A Brooklyn Jewish mom expected an entertaining outing when she took her 4-year-old to a recent puppet festival. Instead, she found herself and her son listening to a recitation of Israel’s “war crimes” and keffiyah-clad performers taking part in a Gaza flotilla during a show billed as being about the quirks of living in New York City.
The performances were part of International Puppet Fringe Festival NYC, which is partially funded by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts, and took place in lower Manhattan from Aug. 12 to 16.
“They started with relatable New York skits, like about the pizza rat,” the mom, who declined to be named “because of the current environment,” told JNS, of a viral video of a rat dragging a discarded slice of pizza in a city subway station.
Another skit was about the perils of parking on New York City streets. “Performers had a cardboard car and showed the parallel parking shuffle,” when street cleaning rules require drivers to move their cars from one side of residential streets to the other, the mom said.
During the city-themed parts, the mom, who came to the United States from the former Soviet Union as a 7-year-old, told JNS that she “and the audience were one.”
“Everyone liked it,” she said.
After about 15 minutes, “a woman came in with a piece of paper and began reading a litany of accusations against Israel, and people began chanting ‘shame, shame,’” she told JNS.
Soon after that, eight performers grouped as a flotilla of ships bound for Gaza, the mother said.
“It felt like a lynch mob,” she told JNS. (JNS sought comment from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.)
“You feel naked, because you realize all these people knew who I was,” she said, since she didn’t join in the chant. “If I was by myself I would have just made an exit, but I was with my family and had a bunch of belongings.”
The experience was “pretty nauseating” for the mom.
“I’m an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, so antisemitism is why I’m here in the first place,” she told JNS. “To see it out in full effect in the daylight is awful.”
The mom shared a photo of part of the festival with JNS but said that she was too shaken to document the antisemitic parts.
Boxcutter Collective, the puppetry troupe, was one of several dozen to appear at the 2026 Puppet Fringe Festival.
On Facebook, the group described its performance as a “celebration of the place we all love and live in: New York City,” with “dancing skyscrapers, giant rats, fossil-fuel-fighting flowers, a live brass band and Lady Liberty herself.”
There was no mention of Israel or the Gaza war.
Manuel Morán, founder and producer of International Puppet Fringe Festival NYC, told JNS that “theater and puppetry have always been political art forms.”
“Especially in this moment, we believe there is value in making space for artists to express different perspectives and in encouraging audiences from all backgrounds to engage with the work,” Morán said.
Morán, who is also founder, CEO and artistic director of Teatro/SEA, told JNS that festival organizers may not have been aware of the anti-Israel content before it was performed.
“As with many festivals, the full content of a production is not always known in advance, and the company premiered many elements of this work as part of the event,” he told JNS. “We stand behind our role in providing a platform for artists while recognizing that artists are responsible for their own work and should be able to speak to it directly.”
In late November 2023, not even two months after Oct. 7, Boxcutter Collective took part in a Brooklyn event called “Let’s stand together for the people in Gaza! Fundraiser and action the Gaza Monologues.”
The event took place on the “international day of solidarity with the Palestinian people,” which Boxcutter described as “a significant day for those who value justice, equality and freedom for the Palestinian people.”
“As an organization with deep roots in supporting marginalized artists and communities, we at Teatro SEA understand the impact of discrimination and rejection, and we do not support racism or hatred directed at any community,” Moran told JNS.
“At the same time, we believe in artistic freedom and in creating a space where artists can present their work and audiences can encounter a range of perspectives,” he said. “We do not believe in censorship in the arts.”
He also noted that a Jewish group performed at the festival.
The Magid Ensemble performed “Shterna and the Lost Voice,” described in the program as “an original tale developed through years of research on Yiddish (Eastern-European diasporic Jewish) folklore, and an original live klezmer score.”
An Israeli troupe, Tel Aviv-based Hanut Theater Company, was invited to participate in the puppet fringe festival but could not attend.
Hanut leader Shachar Marom told JNS that the group could not arrange visas for artists to come to the United States, and the festival did not help facilitate them. Artists didn’t want to risk being turned away at the border, Marom said.
Moran, of the festival, told JNS that Hanut told the festival that it was advised by Israeli officials not to participate without extensive security protection.
