RE: Klezmer in Lederhosen

[eliott kahn <elkahn...>]

Busy day. I'll be brief.

One lesson I've learned in my 47 years on this planet is this: It's easy to 
be liberal when you send your children to private schools.

I've read far too much--in German and English--and met too many holocaust 
survivors to attempt to be rational about this issue. It's easy to be 
rational when you have little emotional involvement with something. (Think 
about that ex-spouse. Had any pleasant, rational conversations lately?)

My impression is that--like it or not--we Jews and the German people will 
be inextricably linked together for quite some time. The fact of the matter 
is, there's no complete history of Germany without the Jew. You would need 
to eliminate the achievements of Freud, Schoenberg, and Mahler from Vienna, 
and the accomplishments of Moses and Felix Mendelsohn, Martin Buber, Franz 
Rosenzweig, Bruno Walter, Joseph Joachim, Heinrich Heine, Fritz Lang, 
Jaques Offenbach, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Albert Einstein,  Kurt Weill, Max 
Reinhardt, etc. from Germany.

German history also remains incomplete until the Germans can answer this 
question: what was the sickness in their culture and ethical mindset that 
could have either permitted or effected not just the extinction of this 
vibrant German-Jewish culture but, also, the slaughter of six million Jews 
throughout Europe and Russia? You simply can't kill six million civilians 
over a six year period and not have worked hard at it.

We have an excellent Jewish musicologist who does research here. Her Hebrew 
is far better than mine and her knowledge is comparable. She happens to be 
German. I believe with all my heart that she is a fine person whose heart 
is in the right place. And--I might add--she is far less prejudiced than I.

But I always remind her: Vos geveyn iz geveyn. And I emphasize adamantly, 
what once was shall or should not exist again. I find it bitterly ironic 
that after the Nazis made Germany and Poland "Judenrein," there is an 
interest by German non-Jews to resurrect our culture and history. But the 
question remains, would they really want to resurrect US? You know those 
cantankerous, argumentative people--like the ones on this list-- who 
streamed into their cities doing retail, banking, creating lewd cabaret and 
shocking new musical and artistic works. Not too mention smoking cigars and 
wearing white shoes with black socks.

Recent reforms in Germany which I believe will grant citizenship not along 
ethnic lines, as well as the powerful Holocaust memorial now underway in 
Berlin (despite a vocal opposition to it) show that the Germans are truly 
becoming a very Democratic people as well as a great friend and ally to the 
Americans.

But, for me at least, it's still too easy to hear my friend Heddy's voice 
in my ear describing her dad's deportation from southern France to Drancy 
and from there to Auschwitz. Perhaps we American Jews could be a tad less 
"rational" about our European and Russian brethren who were so brutally 
murdered,  and really listen to the stories that survivors and their 
offspring have to tell. That is OUR history.

I have little doubt that the Holocaust will lose its efficacy to shock and 
disgust in a few generations. But while we, the second and third generation 
of Jews removed from it, are still alive, shouldn't we try our best to 
honor these people, and not build shiny, new houses on top of their 
graveyards? (How's that for an image, Wolf?)

Gut Shabbes, y'all,

Eliott Kahn




At 09:54 AM 2/25/00 -0600, you wrote:


> >We should know better from experience, from also being an oppressed
>minority.
>
>Absolutely true.  It is so important to remember that in our discussions.
>Sometimes we refer to the *people*, when really what we intend is to take
>issue with their music.  I have a hard time with some of the generalizations
>I am reading in these discussions.  Please keep in mind that it only takes
>one exception to disprove a rule.  And often there is one.  For *example*, I
>know several German non-Jews who are some of the most open-hearted people,
>ready to learn about Jewish culture, belief, and experience.  Yes, I know
>that there are the others as well.  But we must give individuals a chance,
>just as we always hope that others will do for us.  (Are we all guilty until
>proven innocent?)  We may not initially understand them, and they us, but
>this makes our efforts all the more crucial.
>
>-Katherine
>

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