Friends, I can’t tell you how unusual this is: A classical musician — a very famous one — has spoken out in behalf of a very unpopular cause: Israel. For a story, go here. I am speaking of Evgeny Kissin, the 38-year-old pianist. He was born and raised in the Soviet Union, and in 2002 became a British citizen. He was a child prodigy. When we first knew him, he played in his red Young Pioneers scarf. He ditched that scarf long ago.

Kissin sent a letter to the BBC — a phenomenally eloquent one — blasting the organization for its “slander and bias” against Israel. He said that, listening to the BBC, you could hear echoes of “the old Soviet anti-Zionist propaganda.” When he became a British citizen, he explained, he was “inspired and proud to belong to the country of Winston Churchill,” whose contempt for anti-Semitism was total. He quoted a Churchill line: “There is no anti-Semitism in England because we do not consider ourselves more stupid than the Jews.”

A profound comment, to be reflected on.

Anyway, Kissin said that the BBC “had always been a beacon of light, of truth and objectivity to those of us behind the Iron Curtain, in the ‘Evil Empire.’” Yes, a famous artist actually used the phrase “Evil Empire,” without irony. Why wouldn’t he? He lived there (and in a privileged position, which is interesting). “Reaching out to far corners of the world, [the BBC] was the voice of a country which for us was a model of democracy and human rights.” And now? The Beeb has disgraced itself, with scurrilous coverage from the Middle East.

In writing his letter, Kissin stuck his neck out. The classical-music world, like the arts and academia at large, is not exactly friendly toward Israel. An anti-Israel stance is de rigueur and chic. Some musicians — I think I have spoken before about Nigel Kennedy, the British violinist — actually boycott Israel. I wonder whether Kissin will suffer any professional setbacks for his speaking out. He is famous and well-established, yes. But the arts world can be ruthless. I know famous musicians who you might think would be perfectly protected. But they keep mum on certain issues, lest they run into difficulty.

In any case, I bow deep to Kissin, somewhat stunned by his clarity and courage.

You could write about a Falun Gong practitioner, abused or killed by the Chinese government, every day. I have not mentioned any names in a while. May I mention that of Gong Hui? She died last month, having been thrown into the gulag during the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. I wrote about this run-up — and the terrible things that went on — extensively. If you’re interested in a relevant series, go to my archive and look under August 2008.

Gong Hui was a typical case. This report gives us the particulars: “In an effort to force her to renounce her faith in Falun Gong, guards at the camp placed Gong in solitary confinement for extended periods of time, deprived her of food and sleep, and forced her to stand for hours at a time. The guards also instigated non-practitioner inmates to beat her.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re all the same, these cases. The Chinese authorities are absolutely predictable and consistent in their brutality. Because of the sameness of the cases, we might turn away, lose interest. But that would be a shame, wouldn’t it? Individuals in cells depend on world interest.

In October, I had a conversation with Charles Krauthammer, in order to write a piece on him. (The article appeared in the November 23 National Review.) We were talking about political prisoners, and Krauthammer brought up his old editor, Meg Greenfield of the Washington Post op-ed page. Over and over, she ran pieces about Andrei Sakharov. Why? To keep him alive.

Dictatorships are hesitant to kill people in the international eye.

“Shhh . . . Mubarak is building a wall.” That is the title of an article by Khaled Abu Toameh, the great Palestinian journalist (and I do not use “great” lightly). Go here. Yes, Egypt is building a wall, along the Gaza Strip. Will it be accused of being an apartheid regime, denying the suffering Palestinians their rights? I would not hold my breath.

Some weeks ago, I wrote about Mark Helprin’s book Digital Barbarism. He warns about an overreliance on — and addiction to — our BlackBerries and the like. Thinking about him, I was interested in this article, which is about Stephens College in Missouri. I quote:

Dianne Lynch wanted to give the students of Stephens College a break from the constant digital communication that pervades their generation. So she asked them to put their phones and computers away and revive the 176-year-old school’s dormant tradition of vespers services.

On a bitterly cold December night, with the start of final exams just hours away, about 75 of Stephens’ 766 undergraduates grudgingly piled their cell phones into collection baskets and filed into the school’s candlelit chapel, where they did little but sit, silently. For an hour, not an iPod ear bud could be seen. There were no fingers flying on tiny computer keyboards, no chats with unseen intimates.

That was a remarkable hour. In Revelation, we read, “And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” Half an hour. Hey, those Stephens kids did double that! (I would be proud of 15 minutes.)