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The Klinghoffer opera is not about Klinghoffer
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amother


 

Post Thu, Oct 23 2014, 12:11 pm



October 22, 2014
The Klinghoffer opera is not about Klinghoffer
By Carol Greenwald


I was at both the protest outside the Met last night, sitting in a wheel chair, wearing a sign proclaiming "I am Klinghoffer" as well as one of those who saw the opera last night from the second row orchestra.

The protest was good. The wheelchairs were an effective visual for the media. I would estimate the crowd at no more than a thousand which is disappointing given the publicity and that this was NY, but none of the major Jewish organizations were part of this, (despite a letter to editor by American Jewish Committee to the New York Times).

The speeches from politicians like former Mayor Giuliani, Rep Peter King, Rep. Elliot Engel, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney among others and Jewish leaders like Helen Freedman of Americans for a Safe Israel, and Ron Lauder, chairman of the World Jewish Congress, were moving and on point: this opera by the Met will give support to antisemitism and had disgraced the Met forever. Noticeably missing in action were the leaders of the major Jewish organizations, an absence noted by several speakers.

I entered the Met in a wheel chair. Being in a wheelchair was interesting. The staff at Met was very polite but even though I paid for a wheelchair seat so I could sit in my wheelchair, they had not removed the seat so I could sit in my wheelchair, but carried me from the chair into the seat and made me check my chair. Thus my plan to leave early rolling down the aisle in a wheel chair was frustrated. I think this was purposely done by the Met.

The Met had advertised, "See the opera and judge for yourself". Well I did and the opera is horrible. Far worse than I had thought it would be. It is not about the murder of Klinghoffer. That is almost a prop. The opera is about the terrible suffering of the exiled Palestinians. The opening chorus of Palestinian women singing a heartrending song about the loss of their homes is very moving. Then in the fair and unbalanced way of this opera, the Jewish exiles enter. They sing that they used up all their money on taxis and they have empty suitcases. They sing about Jerusalem and the Hasidim protesting movies. It is a mish-mash. But it is unclear who these Jewish exiles are. The Holocaust is never mentioned, nor that these people are Holocaust survivors. They used up their money on taxis! Are you kidding? I laughed out loud when they started complaining about the Hasidim.

So the opera opens with the false equivalence of the Holocaust with the displacement of Palestinians in the 1948 war. Only the Holocaust is never mentioned and the Jews are laughable and the Palestinians are incredibly moving sorrowful figures.

The action takes place on shipboard with a backdrop of The Separation Wall (erected of course after 2005) with graffiti saying Free Palestine and Welcome to the Ghetto. The years annually are flashed across the stage ending in 2014. So right from the start you know this is not about something that happened in 1985. This is a passion play about Palestinian suffering. The Palestinian chorus is the main focus of the opera.

The terrorists are definitely romanticized and humanized, often in the most unrealistic manner. In the first act, one of the terrorists sits on deck singing about his love of birds. Birds! At length he describes the habits of birds. He really likes birds. In a subtle slap at Judaism, he lists the birds -- ravens, eagles, cranes, etc. almost all the nonkosher species specified in the Bible and then proclaims them "clean."

The action on shipboard is periodically frozen to allow the Palestinians in black to march solemnly across the stage and Act 1 ends with Palestinian men running round and round the Palestinian women chorus with the Palestinian flag, reminiscent of Les Miserables.

In the first act, there was some booing after a song ended and cries of liar and garbage, some from yours truly and her friend, and when the first Act ended there were a lot of boos and applause competing. But in the second act, it was very quiet.

In the second act, the assassin curls up in a ball on his mother's lap while she and the chorus of Palestinian women lament their loss, reminding our psychologically tortured Palestinian that his mother and brother were killed in Sabra and Shatila. (The opera does not point out that the massacres at Sabra and Shatila were committed by Christian Lebanese militias, not Israelis.) His brother was even decapitated. Just what Israelis do. No matter.

Our tormented "hero" writhes on the floor in anger and pain. Then he gets up and shoots Klinghoffer. What he does is so understandable. Your sympathy is with his righteous anger.

It was very depressing that when the composer, John Adams, went on stage he was greeted by loud applause. I had left before this and maybe others had, too, but the Met seemed to be sold out and it was primarily a supportive audience.

I am feeling very sad today despite the national coverage.

The production made it clear that anti-Zionism morphs into anti-Semitism or vice versa. The production was about the Palestinian cause and punctuated at times with weird Christian symbolism, as when the Jewish exiles’ efforts working the land raises two naked Christ-like crucified figures, replete with the stretched out arms.

Somehow it is the murderers who are the victims and Klinghoffer is just a prop. He gets one song. One feels that he was included just so you can understand why terrorism occurs. It is justifiable rage unleashed on an accessible, but guilty-by-association target. He is shot not so much because he is a Jew as he is someone who mocks the justness of the Palestinian violent terrorism. As they say, they are not criminals. They are idealists.

As for the music and singing, it is so lugubrious and virtually all musically uninteresting recitative. No one would ever perform this as opera without the politics as agenda. If ever there were propaganda masquerading as art, this is it.




Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com.....vphww
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marina




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Oct 23 2014, 12:24 pm
I read other articles saying the opposite- that the opera does not show them in a sympathetic light, just presents them as sad losers to pity.

I think reasonable people can disagree reasonably on this topic.
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amother


 

Post Thu, Oct 23 2014, 12:30 pm
marina wrote:
I read other articles saying the opposite- that the opera does not show them in a sympathetic light, just presents them as sad losers to pity.

I think reasonable people can disagree reasonably on this topic.


Please provide these articles. Thanks.
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Clarissa




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Oct 23 2014, 1:44 pm
I disagree with this woman on just about every point. I saw both the rally and the opera. I’d share what I wrote on FB about the opera (which I, too, saw opening night) but don’t feel like dealing with any more personal attacks (things like “you should wear red for Klinghoffer’s blood,” “you don’t care about husbands being murdered” -- I’m too lazy to look up the exact nasty quotes).

I could also provide several articles that describe the opera really well, but what’s the point? Our anonymous OP has a good thing going with these threads, so why interfere? We all do what we can to avoid taking care of this or that, or actually finding out all the sides of a story. For example, I’m typing this to avoid doing the breakfast dishes.
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Clarissa




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Oct 23 2014, 1:48 pm
Oh, and her bragging about booing and disrupting the opera is pretty gutsy. The performers (chorus and orchestra) are doing their job, and she interfered with their concentration. This didn’t hurt anybody except paid employees who were doing what they were paid to do. She sounds like the type that would throw stuff on the ground in protest, not caring that some custodian would have to clean it up. She claims she left before the end. She was actually escorted out by security, as they pulled out the handful (if that) of people who thought it okay to forget about the protest outside and disrupt the performance. But at least people got to see her leaving in her wheelchair, so her point was made. Well, no it wasn’t, but who cares.

The audience wasn’t impressed with the boo-ers and the hecklers. They seemed foolish and pathetic.

Just saw where this was posted. American Thinker. Yeah, that makes sense. The comments after this piece pretty much show what we’re dealing with. One casually talks about ISIS hacking off Peter Gelb’s head (Peter is General Manager of the Met). We’re so much better than they (the bad guys) are.

http://www.americanthinker.com......html


Last edited by Clarissa on Thu, Oct 23 2014, 8:52 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Raisin




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Oct 23 2014, 3:39 pm
I actually find it upsetting that seemingly, if you are propelled into the news by being the victim of a terror attack (or for another reason) anyone can take your name and story and use it as the basis for a play or opera or whatever, even without your permission. Klinghoffers daughters did not like the opera and (to their credit) the Met gave out a written statement by them saying so. (His wife died of cancer a few months after the hijacking)

To quote them.
Quote:
Neither Mr. Adams nor librettist Alice Goodman reached out to us when creating the opera, so we didn’t know what to expect when we attended the American debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1991. We were devastated by what we saw: the exploitation of the murder of our father as a vehicle for political commentary.
Over the years we have been deeply distressed with each new production of “Klinghoffer.” Critical views of Israel permeate the opera, and the staging and props of various productions have only amplified that bias. To have it now produced in New York — in our own backyard — by the country’s most prestigious opera company is incredibly painful.

- See more at: http://slippedisc.com/2014/10/......dpuf

I can't imagine losing a loved one in such an awful way. I can only imagine how awful they feel each time this opera is performed. Yes, artists have freedom of speech to say and write what they please, but a little consideration for victims of senseless violence would be nice.
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amother


 

Post Thu, Oct 23 2014, 3:46 pm
Raisin wrote:
I actually find it upsetting that seemingly, if you are propelled into the news by being the victim of a terror attack (or for another reason) anyone can take your name and story and use it as the basis for a play or opera or whatever, even without your permission. Klinghoffers daughters did not like the opera and (to their credit) the Met gave out a written statement by them saying so. (His wife died of cancer a few months after the hijacking)

To quote them.
Quote:
Neither Mr. Adams nor librettist Alice Goodman reached out to us when creating the opera, so we didn’t know what to expect when we attended the American debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1991. We were devastated by what we saw: the exploitation of the murder of our father as a vehicle for political commentary.
Over the years we have been deeply distressed with each new production of “Klinghoffer.” Critical views of Israel permeate the opera, and the staging and props of various productions have only amplified that bias. To have it now produced in New York — in our own backyard — by the country’s most prestigious opera company is incredibly painful.

- See more at: http://slippedisc.com/2014/10/......dpuf

I can't imagine losing a loved one in such an awful way. I can only imagine how awful they feel each time this opera is performed. Yes, artists have freedom of speech to say and write what they please, but a little consideration for victims of senseless violence would be nice.


10000000000000+

Nice to know sensitive people feel the Klinghoffers deserve a say in the use of their name and tragedy, never mind the many other issues, and agreement with them, as opposed to the issue of Artistic Freedom, etc
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sequoia




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Oct 23 2014, 3:56 pm
Op-Ed: The Sick Logic of Wealthy Jewish Met Opera Donors

The ramifications of the rationale for continuing to donate are horrific.


On October 20, 2014, I finished a short three-minute speech to about 1,500 Jews in front of the New York City Metropolitan Opera House on the occasion of the opening of the snuff Palestinian terrorist opera, “The Death of Klinghoffer.” As I was getting off the podium, a rabbi, who shall remain nameless, said to me, “You really shouldn't have attacked the Jews here." I nodded politely, and went my way. However, to that rabbi, I can now respond, "I didn't attack rich American Jewish Metropolitan Opera donors severely enough."

Here is why.

One of the things I said in my speech was that if there were 100 rich black Metropolitan Opera donors, and the Metropolitan Opera put on an opera ‘explaining’ the ‘perspective of a white lynch mob’ lynching a black man, the day that the black lynching Opera opened, there would be zero rich black Metropolitan Opera donors. But, today, with this evil opera glorifying the terroristic Palestinian murder of an American Jew, there are still many, many rich American Jewish Metropolitan Opera donors who are still going to donate millions upon millions to the Metropolitan Opera.

And, that, I said to the crowd, is “sickness.”

I can hear those donors saying:, “There are two sides to every story. And, since there are two sides, you have to hear what the other side has to say. Even if it means turning the other side’s ‘story’ into ‘Art.’”

Let's assume, arguendo, that there may be ‘two sides’ to the argument of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

But, are there really two sides to the argument that because there exists an Arab-Israeli conflict, the murder of an unarmed American Jew in a wheelchair on a cruise in the Mediterranean Sea by a bunch of armed Palestinian murderous terrorists can be justified?

Because, saying there are two sides to the story means is that an argument can be made for one side and an argument can be made for the other side.

What these wealthy American Jewish Metropolitan Opera donors are, in fact, really saying when they say that “there are two sides to the conflict” to rationalize their continued donations of millions and millions of dollars to the Met Opera despite the Met’s showing of the Palestinian terrorist glorification opera, is that an argument can be made for the cold-blooded terrorist murder of an American Jew in a wheelchair by a Palestinian terrorist. Why? Because there exists an Arab-Israeli conflict, and because the Palestinians are, therefore, somehow ‘aggrieved.’

These American Jewish Metropolitan Opera donors have just legitimized the murder of any, and all, American Jews, in, and out of, wheelchairs specifically, because there exists an Arab-Israeli conflict.

Why not? If there is an argument for murdering Leon Kinghoffer because there is an Arab-Israeli conflict, then there’s an argument for murdering any American Jew because there is an Arab-Israeli conflict.

These same wealthy American Jewish Metropolitan Opera donors have also legitimized the murder of any non-Jewish Americans who get in the way of a Palestinian terrorist trying to murder an American Jew - because there exists an Arab-Israeli conflict.

And if these wealthy American Jewish Metropolitan Opera donors think that there is an argument for the murder of American Jews because there exists an Arab-Israeli conflict, then can you imagine the argument that now exists for the terrorist murder of Israeli Jews because there is a Arab-Israeli conflict. After all, if a Palestinian terrorist can murder American Jews because the Arab-Israeli conflict exists, why can't he be understood for the murder of Israeli Jews simply because an Arab-Israeli conflict exists?

The American Jewish Metropolitan Opera donors have legitimized the murder of all Jews everywhere simply because there exists an Arab-Israeli conflict. Sick, indeed.
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Clarissa




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Oct 23 2014, 3:59 pm
I understand people's concerns but it's not done because people would have to consult estates and survivors for all plays, operas, movies, paintings and books. Not just for this but for any work based on real events. People would expect approval of content and would charge for use, thereby eliminating the possibility of doing art based on any true stories. We're talking biographies and plays and songs about everyone.

FWIW, Leon Klinghoffer and his wife were portrayed as loving, loyal, brave and intelligent.

Also, Peter Gelb included a letter from the Klinghoffer daughters in the program.

I hope people realized this opera has already been staged a bunch of times since 1991.
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Frumdoc




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Oct 23 2014, 7:46 pm
Maybe they should make it more topical and replace the murder of Klinghoffer with the murder of the poor little Chaya Braun, and the celebration of the "wedding day" of the suicide attacker by the Hamas and Fatah leadership where he will be rewarded with 72 virgins for killing a 3 month old baby and possibly her father too, and see how the great American public respond.
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Clarissa




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Oct 23 2014, 8:13 pm
I would love to compare notes with someone else from here who’s seen it, so if anybody here has, post or message me. I’d really like to chat about it. My husband, who hadn’t planned on going, might go now (he was there for a different opera on Wednesday but might try soon) and we’ll talk about it then. Another acquaintance is going on 11/1 and wants to talk to me after. And of course I went with a close friend that night, so we’ve compared notes. But if anybody here has seen it, whether or not you loved or hated it or liked it or felt lukewarm, I’d love to talk about the actual opera.
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amother


 

Post Sat, Oct 25 2014, 7:43 pm
Klinghoffer Opera is Blatant Anti-Semitism

http://www.algemeiner.com/2014.....tism/

Klinghoffer Opera is Blatant Anti-Semitism

The French novelist Louis-Ferdinand Celine called for the destruction of French Jews at a time when Nazism was on the rise, and anti-Semitism poured from the flesh of Europe’s elite like sweat on a hot summer’s day.

Celine’s anti-Semitism was so virulent and irrational that the Nazi head of propaganda for occupied France, Bernard Payr, found it too extreme. But French intellectual Andre Gide found Celine’s anti-Semitism refreshing because it pulled away the cheap veneer of politeness of European society and revealed the hatred for Jews that was its common bond.

Even as French Jews were being rounded up and carted off to concentration camps, Celine was writing that the Jews controlled France. Celine’s disappointment in Hitler’s not creating an Aryan France led him to state publicly that the real Hitler had been replaced by a Jewish double.

Celine came to anti-Semitism because he had written a play to impress a young woman he wanted to seduce and presented it to two Jewish producers to put on stage. They found the play less than compelling, and Celine never forgave them – and their people – for impeding the satisfaction of his lustful desires. His hatred for Jews was so unrelenting that even during the Nazi occupation of France, he still turned out an anti-Semitic screed.

With anti-Semitism once again emerging from the recesses of European society and the fact that Jews are being attacked, maimed, and murdered for the unforgivable crime of being Jews, the Metropolitan Opera is presenting “The Death of Klinghoffer,” a barbaric screed, like Celine’s Bagatelles. It masquerades as art but celebrates the murder of a wheelchair-bound elderly Jew, who was slaughtered on an Italian cruise ship and dumped into the sea along with his wheelchair. The opera celebrates the murderers – Palestinian terrorists – and condemns the victim as a symbol of the ever greedy, powerful Jew from whose omnipotent perch all of humanity is exploited.

John Adams, the opera’s composer, in an interview on public radio, said that all great opera’s tackle controversial subjects and went on to allude to fellow anti-Semite Richard Wagner, who not only resented the operatic success of his Jewish rivals, but was obsessed, according to Friedrich Nietzche, with the idea that his biological father was really Jewish. Of course, whether all great opera’s engage controversial subjects is a matter of opinion, but certainly not all controversial subjects make for great operas.

Otherwise, why not, “The Death of Martin Luther King,” written as a drama that celebrates King’s assassin, James Earl Ray, as hero and King as the embodiment of an inferior race that is unwilling to recognize its subordinate position in society?

It would be intriguing to pull away the intellectual rationalizations and discover where the Celine is in John Adams’ motivation. After all, taking together the total corpus of his work, Celine might have been a brilliant novelist, but he was also a ranting sociopath.

New York Mayor Bill De Blasio condemns those, like former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who demonstrated against the opera. De Blasio asserts the opera’s creators have First Amendment rights. But does the First Amendment not extend to those who want to demonstrate against the opera?

To add insult to ignorance, De Blasio says he is concerned about the rise of worldwide anti-Semitism while apparently failing to grasp that the opera contributes to that phenomenon by giving legitimacy to anti-Semitic stereotypes and justifying the murder of a Jew for being a Jew.

Klinghoffer is not art. It is one massive hate crime. It is an assault not just on the Jewish community but also on all decent people. If John Adams mouthed the excremental sentiments of his art into the phone directed at some Jewish organization, he’d probably be guilty of a hate crime. But directing his filth at all Jews, putting it to music, and having it produced against the backdrop of expensive scenery ostensibly turns excrement into art.

Getting inside the mind of terrorists through drama and finding a moral equivalence between terrorists and their victims might seem to be intellectual sophistication to those who fancy themselves deep thinkers. In their world, there is no such thing as good and evil, assailant and victim; there are only different layers of explanation for the societal circumstances that remove free will and cause people to act.

But such sophistication is easy when Jews are the target. What about 9/11? I await the opera where someone will get inside the minds of the hijackers and create a moral equivalence between those who flew airplanes into the Twin Towers and those who worked inside them trading financial instruments. I can already hear, and smell, an aria called, “Greed.”
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Abraham H. Miller is an emeritus professor of political science, University of Cincinnati and a contributor to the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. He is the author of Fourteenth Street: A Chicago Story, a work of political fiction.
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amother


 

Post Sat, Oct 25 2014, 7:48 pm
Clarissa wrote:
I would love to compare notes with someone else from here who’s seen it, so if anybody here has, post or message me. I’d really like to chat about it. My husband, who hadn’t planned on going, might go now (he was there for a different opera on Wednesday but might try soon) and we’ll talk about it then. Another acquaintance is going on 11/1 and wants to talk to me after. And of course I went with a close friend that night, so we’ve compared notes. But if anybody here has seen it, whether or not you loved or hated it or liked it or felt lukewarm, I’d love to talk about the actual opera.


Why did you want to go see this opera?
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Clarissa




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Oct 25 2014, 8:57 pm
amother wrote:
Why did you want to go see this opera?
Ask me as yourself and I’ll be happy to answer.
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yo'ma




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Oct 25 2014, 9:31 pm
Clarissa wrote:
Ask me as yourself and I’ll be happy to answer.

I'll ask as myself. I don't know who amother is. I've been reading the posts about the opera and your take on it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I remember you saying you're not into opera, but your dh is and he wasn't going to see it. I understand you wanting to see it, so you can give your own view on the subject, but at the same time, isn't going to see it support it, financially and morally? So, why, in your own words did you see it?
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Clarissa




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Oct 25 2014, 10:31 pm
Actually, I really like opera and go to the Met several times a year, but my husband is the real opera-goer. He’s a Met subscriber and tries to see every one he can, either at the Met or at the HD movies of the operas he misses. Last year we went to a dress rehearsal of an opera there, on another day we took a backstage tour with one of the Met musicians, and we went to the season opening, as well as other operas. So obviously I enjoy them, too. He hadn’t planned on seeing this particular one. I’ve never seen a modern opera and decided to see this one with a good friend. I’d heard good things about Adams and this came up. I read about it, read and saw interviews and articles, and felt comfortable doing it. Talked about it for a long time with my husband before I went. I didn’t look at it as supporting the opera itself (after all, it’s a Met production, so it supports the Met), but certainly was aware that my ticket money would help pay the Met for their productions, which is fine with me. Obviously my husband is a subscriber so we’re happy to be supporters of the Met.

As I said, my husband and I discussed it and read a lot about it, and talked about what I felt about going and how I would take the experience. I went in with an open mind. Meaning, I was happy to admit if it made me angry or uncomfortable, and also fine admitting if it didn’t. I analyzed the whole thing more than I’ve ever analyzed an opera. I mean, the different music given to the Jews and the Palestinians, the difference in the messages of the lyrics, what was sung by the Klinghoffers, the terrorists, the crew, etc. I really watched and listened and noted like I never have before. As I said, after I came home and digested I sat and wrote down all of my impressions and posted it on Facebook for friends who were curious. I’m comfortable saying that I don’t think it’s anti-Semitic at all, nor is it pro-terrorist. I realize that some people feel differently, but I’m most interested in hearing from people who went in with an open mind and had a reaction one way or another, rather than people who were there to protest.
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yo'ma




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Oct 25 2014, 11:56 pm
Thank you for your answer. Even if you didn't think it was anti semitic or pro terrorist, are there things in the opera for people to think it is or they would only think so if they go with that attitude?
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Clarissa




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Oct 26 2014, 12:02 am
People experience all sorts of things differently. It would have been interesting to see it one of the other times it was performed (elsewhere) rather than at the Met with all of the media and drama, without any idea of what it would be like, but unfortunately it was too late for that. I’m looking forward to getting my husband’s take when he sees it this week.

I didn’t find it at all anti-Semitic or pro-terrorist. It was frightening and heartbreaking, as I would have expected it to be given the subject matter.
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yo'ma




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Oct 26 2014, 8:57 am
After your husband sees it, with his permission of course, would you please post his opinions? Thank you.
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Clarissa




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Oct 26 2014, 9:18 am
I guess it depends on whether he’s going to be attacked here as I was. This is a good man, a frum Jew, who hesitated to see it because he feared it might be offensive. I don’t want to set him up for attacks by random amothers.
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