Chicago Play Canceled After Artists Fear Backlash for Working With ‘Pro-Zionist Jew’

A recent ADL report documented dozens of cases of Jewish, Israeli and Zionist artists facing exclusion, protests and canceled appearances.

By United with Israel Staff

American-Israeli author and playwright Naomi Ragen says a planned Chicago production of her acclaimed play Women’s Minyan has been canceled after actors, directors and designers expressed fear that working on a play by a prominent Israeli and Zionist could damage their careers.

Ragen said Ars Judaica, a small Jewish theater company in Chicago, had planned to produce the play next year before its director, Elayne, informed her that she was withdrawing from the production.

Ragen published the message she said she received from Elayne, who described being “bombarded” by theater professionals worried about the repercussions of working with Ragen.

“People were seeing you were a pro Zionist Jew/Israeli and I was bombarded with actors, directors and designers who were actually afraid that doing a show with you as playwright would hurt their careers,” the message read.

“I never have faced this before and I was stunned about all the accusations of ‘genocide’ flying around,” Elayne wrote, according to Ragen. “This world is getting insane.”

The director stressed her own longstanding connection to Israel, writing that she was “born the same time as Israel” and had grown up raising money to plant trees in the Jewish state.

“In the past I have done plays about suicide bombers and never had a peep from anyone,” she wrote. “Perhaps once all this dies down (if it ever does) I will try again. I am so sorry.”

For Ragen, the episode was particularly striking because Women’s Minyan is neither a new work nor a political play about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Ragen, 77, is a New York-born, Jerusalem-based Orthodox Jewish novelist, playwright and longtime advocate for women’s rights who has lived in Israel since 1971. She has published 13 internationally bestselling novels and has written extensively about Jewish life, Israel and the treatment of women in religious communities.

Women’s Minyan, Ragen’s first play, was commissioned by Israel’s Habima National Theatre and is based on the true story of a Haredi mother of 12 who leaves an abusive situation and finds herself forcibly separated from her children. The play centers on her effort to bring together a “minyan” of women close to her and finally tell her story.

Far from an obscure production, the play became the longest-running play ever presented at Habima and has been performed more than 1,000 times at Israel’s national theater, according to Ragen’s website. It has also been staged in the United States and Argentina.

In a follow-up statement, Ragen emphasized that she was not an unknown writer losing an opportunity to stage an untested work.

“I am not a young author, and this play is a very well-known play, commissioned by Israel’s National Theatre, that has had very successful years-long runs at every major theatre in Israel,” she wrote. “It has also been produced very successfully in numerous places around the world, including Argentina and the United States.”

Ragen also made clear that she does not blame Ars Judaica or its director, saying the cancellation reflects the pressure increasingly being placed on Jewish cultural institutions and artists over their connections to Israel.

“I have only respect and affection for Elayne, the director of Ars Judaica,” Ragen wrote.

The controversy comes amid growing concern over the exclusion of Israeli, Jewish and openly Zionist voices from cultural spaces since the Oct. 7 massacre.

A recent Anti-Defamation League report documented dozens of cases across the United States involving Jewish, Israeli or openly Zionist artists facing protests, disruptions, cancellations or other forms of exclusion.

Among the cases highlighted by the ADL were canceled appearances by Jewish and Israeli performers and artists who said they lost opportunities because of their Israeli identity or Zionist views.

At the same time, outspoken pro-Palestinian activism has become increasingly prominent in the entertainment industry. More than 1,800 actors, producers and other entertainment figures signed a pledge in 2025 to boycott Israeli film institutions they accused of complicity in “genocide and apartheid.” Signatories included Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Tilda Swinton and Olivia Colman.

At Britain’s Glastonbury Festival that same year, punk duo Bob Vylan led a crowd in chants of “death, death to the IDF” during a performance that was livestreamed by the BBC, prompting widespread condemnation and a police investigation.

Ragen argued that her experience illustrates a cultural double standard in which support for Israel can make Jewish artists professionally radioactive in spaces where strident anti-Israel activism has become increasingly visible.

“For those who say: ‘Well Naomi Ragen is a known Zionist, right winger who supports Bibi, so it was just a bad choice,’ I say this: Yes, absolutely guilty,” Ragen wrote. “I’m a fervid Zionist, an Orthodox Jew and a fighter for women’s rights, which is what my play, Women’s Minyan, is all about.”

“Who I support politically is no one’s business, unless we want a return to McCarthyism,” she continued. “And silly me, I thought all the ‘progressives’ were against Red Baiting McCarthyism. Apparently not. Now artists have to pass political correctness tests. Again.”

Ragen warned that allowing fear of anti-Israel backlash to determine which Jewish artists can be heard risks pushing Zionist Jews out of American cultural life.

“Allowing the ‘Free Palestine’ mob to run amok and threaten American cultural institutions to toe the line, is to sink back into what happened in Germany in 1938 and in Communist Russia,” she wrote.

But rather than attacking the Jewish organization that canceled her play, Ragen urged supporters to strengthen institutions like Ars Judaica so they can withstand such pressure.

“It’s not personal,” Ragen wrote. “If you want to live in a free country not overrun by Fascists, Brown Shirts, and Antisemites, now is the time to stand up and support people like Elayne and organizations like Ars Judaica.”

“Give them the financial and moral support to be brave, to overcome pressures,” she continued. “Shelter them. Embrace them. Be a living barrier for them against those who would take over the arts and close the door to Zionist Jews.”

Ragen called for Jewish communities and their allies to ensure that Zionist writers, actors, musicians and other artists are not driven from cultural spaces because of their support for Israel.

“Invite as many Zionist Jews as you can to show their work, to produce their plays, to sing their songs, to tell their jokes, to present their music,” she wrote. “Invest in them. Buy the tickets.”

For Ragen, the cancellation of a handful of performances of Women’s Minyan is therefore symptomatic of something much larger.

“This is a living problem for living people,” she wrote. “Don’t keep sitting buckled into your seats. Get up. Rush the cockpit, because if you don’t show courage and protect your own, the plane is going down.”