In the nascent State of Israel, a country fighting for its survival, these cultural heroes reminded the world that civilization is defended with both an army and art.
I listened to The Israel Philharmonic play just five days ago, live in Germany! Mahler and Elgar….The Moment of Significance was incalculably Great and is a story which will one day be told. Thus, The Culture of Beauty and Music burns as brightly in Israel, and in Europe, the Americas, and Russia and Asia, and across Africa and the World in fact, as this ever did! Have faith. Civilisation is strong. The Future is as bright as ever. All proven. By the way, the celebration of Beauty is Universal in all races, cultures and classes, and is certainly not limited to High culture.
The difference between then and now is that THEN people were individuals with a shared reality (however disputed) who had all for the most part experienced privation, served in the military, and understood the need to cherish civilization, because of how precarious it is and how much blood was shed to create and uphold it; but NOW people are just deracinated individuals who are slaves to the hivemind and its power to bestow likes and followers while making sure to stay wary of its ability to destroy—if you're an author or actor one wrong word can create an angry mob demanding the destruction of your career, if you in any way contradict mob wisdom you can expect to be hounded at home and at work (same for your family), and things like beauty, talent, wisdom are considered unacceptable affronts to egalitarianism, which means you gain more status by destroying the life of someone who's mastered a craft or instrument for a stray thoughtcrime as opposed to being the one who's devoted thousands of hours to building that skill (who can be discarded in favor of a computer).
In the 21st century, humans and their cultures have been replaced by the MOB and its needs and moods, as managed by our reigning algorithms, and the mob always hates Jews (too smart, too different, too stubbornly singular), and the mob is always wrong but never in doubt. The mob is like a hurricane heading toward each of us (esp if you refuse to cower and join) and we all need a safety plan. You can run or hide or buckle down, but be prepared. It's easy to destroy a civilization and its habits, but almost impossible to recreate one from its ruins.
It brings to mind " the Angel of History", by Walter Benjamin
" This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.”
"Progress" is like that carrot they tie in front of donkeys to keep them always moving forward in a straight line. It is another abstraction that sometimes can inspire thinking but that can also inspire the refusal to think.
Either way, humankind cannot bear very much reality and the digital mob in the process of replacing humankind will replace reality with its own simulation, designed to flatter it and feed its delusions. We may be among the last free-range organic humans who think with lumps of matter and not computer programs. Oh well, we had a good run! :))
What a moving tribute to great musicians and to the power of beautiful art. This is why I donate to the Israel Philharmonic. I heard them, under Mehta, in Chicago several years ago. Their Beethoven 5th was like hearing it for the first time. Remarkable. More recently, I and lots of lucky patrons, many of them frail and elderly, braved a pro-Pally protest to hear the Jerusalem Quartet in Vancouver. Although classical music is my thing, and I was lucky enough to hear and even meet many of the greatest musicians of the 60s and 70s, I also want to give a shout out to the popular novelists who introduced Am Yisrael to this young Appalachian then-Presbyterian. Leon Uris, Herman Wouk, and James Michener may not have created high art, but they made a compelling case for respecting Jews, their traditions, and their homeland. When it became apparent that we were losing the media war after Oct. 7th, I kept asking myself, where is Leon Uris when we need him. Then there are the truly magnificent Israeli and Jewish writers whose work has opened many eyes, both Jewish and non-Jewish, to the richness of Torah and of our culture. I am grateful beyond words.
"There was no separation between the pinnacle of Western civilisation and Jewish sovereignty."
Beautifully put. As the background to this, consider whether European gentiles allowed there to be no separation between the pinnacle of Western civilisation and Jewishness itself. Felix Mendelssohn, the child prodigy praised by Goethe, the rediscoverer of Bach, was almost universally acclaimed in his day and admired by his peers. Although his parents had converted to Christianity, everbody knew that the grandson of Moses Mendelssohn was of Jewish stock. (The Moses Mendelssohn who was friends with Lessing, in those more hopeful times.)
And then, with Wagner and his vile pamphlet, the idea emerged that Mendelssohn's music was not really German, and was counterfeit, because Jews could only mimic. Yes, Wagner and people like him created that separation.
But great Jewish artists would not accept that separation. And they claimed their rightful place at the pinnacle of Western civilisation, a place they had always occupied since Abraham left his tent.
When these greats went to Israel to perform, and played the European music from which others had tried to separate them, they were asserting that claim twice over.
"This nation belongs," they were saying. "No matter who tries to exclude it. This we affirm with our batons and our bows."
Such great artists, who deserve this great praise and silent condemnation of today's artists who refuse to recognize their obligationto sing praise of Israel
I listened to The Israel Philharmonic play just five days ago, live in Germany! Mahler and Elgar….The Moment of Significance was incalculably Great and is a story which will one day be told. Thus, The Culture of Beauty and Music burns as brightly in Israel, and in Europe, the Americas, and Russia and Asia, and across Africa and the World in fact, as this ever did! Have faith. Civilisation is strong. The Future is as bright as ever. All proven. By the way, the celebration of Beauty is Universal in all races, cultures and classes, and is certainly not limited to High culture.
Jealous!
The difference between then and now is that THEN people were individuals with a shared reality (however disputed) who had all for the most part experienced privation, served in the military, and understood the need to cherish civilization, because of how precarious it is and how much blood was shed to create and uphold it; but NOW people are just deracinated individuals who are slaves to the hivemind and its power to bestow likes and followers while making sure to stay wary of its ability to destroy—if you're an author or actor one wrong word can create an angry mob demanding the destruction of your career, if you in any way contradict mob wisdom you can expect to be hounded at home and at work (same for your family), and things like beauty, talent, wisdom are considered unacceptable affronts to egalitarianism, which means you gain more status by destroying the life of someone who's mastered a craft or instrument for a stray thoughtcrime as opposed to being the one who's devoted thousands of hours to building that skill (who can be discarded in favor of a computer).
In the 21st century, humans and their cultures have been replaced by the MOB and its needs and moods, as managed by our reigning algorithms, and the mob always hates Jews (too smart, too different, too stubbornly singular), and the mob is always wrong but never in doubt. The mob is like a hurricane heading toward each of us (esp if you refuse to cower and join) and we all need a safety plan. You can run or hide or buckle down, but be prepared. It's easy to destroy a civilization and its habits, but almost impossible to recreate one from its ruins.
You're a very good writer. Do you write for a living?
Thanks! You're very kind.
I work mostly as a fiction editor, but I have written stories and scripts etc.
You smelled the Lit degree on me! :)
Cheers
Indeed. Because I have one of those degrees, too. :-).
Wonderfully put, Clever Pseudonym.
It brings to mind " the Angel of History", by Walter Benjamin
" This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.”
Thanks! and what a great quote...
"Progress" is like that carrot they tie in front of donkeys to keep them always moving forward in a straight line. It is another abstraction that sometimes can inspire thinking but that can also inspire the refusal to think.
Either way, humankind cannot bear very much reality and the digital mob in the process of replacing humankind will replace reality with its own simulation, designed to flatter it and feed its delusions. We may be among the last free-range organic humans who think with lumps of matter and not computer programs. Oh well, we had a good run! :))
Cheers
What a moving tribute to great musicians and to the power of beautiful art. This is why I donate to the Israel Philharmonic. I heard them, under Mehta, in Chicago several years ago. Their Beethoven 5th was like hearing it for the first time. Remarkable. More recently, I and lots of lucky patrons, many of them frail and elderly, braved a pro-Pally protest to hear the Jerusalem Quartet in Vancouver. Although classical music is my thing, and I was lucky enough to hear and even meet many of the greatest musicians of the 60s and 70s, I also want to give a shout out to the popular novelists who introduced Am Yisrael to this young Appalachian then-Presbyterian. Leon Uris, Herman Wouk, and James Michener may not have created high art, but they made a compelling case for respecting Jews, their traditions, and their homeland. When it became apparent that we were losing the media war after Oct. 7th, I kept asking myself, where is Leon Uris when we need him. Then there are the truly magnificent Israeli and Jewish writers whose work has opened many eyes, both Jewish and non-Jewish, to the richness of Torah and of our culture. I am grateful beyond words.
"There was no separation between the pinnacle of Western civilisation and Jewish sovereignty."
Beautifully put. As the background to this, consider whether European gentiles allowed there to be no separation between the pinnacle of Western civilisation and Jewishness itself. Felix Mendelssohn, the child prodigy praised by Goethe, the rediscoverer of Bach, was almost universally acclaimed in his day and admired by his peers. Although his parents had converted to Christianity, everbody knew that the grandson of Moses Mendelssohn was of Jewish stock. (The Moses Mendelssohn who was friends with Lessing, in those more hopeful times.)
And then, with Wagner and his vile pamphlet, the idea emerged that Mendelssohn's music was not really German, and was counterfeit, because Jews could only mimic. Yes, Wagner and people like him created that separation.
But great Jewish artists would not accept that separation. And they claimed their rightful place at the pinnacle of Western civilisation, a place they had always occupied since Abraham left his tent.
When these greats went to Israel to perform, and played the European music from which others had tried to separate them, they were asserting that claim twice over.
"This nation belongs," they were saying. "No matter who tries to exclude it. This we affirm with our batons and our bows."
Great article. I had read it already. Those were great times.
Such great artists, who deserve this great praise and silent condemnation of today's artists who refuse to recognize their obligationto sing praise of Israel
Appears they have the wrong followers and the wrong approach to create the wrong followers. 😉🙂🇺🇸🦅