On the evening after Jerusalem Day, we attended a wonderful free concert at the First Station in Jerusalem: songs about Jerusalem from many Oriental Jewish traditions. I have misgivings about Jerusalem Day, because it brings out highly chauvinistic behavior - marching through Arab neighborhoods with Israeli flags, for example. On the other hand, I am very glad to be living in a unified city, with many Palestinian citizens, and only wish that it could be run inclusively so that the Palestinians would have a stake in it.
But what does politics have to do with music? What does a concert have to do with the killing that went on on the border between Gaza and Israel? How can a country that sends thugs and demagogues to the Knesset also produce fine musicians? How does high culture coexist with a brutal occupation?
And there are other discrepancies. What does Neta Barzilai (I might be the only holdout in Israel, who has never heard her song) have to do with what I regard as music?
Of course, these questions aren't relevant only to Israel. Almost all the fine art we admire in museums was produced in abhorrent, oppressive regimes.
One of the most enjoyable things I do is playing music with other people. I'm a member of a fairly decent saxophone quartet. We try to play together regularly, and we have performed in public several times. Last night only three of us could make the rehearsal, but we decided to go practice together anyway, and it was a productive, enjoyable rehearsal. Should we be playing music when our country is in crisis? If we didn't play, would the crisis be less acute? Getting back to an earlier entry, should Louis Armstrong and his fellow musicians have refused to play until black Americans got full civil rights?
But what does politics have to do with music? What does a concert have to do with the killing that went on on the border between Gaza and Israel? How can a country that sends thugs and demagogues to the Knesset also produce fine musicians? How does high culture coexist with a brutal occupation?
And there are other discrepancies. What does Neta Barzilai (I might be the only holdout in Israel, who has never heard her song) have to do with what I regard as music?
Of course, these questions aren't relevant only to Israel. Almost all the fine art we admire in museums was produced in abhorrent, oppressive regimes.
One of the most enjoyable things I do is playing music with other people. I'm a member of a fairly decent saxophone quartet. We try to play together regularly, and we have performed in public several times. Last night only three of us could make the rehearsal, but we decided to go practice together anyway, and it was a productive, enjoyable rehearsal. Should we be playing music when our country is in crisis? If we didn't play, would the crisis be less acute? Getting back to an earlier entry, should Louis Armstrong and his fellow musicians have refused to play until black Americans got full civil rights?
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