Ari and Traci at the forefront of Hollywood support for Israel
Jewish Telegraph, April 2023
A HOLLYWOOD-based organisation that garners support for Israel through members of the entertainment industry is hoping to open an office in the UK.
The Creative Community for Peace already has about 10 advisory board members based on this side of the Pond, “so we have a little bit of a footprint there,” director Ari Ingel told me.
CCFP was founded in 2011, when David Renzer, then chairman and chief executive of Universal Music Group, visited Israel for a recording session in Tel Aviv.
He wanted to counter the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which tries to bully musicians into cancelling performances in Israel.
Renzer was joined by Steve Schnur, president of Music for Electronic Arts, in founding the organisation.
Ari — who has a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley, where he double majored with a degree in political science and international relations — became CCFP director in 2018.
Also joining the chat was advisory board member Traci Szymanski, who is a talent executive and producer.
Our first topic of conversation was whether CCFP played any role after British rappers Wiley and Lowkey made antisemitic and anti-Israel comments.
“When those things pop up, we’re certainly involved in advising on how the UK entertainment community can push back and have a voice,” Ari told me.
“But as you see, it’s almost ground zero for a lot of this boycott activity and a lot of the artists who are booked to play in Israel are booked out of UK agents, not American ones.
“So we’re really involved in networking and reaching out to them a lot because some of them just don’t want to book their artists to play in Israel.
“And the ones who do come under boycott pressure, so it’s the UK agents we’re talking to, if not the managers and the publicist of the artists.”
He added: “We want to be even more involved because, unfortunately, antisemitism in the UK is rampant and America is learning it from the UK and the rest of Europe.
“And the boycott movement certainly finds a sympathetic ear in the UK, even more so than America.
“You guys have more of the outspoken ones. A lot of people ask me, ‘is Hollywood becoming more anti-Israel? Is the music community becoming more anti-Israel?’
“Part of it, though, is that activists like speaking out about things. Whether it’s Roger Waters or Brian Eno, they love to speak out about that. In America, we’ve got (actors) Susan Sarandon and Mark Ruffalo on the film/TV side.
“They’re activists, so they like to talk about these things when Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake, Rihanna and all the many, many artists are playing in Israel every year.
“They (Bieber, Timberlake etc) don’t take to Twitter to defend Israel every day or to speak out against causes, they’re artists and that’s what they do.
“But we hear a lot from these activist entertainers. Unfortunately, on social media, they have large followings. And that’s really a problem because obviously they have a lot of young impressionable followers influenced by them.”
Traci spoke about CCFP’s Blue Square campaign.
“That was just standing up against antisemitism. That was it,” she said. “Nothing about Israel.
“And the celebrities were just getting pummelled with ‘free Palestine’ and anti-Israel comments when it had nothing to do with with Israel.”
Ari continued: “That’s where we find the anti-Zionism, the anti-Israel hatred turning into antisemitism.
“It’s when someone just says, ‘happy Chanukah’ or anything against antisemitism, and all of a sudden, it’s ‘free Palestine’, ‘What about the Palestinians?’, that’s quintessential antisemitism, blaming Jews for things going on in Israel.
“So, if you support Israel, you support these horrific things, and thus we should hate you as well.
“That’s where we’re seeing this blur of anti-Zionism moving into antisemitism.”
Ari used a Mike Tyson tweet as an example where the boxing legend posted about the rise of antisemitism in America — and received thousands of comments of ‘free Palestine’ and ‘what about the Palestinians?’.
Both Ari and Traci want people to judge for themselves and not just listen to the propaganda spread by the BDS movement.
“Our organisation calls for people to go and find out for themselves,” Ari explained. “In Israel, there is absolutely free speech and free press.
“Any artists can go there and say whatever they want from the stage.
“Just read Ha’aretz every day, you’ll see crazy amounts of criticism about the Israeli government.
“And so it’s easy to point out what is a legitimate criticism of a country and what goes beyond that, where it’s just demonisation and delegitimisation of a country.”
Traci added: “My priority since 2012 and also aligned with CCFP, which was founded at the same time, has always been that we need people to go over there and see for themselves.
“Stop relying on social media, the media, propaganda, all this hate, and go and see the country for yourself and see what’s going on and see how people are working and living together.
“Of course it has problems, every country has problems. But go and see the country for yourself, become educated, learn history, and then if you want to speak, speak.
“But there’s far too many people speaking out of ignorance, and that ignorance has bred antisemitism and hate and now we’re just clumped in, Jews and Israel, all alike are just horrible, bad people.
“We’re back to the stereotypes of the Second World War because people are just following the bandwagon.
“I don’t even think most people know why they hate Jews. It’s trendy to hate Jews. That’s like the new thing.
“And unfortunately — and fortunately — we’ve seen that the entertainment industry has a big influence.”
“An entertainer going online and saying they hate Jews is very dangerous for Jews, when millions of their followers don’t really care why they hate Jews, they just hate Jews.
“We’re seeing that translate onto the streets in the UK, in America, pretty much worldwide.”
Ari was full of praise for the many co-existence groups in Israel, mentioning the Jerusalem Youth Choir, the Polyphony Foundation and The Equalizer, which sees Palestinian and Israeli kids play football and basketball together.
“When Traci takes celebrities over there, we try to introduce them to these groups because those are the voices that people should be amplifying — these groups on the ground that are trying to affect positive change,” Ari said.
“Unfortunately, though, that is not what the press covers.”
Ari added that the problem for groups who want to play in Israel is that the biggest capacity venue is around 50,000.
“And then you can’t play second, third and fourth shows,” he said. “For Israel, you have to fly in and fly out. That’s an extra two days on the road for your crew. It’s expensive.
“That’s why acts go once in a while. And it makes for a unique experience, because you can do things in Israel that you can’t do in any other countries, but also the crowds in Israel love it when artists come over and the crowds are black, white, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Arab, everybody under the sun, and it’s one area that everybody can bond about.
“Israelis love live music. They love cultural events, and bands that often may not even be very big in Israel, when they play at a venue, people will just come out to find out what is the next new thing.”
Traci revealed that she had chosen not to work with certain clients “if they’re speaking out in a hateful way, not willing to come to the table and learn to build bridges and are just speaking out of ignorance”.
The conversation turned to the LGBTQ+ community, in particular those who campaign for Palestinian rights despite Hamas murdering anyone who they find is gay in Gaza.
“There’s zero tolerance in the Palestinian communities,” Ari said.
“And they try to portray Israel as really only being nice to the LGBTQ+ community, because they want to get back at the Palestinians or something.
“The reality is, it’s a thriving community in Israel.
“It’s not perfect; every LGBTQ+ community in the world faces some sort of backlash and faces issues at home.
“It’s in America, it happens here and happens in the UK. But Israel does have a thriving community.
“And, more importantly, they’ve ingrained in law a lot of protections for the community.
“One of the biggest LGBTQ+ parades in Europe takes place in Israel every single year . . . and it’s incredible to see.”
Many of the film studios in Hollywood were founded by Jewish immigrants, which meant it was quite a shock when The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures mainly ignored this fact when it opened in 2021.
“They’ve changed that now,” Ari reported, “and they’ve included a section in there.
“Most of the founders of Hollywood are Jewish, but that doesn’t mean Jews control Hollywood; corporations control Hollywood.
“If Jews really did control Hollywood, Israel would be portrayed amazingly, and Jews would be portrayed in film and on TV a lot better.”
He added that when they started Hollywood, Jews weren’t allowed in other professions, such as lawyers and doctors.
“Hollywood was seen as a really dirty profession, not as the glamour and glitz of today. And that’s why, no one else was involved in it.”
Ari concluded by saying CCFP isn’t a political organisation.
“We try to keep it to words, music, culture, arts, and what people can do on the ground to affect positive change,” he said.
“There are many other organisations that deal with the politics of the country. And if we get bogged down in that, it just politicises art, which these artists don’t want.
“They don’t want to have their show politicised.
“Any artist can feel free to say anything on the stage or make a song about politics, but they don’t want their show or their music or their careers hijacked by politics.”
Creativecommunityforpeace.com
