Re: Fwd: Re: Passion Plays and Jewish Music

[Allen Davis <adavis...>]

The story of the crucifixion itself is not available to us -- what we have 
is the story as related in the later writings, known as the "New 
Testament", and that story is anti-semitic, especially in John . For many 
reasons -- some of them political, as the Christian Jews struggled to 
survive under unbelievably brutal Roman rule -- the story as it was 
filtered through the fog of decades and political expediency replaced Roman 
responsibility with Jewish responsibility for the "deicide". That is the 
story as it was written and as it became gospel -- no need to modify or 
mine it it to make it anti-semitic. It's right there.

The centrality of the crucifixion itself  in Christian theology, while not 
"anti-semitic", is opposed at its core to the Jewish way of being and 
relating to divinity. By focusing on that part of the story, Christianity 
became a cult of death, violence, and innate depravity, and Judaism became 
the perfect foil, the "negative other" that served murderers in the name of 
God very well for two thousand years, and counting.

Allen
adavis (at) softwarejobs(dot)com


At 03:59 PM 6/18/02 -0500, you wrote:

>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
>
>
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>
>                       Allen 
> Davis 
>
>                       <adavis (at) softwarejob        To:       World music 
> from a Jewish slant
>                       s.com> 
> <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
>                       Sent 
> by:                   cc: 
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>                       owner-jewish-music@        Subject:  Fwd: Re: 
> Passion Plays and Jewish Music
>                       shamash.org 
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>                       06/18/2002 07:03 
> PM
>                       Please respond 
> to
>                       jewish-music 
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>       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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