Belgian opera shows Jew raping woman in anti-Israel piece

[Behind the Aegis]

By portraying a religious Jew raping a woman in a show about Israel, the state-funded Flanders Opera is in danger of encouraging anti-Semitic stereotypes, leading members from Belgium's Jewish community told Haaretz.

The highly-controversial scene appeared in the premier of "Samson and Delilah" in Antwerp on Tuesday evening. The contested show was created by two Israelis, who turned the biblical tale of Samson into a reverse-role protest against Israel's occupation of Palestinians.

Belgium's Jewish community has condemned the opera directed by Omri Nitzan and Amir Nizar Zuabi for dressing Philistine conquerors in Western garb while Hebrew fighters like Samson wear Arab clothes.


The rape scene shows a Philistine religious priest dressed up as a religious Jew while raping Delilah, who was Samson's lover. The rapist was the only man in the show wearing a skull cap. The Flanders Opera could not be reached for a comment.

Samson lived in the 11th century BCE as a partisan under occupation of the Philistines - a powerful and technologically-advanced people of European roots. The Bible says he died at the hands of his occupiers, while killing many of his captors. This, according to the opera's creators, makes him "the world's first shaheed," or martyr.

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[elleng]

1. created by two Israelis

Ijots!

[Cleita]

2. Let's see Samson, "son of the sun" or another version of

Heracles. This is a fictional character, even in the Bible. The Philistines were Aegean colonists of the same ethnicity that gave us Greeks. It seems one of their stories got entangled in Jewish scripture. Samson actually spent a lot of time around the Philistines according to the Bible, preferred their women and only went back to his Jewish roots after he got his hair cut by Delilah and lost his strength. Whoever staged this play wasn't really in touch with the original story, which probably had nothing to do with real interaction between philistines and Israelites other than a story to make them hate each other.

[Hardrada]

3. I think the movie was better.

[IndianaGreen]

4. Here is a review of the opera

A surprisingly topical opera about the mechanisms of fanaticism: the biblical story of Samson and Delilah is an exemplary illustration of how reconciliation is found wanting in the face of religious and political motives. Using the example of the impossible love between the Jew Samson and the Philistine Delilah, Camille Saint-Saëns shows the deadly conflict between two hostile cultures and religions. Samson and Delilah sacrifice their personal happiness for their religious ideals, urged on by political advisors (High Priest, Satrap of Gaza, and an old Hebrew man). The opera ends with the collapse of the Temple of Dagon and the death of all those in attendance due to the reaction of the deeply humiliated Samson. The people of Israel are free, but the notion of reconciliation between the enemies remains a dream.

The Palestinian-Israeli production team, including the young Amir Nizar Zuabi and the experienced Omri Nitzan, places the complex relationships between the oppressed and the oppressors at the centre of the work’s vision. The basic assumption: the irony of history has reversed the roles but the violent nature of the relationship has remained the same. The production team’s joint scenic reflection on the present – in the mirror of the archetypal story of Samson and Delilah – focuses our attention not only on the bloody relations between Israel and Palestine, but on all current conflicts between peoples at war with one another, conflicts which in the meantime have also reached Europe. The combination of Nitzan and Nizar Zuabi as directors is a symbol of the hope that peace and reconciliation will not remain a dream and it is done with great respect for every note and line of this key work in the French operatic repertoire.

The music is conducted by the young Czech conductor Tomas Netopil who has already been a guest at numerous renowned international concert halls.

http://www.vlaamseopera.be/en/productiondetailshort.orb?prd=716

This doesn't sound at all like the Haaretz piece.

[bemildred]

5. Philistines were "a powerful and technologically-advanced people of European roots"?

A "Philistine religious priest dressed up as a religious Jew" is a "religious Jew"?

[proteus_lives]

6. Really.

Do they actually think they are being clever?