According to The Baltimore Sun, people started running in the theater, fearing that the outburst was the beginning of a shooting. Rich Scheer, a writer in the Baltimore area, posted a video on social media showing audience members stunned after the incident."Sick, sad world, Scheer wrote on Twitter. "A man stands at intermission of tonight’s performance of Fiddler in Baltimore andyells, 'Heil Hitler,' along with pro-Trump references."According to the Sun, the man, yet to be identified, was escorted out of the theater several minutes later and the show continued. He was not arrested.Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote on Twitter Thursday about the incident that: "Just a few weeks after Pittsburgh and days after the FBI released 2017 hate crime data, yet another sign that these are not normal times."The act caused fear in the hall, mere weeks after a shooting targeting Jews at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, took 11 lives. The FBI reported last week that reports of hate crimes against Jews have increased by 37% in a single year, compelling the Justice Department to issue a statement that it is "particularly troubled" by the spike.The Anti-Defamation League, a private non-profit organization, reported similar findings in its annual audit of antisemitic incidents. Their records found an increase of 57% over the previous year, tracking the political rise of Donald Trump to the presidency and through his first year in office.A traveling production of the recent Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof is playing at the Hippodrome Theater in Baltimore this week. The beloved play and film, based on the works of Sholem Aleichem, tells the story of a Jewish family in czarist Russia forced to fleeantisemitic violence.Sick, sad world. A man stands at intermission of tonight’s performance of Fiddler in Baltimore and yells, “Heil Hitler,” along with pro-Trump references. pic.twitter.com/slDcPwF7re
— Rich Scherr (@writerguyRich) November 15, 2018