A Scriabin first in Israel
OrchestrasFrom a correspondent in Tel Aviv:
The Israel Philharmonic is about to perform Scriabin Le Poème de l’extase for the first time in 40 years.
Scriabin’s daughter Ariadna, a hero of the French Resistance, was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance. Her third marriage was to the poet and Resistance fighter David Knut, at which time she converted to Judaism and took the name Sarah. She co-founded the Zionist resistance movement Armée Juive and was responsible for communications between the command in Toulouse and partisan forces in the Tarn district, where she was ambushed by the French Militia.
Ariadna’s daughter (by her first marriage), Betty (Elizabeth) Knut-Lazarus, became a teenage heroine of the French Resistance, personally winning the Silver Star from George S. Patton, as well as the French Croix de Guerre. After the war she immigrated to Palestine and became an active member of the Zionist Lehi, undertaking special operations against the British forces during the British mandate.
Some descendants of the composer are expected to attend the concert.
Another “first” in these concerts is the first female conductor -Susanna Malkki- to get a whole series of subscription concerts (five) with the IPO – they will also perform Sibelius “En Saga” and Bloch’s “Shlomo” with Maisky. I will catch this concert tomorrow in Haifa.
Thanks for this notice. Gilberte Lazarus (aka Betty Knut) was a fascinating, and perhaps tragic, individual. As you say, she and her mother really put themselves on the front lines against fascism in Europe (unlike Zionist officialdom), and I think much of her less savoury endeavors were the result of trauma and brainwashing (she was truly “recruited” by Lehi).
To be clear regarding your reference to the Mandate, she was involved with Lehi not against the British in Palestine, but against the British and the Allies in Europe. She is best remembered for her ingenuous — but failed — attempt to blow up the Colonial Office in London in 1947, but was then caught at the Belgiun border with a bunch of letter bombs (she and a Lehi colleague, Yaacov Eliav, were probably responsible for some of letter bombs reaching British politicians such as Churchill). Her affinity for Lehi seems to have cooled after the assassination of Bernadotte in 1948.
Lazarus moved to Beersheba in the early 1950s and opened its first nightclub, The Last Chance. Whether she intended the name as a reference to the city’s southern location, and/or to her final hope for a normal life, it would also prove autobiographical, as she died there of a heart attack at the age of thirty-seven.
Betty Knut was a terrorist. She put a bomb in London that exploded. Betty menage to escape to Palestine were she was active in terrorist organization Lehi. She lived in Beer-Sheva and had a night club. Her father poet David Knut was born in town Orhey, Bessarabia. He was in circle of Russian poets -refugees in Paris. I see A.Scryabin descendants in San Francisco
In spirit, yes, but …
She is indeed guilty of wanting, and trying, to blow up London’s Colonial Office, but she failed. You might be thinking of a previous incident when another Lehi operative (Robert Misrahi?) had indeed exploded a bomb in the Colonial Club and Colonial Welfare Office. As for Lazarus, she got past UK immigration and she even got past Colonial Office security, claiming the urgent need for the loo (her bomb concealed in her coat). She then deposited the bomb in the lavatory, wrapped in copies of the Evening Standard and Daily Telegraph(!). A cleaning woman named Lizzie Hart discovered it and (not knowing what it was) started unwrapping it, which normally would have triggered the bomb. But of the hands of the watch had hit the face of the watch, and jammed.
It’s quite an odd position for me to be defending a Zionist terrorist (or any terrorist), but I judge people like her differently than I do the Ben-Gurions of the world. Unlike the Zionist establishment, she actually fought the fascists. She was injured, and her mother killed. Then Lehi got hold of her, met her at the Café de la Paix in Paris, and groomed her for their purposes. Like others in her situation, in her mind she was brainwashed to believe that she was still fighting the Nazis, and she was still unrepentant even after the end of the Mandate and establishment of the state when Lehi threw a party for her in Israel in August of 1948.
I am not defending her actions, but simply suggesting that she herself was one of Zionism’s victims.
Well, the concert itself which also included a tone poem of Sibelius (en saga) and Schlomo (Bloch) with Misha Maiski before the Scriabin work was OUTSTANDING. Probably the best of the season and the orchestra was brilliant. Hopefully the IPO will continue with interesting programming rather than its typical mainstream repertoire.
Susanna Mällki conducting,making her IPO debut. And,with the great Yigal Meltzer as principal trumpet,it must have been a stunning performance.
Ariane Scriabine was also for some time composer Alexandre Tansman’s lover, as recalled in the latter’s memoir.
Just to put the record straight: 431,000 jews of Palestine at the time sent 38,000 volunteers to the British army, following official policy of the zionist leadership. Alas, it was a drop in the sea compared to what was needed to fight Nazism. Lehi was indeed a fanatic and missguided organization that turned into terrorism. In some ways, it resembled some extrem revolutionary russian groups. During the harsh 1940 ‘s extremism made sense to many desperate people the world over. As for the concert – the IPO makes great progress under it’s new GMD, and sounds better than it did in many years.