Unlike Esther, who concealed her Jewish origins upon entering public life, and unlike those Jews mentioned at the beginning of today’s newsletter who wish distance themselves from the Jewish state, the famed composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein did neither. Shalom Goldman considers Bernstein’s affinity for Zionism, but first recounts a conversation Bernstein had with his mentor, the conductor Serge Koussevitzky, a Russian-born Jew who had converted to Christianity to advance his career:
In 1942, when Bernstein first emerged as a gifted and popular figure in the classical music world, Koussevitzky urged his protégé to change his name from Bernstein to Burns. “Your name is too Jewish, and too ordinary,” he said. But Bernstein would have none of it. Mid-20th-century America was not late-19th-century Russia, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra was a far cry from the Moscow Philharmonic. Bernstein sensed that American culture would accept performing artists with Jewish names and commitments. And, of course, he was right.
His first trip to Palestine in 1947 was a great triumph for Bernstein. The Palestine Symphony Orchestra offered to make him its musical director, and for a few weeks, while conducting in Europe, he considered it. From the U.S., Bernstein advanced his vision of a Jewish state through music—first and foremost by supporting the musical institutions already operating in British Mandate Palestine. The Palestine Symphony Orchestra was the most prestigious of these, formed by European Jewish refugees in 1936.
Bernstein returned to Israel in late October of 1948. He performed in the same cities he had visited a year and a half earlier—Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa—but now these cities belonged to the new state of Israel, and they were battlefronts in the Arab-Israeli war.
Read more on Tablet: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/bernstein-in-the-desert