September 30, 2003

Rosh Hashana Faux Pas

Check out the first sentence of this piece:

A Texas high school has apologized after the school band waved a Nazi flag during a performance on Friday, the start of the Jewish New Year holiday of Rosh Hashana.
The school band did this. Not a skinhead punk, the school band.

I’m sorry if I’m being Politically Correct, but this is too much.

DURING A HALF-TIME show, a student from Paris High School went running across the field waving a Nazi flag.

At the time, the Blue Blazes band was playing the composition by Franz Joseph Haydn that eventually became known as ”Deutschland Uber Alles."

Here’s why:
Grissom said it was part of a show entitled “Visions of World War Two,” in which the flags and music were intended to represent the warring nations.
All right, fine, that’s reasonable enough. It’s not anti-Semitism, and it certainly isn’t pro-Nazism. But still. Come on. In the past two years anti-Semitic invective and violence have spiked, and so has the general public’s tolerance for it. It’s an open wound again, and the Texas school poked it. A Nazi flag on Rosh Hashana…jeez.

At a time of hypersensitivity to the tiniest little “feelings” affront, the negative reaction to something as blatant as this shouldn't be a surprise.

Posted by Michael J. Totten at September 30, 2003 5:04 PM
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Winner, The 2008 Weblog Awards, Best Middle East or Africa Blog

Winner, The 2007 Weblog Awards, Best Middle East or Africa Blog

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