RUTHFULLY YOURS

Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitanopera@metopera.org
Attn: Peter Sellars, Peter Gelb, Nicole Halton, Susan Hayes

To the Staff of the Metropolitan Opera:

During World War II, a violinist dressed in military uniform went to play for the servicemen in a United States Army hospital in Italy. As he entered a ward designated for young men who had recently lost limbs, he was shocked to see that one patient was attempting to applaud with his only hand. As the musician’s face lit up with compassion and sensitivity, he raised his violin and played. His name was Jascha Heifetz, a Lithuanian-born Jewish American whose 65-year career began at age four. He made his Carnegie Hall debut at age 16, and became world renowned for the perfection to which other violinists still aspire.

Seated next to Heifetz at the hospital piano was pianist Milton Kaye. Fifty years later, Kaye recalled that memorable concert when he heard “the greatest violinist of the ages.” The following year, pianist Seymour Lipkin beheld that same magnificence when he accompanied Heifetz on another GI tour, stating that the violinist always played his best, no matter the circumstances. Heifetz had been so moved when he entertained the paraplegics, that despite his grueling schedule, he continued to add more such concerts to his tours, and Kaye remembers those days as “the greatest privilege” of his musical life.

In addition to an unparalleled talent, Heifetz had what is known as neshamah, a Jewish soul – what may be described as an energy and essence of virtue and humanity, passion and compassion, and depth of empathy for others. It was even apparent to his father who saw the four-year-old prodigy cry when he played sad music. No doubt, it is the Israeli neshamah that provides quality medical attention even to their enemies, and the same that sends Israeli first responders to countries devastated by natural disasters. And it is this same quality that appears to have eluded the next generation of Heifetzes,– Jascha’s great nephew, Peter Gelb, artistic director at the Metropolitan Opera (The “Met”).

It was said of Gelb that he declares himself a man of the people, but that he is out of touch with the prevailing zeitgeist (culture of the time). Noted in the Berkshire Fine Arts, Gelb lacks the qualifications to organize a program and appoint or audition singers and, despite his inexpertise, captured this Met position from the ailing James Levine. But it is Gelb’s choice of opera for the 2014 fall season that is most disturbing.

“Both Mr. Assad and the jihadists represent a challenge to the United States’ core interests,” former U.S. Ambassador in Damascus Robert S. Ford wrote in The New York Times on June 10. He advocated a strategy that would supposedly deal with both Bashar al-Assad and the jihadists: “with partner countries from the Friends of Syria group like France, Britain, Germany, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, we must ramp up sharply the training and material aid provided to the moderates in the armed opposition.”

Decrying Washington’s “hesitation and unwillingness to commit to enabling the moderate opposition fighters to fight more effectively both the jihadists and the regime,” Ambassador Ford advocated providing his unnamed Syrian “moderates” with advanced military hardware, including “mortars and rockets to pound airfields to impede regime air supply operations and, subject to reasonable safeguards, surface-to-air missiles.”

Ford’s article is irresponsible and ill-informed at best. It was published on the very day the insurgents belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (also known as “ISIS” to include Syria) started its spectacular advance on Mosul, Tikrit, and points further south. Even more surreally dangerous were the BloombergView editors, who urged (also on June 10) an outright, American-led anti-Assad intervention: “the U.S. and its European and regional allies should take the initiative to circumvent the UN Security Council and put the needed military muscle on the ground. Yes, Russia and China will be furious. So be it.” Now that would be a bold strategy, with many exciting ramifications in Ukraine, along the shores of the South China Sea, and elsewhere. With their gas supplies in balance, “the European allies” can hardly wait.

Ambassador Ford has wisely stayed out of the news over the past couple of days, but it would be interesting to find out if he still stands by the assessment he made four days ago. Does he still advocate arming the Free Syrian Army (FSA) “moderates,” who have been comprehensively routed by the Syrian security forces and who no longer exist as a fighting force? That same FSA, whose units invariably melt away – Iraqi-army-style – whenever confronted with the warriors of jihad, and who have observed a truce with ISIS since late September 2013? To claim that its pathetic remnant can be trained, armed and equipped to the point where it would be able take on Bashar’s army and ISIS simultaneously is insane. Or does Ford have the murderous Al Nusra Front in mind, jihadist to boot, which is a battlefield rival to ISIS and hence perhaps worthy of being treated as a “moderate” force? That same Al Nusra which is currently spreading its reign of terror into Lebanon?

UN Chief Ban Ki-moon compared the Israeli air strike against an active Hamas/Salafi Jihad terrorist to the kidnapping of 3 Israeli children.

Following repeated missile launches from Gaza into Israel, as well as a plot to take down a helicopter, the IAF struck back, taking out Hamas policeman and rocket terrorist Mohammed Awar last Wednesday. Also injured in the strike was Awar’s human shield, his 7 year old nephew, who died on Saturday.

Unlike Ban Ki-moon’s unequivocal condemnation of the kidnapping of Turkish diplomats in Iraq last week where he said, “this is totally unacceptable” and he was “shocked” to learn of the kidnapping by “terrorists”, Ki-moon felt, in the case of Israel, the need to compare, in his boilerplate statement, the deliberate kidnapping of three Israeli children, to the strike against an active terrorist, which also killed a human shield the terrorist thought would protect him from an Israeli strike, as he continues his terror attacks.

Ban Ki-moon expressed, “deep concern on the trend toward violence on the ground and attendant loss of life, including today of a child in Gaza as a result of a recent Israeli airstrike.” Ban urged all parties to “exercise restraint and lend urgent support for the release and safe return of the three youths.”

Ban Hi-moon should have pulled an Obama, and just kept his mouth shut.