Klarinet Archive - Posting 000332.txt from 2005/11

From: "danyel" <rab@-----.de>
Subj: [kl] Mahler ceased to be a Jew? (Re: [kl] The Vienna Philharmonic and Women -- Bad News)
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 22:45:51 -0500

Dan, the believe that conversion or baptism doesn't count in terms of being
Jewish is actually the standard point of view of rabbinical wisdom. Hence I
wouldn't call it racist. It dates back to a time, when many Jews were, alas!
forced by the christians and other cretins to converse (cf. Muranos etc).
Hence the rabbis decided that, even though baptism might be disgusting and
deliberate conversion a sign of mental impediment, it is just totally
irrelevant in terms of the person's obligations derived from the mizwot
burdened upon the chosen people. Baptism is thus not recognized as a
religious act at all but one of profanity like many other silly acts
committed by Jews on a daily basis.
Moreover: "The baptismal process is instantaneous and permanent" -- how
about circumcision and Bar Mizwa? Why should those rites be "washed away" by
another one of much more dubious character?

Shalom,
danyel

----- Original Message -----
From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2005 8:24 PM
Subject: RE: [kl] The Vienna Philharmonic and Women -- Bad News

> Whatever Mahler's reason for conversion, at the instant of his
> conversion he ceased being a Jew and became a Catholic. The idea
> that his Jewishness somehow survived that has (and I make no
> accusations here) racist elements. It was (it is) the racist
> view that Jewishness can never be given up because it is a
> disease carried by the genes.
>
> That Mahler's neice died in Auschwitz is tragic but not relevant
> here. I point out that had he lived long enough, Mahler would
> have died in Auscwitz, too, but as a Catholic as did many priests
> of Jewish origin. On Mahler's conversion (which I have to assume
> was genuine), he became and should be referred to as a Catholic.
> The baptismal process is instantaneous and permanent.
>
> If Mahler had been born a Protestant and then converted to
> Catholicism, would anyone think about referring to him as a
> Protestant? And the answer is "no" because being a Protestant is
> not seen by any intelligent person as having a defective gene.
>
> Dan Leeson
> DNLeeson@-----.net
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ken Wolman [mailto:rainermaria@-----.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2005 10:01 AM
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: RE: [kl] The Vienna Philharmonic and Women -- Bad News
>
>
> dnleeson wrote:
>
> >>Not to make too much of a point to it, the reference to Mahler
> by
> >>Ken Wolman as a Jewish composer is incorrect. He was a
> Catholic
> >>composer, and a great one, too.
> >>
> >>Dan Leeson
> >>DNLeeson@-----.net
>
> Wikipedia is not Grove, but my employer doesn't subscribe to
> music
> publications and trials are available only to institutions:
>
> >> Shortly before his appointment to the Opera, Mahler converted
> from
> >> Judaism to Roman Catholicism,
> >> mainly due to his fears of anti-semitism , which
> >> was rampant in the city. Mahler became one of a generation of
> Jewish
> >> intellectuals who had lost their religious identity and taken
> root in
> >> the Austro-German culture they felt they were bound to be a
> part of.
> >> As the composer himself said, "I am thrice homeless: as a
> native of
> >> Bohemia in Austria, as an Austrian among Germans, and
> >> as a Jew throughout the world. Everywhere an intruder, never
> welcomed."
>
> Mahler's niece I believe was in Auschwitz with Fania Fenelon.
> Parts of the
> Titan sound like a Hassidic wedding.
>
> I had an English prof many years ago named Albert Goldman who
> wrote music
> criticism for The Reporter magazine (I think now defunct, as is
> Goldman).
> He wrote about Mahler in the light of Wagner's "scholarly" essay,
> "The Jews
> in Music." Goldman concluded that in Mahler's case,
> Wagner was right--Mahler had no single style becaue he was a
> mockingbird or
> cuckoo who had no musical/cultural identity, and therefore stole
> other
> national musical identities. Nasty. No, try vile.
>
> Albert Goldman...something wrong here? This was also, BTW, the
> guy who did
> "biographical" character assassinations of his "friend" Lenny
> Bruce and of
> John Lennon.
>
> Ken
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dnleeson [mailto:dnleeson@-----.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2005 11:58 AM
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: RE: [kl] The Vienna Philharmonic and Women -- Bad News
>
>
> Not to make too much of a point to it, the reference to Mahler by
> Ken Wolman as a Jewish composer is incorrect. He was a Catholic
> composer, and a great one, too.
>
> Dan Leeson
> DNLeeson@-----.net
>
>
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