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Daniel Barenboim conducting.
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Daniel Barenboim and the late Edward Said.
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| By Associated Press September 3, 2005 |
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Israel's education minister on Friday denounced Daniel Barenboim as a "real anti-Semite" after the conductor refused to grant an interview to an Israel Army Radio reporter because she wore a military uniform to the launch of a book he wrote with a Palestinian.
Barenboim, who is Jewish, was approached Thursday by the reporter, Dafna Arad, during the launch of a book he wrote with the late Edward Said, a leading Palestinian intellectual. The event was held in an exclusive hotel in the Jewish neighborhood of Yemin Moshe in western Jerusalem.
His snub of the Arad outraged Education Minister Limor Livnat, who denounced the conductor as "a real Jew-hater, a real anti-Semite."
Barenboim, who was born in Argentina and raised in Israel, has had frequent spats with Israel's government. Last year, he angered Israeli officials when he criticized the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as he accepted the prestigious Wolf Prize in a speech to Israel's parliament.
Barenboim brought his orchestra, comprised of musicians from Israel, the Palestinian territories, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, to the West Bank city of Ramallah Aug. 21 for a concert that packed a 700-seat concert hall. The concert was in memory of Said.
The incident Thursday began when Arad tried to interview Barenboim during the book launch. Arad wore her military uniform as is the custom for Army Radio reporters still serving their mandatory military service.
"I wanted to interview Barenboim very much and to ask him about the concert he conducted in Ramallah last week, about his musical vision and more. But he wouldn't agree to talk to me, and started signing the book. I insisted. Then he said he refused to be interviewed by a soldier in a uniform and that he will agree to talk to me only if I come to him in civilian clothes," Arad said in a report on Army Radio.
When she protested that she had no choice but to wear the uniform, Barenboim pulled on her epaulets and yelled at her, she said.
Arad did not play tape of Barenboim's snub, but the conductor, in a telephone interview with Army Radio on Friday, did not deny the incident and defended his actions.
"Anti-Semitic? What is anti-Semitic about it? When I say that a uniform should be worn to the right places and not to the wrong ones, there is nothing anti-Semitic about it, there is no logic to this claim," Barenboim said.
"I just thought that in this place, discussing a book written together with a Palestinian, it shows lack of sensitivity." Barenboim said.
Yuval Steinitz, chairman of parliament's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, accused Barenboim of being ungrateful, saying Israel "exists thanks to those who wear uniforms."
Yossi Sarid, a lawmaker from the dovish Yahad party and a friend of Barenboim's, said the conductor's behavior was "unfortunate," but he clearly was confused about the character and the history of Army Radio, a respected station that often strongly questions both military and political figures in Israel.
"He made a mistake," Sarid said.
But, Sarid said, Livnat's reaction was "very rude" and completely out of proportion with Barenboim's actions.
In 2001, Barenboim angered some Israelis by breaking an informal ban in Israel on performing the works of Richard Wagner, Adolf Hitler's favorite conductor.
Barenboim is music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and general music director of the Berlin Staatskapelle Orchestra. In recent years, he has been active in a workshop he helped establish for young Israeli and Arab musicians.
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