On Sunday night (5 February) the Barbican Centre in London hosted a performance by The Jerusalem Orchestra East West.
Because the event was partly sponsored by the Israeli Embassy, it was subject to a demonstration outside by anti-Israel campaigners, mass email writing to the venue to try to get it cancelled, and a letter in the Guardian newspaper signed by 50 artists branding it as a “cynical attempt to re-brand apartheid as diversity”.
Please sign our statement of thanks so that we can let the Barbican Centre know that there are many people who applaud them hosting this event. Rather than creating bureaucracy for them by adding to the number of emails they are getting on this subject we will write and let them know the total number of signatories.
Please do share this campaign with your friends and family via email and social media and encourage them to sign.
Statement text:
"We, the undersigned, thank the Barbican Centre for hosting a performance by The Jerusalem Orchestra East West (a multicultural orchestra, with members from all three religions, from all over the country and from all sectors that make up Israeli society).
We condemn the attempts to bully and intimidate the Barbican Centre by supporters of a cultural boycott of Israel and Israeli performers.
We oppose cultural boycotts of Israeli performers and condemn them as a particularly ugly and bigoted manifestation of BDS.
We believe it is particularly perverse that people would protest against a performance at the Barbican that was jointly sponsored by the Israeli and Moroccan Embassies, featured Arab performers, and celebrated the cultural links between Jews and Arabs."