LORI LOWENTHAL MARCUS: ON THE METROPOLITAN OPERA AND KLINGHOFFER
Jews are being cast in various roles with respect to their response to the Klinghoffer opera: Bold, Terrorist-Humanizing, and Meek
Peter Gelb has generated a drama worthy of an important new opera about the American Jewish community. And here, in The Jewish Press, is an exclusive of the cast and the story line.
Gelb is the managing director of the Metropolitan Opera. It was Gelb’s decision to stage John Adams’ opera about the terrorist murder of a disabled, elderly American man, Leon Klinghoffer. The Arab terrorists shot Klinghoffer in the head and in the chest and had him and his wheelchair thrown overboard as evidence of their unyielding position to swap innocent lives for convicted terrorist Arab prisoners in Israeli jails.
Klinghoffer was selected for the sacrificial murder because he was a Jew. Not an Israeli, but a Jew.
John Adams, along with Alice Goodman (born a Reform Jew, now an anti-Semitic Anglican minister), who wrote the heinous librettos, in their own words, set out to “humanize” the terrorists. That is the goal of the opera.
For the past six months, a stalwart collection of grass roots activists, largely based in the New York City area, have been working to inform a critical mass of Americans that it was a grotesquely offensive decision to stage the Klinghoffer opera (falsely titled: the “Death of Klinghoffer” – he didn’t just die, just as Daniel Pearl did not just die – each was murdered because, as Jews, they were powerful propaganda tools).
Should a dramatist decide to write an opera about the sturm und drang on the streets of New York regarding the Klinghoffer opera, there would be three distinct types being cast.
PROUD KLINGHOFFER JEWS
The first type to be cast would be what we’ll call the Proud Klinghoffer Jews, PKJ. This is a new group of actors/activists on the scene. These are the ones who have been forged in the crucible created by years of passive Jewish leadership and streetwise but unwieldy passion. It has been unleashed by the staging of what many consider an inciteful (not insightful), anti-Semitic, philo-terrorist opera at a time of rising anti-Semitism and global terrorism. There would be starring roles amongst these singers.
One, certainly, would be Richard Allen, the fifty-something New York businessman who – completely against type – has emerged as the ultimate grass roots Jewish, effective pro-Israel activist. Allen is not a grandstander; he prefers to remain in the background, dishing out credit to his fellow activists the way most ringleaders dish out criticism. Instead of claiming credit, Allen gets the job done. The man is the ultimate terrier – he puts his teeth in the calves of organizations whose acts harm Israel, and does not let up until he has accomplished more than anyone thought possible.
Another player – probably a baritone would be cast – is Jeffrey Wiesenfeld. Wiesenfeld is a businessman but also a seasoned political operator, having worked in the D’Amato, Koch and Pataki administrations. More of an “insider” than Allen, Wiesenfeld sits on the board of the City University of New York (where he’s made waves of his own as a principled pro-Israel Jewish New Yorker). It is Wiesenfeld who is usually the master of ceremonies at the larger, more effective and unequivocally pro-Israel Jewish rallies in New York.
And a newcomer to the stage: Leonard J. Weiss. The ultimate White Knight who, very publicly, bolted from what had been his beloved Metropolitan Opera. Weiss, recognizing the stench of moral decay, chose to very publicly redirect the money he had been donating to the Met to assist in helping his new comrades create a public astringent, hoping to cleanse the rot.
And Weiss has led the way for other Jews to stand up against this desecration of art. Eugene Grant, a real estate developer, announced that he was suspending his $5 million gift to the Met.
Then there are several indefatigable grass roots players who have been involved in pro-Israel activities for decades. People like Dr. Marvin Belsky, Dr. Paul Brody, Beth Gilinsky (who practically single-handedly forced the New York City to come to grips with the anti-Jewish animus surrounding the Crown Heights riots in 1991), Helen Freedman, executive director of Americans For a Safe Israel, terrorist victim and now rights activist Sarri Singer and Liz Berney, a trusted deputy of Zionist Organization of America’s executive director, Mort Klein.
There are others, a growing number of them, who would comprise the PKJ chorus.
The polar opposites of the PKJs would also have to be cast. These would be referred to, in short-hand, as the Anti-Klinghoffer Jews.
TERRORIST-HUMANIZING KLINGHOFFER JEWS
Peter Gelb, of course, is the man responsible for bringing the Klinghoffer opera to the Met, and the man who has thus far successfully convinced his board members that the Klinghoffer opera must be staged. He will have a starring role as one of the sinister bad guys. Every one of his lines will contain the words “artistic freedom” and “art as insight,” as if glorifying murderers of old disabled Jews is akin to speaking truth to power. It is Gelb and his cronies who have retreated into the would-be-laughable-if-not-so-offensive stance of guardians of the First Amendment for refusing to “censor” the opera.
No one has asked the Met to criminalize the words used in the opera, no one is suggesting that Adams or Goodman be jailed for lionizing the villains and ridiculing the victims. Rather, the Met has been asked to refrain from glorifying terrorism. And Gelb et al have refused.
In 2005, the Toll Brothers luxury homes builders took over from Texaco as the corporate sponsor of the Metropolitan Opera’s international radio network. The Toll Brothers are Jewish, and the executive director, Robert I. Toll, sits on the Met’s managing board. The Annenberg Foundation is another major corporate sponsor of the Met’s radio network, and Leonore Annenberg, the former chair of the Foundation, was also on the Met’s managing board.
While Gelb decided to pull the live streaming of the Klinghoffer opera (but only well after it was already in the lineup and only after the initial wave of criticism), it is difficult to imagine that major funders of any part of the enterprise could not have made their views known – and had an impact – on Gelb’s grinding in his heels about staging this opera.
MEEK KLINGHOFFER JEWS
The final major type to be cast is one that, sadly, has the widest pool of potential players. This type is called the Meek Klinghoffer Jews. These are the ones who really probably wish there was no Klinghoffer opera, but who are too uncomfortable raising their voices at all about anything, including anti-Semitism, but most especially when that anti-Semitism is dressed up in fancy clothes. Like at the Metropolitan Opera.
While the grass roots activists began organizing against the Klinghoffer opera last spring, it wasn’t until September – September! – that the mainstream official Jewish organizations finally got around to saying anything publicly about the travesty.
What they came up with is a good letter in terms of calling the opera what it is. For example, it mentions that the “opera’s juxtaposition of terrorists and their victims on the same moral plane is gravely inappropriate,” and pointing out that “anti-Jewish attacks and expressions of hatred against Jews have reached frightening levels around the globe, and innocent American journalists have been cruelly beheaded by radical Islamists.”
But, undoubtedly because the letter-writers were aiming for as broad a group as possible, the letter reads like more of a “oh, this is too bad” letter, rather than a “this is unacceptable!” letter.
The organizations whose leadership signed the letter runs the gamut from the stalwartly supportive of most strongly pro-Israel activities, such as the National Council of Young Israel and the Religious Zionists of America, all the way to the surprising appearance of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, various New York-based JCCs, JCRCs and even the president and the chair of the board of the UJA Federation of New York.
For example, it says the opera “runs the risk of legitimizing terror.” Runs the risk? Just a risk? Then there is a truly tiny slap that lands on nobody in particular. This happens in the second paragraph of the letter, regarding the timing of the staging of this opera in New York at this time:
it could well have been anticipated that this production, and the sensitivities around its story, would generate divisiveness. The disappointment and negative reaction that is now playing out is therefore not surprising.
It could, it might, it would, but nowhere is the money line: Don’t stage this abomination!
Gelb and his small chorus of T-HKJs may be a bit upstaged when certain New York Jewish “communal leaders” are revealed as members of the board of the Metropolitan Opera.
There are two members of the board of the Met who are bona fide Jewish communal leaders. One is Stanley M. Bergman. Bergman is not only a Met board member, he is the president of the American Jewish Committee!
The AJC chose not to sign on to the communal mainstream letter to Gelb. Instead, it penned its own letter of criticism, and its executive director signed a letter which ran in the New York Times. The AJC used strong words in its letter, but whether Mr. Bergman was made aware of them, or of the AJC’s official pronouncement of “profound disappointment” in the Met staging this travesty remains unknown.
The other Met board member who plays a second role in this drama is Linda Mirels. Mirels sits on the advisory board of the Met, but she is also the president of the executive committee of the UJA Federation of New York and is even a signatory on the MKJs’ letter. Whether either Bergman or Mirels made an effort to convince Gelb or the other board members that the opera is simply in terrible taste and should not be staged is unknown.
What is known is that neither of the two who appear in dual roles have followed the lead of either Leonard Weiss or Eugene Grant and publicly stated that funds earmarked for the Met would be either withheld in protest or diverted to support the free speech of the protesters.
FIRST AMENDMENT BOGEYMAN
A final note: it has been said that at least some Jewish leaders who recognize the disturbing aspects of the opera refrained from coming out more strongly against it because of “First Amendment” concerns.
Let us slay that bogeyman right here. The First Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, which was added to the U.S. Constitution shortly after its ratification.
The Bill of Rights protects U.S. citizens from actions by the government. The government could not, consistent with the First Amendment, shut down the Metropolitan Opera for staging something that profoundly disturbs the sentiments of a major segment of the community. But people who are supposed to be Jewish leaders are not barred by the First Amendment from calling for what they think is right. And claiming to use the First Amendment as a shield in that way is simply an act of ignorance or cowardice or both.
The first group has already been cast. The PKJs will be starring in another protest outside the Metropolitan Opera on Monday night, Oct. 20th. That is the first night that the Klinghoffer opera will be staged at the Met. Join the PKJs.
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