Gilad Atzmon

Gilad Atzmon גלעד עצמון
Atzmon in concert, February 2007
Born	Gilad Atzmon (1963-06-09) June 9, 1963 Tel Aviv, Israel
Nationality	Israeli and British
Education	Rubin Academy of Music, University of Essex
Occupation(s)	Musician, Novelist
Known for	Music, political activism
Website	www.gilad.co.uk

Gilad Atzmon (Hebrew: גלעד עצמון; born June 9, 1963) is an Israeli-born British jazz saxophonist, novelist, political activist and writer.

Atzmon's album Exile was BBC jazz album of the year in 2003. Playing over 100 dates a year, he has been called "surely the hardest-gigging man in British jazz." His albums, of which he has recorded nine to date, often explore the music of the Middle East and political themes. He has described himself as a "devoted political artist."

A profile in The Guardian in 2009 which described Atzmon as "one of London's finest saxophonists" stated: "It is Atzmon's blunt anti-Zionism rather than his music that has given him an international profile, particularly in the Arab world, where his essays are widely read." His criticisms of Zionism, Jewish identity, and Judaism, as well as his controversial views on The Holocaust and Jewish history have led to allegations of antisemitism from both Zionists and anti-Zionists.

Early life

Atzmon was born in a secular Jewish family in Tel Aviv, and trained at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem.

He first became interested in British jazz when he discovered some in a British record shop in Jerusalem in the 1970s. He initially was inspired by the work of Ronnie Scott and Tubby Hayes and regarded London as "the Mecca of Jazz." He also was influenced to become a jazz musician by the work of Charlie Parker, in particular Charlie Parker with Strings recorded in 1949. Atzmon said of the album that he "loved the way the music is both beautiful and subversive – the way he basks in the strings but also fights against them." He worked with top bands as a musical producer.

In 1994, Atzmon emigrated from Israel to London, where he attended the University of Essex and earned a Masters degree in Philosophy. He has lived there since, becoming a British citizen in 2002.

Music

While Atzmon's main instrument is the alto saxophone, he also plays soprano, tenor and baritone saxophones and clarinet, sol, zurna and flute. Atzmon's jazz style has been described as bebop/hard bop, with forays into free jazz and swing, and seemingly inspired by John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Atzmon sometimes plays the alto and soprano sax simultaneously.

Atzmon's works have also explored the music of the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe. Atzmon told The Guardian that he draws on Arabic music which he says cannot be notated like western music but must be internalised, which he calls "reverting to the primacy of the ear". Atzmon's musical method has been to play with notions of cultural identity, flirting with genres such as tango and klezmer as well as various Arabic, Balkan, Gypsy and Ladino folk forms. Atzmon's recordings deliberately differ from his live shows. "I don't think that anyone can sit in a house, at home, and listen to me play a full-on bebop solo. It's too intense. My albums need to be less manic."

Collaborations and groups

Atzmon joined the veteran punk rock band Ian Dury and the Blockheads in 1998, and continued with The Blockheads after Dury's death. He has also recorded and performed with Shane McGowan, Robbie Williams, Sinéad O'Connor, Robert Wyatt and Paul McCartney. He has recorded two albums with Robert Wyatt, who describes him as "one of the few musical geniuses I've ever met".

Atzmon has collaborated, recorded and performed with musicians from all around the world, including the Palestinian singer, Reem Kelani, Tunisian singer and oud player Dhafer Youssef, violinist Marcel Mamaliga, accordion player Romano Viazzani, bassist Yaron Stavi, violinist and trumpet-violin player, Dumitru Ovidiu Fratila, and Guillermo Rozenthuler on vocals.

Atzmon founded the Orient House Ensemble band in London in the 1990s and toured with them in 2007. The band includes Asaf Sirkis on drums, Yaron Stavi on bass and Frank Harrison on keyboard. It has produced five albums in eight years.

Robert Wyatt, who has said that Atzmon combines "great artistry with a sense of the intrinsically non-racialist philosophy that's implicit in jazz," has collaborated with Atzmon and Ros Stephens on an album called For the Ghosts Within, released in October 2010 on Domino Records.

Atzmon produced and arranged 2 albums for British-American singer songwriter Sarah Gillespie Stalking Juliet (2009) and In The Current Climate (2011). Both albums were critically acclaimed. Atzmon tours extensively as part of Sarah Gillespie's band, playing saxophone, clarinet and accordion.

Atzmon is on the creative panel of the Global Music Foundation, a non-profit organization formed in December 2004 which runs residential educational and performance workshops and events in different countries around the world. and also offers personal workshops to students.

Reviews

Atzmon and his ensemble have received favorable reviews from Hi-Fi World, Financial Times, The Scotsman, Birmingham Post, The Sunday Times and The Independent. Reviews of his 2007 album Refuge included:

Manchester Evening News: "The individuality of the music is extraordinary. No one is more willing to serve his music with raw political passion, and that curious cantor-like tone on clarinet is immediately arresting, like Artie Shaw writhing in his death throes."

EjazzNews: "For sheer improvisational fireworks, quirky humour and genre-defying invention, one will be hard-pressed to find a bandleader as unique as Gilad Atzmon." ("EjazzNews," September 2008)

BBC: "...the OHE is finding its voice in an increasingly subtle blend of East and West, that’s brutal and beautiful."

In February 2009 The Guardian music critic John Fordham reviewed Atzmon's newest album In loving memory of America which Atzmon describes as "a memory of America I had cherished in my mind for many years". It includes five standards and six originals "inspired by the sumptuous harmonies and impassioned sax-playing of (Charlie) Parker's late-40s recordings with classical strings".

While the music journalist John Lewis praises much of Atzmon's work, he notes that "trenchant politics often sit uneasily alongside music, particularly when that music is instrumental". Lewis criticized his 2006 comedy klezmer project, Artie Fishel and the Promised Band, as "a clumsy satire on what he regards as the artificial nature of Jewish identity politics."

Awards

Atzmon was the recipient of the HMV Top Dog Award at the Birmingham International Jazz Festival in 1996–1998. Gilad Atzmon's Exile was BBC jazz album of the year in 2003.

Novels

Atzmon's first novel, A Guide to the Perplexed, was published in 2001. A reviewer for The Independent wrote that "Those who still thrill to the pages of Sixties underground "comix" may find some of this amusing, however laboured. Yet even those semi-sympathetic to its politics will find it cheap and "provocative" in the worst possible sense." The Guardian observed it is "odd to mix knob gags with highly serious assertions" but thought it works because "Atzmon writes with so much style and his gags are so hilarious." Publisher's Weekly noted "Atzmon clearly wants to provoke, but his approach is so familiar that few readers will take the bait."

Atzmon's second novel, My One and Only Love was published in 2005, and features as a protagonist a trumpeter who chooses to play only one note (extremely well) as well as a spy who uncovers Nazi war criminals and locks them inside double bass cases which then tour permanently in the protagonist's orchestra's luggage. The book also is comedic take on "Zionist espionage and intrigue" which explores "the personal conflict between being true to one’s heart and being loyal to The Jews".

Writings and activism

Gilad Atzmon's service as a paramedic in the Israeli Defense Forces during the 1982 Lebanon War caused him to conclude that "I was part of a colonial state, the result of plundering and ethnic cleansing." He told an interviewer that it was there he first learned about Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, legislation to prevent their return, and the wiping out of Palestinian villages. “We were indoctrinated into a denial of the Palestinian Cause. We were not aware of it.”

Atzmon supports the Palestinian right of return and the one-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Atzmon's political writings have been published in CounterPunch, Al-Arab online, Uruknet, Middle East Online, The Palestine Telegraph, Aljazeera Magazine and Aljazeerah.info. (Note neither is connected with the Al Jazeerah news network.)

Music journalists have commented on the link between Atzmon’s jazz and radical politics. Peter Bacon has written that Atzmon reminds us of "the strong link between jazz and the radical politics that are sometimes the only way to ensure its – and our – freedom." Chris Searle's book entitled Forward Groove: Jazz and the Real World from Louis Armstrong to Gilad Atzmon, which chronicles the development of jazz alongside political protest movements, holds that "the torch continues to be carried by contemporary musicians such as Israeli-born alto saxman Gilad Atzmon who dreams of a free and united Palestine." Atzmon’s activism has included conducting musical fundraisers, contributing to activist publications, and speaking engagements. In 2010 he appeared on Russia Today television network to speak about the Israeli raid on the "Gaza Freedom Flotilla".

Atzmon has defined himself variously as a "secular Jew", a "proud self-hating Jew", an "ex-Jew" and "a Hebrew-speaking Palestinian." Atzmon told interviewer Theo Panayides “I don’t write about politics, I write about ethics. I write about Identity. I write a lot about the Jewish Question – because I was born in the Jew-land, and my whole process in maturing into an adult was involved with the realisation that my people are living on stolen land.” Atzmon has said that his experience in the military of “my people destroying other people left a big scar” and led to his decision that he was deluded about Zionism. He has condemned “Jewishness” as "very much a supremacist, racist tendency". He states that "I don't have anything against Jews in particular and you won't find that in my writings." Regarding the one-state solution, Atzmon concedes that such a state probably would be controlled by Islamists, but says, "That's their business."

In articles he has compared the Jewish Ideology to that of the Nazis and has described Israel's policy toward the Palestinians as genocide. David Hirst, in his 2003 book The Gun and the Olive Branch, quotes Atzmon as saying America was “about to lose its sovereignty...becoming a remote colony of an apparently far greater state, the Jewish state.” In 2009 Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan cited Atzmon's written comment "Israeli barbarity is far beyond even ordinary cruelty" during a debate with Israeli president Shimon Peres.

Allegations of antisemitism

John Lewis writes that Atzmon's anti-Jewish rhetoric has created many foes for Atzmon, even among people once associates. Some Palestinian activists see his statements as discrediting their cause, while the British Socialist Workers Party, which at one time regularly invited him to their annual Marxism event, now distances itself from Atzmon. In September 2011 trade unionist and blogger Andy Newman wrote in an opinion piece in The Guardian characterized Atzmon's political writing as "a wild conspiracy argument, dripping with contempt for Jews."

Several of Atzmon's statements regarding Jews and Judaism have led to allegations of antisemitism. In 2004 the Board of Deputies of British Jews criticized Atzmon for saying, "I'm not going to say whether it is right or not to burn down a synagogue, I can see that it is a rational act." Atzmon responded in a letter to The Observer that "since Israel presents itself as the 'state of the Jewish people’ ... any form of anti-Jewish activity may be seen as political retaliation. This does not make it right."

In a 2005 opinion piece David Aaronovitch criticized Atzmon for writing in his essay "On Anti-Semitism" that "We must begin to take the accusation that the Jewish people are trying to control the world very seriously." and "American Jewry makes any debate on whether the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' are an authentic document or rather a forged irrelevant. American Jews do control the world, by proxy. So far they are doing pretty well for themselves at least"; Aaronovitch said Atzmon was "a silly boy advancing slightly dangerous arguments." Aaronovitch also criticized Atzmon for circulating an essay by Paul Eisen defending Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel and supporting many aspects of Zündel's Holocaust denial theories. Aaronovitch wrote that Atzmon said he had a "slightly different" view than Eisen: "the Holocaust like any other historical narrative is a dynamic process of realisation and interpretation." Atzmon has said he does not deny the Holocaust or the “Nazi Judeocide” but insists “that both the Holocaust and World War II should be treated as historical events rather than as religious myth. . . . But then, even if we accept the Holocaust as the new Anglo-American liberal-democratic religion, we must allow people to be atheists.” In a 2006 opinion piece in The Guardian, David Hirsh cited Atzmon's "On Anti-Semitism" essay, and particularly its Jewish deicide claim that "the Jews were responsible for the killing of Jesus," as an example of Atzmon's "openly anti-Jewish rhetoric." In response to a question about this quote from Lenni Brenner, Atzmon replied that he meant "I find it astonishing that people today happen to be offended by such accusations."

In 2007 the Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism criticized the Swedish Social Democratic Party for inviting Atzmon to speak, saying he had worked to "legitimize the hatred of Jews.” The party defended its choice of speaker. Nick Cohen, in a 2009 opinion piece for The Observer, criticised Atzmon's declaration that "Jewish ideology is driving our planet into a catastrophe" and "the Jewish tribal mindset – left, centre and right – sets Jews aside of humanity". In his blog for The Times, Oliver Kamm charges Atzmon with antisemitism for his article "Truth, History and Integrity", in which Atzmon writes, "As it happened, it took me many years to understand that the Holocaust, the core belief of the contemporary Jewish faith, was not at all an historical narrative for historical narratives do not need the protection of the law and politicians. . . . It took me years to accept that the Holocaust narrative, in its current form, doesn’t make any historical sense."

According to Irish academic David Landy, a former chair of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Atzmon's words, "if not actually anti-Semitic, certainly border on it". Ynetnews has used Atzmon as an example of Jewish anti-Semitism: "Gilad Atzmon, an Israeli jazz musician, defines himself as anti-Jewish and sees the torching of synagogues as a rational move."

In a review of Howard Jacobson's 2010 Man Booker Prize-winning novel The Finkler Question, Edward Alexander writes, "the novel’s Holocaust-denying Israeli yored drummer is in fact based upon one Gilad Atzmon, who is better known in England for endorsing the ideology of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and describing the burning of British synagogues as a 'rational act' in retaliation for Israeli actions."

Atzmon refers to charges of antisemitism as being a "common Zionist silencing apparatus." He denies both that he is an antisemite and the very existence of antisemitism, stating that "'Anti-Semite' is an empty signifier, no one actually can be an Anti-Semite and this includes me of course. In short, you are either a racist which I am not or have an ideological disagreement with Zionism, which I have." In 2009, Atzmon said "I've got nothing against the Semite people, I don't have anything against people — I'm anti-Jewish, not anti-Jews." He added that "Stupidly we interpreted the Nazi defeat as a vindication of the Jewish ideology and the Jewish people", however, "in fact Jewish ideology and Nazi ideology were very similar." In 2009 Atzmon debated David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen on the topic of “Anti-Semitism – Alive and Well in Europe?” at the 2009 Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival.

Atzmon has not toned down his statements, even though he admits it has lost him performance contracts, especially in the United States. Atzmon has had conflicts with some anti-Zionists who have attempted to stop his performances. He has been defended by several contributors to the CounterPunch website, for which Atzmon has written.

Israel Shamir, a Holocaust denier (“We must deny the concept of Holocaust without doubt and hesitation”) who argues that Jews ritually murdered Christian children for their blood and that “The rule of the Elders of Zion is already upon us,” refers to Atzmon as a “good friend” and calls Atzmon one of “the shining stars of the battle” against “the Jewish alliance.”

American White Supremacist David Duke, who has posted more than a dozen of Atzmon’s articles on his website over the past five years and recently praised Atzmon for “writ[ing] such fine articles exposing the evil of Zionism and Jewish supremacism.”

Alan Dershowitz has written that "Atzmon argues that Jews seek to control the world," and cited his writtings from 2003 in which Atzmon stated "[W]e must begin to take the accusation that the Jewish people are trying to control the world very seriously" and that "American Jewry makes any debate on whether the 'Protocols of the elder of Zion' [sic] are an authentic document or rather a forgery irrelevant. American Jews do try to control the world, by proxy." Dershowitz also cited a 2011 interview in which Atzmon stated: "Jews may have managed to drop their God, but they have maintained goy-hating and racist ideologies at the heart of their newly emerging secular political identity. This explains why some Talmudic goy-hating elements have been transformed within the Zionist discourse into genocidal practices."

The Wandering Who

Praise

In 2011, Atzmon published the book "The Wandering Who? A Study of Jewish Identity Politics", which was praised by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, who wrote that "Gilad Atzmon has written a fascinating and provocative book on Jewish identity in the modern world" and that the book "should be widely read by Jews and non-Jews alike." Richard Falk also praised the book, calling it an "absorbing and moving" book that everyone who "care[s] about real peace" should "not only read, but reflect upon and discuss widely."

Kevin MacDonald, a professor at Cal State Long Beach whose colleagues formally disassociated themselves from his “anti-Semitic and white ethnocentric views,” called Atzmon’s book “an invaluable account by someone who clearly understands the main symptoms of Jewish pathology.”

Criticism

Alan Dershowitz sharply criticized John Mearsheimer and Richard Falk for endorsing a "overtly anti-Semitic book written by a notorious Jew-hater illustrate" and added that "One wonders which portions of this bigoted screed Professors Mearsheimer and Falk believe their students and others "should" read and "discuss widely."" Dershowitz also argued that "These endorsements represent a dangerous step toward legitimizing anti-Semitic rhetoric on university campuses. If respected professors endorse the views contained in Atzmon's book as "brilliant," "fascinating," "absorbing," and "moving," these views—which include Jewish domination of the world, doubting the Holocaust, blaming "the Jews" for being so hated, and attributing the current economic troubles to a "Zio-punch"—risk becoming acceptable among their students."

Dershowitz argues that Atzmon boasts about "drawing many of my insights from a man who … was an anti-Semite as well as a radical misogynist" and a hater of "almost everything that fails to be Aryan masculinity" (p.89-90) and that he declares himself a "proud, self-hating Jew" (p.54), writes with "contempt" of "the Jew in me" (p.94), and describes himself as "a strong opponent of … Jewish-ness" (p.186).

Dershowitz also argued that the book depicts Jews as being evil and a menace to humanity, since the book states "[T]o be a Jew is a deep commitment that goes far beyond any legal or moral order" (p.20) and this commitment "pulls more and more Jews into an obscure, dangerous and unethical fellowship" (p.21) and that "If Iran and Israel fight a nuclear war that kills tens of millions of people, "some may be bold enough to argue that 'Hitler might have been right after all'" (p.179). The book also states that "The history of Jewish persecution is a myth, and if there was any persecution the Jews brought it on themselves." (p.175, 182)

Dershowitz concluded the article by challenging "Professors Mearsheimer and Falk to a public debate about why they have endorsed and said such positive things about so hateful and anti-Semitic a book by so bigoted and dishonest a writer."

Discography

• The Tide Has Changed - Label: World Village — September 2010
• "In loving memory of America" – Label: Enja – January 2009
• Refuge – Label: Enja – October 2007
• Artie Fishel and the Promised Band – Label: WMD – September 2006
• MusiK – Label: Enja – October 2004
• Exile – Label: Enja – March 2004
• Nostalgico – Label: Enja – January 2001
• Gilad Atzmon &The Orient House Ensemble – Label: Enja – 2000
• Juizz Muzic- Label: FruitBeard – 1999
• Take it or Leave It – Label: Face Jazz – 1999
• Spiel- Both Sides – Label: MCI – 1995
• Spiel Acid Jazz Band- Label: MCI – 1995
• Spiel- Label: In Acoustic&H.M. Acoustica – 1993

Books

• A Guide to the Perplexed, English translation by Philip Simpson. London: Serpent's Tail, 2002. ISBN 1-85242-826-0
• My one and only love. London: Saqi Books, 2005. ISBN 0-86356-507-7 (pbk.). ISBN 978-0-86356-507-6 (pbk.)
• The Wandering Who: A Study of Jewish Identity Politics, Zero Books, 2011. ISBN 978-1-84694-875-6

External links

• Gilad Atzmon web site
• Brain Lenzo, Gilad Atzmon Interviewed: Each Village is a Reminder, Eurasia Review, 2010-07-13.
• Interview: Gilad Atzmon by Rob Garratt, Evening News 24, November 11, 2009.
• Gilad Atzmon interview on ArabVoices.net, KPFT, June 2009 during visit to Houston, Texas.
• Ivan Hewett, Gilad Altzmon: High-flown ecstasies from an angry man, The Daily Telegraph, September 17, 2007.
• Gilad Atzmon Interviewed by Mary Rizzo, Middle East Online, July, 2007.