Anti-semitism is out in Oberammergau
When he’s not teaching French and German to ink-flicking children at the Staffelsee Gymnasium in Murnau, Otto Huber can be found grappling with the most fraught religious question of the past 2,000 years: how to bridge the gap between Christians and Jews. He looks exhausted by his efforts, and it’s not surprising. Huber is Deputy Director of the Oberammergau Passion Play 2000 and the man responsible for the biggest re-rewrite of the script in the last 150 years. His brief was three-fold: more drama, more relevance, and, above all, no anti-Semitic content. For decades, Jewish organizations, particularly in the U.S., have been pressing for changes to be made to the world’s most famous Passion play.
The millennium-year production — which will be attended by some 500,000 people, 60 percent from America — was always going to be something different. A DM 15 million revamp of the Passionsspielhaus (Passion Play theater) brings the event a long way from its first performance in the churchyard in 1634. Director Christian Stückl, 38, had been itching to update the play since he directed its last series of performances in 1990 (the play is staged every 10 years) — ordering more colorful set designs and making significant alterations to the 1816 score.
Yet, it is the text that so convincingly conveys this medieval play to the modern-day public. Jesus is clearly recast as a feisty “Jew among Jews,” being referred to as “Rabbi” and performing Hebrew Passover rituals at the Last Supper. Thirty-five years after the Second Vatican Council decreed that Jews must not be held collectively responsible for the death of Jesus, all suggestion of their guilt has been removed from the play, as have any references to Jewish cupidity. Even the word “Pharisee” — which in German has the secondary meaning of “hypocrite” — has been removed. More dialogue is given to Jews who spoke up for Jesus, while a new character, Gamaliel, is drafted in from Chapter V of Acts to speak in Christ’s defense.
Huber describes himself as a “traditional Catholic,” but one who understands fully the offense felt by Jews. His only regret is the removal of the word “Yahweh” — a word for God that Jews consider too sacred to pronounce — from a song. “I think it’s a beautiful word, but we struck it from the script to keep the peace.” The harshest criticism is reserved for Pontius Pilate. Huber reckons the Gospels give “too positive an image” of the Roman governor. In one of the Old Testament tableaux that punctuate the play, the Roman governor will now be equated to “the despotic Pharoah.” But to Huber’s way of thinking, parallels can be found by looking forward as well as backward. He sees similarities between the closed systems of power in Jerusalem and those in the Third Reich. “When Jesus stands before Pilate and Caiaphas, he is like one of the wonderful men who was brought before Judge [Roland] Freisler [president of the Berlin Volksgerichtshof during the Nazi period] and found a 100 percent deficit of justice.” He says, “We do not want to make any judgment about Judaism. We are in no position to. You could see it as a mirror of our own experiences in the 20th century rather than a reflection of Jewish guilt.”
The new drafts have been scrutinized by the town’s council, including its Catholic and Protestant priests, and by Jewish groups, such as the U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Bavaria’s Cardinal Wetter even sent what Huber describes as a “charming inquisitor,” Professor Ludwig Mödl from Munich University, to review the changes. He turned out to be a keen advocate of them and may have persuaded the council to accept some of the more controversial changes.
Professor Mödl feels the new version is the “best compromise” between the faiths. “I hope the Jewish guests will be comfortable with it,” he says. Rabbi Leon Klenicki, director of interfaith affairs at the ADL, will be at the premiere. A month before curtain time, he was still urging changes in the script. While congratulating the team on their “editorial efforts,” he was “very unhappy that the Jewish leadership are still portrayed as unconditional allies of Roman power — as quislings.”
Whether Oberammergau goes the extra step will be something for the first-night audience to discover. But it seems unlikely. “If you eliminated every bad element of the Jewish priests, the story would not work,” says Huber. “You know, Jesus did not die of influenza.”
