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To the Editor:

Last May, a letter in We-Ha said threats had forced the cancellation of an April 30 concert by the Israeli Chamber Project scheduled at Westminster Presbyterian Church. The good news is that the concert has a new date: next Sunday, Nov. 8, at 2 p.m., at the Mandell JCC on Bloomfield Avenue.

The concert was booked by the Musical Club of Hartford, which has brought chamber music to our area for generations. In January, the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, a national group that urges boycotts of Israeli cultural and academic institutions, called for boycotting the ensemble’s North American tour. The campaign argued that the ensemble’s performances whitewash the Israeli government because it receives state arts funding. Musicians from nearly every country take public arts money. Israel’s are the only ones routinely boycotted for it.

The musicians haven’t changed. Only the address has.

I feel for the club’s volunteers, who never signed up to weigh an audience’s safety against a principle. I’m grateful they kept going, and grateful to the JCC for opening its doors.

Still, a concert in West Hartford shouldn’t need a Jewish building in order to go on. When threats decide who performs in our shared spaces, our whole town loses.

So let’s fill the hall. Bring a neighbor. A full house tells the musicians and the club that West Hartford doesn’t give a veto to people who make threats. Tickets are on Eventbrite.

Joyce Kamanitz, M.D.
West Hartford