Passion play progress
Swidler, Leonard
PASSION PLAY PROGRESS ANOTHER VIEW ON OBERAMMERGAU LEONARD SWIDLER l lN ITS JULY 4, 1980 issue Commonweal gave the 1980 Oberammergau Passion Play the fkeworks, quoting the I American lewish...
...This is the breakthrough: from a stonewall attitude in 1977 to significant improvement in '80 and a willingness-better, eagerness--to complete the job in 1984, nm nl . . . . . . . 1 August 1980:429...
...Hoover also picked Charles Evans Hughes, a "reform" Republican to be Chief Justice in 1930...
...The ADL, which was also actively working to eliminate anti-Semitism from the Oberammergau Passion Play, decided that whatever text the villagers chose to use, the ADL would try to make sure it was free of anti-Semitism...
...He was extremely cordial...
...PASSION PLAY PROGRESS ANOTHER VIEW ON OBERAMMERGAU LEONARD SWIDLER l lN ITS JULY 4, 1980 issue Commonweal gave the 1980 Oberammergau Passion Play the fkeworks, quoting the I American lewish Committee's judgment that it is "undoubtedly one of the most anti-Semitic presentations shown anywhere.:' In fact, there are other Jewish observers and organizations, as well as Catholic ones, who hold a significantly different view of the Oberammergau Passion Play, present and future...
...A reading of the text provided a quick affm-native answer...
...I II I II LEONARD $WIDLER...
...There is no doubt in my mind but that Mayor Zwink was very serious about that request (it is recorded on television) and that he means to follow through on it...
...Ford's appointment of John Paul Stevens a few years ago was well within this tradition...
...Having been approached by the ADL, Gerard Sloyan and I undertook the analysis, which both uncovered significant anti-Semitic elements and offered line-by-line suggestions on eliminating them...
...An uncompromising position against any changes was taken by the Oberammergau leadership and villagers...
...One of the suggestions I had made to make Jesus appear more authentically Jewish was to have him addressed in the play as "Rabbi," as he was in real life...
...During the 1960s and 1970s certain groups among the villagers began to work for a radically new text and production, and eventually they reached back to a 1750 text by Ferdinand Rosner which they revised...
...As the ADL noted in a brochure of "Guidelines for the Oberammergau/Passionsspiel and other Passion Plays," composed this ~pring (available gratis from The Interfaith Affairs Depart~ment, ADL, 823 United Nations Plaza, New York, N.Y...
...Mayor Zwink likewise showed himself .very genial...
...The irony in this lastminute improvement is that the English text translation had • gone to press earlier and so the English-speaking public reads there: "Hail, Master[" But basically there were no major surprises, pro or con, between the June 1979 revised text and the premiere perrefinance on M~ty 18, 1980...
...It involved an experimental production of the Rosner text in I970 (at the cost of 1.5 million marks to the village...
...A little historical background is'in order...
...But additional materials of a positive nature still need to be included...
...he also added that Jesus should be referred to not in the Greek terms Christ or Jesus, but by his Jewish name, "Jeshua,'" as he was addressed in real life...
...The contrasting Tafi-Harding-Nixon pattern is too painful to comment on (although, in the case of the latter, Senate Democratic opposition insured that a modicum of quality replaced outright mediocrity as the selection touchstone...
...For example, Pilate still looked too much like a defender of justice (from historical documents we know he was a brutal opportunist), making the Jewish leadership appear more responsible for the death of Jesus than in fact they were...
...After the deStruction 6f European Jewry by Nazi Germany and after the Vatican II decree on the Jews in 1965, the question was raised as to whether the Ol~rammergau Passion Play conmined anti-Semitic elements or not...
...and culminating in a 1978 village election that produced a seventy-five percent majority in favor of the Dalsenberger text...
...Among Eisenhower's choices were, of course, Earl Warren, a "progressive" former Governor of California, the scholarly John Marshall Harlan, an independent Wall Street lawyer, and William Brennan, an independent liberal Catholic Democrat...
...As with the Taft and Harding triumphs in 1908 and 1920, the final meaning will lie in a realm quite different from that publicly debated at the time...
...Also from my notes, I see that Theodore Freedman said he was satisfied significant progress had been made in the 1980 text and production and that he looked forward to cooperating with Mayor Zwink and Father Gregor in the still further improvement of the 1984 production...
...As a consequence the AJC endorsed the Rosner text also advocated by the "reformers" of the village...
...IIII I 1 II I In June 1979, the revised text was ready, and I had a chance at Oberammergau to go over it carefully both by myself and in consultation with Father Gregor Ruemelein, OSB, of nearby Ettal Abbey, who obviously is the guiding spirit behind the revisions the committee undertook...
...It clearly played a major role in the work of the Oberammergan text revision committee...
...From my notes on May 19, I find that Nat Kaminey remarked that the ADL had been working with the Oberammergau leadership since 1977 and that he was convinced they were serious in their desire to have done with all anti-Semitism, even unconscious, in their play...
...ADL, 1978) and sent to Oberammergau...
...Although huge 'progress had been made, there was still the twenty percent left undone...
...We commend those responsible for the improvements in the 1980 Oberammergau script, and we urge them to consider additional steps...
...The villagers have kept that pledge ever since...
...Jesus and his supporters still do not come across as sufficiently Jewish to make it obvious to all that the struggle around Jesus's life and death was a totally inner-Jewish struggle--not one between Christians (good) and Jews (bad...
...In 1977 when Theodore Freedman and Nat Kaminey of the ADL met with the Ol~erammergau leadership (including the present Mayor Zwink), they encountered a very resistant attitude...
...The agitation for the adoption of the Rosner or Daisenberger text for the ! 980 production was most intense in the late 1970s...
...He not only readily agreed that Jesus should be addressed as "Rabbi" • not once in the play but regularly...
...Professor of Catholic and [nterreligious Dialogue at Temple University...
...As one Catholic theologian who has worked closely with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith in attempting to eliminate anti-Semitic elements in the Oberammergau Passion Play, I would 1.ike to present one of those different views...
...has just returned from leading a six-week seminar involving Temple amt nine universities and four conference centers in West and East Germany on JewishChristian dialogue...
...I II I IIII III Commonweal: 428 ever appointed and would sit along with Brandeis, the first, who was still on the Court) seemed to be irrelevant...
...On May 19, 1980, after seeing the premiere on May 18, Nat Kaminey, Theodore Freedman and I visited Mayor Zwink...
...In 1632 the village of Oberammergau, in the midst of the Alps, an hour's drive south of Mufiich, pledged to l~rform a Passion Play every ten years in gratitude for being spared the ravages of the plague then rampant throughout GermanY...
...Serious efforts were made by Jewish organizations and others to have the antiSemitic portions of the play eliminated in the 1970 production--but to little avail...
...At least eighty percent of our suggested revisions or cuttings had been accepted, i had the impression that if it had been entirely up to Father Gregor, one hundred percent would have been accepted...
...When, after congratulating him on the improvements already made in the script and production, we pointed out a'number of other improvements we would like to see in the future, he was most forthcoming in his response...
...The suggestion was not taken up in the June 1979 revised text: However,-in the May 18, 1980 text, Judas addresses Jesus not as "Meister," as the earlier text had it, but as, "Rabbi, sei gegruesst...
...II I II II I "In the case of the 1980 script, important steps have been taken to remove much of the old discredited anti-Semitism...
...He asked that we give him a written description of those and all other suggested changes so that they might be utilized in further revisions for the 1984 production-~-a special year since it will be the 350th anniversary of the first performance...
...Ironically even a little progress was made in this latter area at the .last moment, but went unnoticed by all the Engl!sh-speaking playgoers...
...10017): mm i Elections often turn out to be less significant than they seem at the time, but the 1980 vote is likely to be a silent referendum about the future composition of the Supreme Court, an always important (if subterranean) issue in our society...
...The reasons for this "'reform" movement had nothing to do with the antiSemitism question--that matter became somewhat imporI IIII IIIII IIIIIII Illllll II II tant only relatively recently when some Je~vs and at least one Jewish organization, the American Je~vish Committee, decided that in regard to anti-Semitism, the Rosner text was considerably better than the currently dsed nineteenth century text by Alois Daisenberger...
...We also met th~ next day with Father Gregor, who, if possible, was even more accommodating...
...It is largely around these two main points that the work yet to be done circles...
...The analysis was then translated into German and along~with supportive materials was published as a bool~ (A Commentary on the Oberammergau Passionsspiel in Regard to Its'Image of Jews and Judaism, New York...
...If history is to repeat itself (it never quite does) and a Republican is to become president, one can only hope that he will opt for continuance not of the Republican Taft-HardingNixon pattern but of the independent Hoover-EisenhowerFord tradition ofju'dicial selection, one which has proven itself compatible with the visionary, broadly humanitarian role we have come to expect of the Supreme Court in our society...
...By 1978 they gained acceptance of their suggestion that an analysis of the newly reaffirmed Daisenbetter text for anti-Semitic elements be undertaken by Catholic scholars...
Vol. 107 • August 1980 • No. 14
