Dear Alma, An Israeli musician writes
OrchestrasFrom our agony aunt’s mailbox:
Dear Alma
I’m a male instrumentalist, 30 years old, playing in an Israeli orchestra.
My six best non-musician friends have spent most of the last four months on frontline service. Two were wounded, one seriously. I keep waiting for my call-up papers and nothing comes. I play concerts and imagine blank spaces in the hall, waiting for the hostages and the fighters to return, waiting for this war to be over.
Here’s my problem. I once served as a first-respondent medic, but it got left off my papers. If I reminded my unit commander, he would have me back in uniform. My skills are rusty, but at least I’d have a feeling I was doing something useful.
The alternative? There’s an audition coming up at a good German orchestra where I already know two Israeli musicians. Should I go for it? Get out of this situation? Abandon my country when it needs me?
Go on, do your worst.
Sincerely,
Not Very Useful
Dear Not Very Useful,
A life and death dilemma. And one only you can answer. This is not a question for which I would seek council, it is something that you, yourself must face alone. In the end, it is your life. You have but one and you have to decide what the purpose of it all is.
If you decide that you would like to find a way to avoid service, I would first contact a lawyer or a group which specializes in this issue for Israeli citizens. According to my reading (and I am sure our knowledgeable SD readers will have thoughts on this), simply having a job elsewhere does not exempt you from draft, and you are possibly putting yourself in a situation where you cannot return home, or face jail time if you do.
If a job elsewhere does provide you draft exemption, audition for as many places as possible to make sure you land a spot.
Not Very Useful, one of the incredible things about being a musician is that it has the ability to shield us from many unfortunate events. From avoiding doing the dishes as a teenager “I’m practicing, Mom!”, to providing emergency income any place on the planet (from busking to teaching to playing, even without knowledge of the language), to saving you from a war in which you do not want to participate, your musical abilities will always have your back.
I had a wonderful teacher earlier in my life who had been taken on Kristallnacht after a Jüdischer Kulturbund performance. He was sent to Buchenwald, spent the majority of the war in camps, and survived time and again because of his musical abilities. He was a member of a camp orchestra, and of the band which accompanied the prisoners as they marched to and from work. Evenings he played jazz and swing music for SS parties. He once told me how the SS would “have fun” shooting at their feet while they played. On several occasions they simply shot one of the members of the small band while they were playing.
Towards the end of the war, after losing his family, he was lying very sick in the Auschwitz infirmary, the final stop before the crematorium. The doctor recognized him as the child prodigy he had seen on stage before the war, switched his name tag with a nearby corpse, and hid him in the corner, saving his life one final time. He went on to have a wonderful career as a teacher and performer, and his sound and soul lay bare the struggles of his life. A life saved by his love of music.
Not Very Useful, make your decision, and make it thoughtfully and methodically. Nothing is more precious than a human life, and your decision affects not only your life, but the lives of others.
Questions for Alma? Please put them in the comments section or send to DearAlmaQuery@gmail.com
Why is Alma frightening this musician with such truly horrible stories? To show he is better off? To wai until he is shot in the feet?
Serious artists should try to not getting involved in the most dreadful human catastrophies.
Oh, is that what all those millions are who are crossing the border into the USA, leaving their women and children behind at the mercy of their ‘regimes’?
Israeli men and women have courage!!!!
I have to first commend the letter writer for having such love for country that a real dilemma exists between serving in the IDF or moving to escape a war zone.
My take: go ahead and move and enjoy your musical life. Israel will call if it needs you or you can make a decision if another attack occurs.
It seems to me that this is indeed a moral question the letter-writer must answer for himself. However, 40 years from now, will he look back on a life that maybe helped save some one (or more than 1 someone) or that was a cushy existence in another country?
It may be that he disagrees with the war, also.
Excuse me Alma but did the Israeli musician say this was “a war in which he did not want to participate? ” Believe his issue was more on the musician’s desire to take any audition that is offered and he was asking for approval. If it were your country which was at war would you do? Sincerely J in Jerusalem
It seems as if the music in was asking if they should try to move to Germany so they would not be drafted.
My father served in the US Navy during World War II. I asked him what he thought about Conscientious Objectors/ pacifists. He said he respected their beliefs as long as they supported the war effort. Many COs served as medics in military units. Men who were medically unfit worked in defense factories. Many women, including my mother, worked in factories making supplies for the military. Musicians, including Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey provided relief and moral support for a nation at war.
Your parents belonged to ‘the greatest generation’.
This war is very complicated. Not exactly cut and dry. The person might not want to fight for other reasons than just saving his hide.
At 30 no Israeli is awaiting the draft – that happens at 18. At 30 We are awaitinig a call up to the reserves (That’s why the writer already has a unit commander). The real dilemma is wheter an Israeli should leave Israel in quest for a better job – knowing full well how hated he is abroad.
Maybe he’s hated abroad because people like you are constantly accusing us of that.
Don’t abandon your country!!! There will always be more auditions but you only have one country and it needs you now!
Not Very Useful,
A huge moral dilemma indeed.
Take the audition. And find the time around it to volunteer with something useful and meaningful (you say you have Paramedic experience – see if MaDA need volunteers, Go play for the wounded soldiers, etc.)
This is a very difficult choice. Yes make use of the rules before you try to get a job somewhere else. It might be more complicated than you think.
You could just thank your lucky stars that you do not have anything to do with the Israeli military, which the ICJ suspects of having committed genocide.
Completely unlike the saintly Hamas then?
One thing you learn in the army: Don’t remind them. If they need you, they’ll find you, that’s their job.
You’re not auditioning to avoid callup. You go to audition and then you return. By the time they decide, by the time the job begins, the war could be over.
Maybe you’re not entirely happy with your present job. Conductor, salary, repertory, life in general. Maybe you want the excitement of a short trip and an audition. Go for it. See your friends there and see if you like it better there, before you move.
There are many variables here. Don’t think about it too much. Go, do your best, have a good time, best of luck!