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Judge orders Pa. theater to screen film that had been canceled amid outcry over the Israeli Film Festival

Robert Moran, The Philadelphia Inquirer on

Published in News & Features

After the court order was issued Tuesday, the Israeli Film Festival posted on its website: “This attempt to censor the arts and culture of Israel was not successful.”

Lori Lowenthal Marcus, an attorney for the film festival, called the judge’s order “an extraordinary remedy … to right an extraordinary wrong.” The theater’s earlier decision to cancel the screening, Marcus said in a statement Tuesday, “was a cowardly response to bullying.”

Bi-Co Jewish Voice for Peace, which described itself as “Anti-Zionist Jews of Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges,” could not be reached for comment Tuesday night about the court order.

The Philly Palestine Coalition, which also demanded that the film screening be canceled and took issue with the festival being sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel, could not be reached for comment about the court order.

The initial cancellation of the film screening prompted condemnation from the Anti-Defamation League of Philadelphia and the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.

 

“Although BMFI states that this decision was made in an attempt to avoid controversy, this action only serves to blacklist Israeli culture, playing into the hands of antisemites who try to deny the Jewish people their voice and existence,” both organizations said in a joint statement.

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(Staff writer Rosa Cartagena contributed to this article.)

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©2024 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Visit inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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