The Tunes of Flanders: Resound of the 1940s

So, there is a smashing idea for a feature film: a Belgium music festival on the eve of its opening suddenly cancels, with a wide publicity,  its prime concert of the famed German orchestra with a program of Wagner and Beethoven, that was planned to be performed at the city’s historical Cathedral, for the singled out reason that the orchestra’s conductor for the concert is a Jew and an Israeli. 

Any more or less experienced script-writer would tell you instantly to stop there, because this idea would not work nor in Hollywood or at any serious film industry country, as it is a pure baloney, and things like that just do not happen. 

It was very much like that before September 2025, anyway. But now, you can go ahead with your script-pitch if you are in the mood to do so with this tasteless behavioural kitsch. Which we are living through nowadays, as a matter of fact. 

As musical and cultural world first, followed by politicians soon after, have learned recently, from September 10th onward,  to our all  shock and dismay, the Flanders Festival in Ghent, Eastern Flanders, Belgium has officially publicised its decision to cancel the forthcoming concert of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. The decision was publicised two days before the opening of the festival and a week before the concert. The program of the concert indeed consisted of Wagner and Beethoven.

Without bothering of any veiling, but rather being proud of its bold statement, the public festival, co-financed by the European Union, has stated that the reason of the canceling is the figure of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra conductor for the evening, Lahav Shani, the Israeli who also conducts the Jerusalem Philharmonic Orchestra, and who ‘ although made some statements on peace,  did not enough distanced himself enough and clearly from the genocidal regime in Tel-Aviv’. 

To the date, this is the most open, blatant public anti-Semitic attack and deed in the cultural life of Europe. The festival also clearly stated that they did act “in line’ and following calls from the Eastern-Flanders minister of culture, the city council of Ghent and the cultural sector in Ghent”, whatever the latter can be in the place where sheer anti-Semitism has become an official and practicing policy. Perhaps, it is worth to note that among the festival’s committee members, there are those who represent a huge muslim community which has grown very quickly in the region, with 40% of all Muslim population of Belgium living, namely in the Eastern-Flanders now, with another 40% in Brussels. It also is sobering to remember that the Muslim population in Belgium has been increasing massively and steadily for years by now, getting over 10% of the country’s population already. And in Belgium, their stand is utterly not just anti-Israeli, but openly and fiercely anti-Semitic, with oversight by all authorities for years. 

Additionally to that, the political landscape in the Eastern Flanders is traditionally dominated by the left and green parties, with all their known sympathies and anti-pathies. So it should not come as a complete surprise. The surprise and frankly shock, especially among the international music circles, was due to the blatant and intended defiant demonstration of open anti-Semitism in the case with Lahav Shani. 

Which is as bitter, as ironic. Lahav lives and works in Berlin, he is known friend and colleague of Mr Barenboim, who is widely known for his ardent decades-on pro-Palestinian stand and non-stop work with the Jewish-Palestinian Orchestra, with which Lahav Shani also collaborated a lot. Shani conducts Wagner, doing it also in Israel, which is the thing that is still rare among both Israeli conductors and Israeli orchestras, due to well-known historical reasons. But he decided for himself to do it, being close to Barenboim. With all that, Lahav Shani has his record which is open and publicly known. But for the people who decided to bring a loud  anti-Semitic scandal in the world of European culture, what mattered is only the fact that Mr Shani is also a conductor of the Jerusalem Philharmonic Orchestra. That’s it. The enemy impersonalised. 

In their anti-Semitic zealotry, which as they were feeling, they could now unleash publicly, those musical officials demonstrated an astonishing ignorance. Another Belgian genius from the world of music, conductor Jan van den Borre, whom nobody knows for his musical achievements, as it happened , and who leads Musica Antique Festival in Brugge, momentarily went on with his public support of the Flanders Festival outrageous decision. In his communique to his colleagues at the Dutch Culture Council, that genius of erudition wrote: “ Now conductor Lahav Shani has come under fire for extending his contract with the Israel Philharmonic, an orchestra that historically began as a Palestinian orchestra, became Israeli after the Nakba, and now fully supports government policy. What wouldn’t have been a problem, or rather a minor one, a few weeks ago suddenly became a major one. Several activist groups and the city council (and, in fact, our Flemish Minister of Culture as well) felt he couldn’t perform at the Ghent Festival. And I understand why, and I would have immediately made the same decision at my festival” .  

To which class of a high school should we recommend that person to return to learn at least some basics about the history of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra before he will make his self-embarrassing and self-exposing public statements of an ignoramus completus? Interestingly enough, that very man has been recently appointed as  a new intendant of the Flanders Festival in Brussels, starting from February 2026. Such a cozy group of die-hard Belgian anti-Semites that rules this festival and some other things in music and culture in the centre of Europe. It is always  good to know. 

In his turn, the boss of the Flanders Festival Ghent, the son of its founder, Jan Briers, who is a seasoned politician in his country,  not only leads that festival with its completely ruined reputation, but he also chairs the European Association of Music Festivals. This umbrella organisation now must come clear about their position of the shameless and scandalous demonstration of the worst racism by Brier and his festival. There are responsibilities that have to be challenged as a direct consequence of  public anti-Semitic scandals.

Naturally, the music world went into a frenzy after such unheard public insult. Four prominent international musicians, Danny Driver, Mahan Esfahani, Joshua Wielerstein and Kyril Zlotnikov co-authored special petition in support of Lahav Shani and Munich Philharmonic Orchestra , which has collected over 15 000 signatures in a few days, including those of the giants of music, such as Martha Algerich, Zubin Mehta, Andras Schiff, Renaud and Gautier Capucons, Mischa Maisky, and many, many others. 

The entire orchestras, such is the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra of which Lahav Shani is leading conductor, justly famous Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Luxembourg Symphony Orchestra,  all those are leading musical institutions not only in Europe but worldwide, issued strong and just public statements in support of their colleagues from Munich and their Jewish Israeli conductor. Many of Lahav’s colleagues, including General Director of the Theatre des Champs-Elysees Baptiste Charroing and legendary Sir Simon Rattle have publicly supported Shani and his orchestra clearly and unequivocally. As it should be in the case of blatant hooliganism, because the action of that festival which now should be boycotted itself, it is exactly that. 

Colleagues from all over Germany and in Europe have invited the Munich Philharmonic  orchestra, its conductor and soloist for that cancelled concert, Lisa Batiashvili, to perform on their stages in Berlin and Paris on a very short notice. As it also should be in the cases of solidarity, support, normality and civility. 

But the main, unanimous and powerful support has been demonstrated in this outrageous scandal by the German authorities, at many of its levels, starting from the country’s Federal Commissioner  for Culture and Media, very experienced and respected senior journalist and editor Dr Wolfram Weimer, Germany’s Federal Commissioner for the Fight Against Anti-Semitism Dr Felix Klein, who is a prolific performing musician himself, and who with his colleagues from The Berlin Diplomatic Quartet is specialising in the music of persecuted Jewish composers,  and who is certainly the right person at his place in this demanding position, Germany’s Foreign Minister Dr Johan Wadephul, leadership of Munich and Bavaria, German Ambassador to Belgium Dr Martin Kotthaus and German Embassy as such,  all are publicly expressed their strongest possible reactions fighting this crude anti-Semitic exercise by some cultural and political elite of the Eastern Flanders. The Council of Europe also voiced his sharp opposition and outrage to such unacceptable public exercise of anti-Semitism as it happened in Ghent. In no time, the logo of the EU Culture Europe umbrella body that did fund the festival previously, disappeared from its site following the demand by the EU authorities. The same happened with any information regarding the festival on all states of any German state body, from the German Embassy in Belgium to any related German organisation. 

If not that mighty and just barrage from the state of Germany, the episode might pass among many other cases of steadily intensifying nowadays open practices of anti-Semitism in culture, and in general,  both in Europe and beyond it. I do hope that the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra’s lawyers and all art management lawyers related to the innocent people, great musicians, who all were insulted personally and banned from public practicing their profession in a hate-feed breach of their contracts, will proceed the episode into dry thorough legal case, a class action, and everything that such legal proceeding implies, due to unheard arrogance and nakedness of an applied by the Flanders Festival racism and open public act of anti-Semitism, which is a crime in Germany.  

To recuperate a possible political damage in bilateral relations of neighbouring countries, albeit not equal in anything, Belgian relatively new Prime-Minister Bart de Wever, who is neither left nor green, but rather opposite to that politically, rushed to meet Lahav Shani and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra in person, coming to their concert in Essen, in an over two-hours drive from Brussels, to apologise in person, to shake the hand – not forgetting to take a photo-op, of course – and to state publicly, in the easiest and completely not obliging way of tweeting: “There will never, ever be any room for racism and antisemitism in this country”. 

Nice human solely personal gesture, meaning and changing virtually nothing in the situation with the cancelled concert, and its stated reason which is truly appalling in its arrogance. It has been reported in the Belgian media that Mr de Wever is also trying to influence the festival in question to fire its president, without success, so far. 

Basically, we all have become witnesses of the shameless return of the militant anti-Semitism of which Flanders, and in particular Eastern Flanders, were known and infamous for  before and during the Second World War. It is only in that region of Belgium, that  not one, but three Belgium Nazi parties and their organisations and militant bodies were functioning , extremely actively, before and during the occupation of Belgium. These activities and their devastating results are very well documented and available to historians and the public as well. From those documents, one can remind oneself that in a small Belgium which had 8 million inhabitants on the eve of WWII, 400 000 of them had been investigated just after the end of WWII for committing the Nazi crimes. It is 5 % of the entire population. Of a Western European country.  A fact for thought, isn’t it? 

Out of those 400 000, 56 000 were prosecuted. 14% of them. A very large proportion. Their crimes were so hideous that in a Western European country, several hundreds of them, not a dozen or two, were executed. 

Among their many various hideous racism-driven crimes, those Belgian  Nazi thugs were responsible for arrests, torture, murders and deportations to Auschwitz via their own Mechelen infamous detention camp, of 28,000 Jews, including many refugees from Germany, of whom only 1 500 survived. This is 5,35 %. Arrested, deported and murdered in the Holocaust in Belgium was a half of the country Jewish population. A half of it. 

The episodes like the one of the openly anti-Semitic, insulting  attack by whatever festival in Ghent does compel one to recall the history of anti-Semitism in a given country and the specific part of it. These kinds of incidents rarely appear from nowhere and all of the sudden. There is nothing sudden in the despicable behaviour, and public blatant anti-Semitism by a group of die-hard anti-Semites from Ghent and its culture life. 

I am certainly not a fan of Wagner, to any degree of it. Instead, I do remember an outstanding concert performed by the great, traditionally and continuously one of the best in the world, and my absolutely favourite and beloved the Jerusalem Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Lahav Shani, on October 23, 2023, just two weeks after October 7th. The concert went under the title Salute to Israel, and it was an incredible experience for all the Jews world-wide, and for  anyone and everyone whose heart is in the right place. 

If some utterly stupid and pathetically uneducated ignoramuses commanding the musical landscape in the city of Ghent thought that they can influence the way in which civility lives in a larger scope, they failed spectacularly.

Instead of insulting respected musicians and their conductor, Jewish and Israeli as he proudly is, those music administrators, their minister in the Eastern Flanders, and anyone else who supports the anti-Semitic barrages, should learn the modern  history of their own country and their own region, and its lessons, a bit better. There are a couple of things for them to learn, before daring to exercise the arrogant racism and open anti-Semitism again. Ever again. It might become costly for them and their festival, in many senses. With regard to their own and their festival’s reputation, they can kiss a good-bye to that for good. 

And perhaps, that feature film’s crazy and unfathomable pitch-idea would not be that undoable, after all. With a firm and hilarious happy-end.

September 2025.