Gilad Atzmon

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Gilad Atzmon
גלעד עצמון

Gilad Atzmon
Born Gilad Atzmon
June 9, 1969 (1969-06-09) (age 39)
Tel Aviv, Israel
Residence London
Nationality Israeli
Education Rubin Academy of Music
Occupation Musician
Known for Musician, political activist
Website
http://www.gilad.co.uk/

Gilad Atzmon (Hebrew: גלעד עצמון‎, born June 9, 1963) is a jazz musician, author and anti-Zionist activist who was born in Israel and currently lives in London.

He was born a secular Israeli Jew in Tel Aviv, and trained at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. His service in the Israeli military convinced him Israel had become a militarized state controlled by religious extremists.[1] He emigrated from Israel to London at age 32. He studied philosophy in Germany.

Contents

[edit] Music

Atzmon's main instrument is the alto saxophone, he also plays soprano, tenor and baritone saxophones and clarinet, sol, zurna and flute. His jazz style is bebop/hard bop, veering at times into free jazz, inspired by John Coltrane and Miles Davis, while also often showing strong swing leanings[2]. He has earned many jazz awards and has been regarded as one of the greatest saxophonists of his generation.[3] Atzmon can also play two saxophones at once, in a manner reminiscent of the American musician Roland Kirk.

Atzmon has fused his roles as a political artist and musician with the character Artie Fishel, the "first artificial Zionist"¸ with traditional klezmer music, dialogue and jokes, featuring himself on saxophone, John Turville on keys and electronics, Yaron Stavi on bass and Asaf Sirkis on drums. Other artists include vocalist Guillermo Rozenthuler, Koby Israelite on vocals and accordion, and Ovidiu Fratila on violin.

The result, according to one review, is "much more than great music and cutting humour (reminiscent at times of the Marx Brothers and BBC Radio's Goon Show.) Ingeniously, by employing jazz as a metaphor, Gilad delivers a completely original and scathing indictment of Zionism and its creation, Israel. He accomplishes this by assuming the identity of Artie Fishel, a fictitious confused and out-spoken Jew who is also a very accomplished jazz and klezmer saxophonist/clarinetist and leader of the Promised Band."[4]

His work has explored the music of the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe and he has collaborated, recorded and performed with musicians from all around the world, including the Palestinian singer, Reem Kelani, Tunisian singer and oud player Dhafer Youssef, and violinist Marcel Mamaliga, accordion player Romano Viazzani, and bassist Yaron Stavi, as well as the violinist and trumpet-violin player, Dumitru Ovidiu Fratila and Guillermo Rozenthuler on vocals.

He is notably also a member of the veteran punk rock band The Blockheads, having joined when Ian Dury was still performing with them. He has also recorded and performed with Shane McGowan, Robbie Williams, Sinead O'Connor, Robert Wyatt and Paul McCartney.[5]

He founded the Orient House Ensemble in London in the 1990s and is currently touring with them. They include Asaf Sirkis on Drums, Yaron Stavi on Bass and Frank Harrison on keyboard.

Atzmon is on the creative panel of the Global Music Foundation,[6] a non-profit organization formed in December 2004 which runs residential educational and performance workshops and events in different countries around the world. He himself teaches workshops at schools, colleges, theatres and community groups.[7]

[edit] Writing

Atzon is a political writer who has been published by Counterpunch, Al Jazeera, Uruknet, Middle East On Line, Dissident Voice, among other publications. He is a founder of and contributor to the web site Palestinian Think Tank, established in May 2008. His published papers are available on his personal website.[8]

Atzmon is also a novelist whose books have been published in 22 languages. His first novel A Guide to the Perplexed, published in 2001, takes place in a near future where Israel has ceased to exist. Atzmon “excoriates the commercialization of the Holocaust" and “argues that the Holocaust is invoked as a kind of reflexive propaganda designed to shield the Zionist state from responsibility for any transgression against Palestinians.” His book has been described as a “vividly written satire, infused with a ribald sense of humor and an unsparing critique of the incendiary political cauldron of the Mideast.”[1] The original Hebrew version was a candidate for Israel's 2003 Geffen Award for science fiction.[9]

His second novel was My One and Only Love published in 2005. It has been described as “a comical narrative of Zionist espionage and intrigue” about “basing one’s life on Zionist lies to the point where a moment of truth and love is perceived as madness.”[10]

[edit] Politics

Atzmon is an anti-Zionist who critiques Jewish identity issues and supports the Palestinian Right of Return and the establishment of a single state in Israel/Palestine.[11] He is a signatory to the "Palestinians are the Priority Petition" which states “full and unconditional support of the Palestinian people is a condition sine qua non for activists to adopt.”[12]

In May 2005 the Board of Deputies of British Jews issued a dossier alleging widespread antisemitism at School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, including an allegation that Atzmon had told students during a talk: "I'm not going to say whether it is right or not to burn down a synagogue, I can see that it is a rational act."[13] Atzmon responded in a letter to The Observer that he did not "justify any form of violence against Jews, Jewish interests or any innocent people." He explained the context of his comment as "debating the question of rationality of anti-semitism. I claimed that since Israel presents itself as the 'state of the Jewish people', and bearing in mind the atrocities committed by the Jewish state against the Palestinians, any form of anti-Jewish activity may be seen as political retaliation. This does not make it right."[14] Atzmon alleges that in 2006 the Board of Deputies exerted "enormous political pressure" to try to cancel his "London debut at the prestigious Pizza On The Park jazz club."[15]

In June 2005 David Aaronovitch in The Times criticized the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) for inviting Atzmon to speak at their "Marxism 2005" annual event. He described Atzmon’s controversial statements accusing American Jews of trying to control the world and his support for the anti-Zionist writer Israel Shamir. He also questioned Atzmon's support for the Jewish director of Britain’s Deir Yassin Remembered, Paul Eisen, who had supported questioning of facts about the Holocaust.[16] In defence of the invitation the SWP argued: “The SWP does not believe that Gilad Atzmon is a Holocaust denier or racist. However, while defending Gilad’s right to play and speak on public platforms that in no way means we endorse all of Gilad’s views. We think that some of the formulations on his website might encourage his readers to feel that he is blurring the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti Zionism. In fact we have publicly challenged and argued against those of his ideas we disagree with.”[17]

There has been a long-running and often heated debate between Atzmon and his critics, including anti-Zionist Jews. In June 2005 Jews Against Zionism accused Atzmon of antisemitism, in part because allegedly he "spends much of his time denouncing anti-Zionist Jews who do not, like him, dissociate entirely from their Jewish background,"[18] and of helping Israel because by "eliding the important distinction between Israel and Jews, is actually aiding the propaganda effort of the state he purports to oppose."[19] He has responded by describing his critics as being "crypto Zionist" and as "searching for essentiality," so that for them the "Holocaust is the new Jewish religion."[20] He also has written: "I write about things that I find while looking into myself. This is indeed very dangerous for people who try to promote some collective dogmatic and ethnic tribalism."[21].

In August 2006, Atzmon wrote critics of Israel should stop equating Israel's acts to those of the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler because Israel's actions are worse. "To regard Hitler as the ultimate evil is nothing but surrendering to the Zio-centric discourse. To regard Hitler as the wickedest man and the Third Reich as the embodiment of evilness is to let Israel off the hook…" Citing Israel's summer 2006 bombing of Lebanon and 2006 Israel-Gaza conflict, Atzmon continued: "The Israelis demolish for the sake of demolishing. It is about time we internalize the fact that Israel and Zionism are the ultimate Evil with no comparison."[22] He further stated that in a comparison of ruthlessness between Nazi Germany and Israel, "…it is the Israelis who win the championship of ruthlessness and the reasons are obvious. Nazi Germany was a tyranny, Israel is a democracy led by a centre-left national unity government."[22]

In November 2006 The Guardian blogger David Hirsh, a leading opponent of antisemitism, shared several Atzmon quotes he characterized as antisemitic and accused Atzmon of "trying to lead an anti-semitic purge of the anti-Zionist movement and one that will ditch the formal anti-racism onto which some anti-Zionists still cling."[23] When Atzmon started negotiations with Guardian editors to make his own blog reply, Hirsh's blog closed. The editors re-opened it and then allowed Atzmon to do his own blog entry. In it he explained why Hirsh's accusations were unproven or taken out of context and then alleged: "Hirsh needs anti-semitism. The reason is simple, while Zionism, being an oppressive and expansionist ideology, is impossible to defend, anti-semitism is a racial crime and therefore easy to attack."[24]

The Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism (SCAA) has criticized the Swedish Social Democratic Party for inviting Atzmon to speak at a seminar on Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Afghanistan, which was held in Stockholm on March 18th, 2007. SCAA chairman Jesper Svartvik said Atzmon was a "known anti-Semite" and urged the party to distance itself from the decision.[25]

Atzmon answers the various accusations against him at the “1001 Lies About Gilad Atzmon” page on his web site. There he responds to accusations of antisemitism by questioning the existence of antisemitism itself, writing: "Because Anti-Semite is an empty signifier, no one actually can be an Anti-Semite and this includes me of course. In short, you are either a racist which I am not or have an ideological disagreement with Zionism, which I have."[20] In an article entitled "Think Tribal, Speak Universal" Atzmon wrote: "Surely, the most effective way to confront a thinker is through open intellectual debate. But somehow, this is precisely what those who oppose me refuse to do. Instead, they employ various tactics aimed at silencing me."[26]

Atzmon has accused "Israel, the Jewish state" of following the call of Moses in Deuteronomy 6:10 "to plunder, rob and steal," specifically from the "indigenous Palestinians of their land, cities, villages, fields, orchards and wells" for "over a century." Writing about the Jewish revolutionary Marxists of the "Bund" (the General Jewish Labor Union), he writes: "Bundists believe that instead of robbing Palestinians we should all get together and rob whoever is considered to be the rich, the wealthy and the strong in the name of working class revolution." Stating "Robbery and plunder doesn’t live in peace with a deep understanding of the notion of human equality" and citing his own youthful vengeance towards "wealthy goyim," Atzom further asserts: "The Jewish nationalist would rob Palestine in the name of the right of self-determination, the Jewish progressive is there to rob the ruling class and even international capital in the name of world working class revolution."[27]

Oren Ben-Dor, who also grew up in Israel and now teaches at the School of Law, University of Southampton, UK, commented on a 2008 petition condemning “the constant attempts to silence Gilad Atzmon.” He wrote: "All those who try to smother Gilad's endeavours, to distort his voice through vulgar associations and conventional clichés, and to utilise uncritically accepted conventional havens for thoughtlessness, do not really do justice to the intellectual game as far as Palestine is concerned."[28]

[edit] Discography

  • Refuge - Label: Enja - October 2007
  • Artie Fishel and the Promised Band - Label: WMD - September 2006
  • MusiK - Label: Enja - October 2004
  • Exile - Label: Enja - March 2004
  • Nostalgico - Label: Enja - January 2001
  • Gilad Atzmon &The Orient House Ensemble - Label: Enja - 2000
  • Juizz Muzic- Label: FruitBeard - 1999
  • Take it or Leave It - Label: Face Jazz - 1999
  • Spiel- Both Sides - Label: MCI - 1995
  • Spiel Acid Jazz Band- Label: MCI - 1995
  • Spiel- Label: In Acoustic&H.M. Acoustica - 1993

[edit] Books

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Jeffrey St. Clair, You Must Leave Home, Again Gilad Atzmon's "A Guide to the Perplexed", CounterPunch, July 19, 2003.
  2. ^ Rainlore's World of Music - Artists: Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble
  3. ^ A 21st Century Jazz Legend - Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble. Retrieved on 2007-01-24.
  4. ^ Gilad Atzmon a.k.a. Artie Fishel: Jazz as a Metaphor for Zionism
  5. ^ Gilad Atzmon web site home page.
  6. ^ Global Music Foundation: About
  7. ^ Music education at Gilad Atzmon web site.
  8. ^ Politiks at Gilad Atzmon web site.
  9. ^ Locus online;The Geffen Awards. Retrieved on 2007-01-24.
  10. ^ Karin Friedemann, Review of “My One and Only Love,’‘ Saqi Books, 2005, at Gilad Atzmon web site.
  11. ^ Mary Rizzo, The Gag Artists, Who's Afraid of Gilad Atzmon?, CounterPunch, June 17, 2005
  12. ^ Palestinians are the Priority, a petition at Gilad Atzmon’s web site.
  13. ^ Polly Curtis, Soas faces action over alleged anti-semitism, The Guardian, May 12, 2004.
  14. ^ Observer Letters to the Editor, The Guardian, April 24, 2005.
  15. ^ Surviving the Board of Deputies, October 23, 2006 at Gilad Atzmon web site.
  16. ^ David Aaronvitch, How did the far Left manage to slip into bed with the Jew-hating Right?, The Times, June 28, 2005.
  17. ^ Gilad Atzmon and Marxism 2005, Socialist Workers Party web site, June 21, 2005.
  18. ^ The Jewish Chronicle. www.thejc.com (June 29, 2005). Retrieved on 2008-05-23.
  19. ^ Fri 17 June: No to Holocaust Denial at Bookmarks!. www.labournet.net (June 17, 2005). Retrieved on 2008-05-23.
  20. ^ a b Gilad Atzmon - 1001 Lies. www.gilad.co.uk. Retrieved on 2008-05-23.
  21. ^ (DV) Atzmon: Think Tribal, Speak Universal. www.dissidentvoice.org (December 12, 2006). Retrieved on 2008-05-23.
  22. ^ a b Atzmon, Gilad (August 14, 2006). Let's Admit It: It is Evilness for the Sake of Evilness. ArabNews. Retrieved on 2008-05-14.
  23. ^ David Hirsh, Openly embracing prejudice, The Guardian, November 30, 2006.
  24. ^ Gilad Atzmon, A Response to David Hirsh, The Guardian, December 12, 2006.
  25. ^ Social Democrats invited known anti-Semite to seminar, The Local, March 23, 2007.
  26. ^ Think Tribal, Speak Universal December 12, 2006 at Gilad Atzmon web site.
  27. ^ Swindler’s List — Zionist plunder and the Judaic Bible. www.redress.cc (2008-04-05). Retrieved on 2008-05-25.
  28. ^ Oren Ben-Dor, 'The Silencing of Gilad Atzmon', Counterpunch, March 15, 2008.

[edit] External links

Official site

Interview with Atzmon

Reviews of Atzmon's music

Additional articles