Broadway producer James L. Simon tears down Israeli hostage flier in NYCBy Jon Levine and Matthew Sedacca
Published Oct. 28, 2023, 12:07 p.m. ET
A Broadway theater producer is the latest New Yorker to be caught on film brazenly tearing down fliers of civilians in Israel kidnapped by Hamas terrorists, The Post has learned.
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,” is 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 Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel.
The stone-faced Simon then crumpled up the flier, which had been taped to a traffic sensor box in the heavily Jewish neighborhood, before chucking it into a garbage can and silently walking off, the footage showed.
“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 Post.
Simon, who has also produced Broadway revivals of “Pippin” and “Bells Are Ringing,” told The Post he took down the fliers for the purpose of keeping the city’s streets clean, not for antisemitic reasons, and 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.
Videos of New Yorkers ripping down similar kidnap posters around the city have surfaced, putting on blast a New York University student, teens on the Upper East Side, and Brooklyn husband-wife couple.
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Originally Posted by Kathianne
