One of the British stars of the Tony-nominated show “Giant” is battling antisemitism in art and in life — and he has a dire warning for New Yorkers.
Elliot Levey plays Jewish publisher Tom Maschler opposite John Lithgow’s Roald Dahl in the critically acclaimed Broadway hit, a drama about the famous children’s author’s antisemitism.
The show originated in London where Levey lives with his family.
There, the actor would have to dodge mobs of rabid anti-Israel protesters waving Palestinian flags and keffiyehs every Saturday on his way to the West End theatre where the show was staged.
“[There were] thousands calling to globalize the intifada, which means to kill Jews around the world,” Levey, a self-proclaimed “proud Jew,” told The Post.
“New York is the safest place for Jews on the planet,” he said.
It got so bad in London that Levey, a 52-year-old who was raised Orthodox and is now a secular Jew, would opt to bike to work from his home in the suburb of Muswell Hill just to avoid the Tube-bound, keffiyeh-wearing mobs pre-show.
The Leeds native, who was once the only Jew in school, mourns for his mother country, where the Jewish population is “dwindling.”
“It’s a numbers game – here you’re safe. You have numbers,” said the married father-of-three, noting that there’s just an “insignificant rump” of Anglo Jewry left in Britain.
According to the UK’s 2021 census, less than 300,000 people in the country identified as Jewish.
In the UK, antisemitism has struck too close to home.
Last year, his 21-year-old son, Jacob, was called a “f–king Jew” for wearing a Star of David necklace on a “posh” London street.
In April, the synagogue in north London where his oldest son, Samuel, was bar mitzvahed – Finchley Reform Synagogue – was targeted in an attempted firebomb. Thankfully, the molotov cocktail failed to ignite.
Levey is especially concerned after last week’s council elections in England saw gains for the far-left Green Party, which has targeted Muslim voters and been accused of “Islamofascism.”
“Once there’s Islamofascism in power, then it’s time to quake,” he said. “People on the campaign openly call[ed] for the destruction of Jews [and celebrated Oct. 7, 2023] … People not just liked those posts, but wrote those posts.”
In late April, two Green party candidates were arrested “on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred online,” according to Metropolitan Police. One reportedly shared images that included an armed man in a Hamas headband with the slogan “resistance is freedom” and another posted video claiming that an attack on a synagogue was “revenge” and “not antisemitism.” (A Green party spokesman said the posts did not reflect the party’s views.)
“The people have resurrected the blood libel,” The Oxford-educated actor said. “It’s alive and well in the voting booths and across the country.”
After the savage stabbings of two Orthodox men in a heavily Jewish north London Golders Green neighborhood last month, Green Party leader Zack Polanski posted to social media criticizing arresting officers for their treatment of a suspect. After criticism, he apologized for writing the post “in haste.”
“The UK is in trouble, and we know what happens to countries in decline,” Levey said, alluding to a financially ailing post-WWI Germany that set the stage as a precursor to the rise of Hitler.
Just like some extreme factions believed Americans “had 9/11 coming. In the UK, despite the pieties, people do not care about the persecution of British Jews,” the actor asserted. “There’s a genuine feeling we had it coming.”
He cautions Jews in New York to protect the relative haven they have here.
“Don’t let it go. Look after it,” he said. “You have this magic city. You’re safe and proud and confident. You can live a full open American life.”
“New York is the safest place for Jews on the planet,
Without calling out any American politician by name, the 2025 Olivier Award winner said he’s wary of “slick American politicians” but “you guys like your slick suits and smiley faces.”
He quotes the great thinker and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi who said, “Be careful of charisma. It’s lethal.”
In the play, Levey’s character, Tom, is asked rhetorically, “If they came for you again, where would you go?”
Tom replies, “Provence,” a line that draws huge laughs.
But the question is hardly theoretical for the actor who said industry friends have been swept up in “the barrage of Hamas propaganda.”
Rather than head to the south of France, Levey said that if “it all goes to shit,” he’d move his family to New York for good.
“America is still in its pomp, in your heyday,” said Levey, whose grandparents survived Eastern European pogroms before emigrating to England. “America is still Zion, the city on the hill.”
