New Zealand Schools Edit Out Any Mention Of Israel In Production Of ‘Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’

This has to be some bizarre form of cultural appropriation. Calling the culture police!

(Oh wait – I forgot. This story is important to Jews and Christians. Progressive jackholes aren’t going to care about that.)

According to this, a group of schools in Wellington, New Zealand, are about to put on a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Even if you’ve never seen the play, you probably know that the play is based on the Old Testament story of Joseph in Egypt and details a key part of Judeo-Christian history and theology.

But because many of the lyrics in the play make mention of Israel (as in “the Children of Israel”), and the schools don’t want to offend anyone, they’ve edited the phrase to instead be “Children of Kindness” –

A group of schools in New Zealand’s capital city has changed the lyrics of “Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat,” replacing the phrase “Children of Israel” with the meaningless moniker “Children of Kindness.” In a play commemorating biblical-era Israelites, the Wellington schools attempted to rewrite history and strip the Jewish people of their ancestral legacy and link to the land of Israel.

Wait – does that mean they renamed Joseph’s father “Kindness” in the play instead of his literal God-given name of “Israel”? How in the name of sanity does that EVEN make sense?

(Anyone else find it strange that we can have a musical celebrating abortion, but not one that makes mention of “Israel”?)

But the best part of this? Sir Tim Rice, the lyricist who worked with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the original script back in the 1960s, is going BALLISTIC on the liberties the producers of this play have taken with the words he originally wrote –

@WgtnCC Please explain Joseph lyric change: “children of Israel” to “children of kindness”. Permission not given. Tim Rice. @Kate_DowlingNZ

— Sir Tim Rice (@SirTimRice) June 16, 2017

The Wellington City Council subsequently responded to Rice’s tweet –

A community coordinator made an error in judgement which we will rectify before the schoolkids perform in Sept. Sorry, we love your work.

— Wgtn City Council (@WgtnCC) June 16, 2017

Many thanks. I greatly appreciate your generous and speedy correction. TR

— Sir Tim Rice (@SirTimRice) June 16, 2017

Speaking to an audience in the UK, Rice further elaborated his stance on the subject –

He said: “They were doing the Joseph songs and they changed Close Every Door, the last line ‘Children of Israel are never alone’, they changed it to ‘children of kindness are never alone’, which was obviously being politically correct or something.
“[They] interpreted the song completely wrongly, and what a rotten thing. And I only heard about it because someone tweeted me and said ‘did you approve this change?’
“I said I did not approve it and I hadn’t heard about it. It was quite a big thing, it was for all schools in the Wellington area in New Zealand.”

He also said it was stupid to think that the play was about the Israel-Palestine conflict, rather than an ancient story from the Bible –

He added: “We came down on them like a ton of bricks and they said […] we wanted to make it easier for the children. I thought the point of teaching was to teach children to cope with hard things in life. This was moronic.”
He added: “I mean Joseph is an innocent story straight from the Bible and these people in New Zealand thought we were making statements about Israel and Palestine – bonkers.”

Here’s what I don’t get (which is true of a lot of idiotic progressive crap that happens these days) – “Israel” has been a term in world history and Judeo-Christian theology for thousands and thousands of years. Even before there was a Jewish state in the Middle East, Israel has been widely referred to in religious terms. I’ve known about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph in Egypt, and the Twelve Tribes of Israel since I was barely a toddler. Granted, my understanding of the significance of that history has grown substantially as I’ve gotten older. By the time I finally saw a production of Joseph, I knew the story already. And it has nothing to do with any modern-day political situation AT ALL.

Soooo… what were these Wellington schools thinking? That they might have a Muslim in the audience that freaks out at the mere mention of the word “Israel”? Or some other holier-than-thou progressive jackhole with a “Free Palestine” t-shirt coming to disrupt the play?

Honestly, I’m glad that they got slammed down by one of the original creators of the play. They might not want to acknowledge any kind of religious or political significance of Israel, but getting threatened with a copyright lawsuit – yeah, that has some clout behind it.

On religious, cultural, artistic, and even legal grounds, this is all kinds of screwed-up and I’m happy they were called out on it.