Last Wednesday I went to a conference in the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem on Zionism and Lebensphilosophie. I was especially interested in a paper given by Philipp Theisohn from University of Tübingen called “The Body Politic of Zionism: Klages, Beitar, Schönberg”. I guess you know which keyword attracted me in the title…

The paper was very interesting, although I am not sure that I agree with all the connections Theisohn made between Schoenberg and Zabotinsky. Schoenberg’s position towards mechanical music was very ambivalent as can be seen in his article “Mechanical Musical Instruments” that can be found in his book Style and Idea.

After the lecture we saw the the film Children of the Sun by Ran Tal. It was the first time I saw the film and I must say that it was nothing less than amazing. My mother lived for two years in an Kibbutz and was three months every years there thereafter. One of the reasons that my grandmother left the kibbutz was because it was not permitted that children will sleep with their parents (the children slept together and were raised by nannies). It was shocking what the kibbutzim did in order to create what they saw as the “new man”. This film is a must for anyone interested in the history of Israel.

The music of the film was by Avi Belleli. It was very good.