The Disney Channel must reverse its replacement of the word “Jerusalem” with “Holy Land” in a Passover production, which denies the Jewish People’s yearning to return to their eternal capital for 2,000 years.
In a Disney Channel program last week devoted to Passover, the network replaced the festive meal’s key declaration “Next Year in Jerusalem” with the phrase “Next Year in the Holy Land.”
For thousands of years, Jews have concluded their Passover seder meals with a reference to Jerusalem, an expression of yearning to return to the Jewish People’s eternal capital.
In what many feel was an attempt to avoid offending people who deny the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, Disney removed replaced “Jerusalem” with “Holy Land.”
B’nai B’rith International posted a screenshot online commenting, “This is a deliberate negation of Jerusalem as the eternal Jewish capital. We call for the #disneychannel PSA to accurately depict this sacred Jewish custom related to our holiest city.”
The Algemeiner reported that the Zioness Movement deemed the alteration “utterly outrageous,” and Todd Richman, co-chair of Democratic Majority for Israel, said on Twitter, “@DisneyChannel for 2,000 years Jews at the Passover Seder have said ‘next year in Jerusalem!’ And now you decide to change it after a couple of thousand years? You sure about that?”
“[One] social media user said that the change was ‘sad because this means Disney considers erasure of Jewish history as a way of being inclusive,’ adding that ‘this is disgusting and Disney should fix it immediately,’” The Algemeiner added.
“There is no way that this wasn’t deliberate. ‘Next Year in Jerusalem’ is an iconic phrase and the most well-known saying from the Seder. ‘Next Year in the Holy Land’ is clunky sounding,” noted the popular blogger Elder of Ziyon.
He continued, “One can only guess that someone at Disney felt that the phrase ‘Next Year in Jerusalem’ was potentially offensive to some segments of the audience – perhaps thinking that mentioning Jerusalem would be a political statement, or too much a reminder of Donald Trump moving the embassy there, or something that Muslims would object to,” the blogger said.
“And the feelings of Jews being offended that a huge multinational corporation decided to sacrifice a basic tenet of the faith on the altar of some perceived political correctness are, as usual, ignored,” he added.
Disney must correct its error and commit to telling the truth about Jewish tradition!
Compose your own message or use the following template: To Whom It May Concern, I am writing to protest your network’s removal of the word “Jerusalem” in your program on the Passover holiday. Jerusalem is the Jewish people’s eternal home, it is the capital of the State of Israel, and yearning for return to it has been a central component of the Passover seder for thousands of years. I demand that Disney issue a statement correcting its removal of the word “Jerusalem” from its program about Passover.
1. Send the Disney Channel a message on Facebook.
2. Send the Disney Channel a message on Twitter.
3. Send the Disney Channel on its website.
