Israel Matzav

Why Roger Waters' appearance at the 92nd Street Y was cancelled

In an earlier post, I reported that Roger Waters' scheduled appearance at New York's 92nd Street Y had been cancelled.

Anyone who knows how it happened isn't saying, but Lori Lowenthal Marcus manages to piece together enough to give us some idea how it happened.

The Jewish Press ran a story on March 25 about Waters’ scheduled appearance at the 92nd Street Y, noting that the Y had begun nearly 140 years earlier as the Young Men’s Hebrew Association, and how ironic it was that it was going to host one of the biggest haters of Israel west of the Middle East.

And then things became a little strange at the 92nd Street Y website.

On March 26th, the Waters event at the Y was listed on the website as “postponed.”  Then, sometime during the first days of Passover, all mention of the Waters concert was removed from the Y’s website, including from its calendar listing.  However, curious callers to the box office were told that the concert was going on as planned.  By late in the evening of March 28, the event once again was listed on the website.

On March 29, the box office staff told curious callers that they should keep their tickets and they would be called with information about a new date, but later that same day a new date for the Waters’ concert – June 19th – was posted on a British website.

The turmoil continued for the 92nd Street Y management, scheduling office, and webmaster, as the public outcry continued, reaching a crescendo on April 3.

Emails were sent to Adler at the Y and to John Ruskay, the chair of New York City’s United Jewish Appeal – Federation, asking how they could provide a forum at the Y to someone with such a visceral hatred for Israel, someone who has publicly stated his commitment to do everything within his power to destroy Israel’s efforts to protect its citizens from terrorism.

Read the whole thing.

The real questions are, which moron(s) made the decision to put this event on in the first place, why they still have a job and why the New York City Jewish Federation and the Y consistently have issues like this.

Labels: anti-Semitism, BDS, JCC Watch, Manhattan JCC, Nazis, New York Jewish Federation, Roger Waters

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:40 PM