The producer of Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ has claimed that Roger Waters exhibited anti-Semitic behaviour towards band’s agent.
It comes as a new documentary, The Dark Side of Roger Waters, explores allegations of antisemitism against the Pink Floyd co-founder.
Producer Bob Ezrin in a new online documentary created by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (CAA), claims that he once heard Waters call the band’s agent, Bryan Morrison, a “fucking Jew” during a ditty.
Ezrin claimed: “Something like the last line of the couplet was ’cause Morry is a fucking Jew’. It was my first inclination that there may be some anti-Semitism under the surface. Now Roger knew that I’m Jewish so I didn’t know whether this was another one of those sort of button-poking things that he was doing just to see if I would react or whether he just did not even get how offensive that might be to a Jewish person.”
Elsewhere, saxophonist Norbert Stachel who played for Waters recalled the musician angrily rejecting food in a restaurant that he allegedly deemed “Jew food”.
Stachel alleged Waters said: “This is Jew food. What’s with the Jew food? Take away the Jew food.” Stachel continued: : I’m just sitting there, oh boy, tongue-tied again and kind of in a panic because I don’t know what to do. Am I supposed to leave and then be judged?”
He went on to claim Waters mocked his family, some of were killed in the Holocaust, by mimicking them. He explained: “He tried to go into character as a babushka and he puts on this impression of an old hag,” Stachel claimed. “He tries to portray a Polish Jewish peasant woman’s voice,” he says adding that Waters said: “I’ll introduce you to your dead grandmother.”
A clip from the documentary can be viewed here:
Documentary makers also claim Waters proposed to use anti-Semitic language on a prop during one of his stage shows. After a lighting director of the show, who was Jewish, protested, Waters allegedly removed one of the slurs.
Ezrin added: “Do I think he considers himself to be an anti-Semite? I’ll bet you dollars for doughnuts he does not and he will be the first person to say: ‘I’m not anti anything, I am in favour of everyone.’ But as a person with a powerful public platform he has a responsibility to understand that what he does affects other people.”
Gideon Falter, the chief executive of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, said in a statement: “Roger Waters is literally a rock star. He could do anything. He’s got this platform which allows him to influence tens of thousands of people at his concerts, millions of people via social media, and yet he keeps using it for this — to push the buttons of Jews, to bait Jews, to keep on coming back to Jews. What kind of a person does that with that kind of a voice?”
The documentary makers put their findings to Waters but he reportedly did not respond. NME has reached out to representatives of Waters for comment on all the allegations outlined above, but they are yet to respond.
Back in June, the US State Department criticised Waters over a show in Berlin, describing it as “deeply offensive to Jewish people”.
In May, Waters appeared on stage at his show wearing a black trench coat with a swastika-like emblem during a segment that revolved around a character from Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’, who imagines himself as a fictional fascist dictator during a hallucination.
The musician claimed that the segment was a statement against fascism, injustice and bigotry and called criticism of it “disingenuous and politically motivated”.
US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, Deborah Lipstadt, called the concert “Holocaust distortion” and amplified a tweet denouncing Waters by the European Commission’s coordinator on combating anti-semitism.
According to Reuters, the State Department supported Lipstadt’s comment and added that Waters’ Berlin concert “contained imagery that is deeply offensive to Jewish people and minimized the Holocaust,” in an email.
The department went on to add: “The artist in question has a long track record of using antisemitic tropes to denigrate Jewish people.”
Waters has faced significant backlash following the show in Berlin. During a show on May 31 in Birmingham, he went on a rant about how “pissed off” he was at “the anti-Semitism bullshit” surrounding him over the last month and claimed that critics are trying to cancel him “like they cancelled Jeremy Corbyn and Julian Assange”.
Waters has repeatedly denied all accusations of anti-semitism and explained that his disdain is towards Israel, not Judaism. He also accused Israel of “abusing the term anti-semitism to intimidate people like me into silence”.
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