David Hare's latest play is 'anti-Semitic'

AS a close friend of Tony Blair, the Labour Party's former chief fundraiser, Lord Levy, was drawn into the tortured politics of the Middle East, the row over the £1m donation to the party by Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone and arrested during the cash-for-honours investigation.

On stepping out of the public eye, he was probably hoping for a quieter life, but yesterday he was embroiled in yet another bitter row, this time over anti-Semitism. A new play by Sir David Hare has a character with striking similarities to the peer. And one of Britain's leading rabbis has declared the character to be so steeped in stereotypes about Jewish people that it is "worse than Fagin".

That Sir David's wife, the fashion designer Nicole Farhi, is Jewish, has not prevented Lord Levy's rabbi from raising concerns that the portrayal is part of a growing public acceptance of anti-Semitic views in the UK and across Europe.

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Like Lord Levy, the character of Otto Fallon in Sir David's Gethsemane, which is being shown at the National Theatre in London, is a wealthy businessman, a friend of the prime minister and a party fundraiser. He was also once a music impresario and he and the fictional prime minister play squash together, rather than the tennis enjoyed by Lord Levy and Mr Blair.

Sir David insists the play is "pure fiction", but Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet, of Mill Hill United Synagogue, said people who had seen the play – Jews and non-Jews – had told him of their shock. "The character is portrayed with all the stereotypes associated with a Jew in terms of his association with money and everything else," he said, after admitting he has not seen the play. "That's certainly the way a number of Jews and non-Jews have walked away from this play. If there is truth in the way the portrayal is being conveyed to me, then obviously I would question the sensitivities, the mindset, of those who see that but are still entertained. It's the portrayal of a figure very much like Fagin, but worse."

Asked about the fact Sir David's wife is Jewish, Rabbi Schochet, whose mother survived the Holocaust by going into hiding in the Netherlands, said: "It would certainly be that much more surprising if she [Farhi] was someone who identified strongly with Judaism, but sometimes we are our own worst enemies."

He said Lord Levy had not spoken to him about the play and added: "It's not about the fact that there is a character who is so obviously Lord Levy."

In a speech on Saturday to mark the 70th anniversary of Kristallacht, when a wave of violence broke out against Jews in Nazi Germany – Rabbi Schochet put forward what he regards as the pressing issue, warning Europe was seeing an "anti-Semitic undercurrent that is every bit as alive today as it was 70 years ago".

He added there seemed to be a particular problem in Europe. In August, his 18-year-old son, Motty, was walking home from the synagogue when someone, seeing what his father described as his overtly Jewish appearance, shouted "Auschwitz" at him. "That kind of remark is untypical in the US or Canada," he said. You'll get abuse but nothing specifically anti-Semitic".

A spokesman for the National Theatre vehemently denied any anti-Semitic intent; Sir David has refused to comment.