The song of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, “Death to America! We are the conquerors of Jerusalem and the destroyers of Haifa! Death to Israel!,” discussed last hour, recalls Verdi’s opera Nabucco, written in 1841. Nabucco is about the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians under their king Nebuchadnezzar (Nabucco), the taking away of Jewish prisoners to endure their “Babylonian captivity,” and ultimately, Nebuchadnezzar’s decision to free the Jews, rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, and even to convert to Judaism himself. The libretto is based on the Biblical books of Jeremiah and Daniel. It is perhaps the only opera, out of the many thousands that exist, that takes as its subject a momentous chapter in the history of the Jews. Verdi wrote Nabucco after the failure of his second work, Un giorno di regno (King for a Day), and the deaths of his wife and young children. He had vowed never to write another opera, but the impresario of the La Scala opera house, Bartolomeo Merelli, persuaded Verdi to look at another composer’s rejected libretto. Once home, so the story goes, Verdi reportedly threw it on the table in disgust, but then glanced down. The words “Va pensiero, sull’ali...” were on the open page and attracted his attention, and he then set to work. The result was Nabucco.
The most famous chorus in the opera — and one of the most celebrated in the entire history of opera — is the “Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves,” which describes their thoughts in Babylon of their remembered home far away.
Here are both the Italian and English versions:
Va’, pensiero, sull’ali dorate;
Va, ti posa sui clivi, sui colli,
ove olezzano tepide e molli
l’aure dolci del suolo natal!
Del Giordano le rive saluta,
di Sionne le torri atterrate…
Oh mia Patria sì bella e perduta!
O membranza sì cara e fatal!
Arpa d’or dei fatidici vati,
perché muta dal salice pendi?
Le memorie nel petto raccendi,
ci favella del tempo che fu!
O simile di Solima ai fati,
traggi un suono di crudo lamento;
o t’ispiri il Signore un concento
che ne infonda al patire virtù!
English translation:
Go, thoughts, on golden wings;
Go, settle upon the slopes and hills,
where warm and soft and fragrant are
the breezes of our sweet native land!
Greet the banks of the Jordan,
the towers of Zion …
Oh my country so beautiful and lost!
Or so dear yet unhappy!
Or harp of the prophetic seers,
why do you hang silent from the willows?
Rekindle the memories within our hearts,
tell us about the time that have gone by
Or similar to the fate of Solomon,
give a sound of lament;
or let the Lord inspire a concert
That may give to endure our suffering.
It was not hard for the Italian public to interpret Verdi’s libretto as being about not just the Jews in Babylon, but about the Italians under the Austrian yoke. In fact, after the curtain fell on the opera’s final act at the conclusion of its premiere at La Scala on March 9, 1842, shouts of “Freedom for Italy,” came from members of the audience, who recognized themselves in the Hebrews. This chorus soon became the most famous of all of Verdi’s songs, and would be sung as a patriotic hymn, connecting the Jews in their Babylonian Captivity to the Italians enduring, though still in their own country, the yoke of a foreign oppressor.
Fast forward to Germany today, 2019, where the Hamburg State Opera has decided to stage Verdi’s opera about oppressed Jews in Babylon, but one that will feature, in the role of the captive Jews, Muslim “refugees.” You heard right: the call has gone out, specifically for these “refugees, to join the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves. For many people now allow themselves to believe that “the Muslims are the new Jews.” The Muslims should by rights be the ones singing about their miserable existence, their oppression, and their memories of their “native land” by the river Jordan.
Let’s think about this for a minute. Germany can never do enough to make amends for its treatment of Jews. Putting Muslims in the place of Jews in the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, focusing on their so-called oppression, and encouraging sympathy for Muslims, is surely not the way to do it; it is grotesque every which way. Muslims are not the “new Jews.” They are not being herded into concentration camps. They are not being shot, gassed, burned or buried alive, as happened to Jews in the last century. Nor are they enduring a Babylonian captivity as the Hebrews did some 2600 years ago. No one seized Muslims and dragged them into Europe. It is they, the Muslim economic migrants, who have forced their way into Europe by the millions, often flouting the immigration rules of the countries they enter. Once there, they are not treated as were the Hebrew slaves in Babylon. Instead, they receive every conceivable benefit: free or heavily subsidized housing, free medical care, free education, family allowances, and unemployment benefits, even when they were never employed in the first place. A great many Muslim migrants remain among the long-term unemployed, content with the fantastically generous benefits they receive from the European welfare states, with Germany and Sweden the most generous. Some enterprising Muslims choose to supplement those state benefits through crime, including robbery, burglary, and the drug trade.
Muslims are the chief carriers of antisemitism in Europe today. For those who run the Hamburg State Opera to take the single most significant celebration of the Jews in operatic history, and to twist it into a tale that celebrates not Jews, but Muslims, the very people now most responsible for spreading antisemitism, is beyond belief. Muslims have not been subject to torments, not confined to a “European captivity.” They force their way into Europe. It is the indigenous Europeans who more and more are made to feel that they are captives of hostile and violent Muslims, in the ever-increasing number of No-Go zones, where Muslims rule and Non-Muslims rarely dare to tread. And it is not Muslims who are attacked on the streets, in London, Paris, Berlin, Malmö, Brussels, Amsterdam, but Jews, and by Muslims.
Once in Europe, the Muslim migrants are not treated as were the Hebrew slaves in Babylon, but become the recipients of every conceivable benefit, benefits from a system they never paid into, and of which they take full advantage. Far from being akin to enslaved captives, the Muslim economic migrants have shown themselves to be adept at squeezing the Infidel states for everything they can.
This decision to employ Muslims to play the role of Jews in Nabucco reeks of political correctness gone mad. Jews apparently cannot play captives in Babylon, because Jews today are, for so many brainwashed souls in Europe, not the oppressed, but the oppressors of the “poor Palestinians.” The Muslims are the “new Jews,” and Europe is where they are confined and can only dream — “Va, pensiero” (“Go,thoughts”) — of returning home, to such wonderful longed-for places as Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan. The bien-pensants of Europe have everything upside down.
To recapitulate:
Nabucco, the most philosemitic opera in history, is about the oppression of the Jews by the Babylonians, and the ultimate end of the Babylonian captivity, the return of the Jews to their land, the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, and the conversion of Nebuchadnezzar to Judaism. It is also about — as Verdi had hoped — the oppression of the Italians at the hands of the Austrians, as the Italian audience immediately understood on the opening night.
For the Hamburg State Opera to call publicly for Muslim migrants to fill the roles of the captive Jews, and to suggest thereby that their experience is akin to that of the Jews in Babylon, is intolerable. Muslims are not being held captive anywhere in Europe; it is they who have pushed their way into Europe, and made themselves everywhere unwelcome. They are not suffering but are lavished with benefits offered by a welfare system to which they never contributed. Again, it needs to be constantly repeated, these are benefits of every kind — free or highly subsidized housing, free medical care, free education, family allowances, unemployment benefits, and more. The Muslim migrants are repaying such generosity with high rates of criminality, low rates of employment, and an unwillingness to integrate into their host societies.
The bureaucrats at the Opera House of Hamburg should have given all that some thought before issuing a call for Muslims to take over the role of the captive Jews in Babylon. Today’s foremost carriers of antisemitism are not the “new Jews.” In Europe, the “new Jews” are still, alas, the Jews. What might throw the opera’s organizers for a loop is that Muslims will likely prove most unwilling to play the role of the Jews, those whom they consider the “descendants of apes and pigs.” And that open display of antisemitism will be the only valuable lesson to come out of this whole deplorable business. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ cry illustrates who is really the aggressor, and who the victim. It should be heeded.