No Jews at Gramophone awards
NewsIt has been pointed out to us that the fading Gramophone magazine has, with incomparable sensitivity, scheduled its awards dinner for October 4, the evening of Yom Kippur.
It is the holiest night of the Jewish year, a night when every affirming Jew in the world is immersed in fast and prayer.
Well done, chaps.
If this is not a deplorable and disgraceful statement of intents, the Gramophone magazine should apologize and change the date.
When do you want them to schedule it, December 24?
New Year’s Eve – with bubbles and finger food.
That’s a wonderful idea !!
Your response makes literally no sense.
Stone deaf.
Let’s just stay at home, celebrate life and put the grouchiness aside.
Who cares about the Gramophone Awards anyway?
Within the serious classical community, almost everybody does. Gramophone magazine, for at least the last 60+ years, has been THE most consequential and influential journal of classical music on the planet, period. No other comes close. Its circulation may be small, but it includes most anyone of note in classical music. It has often been called the bible (sorry) of classical music. To a serious classical person, its judgment is far more meaningful than the Grammys, for example. It is sort of the journal of record for the classical community, you might say. Yes, it is losing readership, but so is virtually every print magazine out there. This unfortunate error is almost certainly an accidental oversight. Nothing to draw sweeping conclusions over. The classical community isn’t exactly known for its antisemitism. I notice, NL, you used the word “fading” for the magazine. I wonder if that is to imply that the magazine is failing financially, or because you feel it is declining in quality. Please discuss. The magazine is a major pilar of the cultural ecology of classical, and its failure would have wide consequences. Classical is already too marginalized, and that would make things even considerably worse.
There’s a story about a village in Poland. Just after the end of WWII, when there were shortages of everything, there was a rumour that the butcher would be selling meat the next morning when he opened at 9:00 am. By midnight, hundreds of villagers were waiting outside his shop.
At 1:00 am, the butcher opened his bedroom window and shouted to the crowd ‘Are there any Jews here?’ A few dozen hands went up. ‘Well, you might as well go home now because I won’t be selling any meat to Jews’. They went home.
At 3:00 am, the butcher opened his bedroom window and shouted to the crowd ‘Are there any communists here?’ More than a hundred hands went up. ‘Well, you might as well go home now because I won’t be selling any meat to communists’. They went home.
At 5:00 am, the butcher opened his bedroom window and shouted to the crowd ‘Are there any Germans here?’ Several hands went up. ‘Well, you might as well go home now because I won’t be selling any meat to Germans’. They went home.
At 7:00 am, the butcher opened his bedroom window and shouted to the crowd ‘Are there any Russians here?’ Dozens of hands went up. ‘Well, you might as well go home now because I won’t be selling any meat to Russians’. They went home.
At 9:00 am, the butcher opened his bedroom window and shouted to the remaining crowd ‘You might as well go home. The rumour is false. I have no meat to sell.
One of the departing crowd said to another ‘Those Jews, they always get the best of everything!’.
I would say the same about their not being able to attend the Gramophone Awards ceremony.
Hervorragend !
Laughable. The damage religion has done to the world is inestimable. One can only hope on a couple of hundred years they’ll look back and laugh at the stupidity of humanity.
You could find an excuse to avoid anything every day of the year if you look hard enough.
It’s not religion that has done harm, it’s religious people.
Sounds like an attempt to re-mill the old ‘guns don’t kill’ straw man argument.
It’s people.
Yes…. you’re smarter than thousands of years and collective billions of people thinking about this through all of human history! Everyone should listen to YOU. LOL!
Indeed. Apparently there are (at least) 19 festivities happening this year on October 4th including Lesotho independence, Maha Navami and CH’UNG YANG.
There will be hardy nobody at the Grammophone party, this year.
For many non practicing Jews, Yom Kippur is still an important date to fast and reflect for at least two reasons. One is the idea of acknowledging negative behavior in order to learn from past mistakes, and the other is the link with the past and to connect with the history of the Jewish people. So Gramophone should change the date because it is not just a religious day but a philosophical one as well.
Irrespective of any date change, that is (if I may say so) extraordinarily well put, Mr Repairman. And I speak as someone who, as it weren’t, has skin in the game.
Judaism is more than a religion. It is an ethnicity. Why do you think Nazis tried to kill all of us, and Ukraine has been busily trying to erase all evidence of our past presence in their country since they alone managed to murder more than 1.5 million of us? Their entire country is a graveyard of Jewish and Romany people. Are the Romany people a religion? No. An ethnicity. Just as Jews are.
I remember the year my law school did the same thing –scheduled a major class reunion for the first night of Yom Kippur, and man, did THAT go over like a lead balloon.
So I got to wondering how this could happen, and that is when I noticed that while my personal (paper) pocket calendar, and the general calendar we have hanging in the kitchen, used to list the Jewish high holidays, now mine don’t, although Christmas and Easter are there (as is Kwanzaa). I don’t know if it is due to anti-Jewish animus, or whether it is a politically correct fear that if you list Jewish holidays that you are being hateful to those beliefs not so favored.
My point is that if it was my job to organize such an event and I relied on these calendars in my house, I too might have scheduled in conflict against Yom Kippur. Having said that, one would think that the chosen date for this event would have circulated in the Gramophone offices before being cast in stone and that someone would have raised their hand and said, “excuse me, but are you aware …?”
Evidently not.
Here is not a jewish country. I know some jewish
People that do not keep the festivals
I think I’ve just heard the greatest Mahler 1 recording of all-time. It’s Bruno Walter’s live 1939 with the NBC Symphony. WOW!
On MY Judgement Day! Fuck ’em.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd6SsmLYHO8
How many Roman Catholics, how many Muslims, how many Protestants, etc.could be offended if Gramophone Awards were announced in their veneered days? Norman is totally entitled to write want he wants but Jews are not above the others. They are exactly at the same level. Otherwise, I would agree with De Gaulle words that they are « un peuple fier, sûr de lui et dominateur ».
i know non jews that do not celebrate christmas.
I’m wondering if a scheduling conflict involving Eid would have raised a Lebrechtian eyebrow or made slightest ripple among the Slipped Disc readership.