It was a little unexpected but not at all inappropriate that the name of Mahmoud Khalil, who’s just been shamefully deemed deportable for his entirely peaceful involvement in the pro-Palestine encampment at Columbia University last year, came up at a performance of the Passion today. The premier of a new dramatic reconstruction of Bach's Markus Passion took place at a church two blocks north of Columbia. Bill Barclay, the director of the program (and also of the series, Music Before 1800) reminded us that the story Christians remember during Holy Week, which begins today, tells of an innocent man accused, arrested and unfairly convicted. He told us the story of Kahlil, a green-card holder whose wife is nine month pregnant, accused of no crime, and mentioned Rümeysa Öztürk, and Kilmar Ábrego Garcia. Silence in the face of injustice is complicity, Barclay said with emphasis, and said it again: Silence in the face of injustice is complicity.
