To the Editor:
In August 1952 you published my article “Culture in Tel-Aviv and Environs,” in which I attempted to give a fair yet frank and unbiased picture of theatrical and musical events in Israel. Frank criticism is not considered fair by chauvinistic elements in any society in any country. . . . The privately owned Hebrew Opera, which describes itself as a national institution, conveniently making use of my article in its fight against the entire Israeli press, brought a libel suit against me, claiming damages of 30,000 Israeli pounds.
The article had deplored the depths to which opera had sunk in Israel, after a period of remarkable artistic enterprise and standard, and had denied that the present management (Mme. Edis de Philippe, Messrs. Even-Zohar and Lolinkin) were the right people to lead an opera. It had also deplored the lack of an interesting repertoire and asserted that Mme. de Philippe selected the repertoire in a way to enable her to stage or appear in each opera.
Israel’s leading authorities confirmed the substance of the article, but the Opera maintained in court that the article was of an anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist nature—the State of Israel and the Opera apparently being identical in the eyes of a prima donna.
The Opera proved errors in two statements: Mme. de Philippe stemmed from a family from Odessa, but was born in America (while I had in parenthesis described her as an American singer from Odessa), and she had never telephoned the Minister of Police to ask his intervention against the music critics who wanted to enter the Habimah Building to hear an opera performance for which they had bought tickets. (I had reported such a telephone call following Mme. de Philippe’s own statement, confirmed by witnesses, as it was published by all Israeli morning papers at the time—without official denial.)
The Tel-Aviv District Court brought about an agreement under which the plaintiffs were granted a third of their costs at court, and it was demanded of the undersigned that he publish in Israeli papers and in COMMENTARY the following declaration:
Mme. de Philippe was born in New York. That I wrote that she was an American singer from Odessa was a regrettable mistake. I did not mean to imply that she had given wrong information regarding her birthplace.
2. Mme. Edis de Philippe did not initiate the mutilated version of the opera La Traviata performed by the Palestine Folk Opera in 1946. One of the main reasons for the form of the opera was the time limit set for production.
3. The real reasons for the liquidation of the Folk Opera have not been clearly explained.
4. The Barber of Seville was not produced by Mme. de Philippe and she did not appear in this opera. I was therefore mistaken in writing that she either produced or appeared in all opera performances. I cannot maintain that the Opera prevented soloists not now employed from appearing.
I learned that on the occasion when newspaper critics were not allowed to attend a performance, Mme. de Philippe did not telephone the Minister of Police to ask for his intervention. In writing this I was relying on information received and on notices in the press.
6. I regret that the article may have created the impression that a law suit that was to have been lodged in connection with Mr. M. Ravina’s not being admitted to the theater was quashed through Mme. de Philippe’s intervention (or that of other members of the Opera) with the Minister of Police or other persons.
7. In regard to the findings of the Music Council of the Ministry of Education and Culture, I wrote that the subsidy had been discontinued. It had, in fact, been discontinued for a short period; when I wrote the article I did not realize that it had been renewed.
I cannot maintain that Mr. Even-Zohar was in touch with government institutions.
8. In referring to “special information” about the Opera’s finances, received by the Music Council, I relied on information obtained at its meetings, without examining the Opera’s accounts. I did not intend to express an opinion about the Opera’s bookkeeping.
I wish to express regret for any damage sustained by Mme. de Philippe or the Opera through the inclusion of errors in the article.
Peter Gradenwitz
Tel Aviv, Israel
[We publish Dr. Gradenwitz’s letter at his request, and as an accommodation to him. We hope we may without injury to Dr. Gradenwitz record our feeling that this libel suit casts interesting light on the present state of cultural freedom in Israel.—Ed.]
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Acknowledgment
In printing “Neilah in Gehenna,” by I. L. Peretz (January), we omitted to mention that it would appear in The Treasury of Yiddish Fiction, edited by Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg, to be published by Viking.—Ed.
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