Reposte to "Theater J pulls Madoff play after objections from Elie Wiesel"

Re: Jane Horwitz's column on Deb Margolin's ill-conceived cancellation of Madoff

Reply

|

Henry Raymont  to style

show details 5:59 PM (11 minutes ago)

As a reporter who the day he began an 18-year stint with the United Press learned never, under any circumstance, to reveal the name of a confidential source--no matter what pressures were brought to bear--I am dismayed to read Ms Margolin's decision to cancel a play out of regard for Elie Wiesel's sensibilities.  I knew Elie Wiesel years ago in New York, more as a colleague than as the quasi sanctified figure that emerged in subsequent years. 

I was born in Germany just as Hitler came to power but was fortunate to have had a father who made us emigrate to Argentina just in time.   Perhaps the barbarism of our age helped me become a newspaperman with a keen devotion to the ethics that rule our profession.  A central one is that we defend the right to shield our sources.  I followed that rule as UP's bureau chief in Havana where I was threatened with execution if I did not reveal who alerted me to the impending Bay of Pigs invasion, a 'scoop' which led to my immediate arrest. 

I can sympathize with Ms. Margolin when she says she was sorry to have 'displeased Professor Wiesel'.  And I understand how she might have been 'devastated by his response."  Notwithstanding her 'devastation' she had a commitment to her artistic integrity and to the public.  The show should have gone on, and if "81-year-old Wiesel wrote a letter describing the play as 'obscene' and 'defamatory'" she should have fought back.  The tradition of the Yale theater deserves as much.  Hindemith staged some of the works  banned by the Nazis in that theater as did many a dissident and others persecuted for their ideas. 

Henry Raymont
Writer
2500 Q Street, N.W. Apt. 121
Washington, D.C. 20007
(202) 333 5029