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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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Israeli Forces Redeploy to Northern Gaza to Quell Hamas Resurgence
Smoke rises following Israeli strikes, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Jabalia refugee camp northern Gaza Strip, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo
JNS.org – The Israel Defense Forces said on Sunday that Israeli forces had encircled Jabaliya in northern Gaza ahead of an operation there to prevent Hamas from reestablishing itself there.
The army said that soldiers from the 162nd Division were redeployed to the Jabaliya area overnight Saturday after being stationed along the Philadelphi Corridor separating Gaza from Egypt’s Sinai.
Troops from the 401st and 460th brigades had encircled the area and were continuing to operate there on Sunday, according to the IDF. They were assisted by the Israeli Air Force before and during the ground operation, directed by the 215th Brigade. Among the targets hit were weapons storage facilities, underground infrastructure, terrorist cells and additional military sites.
The terror group reported that during the operation 30 people were killed and 150 were injured.
“This operation to systematically dismantle terrorist infrastructure in the area will continue as long as required in order to achieve its objectives,” the IDF said.
The 162nd Division last month defeated Hamas’s Rafah brigade after four months of targeted raids in the Gaza Strip’s southernmost city near the border with Egypt.
Speaking with reporters on Sept. 12, 162nd Division commander Brig. Gen. Itzik Cohen declared that “four battalions have been destroyed, and we have completed operational control over the entire urban area.”
However, intelligence showing a Hamas resurgence in Jabaliya prompted the 162nd Division to move north to the neighborhood.
IDF expands al-Mawasi humanitarian zone
The IDF on Sunday morning published a new evacuation map for the northern Gaza Strip, pointing noncombatants to an expanded humanitarian zone at al-Mawasi, which includes field hospitals, tent complexes, food, water, medicine and medical equipment.
As part of the effort to alert the residents of northern Gaza to get out of the active combat zone, the IDF dropped leaflets from the air and Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, head of the Arab Media Branch in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, tweeted in Arabic with accompanying maps.
“The terrorist Hamas continues its attempts to solidify its terrorist infrastructure in your area, exploiting civilians, shelters and medical facilities as human shields,” Adraee wrote, followed by evacuation details.
“I remind you that the northern Gaza Strip remains a dangerous combat zone,” Adraee warned.
Plans to turn northern Gaza into military zone
Kan News reported around a month ago that senior IDF officials were considering a plan to turn the northern Gaza Strip into a military zone.
Known as the “Island Plan,” it would see the IDF evacuate more than 200,000 Gazans from the northern part of the Strip, placing the area entirely under Israeli military control.
Sinwar wants wider war, not interested in a deal
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar wants a wider regional war and is not interested in reaching a ceasefire deal, The New York Times reported on Friday, citing U.S. officials.
The article noted that Sinwar, the mastermind of the Oct. 7 massacre and who is believed to be hiding in Gaza’s vast tunnel network, has long believed that he won’t survive the war and has hardened his attitude in recent weeks.
Hamas holds 101 hostages, including 97 of the 251 kidnapped during the onslaught on the northwestern Negev nearly one year ago, in which 1,200 people were killed and thousands more wounded.
“Hamas has shown no desire at all to engage in talks in recent weeks, U.S. officials say. They suspect that Mr. Sinwar has grown more resigned as Israeli forces pursue him and talk about closing in on him,” according to the Times.
“A larger war that puts pressure on Israel and its military would, in Mr. Sinwar’s assessment, force them to scale back operations in Gaza, the U.S. officials said,” it continued.
However, despite the war widening to include an expanded conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon and a direct engagement with Iran, the Gaza front remains active. American officials said that the failure of Hezbollah and Iran to damage Israel signals the miscalculation made by Sinwar.
The Times article noted that some Israeli officials have questioned whether Sinwar is still alive, with American and Israeli officials acknowledging that there has been no sign of him for months. However, in the absence of hard evidence of his death, U.S. officials believe he is still alive and in charge of Hamas.
Qataris say Sinwar ‘disappeared’
Channel 12 reported on Saturday that the Qatari officials involved in negotiations between Israel and Hamas told the families of hostages in recent days that Sinwar has “disappeared.”
“Sinwar is currently not communicating with us. He has disappeared from us as well and has not made contact. He stopped using phones because of the assassinations, and now he communicates using paper and pen, which makes things very difficult,” the Qataris reportedly told the relatives.
The Qatari officials also told the family members that they believe Sinwar has surrounded himself with hostages and that despite his disappearance, there is no indication that Sinwar is dead.
The Qataris, who maintain close ties with Hamas, also claimed that Israel’s policy of assassinations makes reaching a deal more difficult.
“Israel’s assassination policy has worsened the deal. In the past, there was Haniyeh, and he was assassinated. Now there is Khaled Mashal, and he is much more difficult than Haniyeh,” they were quoted as saying. However, the families of the hostages say that these claims should be taken with caution due to Doha’s close relations with the terror group.
Sharon Sharabi, the brother of Yossi Sharabi, who was murdered in captivity and whose body is being held by Hamas, criticized the Qataris at the meeting, telling them that “the blood of our families is on your hands because you transferred the money to the terrorists, but you may also be the ones who can try to save the hostages.”
The post Israeli Forces Redeploy to Northern Gaza to Quell Hamas Resurgence first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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NY, MN Shuls Threatened on Rosh Hashanah, Michigan Rabbi Robbed in his Home at Gunpoint
A French police vehicle in the city of Lyon. Photo: Reuters/Xose Bouzas
JNS.org – Police departments in Minneapolis and New York City responded over Rosh Hashanah to threats against Jews worshiping in synagogues.
Minneapolis officers arrested a man on Friday after he allegedly stood outside Temple Israel with a gun on Thursday. The department said that Jaden LeBlanc, 21, also made threatening calls to the Reform congregation last month saying he would “shoot up” the synagogue, KSTP-TV reported.
“Everyone in Minneapolis has the right to feel safe in their communities, and we will ensure our Jewish neighbors are protected as they celebrate the holy days,” Brian O’Hara, the police chief, said, per the television station. “We take all threats made against our religious institutions seriously and will continue to hold the individuals accountable who threaten any of our city’s houses of worship.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nominee, did not comment on the threat to Minneapolis Jews on social media. (He shared a Rosh Hashanah message on his official governor‘s account, which he reposted from his campaign one.)
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, released a statement on Friday following “multiple” bomb threats at synagogues in the state earlier that day.
“After a comprehensive investigation, it has been determined these were not credible threats. Recognizing the potential for disruptions during this time of year, I had already directed the New York State Police to coordinate with local law enforcement to ensure the safety of all communities,” the governor stated. “This deployment will continue at least through the anniversary of the Oct. 7 terror attacks.”
“These threats are horrific and unacceptable—and targeting houses of worship on one of the holiest days of the Jewish calendar is particularly craven,” she stated. “We will not tolerate acts of antisemitism or attempts to incite fear. New Yorkers stand united against all forms of hate and violence.”
Also on Rosh Hashanah, a gunman robbed a rabbi in his home as he held a meal with University of Michigan students, the Detroit News reported.
“Late last night, a group of Jewish students had gathered for dinner at the Southfield home of a local rabbi when, shortly before 11 p.m., an armed individual entered through an open backdoor, stole a bag and fled,” Santa Ono, the university president, stated. “No one was injured and law enforcement officials with the Southfield Police Department are investigating this as a home invasion and a crime of opportunity.”
Per the Detroit News, the gunman did more than just enter, steal a bag and flee. “Investigators believe the suspect, a black man in his late teens or early 20s, entered the home through the back door with a handgun and stated, ‘I’m taking everything, give me everything,’ according to the release,” the paper reported. “The occupants of the home exited through the front door, police said. Officers searched the home, but the suspect had left.”
The post NY, MN Shuls Threatened on Rosh Hashanah, Michigan Rabbi Robbed in his Home at Gunpoint first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US States Order Flags at Half-Staff to Mark Oct. 7 Anniversary
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul delivering remarks on major legislation requiring colleges and universities in the state to strengthen hate crime policies. Photo: Darren McGee/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul
Multiple US states will lower their flags to half-mast during the day on Monday to mark the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack in southern Israel.
“The hearts of Iowans go out to the innocent Israeli families and American citizens killed by Hamas,” stated Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, who ordered flags lowered at the state Capitol building and on all public grounds and sites in the state. (She encouraged individuals, businesses, schools and others to do the same.)
“Iran and its terrorist proxies continue to attack, as Israeli forces fight to protect their people against the forces of evil,” Reynolds added. “Iowa stands, as it always has, with Israel.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, ordered flags at state buildings at half-mast and that more than 12 landmarks—including several bridges, Empire State Plaza, Niagara Falls, Moynihan Train Hall and 1 World Trade Center—be lit up in yellow “in solidarity with Israel and the hostages still in captivity.”
“One year after the horrific atrocities committed against the people of Israel, my heart goes out to the victims and their families,” Hochul stated. “New York stands with Israel—today and every day.”
“As the home of the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, we will do everything in our power to defend against the forces of hatred and stand firmly against those who perpetuate it,” Hochul added.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican, ordered that the state flag be flown at half-mast throughout Arkansas on Monday.
“Israel is right, and the terrorists are wrong,” she stated. “Arkansas stands with Israel, prays for Israel and supports Israel as they fight to defeat the terrorists and bring the hostages home.”
“This week, Iran launched a missile attack against Israel, emphasizing that this conflict is far from over,” Huckabee Sanders added. “Alongside the ongoing attacks against Israel, there has been a shocking rise in antisemitism and pro-Hamas protests in the United States. These activists deny Israel’s fundamental right to defend itself in this war between good and evil.”
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, and Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican, also ordered flags at half-staff on Oct. 7.
“One year after the tragedies of Oct. 7, 2023, we continue to mourn the devastating losses and urge all parties to reach an agreement that immediately returns every hostage and puts an end to the continued suffering of civilians in Israel, Gaza and throughout the region,” Murphy stated.
“Our hearts go out to the families that have been shattered by the terrorist attacks on Oct. 7 and the humanitarian suffering that followed, and we continue to pray for a swift end to the war and restoration of peace across the region,” he added.
“In remembrance of the one-year anniversary of the horrific Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, I invite all Montanans to join me in remembering the innocent victims who were brutally murdered or injured during acts of war committed by Hamas and for the seven Americans still held hostage,” Gianforte stated.
“The State of Montana continues to stand with Israel and the Jewish people as they continue to face unspeakable persecution, hatred and terrorism,” he added.
The post US States Order Flags at Half-Staff to Mark Oct. 7 Anniversary first appeared on Algemeiner.com.