Coercion

[Dick Rosenberg <mashke...>]

I'm not sure whether to even submit this anecdote to the list, but in my mind 
at least it's related to the Kol Isha thread and the outrage, hurt, etc. voiced 
by many of the female members of this list. And whenever the Kol Isha thread 
comes up I am reminded of it.

Also I am not suggesting that my personal outrage and hurt is in any way equal 
to the feelings expressed by the people affected by Kol Isha. Compared to their 
experience mine was trivial, but the incident happened and therefore I will 
report it.

I was contacted to sub for the regular woodwind player at a summer gig by a 
Jewish band given on the town green in a town in suburban Boston last summer. 
Obviously I looked forward to the gig with great anticipation. A day or 2 
before the gig the leader of the band called me and told me it had been 
postponed because someone had called the Park and Rec department and told them 
they shouldn't schedule a Jewish music performance "because it was a period of 
sadness for the Jewish people".

For me, the postponement meant that the regular player was available and so I 
lost out. (Whether the band leader should have used me for the rescheduled gig 
is irrelevant)

It was not a period of great sadness for me, for the leader or any of the 
members of the band that contacted me, or probably for 99-100% of the people 
who would have turned out. To me it was an example of a small faction imposing 
their religious interpretations on the larger community (both Jewish and 
non-Jewish), whether that community wanted the interpretations imposed on them 
or not.

I see parallels between that incident and some of the Kol Isha posts.

Dick Rosenberg