16th century when vast numbers of volumes comprising all types of Jewish literature was begin destroyed in Rome on September 9, 1553. 

 It served as an example to be followed all over northern Italy, and only deferred at Cremona until 1559. Rabbinic works were found in raids on the Jewish quarters and were thereafter burned sporadically.  Thousands of volumes of the Talmud were burned in Poland by order of Bishop Dembowski after the disputation between the rabbis and the "Zoharists"  led by Jacob Frank at Kamenetz-Podolsk in 1757. More than 20 public burning of the Talmud were held in Rome, Italy;  Barcelona, Spain, and other cities.                               

Besides that, the Christians worked toward bringing the teachings of Judaism into public scorn by using disputation---a formal discussion of the teachings of Judaism and Christianity between spokesmen for each religion, conducted by a government or Church official.  These were supposed to be fair debates.  In fact, the Jews were placed in an almost impossible position:  a weak defense of their religion would be a disgrace, but a strong defense that could be interpreted as critical of Christianity was  punishable as a crime.  Maybe this is when the phrase, "between the devil and the deep blue sea," came into fashion.  

                                                           

The most famous disputation was held in Barcelona in 1263 in the presence of the king of Aragon and his court.  The Jewish spokesman was a 69 year old scholar and physician, rabbi Moses ben Nahman, also known as Nahmanides.  He asked for and was promised the right of free speech during the debate, and freedom from prosecution for what he might say.  Nevertheless, after arguing his position with strength and skill, he was forced to leave Spain.    Nahmanides made the hard and dangerous voyage to Palestine in 1267. By then, Jerusalem had endured over a century of fighting between Christians and Muslims;  and only a few years before, the Tatars, a warlike people from Asia, had sacked the Holy City.  Finding himself at last in Jerusalem, Nahmanides wrote an emotional letter to his son in Spain.  His emotions must have been much like those felt by the ancient Hebrews as they returned from exile in Babylon some 1800 years earlier.  They too beheld Jerusalem in ruins---and they too set about to restore it to its former glory.  And to think, Jews have had to do it again from 1880 on.                                                                     

One more target on Jews was attacked;  one's livelihood.  In the Early Middle Ages, Jews were doing it all:  in agriculture, dyeing, silk-weaving, silver and gold working Smiths, glass-blowing, commerce, and many others.  They had education and skills and were the key element in many branches of European life. 

During the High Middle Ages, however, Christians learned many of these profitable trades and THEN forced Jews out of areas where they offered competition, not by being better competitively, but by making anti-Jewish laws. 

1. Jews were forbidden to farm.

2. Jews were kept out of craft unions (guilds). (Everyone had to be in a union).

3. Jews were even forced out of international commerce, a trade they had sustained for centuries.                                  

Only one field was left open to them, something which no Christian wanted to do;  money-lending.   In any growing economy, businessmen need to borrow money for new projects.  When they make profits, they repay their loans, plus an additional % in interest as payment for use of the money.  Today, bankers who provide such funds are a respected part of the business world, but in medieval times, lending money at interest was regarded by the Church as the sin of "usury" and forbidden to Christians.  The need for loans remained, however, and so Jews were invited----then forced----to become the moneylenders of Europe.  Of our 613 laws to be a better people, that was not listed, thank goodness.  Jewish fathers had the responsibility to make sure their sons could make a living, though. 

 Thus, Jews found themselves in a necessary but hated profession, maintaining the flow of cash into the pockets of Christian princes.  He ran the risk of if the borrower was unable to repay his loan---but also the dangers connected with  his insecure position.  ordinary borrowers might accuse him of ritual murder or desecrating the Host, organize a riot, kill him.  Kings might simply refuse to pay, threatening the "infidel moneylender" with imprisonment or death.  When large losses were common, interest rates had to be very high.  This fueled the hatred of the masses, who were convinced that the Jews were getting rich by bleeding poor Christians. More Jews were killed by kings getting out of paying interest than there were Jews charging high rates of interest.  

                                   Shylock, played by Italian Al Pacino

But, this is how stereotyping happens and one heard of the crafty, money-mad Jew.  this idea has poisoned Jewish-Christian relations ever since.  The most famous example dates from late in the 16th century:  Shylock in Shakespeare's THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, and even today, some dictionaries define "To Jew someone down" as "to get the better of" in bargaining, as by sharp practices.  Notice that Shakespeare was English and Jews had been banned from the country till 1655.  The creation of The Merchant of Venice can be dated between 1596 and 1598. Shakespeare must have written the play by the summer of 1598, since it was entered on the Stationers' Register on 22 July 1598.

Actually, Shakespeare never knew one single Jew in his life. Jews were only allowed back into the country 58 years after than the play had been on stage.  What was he basing his facts on?  Gossip in his family, gossip from friends, and gossip is not the same as facts;  It's usually exaggerated and mean and said out of wanting attention.                                             

Actually, the Jews didn't even control the dangerous and degrading field of  moneylending for very long.  Clever Christians found ways to get around the usury laws, and once they had established themselves in the profession, they forced the Jews out of  it.  This meant that Jews were no longer needed in the only trade they had been allowed to practice.  They could be looked on as totally useless members of society.  King after king breathed a sigh of relief as he freed himself of the "Jewish problem" by the simplest of all means:  complete expulsion.  When all efforts to convert the Jews failed, and when they could be eliminated from their key roles in the economy, they were expelled.  

Jews wondered if a Pope would help the Jews.  The 1st popes, like the earliest Christians, were born Jewish.  In medieval times, there was at least one Pope who came from a Jewish family.  His life may have given rise to a popular medieval legend about a "Jewish Pope."  Add to this the fact that during the High Middle Ages, Popes often had Jews as their personal physicians and you can see that history sometimes works in very curious ways. 

                                                                  

                                          Pope Martin V b: 1369-d: 1431.  

A Jewish delegation called on Martin V in 1417 to find out.  He belonged to one of the oldest and most distinguished families of Rome. His brother Giordano became Prince of Salerno and Duke of Venosa, while his sister Paola was Lady of Piombino between 1441 and 1445.  The excitement of the Church during the Hussite movement rendered the Jews apprehensive, and through Emperor Sigismund, they obtained from Pope Martin V various bulls (1418 and 1422) in which their former privileges were confirmed and in which he exhorted the friars to use moderate language. In the last years of his pontificate, however, he repealed several of his ordinances. A gathering, convoked by the Jews in Forlì, sent a deputation asking Pope Martin V to abolish the oppressive laws promulgated by Antipope Benedict XIII. The deputation succeeded in its mission.

The pattern was set by Gregory I (also called "Gregory the Great."), who was Pope from 590 to 604. first he said that no Jew could ever be a social superior or even the equal of any Christian, but he also said that Jews were protected by Church law from being physically hurt.   A tradition grew up that when the Messiah came, he would personally come to see the Pope and convince him to allow the Jews  to return to the Holy Land.  

In 1524, an African Jew, a false Messiah named David Reubeni, tried to do just that.  One historian has actually called Reubeni "the first Zionist."  He grandly entered Rome on a white horse, hoping to talk the Pope into approving a Catholic-Jewish mission to recapture Palestine.  of course, the scheme fell through---Reubeni later was burned at the stake---and the cause of Zionism had to wait another 4 centuries.                                 

At Pius IX's accession in 1846, Catholicism and Judaism were the only religions allowed by law (Protestant worship was allowed to visiting foreigners, but forbidden to Italians; atheism was unthinkable). Jews in Rome were required to live in a ghetto, a separated quarter of the city, and had very limited rights. His relations with them changed over time, from good to worse. He initially repealed laws that forbade Jews to practice certain professions and rescinded laws which forced them to listen four times per year to sermons aimed at their conversion.

After the pope's 1849 overthrow, the short-lived Roman Republic issued wide-ranging religious freedom measures. After French troops brought him back to power in 1850, the Pope issued a series of anti-liberal measures that eliminated even some his early openings, including re-instituting the Ghetto.     

This is the thing.  Jews have only been tolerated when the going is smooth for leaders. Let  the climate change and leaders are pressured,

and  the Jews are the 1st to  suffer.  Jews  have been so lucky in the USA.  Let things change and see what happens.  German Jews lasted for about 932 years before Nazis came along and slaughtered 6 million of them.   We have Israel again.  Let's hold onto it.  

 

Resource:

Book:  My People, Abba Eban's History of the Jews, volume I, Adapted by David Bamberger

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2021/03/how-emperor-constantine-started-anti.html

https://www.thoughtco.com/helena-mother-of-constantine-3530253