Talk:Jascha Heifetz

Jascha Heifetz, the world's best-known violinist, had come to Israel to play music written by notorious German Nazi composers - including the head of the infamous Berlin Philharmonic, who personally organized annual concerts from 1933 to 1945 in honor of German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Jascha Heifetz was a Jew who saw nothing wrong with playing German Nazi music - Heifetz insisted on playing the compositions of German Nazi Reich Music Chamber President Richard Strauss the official head of the Third Reich's music culture bureaucracy before and during the Holocaust.

Heifetz's concert created great controversy in Israel. German Nazi death camp survivors bitterly condemned Heifetz.

Then, one evening after his arrival in Israel, Heifetz decided to take a stroll on the streets of Jerusalem. Suddenly, he was attacked by an Israeli shouting, "Judenrat traitor! Six million! Never again!" and beat Heifetz with an iron bar and injured his right arm seriously enough so that he had to be hospitalized.

Heifetz did not play the Nazi music at his next performance and canceled his tour by running home to his luxury estate in Beverly Hills, California.

Why take out my comments about Jascha...

Lets not be revisionist here. People reading about Jascha should realize the historical background of why his insistence to play Strauss' music was so contraversial. It is important part of Jascha personality to see that he placed music above ethical behaviour and details of this have been reported in the Israeli newspaper Maariv. If you want to edit my English, go ahead. But leave the quotes from Maariv alone. Let use a neutral point of view.

• Please clarify. Are you suggesting the above paragraph? What quotes are you referring to? Paradiso 18:24, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Unbalances the article

The stuff about Heifetz and Strauss is worthy of note, but should it really take up so much of the article? If this were a full-length biography, it would be OK, but as it stands it unbalances the article.

I agree that it takes up too much of the article, but its a dramatic story and an interesting read! So I suggest keeping it while trying to expand the rest of the article a bit. Paradiso 14:15, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

aa

Heifetz had nothing to do with Nazi/Jew relations.

Yes, everything you said happened did happen. But to take up 50% of an article about Heifetz and a couple of concerts in Israel is both demeaning to a great artist and unproportional to his almost 70 year long career. It deserves at the most a passing reference and should not made so important. Most people thinking about Jascha Heifetz think about him as a Master Violinist, attaining the pinnacle of his art, and this should be the main focus of this article. --Luckybeargod 02:24, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you. More on music, less on politics and religion. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia here, not a platform to express your own views. --k72ndst 02:03, Feb 14, 2006 (UTC)

This article should be expanded

Heifetz was probably the greatest violinist who ever lived. His article is probably 1/4th the length of the article on oh, say, Hilary Duff. I think we should perhaps work to make the Heifetz article a bit longer. Smedley Hirkum

AFD result

This article was nominated for deletion on 8 October 2005. The result of the discussion was Speedy keep. An archived record of this discussion can be found here.

--Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 21:40, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Expansion and Improvement

• As per user Smedley Hirkum, we should work at expanding and improving the article. We also should format it into sections.

My suggestions are:

• Prodigy;

• Recording Artist (explaining his recording);

• Touring Career ( explaining his concerts including the problem in Israel);

• Entertainment - including 3 movies, TV shows etc;

• Discography;

• Appeared in;

• References
  • Footnotes
  • Further Reading

Capitalistroadster 04:33, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Picture of Heifetz

Currently, there are two copies of the same portrait floating around: commons:Image:Heifetz.jpg and Image:Heifetz.jpg.jpeg. Both claim that the picture is in the Public Domain, but the evidence presented to support that assertion is rather thin. It looks like a promo shot made in the 2nd half of the 20th century. Does anyone know more? Algae 11:21, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Heifetz the pianist

I thought I knew a lot about JH, but I'd never heard he played piano. 24.226.90.180, I'm not doubting you, but can you provide a source for this so I can read more about it? Cheers JackofOz 09:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Jascha Heifetz deserves our respect

It was definitely something I learned in Music School (Manhattan School of Music, Oberlin Conservatory) that Jascha Heifetz was an excellent pianist; Fritz Kreisler was as well.

I have to say I am not clear about the first comments on the discussion page. How is it that the Berlin Philharmonic deserves the title "infamous"? Yes, they existed in Nazi Berlin during the war (and before and after), but it seems to me that to categorically attach a negative stigma to that very well respected organization lacks any neutral purpose. Although it seems clear that Richard Strauss in the very least was not anti-Nazi, but I am not sure why a JEWISH violinist (Heifetz) can be summarily indicted on the basis of playing music by one of the most well renowned composers of the time (indeed of any time). After all, does the accusation make the charge true? Does being attacked by a possibly unstable individual make the person attacked guilty of whatever fancy the attacker believes is a legitimate reason justifying his actions? There are many people who have led lives that do not come close to living up to any standard of ethics or morality who nonetheless have made incredible artistic contributions to society. It is a tribute the amazing nature of art that this can be so. To name a few people who created great works of art and yet could be considered artists in their fields and have made invaluable contributions to art. Should we ban their works? Doesn't this just give their extremist views more creedence (speaking more about the racists/fascists then the pedophiles :)). I think Heifetz is to be commended for understanding this difference. Heifetz is probably the greatest violinist of all time, and certainly did not contribute to the Holocaust, should we be so quick to judge his actions? Intolerance works all ways. You cannot stop intolerance by being so narrow minded as to allow your specific view of tolerance to be the only acceptable one. Krininaleni 20:12, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I agreed with you until you started talking like a crazy man. --Smedley Hirkum 23:02, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

---Ditto!!--- Also, as a violinist, I agree entirely with what Heifetz did. If a mass-murderer wrote wonderful music, I would not hesitate to play it. That is the beauty of music: It can be completely seperate from the faults of its creator. It would have been different if he was playing songs written to promote the Nazis, but he wasn't. It was a violin sonata, for goodness sake! Person who likes to think 16:44, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

What the hell are you talking about? Copland, Bernstein and Levine pedophiles??? Copland and Bernstein were bisexual, but that's different from being a pedophile, for god's sake. And where did you hear that about Levine? Let's stick to facts and not lurid rumors here. K. Lastochka 17:59, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey, guys, that's an encyclopaedia. What the hell does this paragraph about this incident in Israel has to do in an encyclopeadia, and with a so subjective point of view? Could we imagine that in encyclopeadia Britannica, for example? I mean, read Amoyal's version of the facts in his last book, it's absolutely different. Heifetz would have said:

"This man was better Jew than me. I hadn't to play Strauss in Israel"

Anyway, I think theses lines could be just delete, don't you think so?

Hum. Strauss music is not "nazi's music". Read a bit of his correspondance with Stephan Sweig. He was just an opportunist, as were many musician at this time in Germany (who said Karajan?).