NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: A Broadway theater producer became the latest New Yorker to be caught red-handed on camera while tearing down fliers of civilians in Israel kidnapped by the Palestine militant group.
In a video shared online by neighborhood blog I Love the Upper West Side, James L Simon, who co-produced the 2022 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s 'Death of a Salesman', was seen at West 62nd Street and Broadway using scissors to remove a poster featuring one of the roughly 200 hostages taken by Hamas during its October 7 surprise attack on Israel.
The emotionless man then crumpled up the flier, which had been taped to a traffic sensor box in the heavily Jewish neighborhood, before throwing it into a garbage can and silently walking off.
What did Broadway producer Adam Epstein say?
“You’re going to a dark and devious place if you’ve come to a place where you’re ripping posters off the wall of Israeli hostages, of innocent people, held captive by terrorists,” former Broadway producer Adam Epstein, who hosts the podcast 'Dirty Moderate', told the New York Post.
Why did James L Simon rip off the posters?
Simon, who has also produced Broadway revivals of 'Pippin' and 'Bells Are Ringing', told the outlet that he took down the fliers solely for the intention of keeping the city's streets clean and not for any antisemitic reasons and also apologized for offending anyone.
“I’m a strong supporter of free speech and encourage people to express their opinions, but all I’m asking is to do it legally,” he said, citing city Sanitation Department rules.
Couple taken to task for ripping up posters of Israeli child hostages
Meaww previously reported that the two vandals in New York City who were confronted in a viral video for tearing down posters of Israeli child hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 have now been identified.
In the video, Brooklyn 'magician' Noah Schaffer and his wife Kelly Ann, a city social worker and teacher, were seen being confronted by an unnamed Jewish woman after tearing down another set of posters.
They are believed to be part of a wider group of pro-Palestine activists taking it upon themselves to take down the posters in New York and other western cities.
The video begins with the unnamed Jewish woman approaching the couple to try to snatch away the posters that were already torn down by the couple, reprimanding them for their actions.
Kelly remained silent, clutching the posters in her hand. Her husband Noah then laughed at the Jewish woman who had confronted them, saying, “We don't consent to you recording us,” and promptly walked away.
