Daniel Pearl’s Family Stands Against Anti-Semitism at the Met

klinghoffer_2151670bLeon Klinghoffer’s daughters Lisa and Ilsa Klinghoffer say that the play The Death of Klinghoffer, which premiers Monday evening at Lincoln Center, is unacceptable, stating, “We are outraged at the exploitation of our parents and the coldblooded murder of our father as the centerpiece of a production that appears to us to be anti-Semitic.” Countless media outlets, including The New York Daily News, noted that The Death of Klinghoffer has been “reviled as anti-Semitic and horribly sympathetic to the killers.”

Daniel Pearl’s father, in a letter that will be read at the protests Monday outside of Lincoln Center, notes that the Met is wrong to air this play. The letter reads in part as follows:

In joining you today to protest the New York Metropolitan Opera production of this opera, I echo the silenced voice of my son, Daniel Pearl, and the silenced voices of other victims of terror, including James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and including thousands of men, women and children who were murdered, maimed or left heartbroken by the new menace of our generation, a menace that the Met has decided to accept and orchestrate as just another activity of normative civilized society, just another phenomenon worthy of artistic expression. They tell us that the composer tried to “understand the hijackers, their motivations, and their grievances.”

I submit to you that there has never been a crime in human history lacking grievance and motivation. The 9/11 lunatics had profound motivations, and the murderers of my son, Daniel Pearl, had very compelling “grievances.” In the past few weeks we have seen with our own eyes that Hamas and ISIS have grievances, too and, they, too, are lining up for operatic productions with the Met.

Yet civilized society, from the time of our caveman ancestors, has learned to protect itself by codifying right from wrong, separating the holy from the profane, distinguishing that which deserves the sound of orchestras from that which deserves our unconditional revulsion.  The Met has smeared this distinction and thus betrayed their contract with society. I submit to you that choreographing an operatic drama around criminal pathology is not an artistic prerogative, but a blatant betrayal of public trust.

We do not stage operas for rapists and child molesters, and we do not compose symphonies for penetrating the minds of ISIS executioners. What we are seeing here in New York today is not an artistic expression that challenges the limits of morality, but a moral deformity that challenges the limits of the art. This opera is not about the mentality of deranged terrorists, but about the judgment of our arts directors. The New York Met has squandered humanity’s greatest treasure — our moral compass, our sense of right and wrong, and, most sadly, our reverence for music as a noble expression of the human spirit. We might be able some day to forgive the Met for de-criminalizing brutal minds, but we will never forgive them for poisoning our music — for turning our best violins and our iconic concert halls into mega-phones for excusing evil.”

Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which describes itself as “the nation’s premier civil rights/human relations agency,” has rubber-stamped the Met’s airing of this anti-Semitic opera.  While The Death of Klinghoffer includes libels that Jews get fat from the poor and chea, and has countless anti-Semitic themes, the ADL has cited “artistic freedoms” in approving the Metropolitan Opera’s decision to feature the anti-Semitic opera.  Shame on the ADL – they are wrong.

On the side of truth and justice: the Klinghoffer family, Daniel Pearl’s family, terror victims, countless Jewish organizations (including the Simon Wiesenthal Center), the former United States Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Former NY Governor George Pataki, numerous other religious organizations and a slew of others oppose the play and will protest outside on Monday. Rabbi Avi Weiss will lead a morning prayer vigil where participants will raise a voice of outrage against this play which celebrates terrorist murders.  They will have a wheelchair to illustrate the plight of Klinghoffer, an American World War II veteran who was killed by terrorists of the Palestine Liberation Front (PFLF).

I live across the street from Lincoln Center – it’s despicable and horrible that the Lincoln Center allows the show to go on.  Terrorists kill Americans – and that is not art.

The Metropolitan Opera is romanticizing murder and terrorism. 

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  • jakespoon

    Maybe next,a sympathetic opera about Auschwitz guards.

  • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

    I think Pearl put it well except for one thing: we should never “forgive the Met for de-criminalizing brutal minds”. Let’s hope this performance is greeted by popular and critical derision.

    • carpe diem 36

      it should be boycotted, no one should buy a single ticket. This is such a disgrace, with so many other subjects that could be used they chose this tragic affair, when a person is killed, like in the concentration camps for nothing but for being Jewish, why choose this one? Maybe the author has no imagination and could not make up a nice romantic opera. So lack of talent is not excuse for abusing Jews.

    • hawk1

      “Terrorists kill Americans – and that is not art.”

      I have always refused to agree with the left’s definition of ‘art.’ In this particular case, I also find it unforgivable.

  • Vinegar Hill

    The letter to be read outside the Lincoln Center is a disgrace and, with its warped bias, should be banned. What has the opera got to do with 9/11? How dare the writer drag up the memories of that slaughter. What has the opera got to do with ISIS? Once again it is obvious that the writer wants to take another swipe at, and smear, the Palestinians with the blood of events in which they had no part.
    To protest against an opera that places an act of violent struggle for freedom within an historical context is a disgrace. Thank goodness the ADL can see through this hatred.

    • JohnfromToronto

      The point is that nobody would produce an opera glorifying ISIS or the murderers of 9/11. But because it is the Palestinians and the murder of a Jew, that is acceptable. Wake up!

      • Vinegar Hill

        It’s not acceptable!

        • Jerry G

          Spoken like a true Leftist/Islamist/Progressive. Whatever I don’t agree with (the letter in this case) should be banned, while there should be no bar to anything on my agenda.(The anti-Semitic play).

          • Vinegar Hill

            ok I’ll go for that.

        • NYgal

          Forty years ago there was no ISIS, but there was PLO. PLO and its various subsidiaries were committing hijacking and murder and the World at large had not much against it because the victims were largely Jews.

          And because the World coddled the PLO, terrorism became such a winning strategy for which we all now pay, Arabs included.

          When the UN hosted and cheered for Arafat, they legitimized terrorism and it’s tactics. PLO, just like the rest of Muslim terror groups targeted civilians. There is no difference between PLO blowing up Pizza parlors, busses and murdering Israeli athletes, Hamas shooting missiles into Israeli cities and towns and ISIS killing Christians and Yazidis. The Arab oil states financed the terrorists, the West coddled them and bestowed legitimacy on all of them when it bestowed the legitimacy on the PLO.

          • Vinegar Hill

            You seem to forget that Israel had its murky, terrorist past. Why, therefore, are you turning on the Palestinians and criticising them for the very same acts that were carried out in the name of Zionism? Why the double standard?

          • intrcptr

            No, he’s not. What you are ignoring is that that past is past.
            Every last Muslim/Anti-Israeli organization that has or does exist IS by definition, including the US State Dept, terrorist.

            And Irgun did not shoot old men, or bomb holiday celebrations, or launch unguided weapons into cities. Your anti-semitic quo has no Israeli quid which preceded or instigated it.

            Or maybe you could explain what “grievances” led to the Hebron riots in 1929?

        • mohdanga

          So constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech should be banned for one group but allowed for another because you disagree with the opinions of one group? Idiot.

          • Vinegar Hill

            I find little evidence to support the claim that the opera is anti-Semetic and added to this the daughters claimed that it “appears to them to be” so. The grounds upon which the criticism lies is weak and does not account as a reason for the diatribe that comes from the letter. In that way I would ban it.

          • mohdanga

            So your opinion of the criticism is the basis of banning it. I don’t agree with your opinion, it’s weak and unfounded so your opinion should be banned. How does that sound?

          • intrcptr

            http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/death-klinghoffer-repulsive-libretto

            Lying about the putative nakhba, in particular ending with a wish that the supplanter will have his teeth broken in with the stones ruins, is the height of anti-semitism.

            Or need I remind you of what the name Jacob means, and what imprecatory is?

            PS
            There is too the nice tid-bit of double-speak; Leon did not “die”, he was shot in the head with a handgun; murdered, in cold blood.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            G-d Bless the “Nakba”!

            The “Nakba” was the failure of 5 attacking Arab armies to defeat Israel.

            Happy Eternal Nakba!

            And today the world sees Arabs/Muslims killing people all over the world – killing even fellow Arabs/Muslims.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Your biases limit your ability to be honest and have empathy for others..

        • Nathan Brazil

          No such thing as a Palestinian. Just some Jordanians who should’ve been reabsorbed into any of the surrounding terrorist countries.

    • Jerry G

      Do you think any Arab or Muslim country would allow an opera glorifying the killers of Osama Bin Laden? What is wonderful about our country is that we allow the public to see and hear dreck like this opera,( and your letter)and then draw their own conclusions. We also have the right to take to the streets in protest without fear of being shot or bloodied as in most Arab or Muslim states.

    • Michael Garfinkel

      “Vinegar Hill” – clearly a title for another crackpot jew-hater, this time one stupid enough to call the vicious murder of an elderly, disabled man an “act of violent struggle for freedom.”

      • Giborei1967

        She is an outed anti-Semite sharamuta IslamoNazi, immune to logic. Call in the pest control.

    • AbsolutelyRight

      Oh no, the no-good Jew-hater is back. Don’t you have to goose-step in a parade or something?

      • SCREW SOCIALISM

        Vagina Hill can goose-step to Eternal Nakba.

    • Hank Rearden

      LOL – It’s always embarrassing watching a Lib try to come up with a thought. As the Brits say, one doesn’t know where to look.

      Daniel Pearl’s father brought up 9/11 to make the point that everybody has a story, everybody has motivation. But we don’t exalt depraved motivation, we don’t celebrate it with music and spectacle.

      Leon Klinghoffer was an American on vacation. He was in a wheelchair. Only people of profound cowardice, of no redeeming virtue whatsoever, the garbage of humanity would kill such a person in cold blood. And now the Met is producing an opera about them. Are they going to put a turd in each seat?

      • Vinegar Hill

        “everybody has a story” yes I agree but you dont hear of them going on and on about it. The Irish lost 50% of it’s population due direct and indirect British policies carried out in the mid 19th C but they don’ create such a stink as you do and your ilk. They accept the historical inferior jibes and the slander made by present day Brits because they can hold their heads high and don’t hide behind the historical past. Why don’t you wake up and start to live in the 21st C?

        • SCREW SOCIALISM

          Shiites and Sunni kill each other today over what happened 1,400 years ago – a disagreement over who succeeded muhammed.

        • Hank Rearden

          As I said, embarrassing watching a Lib trying to come up with a thought. You didn’t quite make it this time.

    • Nathan Brazil

      Holy sh%t , what a stupid person you are!
      It never ceases to amaze me, how incredibly WRONG you liberals get every single important issue on the planet.

      • Vinegar Hill

        Why don’t you offer a reasoned response? I think I know why….you can’t.

        • SCREW SOCIALISM

          FOAD.

          How’s that?

    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      9i/11 and the murders of Leon Klinghoffer, Daniel Pearl, Lee Rigby, James Foley… were at the hands of Islamofascists.

      Why are you so pig ignorant?

  • Metatrona

    Cancel your subscriptions to the Met. They don’t deserve your money or your time.

  • Michael Garfinkel

    Well, here we go again.

    An anti-Semite of Jewish descent
    (Peter Sellers) commissions the opera, which insults Mr. Klinghoffer, a Jewish murder victim, a Jewish Librettist (Alice Goodman – now a Vicar of the Church of England), writes the book, full of innuendos
    reminiscent of “Der Sturmer,” and another Jew, Peter Gelb, produces the opera
    at the Met.

    In fact, not only does Gelb produce the opera, he insists on its presentation!

    Does anyone believe Peter Gelb and the Met would produce and stage an operatic version of “The Satanic Verses” – in the name of free speech?

    Cowardice, disgrace – there are no words that do justice to this disgusting exhibition.

    By all means, every effort should be made to boycott the Met and its corporate sponsors.

    Can we send the ADL’s Abe Foxman back to Poland?

    Quite frankly, I also believe Mr. Gelb has earned the privilege of encountering an event similar to George Galloway’s recent experience in London.

  • Vinegar Hill

    It is pointless going down the road that you advocate. For every claim of violence you throw at the Palestinians they can answer in kind. Where does that get us?

    • iluvisrael

      I bet your filthy panties get in a bunch whenever moslems kill thousands of their own – nah! a demented witch like you only gets interested when JEWS are involved.

    • Nathan Brazil

      Funny thing is…They would hack through your neck without hesitation, first chance they get.
      And thanks to people like you, they’re already amongst us. It’d be a little ironic, if you or your loved ones happens to be close by, when they come out of the woodwork somewhere here at home…chop chop!

    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      Defeating your “heroic” islamofascists is a worth while goal.

  • David Kahane

    A complete misrepresentation of what the opera is about. BTW, it opens Monday, Oct. 20. http://www.metopera.org/opera/the-death-of-klinghoffer-adams-tickets

    • AbsolutelyRight

      Great. Thanks for spamming us with your progressive propaganda so we can see what a leftist liar you are…..None of us will go see this Jew-hating garbage…Let’s face it. Progressives are just no-d@mn good.

    • intrcptr
      • David Kahane

        I attended the world premiere in Brussels and also saw it in New York. It might help if one single person denouncing it on this site had, you know, actually seen it.

        • roger

          Perhaps you could write a letter to Daniel Pearl’s family and also the Klinghoffer’s and tell them how “wonderful that show was and that you now understand the “real and legitimate concerns and grievances” of the executioners of their family members.

        • Nathan Brazil

          Typical Scumbag. I hope one of the family members ‘bumps’ into you after hearing your ‘review’ of this vile garbage…

        • SCREW SOCIALISM

          Part of the “libretto” is available online.

          No need to fund anti-semitism or racism, fascism, islamofascism.

          I would like to see the “Satanic Verses” staged – but the Met would decline due to its content.

  • AbsolutelyRight

    When will leftist self-hating Jews stop making this anti-semitic crap?

    • UCSPanther

      When they gut mugged by reality…

  • Giborei1967

    Well-put, madame, to no avail. Vinegar is an IslamoNazi douchebag, beyond redemption.

  • GinoMachiavelli

    Ticket! Ticket!

    I beg…

  • http://www.facebook.com/aemoreira81 aemoreira81

    Given that the NYC market has the largest concentration of Jews outside of Israel, and that protests by Jewish organizations scuttled a naming rights deal that would have seen the current MetLife stadium named Allianz Stadium (because of the role of Alliianz in the Holocaust), I’m surprised that those same organizations are not at least protesting the production of this play. If they remember back to the Holocaust, they have to know about Leon Klinghoffer.

  • ladyxoc

    Anyone who attends this opera is in for a very expensive nap. John Adams’ music is transcendentally boring, which is perhaps why he needed the “gimmick” of controversy to get people to pony up at the box office.

  • Vinegar Hill

    What should they have done…… bombed him like the Israelis did in Gaza, the old man in a wheelchair…..

    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      Israel should have bombed Gaza like the US bombed Berlin in 1945 or like the US bombs ISIS today.

      You would make a great Human Shield Dome.

  • Vinegar Hill

    I think it is appropriate to remind you of Jewish terror organisations. The LEHI, Irgun…and also a reminder that approximately 29,900 children required medical treatment for their beating injuries in the first two years of the intifada. Nearly a third of them were aged ten or under. Woops nearly forgot, of course, the murders at Sabra and Shatila camps.

    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      I think it’s appropriate to remind you that 191,000+ Arabs/Muslims have died at the hands of Arabs/Muslims.

      ISIS slaughters fellow Muslims too.
      ISIS beheads captives.

      9/11 is a permanent stain on oxymoron called the “Religion of Peace”.

  • James_IIa

    The terrorists had no grievances against Daniel Pearl or Leon Klinghoffer.