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Oberammergau Cleans Up Its Act
Jonathan Broder / Washington and Igal Avidan / Berlin
 Otto Huber, who rewrote the script - and laid a Nazi ghost to rest |
It all began in 1633, during the Thirty Years� War, when the Swedish army was besieging Oberammergau in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. A plague spread, killing 100 of the village�s 600 people. According to local legend, the pious Catholics vowed to reenact the story of Jesus Christ�s death and resurrection, if God would protect them.
Oberammergau was spared, and, true to their word, the villagers made the pageant a recurring expression of their faith and gratitude. Now a town with a population of 5,350, Oberammergau has staged its Passion play roughly every 10 years since then. About 2,200 residents are working on this year�s six-hour production, which will be performed five times a week from May 21 until November and is expected to gross $30 million in ticket sales alone.
For Jews, the drama, which blamed them for the crucifixion, has had a darker side. It often stirred the crowds into a frenzy of anti-Semitism. After attending a 300th anniversary performance in 1934, a delighted Adolf Hitler praised the play as a "precious tool" in the war against the Jews.
Despite token changes down the years, until as recently as the last performance in 1990, the Pharisees, or Jewish priests, appeared in heavy black costumes and hats shaped like devil�s horns, while Jesus, his followers, even the Roman governor Pontius Pilate wore white. The script removed Jesus from his roots among the Jews, who were portrayed as either bloodthirsty sinners or money-grubbing conspirators.
Most pernicious was the portrayal of the Jews as responsible then - and still guilty now - for Jesus� death. On stage, a Jewish mob screamed for his execution while a Jewish character intoned the infamous "blood oath" from St. Matthew�s Gospel that has hounded Jews for 2,000 years: "His blood be on us and on our children."
But now, after 366 years, all that is about to change. When the Passion play opens for its 2000 season, audiences will watch a new version scrubbed of its most offensive aspects. The result, Otto Huber, the revised text�s author, told The Jeru-salem Report, is a more nuanced, historically accurate performance.
"We are opening a new chapter," says Huber, 53, who teaches literature and drama in the local high school. "We acknowledge our guilt and truly regret that the Passion play prepared the ground for anti-Jewish terror under the Third Reich. I wanted the play to help people to understand Jews. So, we invited rabbis to come here and speak about Judaism. We took all the actors to Israel during Passover 1998, where we met Jewish theologians, visited a synagogue and ate matzot."
Huber had a more personal motive for cleaning up Oberammergau�s act. His father was a Nazi. "I loved him," he confides, "but we had many clashes about the Nazi past. This certainly influenced me to do something positive for the Jews."
Christian Stuckl, the play�s 39-year-old director, adds: "We organized an exhibition about the play in Berlin. We stressed Hitler�s visit, his satisfaction with the play and the way the Nazis misused it. We must distance ourselves clearly from this."
The changes for the 2000 production include a major recasting of Jesus, who will now be portrayed as much more Jewish. For example, the new version has him saying blessings in Hebrew at the Passover Seder. His followers now refer to him as "rabbi," instead of his old title of "master."
The Jewish mob that called for Jesus� crucifixion is no longer so unanimous in its fury. Some Jews actually support Jesus when he appears before Pilate for sentencing. The new production no longer uses white and black costumes to suggest good and evil. And Jesus� detractors are not referred to collectively as the Pharisees, thus softening the play�s earlier condemnation of the entire Jewish priesthood. Most importantly, the blood oath has been deleted.
Other changes convey the point that the story of Jesus� death was more complex than originally presented. Pilate, who used to be portrayed as a pawn of the Pharisees, is strengthened to reflect his power over the priests. Roman soldiers have been added to a scene in which previously only Jews taunted Jesus on the cross.
Hebrew names will now be mixed with Greek names to represent different sectors of Jewish society. And Judas is no longer demonized as a greedy Jew who betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. "The new Judas is a zealot disappointed with Jesus but not interested in money," explains Huber. "The story is presented as an internal Jewish conflict, and not as black and white."
THE CHANGES REPRESENT THE fruits of a dogged 30-year campaign by the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League to bring the Oberammergau Passion play more in line with improvements in Catholic-Jewish relations since 1965 - especially over the past 20 years under the guidance of Pope John Paul II. During that time the Vatican issued historic encyclicals that absolved Jews of blame for the death of Jesus.
The Jewish groups, joined by Catholic scholars and theologians, had already secured a few changes for the 1990 production. But the most significant reforms occurred in the last decade, as Huber and Stuckl sought to modernize costumes, staging and those portions of the script that still posed the greatest problems.
Throughout the process, they negotiated with Irving B. Levine, an American Jewish Committee specialist on interfaith affairs and a shrewd businessman who argued for the removal of sensitive portions as if he were haggling over a house. "I told them I had to have the blood oath," Levine recalls. "Huber told me he couldn�t give it to me. We went back and forth until he did."
Hampering Huber and Stuckl was the minority position that they and other younger reformers held in the Oberammergau town council, which had to sign off on any revisions. Eventually, however, the reformers gained the upper hand, and in the summer of 1998 an American Jewish delegation met Huber, Stuckl and town officials to review the changes.
At that time, an enthusiastic Rabbi James Rudin, the American Jewish Committee�s interreligious affairs director, said "enormous progress has been made in putting an end to anti-Jewish stereotypes." He hoped that Oberammergau, the "grandparent" of hundreds of Passion plays performed worldwide, would set an example for them all.
After that, Huber and Stuckl presented their proposed changes to the town council every three months. "The Passion play should create understanding that our roots are in Judaism," Stuckl contends, "and that Jews are our brothers." Most of the changes were approved. "It�s been a sea change," says Levine. "They�ve given us practically everything we�ve asked for."
But problems remain as Huber and Stuckl continue to revise the script, even at this late date. The biggest problem, says Rudin, is that, from a Jewish perspective, all Passion plays are inherently flawed because the story of Jesus� death inevitably involves Jews, whether they are blamed directly, indirectly or slightly.
So even a scrubbed version makes Jews uncomfortable. One of the remaining problems, according to Rabbi Leon Klenicki, the ADL�s director of interfaith affairs, lies in the portrayal of the relationship between the Pharisees and Pilate. "Despite the changes in the script, the Pharisees are still portrayed as the main power behind a Jewish conspiracy that uses poor Pilate, who appears like a shmendrik, to destroy Jesus," Klenicki says. "But Pilate wasn�t a shmendrik. He was a very evil personality, who ended his days being accused by the Roman authorities of brutality."
American New Testament scholars, invited by the Jewish leaders to examine the revised script, are also divided over whether it has gone far enough to conform with history and the Catholic church�s own new guidelines.
"I�m still not sure," says Father John Pawlikowski of the Catholic Theological Seminary in Chicago, "that when people leave the theater, they�ll have any real sense of what the church is teaching today about Christian-Jewish relations and how we better understand the dynamics of the first century. Despite the fact that the play has created more of a Jewish context for Jesus� message, it hasn�t significantly changed the underlying theology."
Leonard Swidler, professor of Catholic Thought at Temple University in Philadelphia, disagrees. "Given the nature and concept of a Passion play," he says, "the new production is very positive toward Jews and Judaism."
Several Jewish leaders suggested that for the 2000 performances Huber and Stuckl scrap the old script and write something new that would be more in line with recent theology, Vatican proclamations and improved Catholic-Jewish relations in the wake of John Paul�s visit to Israel.
"They have made a lot of changes for the better," Rudin argues, "but there is still imagery and text in there that�s going to be troublesome and problematic. The Oberammergau Passion play will attract some 500,000 people. That�s not small stuff, and it runs counter to the trend that has been set from the pope on down."
But with the production already in rehearsal, Huber and Stuckl are not likely to start again from scratch. "The negotiations with the Jewish representatives will continue," says Huber, "but the problems are minimal and we don�t need a new text."
Oberammergau�s mayor, Klemet Fend, concurs for now: "There was never a final text for the Passion play. That�s why it survived. Changes have always taken place, and so it should be in the future as well."
As part of the new spirit of reconciliation, the mayor has visited Israel three times. "I would be happy to find a twin town there," he adds. "So far, we haven�t received any offers - and to be honest, we didn�t dare to ask."
Jewish World
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