JERUSALEM— A young man on Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila) disrupted a conference in Jerusalem on Richard Wagner, considered Hitler’s favourite composer, Haaretz newspaper said on its website.
The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra was marking the 200th anniversary of the German composer’s birth with a symposium on his music and whether an unofficial Israeli ban on performances of his work should be upheld.
According to Haaretz, the man burst onto the stage of the Jerusalem theatre where the discussion was taking place, singing Israel’s national anthem and hurling insults at delegates and the audience.
A video on Haaretz website shows the young man, who identifies himself as Ran Carmi, comparing one of the delegates to a Nazi collaborator.
Carmi, who was booed by the audience, was removed from the venue by police and the symposium resumed.
Wagner died in 1883, long before the rise of Nazism, but remains a highly controversial figure in the Jewish state.
Hitler was an ardent admirer of his music and claimed it was one of Wagner’s early operas that inspired him to launch a political career.
The composer has since been widely associated with the Holocaust, after the Nazis made frequent use of Wagner’s music.
In addition to his 13 completed operas, Wagner was a prolific writer. Among his publications is a virulently anti-Semitic pamphlet entitled “Judaism in Music”.
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