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Itzhak Perlman gets personal in an intimate, anecdote-filled performance
(New York Jewish Week) — Like so many people, I feel like I’ve known Itzhak Perlman my entire life (thank you, “Sesame Street”). And now, I finally had the opportunity to see and hear the Israeli-American violin virtuoso perform in person.
And not just perform: At a fundraising event Tuesday for the nonprofit Amit Children, Perlman offered a touching, music-filled autobiographical monologue on his life on and off the concert stage.
The occasion was the kickoff campaign for a new, state-of-the-art campus in Raanana run by the education network that operates more than 100 schools in Israel. The event, which attracted some 400 supporters, was held at Sony Hall, a glamorous, Jazz Age-era event space tucked into the basement of the Paramount Hotel on West 46th St.
Augmented with photos and video, Perlman told a story that began with his Polish parents’ immigration to pre-state Israel in the 1930s. There, they lived in Tel Aviv and raised their son in a one-room apartment with a shared bath. Amid charming anecdotes — including one about enjoying his mother’s homemade gefilte fish despite befriending and losing the live carps kept fresh in their bathtub every Friday — Perlman, 77, played several pieces that launched and shaped his long career.
He detailed his bout with polio at age 4, his turn to the violin and how he auditioned and got his big break as a 7th-grader on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1958. That, he said, was his first-ever trip to the United States — a place he associated with “the Empire State Building, television sets and Polaroid cameras” — and he stayed, well, at the Paramount Hotel. At 13, he was accepted to New York’s elite Juilliard School and, to keep the family afloat, worked “the Jewish benefit circuit,” as he called it. “It’s 2022 and I’m still playing fundraisers,” he quipped. “Can you imagine that? Nothing has changed.”
Of course, many things have changed for Perlman since then: A winner of 16 Grammys, Perlman is the kind of classical music superstar known to people who don’t normally indulge in classical music (his performance on the “Schindler’s List” soundtrack has been streamed close to 40 million times on Spotify). In 1994, he and his wife Toby launched the Perlman Music Program for gifted string players, and he remains a disability rights activist.
“Mr. Perlman’s passion, creativity and drive for excellence are well known,” Audrey Axelrod Trachtman, the president of Amit, which largely serves children on Israel’s social and geographic periphery, said in a statement. “It is his unwavering commitment to Israel and mentoring young people that speaks to what Amit is all about.”
The evening concluded with the announcement that Amit is dedicating the Toby and Itzhak Perlman Music Studio in the couple’s honor, located at the Amit State Technological School, a “last-chance high school” in Jerusalem.
“Any organization that does anything for education,” Perlman said in response, “is the best and the greatest mitzvah.”
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The post Itzhak Perlman gets personal in an intimate, anecdote-filled performance appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”
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In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll
Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News
i24 News – Speaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.
“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.
On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”
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Report: US Increasingly Regards Iran Protests as Having Potential to Overthrow Regime
United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – The assessment in Washington of the strength and scope of the Iran protests has shifted after Thursday’s turnout, with US officials now inclined to grant the possibility that this could be a game changer, Axios reported on Friday.
“The protests are serious, and we will continue to monitor them,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying in the report.
Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after the Islamic regime blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as videos circulating on social media showed buildings ablaze in anti-government protests raging across the country.
US President Donald Trump warned the Ayatollahs of a strong response if security forces escalate violence against protesters.
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters when asked about the unrest in Iran.
The latest reported death toll is at 51 protesters, including nine children.