(JTA) — A man shouted “Heil Hitler, Heil Trump” from the balcony during intermission of a performance of “Fiddler on the Roof” in Baltimore, causing some in the audience to run out in panic.
The audience Wednesday night at the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore believed that the incident was the start of an attack, the Baltimore Sun reported. Audience member Rich Scherr, who works for the Sun, told the newspaper that he “was waiting to hear a gunshot.” He said he had trouble concentrating on the second half of the show.
“Fiddler on the Roof” is the story of a Jewish family facing persecution in tsarist Russia and is based on Yiddish short stories by Sholem Aleichem.
Security police escorted the man out of the theater. He reportedly was not arrested.
“We apologize to those patrons who were affected by this unfortunate incident. Our venue has a proud tradition of providing shared experiences to people from all walks of life, right in the heart of this wonderfully diverse city, and we intend to continue that tradition in the spirit of bringing people together, not dividing them,” Hippodrome officials said in a statement.
Howard Libit, executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council, told the newspaper that it was equivalent to shouting “‘fire’ in a theater, or shouting ‘bomb.’”
The newspaper noted that the incident took place three weeks after the attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 worshippers dead.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
