Re: Edward Said, Daniel BArenboim

[Alex J. Lubet <lubet001...>]

First, I find it disturbing when anyone characterizes anything that is obviously
meaningful to someone else as a "nonissue".  If it is a matter of concern to
someone, and in particular that is of concern to many, it is by definition an
issue.

Why the New York Times' non-coverage of Jewish music is a nonissue and listers'
concern over same "flailing" is beyond me.  Since the person responsible for
these comments provided no reason, I assume that person has no reason.  That
same person jumps into the Kol Isha debate feetfirst every time it gets raised
on this list.  Surely, many have done most of us have strong feelings on this
issue -- and mine happen to be on the side of women's rights -- by bringing it
up f or sustaining it or the zillionth time on this list constitutes "flailing"
of the first order.

On the other hand, New York is one of the world's capitals of Jewish culture and
only this morning National Public Radio's Morning Edition refer to the New York
Times as "the world's most prestigious newspaper".  If, under those
circumstances, it doesn't cover Jewish culture and this affects deeply to many
contributors on this list for whom that matters greatly in their everyday lives
and even their livings, it's hardly a "nonissue" and it's somewhere in the
neighborhood of insensitive to claim that it is.

As for Wagner in Israel, I am reminded here that one of the things that has
caused the collapse of the prestige of the humanities within the field of
scholarship is the manner in which so-called "scholars" report only the evidence
which supports their case, often while fully knowledgeable but there's plenty
out there that doesn't.  While this is not an academic forum, something that is
at times painfully obvious, we would do well to weigh all available evidence
whenever possible.  It is not my intent to imply any malicious intent on the
part of the lister who claims Wagner in Israel is a nonissue, but that's simply
not the case.

Much of the controversy that has always surrounded Wagner in Israel has concern
whether or not that country's most prestigious musical institution plays that
repertoire.  To this day, it has only done so in surreptitiously offered
"encores", which had aroused plenty of protest and debate.  There was a similar
to do when the Berlin Philharmonic, under Daniel Barenboim, played the Prelude
to Wagner's Tristan und Isolde while appearing in Israel.  I'm also just about
100% positive there's never been a Wagner opera staged in Israel and until that
happens, one can hardly claim it to be a nonissue.  That Wagner is available in
recorded and broadcast media merely proves that it's an unsettled controversy
and that Israel is a country where freedom of expression flourishes.

As a somewhat personal aside, in the 90's , Dr. Gottfried Wagner was invited to
give a lecture tour in Israel.  Despite the fact that he has devoted his life to
humanitarian causes, human rights, and in particular exposing his family's Nazi
past, at great personal cost, the fact that he is the composer's great-grandson
(also the great great-grandson of Franz Liszt) meant that required an act of
Knesset to grant him permission to enter the country.  That's more than a little
disturbing.

If this is what Wagner in Israel a nonissue, I wonder what it takes to make
something an issue.  By the way, I'm currently co-editing a book on Wagner with,
among others, Dr. Gottfried Wagner.  I know a little about this.

You might also be interested in knowing that Dr. Wagner's doctorate is in
musicology from the university and that he wrote his dissertation on Kurt Weill,
a rather strongly Jewishly-identified composer, further evidence of where his
heart and soul is.  That there would be even a second thought to keeping such a
man out of Israel simply because of his ancestry is a bit chilling.  Once he
arrived on his lecture tour, it was standing room only and wonderfully received.

Minnesota's greatest Jewish musician, Bob Dylan, once sang "Don't criticize what
you can't understand."  I would add to that one shouldn't criticize what one
chooses not to understand or to understand fully.  But also try not to get nasty
when people are trying to speak their minds about matters that are deservedly of
great concern. But I guess I'm just flailing.

Shana Tova,



givas (at) comcast(dot)net wrote:

> Dear Prof. Lubert
> The ongoing discussion re Richard Wagner and performances in Israel is
> really a non-issue.  When I went to the Tower Record Shop on Hillel Street
> in Jerusalem this past June, they stocked no music written by Israeli
> composers.  However, they had a whole section of music conducted by Herbert
> von Karajan who joined the Austrian Nazi party in 1933 and the German Nazi
> Party in 1939.  One of their best selling recordings is Carmina Burana by
> Carl Orff who was Dr. Goebbels favorite living composers.  When I was in the
> Opera House in Tel Aviv and visited the record shops, they did not have a
> recording of the opera commissioned  to open the opera, 'Joseph' by a
> composer named Joseph Tal.  However they had all the recorded operas of
> Richard Wagner and the best seller was Tristan and Isolde conducted by
> Furtwangler and sung by Flagstad... Sincerely  Ed Eisen
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alex J. Lubet" <lubet001 (at) umn(dot)edu>
> To: "World music from a Jewish slant" <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
> Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 8:32 AM
> Subject: Re: Edward Said, Daniel BArenboim
>
> > What makes their coverage of Jewish music a 'non-issue'?  What makes this
> > thread 'flailing'?
> >
> > BTW, among those of us who do work around Wagner's anti-Semitism,
> Barenboim
> > has quite a reputation as an apologist.  In Israel (according to Naama
> > Sheffi, an Israeli historian who has an essay on Wagner in Israel in the
> book
> > I'm editing), he has a reputation for making a larger claim of Israeli
> > identity than he deserves and using it only to criticize Israel in ways
> that
> > even a leftist like my colleague Naama find disturbing.  I don't suppose
> this
> > negates this project with Said (there have been others), but it goes on
> the
> > balance with everything else, a lot of which doesn't provoke the senses in
> a
> > positive way.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Judith R Cohen wrote:
> >
> > > Speaking of the New York Times (and truly, I think their coverage or
> > > non-coverage of Jewish music is pretty much a non-issue, though I expect
> > > it will be flailed about here for a while); anyway, speaking of the NYT,
> > > their obit of Edward Said
> > > http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/25/obituaries/25CND-SAID.html?hp
> > >
> > > - like other obituaries I've seen so far - omits his  recent (1999)
> > > collaboration with Daniel Barenboim, creating an orchestra , The East
> > > West Divan, of talented young Israeli and Arab musicians. It was based
> > > in Seville this past year,  and received a lot of very POSITIVE
> > > attention in the Spansh press, in fact won the prestifious Prince of
> > > Asturias prize, at a time when coverage of anything Jewish was anything
> > > but positive. So, whatever else one feels about his writings and
> > > activities, I think this work with Barenboim was fantastic.
> > > among other places, read Barenboim and Said's comments at:
> > >
> http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/2003-September/010061.html
> > >
> > > Judith
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Alex Lubet, Ph. D.
> > Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music and Jewish Studies
> > Adjunct Professor of American Studies
> > University of Minnesota
> > 2106 4th St. S
> > Minneapolis, MN 55455
> > 612 624-7840 612 624-8001 (fax)
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

--
Alex Lubet, Ph. D.
Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music and Jewish Studies
Adjunct Professor of American Studies
University of Minnesota
2106 4th St. S
Minneapolis, MN 55455
612 624-7840 612 624-8001 (fax)


---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+