St. John Passion

It is the time of year for St. John Passion and last night I heard a splendid rendering of Bach’s Johannes Passion in the Freiburg Münster. Bach in his great talent managed to vividly bring home the story told in the Gospel of St. John. Almost like an impressionist painter, with his choir, Bach brings out the atmosphere, the [Jewish] crowds and hysteria. The result is anti-Jewish agitation to the most beautiful music.

Sitting in the sombre gothic cathedral, I remembered my mother – who sang in the choir that performed the Passion in Israel in the late 60s and early 70s of last century – telling me that the words of the Johannes Passion made her feel more uncomfortable than any text she had previously sung. At the time, I did not really take much heed. I loved the music and that was enough. Having grown up in Israel, anti-Judaism was something I had never experienced. My other, who was born in Germany and had to flee with her family had first hand experience.

45 Year later, leaving the Freiburg Münster, I found myself thinking of the many generations of Christians leaving their solemn churches after hearing Bach’s Johannes Passion depicting the Jews driving the death of their Lord. How many of them, upon subsequently meeting a Jew in the streets of their town, then reacted with hatred, aggression and even violence, as a result of the animosity towards Jews that was planted in their hearts with the aid of the beautiful, so very beautiful music of Johan Sebastian Bach?

Use and abuse of the term Zionism

An article of mine on use and abuse of the term Zionist and Zionism, has just been published by the German Süddeutsche Zeitung.

A link is available on  request.

Israelis – Not so smart after all

Virtually all former heads of the Israeli secret services as well as hundreds of retired Israeli generals have for years made it clear that getting out of the Occupied Territories and reaching an agreement with the Palestinians is of vital strategic and existential importance to Israel.

But will the Israelis listen to them? No. Instead, they listen to and buy into the propaganda of the Israeli right wing politicians ranging from the messianic to the basic greedy land grabbers.

Israelis disregard their own security experts and instead listen to ideology driven doomsday scenarios, the latest of which is that a Palestinian State would be a launch pad for ISIS – the bogeyman en vogue. And they vote accordingly. There is hardly any political party running in the coming elections (17 March) that is truly interested in getting out of the West Bank and willing to say so.

The right-out stupidity of Israel’s population is the proof to anyone who has ever believed racial notions of Jewish superior wisdom, that there is no such thing.

How can so many people be fooled like that? 

Netanyahu and the US Congress

As he testified to US Congress in September 2002, here’s what Netanyahu the Great said:

“If you take out Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region… The task and the great opportunity and challenge is not merely to effect the ouster of the regime, but also to transform the region.” 

Twelve years laters and they continue to listen to him. An impressive lot these American lawmakers.

Successful salesmen don’t eat their hats; they get re-invited to sell their latest line.