Hi,

I am curious what Zorn's and/or the radical jewish culture people's position would be towards the Israel-Palestine conflict and the position of the American government towards this. What triggered my interest is an article I read on this "An Open Letter from American Jews to Our Government" (www.peacemideast.org). Is anything known about Zorn's position on the propositions made there?

I think this is an interesting topic. But, I agree with Joseph in that I doubt very many opinions would be shared by such a broad community as the Tzadik people. However, many of them have in fact spoken out quite openly about this topic, especially Elliot Sharp (check his diary on his webpage). Also, ealier this year Sharp, Marc Ribot, Anthony Coleman, Frank London and many others organised a benifit concert under the banner of "Israel Out Of The Occupied Territories" and so on. However, the behavior of Zorn himself is, as usual, in my opinion peculiar. In the 80s and early 90s he was the bad boy of punkjazz and hardcore with censored CD covers and so on, and suddenly he turns to "Radical Jewish Culture" with the energy of a train, with very little explanation to his audience what is going on. So far, the only hint I'm aware of is the comment on all the Masada albums abotu "cultural Zionism". But what is "Cultural Zionism", what's Zorn's point? It's funny that Zorn can seem so passionate about this topic, but on the other hand not have the slightest interest in wether other people understand what it's all about. I can't think of many other artists who seems to care so little about how they are percieved by their audience. Of course, I'm not suggesting that all musicians should make a manifesto explaining their political views. But perhaps Zorn simply loves the endless speculation and misunderstandings? I mean, it would not take much of an effort for him to stop articles like the following (which have been discussed here before): "John Zorn and Zionism" http://www.furious.com/perfect/zornzion.html Or maybe it just boils down to Fred Frith' famous comment to Zorn: "You're an apolitical dumbshit" ;-) Cheers. _________________________________________________________________ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail