• by Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler (tel aviv)
• Thursday, September 03, 2009
• Inter Press Service

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Il Jung, Hitler, the Holocaust, ecological disasters, poverty in Africa, wars around the world, Obama and Martin Luther King: the appropriate images were all there, an overwhelming backdrop on the huge stage for the Queen of Pop's rendition of her song, 'Get Stupid' in Tel Aviv's Yarkon Park.

It was all calculated to conjure up all the right emotions, the right side to be on in all global challenges.

Nary a picture or a word, though, about the conflict closest to hand - between Israelis and the Palestinians.

Her two concerts here were the finale to Madonna's two-year 'Sticky & Sweet' world tour.

Israel is a place more attuned to listening to 'stop settlements' advice from visiting diplomats and politicians than enjoying the support of the biggest of all performers. Madonna deliberately steered clear of giving any advice.

She consciously shied away from controversial politics, but not from her famous mix of sex, violence and religious symbols.

The closest she came to politics was when she won rousing acclaim from the 60,000 adoring crowd with her credo. 'Every time I come here, I get so supercharged with energy. I truly believe Israel is the energy centre of the world. I also believe that if we can all live together in harmony in this place, then we can live in peace all over the world.'

Any political malaise that she may have risked evoking among Israelis dissipated when she was handed an Israeli flag by one fan. Madonna used it to make her final parade on the stage draping herself in Israel's national blue-and-white colours and displaying where her sympathies lie.

There was certainly none of the controversy she had aroused on her previous two stops, in Romania and Bulgaria.

In Sofia, the Orthodox clergy berated her for showing disrespect to Christianity. In Bucharest, she was booed for criticising discrimination against the Roma (gypsies) of Eastern Europe.

Midway through the show, breaking away from the carefully scripted performance, Madonna expressed her deep affection for Israel: 'I shouldn't have stayed so long away,' she told the adoring crowd. Her last concert here was in 1993.

The 51-year-old entertainer has long claimed a special bond with the Jewish state. For more than a decade, she's been flirting with the Kabbalah, the essence of Jewish mysticism, and has even adopted a Hebrew name, Esther.

In the run-up to the first of her two shows, Israeli radio stations played Madonna hits round the clock. On Army Radio, a DJ quipped, 'Tonight, Aunt Esther is playing at Yarkon Park.'

Brought up as a Roman Catholic, Madonna wrote in advance of her Israeli tour in an article for Israel's best-selling newspaper, Yediot Achronot, that the study of Kabbalah helps her understand life better.

'She clearly has a special bond with us - and we return the love. It's not only her music or this amazing show,' said one concert-goer, Ilana Erez, a 42- year-old graphic designer. 'Israelis are grateful when an unparalleled star appreciates them.'

Previously, in 2004 and 2007, Madonna made high-profile 'private pilgrimages' here to the high sanctums of Kabbalah and also to Judaism's most revered site, the Western Wall in Old Jerusalem.

Israelis see their society as symbolically divided between the rival claims of religious, political, national and historic Jerusalem on one hand, and hedonistic, live-the-moment, live-every-moment, tolerant Tel Aviv on the other. Remarkably, Madonna has managed to transcend the divide.

After another visit to the Western Wall again, she had dinner, at her request, with the country's top woman politician, opposition leader Tzipi Livni. She balances that by calling Friday on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Jerusalem residence.

After years of concern over political tensions and violence, more world artists are coming to Israel. Another priestess of pop, Lady Gaga, was in Tel Aviv last week. On the same night as Madonna performed, across the park the rock band 'Faith No More' was attempting a rival offering. And, iconic songwriter Leonard Cohen is to appear here later this month.

Not all have managed to avoid controversy, or have chosen to do so. Last year, Paul McCartney drew criticism from Palestinians who complained his Tel Aviv concert amounted to support for Israel's occupation of the West Bank.

In contrast, on the day of Madonna's first performance, Roger Waters, co- founder of 'Pink Floyd' (who gave a show in Israel two years ago), visited another pilgrimage site, a political one - Israel's security wall that is designed to stave off Palestinian attacks from the West Bank but which cuts deep into the occupied Palestinian territory.

Terming it 'this awful thing,' Waters said he'd give another concert the moment it was torn down. Pink Floyd's iconic album is 'The Wall'. In 1990, the group performed its title song on the site where the Berlin Wall had stood.

Madonna made sure not to make any such political or major religious waves (there was only one brief interjection of the image of a cross on a giant video panel).

Just as she has proven that she can take on the courts of Malawi with her determination to adopt children in the east African country, so the supreme mega star can clearly afford to remain aloof to any criticism - even from eminent rabbis of the Kabbalah who complain she is vulgarising and distorting Judaism.

Uncompromisingly, Madonna stuck to her own doctrine of trademark provocations in her show: she wore her customary black skin-tight leather short shorts and lace stockings, made out with a male dancer, made sensual moves around a stripper pole, and engaged in a deep-throat kiss with a female dancer.

None are acts of faith mentioned in any Kabbalist tracts.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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