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Re: Fwd: Re: Passion Plays and Jewish Music
- From: Fred Blumenthal <xd2fabl...>
- Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Passion Plays and Jewish Music
- Date: Tue 18 Jun 2002 21.03 (GMT)
We risk losing sight of the main point. Jesus was tortured to death by the
Romans for being, in their view, a Jewish leader. The Christian desire to
view him as a third of the Trinity contains a compliment to Judaism, even
if their view of the Moshiach, while derived from Judaism's, doesn't match
it. But the telling of the passion story in the gospels - especially the
Gospel of St. John - while written some centuries after Jesus' death, says
unkind things about the Jews, if viewed from a Christian perspective.
Pontius Pilate, the Roman-appointed ruler, offers to free either Jesus or
Barrabas. The crowd - Judeans, Jews, however you want to describe it -
decides to free Barrabas, and Pilate "washes his hands" of the whole
subject. The great irony is that Jesus was killed by the Romans - by
Europeans - by a Roman - not Jewish - form of execution, and forever
afterward Jews have been villified as "Christ killers." The problem isn't
that relating the story of Jesus' execution by the Romans is inherently
anti-Semitic. The problem is that when Europeans have related the story in
passion plays they've zeroed in on this one opportunity for anti-Semitism,
completely missing the lesson of "love" that real Christianity is supposed
to derive from the story. So if modern Jews are disinclined to cooperate
in the staging of passion plays it's more because of anti-Semitism that's
been inserted into the process than because of anti-Semitism inherent to
the story.
Fred Blumenthal
xd2fabl (at) us(dot)ibm(dot)com
Allen Davis
<adavis (at) softwarejob To: World music
from a Jewish slant
s.com> <jewish-music (at)
shamash(dot)org>
Sent by: cc:
owner-jewish-music@ Subject: Fwd: Re: Passion
Plays and Jewish Music
shamash.org
06/18/2002 07:03 PM
Please respond to
jewish-music
We all know how much healing is required, and music could have (and
has certainly already had) a role in building a "sacred bridge" for
today. But it seems to me that the Passion and its central symbol of
the cross and focus on the murder/suicide is by definition the wrong
place to start (choosing death and not life, human sacrifice, and the
way it came to embody the subsequent supersessionism and triumphalism
of the militant Church). The story emphasizes those aspects of the
Jesus story that are irredeemably counter to anything Jewish, then
and now. A pre-Passion story that emphasized Jesus' Jewishness, as
well as the Jewish context of his life story (including his
pilgrimage to the Temple) could be a more promising setting...
Allen
At 08:17 PM 6/18/02 +0200, you wrote:
I have been following this discussion and have found it
interesting and at times funny. However, I woud like to add
one element to the many responses. From my studies, it seems
to me that Christian anti-semitism arose only after Christians
disassociated Jesus from his Jewishness. Could it be that
these people mounting Passion Plays are looking for ways to
recognize the Jewish roots of the Christian faith once again?
And if so, would this not help in curving Christian
anti-semitism today. Obviously, one cannot take back all that
has been done in previous history (especially in regards to the
Deicide charge surrounding the Passion), yet something can be
done to brighten the future of Jewish-Christian relations. Is
it not our duty to use music as a tool in building a bridge
between our faiths?
I look forward to reading your thoughts on this subject.
Rebecca.
Helen Winkler <winklerh (at) hotmail(dot)com> a écrit :
Every so often I get calls from people mounting Passion
Plays, asking for my suggestions for which Jewish music
and dances they should use in their productions. I've
always been uncomfortable and unsure of how to answer.
This time I finally told them that I didn't think Jewish
music and dances belonged in a Passion Play due to the
history of Anti-Semitism associated with Passion Plays
and also because the music they want to use (Israeli and
Hasidic) doesn't make sense for Biblical times. Just
wondering if any others have had to deal with this kind
of thing before, and how have you addressed these issues.
Helen
Helen Winkler
Helen's Yiddish Dance Page
www.angelfire.com/ns/helenwinkler
Calgary Folkdance Fridays
www.cadvision.com/winklerj/cff.html
Yahoo! Mail -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en français !
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- Re: Passion Plays and Jewish Music, (continued)