Na'ama Sheffi is an Israeli historian and author of "The Ring of Myths -
the Israelis, Wagner and the Nazis".  The following is my own English
translation of an interview with her that appeared in the German newspaper
Die Welt (The World).

For those of you who read German the original article can be found on line
at:

 http://www.die-welt.de/daten/2001/05/29/0529ku256831.htx

First appeared Tuesday, 29. May 2001 Berlin, "DIE WELT" Feuilliton section:

       "Er wird als Symbol instrumentalisiert"

       "He is being manipulated as a symbol"

   For weeks Israel has been debating over the question as to whether
   Daniel Baremboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin should be allowed to
   play Act One of Richard Wagner's "Die Walkuere" in the context of
   the Israel Festival.  State president Moshe Katsav and the Educational
   Committee of the parliament are appealing to the festival management
   to reconsider their position in order not to "hurt the feelings of
   millions of Jews worldwide" (Katsav).  The director of the festival
   Micha Levinson objects that the board of directors of the festival,
   "amongst whom include survivors of the Holocaust", support this
   decision with majority support.  In order not to force the controversial
   composer onto music lovers the Staatskapelle will only play Wagner
   in the third concert.  "The Ring of Myths - the Israelis, Wagner and
   the Nazis" is the title of the study that the historian Na'ama Sheffi
   of the University of Tel Aviv has published concerning the background
   of the controversy.

   DIE WELT:  Even though the Israelis already have enough conflict on
   their hands, they have been fighting about Richard Wagner for 60
   years.  Is it the composer or his works that are at issue?

   Na'ama Sheffi:  Wagner is accepted with such difficulty because he
   is being manipulated as the symbol of National Socialism and the
   memory of the holocaust.  Therefore his anti-Semitic comments and
   their influence on the National Socialist regime, however ill defined,
   have been very much exaggerated.

   DIE WELT:  However difficult it is to separate art and politics in
   Israel, there proves to be the example of the conductor Arturo
   Toscanini, the founder of the Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv.

   Sheffi:  When Hitler invited him in 1933 to the Bayreuth Festival,
   Toscanini declined the invitation because he saw in it the misuse of
   culture by politics.  For the same reason he left Mussolini's Italy,
   and in 1936 founded the Philharmonic Orchestra of Israel in Tel Aviv.
   In those days Wagner was popular here as part of German culture,
   least of all amongst the musicians who originated from German cultural
   circles.  And so it was quite natural that the Jewish orchestra should
   play Wagner's compositions twice in 1938.  On the program of the Gala
   Concerts on the 12th of November 1938 the Italian maestro included
   Wagner's [Prelude to the] "Meistersinger".

   DIE WELT:  Which was cancelled on account of the Reichskristallnacht
   [the imperial crystal night].

   Sheffi:  Coincidentally the pogrom took place three days before this
   first concert.  A member of the board of trustees appealed to Toscanini
   to take into consideration the feelings of the listeners, the majority
   of whom had emigrated from Europe.  Toscanini took the plea into
   account even though they ran contrary to his views.  Instead of Wagner
   Carl Maria von Weber was played.  The issue was not that of Germany
   but specifically that of Wagner.

   die WELT:  And nor was it even about a Wagner boycott...

   Sheffi: ...That came much later.  In February 1939 the same musicians
   played Wagner on a tour of Egypt.  A year later a few of his epigrams
   appeared in the journal of the Israeli National Theatre Habimah.

   DIE WELT:  The young Jewish state not only banned Wagner but also
   others such as Richard Strauss and Carl Orff, musicians such as
   Wilhelm Furtwaengler and Herbert von Karajan, and even the German
   language.

   Sheffi:  In 1950 a British singer wanted to sing Goethe-Lieder set
   to music by Schubert.  Thereupon the censorship authorities banned
   the appearance of the German language, including film.  The ban,
   which was never particularly strongly upheld anyway, was lifted first
   in 1963.

   DIE WELT:  Shortly before the establishment of diplomatic relations
   with the Federal Republic of German in 1965.

   Sheffi:  The cultural sector long constituted a kind of antithesis
   to the official political relations.  Israel needed the goal of
   reconciliation and the diplomatic ties for practical reasons, but
   the Israelis had not forgiven the Germans.  This stance was maintained
   within cultural circles for a long time.

   DIE WELT:  Significantly the first big Wagner debates arose in Israel
   in 1966.

   Sheffi:  The Nazi victims in Israel were divided amongst those who
   wanted nothing to do with Germany, the majority of whom did not
   originate from Germany, and the others, the majority of whom were
   German Jews, who despite their persecution, accepted German culture
   and even Wagner.

   DIE WELT:  When Zubin Mehta conducted Wagner's Liebestod" in 1981
   the later parliamentary president Dov Shilanski demanded that he "go
   back to India".

   Sheffi:  For one Mehta was the first to have conducted Wagner in
   Israel, but the other fact was that the right oriented and traditionally
   anti-German Likud bloc ruled at the time.  In addition to that the
   minister president Menachem Begin was conducting a battle of words
   with Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, after Schmidt emphasized the
   special German responsibility towards the Palestinians.  As a reaction
   to the attack the Israeli Philharmonic named Mehta as their lifelong
   musical director.

   DIE WELT:  On October 2000 Mendi Rodan, the conductor of the Rishon
   Letzion Symphony Orchestra played Wagner for the first time.  The
   protest was limited perhaps because Wagner's music could be heard on
   Classical Radio or because the Holocaust survivors are dying out.

   Sheffi:  The Israelis have much greater worries than Germany - the
   internal politics.  In addition ever more Israelis recognize that
   the Holocaust need not be forgotten without having to yell:  "we hate
   the Germans".

   DIE WELT:  In your opinion should Wagner be played?

   Sheffi:  We complain that the Germans threw out very important
   Jewish cultural icons.  They burnt books and chased Jews out of the
   universities.  And now the Israelis come along and do something very
   similar.  We should not forget where such cultural boycotts could
   lead.

Translated into English by:

Satoshi Akima
Sydney, Australia
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