Howard Jacobson: Habima blockade is 'McCarthyism' The company, Habima, has been invited to stage a Hebrew version of The Merchant of Venice in London as part of the Globe theatre's World Shakespeare Festival. The invitation prompted an open letter of protest from 37 figures in the theatre world, including Emma Thompson, the actress, Mike Leigh, the director, and Mark Rylance, former artistic director of the Globe. They claimed that Habima had a "shameful record" of performing in illegal Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory. By inviting the company to attend, the letter said, the Globe was "complicit with human rights violations and the illegal colonisation of occupied land." Jacobson, the Jewish author who won the 2010 Man Booker Prize for The Finkler Question, said artists should never be in favour of censorship. He described the letter - published in The Guardian - as "Kafkaesque" in its reasoning. But the laughter dies in our throats. With last week's letter to the Guardian, Mccarthyism came to Britain," Jacobson wrote in a Sunday newspaper. If there is one justification for art - for its creation and its performance - it is that art proceeds from and addresses our unaligned humanity. Whoever would go to art with a mind already made up, on any subject, misses what art is for. So to censor it in the name of a political or religious conviction, no matter how sincerely held, is to tear out its very heart. For artists themselves to do such a thing to art is not only treasonable; it is an act of self-harm. Jacobson is the latest of several figures from the art world to denounce the letter. Steven Berkoff called it "dangerous rubbish" and Maureen Lipman urged the signatories to "have a debate like mature people" instead of calling for a ban, adding: "I don't notice them trying to ban Israeli inventions which are changing the world." The Globe said that the production of The Merchant In Venice will go ahead as planned in May.