I guess it’s never great fun to sit in a Tel Aviv auditorium and be bashed with opening lines entreating the people of Judah to clothe themselves in mourning as the horrible howlings of barbarian legions have thundered into the Holy Temple of God.
But when the audience is informed, just prior to curtain, that the Opera House is a designated safe space, and told to remain seated should sirens sound, watching Judean Jews slink out of Jerusalem in chains does not exactly elevate the mood.
Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up.
Giuseppe Verdi’s glorious Nabucco opera is based on Jeremiah’s thundering prophecy: “Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire” (34:2).
And at the recent gala opening night, on a balmy evening in June two and a half millennia after Nebuchadnezzar sacked our eternal capital city, there we sat, a packed-to-capacity crowd, obsessively checking our phones throughout the achingly beautiful slaves’ chorus, to see if our enemies were going to blast us again – this time with ballistic missiles.
“Was Babylon of old Iran of today?” I whispered to my erudite opera buddy.
“I think it was Iraq,” she answered, “but it’s the same neighborhood.”
Iran had threatened to hit our cities again just hours before the festive opening night. I drove through the quieter-than-usual streets, ruing the fact that my crisply ironed outfit would get ruined if I had to fling myself by the roadside (again) should the dreaded alert buzz.
My kids called and strongly suggested that I ditch the expensive ticket and hightail it home. But by this stage of the game, my brain felt too overloaded to make rational plans. I scuttled into the foyer of our lovely Opera House, where the beautiful people were nibbling on canapés and crudités in preparation to watch Assyrians fall upon our ancestors.
Andre Heller-Lopés, the Brazilian Jewish uber-talented director of the show, looked surprisingly relaxed as he mingled with patrons sipping wine and debating our chances of surviving the night.
“I drive close by favelas most days in Rio,” he laughed. “Security systems in Tel Aviv are so efficient that a few missiles don’t faze me more than crime back home.”
Performing in Israel risks gigs getting canceled elsewhere
In these crazy days, even opera isn’t immune to boycotts and Israel-bashing. Heller-Lopés recounted that performing in Israel can result in other venues canceling gigs; a performance in Sao Paulo, he added, actually scratched all references to Jews from the libretto, replacing the Chosen People with “refugees.”
It’s all just so mad here these days.
“Nothing is, but what is not,” sighed Macbeth as his world imploded – things are not as they seem, and what appears real is really not. Take the recent graduation of my stunning Reichman University students in the world-class Argov Leadership Program.
Out of the 20 gorgeous, engaged, bright, innovative, civic-minded, wonderful youngsters, 11 have served more than 300 days in uniform since that dreadful day in October 2023. Another is wounded. The remaining eight have served, too, just not quite as overwhelmingly.
The evening seemed like a graduation. The students had scrubbed off the mud from Lebanon and donned jackets instead of bullet-proof vests; there was fancy food instead of rations; and inspirational speeches replaced battle plans. Our kids were there with their moms and dads and boyfriends and wives; some even brought babies in strollers to share the joy.
But when they stood on the stage at the end of the evening, and a representative officer described the disconnect between being here and being there, and when they announced that most of them were going back to Lebanon or Gaza or the Syrian border within the next few days… that became something very far from normal.
Is it normal for a mother to watch her graduating child and weep with worry?
It is not.
My beloved co-teacher sat by my side; her own two sons-in-law are serving in Lebanon. My own children, who live on the northern border, are sheltering in London for the fourth time, worn out from living for years with their kids diving under their desks or sprinting to shelters, if they are even at school. Is this going to be our new normal?
It cannot be. We cannot allow it.
Verdi conflated history in his opera: the Assyrians and Babylonians are mushed up together; his Nebuchadnezzar sees the light quite quickly, dumps his false gods and conniving daughter, and out of nowhere embraces the almighty God of the Jews.
He frees the slaves and sends them back to the Promised Land, hardly leaving a chance for them to sit themselves down by the rivers of Babylon.
In real life, it was a number of decades before Cyrus, ironically the King of Persia – ancient Iran – defeated the Babylonians and proclaimed that the refugees could return to their ancient ancestral home.
In fact, all that weeping and remembering Zion must have reconfigured the collective longing for the land; only a very small percentage of the erstwhile slaves trekked back to Israel to rebuild the Temple, which, of course, was then destroyed again.
And here we are once more: living again in our own land where nothing is but what is not.
After dropping her family at Ben-Gurion Airport, my daughter braved missiles and drones to drive back home to the north to complete a project before joining her refugees in London.
Grey with exhaustion, she got as far as Golani Junction before she came to a halt; out-of-control haredim were lying across the road, being spiritual. After an hour’s delay, my baby got home just in time to shelter from projectiles.
Can this be normal?
Our supreme leader cakes on ever more makeup before his taped addresses to the citizens of Israel, ranting about having averted our imminent annihilation.
Who knew we were weeks away from being blown to smithereens? All of us.
His wife looks younger, thinner, and more like Scarlett Johansson in every photoshopped publicity shot. A recent Eretz Nehederet skit had her shouting “Younger! Younger!” at her publicist until her picture appeared as an in vitro scan.
We just can’t absorb the madness in our hallowed halls of government; the ghastly Tally Gotliv, the ranting Simcha Rothman, the contemptible May Golan… oh, the list goes on and on and on.
But we will not lose hope.
Nabucco ends on a high note of redemption; our students somehow retain their love of life and desire to make this a better place for all. Even the most corrupt leaders eventually fade from history; the land remains, and so does “Hatikvah.”
Roll on the elections.
The writer lectures at Reichman University. Peledpam@gmail.com