To the Editor:

I applaud Jonathan S. Tobin’s main point in “Why The Death of Klinghoffer Matters” [December 2014]: that the defense of the opera in the arts world and the intellectual mainstream signals “a terrifying milestone in the treatment of Israel and anti-Semitism.”

I believe, however, that he exaggerates the extent of unity of opinion among American Jewry when he writes: “The normally fractious Jewish community seemed to have found rare unanimity in being uncomfortable with the opera’s being staged at all, especially at a time of rising anti-Semitism.”

The experience of those of us involved in organizing the protests and rallies against the production, including my organization, Citizens Opposed to Propaganda Masquerading as Art (COPMA), suggests otherwise.

Organizing against the opera began in April 2014. It was not until the 11th hour, three days before the first rally on September 22 at the Met, that the meeting of five Jewish leaders with Peter Gelb, which included the representatives of umbrella philanthropies, took place. The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York put together an open letter to Gelb, ostensibly signed by 667 Jewish organizations, synagogues, and individuals. This petition, however, was never, to my knowledge, made public or circulated in a systematic way among the membership of the signatory organizations. Furthermore, these organizations did not join or endorse the protest rallies, but they chose instead to chart their own course. They met with Peter Gelb but could not persuade him to cancel the production. In the absence of an endorsement and an early and sustained campaign by the mainstream organizations, the second rally at the Met, on October 20, while attracting considerable attention from the media, drew a crowd of only several hundred people.

Here in Washington D.C. neither the Federation nor the JCRC informed its constituency about the matter, something they could have done easily via their extensive email list. Indeed, when I questioned them about this, one JCRC official explained that this was a local New York issue and that his lack of action was due to jurisdictional considerations. While I cannot claim to know the motivations of the umbrella philanthropies, the title of a Jewish Week article reporting on the meeting of the five representatives with Gelb is suggestive: “Klinghoffer Protest Moves Beyond Right-Wing.”

While the Federation, the JCRC, and the other organizations that chose to attend a separate meeting with Peter Gelb rather than support the protests may have been, as Mr. Tobin says, uncomfortable with the opera’s being staged, they were not concerned enough to ally with organizations whose political positions on Israel, or perhaps other matters, do not coincide with their own. Perhaps worries about losing liberal donors such as those Jewish philanthropists who, as Mr. Tobin notes, did not pull their financial support from the Met, may have been a concern for the umbrella philanthropies. These organizations may have been made more uncomfortable by the prospect of alienating liberal donors than by the opera itself.

This brings me to the larger point that Mr. Tobin does not address. The number of supposedly committed Jews who echo the arguments of the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the arts world regarding free speech, artistic freedom, and the morally equivalent validity of competing narratives is frightening. It is horrifying to observe the extent to which members of the Jewish community itself are described by Mr. Tobin’s statement: “Among the cognoscenti in the United States, the idea that Palestinian terrorism is an understandable (if tragic) response to Israeli and Jewish oppression—and that terrorism against the United States often has a similar root—has come to seem far more reasonable than it was in 1991 and than anyone would have expected only 13 years after the attacks of September 11.”

This is the most terrifying message to emerge from the controversy surrounding Klinghoffer.

Ellen Friend Heyman
Address Withheld

To the Editor:

It really is lamentable, as Jonathan S. Tobin’s article makes clear, that political correctness has permeated the wonderful world of classical music. I thought it would be immune, but no, it’s happened here, and it seems we music lovers must now face this misguided force in our modern music as we must in other aspects of our lives. Those in the audience who refuse to declare this hate-filled, anti-Semitic opera for what it is should take a long, hard look at themselves. Music should strive to be beautiful; this opera isn’t even close.

Gordon Miller
Bridgton, Maine

To the Editor:

Outrageous is the only word I can think of when I consider that the ridiculous so-called opera written about by Jonathan S. Tobin was conceived and produced and staged before an audience. This is a production that would have been enthusiastically received in Nazi Germany. To execute a disabled man and dump his body into the sea is a gruesome crime that should be condemned on its face, not be made the subject of a sympathetic treatment of those who perpetrated that crime. Mr. Klinghoffer’s killers victimized a person who had no ability to fight back, which only underscores their cowardly wickedness. To grant this crime a level of respectability reflects how deeply ingrained anti-Semitism is in the minds of many people. And the Jewish community, with its influence in the world of New York City entertainment, seems to have behaved without the proper sense of outrage that this hideous production deserves.

Donald Zimmer
Manitowoc, Wisconsin

Jonathan S. Tobin writes:

I thank Ellen Friend Heyman, Gordon Miller, and Donald Zimmer for their comments and share their outrage. I also believe Ms. Heyman is right to worry about the fact that all too many Jews have come to see Palestinian terrorism as a reasonable response to what they wrongly perceive as Jewish oppression.

The sea change in public opinion about terrorism directed at Jews in the years since the debut of The Death of Klinghoffer is, as I wrote, integral to the increasing acceptance of the opera. The unwillingness of some Jews, including those who are prominent supporters of the Metropolitan Opera, to join in the protests also demonstrates how the anti-Israel mind-set of the left—which is so pervasive in the arts community—can serve to both influence and intimidate those who wish to remain inside that tent rather than outside of it.

But the broader point to make about the success of the Met’s Klinghoffer debut transcends the divisions within the Jewish community. Whether or not the Jews protested, it is significant that an important arts institution in New York City had no qualms about staging a work whose basic conceit rests on the depiction of terrorists and their victims as morally equivalent. The outcome of the Middle East conflict or the course of American foreign policy can’t be said to be deeply influenced by what is seen and heard on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, but the company’s ability to stage such a piece to such general applause represents a signal cultural defeat for Israel and a crucial victory for those wishing to usher into the mainstream a strain of anti-Semitism that masquerades as anti-Zionism.