the Jewish
www.jewishobservernashville.org CRC seder celebrates Jewish tradition of social justice page 21
bserver Vol. 82 No. 4 • April 2017
5 Nisan-4 Iyyar 5777
Happy Passover
Passover Calendar: Congregational seders and other communal Passover events page 23
Restored Holocaust violins will sing their “stories of hope” next March in Nashville By CHARLES BERNSEN
I
n explaining why he has spent the past 21 years locating and restoring violins played by Jewish musicians during the Holocaust era, Amnon Weinstein points to the unique capacity of music – particularly the violin – to convey the pathos of that terrible event. “Music connects us to history in a way we can relate to, and that’s particularly true of the violin, which is considered the closest instrument to the human voice,” the master Israeli violin maker says. “People in the camps heard the sound of violins going to work and coming back as orchestras played at the gates. Just thinking about the role violins played during the war makes you shiver and feel, think and identify with the victims.” Weinstein calls the 60 instruments he has restored the “Violins of Hope, and he has taken them to only a handful of venues – Berlin, Rome and Venice in Europe; Charlotte, Cleveland and South Florida in the United States. Next year 22 of the Violins of Hope are coming to Nashville, where they will be played by members of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra during three concert performances in March and then be on view through May 28 at a free exhibition downtown at the Nashville Public Library.
But Violins of Hope Nashville will involve much more than the concert and exhibition, said the project’s coordinator, Steven Brosvik, chief operating officer for the Nashville Symphony. Along with the symphony and the library, there are more than a dozen groups co-sponsoring the project, including the Jewish Federation and Jewish Foundation of Nashville and Middle Tennessee, and many of them are planning events that will tie into Violins of Hope and its theme. • The three performances of the symphony’s Violins of Hope concert on March 22-24 at the Schermerhorn Center will include the debut of a new symphony by the Jewish composer Jonathan Leshnoff commissioned especially for the event. • The Federation will hold its annual Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) event at the Schermerhorn Center, where one of the violins will be played during the service. • The Nashville Ballet will stage a performance of “Light/The Holocaust and Humanity,” a full-length ballet by Austin, TX choreographer Stephen Mills designed to encourage conversations about the Holocaust, genocide and human rights. • The symphony will host a special concert on May 9 featuring the renowned Jewish violinist Joshua Bell that will
Amnon Weinstein will bring 22 of his Holocaust-era violins to Nashville next March, when they will be played during a special concert at the Schermerhorn Center and then be on exhibition for two months at Nashville Public Library downtown. (Photo courtesy of Amnon Weinstein)
include three pieces from the movie “Schindler’s List.” • In the months before the Violins of Hope arrive, book clubs across the city will be encouraged to read Violins of Hope, a book about Weinstein and his project, and the library will host its author, James Grymes, for a lecture. • After the March concert, the Violins of Hope will be on display until May 28 in the downtown library’s art gallery near
the permanent collection in its Civil Rights Room, creating the opportunity for events exploring human rights issues that connect the Holocaust and the Southern civil rights movement. Other sponsors who may plan events connected to the Violins of Hope include the Belcourt Theatre, Parnassus Books, the Nashville Film Festival and Oz Arts, a nonprofit organization that supports Continued on pages 3
Federation board approves 5-year blueprint for Best Jewish Nashville By CHARLES BERNSEN
T
he board of the Jewish Federation of Nashville and Middle Tennessee approved a blueprint last month that will guide the community’s planning and
A Publication of the
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funding priorities over the next five years. Dubbed Best Jewish Nashville 2.0, the blueprint was developed by a special committee that spent six months studying the Federation-funded 2015 demographic survey of the Middle Tennessee Jewish community, identifying 10 key communal needs or objectives, and making recomCommunity Yom Hashoah event will remember GI who declared: We are all Jews page 6
mendations to address each of them. Each objective or need – increasing the number of people who participate in Jewish communal life, for example, and improving outreach to poor and nearly poor members of the Jewish community – falls within one or more of four broad priorities: building and strengthening
Jewish community, promoting a culture of philanthropy and volunteering, responding to the community’s unmet needs, and fostering relationship with the broader, non-Jewish community. The Best Jewish Nashville Demographic Study Impact and Innovation Continued on pages 5
Elaine Parker, Lisa and Mike Shmerling will be honored at JFS annual Chesed Dinner on April 27 page 9
Chabad will honor Gov. Haslam, Bernie Pargh and Dianne Berry at April 30 gala celebrating its “chai” anniversary page 9