[Fwd: JEWISH-MUSIC digest 611]

[Michael Singer <michael.singer...>]

jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org wrote:
> 
>                             JEWISH-MUSIC Digest 611
> .
> .
> .
> 
> Subject: Re: ATTENTION - The German thing...
> Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 08:05:32 -0700
> From: Musawwir Spiegel <musman (at) mother(dot)com>
> 
> >A musician friend once told me,  "the difficult thing about playing in
> >Germany is you never know
> >if the old guy in the back of the audience is the one that killed Grandpa."

        There are many thoughtful responses to this.

> 
> For us Jews to blame current day Germans for what their parents or
> grandparents did more than fifty years ago rests on the same kind logic as
> the Nazis espoused.  

        I think you're wrong about that.  We know that what the Germans did to
the Jews is objective historical truth.  The "logic" used by the Nazis
to justify persecution of the Jews was objectively false.  So it
wouldn't be the same thing at all, even if that's what we were doing.  

        As has been pointed out, many of those Germans (whether actual Nazis or
just their supporters) are still alive and a significant part of modern
German life, so I don't think we're blaming the children for the sins of
their parents here.

> I know that if I ever visited Germany or Austria I
> would be haunted by the vibrations of what happened there, but I wouldn't
> blame German people as a collective matter.
> .
> .
> .
        Some important questions are whether the same problems exist in the
national character as they did in the earlier part of the century, (and
I'd be very cautious about saying they don't.   Many historians, and the
Jews who lived there at the time, didn't and couldn't believe that what
happened could happen.  But it did.  Could it happen again?) and how are
the Jews of the time being treated?

        However, I don't think it's possible to go and to play music (even
nonJewish music) there now "as if nothing happened."  The act of playing
has a different significance now, even if the players aren't concious of
it;  in fact, anything we do sends a message, and music "how much more
so," and Klezmer, even more.

        Among the many powerful things "said" by playing there are:  

we won, we survived;  

we care more about beauty and truth (and the G-d given pleasure that
comes from the impulse to the dance) than our enemies;

we have friends among our enemies, and sometimes strike an emotional
resonance even in our enemies; 

and we have the courage to struggle (with fingerings and tunings and
electrical connectors and jet lag and our own imperfections) to do it.

        There is much more to be said.

--      

Michael Singer, 1-301-340-4674, FAX 1-301-340-4576 
Bass, The Capital Klezmers
GE Information Services, Inc.  mailto:michaels (at) is(dot)ge(dot)com
Statements & opinions expressed here are 
mine and don't reflect the views of GEIS.