NY play delves into Jewish identity and the effects of antisemitic violence

NEW YORK (PIX11) -- There has been a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents in the New York area since the Hamas attack on Israel last October.

A new play has just opened dealing with Jewish identity within one family in Westchester. 

It begins with a Christmas carol and a Christmas tree—not what you’d expect for the opening of a play about three generations of Jewish women in Scarsdale confronting their relationships to their Jewish identities and one another.

This play is both a comedy and a tragedy, and it turns dark as family members and others deal with a deadly mass shooting at their synagogue.

“When the Tree of Life Temple shooting happened in 2018, that was a real watershed moment for Jews in this country,” Pamela Weiler Grayson, the playwright of “Observant,” told PIX11 News. “That was the first time for many of us to explore our Jewish identity because of these acts of antisemitic violence, even you weren’t particularly Jewish.”

Only one non-Jewish character in the play, an Iranian Muslim, is dating the younger daughter.

 “What I found interesting was from my character’s perspective,” Fady Demian, an actor, told PIX11 News.  “How important it is to recognize each other as human beings and how two

People can love each other even though the world tells them they should be enemies on paper.”

By the end of the play, several family members who never took their Jewish identity seriously have a change of heart.

Cast members, the playwright, and the director hope this will spark meaningful discussions among audience members.

“We perpetuate these kinds of needs to assimilate over the need to maybe appreciate,” Rebecca Hoodwin, the actress who plays the grandmother, told PIX11 News. “To over-assimilate and be afraid of acknowledging who you are.”

The director of “Observant,”  Shellen Lubin, added, “The play raises all kinds of questions. But there is no proselytizing. There is no one perspective. And there are no answers.”

The playwright summed up the entire message of the play.

“In Judaism, there is the expression, Tikkun Olam, which means repair the world,” Grayson told PIX11 News. “And our tagline is How can we repair the world if we can’t repair ourselves?” she added.

Seven more performances of “Observant” are scheduled over the next two weeks, most with talkback panel discussions, as part of the Emerging Artists Theatre’s Fall Spark Theatre Festival at Chain Theatre.