Play Passions

A decision at Oberammergau

Despite the Nazi Holocaust, the Oberammergau Passion Play, Bavaria's decennial Catholic folk pageant, has gone on using an 1860 text that portrays Jews as Shylocks and Christ killers. Since the Second Vatican Council's denunciation of antiSemitism, however, a group of townspeople led by Head Woodcarver Hans Schwaighofer has been agitating to dump the lurid script. Last year Schwaighofer's group staged a trial run of a 1750 version that makes Satan the heavy and, like the New Testament, portrays the Jews as divided over Jesus. In February the town council voted to use that version for 1980. Germany's bishops were privately relieved, and the American Jewish Committee rejoiced at a New York City press conference.

Too soon, it turns out. In a bitterly fought election last March, hard-liners wrested control of the town council. This month the council voted 12 to 5 to keep the 1860 text, an action that prompted a Munich paper to bemoan the "ugly German" image it fosters. "We're thinking about changing a few points." said Mayor Ernst Zwink, but that will not satisfy Jews. The text is "beyond redemption." declared Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum of the A.J.C.

Schwaighofer's faction has announced a boycott, which could deprive the play of skilled personnel. Both sides fear a decline in attendance, which totaled 530,000 in 1970. The traditionalists argue that the 1750 version is too highbrow and stylized. Schwaighofer's group, however, is concerned that Jews may organize an international boycott and other protests when the show goes on in 1980.

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