Israeli Politics: Back to Normal Rael Jean Isaac http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/israeli-politics-back-to-normal-rael-jean-isaac.html Recent polls suggest that in the coming January elections the Kadima Party will go from being the largest party in the Knesset (with 28 seats out of a total of 120) to what may well be the smallest, with a mere 2 seats. While this may […]
http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/a-symphony-of-courage-rita-kramer.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/01/entertainment/la-et-mn-orchestra-of-exiles-review-capsule-20121102
The remarkable story of the Holocaust-era formation of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra by famed, Polish-born violinist Bronislaw Huberman is engrossingly recounted in the documentary “Orchestra of Exiles.”Writer-producer-director Josh Aronson (2000’s Oscar-nominated “Sound and Fury”) tracks Huberman’s early life as a child prodigy performing violin concerts across Europe through his adult years — transformed as they were by the rise of Nazi Germany.
How few and far between they are, real heroes. In these dismal days it is a gift to be reminded of what some of our fellow human beings are capable of and be cheered and inspired by the lives they lived.
A new film titled Orchestra of Exiles is about such a man and the difference he made in his world and ours. Bronislaw Huberman, all but forgotten today, was one of the great musicians of his day, a peerless violinist recognized worldwide. With just a touch of irony, filmmaker Josh Aronson, who produced, wrote and directed Orchestra of Exiles, has called Huberman a Jewish Schindler because of the nearly thousand Jews he saved from extinction at the hands of the Nazis.
Huberman was born in the Polish town of Czestochowa in 1882. A violin prodigy, he toured throughout Europe as a child but received no schooling other than in music. At the height of his fame he was shattered by the carnage of the First World War. He cancelled his lucrative concert schedule and enrolled at the Sorbonne, where he studied political science. Throughout the 1920s he devoted his time and energies to the Pan Europe Movement, an organization meant to prevent future wars which attracted such other notables as Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, and Sigmund Freud.
Huberman was among the few public figures whose prescience measured the threat that Hitler and the rise of the Nazi Party posed to the Jews of Germany and to the culture of the entire civilized world. And when Jewish musicians began being fired by the orchestras of Hitler’s Europe, an idea occurred to Huberman which was to dominate the remaining years of his life, rescue many leading musicians from extinction at the hands of the Nazis, and create one of the world’s great orchestras. It is the realization of that idea that is portrayed in Aronson’s fascinating and moving film.
Orchestra of Exiles shows Huberman’s search for potential members of what would become the Palestine Philharmonic and later the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He traveled tirelessly throughout Europe to audition leading musicians, overcoming the odds against bringing them to Palestine, and using his influence to secure the permits necessary for them to stay. Along the way there are surprising–who knew?–moments and eminent historical figures portrayed in a seamless blend of documentary footage and the enactments that reproduce the characters and their milieux, faithful to their natures and their times. The actors chosen to represent Huberman and his various associates look much like their photographs, and their actions, for the most part voiceless, are filmed with a slightly veiled effect, with the result that one is drawn into the story with little awareness of where archival footage gives way to narrative film.
Because the story is true, because the unique gathering of musical talent that became first the Palestine and eventually the Israel Symphony Orchestra can be traced from its beginnings under Arturo Toscanini to the present, and because one man’s sacrifice of fame and fortune in order to realize his mission of rescue and his vision of a great musical heritage resonates with us today, Orchestra of Exiles is a must-see for anyone interested in music, in history, or in how both came together in the Yishuv. The film is an artistic as well as an emotional experience.
Rita Kramer’s books include Flames in the Field and When Morning Comes.
California Church to Become Site of Islamist Convention http://frontpagemag.com/2012/ryan-mauro/california-church-to-become-site-of-islamist-convention/ The Muslim Public Affairs Council’s choice of location for its 12th Annual Convention on December 15 is telling: The All Saints Episcopal Church of Pasadena, California. The group, founded by Muslim Brotherhood followers, says this is the “next step in its mission by crossing the interfaith […]
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/the-working-class-and-the-government-class/print/ Forget all the talk about whether we will or won’t go over the fiscal cliff. We ourselves are the fiscal cliff and have been for some time now. The real fiscal cliff is not the point at which we run out of money, our credit rating sinks lower than Enron and everyone is fighting […]
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/boko-haram-islamists-kill-20-college-students-for-wearing-mini-skirts-slacks/ In more Muslim War on Women news, Boko Haram, the genocidal Islamist terrorist group that the State Department would like the Nigerian government to make concessions to, has posted another reminder what the real war on women looks like. Friday, about a day after 10 men were killed in Maiduguri, at least 20 women, […]
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/ben-shapiro/two-and-a-half-men-star-risks-career-to-tell-truth/print/ This week, Angus T. Jones, who plays teenager Jake on the hit sitcom Two and a Half Men, told the truth about the show on which he is featured: it harms American culture. Jones, who has become a believing Christian, cut a video for Forerunner Christian Church in which he stated, “If you watch […]
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/334453/enough-already-race-card-deroy-murdock
The Democratic Left needs to stop lobbing noxious rhetorical grenades.
Among sitting Senate Democrats, California’s Barbara Boxer, Illinois’s Dick Durbin, and Rhode Island’s Jack Reed exhibited bias by voting against Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state on January 26, 2005. Even worse, anti-black animus made Iowa’s Tom Harkin, Massachusetts’s John Kerry, New Jersey’s Frank Lautenberg, and Michigan’s Carl Levin reject Rice as well as Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas who, nonetheless, was confirmed on October 15, 1991. Also among the über-bigots who nixed both Rice and Thomas was the late Robert Byrd of West Virginia, a former Senate Democratic leader and Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan. Among other efforts, Byrd recruited 150 members for the notorious hate group.
Okay, Democrats and liberals, how does that feel?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/concoughlin/100191795/is-egypt-about-to-become-the-new-iran/ It is not only the anti-government protesters in Egypt’s Tahrir Square who should be concerned about President Mohammed Morsi’s audacious power grab. Mr Morsi’s claim at the weekend that “God’s will and elections made me the captain of this ship” has echoes of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s claim during the 1979 Iranian revolution that his […]
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100191964/the-white-houses-benghazi-bungling-is-proving-a-disaster/ President Obama hasn’t even begun his second term yet, but his administration is already struggling with a huge credibility problem on the Benghazi front. Watch this video posted today at The Weekly Standard, which shows White House Press Secretary Jay Carney telling National Journal correspondent Major Garrett that Obama “is not particularly concerned” whether […]
http://www.politico.com/story/2012/11/the-brotherhood-delusion-richard-lowry-84358.html The great, acerbic 19th-century satirist Ambrose Bierce defined a revolution as “an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.” He would understand events in Egypt since the fall of Hosni Mubarak very well. In the signature revolution of the Arab Spring, the country turned its back on a secular dictatorship only to fall into […]
