Israel orchestras cancel concerts, offer consolation
NewsThe Israel Camerata Jerusalem has signalled how the performing arts will address the massacre and its aftermath:
Dear audience members,
In these very difficult days, the Israeli Camerata Jerusalem shares the immense sorrow of the many bereaved families, wishes a complete recovery to all of those injured, and only good news for all the families of the abducted and missing.
We announce the postponement to a later date of all the orchestra’s concerts and productions that had been scheduled during the next two weeks.
We pray for everyone and here share with you the moving musical prayer “Kol Nidrei” performed by cellist Steven Isserlis and our orchestra.
We will continue to update according to the situation.
Hoping for quieter days soon.
The Israel Philharmonic has posted:
The Israel Philharmonic stand with all the civilians and armed forces in Israel, pray for the missing and wounded, and send our condolences to the families of the murdered.
Following the decision of the Ministry of Culture and Sport, and in accordance with the guidelines of the Home Front Command, the opening of the 87th season has been postponed.
The concerts and events scheduled to take place up to and including the 18th of October have been cancelled and will be rescheduled. We will continue to update you according to the security situation.
How about Barenboim’s band?
As predicted, Slipped Disc censored my (very reasonable, non-strident) comment that the Israeli musicians should be offering their condolences to the citizens of Gaza who are caught in the middle and suffering. This blog has always had a strong agenda when it comes to Israel and is showing its true stripes now.
We don’t censor, but we do suppress harmful views – such as this commenter’s original attempt to draw a false equivalence between the Hamas massacres and past Israeli acts.
One person’s suppression of harmful views is another person’s censorship. I have heard plenty of views expressed in the last couple of days which would be supportive of Frank.
Supportive of the largest one-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust? Well, yes, some people supported the Holocaust also. Neither they, nor the ones supporting the current-day Nazis in Gaza, deserve a platform here.
Kudos to you Mr. Lebrecht, who I often disagree with on political issues. I have read many commenters in the Washington Post who claim Israel has no higher moral ground than Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist group that has the same objectives as did Nazi Germany and the Mullahs of Iran. They also maim or kill any Palestinian who greatly deviates from their genocidal dreams. Any attempt to place moral equivalency is the demented ravings of a radical leftist. There is no polite way of writing that.
No True Scotsman logical fallacy, but way to pop off.
Frank,
I do not know you but I am ashamed for you.
No one here is questioning the Palestinians’ horrible conditions of life.
What is troubling is that you can’t seem to realise that acts of terrorism are not justifiable. Ever. And if you can’t feel empathy, I’m guessing you’re not a musician – or maybe just a very bad one.
I hope you or anyone that you love will never have to live what Israelis are going through right now.
You’re making a lot of assumptions there. All I can say is that the Palestinians have been oppressed by the Israelis for decades, and now the Israelis are getting a taste of their own medicine.
The Arab population of Gaza, the West Bank, has grown exponentially since 1948. Arabs in Israel serve in the government and courts, run hospitals and businesses, can serve with distinction in the military, etc. Jews are not ALLOWED in Gaza or Palestinian-run areas of the West Band. Israel offered Palestinians a deal in 2000 that included 96 percent of the West Bank and Gaza, including the Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem. The PLO responded by rejecting the deal and starting the Second Intifadah. Who’s oppressing whom?? Oh, and when exactly did Israel, in a single day, go into Gaza and kill 1,000 civilians deliberately, along with raping women and kidnapping babies and senior citizens? This isn’t a taste of their own medicine. Your statement betrays an utter lack of a moral compass.
Wish you took some too.
What an absurd and hateful statement.Israel turned over all of Gaza to the Palestinians in 2005 -dismantling all of the settlements to do so. Instead of establishing a peaceful society that could live with it’s neighbors, the Palestinia it chose Hamas and redoubled their pledge to “wipe Israel off the face of the earth and drive all Jews into the ocean.” Even during so -called peace talks, they reiterated’ We will never make peace with Israel. ” The false equivalencies drawn here are absurd. Israel has indeed had to be very heavy handed with the Palestinians-for it’s survival. But Israel has never pledged the destruction of any country, the annihilation of any people, nor is at the core of Judaism, the moral obligation to “kill the infidels” as it is in the Muslim religion.
Before you comment on the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, you really have to read the charter upon which the terrorist group Hamas was founded.
To understand Israel’s enemy in Gaza, you have know why the group was constituted. And it wasn’t constituted to negotiate a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hamas was founded in December 1987. In August 1988, it issued a covenant outlining its mission. The covenant has never been renounced by Hamas, even though some try to claim it is now merely a historical artifact.
Here are three key takeaways about Hamas, taken straight from its charter.
1.) Hamas isn’t looking to negotiate a peace deal with Israel. It wants to destroy Israel. Quoting Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, the charter reads:
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
2.) Actually, Hamas’ charter goes beyond destroying Israel. It longs for Jewish genocide:
“The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: ‘The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’”
3.) The international community may love the peace process, but Hamas makes it clear in its charter that it doesn’t believe in peace conferences. As its charter states:
“Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.”
The above was part of an article written in 2014 and Hamas still maintain this line.
I think it was Gold Meir who said “If the Arabs put down their guns there would be no more fighting. If the Israelis put down theirs there would be no more Israel.”
Israel left Gazza many years ago. In it’s absence Gazza was taken over by Hamas, an organization dedicated to genocide. Every once in a while a cycle of violence brought public condemnation on Israel. Not enough people asked what was the alternative. Now we know:
On Sabath 3000 gunman, a Hamas Einsazgruppe, raided several small Israeli communities and two open Air musical festivals. They killed as many people as they could and took many hostages – including 80 + year olds, toddlers and women. They burned homes, smoking out the inhabitants. Sometimes they killed the parents in front of the kids and carried the kids with them. Sometimes they shot the kids and took the parents. Sometimes they shot the complete family. At the same time they fired thousands of missiles directed in the general direction of Israeli population. We are still counting the dead.
Those in Gazza that did not participate in the murder orgy – with whom you expect Israelis to sympathies – looted, raped, mutilated bodies and rejoiced at the extermination of Jews.
At the moment things are very simple for me: It is Fight or die. I am aware of the fact that a large portion of mankind would rather have all the Jews dead. I apologize in advance, we will not comply.
The citizens of Gaza elected Hamas. They deserve no more sympathy than the citizens of Nazi Germany.
Wonder, too, of the Cleveland Orchestra’s planned tour to Israel.
Collect your thoughts and emotions and sit down and revisit how, in 1948, Israel bombed and displaced 750,000 Palestinians, took their land, and have ever since continued to convince the world that Israelis are the victims.
There would be no HAMAS if not for the unabating arrogance of Israel and its corrupt government.
Um, no. Israel accepted a UN partition plan that gave it less than it hoped for. The neighboring Arab countries rejected the plan, declared war on the nascent state, and ENCOURAGED the Palestinians to leave so they could come in without hindrance and wipe out the Jews. You know–finish what Hitler started. Oh, and check the population stats on Arabs in the area in 1948 vs. 1967 (you know, when the Arabs again tried to finish what Hitler started) vs. today. Their population keeps growing. That ain’t genocide, dude. So check your own “thoughts and emotions” before lecturing others about theirs. Go learn some actual facts. I suppose you also believe that the European Jews of the 1930s/40s somehow deserved it.
Revisit how in 1949 the Arabs rejected parition and vowed to throw the Jews to the sea. Revisit the fact that at the end of the 1948/9 war the land was practically devided: The Jewish part still had a large arab population – now more than 2 million. The Arab part had no Jews at all. They either died or were expelled. That ahows you that the threat was not idle talk.
Revisit the fact that the Palestinians have thus far rejected all proposed compromise.
Revisit the fact that what Hamas is doing now in Israel it’s Brothers abroad would love to do to all non muslims across the world, because it is a Holly War, not a political conflict.
So, if you are not a muslim who would like to join the killers, get a gun and defend your home.
You need to get INFORMED!
In spite of the understandable reaction of the Israëli orchestra’s nothing can be more wrong! It is my sincerere opinion that just NOW they should play. Music is THE language to canalize our deepest emotions, to bridge the gap between even the most opposite feelings and opinions. I understand this reaction but I trust and hope that this dicision will be seriously reconsidered! Let the best of our classical music of all parts of the world sound in full glory. And remember the great initiative of Daniel Barenboim and his famous orchestra consisting of both Israelians en Palestinians!
Quite scarey that everyone one on here poports to be a total expert on this tragic situation, and then show nastiness towards people posting on here who do not agree, even towards Norman who owns this site. Says it all. Everything starts by small deeds that then escalate, and we are the only species on this earth that kill our Owen either literally or by our words and deeds.
“we are the only species on this earth that kill our Owen [sic]”
Maria, if you really believe that, then you don’t know much about the natural world.
Pretty sure you need to brush up on your animal behavior…