With overtones of Antisemitism: The Cancelling of Lahav Shani and the Munich Philharmonic in Ghent

Lahav Shani, picture © Marco Borggreve

Last wednesday, September 10^th, the Munich Philharmonic published a statement, responding to the Flanders Festival Ghent having cancelled the orchestra’s concert on September 18th. The festival’s justification was the following: The chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, the Tel Aviv-born Lahav Shani, is also the music director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Or, if one were to be polemical: Shani is guilty of being a Jew.

When I wrote an editorial for Die Presse (“Der Boykott von Lahav Shani in Belgien riecht nach Antisemitismus”), it had to be fast and the Festival was not yet ready to comment on their decision. (They have since, but haven’t made matters much better.) Not having space constraints on ionarts, I might be able to insert more nuance into this commentary.

Part of the initial claim of the Festival was, that they had acted in part based on pressure from activist groups and politics in Belgium and that the decision was made to avoid trouble. If this alone were true, it was a shocking miscalculation. Shocking not just for the insensitivity towards the look, when a festival in Central Europe decides to exclude an orchestra, because its chief conductor is associated with the Israel Philharmonic (which is subsidized by the state to the tune of some 12% of its budget), but also shocking for its cowardice and lack of foresight. Alas, it is clear that the “pressure”, though the possibility of protests wasn’t unreasonable to fear, was hardly the sole motivation.

We’ll get to that in a moment. Meanwhile, let’s imagine what might have happened. Protests of irate pro-Palestine youths (very unlikely to be potential visitors of the concerts, by any stretch of the imagination, even if the latter shared some of the concerns about the war in Gaza), holding up placards that would read, explicitly or implicitly: “Don’t let Jews Make Music”? An unsavory prospect, no doubt, but surely only made worse by preemptively doing the work for them. A half-way reason-bound management would have foreseen that – and not caved to trade one bad look for a worse one.

But they didn’t and – “after careful deliberation” (according to artistic director Jan Van den Bossche) – made their choice. Because, as the explanation defending their decision made clear, they weren’t just worried about protests from the anti-Israel crowd, they shared their beliefs. After going through the motions of pointing to Jewish performers – even (!) the Israel Philharmonic – having performed at the festival in the past, and calling Lahav Shani “a fantastic artist”, they justify their decision by declaring that they “do not know where he stands in this conflict.” He just might be for genocide, you know.

Then they proceed to lamely blame others: “The attitude of the policymakers is not always clear. But there was a call from the Flemish Minister of Culture and from the Ghent cultural sector, and as an organization we could not ignore that” and end with a statement that, in light of their decision, can be excused to seem cynical: “For us, music is a connecting force, not a political statement.” Surely, it was a political statement they made, by disinviting the Jew, and an act of exclusion that precisely undermines the ‘connecting force’ they are so keen on. No use, really, to decry, in a none-too-reassuring way, that the decision was “in no way motivated by antisemitism”.

Actually, we should let them have the benefit of the doubt on this one. It is, in fact, very hard to imagine that the Flanders Festival Ghent is run by hardened (or even junior) antisemites. Most certainly they don’t think of themselves as antisemites. They don’t have a problem with the Jew, per se. So let’s take a stab, as charitably as one can, at their syllogism that led them to this decision: Israel commits genocide and is, therefore, a rogue state. The Israel Philharmonic is a representative of the state of Israel – and therefore, Lahav Shani, is, too. Thus Shani is a representative of genocide and must be – if the Festival wishes to avoid being tarnished with such a dastardly crime – boycotted. He would be a blot on their morally superior escutcheon. “Genocide” as they put it “leaves no room for ambiguity”, after all. Apparently not for nuance or common sense, either. I would bet good money, that someone in Ghent, after the decision had been made, felt smugly noble, as if they had boycotted Furtwängler from appearing in 1939. A perverse parallel to draw, if examined any closer, but not surprising in today’s environment of divisiveness and misinformation.

The Munich Philharmonic is rightly “aghast, that a festival in Belgium, in the heart of the European Union, comes to such an unimaginable conclusion.” And yet, there’s enough hatred for Israel in Europe, that Israelis, too – even those that openly engage themselves for the ideals of peace and humanity – will bear guilt by association. This is outrageous, even if one were to let stand the (deeply, profoundly flawed) premise, which the administrators, including Festival’s Chairman Jan Briers, clearly hold to be true, of Israel committing “genocide”.

There’s a certain irony a disinvitation on moral grounds due to the association of their conductor with a state deemed to be engaged in immoral, criminal acts should hit the Munich Philharmonic, some clever commentators will invariably point out. After all, Shani’s predecessor was Valery Gergiev, who was fired from this job by the city of Munich, when Russia attacked Ukraine. At a superficial glance, that would seem problematic. Alas, even if one were to let the false analogy of “Israel/Gaza = Russia/Ukraine” stand (for it is a belief that no op-ed or facts can easily change), Shani is hardly to Netanyahu’s regime what Gergiev is to Putin’s. Anyone who thinks so would be well advised to recalibrate their moral compass.

This holds (in the case of Gergiev, an intimate of the powers that be in Russia), even if we consider that criticism of the respective regime is very much possible for an Israeli whereas it isn’t reasonably possible for a Russian who wishes still to enter (much less work in) his or her country. If one wanted to put the finger onto a certain level of western hypocrisy, one might do better pointing to the case of someone like Teodor Currentzis, whose exclusion from many Western presenters does reek of collective guilt and cowardice. And further speaking of hypocrisy: If “genocide left no room for ambiguity”, one wonders why Lang Lang, for example, gets to appear without any controversy.

In the current environment, however, it is easier to target Israel and Jews to showcase one’s moral indignation – and therein lies the rub, because it’s the backdoor, through which antisemitism can squeak back in to the discussion. Not everyone who calls for a boycott of Israel and its artists, be it in this case or the European Song Contest, is an antisemite. It is only fair to concede that in the majority of cases, a heady mix of ignorance and stupidity is sufficient to hold that attitude. (For which, by the way, compassion for the Palestinian victims, laudable in-and-of-itself, is hardly a sufficient excuse.) But it is equally reasonable to assume that such calls are not also motivated by antisemitism of various degrees, by some of those that do. In kowtowing to the street and its potential reactions, therefore, such a decision invariably also caves to antisemitism. At which point it doesn’t suffice – or matter much – that one might think oneself free from such sentiments: The smell is just as bad.

This is something that did evidently not occur to those in charge of the Flanders Festival. It did, however, to Bart de Wever, Prime Minister of Belgium. Following the kerfuffle of Lahav Shani’s cancellation, he went to a concert of the Munich Philharmonic on Tour in Essen and criticized the decision sharply, calling it “irresponsible” and “a shame” – a shanda, if you will. He did this, while concurrently criticizing the conduct of Israel in Gaza and supporting “targeted sanctions proposed by the EU”, which is arguably still wrongheaded but fair enough, as it displays the nuance in a heated environment that the Festival’s leadership is lacking. Perhaps there is room for learning, yet.

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