Rich Siegel has been a member of Local 802, Associated Musicians of Greater New York, for 25 years, and lately resigned. Below, his explanation, followed by his letter of resignation to the president of the union as well as to the editor of the union paper, Allegro.
There has been an ongoing struggle and controversy about the publishing of letters on this issue at local 802 for awhile. It began with an article about a member bringing a music program to Palestinian children on the West Bank. The article was a human interest story which did not get into the politics at all. Even so, predictably, a Jewish member wrote in complaining about Anti-Semitism. I responded to that, as did Tom Suarez, and our letters were published.
This began a fire-storm of responses, a couple were published, and then the union decided to stop publishing letters on the subject, so no rebuttals, and nothing at all on the subject for several months. With a new administration in place at the union, I was able to get a letter published asking members to respect BDS. Another fire-storm.
Another member, cellist Aaron Minsky, organized a letter writing campaign, not to disagree with me, but to shut down all mention of Israel in our union paper. He succeeded. The union published one letter as a rebuttal to my letter, and is now refusing to publish any letters on the subject at all. Additionally no further articles relating to Palestine have been published after that one article two years ago. I don't know whether this is a matter of policy or not.
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