Don't American Jews Realize They Are All Klinghoffer? They just don't get it. Rabbi Berel Wein

An elderly, crippled, wheel chair bound Jew by the name of Klinghoffer was thrown overboard from a cruise ship by Arab terrorists about a decade ago. Klinghoffer’s only crime was that he was Jewish. These facts are uncontested and well-documented.

Nevertheless, in the name of artistic freedom, a play was written that justified the murderous deed and intimated that Klinghoffer’s murder was really the fault of the Jewish state of Israel. Again in the name of artistic freedom, an opera was written reiterating that theme and the opera was produced and presented by the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York last week.

It seems that all of the musical critics are in agreement that it was not a great opera, artistically speaking. However, in today's completely politicized and overwhelmingly anti-Israel and anti-Jewish intellectual world, the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York felt impelled to produce this second-rate work in order to make a statement regarding its own political agenda and skewed worldview.

There was a protest mounted against the showing of this opera by some Jewish organizations in New York. However, the Metropolitan Opera Company, using the shield of artistic freedom uber alles – just as the Jew haters on university campuses use the shield of academic freedom to dispense their poison – naturally defended its production and in fact was proud that it engaged in such a groundbreaking venture.

The New York Times, one of the leaders of the consistently shrill anti-Israel chorus, in its column regarding the production of this opera interviewed a few Jewish opera goers who were present at the Klinghoffer opera. These Jews were naturally not disturbed by the nature or message of the production and seem to be somewhat bewildered as to what all of the controversy was about. They unfortunately represent a large section of the American Jewish community that is completely asleep as its society hurtles towards the brink of societal weakness, loss of influence, if not even self extinction. They just don't understand that they are Klinghoffer. And that therefore they are applauding their own eventual demise.

Of course, the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York is financed very heavily by Jewish donors. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, none of these influential contributors to the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York has publicly voiced any criticism of the decision to mount and produce this
Hitler arrived on the scene three generations too soon. In today's climate there would have been many who would have “understood” him and his motives.
production, which makes the murderers heroic and the victim pathetic. This opera is perfectly acceptable in today’s American society because poor Mr. Klinghoffer was Jewish. These donors also don’t realize thatthey are also Klinghoffer.

Had Klinghoffer been Moslem or black, his murder would have been judged to be a racist and terrorist crime, worthy of punishment, universal criticism and certainly no opera would have been produced to “explain” the “justified motives” of the murderers. Hitler arrived on the scene three generations too soon. In today's climate there would have been many who would have “understood” him and his motives. In spite of the disaster of the “appeasement” policy of the 1930’s this policy is being followed today in negotiations with murderers that will only lead to a dead end and I do mean dead. Except that in today's world this is called “engagement.” It is a prime example of whistling past the graveyard, which always eventually leads to being in the graveyard.

It is therefore no surprise that the Associated Press in reporting the terrorist incident last week in Jerusalem when a three-month-old infant was murdered by an Arab terrorist driving his automobile into a crowd of innocent people waiting for a train or bus and was then subsequently shot dead, headlined the incident as follows: “Israeli Police Shoot Man in Jerusalem.”

This time there was a sufficient outcry of Jewish outrage that the headline was removed a few hours later and replaced with a more accurate description of the terrible event that had occurred. Jews and Israel are fairgame for every sort of distortion, criticism and slight, diplomatic, governmental or media generated.

The Jewish world somehow still believes that it exists in the more tolerant and subdued immediate post-Holocaust world of the 1950s when “Hava Nagilah” was the most popular song on American radio and stage. Those days are long gone and have been replaced by hatred, discrimination and demonization of all things Jewish.

Hillel said that “If I am not for me, then who will be for me?” If individual Jews and communal Jewish organizations are not now prepared to vigorously counteract what is happening in the Western world and the United States vis a vis Jews and the Jewish state then we are truly staring into the abyss. We should remember and assimilate into our inner being that we are all Klinghoffer.

‘The Death Of Klinghoffer’ Is An Injustice To Our Father’s Memory By: Lisa and Ilsa Klinghoffer

Grave site of terror victim Leon Klinghoffer.
Photo Credit: findagrave.com

On Oct. 8, 1985, our 69-year-old wheelchair-bound father, Leon Klinghoffer, was shot in the head by Palestinian hijackers on the Achille Lauro cruise ship. The terrorists brutally and unceremoniously threw his body and wheelchair overboard into the Mediterranean. His body washed up on the Syrian shore a few days later.

Beginning on Oct. 20 for eight performances, a baritone portraying “Leon Klinghoffer” is appearing on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera and singing the “Aria of the Falling Body” as he artfully falls into the sea. Competing choruses will highlight Jewish and Palestinian narratives of suffering and oppression, selectively presenting the complexities of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The four terrorists responsible for his murder will be humanized by distinguished opera singers and given a back-story, an “explanation” for their brutal act of terror and violence. Opera-goers will see and hear a musical examination of terrorism, the Holocaust and Palestinian claims of dispossession – all in under three hours.

Since the Met Opera’s decision to stage “The Death of Klinghoffer” by composer John Adams became public several months ago, much has been said and written about our father. Those opposed to the opera’s appearance in New York have elevated his murder at the hands of terrorists into a form of martyrdom. To cultural arbiters and music critics, meanwhile, his tragic story has been seen merely as a vehicle for what they perceive to be artistic brilliance.

For us, the impact and message of the opera is much more deeply felt and tragically personal.

Neither Mr. Adams nor librettist Alice Goodman reached out to us when creating the opera, so we didn’t know what to expect when we attended the American debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1991. We were devastated by what we saw: the exploitation of the murder of our father as a vehicle for political commentary.

Over the years we have been deeply distressed with each new production of “Klinghoffer.” Critical views of Israel permeate the opera, and the staging and props of various productions have only amplified that bias. To have it now produced in New York – in our own backyard – by the country’s most prestigious opera company is incredibly painful.

We have always been strong supporters of the arts, and believe they can play an important role in examining and understanding significant world events. “Klinghoffer” does no such thing. It presents false moral equivalencies without context and offers no real insight into the historical reality and the senseless murder of an American Jew. The opera rationalizes, romanticizes, and legitimizes the terrorist murder of our father.

Long ago we resolved never to let the last few minutes of Leon Klinghoffer’s life define who he was as a man, husband, and father. Opera patrons will only see Leon Klinghoffer presented as a victim – but he was so much more.

Our father was an inventor who loved to work with his hands. After his stroke, he continued to use his one good arm to repair anything that needed fixing. Every Saturday night he and our mother, Marilyn, would get dressed up and go out dancing. Family and friends meant everything to him.

He was on a cruise with our mother, celebrating their 36th anniversary with a group of lifelong friends who summered together on the Jersey shore, when terrorists took over the ship, announced a hijacking in progress, and separated the Jewish passengers from those on board.

The terrorist thugs who murdered Leon Klinghoffer didn’t care about the good, sweet man our father was. To them he was just a Jew – an American in a wheelchair whose life they considered worthless.

As the years have passed, we have tried to ensure that his murder would not be forgotten or, worse, co-opted or exploited by those with an agenda. We believe his ordeal should continue to serve as a wake-up call to civilized society about the dangers of terrorism.

We have dedicated our lives since the tragedy to educating people about terrorism, and putting a personal face on victims and their families through the Leon and Marilyn Klinghoffer Memorial Foundation of the Anti-Defamation League.

Our father was one of the first American victims of Middle Eastern terrorism. Today with the memory of 9/11, the reality of al Qaeda and ISIS, and countless other attacks and threats, Americans live under the deadly threat of terrorism each and every day.

Terrorism is irrational. It should never be explained away or justified. Nor should the death of innocent civilians be misunderstood as an acceptable means for drawing attention to perceived political grievances. Unfortunately, “The Death of Klinghoffer” does all of this and sullies the memory of our father in the process.

Murder at the Met - Thousands Rage and Protest at Opening of 'Klinghoffer'

Israel Matzav: A different take on the Death of Leon Klinghoffer

As you can see from the picture, there was a pretty substantial protest on Monday night outside the opening of the Metropolitan Opera's production of The Death of Leon Klinghoffer. Walter Russell Mead is far more knowledgeable about opera than I will ever be. I don't want to focus on his artistic review of the production, but rather on his comments on the demonstration outside and on the question of whether the opera itself should ever have been staged. Here's what he says about the demonstrators.

Not everybody in New York shared my opinion; protestors blocked the street in front of Lincoln Center and we had to pass through police lines and barricades to get to the show. The lines at the entrance stretched far out into the plaza as the ushers conducted unusually thorough searches of bags at the door. With protestors shouting “Shame! Shame!” and speakers addressing the crowd in heavily miked voices, it was easily the most dramatic moment I’ve ever seen at a New York arts venue.

The excitement continued inside; some of the people opposed to the performance had tickets, and dozens stood to boo or cry out slogans like “Klinghoffer’s murderers will never be forgiven!” at various points during the performance. For history of opera aficionados, it was like a revival of the nineteenth century drama in European opera houses as rival factions of fans cheered or booed politically or musically controversial works.

Or the 21st century at the London Philharmonic.  

Mead also has some on-point comments about the production itself.

The real problem, and it is a serious one, involves the decision by John Adams and Alice Goodman to use a family’s tragedy for their art without the permission of the family’s members. Leon Klinghoffer was not a public figure; nothing gave Adams and Goodman a moral right to profit from his death or to use it for political or artistic purposes of their own without the permission of his loved ones. The opera not only shows the death of Lisa’s and Ilsa’s father, putting words in his mouth, it presents a fictionalized portrait of their mother’s shock and reaction on hearing the news.

No family not already in public life deserves to have their most intimate and painful moments taken over and made into a public spectacle against their will. You couldn’t take liberties with Mickey and Minnie Mouse without having Disney lawyers come at you with cease and desist orders; Leon Klinghoffer’s family deserves more consideration than a fictional rodent and without in any way seeking to curtail free speech, one can regret the decision of two famous and well established artists to turn someone else’s private grief into a public entertainment.

If I were Peter Gelb, I would have declined to put the opera on, but not on political grounds. I would not have wanted to associate myself with what amounts to psychological rape, and I would not have staged it against the wishes of the murdered man’s family. Dehumanizing Leon Klinghoffer, turning him from a human being into a symbol in their political theater, is what the terrorists did on the Achille Lauro; John Adams and Alice Goodman echo this violation by trampling on the family’s privacy and wishes, stripping the Klinghoffers of their rights and dignity and using them as props. There were other ways to write an opera about the tragic conflict between the Palestinian and Jewish national movements.

Compare that with the New York Times' critic avoiding the issue.  

Yet, in death, Leon Klinghoffer became a public figure, an innocent but defiant hero, lost to what still seems like a never-ending conflict in the Middle East.

No, he didn't. He never made that choice in life, and his family - who were the only ones who could have done so - never made that choice for him in death.

Read the whole thing.  

UPDATE 8:19 PM

Some of you might question why one of the labels I put on this post is "anti-Semitism." Please consider this Facebook comment from Steven Plaut:

Friends I need your help. I have written a new Opera and I need you to help demand that the Metropolitan Opera in New York stage it. It is an opera about the lynching of black people in Alabama and Mississippi by the Ku Klux Klan. The opera presents the moral ambiguity of the struggle for self-determination of the Klan members against the harsh and cruel behavior of the pickaninnies. The opera is careful not to pick sides and it presents both sides with musical delight. After the Klansters lynch the darkies, they take off their hoods and paint themselves as minstrel singers to show their common humanity with the dead. I am sure you agree that this is a must performance that the Metropolitan Opera needs to stage! Write the Opera chairman today!

We all know that hell will freeze over before the opera suggested by Plaut is staged, don't we? 

A.Dershowitz: MET Stifled Free Exchange of Ideas About a Propaganda Opera

The Death of Klinghoffer. Photo: NewYorkCityTheatre.com

On Monday night I went to the Metropolitan Opera. I went for two reasons: to see and hear John Adams’ controversial opera, The Death of Klinghoffer; and to see and hear what those protesting the Met’s judgment in presenting the opera had to say. Peter Gelb, the head of the Met Opera, had advised people to see it for themselves and then decide.

That’s what I planned to do. Even though I had written critically of the opera—based on reading the libretto and listening to a recording—I was also critical of those who wanted to ban or censor it. I wanted personally to experience all sides of the controversy and then “decide.”

Lincoln Center made that difficult. After I bought my ticket, I decided to stand in the Plaza of Lincoln Center, across the street and in front of the protestors, so I could hear what they were saying and read what was on their signs. But Lincoln Center security refused to allow me to stand anywhere in the large plaza. They pushed me to the side and to the back, where I could barely make out the content of the protests. “Either go into the opera if you have a ticket or leave. No standing.” When I asked why I couldn’t remain in the large, open area between the protesters across the street and the opera house behind me, all I got were terse replies: “security,” “Lincoln Center orders.”

The end result was that the protesters were talking to and facing an empty plaza. It would be as if the Metropolitan Opera had agreed to produce The Death of Klinghoffer, but refused to allow anyone to sit in the orchestra, the boxes or the grand tier. “Family circle, upstairs, side views only.”

That’s not freedom of expression, which requires not only that the speakers be allowed to express themselves, but that those who want to see and hear them be allowed to stand in an area in front of, and close to, the speakers, so that they can fully participate in the marketplace of ideas. That marketplace was needlessly restricted on the opening night of The Death of Klinghoffer.

Unable to see or hear the content of the protest, I made my way to the opera house where I first registered a protest with the Met’s media person and then sat down in my fourth row seat to listen and watch the opera.

I’m an opera fanatic, having been to hundreds of Met performances since my high school years.  This was my third opera since the beginning of the season, just a few weeks ago. I consider myself something of an opera aficionado and “maven.” I always applaud, even flawed performances and mediocre operas. By any standard, The Death of Klinghoffer, is anything but the “masterpiece” its proponents are claiming it is. The music is uneven, with some lovely choruses—more on that coming—one decent aria, and lots of turgid recitatives. The libretto is awful. The drama is confused and rigid, especially the weak device of the captain looking back at the events several years later with the help of several silent passengers. There are silly and distracting arias from a British show girl who seems to have had a crush on one of the terrorists, as well as from a woman who hid in her cabin eating grapes and chocolate.  They added neither to the drama nor the music of the opera.

Then there were the choruses. The two that open the opera are supposed to demonstrate the comparative suffering of the displaced Palestinians and the displaced Jews. The Palestinian chorus is beautifully composed musically, with some compelling words, sung rhythmically and sympathetically. The Jewish chorus is a mishmash of whining about money, sex, betrayal and assorted “Hasidim” protesting in front of movie theaters. It never mentions the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, though the chorus is supposed to be sung by its survivors. The goal of that narrative chorus is to compare the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians—some of which was caused by Arab leaders urging them to leave and return victoriously after the Arabs murdered the Jews of Israel—with the systematic genocide of six million Jews. It was a moral abomination.

And it got worse. The Palestinian murderer is played by a talented ballet dancer, who is portrayed sympathetically. A chorus of Palestinian women asks the audience to understand why he would be driven to terrorism. “We are not criminals,” the terrorists assures us.

One of the terrorists—played by the only Black lead singer—is portrayed as an overt anti-Semite, expressing hateful tropes against “the Jews.” But he is not the killer. Nor, in this opera, is Klinghoffer selected for execution because he is a Jew. Instead, he is picked because he is a loudmouth who can’t control his disdain for the Palestinian cause.

At bottom The Death of Klinghoffer—a title deliberately selected to sanitize his brutal murder—is more propaganda than art. It has some artistic moments but the dominant theme is to create a false moral equivalence between terrorism and its victims, between Israel and Palestinian terrorist groups, and between the Holocaust and the self-inflicted Nakba. It is a mediocre opera, by a good composer and very bad librettist. But you wouldn’t know that from the raucous standing ovations received not only by the performers and chorus master, who deserved them, but also by the composer, who did not. The applause was not for the art. Indeed, during the intermission and on the way out, the word I heard most often was “boring.” The over-the-top standing ovations were for the “courage” displayed by all those involved in the production. But it takes little courage to be anti-Israel these days, or to outrage Jews. There were, to be sure, a few brief expressions of negative opinion during the opera, one of which was briefly disruptive, as an audience member repeatedly shouted “Klinghoffer’s murder will never be forgiven.” He was arrested and removed.

What would require courage would be for the Met to produce an opera that portrayed Mohammad, or even Yassir Arafat, in a negative way. The protests against such portrayals would not be limited to a few shouts, some wheelchairs and a few hundred distant demonstrators. Remember the murderous reaction to a few cartoons several years ago.

Rudy Giuliani: Why I Protested ‘The Death of Klinghoffer’

The former New York City mayor joined a demonstration outside the Metropolitan Opera on Monday night before the first performance. He explains why John Adams’s opera is so damaging.

Let’s begin by making it clear at the outset, as Floyd Abrams did in his piece in The Wall Street Journal, that the First Amendment here operates to protect both parties to the dispute over the Metropolitan Opera’s staging of The Death of Klinghoffer.

The Met has the First Amendment right to present this opera, and people certainly have a similar right to attend. It is their choice.

Equally, all of us have as strong a First Amendment right to make our position clear and warn people that this work is both a distortion of history and helped, in some ways, to foster a three decade long feckless policy of creating a moral equivalency between the Palestinian Authority, a corrupt terrorist organization, and the state of Israel, a democracy ruled by law.

This is a complex issue for me.

As an opera fan of some 57 years, I find the opera and view the music as a significant achievement. I own a CD, have heard it, and have read the libretto three or four times.

As an opera, the music and choruses are quite excellent. John Adams is one of America’s greatest composers, and I admire and enjoy his music.

However, as a story attempting to recount the appalling terrorist murder of Leon Klinghoffer, a man who was thrown into the Mediterranean Sea simply because he was Jewish, the opera is factually inaccurate and extraordinarily damaging to an appropriate description of the problems in Israel and Palestine, and of terrorism in general.

I will continue to be a patron—but with sincere regret over the decision to stage The Death of Klinghoffer, which I consider to be a grave mistake.

As one who had occasion as a U.S. attorney to investigate Yasser Arafat, I can say with some certainty that this murder was a pure act of terrorism for which there was no justifiable reason but was part of an overall campaign of numerous terrorist acts intended to make Arafat and his organization bigger players on the world stage. This was not done for the purpose of helping the Palestinian people but rather for the purpose of furthering the goals of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

I speak here to warn people that the facts presented in the opera are incomplete and distorted. This murder was ordered, organized, and planned. It was not the act of people feeling oppressed. This was the act of an organized group seeking international recognition, moral equivalency, and money. And it worked! The terrorist killers were set free.

A wheelchair with a photograph of the late Leon Kilnghoffer in it sits across from Lincoln Center and the New York Metropolitan Opera ahead of a planned demonstration, in New York October 20, 2014. (Mike Segar/Reuters)

Arafat got himself a place at the international bargaining table and made fools of us for 10 years by taking our money but never agreeing to anything reasonable.

The truth should be told that this opera didn’t create but certainly contributed to a romanticized version of the Palestinian cause which led to the American administration giving them hundreds of millions of dollars meant for the Palestinian people but mostly taken by Arafat and his band of terrorist crooks.

The truth should be told that Arafat was offered everything he wanted by President Clinton and Prime Minister Ehud Barak but turned it all down because he preferred the con game he was playing to the peace and security of his own people.

Knowing something about the running of large organizations and one as complex as the Metropolitan Opera, I sincerely appreciate Peter Gelb’s canceling the television and radio broadcasts of this opera. That was a much harder and more courageous decision than is recognized by those who oppose this opera. I do realize the difficulty in totally canceling productions of this opera.

I also appreciate that revisions were made to make it clearer that the responsibility for this terrorist act fell on the Palestinians. But in the overall context of the work, it doesn’t ameliorate the impression that there were simply no sympathetic justifications for this pure act of terror, nor does it tell the full story of this very well planned terrorist act and the true purpose of it.

My position, possibly different from some of the others, is that we recognize that people differ on this issue and that the First Amendment gives us the answer—the marketplace of ideas. The Met and those who decide to go have an absolute First Amendment right to do so, and it would be hypocritical and anti-American for us to interfere in the exercise of that right in any way.

But we also have a First Amendment right and obligation to point out the historical inaccuracy and the historical damage this opera contributed to: hundreds of millions of dollars going to Arafat, some of which is with Mrs. Arafat in the South of France and most of which never got to the people it was intended to help—the Palestinians. The opera also contributed to years of pursuing a plan for peace that was never realistic and never worked because it was based on a false premise of moral equivalency and a romanticizing of terrorism that has led to a world where terrorism has only become greater and greater, and too often justified as if it is the expression of a legitimate political philosophy.

I have been a patron of the Met for many years and appreciate its contribution to New York City and to the United States, and weigh that very much in the balance in deciding that I will continue to be a patron—but with sincere regret over the decision to stage The Death of Klinghoffer, which I consider to be a grave mistake.