Some 1,000 Israelis, or more precisely only some 1,000 Israelis, turned out for the Oct. 27 demonstration in Tel Aviv against proposed legislation known as the "Loyalty in Culture" law.

The amendment to the Israeli law that regulates funding for theater and film productions, approved Oct. 21 by the government’s Ministerial Committee for Legislation, seeks to defund cultural institutions “undermining the state’s values and symbols.”

Leading Israeli theater and film personalities attended the protest, but the stars of Israel’s entertainment industry were glaringly absent. Maybe they find no fault with the economic sanctions the law would impose on theaters that stage plays casting doubts on Israel’s self-professed identity as both a Jewish and democratic state. Maybe they agree with the law’s sponsor, Minister of Culture and Sports Miri Regev, who argues that the taxpayer should not have to fund any play that gives off a whiff of incitement to racism or support for armed struggle and terrorism. Audiences certainly do not like texts that strike at the symbols of the state and its Independence Day, so why should leading song and entertainment figures get into a fight over the issue with the government funding committee?

Whereas the Nationality Law adopted this past summer (anchoring the Jewish nature of the State of Israel) strikes a blow to the soul of Israeli democracy, the cultural loyalty law shoots it directly in the heart. Repertory theater in Israel cannot survive without public funding. The new law hands control of this vital oxygen supply to a politician who prides herself on never having read Anton Chekhov.