Never again is now: Germans import an anti-antisemitism opera
NewsDarmstadt State Theatre has shaken up its schedules next month to insert an opera that addresses German anti-semitism. The opera is Pnima, by the US-Israeli composer Chaya Czernowin and writer David Grossman. It opens on January 27, the day Germans remember the Red Army liberation of Auschwitz.
Darmstadt director Karsten Wiegand says: ‘The Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023 is a shocking one
A turning point for Jews, with many fears and traumas of the Holocaust reawakened. We find it intolerable that Jewish people in Germany are afraid. We are ashamed when they feel isolate and say they only hear “droning silence” instead of solidarity.
‘Art can do perform the inexpressible. As a theatre we cannot remain silent. We want to share the terrible situation since October 7th and respond as best we can: with art.’
Nobody does virtue signalling quite like the Germans.
We all know there is one country that doesn’t need to get re-aroused to its historic antisemitism…
There are serious problems with anti-Semitism in Germany, but the the biggest problem by far regarding racism and xenophobia is not toward Jewish people but toward Muslims. The far-right Alternative for Germany party centers its platform around egregiously racist anti-Muslim politics and is polling at 20% nationwide, and well over 30% in some parts of East Germany.
The one-sided stance at the Darmstadt Opera is obviously to compensate for Germany’s terrible history of anti-Semitism, but one cannot avoid seeing that the one-sided view of the current war also furthers anti-Muslim attitudes and plays to the bigotry of a wide spectrum of German society. There’s even a new anti-Muslim term being bandied about in Germany called “imported anti-Semitism”–another way of slandering Germany’s Muslim communities–and passing the buck.
The Darmstadt Opera thus really sticks out in its one-sided stance regarding the Israel/Palestine war and only a fool would not see the specious context of convenient “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” and anti-Islamism. As if the lives of around 15,000 Palestinian women and children killed in the current war and a century of severe Palestinian oppression that derived from a smug colonialist blindness did not also need to be considered.
The sad reality is that self-serving, one-sided gestures like Darmstadt’s do little to alleviate German anti-Semitism and instead further hatred toward Muslims instead of contributing to the broader understanding that would bring peace and a just resolution to this long-standing conflict.
(Forgive me if I do not enter into a debate about the conflict or Germany’s anti-Semitism. In a forum like this, the discussion would would more than likely only quickly descend to ignorance and hatred.)
The sad reality is that self-serving, one-sided gestures
…such as those expounded by the ignorant supporters of Hamas in big cities all over Europe…
(Forgive me if I do not enter into a debate about the conflict or Germany’s anti-Semitism. In a forum like this, the discussion would would more than likely only quickly descend to ignorance and hatred.)
Bravo, William. Spout bilge and pull up the ladder behind you, citing intellectual superiority as a reason for not entering into debate.
In this interpretation rising antisemitism and the influx of Muslim migrants are completely unrelated.
Astonishing.
Regarding my previous post: For those not familiar with the AfD in Germany, here is a gallery of their campaign posters that illustrate the xenophobic and racist hatred toward Muslims in the country–an anti-Muslimism that extends well beyond just the AfD.
https://www.horizont.net/galerien/Populistisch-nicht-populaer-3255
Anti-Muslimism and anti-Semitism in Germany flow from the same river, hence the irony of the Darmstadt Opera’s one-sided stance.
AfD is not the problem in Germany, and you know it.
It is THE problem.Die AfDeppen sind das Problem.
Indeed; why would anyone be in the least bit suspicious of Islam? The high regard in which they hold the culture and political ideals so dear to most of those here present are surely well known.
William Osborne: I don’t want to stir debate about antisemitism vs anti Muslim attitudes
Also William Osborne: here is some anti Muslim campaign material
it s not an “import” – it s world premiere ve been in Munich and was a comission by Munich Biennale and composer Peter Ruzicka.
How much operatic merit does the work have?
GERMANS IMPORT ANTI-ANTISEMITISM”? Protestant Kaiser Wilhelm II who went before the Sultan on Herzl’s behalf Primed Arab resistance to British Expansionism which certainly included Palestine.