Poster for play ‘Bad Jews’ banned from London Underground

A poster for a play with the provocative title “Bad Jews” has been banned from the London Underground for fear that it could cause “widespread offense.”

The critically acclaimed production is about a Jewish family that is forced to confront its demons by the death of its patriarch, a Holocaust survivor.

The poster showed four characters from the play fighting one another against a backdrop of quotes from positive critical reviews.

An earlier version of the poster, which used the same shot, was not taken down, despite receiving at least one complaint.

“The advert ‘Bad Jews’ was previously displayed on our network as our advertising contractor approved it without consulting us,” Transport for London, which administers the underground, said in a statement Friday.

“It was subsequently submitted for display again and has been rejected as it contravened our advertising policy, which states that adverts will not be approved if they may cause widespread or serious offense,” the statement said.

The new poster was issued ahead of the premiers of “Bad Jews” at London’s Arts Theater. Its previous run was in the city’s St. James Theater.

The play’s producer, Danny Moar, told the Evening Standard newspaper that “Bad Jews” “could not be less anti-Semitic.”

“Half the cast are Jewish, I’m Jewish, the writer [Joshua Harmon] is Jewish and the word ‘bad’ in the title, in so far as it matters, doesn’t mean ‘evil’ — it means ‘non-observant,’” Moar was quoted as saying.

He said the decision to ban the poster could hurt the show, although he predicted it wouldn’t “cripple” it.

“We want it to be seen by as many people as possible and we’re being prevented from trying to achieve that,” Moar reportedly said.

In a November 2, 2013, review of an American production of the play, Times of Israel critic Jordan Hoffman said “Bad Jews” was the “finest work about Jewish assimilation [he had] come across since Philip Roth’s 2004 novel ‘The Plot Against America.’”