Yoel L. Arbeitman wrote:

>Bernard Chasan wrote:
>
>>Barenboim is advancing his agenda of peace and tolerance.  What more can
>>he do?  He is to be commended.
>
>Barenboim claimed to be totally unaware of the virulent anti-semitism
>(read Judenhass) of Richard Wagner several years ago and from what I
>read at that time it seems that only his friend Prof.

Which may well have been at least in part a series of vents based upon
his hostility towards Meyerbeer, who he believed was blocking his career.
Wagner's selection of Hermann Levi to conduct *Parsifal* is often explained
away as insufficient refutation of his fundamental anti-Semitism but it
was a choice that nobody in Hitler's Third Reich could have or would
have made.  I have heard but haven't verified w/ my own research that
he had Jewish pallbearers at his death.

>Said let him in on the secret.  If this is true, we have here a very
>naive man indeed.

The socially acceptable anti-Semitism of the time (which of course stopped
way short of the death camps) could have disqualified many a prominent
European composer of the 19th century from being performed in Israel.

>I had the article on my old computer and therefore cannot at the moment
>send it to anyone until I transfer my files.  I do believe that if some
>musicians from Egypt, let us say, were also coming to Israel to give
>concerts, the matter might be different.

Supposing that Egptian performers or performers from other Arab countries
would be interested in coming to Israel to perform music that Israeli
Jews would be interested in hearing, how easy would it be for them to
get permission to come to Israel?  This is not a rhetorical question.
I'm really curious.

Walter Meyer