Nathan Shields, a composer whose works have been performed by various orchestras and chamber ensembles, is associate faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. He earned his doctorate at the Juilliard School in New York, and has received fellowships from Tanglewood and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
This question, and the tensions generated by it, underlie any discussion of Jewish–Christian relations.
In play again are bitterly contested questions about the Catholic Church, about religion and politics, and—inevitably—about Christianity’s relation to Judaism and the Jews.
More insidious than Wagner’s hateful ideas are his passions, which reside in his music and stir answering passions in others.
Two centuries after the great composer’s birth, his anti-Semitism remains a bitterly contested issue. Perhaps that’s because no one has yet come to grips with its, or his, true nature.