Seven Jewish Children: a play for Gaza

by Caryl Churchill

Subtitled "a play for Gaza" this is British playwright Caryl Churchill's response to the situation in Gaza in January of 2009. Structured as the text of seven statements parents might say to their children either in response to the events or attempting to explain them, they express regret, anger, intelligence, blind hatred, fear, and compassion.

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Drama, Literature, Politics, Fiction

7 pages

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Caryl Churchill (born 3 September 1938) is an English dramatist known for her use of non-naturalistic techniques and feminist themes, dramatisation of the abuses of power, and exploration of sexual politics.[1] She is acknowledged as a major playwright in the English language and one of world theatre's most influential writers.

Her early work developed Bertolt Brecht's modernist dramatic and theatrical techniques of 'Epic theatre' to explore issues of gender and sexuality. From A Mouthful of Birds (1986) onwards, she began to experiment with forms of dance-theatre, incorporating techniques developed from the performance tradition initiated by Antonin Artaud with his 'Theatre of Cruelty'. This move away from a clear Fabel dramaturgy towards increasingly fragmented and surrealistic narratives characterises her work as postmodernist.

Prizes and awards

Churchill has received much recognition, including the following awards:

1958 Sunday Times/National Union of Students Drama Festival Award Downstairs
1961 Richard Hillary Memorial Prize
1981 Obie Award for Playwriting, Cloud Nine
1982 Obie Award for Playwriting, Top Girls
1983 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (runner-up), Top Girls
1984 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Fen
1987 Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy of the Year, Serious Money
1987 Obie Award for Best New Play, Serious Money
1987 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Serious Money
1988 Laurence Olivier/BBC Award for Best New Play, Serious Money
2001 Obie Sustained Achievement Award
2010 Inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

Plays

Downstairs (1958)
You've No Need to be Frightened (1959?)
Having a Wonderful Time (1960)
Easy Death (1960)
The Ants, radio drama (1962)
Lovesick, radio drama (1969)
Identical Twins (1960)
Abortive, radio drama (1971)
Not Not Not Not Not Enough Oxygen, radio drama (1971)
Owners (1972)
Schreber's Nervous Illness, radio drama (1972) – based on Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
The Hospital at the Time of the Revolution (written 1972)
The Judge's Wife, radio drama (1972)
Moving Clocks Go Slow, (1973)
Turkish Delight, television drama (1973)
Objections to Sex and Violence (1975)
Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (1976) [7]
Vinegar Tom (1976)
Traps (1976)
The After-Dinner Joke, television drama (1978)
Seagulls (written 1978)
Cloud Nine (1979)
Three More Sleepless Nights (1980)
Top Girls (1982)
Crimes, television drama (1982)
Fen (1983)
Softcops (1984)
A Mouthful of Birds (1986)
A Heart's Desire (1987)[18]
Serious Money (1987)
Ice Cream (1989)
Hot Fudge (1989)
Mad Forest (1990)
Lives of the Great Poisoners (1991)
The Skriker (1994)
Blue Heart (1997)
Hotel (1997)
This is a Chair (1999)
Far Away (2000)
Thyestes (2001) – translation of Seneca's tragedy
A Number (2002)
A Dream Play (2005) – translation of August Strindberg's play
Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? (2006)
Seven Jewish Children – a play for Gaza (2009)
Love and Information (2012)
Ding Dong the Wicked (2013)
Here We Go (play) (2015)

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caryl_Ch...

Reviews

[Laala Kashef Alghata · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked it. Churchill wrote it as a response to the 2008-09 Israel military strike on Gaza. It’s basically written as seven monologues, with adults speaking the parts, saying “don’t tell her / tell her”, referring to what their children should and should not know. It’s provocative, definitely. She has been plagued with accusations of anti-Semitism, and she replied, “Howard Jacobson (who wrote an article on the matter) writes as if there’s something new about describing critics of Israel as anti-Semitic. But it’s the usual tactic. We are not going to agree about politics … But we should be able to disagree without accusations of anti-Semitism.” I agree with Churchill. What Israel is doing to the people in Gaza is wrong, and if every time someone points this out or speaks out against this they’re labelled anti-Semitic that’s regressive and ridiculous.

Read it and judge for yourselves. As I said, it’s not long. It takes less than ten minutes to read. I realise that people could complain of the stereotypes cast but Churchill was not modeling this on real people, she was trying to impart a point. I don’t even think she really vilifies the characters that much, I think she shows them to be flawed and wrong, but human nonetheless.

[misael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don’t tell her how many of them have been killed
Tell her the Hamas fighters have been killed
Tell her they’re terrorists
Tell her they’re filth
Don’t
Don’t tell her about the family of dead girls
Tell her you can’t believe what you see on television
Tell her we killed the babies by mistake
Don’t tell her anything about the army
Tell her, tell her about the army, tell her to be proud of the army. Tell her about the family of dead girls, tell her their names why not, tell her the whole world knows why shouldn’t she know? tell her there’s dead babies, did she see babies? tell her she’s got nothing to be ashamed of. Tell her they did it to themselves. Tell her they want their children killed to make people sorry for them, tell her I’m not sorry for them, tell her not to be sorry for them, tell her we’re the ones to be sorry for, tell her they can’t talk suffering to us. Tell her we’re the iron fist now, tell her it’s the fog of war, tell her we won’t stop killing them till we’re safe, tell her I laughed when I saw the dead policemen, tell her they’re animals living in rubble now, tell her I wouldn’t care if we wiped them out, the world would hate us is the only thing, tell her I don’t care if the world hates us, tell her we're better haters, tell her we're chosen people, tell her I look at one of their children covered in blood and what do I feel? tell her all I feel is happy it’s not her.

[ₐₘᵢᵣₐ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tell her about Jerusalem...

[Harry McDonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Churchill is undoubtedly the master of deciding form based on content. In this tiny play - 7 pages - she compresses the history of the post WW2 Arab-Israeli conflict, through the structure of 7 sets of adults arguing what should be told to their children about the conflict.

What results is a complex and dense examination of identity, history and censorship with Churchill's expected beautiful imagery.

The play is of course incredibly controversial, regularly labelled anti-Semitic. I didn't see that; instead I saw Churchill demonstrating the divisions within the societies are as drastic as they are between the societies, something David Hare writes about extensively in his monologue Via Dolorosa.

In short, this play is free to download or read online as per Churchill's instruction, its a fantastic piece to discuss and it will take you 10 minutes to read. What do you have to lose?

[Rowan · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of an extended scene/montage than a play. Whilst there is some power within the writing, I think the majority of it's transformative power lays squarely within the creative domain of the director and the theater technician. How you split the dialogue, how you light the scenes and how you block the movement (if any) will decide whether this is a winner or something better off forgotten. Whilst there are some geographically specific references within the text, this play could read for any of the major wars since the 1900's. If you lose the technology/pop references, and it could read for any war since the dawn of time.

[Nika Vardiashvili · Rating 4 out of 5]

ერთ-ერთი გამორჩეული და ვიტყოდი რომ სულისშემძვრელი პიესაა, მათ შორის რაც წამიკითხავს.
ერთ-ერთი გამორჩეული და სულისშმეძვრელი ტექსტია, მათ შორის რაც ებრაელებზე წამიკითხავს.

პიესა თავდაპირველად Royal Court Theatre-ში დაიდგა და ღაზის სექტორში განხორციელებულ ოპერაციას, „ჩამოსხმულ ტყვიას“ , ეხმიანება. დადგმა ბევრმა ანტისემიტურად, ანტი-ისრაეულურად მიიჩნიეს, თუმცა არაერთი ებრაელი კრიტიკოსისგან დადებითი შეფასებაც დაიმსახურა.

ჯამში სულ შვიდი მოქმედებისგან შედგება (რაც შესაძლოა სათაურიდანაც გაგეგოთ) და შეიცავს როგორც ზემოაღნიშნული ღაზის სექტორის, აგრეთვე ჰოლოკოსტისა და ისრაულ-არაბულ დაპირისპირების ამბებს.

ეს ის მოკლე ამბებია რისი ცოდნაც აუცილებლად დაგჭირდებათ თუ ოდესმე ამ პიესის (რაც ჩემთვის უფრო მეტად ლექსია ვიდრე რაიმე სხვა) წაკითხვას გადაწყვეტთ.

პ.ს. არილს აქვს გამოცემული საკმაოდ კარგი თარგმანით, შესაბამისად შეგიძლიათ ქართულად წაიკითხოთ!

[Pablo López · Rating 5 out of 5]

A big punch in the lungs: left me breathless, devastated and furious

[Z · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Tell her we killed the babies by mistake"

Short but powerful. Conveys the conflict between hiding the truth but knowing the truth matters, between protecting the child but knowing ignorance could get them killed.

"Tell her the whole world knows why shouldn't she know?"

[Ed Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though I didn’t massively enjoy ‘Far Away’ or ‘This is a Chair’, I decided to give Churchill another chance as my lecture on the plays was so good that I have now ended up deciding to write my end of semester essay on them. ‘Seven Jewish Children’ was brought up in the lecture and given its time appropriate context with the recent resurgence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into the media I reckoned it would be a worthwhile read. Churchill lays out seven scenes with no clear characters, spoken through the voices of parent figures recounting Jewish history and anti-semitism. The first two scenes look at the holocaust and latter five the Israel-Palestine war with the perspective of childhood ignorance. Through the repletion of “tell her” and “don’t tell her” the idea of protecting children from conflict, both through ignorance to not upset them and try to retain childhood innocence but also saying enough to make them aware and keep them alive. The children discussed seem to be of each Israeli and Palestinian descent, and though Churchill has had criticism from pro-israeli critics when she first published in the initial height of the conflict in 2009, that Israeli were villainised and even likened to Nazi oppressors, whilst the play reads more pro-Palestinian in my eyes due to ones own political perspective, the most importan focus of Churchill’s isn’t any form of political siding but viewing the war from the angle of the victims from each side, the children whose innocence, homes and families and in often cases lives are stripped away from them in a conflict which is no fault of their own. I much preferred ‘Seven Jewish Children’ to the aforementioned Churchill plays I have read, perhaps as its relevancy among todays conflict tugged on the heartstrings. It was also short, but that is why I believe anyone with an interest and concern in the current affairs of the world should feel an obligation to read it, for it highlights the victims of conflict over any political agenda.

[irene]

"Tell her, tell her about the army, tell her to be proud of the army. Tell her about the
family of dead girls, tell her their names why not, tell her the whole world knows why
shouldnt she know? tell her there’s dead babies, did she see babies? tell her she’s got
nothing to be ashamed of. Tell her they did it to themselves. Tell her they want their
children killed to make people sorry for them, tell her I’m not sorry for them, tell her
not to be sorry for them, tell her we’re the ones to be sorry for, tell her they cant talk
suffering to us. Tell her we’re the iron fist now, tell her it’s the fog of war, tell her we
wont stop killing them till we’re safe, tell her I laughed when I saw the dead
policemen, tell her they’re animals living in rubble now, tell her I wouldnt care if we
wiped them out, the world would hate us is the only thing, tell her I dont care if the
world hates us, tell her we’re better haters, tell her we’re chosen people, tell her I look
at one of their children covered in blood and what do I feel? tell her all I feel is happy
it’s not her."

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Tell her they did it to themselves. Tell her they want their children killed to make people sorry for them, tell her I’m not sorry for them, tell her not to be sorry for them, tell her we’re the ones to be sorry for, tell her they can’t talk suffering to us. Tell her we’re the iron fist now, tell her it’s the fog of war, tell her we won’t stop killing them till we’re safe, tell her I laughed when I saw the dead policemen, tell her they’re animals living in rubble now, tell her I wouldn’t care if we wiped them out, the world would hate us is the only thing, tell her I don’t care if the world hates us, tell her we’re better haters, tell her we’re chosen people, tell her I look at one of their children covered in blood and what do I feel? tell her all I feel is happy it’s not her."

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's actually quite incisive about the power of fear and bigotry, (not necessarily in the same characters) to guide our actions under existential threats. The play's definitely a warning, but I think it's a useful lesson when thinking about war. After all, how we talk to our kids says nearly everything about our values we want our society to hold.

[Estefanía · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an adult I hope never have to say words like these to my future children. As an ex-child I'm thankful for not growing during a war, I can't imagine how difficult it was for all the children to hear these strong words and live these hard situations. Definitely in only a few pages this author wrote big and strong words to think about.

[Víctor Heranz]

“Tell her her uncles died
Don’t tell her that were killed
Tell her they were killed”


“Tell her we killed the babies by mistake”


“Tell her I don’t care if the world hates us, tell her we’re better haters (…) tell her I look at one of their children covered in blood and what do I feel? tell her all I feel is happy it’s not her”

[Frank · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Dile que nosotros odiamos mejor” 💔

[Theodore · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s no doubt Churchill is a beautiful writer, this play is one that will be remembered no doubt.

[mafi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tell her she can’t watch the news
Tell her she can watch cartoons

[antonia · Rating 5 out of 5]

desde el 2009 hasta el 2025: relevante ahora y siempre (from the river to the sea)

[ivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

everyone should read this

[laura nicholson · Rating 5 out of 5]

hit like a punch.

[mar font]

Escalofríos por el cuerpo entero

[Sarah]

If I play all of my cards right, this will be the last little something I direct in Albania.

[Henk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ik las het in 5 minuten. Een toneelstukje van 1300 woorden. Het geeft een impressie van de verwarring van ouders die geen moreel kompas meer lijken te hebben.