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Jerusalem – At the insistence of internationally acclaimed conductor Daniel Barenboim, the Israel Festival decided in April to finance a concert of music that will perform Richard Wagner’s Die Walkure in July at a prestigious venue in Jerusalem. Unsurprisingly, this created a domestic stir.

Performing Hitler’s favorite composer in Israel has long been an issue. In 1981 the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra chose to play as an encore Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. After conductor Zubin Metha announced the selection, some left the auditorium, including two violinists. An usher who apparently had not understood Metha, jumped onto stage as soon as he recognized Wagner’s notes and dramatically removed his shirt exposing scars from World War II. The concert was interrupted. It took 10 years for the Israel Philharmonic to make a new attempt at playing Wagner in the Jewish state, to no avail.

Then last October, the Rishon Letzion Orchestra won a legal battle over the issue and was able to perform Wagner’s Siegfred Idyll. Again, the concert was not immune to incidents. Some people left the audience in protest, whereas a Holocaust survivor sounded a noisemaker he deliberately had brought to disrupt the performance.

Now, after pondering «seriously and with great sensitivity» this controversial subject, the Israel Festival decided to delight Israelis one more time with the works of the genius from Bayreuth.

Supporters of the public playing of Wagner’s music in Israel base their case on well-known grounds:

– That many great artists whose works are accepted here are well-known anti-Semites. True, but Wagner was not just another anti-Semite; he advocated a final solution for the Jewish people. In his 1850 treatise Judaism in Music, he claimed that the racial inferiority of the Jews rendered them incapable of any musical contribution. In 1881, when 400 Jews were burned alive in a fire at a Vienna theater, thus reacted the composer: «All the Jews should be burned up at a performance of Nathan.» When czarist soldiers massacred Jews that same year, Wagner said: ‘Their laudable action genuinely express the power of the people.» Although he died before the advent of Nazism, his ideology shaped Nazi thought. Should the Jewish state honor this man’s art?

– That «the man should be separated from his work.» Wagnerites point out that by appreciating his music they are not celebrating Wagner’s anti-Semitic ideology but rather paying tribute to a creative genius whose art became associated with the Nazi Party. However, it is impossible to separate the two in this case. As Efraim Zuroff, head of the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, has pointed out, Wagner expressed his anti-Semitism through his creations; that’s why the Nazis made him their cultural icon.

– That based on the intellectual fetish of modern liberalism – absolute freedom of expression – Israeli orchestras have the right to express themselves at their own discretion. If this expression offends a third party, so be it. Freedom of expression trumps absolutely everything.

At issue, though, there are two sets of rights: (1) the legitimate right of an individual to play or listen to the music he or she enjoys, and (2) the right of another individual not to be offended by that music. So maestro Barenboim wants to play Wagner’s music? Let him do it, but not in Israel.

The question whether or not Wagner’s work should be performed in Israel goes far beyond «freedom of expression.» Indeed, to force this kind of extraordinarily sensitive issue on grounds of some absolute personal right to artistic enjoyment is the worst kind of abject insensitivity and collective selfishness.

So, dear members of the Israel Festival, when you all will be gladly listening in Jerusalem to the music of Hitler’s favorite composer, remember that many Holocaust survivors will feel betrayed and abandoned in their own homeland. Enjoy it.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Jerusalem.