The Ally – 29 February 2024

Itamar Moses is playing with fire here, and I, for one, am eternally grateful. In the wake of October 7, as a Jew and a New Yorker, I have been feeling an intense amount of stress, pain, and frustration surrounding the way who I am and how I am seen have been dramatically shifting—in my own eyes, in the eyes of my city and the world at large, and most heartbreakingly in the eyes of people I thought I could count on to be my allies forever.

It was an intense relief to me as someone who has been puzzling through my own loyalties, moral compass, and, at many times, physical safety, to sit in a dark theater and hear discourse about this issue that I could not verbally respond to, even if I wanted to. It felt healing, in a way, to hear the arguments laid out, to see the fundamental attribution errors and double standards systematically exposed without me having to do it or respond to it. Supporting this show felt important to me because it was a strong reminder that I am not alone in this struggle, and that even in situations where I cannot speak or I cannot write, there are others who are shouldering some of the burden. There are others who are doing the work. There are others for whom these issues are not one-sided, but there is a bottom line, which we are all allowed to disagree on as long as we treat one another with respect and basic human decency.

The Ally makes several analogies and comparisons, then steps back to ask if that specific analogy/comparison is appropriate. It was interesting to see how each parallel was thought to be accurate until it was no longer self-serving. The conclusion of the play had a lot of telling moments about gatekeeping and who is defined as a minority or an oppressed people. It was cathartic for me to see that these arguments could be had with passion and verve without epithets; sadly that’s not the way it has been for me these past few months. While to some the lack of dramatic action and the fact that it was mostly rhetoric and conversation may have made the play drag, for me it was intensely important that there be no dramatic action—that these (for lack of a better word) arguments could be made peacefully.

By the same token, the lack of dramatic plot points felt relevant to my life as an American Jew. Most of the people demonstrating for these causes that I encounter by the thousands in New York City are very far removed from the “dramatic action” of the actual events unfolding in Israel and the Palestinian territories. They don’t have a complete set of knowledge and really are just feeling their way through perceived right and wrong. When faced with the immediacy of hostages and civilian deaths, the impulse is to act in the face of injustice and worry about the particulars later. Yet, as Reuven (Ben Rosenfield) aptly pointed out, our responses shape how we are seen and it is incredibly difficult to be an individual or an ally to anyone when being at a protest or signing a petition is viewed as complete agreement with all tenets of a cause.  As a society, we are no longer holding space for individual thought.

This polarization and over simplification is happening all over the world, particularly on college campuses. Madeline Weinstein’s portrayal of Rachel felt very accurate to me, as a millennial. Like Rachel, many of my friends want to do good but can’t fully think through potential consequences and backlash for themselves or a broader community (and world). Rachel was right to say that Asaf (Josh Radner) is not young—and in the case of this particular character, I think that was crucial to the way that he understood the world. Before Tik Tok and Instagram became the primary way to get information (or attention), the process of learning about the world was different. People had to seek information and evaluate their sources in a different way than simply deciding to stand with whomever others appear to be standing with and trust that the people in your sphere of influence will always be supporting things that you also agree with, even if you don’t know that much about the issues themselves. I find this new world view to be dangerous.

I appreciate Itamar Moses’s contribution to this discussion because it calls into question several fundamental assumptions. Does all oppression look/feel the same? Should all oppression be dealt with in the same manner? Does culture play a part in resistance? How much of history is written by the victor? What kinds of news don’t reach us? What does it mean to sign your name to something—and is there room for discourse when you do? How do you present both sides of an issue with more than two sides? How can we account for cultural differences within a culture, not between cultures, and do we need to do the former in order to do the latter? How do we choose who we translate important, big picture concepts like “freedom” and “human rights” into actual action for and whose issues are of a secondary importance and can wait to be dealt with? Of course equality and safety and peace and dignity are our goal for everybody everywhere—but is that goal attainable? And if so, how? And if there is a how, why are we waiting to implement it? What are we waiting for? If not now, when?

I did not attend this performance on a press pass.