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Mark Rosenblatt’s terrific new play starring John Lithgow as virulently antisemitic children’s author Roald Dahl
By some estimates, the American Jewish community is currently spending some $600 million a year to combat Jew hatred. Now, a new play on Broadway seems destined to further enflame passions, spark alarm, and raise questions about what motivates the antisemitic surge—as well as debate how Americans, and intellectuals, in particular, should respond to it.
Giant, starring the incomparable John Lithgow, opened on March 23 on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre after a wildly successful run in London’s West End, where it sold out every show at the Harold Pinter Theatre for 14 weeks. The play focuses on the scandal surrounding Roald Dahl, one of England’s most celebrated and successful children’s authors. Dahl’s inexpiable sin was writing an antisemitic review of a book in 1983 about Israel’s invasion of Lebanon a year earlier.
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Judith Miller is a contributing editor of City Journal and adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Follow her on Twitter here.