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The Jewish violinist who saved Carnegie Hall from the brink of destruction
(New York Jewish Week) — Violinist Isaac Stern made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1943, but it would hardly be his last performance at the famed concert venue: He performed there more than 200 times between then and his death in 2001 at the age of 81.
Carnegie Hall was “part of his DNA,” his daughter, Rabbi Shira Stern, told the New York Jewish Week.
The opposite is likely true as well: As the person who fought to save the famed concert hall from demolition in the 1950s, and then served as the president of Carnegie Hall Corporation for 41 years, Stern’s “DNA,” if you will, is all over the iconic institution at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 57th Street.
Carnegie Hall, built by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in 1891, isn’t just the punchline of an old joke (“practice, practice, practice”). It’s a bonafide cultural colossus, having hosted performances by musicians as varied and famous as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and The Beatles.
And though it seems inconceivable today, by the late 1950s the hall had fallen into disrepair and was set to be demolished. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts was being built and Carnegie Hall’s primary tenant, the New York Philharmonic, had plans to make Lincoln Center its new home. It declined an offer to buy Carnegie Hall for $4 million.
Stern, however — who, beginning in 1944, had performed with the New York Philharmonic more than 100 times — could not allow Carnegie Hall to simply disappear. He organized the Citizens’ Committee to Save Carnegie Hall, a group of musicians and philanthropists — and his efforts led to legislation that allowed the City of New York to purchase the venue and save it from the wrecking ball.
“The young people of this country are demanding more and more music and producing more and more first-rate musicians,” Stern was quoted as saying in his New York Times obituary. “How dare we take away from them, the music, and the audiences of the future, one of the great music rooms of the world?”
Stern was elected the first president of the Carnegie Hall Corporation, the entity that was formed to operate the venue, at its founding in 1960. It was a positions he held until his death in 2001. As president, Stern pursued a vision that Carnegie Hall could become a major center for music education and training. Under his leadership, the hall underwent major renovations in 1986 and celebrated its centennial in 1991, according to the Carnegie Hall’s Rose Archives.
Additionally, under Stern’s leadership, Carnegie Hall began to establish itself as a global cultural institution, bringing in various international ensembles and branching out into other genres of music besides classical. In 1997, the main hall was named the Isaac Stern Hall in his honor.
For all of these reasons, on May 16, 2003 — two years after he died and exactly 43 years after the founding of The Carnegie Hall Corporation — the corner of West 57th Street and Seventh Avenue was renamed “Isaac Stern Place.”
“To me Carnegie Hall is nothing less than an affirmation of the human spirit,” the violinist was quoted as saying in an Associated Press story about the street co-naming.
Stern had undying support for the Hall and for what it could do for others, specifically “opening it up to young musicians so that they would be able to have access to consummate musicians,” Shira Stern said. She told the New York Jewish Week about “the red phone” — a direct line to Carnegie Hall that rang in her father’s study in case of an emergency.
“There was a certain idealism in Isaac Stern that had to do with music, with art, with politics, with culture, with not accepting when someone would say this is impossible,” violinist Philip Setzer of the Emerson String Quartet told JTA in 2001.
“He was grounded in music before he was born,” his daughter said.
Isaac Stern in 1979. (Bogaerts, Rob/Anefo; Dutch National Archives)
The family immigrated to San Francisco when Stern was an infant, and at a young age it “was clear that he was gifted” in music, according to his daughter. Stern dropped out of public school after second grade and began a life dedicated to violin. He enrolled at the San Francisco Conservatory at 8, where he studied under Naoum Blinder — who he later regarded as his main influence — and played his first concert at age 15 with the San Francisco Symphony.
In 1949, under impresario Sol Hurok, Stern played 120 concerts over a seven-month tour of the United States, Europe and South America. “By 1950, Mr. Stern had established himself as one of the best young violinists on the concert circuit, and the first American-trained violinist to gain so great a measure of international respect,” having performed with every major orchestra by that point, Stern’s New York Times obituary noted.
Stern was also known for helping to establish young talent, particularly cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Israeli-born violinists Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zuckerman. “He found people who had talent, he nurtured them, he mentored them,” said Shira Stern. “Teaching was his delight.”
“He wasn’t religiously Jewish, but he was extraordinarily spiritual,” said Shira Stern about her father. “[He] realized that his spiritual language wasn’t Hebrew, his spiritual language was music.”
She recalled the time Stern was supposed to play a concert right after former President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. “He asked that the orchestra not play, and he played 45 minutes to an hour of unaccompanied Bach, because he said that this was the highest form of prayer for him.”
Though he may not have been religious, Stern was a Zionist who regularly performed in Israel. He rushed there during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 in order to play at the bedsides of wounded soldiers and for troops in the Negev. Shira Stern said her father would weave “Hatikva,” Israel’s national anthem, into these performances, because he knew “that it was a comfort to people,” she said.
That same year, Stern founded the Jerusalem Music Center, “which still is vibrant and continues to provide masterclasses and training for young musicians in Israel,” said Shira Stern, adding that her father was the chairman of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation alongside his second wife, Vera.
In 1991, Stern was playing a concert in Jerusalem when a Scud missile attack interrupted his performance. While other musicians left the stage, he donned a gas mask and continued playing.
Shira Stern described her father as an “activist.” Beyond his role in saving Carnegie Hall, Stern was passionate that the U.S. government play a role in funding the arts and held an advisory role in the creation of the National Endowment of the Arts in the 1960s. He organized a musicians’ boycott in 1974 when UNESCO suspended its programs in Israel, and would not perform in Germany because of the Holocaust, although he did urge Israeli artists to perform there in order to establish an artistic presence.
“He would have been 103 this year and people are still talking about what he has done for them,” Shira Stern. In addition to the musically inclined rabbi, both of Stern’s sons, Michael and David, are composers, helping to realize their father’s long held dream. “He just wanted to make sure that there was a solid next generation of musicians and music lovers,” she said.
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The post The Jewish violinist who saved Carnegie Hall from the brink of destruction appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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McGill cancels talk with former Hamas insider turned Israel advocate, citing fears of violence
McGill University has canceled an on-campus event planned by Jewish students—and temporarily halted bookings for all extracurricular activities—following threats of violence along with a death threat, as outlined in a […]
The post McGill cancels talk with former Hamas insider turned Israel advocate, citing fears of violence appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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US Lawmakers Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Strip Funding From Universities That Boycott Israel
US Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) at a press conference in Bergenfield, New Jersey, US on June 5, 2023. Photo: Kyle Mazza/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
US Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) on Tuesday introduced bipartisan legislation to cut off federal funding from universities that engage in boycotts of Israel.
The legislation, titled “The Protect Economic Freedom Act,” would render universities that participate in the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel ineligible for federal funding under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, prohibiting them from receiving federal student aid. The bill would also mandate that colleges and universities submit evidence that they are not participating in commercial boycotts against the Jewish state.
“Enough is enough. Appeasing the antisemitic mobs on college campuses threatens the safety of Jewish students and faculty and it undermines the relationship between the US and one of our strongest allies. If an institution is going to capitulate to the BDS movement, there will be consequences — starting with the Protect Economic Freedom Act,” Foxx, chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said in a statement.
Gottheimer added that the legislation is necessary to thwart the surging tide of antisemitism on college campuses. Although the lawmaker noted that students are allowed to engage in free expression regarding the ongoing war in Gaza, he argued that blanket boycotts against Israel endanger the lives of Jewish students and community members.
“The goal of the antisemitic BDS movement is to annihilate the democratic State of Israel, America’s critical ally in the global fight against terror. While students and faculty are free to speak their minds and disagree on policy issues, we cannot allow antisemitism to run rampant and risk the safety and security of Jewish students, staff, faculty, and guests on college campuses,” Gottheimer said in a statement. “The new bipartisan Protect Economic Freedom Act will give the Department of Education a critical new tool to combat the antisemitic BDS movement on college campuses. Now more than ever, we must take the necessary steps to protect our Jewish community.”
The legislation instructs the US Department of Education to keep a record of universities that refuse to confirm their non-participation in anti-Israel boycotts. The list of universities in non-compliance with the legislation would be made publicly available.
In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre acrosssouthern Israel, universities across the country have found themselves embroiled in controversies regarding campus antisemitism. In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Israel, hordes of students and faculty orchestrated protests and demonstrations condemning the Jewish state. Student groups at elite universities such as Harvard and Columbia issued statements blaming Israel for the attacks and expressing support for Hamas.
Several high-profile universities have also shown a significant level of tolerance for anti-Jewish sentiment festering on their campuses. Northwestern University, for example, capitulated to demands of anti-Israel activists to remove Sabra Hummus from campus dining halls because of its connections to Israel. At Stanford University, Jewish students have reported being forced to condemn Israel before being allowed to enter campus parties. Students at the University of Pennsylvania and Brown University launched unsuccessful attempts to convince the university to divest endowment funds from companies tied to Israel.
The post US Lawmakers Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Strip Funding From Universities That Boycott Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Harvard Chaplains Omit Antisemitism From Statement on Antisemitic Incident
Demonstrators take part in an “Emergency Rally: Stand With Palestinians Under Siege in Gaza,” amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Harvard University’s Office of the Chaplain and Religious and Spiritual Life is being criticized by a rising Jewish civil rights activist for omitting any mention of antisemitism from a statement addressing antisemitic behavior.
The sharp words followed the office’s response to a hateful demonstration on campus in which pro-Hamas students stood outside Harvard Hillel and called for it to banned from campus. Such a demand is not new, as it began earlier this semester at the direction of the National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) organization, which coordinates the lion’s share of anti-Zionist activity on college campuses.
As seen in footage of the demonstration, the students chanted “Zionists aren’t welcome here!” and held signs which accused the organization — the largest campus organization for Jewish students in the world — of embracing “war criminals” and genocide.
Addressing the behavior, Harvard Chaplains issued a statement, which is now being pointed to as a symbol of higher education’s indifference to the unique hatred of antisemitism, as well as its permutation as anti-Zionism.
“We have noticed a trend of expression in which entire groups of students are told they ‘are not welcome here’ because of their religious, cultural, ethnic, or political commitments and identities, or are targeted through acts of vandalism,” the office said, seemingly circumventing the matter at hand. “We find this trend disturbing and anathema to the dialogue and connection across lines of difference that must be a central value and practice of a pluralistic institution of higher learning.”
It continued, “Student groups who are singled out in this way experience such language and acts of vandalism as a painful attack that undermines the acceptance and flourishing of religious diversity here at Harvard. Let us all endeavor to care for one another in these divisive times.”
Recent Harvard graduate Shabbos Kestenbaum, who addressed the Republican National Convention in August to discuss the ways which progressive bias in higher education fosters anti-Zionism and anti-Western ideologies, described the statement as a moral failure in a post on X/Twitter on Tuesday.
“Disappointing,” he said. “After Harvard Jews were told by masked students ‘Zionists aren’t welcome here’ outside of the Hillel, the Chaplain Office finally released a statement that did not include the words Jew, Zionism, Israel, or antisemitism. A total abdication of religious responsibility.”
Kestenbaum noted in a later statement that Harvard’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, Sherri Ann Charleston, has so far declined to speak on the issue at all. He charged that when Charleston “isn’t plagiarizing, she and DEI normalize antisemitism,” referring to evidence, first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, that Charleston is a serial plagiarist who climbed the hierarchy of the higher education establishment by pilfering other people’s scholarship.
Harvard University president Alan Garber — installed after former president Claudine Gay resigned following revelations that she is also a serial plagiarist — has, experts have said, been inconsistent in managing the campus’ unrest.
During summer, The Harvard Crimson reported that Harvard downgraded “disciplinary sanctions” it levied against several pro-Hamas protesters it suspended for illegally occupying Harvard Yard for nearly five weeks, a reversal of policy which defied the university’s previous statements regarding the matter. Unrepentant, the students, members of the group Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP), celebrated the revocation of the punishments on social media and promised to disrupt the campus again.
Earlier this semester, however, Garber appeared to denounce a pro-Hamas student group which marked the anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by praising the brutal invasion as an act of revolutionary justice that should be repeated until the Jewish state is destroyed, despite having earlier announced a new “institutional neutrality” policy which ostensibly prohibits the university from weighing in on contentious political issues. While Garber ultimately has said more than Gay when the same group praised the Oct. 7 massacre last academic year, his administration’s handling of campus antisemitism has been ambiguous, according to observers — and described even by students who benefited from its being so as “caving in.”
The university’s perceived failure to address antisemitism has had legal consequences.
Earlier this month, a lawsuit accusing it of ignoring antisemitism was cleared to proceed to discovery, a phase of the case which may unearth damaging revelations about how college officials discussed and crafted policy responses to anti-Jewish hatred before and after Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
The case, filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, centers on several incidents involving Harvard Kennedy School professor Marshall Ganz during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Ganz allegedly refused to accept a group project submitted by Israeli students for his course, titled “Organizing: People, Power, Change,” because they described Israel as a “liberal Jewish democracy.” He castigated the students over their premise, the Brandeis Center says, accusing them of “white supremacy” and denying them the chance to defend themselves. Later, Ganz allegedly forced the Israeli students to attend “a class exercise on Palestinian solidarity” and the taking of a class photograph in which their classmates and teaching fellows “wore ‘keffiyehs’ as a symbol of Palestinian support.”
During an investigation of the incidents, which Harvard delegated to a third party firm, Ganz admitted that he believed “that the students’ description of Israel as a Jewish democracy … was similar to ‘talking about a white supremacist state.’” The firm went on to determine that Ganz “denigrated” the Israeli students and fostered “a hostile learning environment,” conclusions which Harvard accepted but never acted on.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Harvard Chaplains Omit Antisemitism From Statement on Antisemitic Incident first appeared on Algemeiner.com.