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March 19, 1999/2 Nisan 5759, Vol. 51, No. 25
Menuhin's life ignited debate among JewsJewish Telegraphic AgencyNEW YORK - Yehudi Menuhin, the renowned violinist and conductor who died March 12 at age 82 in Berlin, will be remembered for his classic renditions of such pieces as the Elgar Violin Concerto. He will also be remembered as a controversial figure in the Jewish community.Menuhin was born in New York on April 22, 1916, to Russian immigrants who had met in Palestine. Indeed, his parents reportedly named him Yehudi, Hebrew for "Jew," after a landlord who was showing them an apartment told them that one benefit of the building was that no Jews lived there. Menuhin, whose violin career began as child prodigy, was criticized by Jewish groups after he played with the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler and the Berlin Philharmonic soon after World War II, in part because Furtwangler had prospered in Germany during the war. After a Jewish relief organization called for a boycott of one of his concerts, Menuhin responded by saying, "Love, and not hate, will heal the world." Menuhin later supported Furtwangler's candidacy to become conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at a time when other famous musicians said they would not play with the symphony if Furtwangler was hired. Furtwangler withdrew his candidacy, but many in the Jewish world harshly criticized Menuhin for supporting him - indeed, there was a bomb threat at one of his concerts in Tel Aviv. In the 1950s, Menuhin became fascinated with yoga while in a doctor's room in New Zealand and became a daily practitioner of the art, which included 15 to 20 minutes of standing on his head. He was an anti-pollution activist and vegetarian advocate. Menuhin, whose father became an ardent anti-Zionist who refused to attend his son's concerts in Israel, played concerts to benefit both Israelis and Arabs. But in 1975, he became embroiled in another Jewish controversy when he refused a request by conductor Leonard Bernstein to boycott UNESCO's International Music Council, in part because he agreed with the group's criticism of Israeli archaeological digs in Jerusalem. |
