Na’ama Sheffi, Sound of Silence and Struggle: Wagner and the Israelis

July 2013, Volume 7, Number 2, 4–17.

When Bronisław Huberman sought to remove the Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg from the Palestine Symphony Orchestra’s opening concert of the 1938–9 season, he could not have foreseen that this would be the beginning of a long-lasting boycott. In the Wagner Year, which marks the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth, Richard Wagner is known in Israel largely as a symbol of the Holocaust. The fierce debate that emerges each time an attempt is made to play Wagner in a concert is the last visible sign of the charged relations between Israelis and post-Holocaust Germany. German literature and poetry, plays and classical music have always been part of the Israeli cultural repertoire; in the last couple of decades, Germany has also become a preferred destination for trips and long-term residency by Israelis.