A New Zealand production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat sponsored by a local council hasbeen forced to apologise to the famous lyricist Tim Rice after removing the word 'Israel' from the lyric to one of the songs.

The apology came after a Twitter user, Kate Dowling, noted on Friday that in the song 'Close Every Door,' the line 'Children of Israel' had been replaced with 'Children of kindness'.

Dowling sought clarification by using Twitter to write to the Wellington city council and to Rice, who is one half of the famed musical writing team, together with Andrew Lloyd Webber.

The changed lyric came as part of the New Zealand capital's Artsplash festival, in which 10,000 elementary school pupils take part. They distributed song sheets to those who were taking part with the changed lyric to what is one of the best known songs.

The change has led an eminent Jewish academic, Dr Irene Lancaster, to tell Christian Today that it represents an 'antisemitic agenda currently at play in the West'.

The musical tells the biblical story of Joseph and the Israelites leaving Canaan and going to Egypt. In both the biblical story and in the musical, the word 'Israel' does not refer to the country, but to Jacob, who was given a second name, and 'children of Israel' originally meant Joseph and his brothers.

Rice was unhappy at the 'unauthorised' change, tweeting: 'This is a totally unauthorised change of lyric by @WgtnCC. Plus it's a terribly drippy and meaningless alteration.'

He then tweeted to the Wellington City Council asking them to explain. 'Please explain Joseph lyric change: "children of Israel" to "children of kindness". Permission not given. Tim Rice.'

The Artsplash event is partially funded by the council, but a council spokesman, Richard MacLean told the New Zealand news website Stuff that the council had no involvement in the changes made to the lyric.

Meanwhile, the Artsplash co-ordinator Mary Prichard told Stuff that the organisers wanted to 'keep life simple' for primary school children.

'We always look to have music that covers and looks after kids from all countries, from all backgrounds,' Prichard said. 'It was decided that small change of one word would be made. It's obviously gone down like a lead balloon.'

On hearing that three of the 10 songs were being removed from the musical, Rice tweeted that either Artsplash should produce the whole show or none of it.

The council was quick to apologise for the change, saying that it will rectify the situation and ensure that all the original unadulterated songs are in the production. It added that the incident was caused by an error of judgement.

Stephen Goodman, the president of the New Zealand Jewish Council, said the incident was a case of 'people trying to be politically correct where it's unnecessary to be so'.

However, Lancaster told Christian Today: 'The decision to drop the word "Israel" from the phrase "children of Israel", a generic term which all Christians know refers to the Jewish people and not to the State of Israel itself is simply part of the antisemitic agenda currently in play in the West and particularly where the indigenous Jewish community is weak and falling in numbers.

'That a small country such as New Zealand, and part of the Commonwealth should do this at this time, is shocking and thank goodness that a very perceptive member of the public alerted Sir Tim Rice, who has been rightly shocked and angry and demanded that the words be reinstated. Not to mention how educationally damaging this is for the children at whom this musical is aimed.'

Subsequently, Prichard issued a full apology, replying to a Facebook user by saying: 'You have my complete assurance that this was an unintentional and innocent error on the part of one of my team, and I apologise for it. The person concerned, and myself for that matter, are religious people and would never consider intentionally doing anything racist or anti any religion.'

She added that she had run Artsplash for 30 years, stressing that she has 'always included children of all sorts of backgrounds including Jewish'.