Festival week uproar

Vienna’s Judenplatz: A dance of eggs over a speech

Omri Boehm delivers his "Speech to Europe" on Judenplatz

(Bild: www.picturedesk.com/viennaslide, www.picturedesk.com/Christian Charisius)

The Israeli-German philosopher Omri Boehm will give a "Speech to Europe" entitled "Shadows of History, Spectres of the Present: The Middle East War and Europe's Challenge" on Tuesday, May 7, at 7 pm. The fact that he will be addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Judenplatz of all places is causing a stir. The "Krone" asked Milo Rau, the new director of the Vienna Festival, why the speech at this location is important.

Since 2019, the Speech to Europe, initiated by the Erste Foundation, has been intended to provide "critical impulses on the present and future of Europe" as the opening event of the Vienna Festival.

The fact that this year the Israeli-German philosopher Omri Boehm will address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his speech on Judenplatz of all places was too sensitive for the sponsor - he withdrew. Ariel Muzicant, former president of the Jewish Community of Vienna, was then told that he would throw eggs in protest against the speech "if he were 30 years younger".

This resulted in an appearance by Boehm on "ZIB 2", where the 45-year-old countered: Muzicant was disrespectful if he encouraged younger people to throw eggs in front of the memorial to the Austrian Jewish victims of the Shoah. In addition, Boehm once again underlined his view that the Middle East conflict could only be resolved through an Israeli-Palestinian federation, even if this is currently difficult to imagine. A two-state solution is unrealistic for him for various reasons.

Festival director Milo Rau

(Bild: WOLFGANG HUBER-LANG / APA / picturedesk.com)

The Vienna Festival is sticking to the venue: "Omri Boehm is a brilliant German-Israeli philosopher who will give our Europe speech, which traditionally takes place on Judenplatz", explains Milo Rau, Director of the Vienna Festival, to the "Krone" newspaper, "six weeks ago he received the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding. To say to this globally celebrated humanist philosopher, whose message is understanding, in Vienna in particular, 'You are not allowed to speak here on Judenplatz', I think is impossible. It is absolutely the wrong message at a time when anyone who pleads for listening and against extremes is silenced. As a festival, we see it as our duty to keep the space of democratic debate, of which the speech to Europe is emblematic, open."

These speeches caused a stir

• Martin Walser's speech on the occasion of the Peace Prize award ceremony on October 11, 1998 in Frankfurt's Paulskirche, in which he spoke of the "moral mace of Auschwitz", sparked a debate that lasted for weeks. Ignatz Bubis, then Chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, accused Walser of "intellectual arson".
• On March 18, 2006, Peter Handke, who went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, spoke at the funeral of Serbian ruler Slobodan Milošević. His speech, delivered partly in Serbo-Croatian, in the central square of Požarevac led to an intensification of the previous controversies.
• German author Ilija Trojanow's speech at the opening of the Salzburg Festival caused a stir in the run-up to the festival. It was unsparing: he called conductor Gergiev a "liar and hypocrite" and commented on the boycott of Tchaikovsky in some countries: "War confuses thinking."
• The speech by Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek caused an uproar at the opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2023. Žižek condemned the terrorist attacks by Hamas on the Israeli population, but emphasized that we must also listen to the Palestinians if we want to understand the conflict.

As far as the egg throwers are concerned, the organizers are prepared: "We have been in close consultation with the experts from the Ministry of the Interior regarding security precautions since the planning phase. Just like with the previous speeches to Europe".