No doubt Wagner was a musical genius just as there were lots of other bright people enlisted to the Nazi cause. No one claimed that Hitler or Wagner weren't brilliant. The claim is that they were down right evil.

I love the explanations: he was a genius, he was, he was, I am. ACTIONS are what count and your actions are despicable.

some of which r really not bad -that is untill u see who painted them-then the perception on the art changes. If one's perception of art is not influenced by surroundings then 1is a big fat lier

eldad bubbele, tell me what's "half jewish".

So some don't like you...but then you don't like some either... Why does it have to be one sided with Jews? I don't like Israel, but I do like bagels and Gershwin...does that make me antisemitic? TATA

I am deeply conflicted over this issue. How can genius be so racist? How can Jewish musicians play and be moved by the man who coined the phrases "The Jewish Problem" and "The Final Solution"? Were Wagner's pronouncements merely reactions to his jealousy over Jewish opera composer Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera contemporaneous successes while Wagner struggled to find his 'voice?' Should an older, more remorseful Wagner not be forgiven for his youthful indiscretions by a world that frequently performs music of Karl Orff (who dedicated Carmina Burana to the Nazi regime) and Richard Strauss, two other Germans with documented sympathies towards the Nazis? This issue brings to mind the more recent controversy over the building of an Islamic mosque on land considered scared near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, NY. as an American, I will not sit idly by when a monument to a savage ideology is built upon sacred ground. Is performing Wagner in Israel the musical analogy of building an Islamic Mosque at Ground Zero? While I am totally opposed to the construction of this monstrosity, why do I as a lover of classical music revel in the majesty of Wagner's music? Unanswered questions that trouble me greatly. To those Israelis who despise Wagner and cannot accept his music being performed in their homeland, I understand. I am the child of Holocaust refugees. I am also in awe of genius.

You are asking some very important questions about human nature and the complexities and mysteries of our existance, and I respect you for that since you are trying to understand human behaviour rather than condemn. The only answer I can give to your questioning is that good and evil are not totally distinct in our existance. The world is an amalgame of "opposites", and that is true for good and evil as well. Who can claim to have been always "good" and having never done anything "bad" in his life? If anyone does, he is surely lying. With these statements I am not trying to condone evil, but trying to say that if we understand that good and evil can co-exist we can use our minds (the greatest gift from God) to see through and control the evil part.

Instead of boycotting the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth the Israel Chamber Orchestra should rather follow the example of conductor Daniel Barenboim and join the Ariel boycott campaign and sign the statement of actors' refusal to perform in the new cultural center in Ariel. Because, Bayreuth is not built on occupied and expropriated and ethnically cleansed land, as Ariel is.

If his mother is Jewish, then he is 100% jewish according to Halacha as far as I learned. Having a non Jewish father doesn't change his status of a Jews. You are either a Jew or not a Jew. Its kind of like being pregnant--there is no notion of being 1/2 pregnant.

According to Alacha, he is jewish. The concept to be a fraction jewish doesn't exist in judaism, you are or not jewish. The rule has been established by our rabbi to ensure that the kids born from the rape of a jewish women will be jewish. A very smart move: instead of destroying the jewish people the rapist just increases it.

You are an anti-semite. Israel is the the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people. Without it Jews were percecuted non-stop for 2000 years. So separating the two is not possible. Attacking and delegitimizing Israel is nothing less that politically correct anti-semistism. You don't fool me.

Nobody can say that Wagner wasn't a brilliant composer, but there's much more to his legacy than mere technical skill. Wagner's anti-Jewish ideology is embedded in all his work and shouldn't be ignored. Should we forget that the funny little man with a mustache (yemach shemo) credited Wagner with the inspiration for everything he did? As the Atheist Richard Dawkins notes in his "meme" hypothesis, ideas (memes) can and do have a dramatic impact on individual and collective behavior. Allowing the Wagner meme to proliferate again will have the same result as it did before - a result so horrible and so well documented that it's foolish to question. It's exactly this result that is sought. Note that calls for elevating Wagner and propagating his ideas are coming mainly from the post-Zionist Israeli Left. Bringing Wagner to center stage at this time fits the Left's plan to diminish, then eliminate, the Jewish State. Wagner's technically beautiful music contains an ideological poison and should be treated as incitement, just as all other anti-Jewish material is treated. The same restrictions should apply to the constant incitement and anti-Jewish racism coming from the Israeli Arab sector.

It is less that Wagner was anti-semitic, perhaps Bach was anti-semitic too. It was the place that Wagner had in Nazi ideology that has tainted his music. Even if his music is wonderful, it is still treif to Jews who identify with the suffering of Jews during the Holocaust. It isn't as if there are not other options.

You as a German have forfeited your right to criticise Jews for the next 1000 years +. Your land is soaked with Jewish blood, so go to an Arab newspaper and complain there about us, you will find a lot of empathy. Germany with all its modern laws will always be AMALEK

How about Irving Berlin and his 'God Bless America"?? TATA

my father who died recently at 100 yrs old was a dear friend of isaac stern, and told me these stories, he never played wagner, he never went to germany and famously played in a gas mask in israel, his wisdom is good enough for me, NO WAGNER!

Hahahaha TATA

and forever that the psychopats, criminal, ignoramuses, evil nazis are just that. Reject Wagner. The crime is and was unforgivable. What do the antisemites show and will always show =their evil irrationality, criminality, imbecility and sicknes.

Get over it! So Wagner didn't like Jews..so what? Wasn't that his right? You Jews 'hate' all non Jews and that's your right too..but you've kept up that vandetta for 3000 years ..and it's old and useless...now GET OVER IT! tata

you are relentless - jews do not hate for the sake of hating. persecution is the basis of such hate. i see that you love the genius of the jewish people - long may it live !

Wagner may have been a great artist. However, hearing his music makes me sick to my stomach, because of what he and his great supporters represented. Enjoying Wagner is like enjoying "Mein Kampf", or the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". To me, Wagner's music only evokes visions of Third Reich rhetoric and hatred. No to Wagner.

Jews were hated and despised by the non-Jews, not the other way around. Jews were ostracised and isolated by the non-Jews, thoughout history, by being forced into ghettos, having to wear special badges/hats/clothing, etc. Study some unbiased history before making unfounded accusations.

It's Torah and Talmudic Laws that mandate 'hatred' of all non-Jews..If you don't know that, you only know the Jewish side of facts, which mean you don't know anything at all. So who is left in the world for Jews except other Jews? Hahaha...I bet you still 'don't get it' and you're angry that I'm calling you on your lack of true critical historical facts.... All that Ghetto nonsense is manufactured brainwashing to keep you 'all' tribally connected...You've blamed your separateness on 'us others'..when it's always been the Jewish mandate! Isn't that what Israel is doing now with the Palestinians..using them as scapegoates to remain Jewish? If you want to debate the issue...I'm all for it..but I bet you wont, and that's another Talmudic Jewish Law....hahaha..you can't, you have no facts and are forbidden to discuss any of it with non Jews..or even Jews unless they pass a test......you don't know anything but what you've been told...... Again, I'm still dreaming of that White Christmas! TATA

So where is Israelit and miri making a case for theJews centuries old victim claims that 'must be avenged? You can't prove any of it? You can't, you're not allowed...and proving it would mean some unbiased research. Hahaha..again which you're not allowed to do..Poor Jews, always whining the same outmoded antisemitic tune... Irving Berlin wrote 'God Bless America' and not God Bless Israel...think he knew something you don't know? You know he died after Palestine was stolen ...... TATA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_badge No point really in sending this, your mind is so full of hatred and spite. Grow up.

Your reasons reveal the core of what has always been wrong with the Israeli Holocaust education. I assume from your comment that you haven't been on the camps, so what you write about the effect of Wagner's music is nothing but transferred trauma. Read Avraham Burg's "The Holocaust Is Over, We Must Rise From Its Ashes". This work cleared my world view.