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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/10408/full/10408/music-genius-yehudi-menuhin-dies-at-82-raised-in-bay-area/ <br /><br /> <b>Music genius Yehudi Menuhin dies at 82; raised in Bay Area</b> <br /> Friday, March 19, 1999 | by <p>NEW YORK (JTA)—Yehudi Menuhin, the renowned violinist and conductor who died of heart failure last Friday at 82 in Berlin, wi </p> <br /><br /><p>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.<br /><br /> Menuhin moved to San Francisco when he was 2 years old, beginning violin studies before he was 4 with the late Sigmund Anker. He made his professional debut at the age of 7, appearing with the San Francisco Symphony when he was 8.<br /><br /> His mother, Marutha, who died in 1996 in Los Gatos at the age of 104, taught piano while living in Palestine. She passed her love of music on to her three children; daughters Hephzibah, who died in 1980, and Yaltah were both professional pianists who performed with their brother. Yehudi's father, Moshe, served as head of the forerunner to the S.F.-based Bureau of Jewish Education; he died in 1982.<br /><br /> Although he performed for concentration camp survivors after World War II and had been working recently to promote unrecognized musicians in Israel, Yehudi Menuhin received somewhat mixed reviews in the Jewish community. He 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.<br /><br /> 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."<br /><br /> 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.<br /><br /> 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.<br /><br /> 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.<br /><br /> An early opponent of pollution and an advocate of vegetarianism, he warned people against what he called the dangers of white bread and refined sugar.<br /><br /> 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.<br /><br /> In 1975, he became embroiled in another Jewish controversy when he refused a request by the 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.<br /><br /> In 1997, he returned to San Francisco, paying tribute to his parents at a San Francisco State University ceremony, where he received an honorary doctorate of fine arts for his musical achievements and activism. He discussed his passion for social justice in a Bulletin interview.<br /><br /> "My activism is partly Jewish," he said, "but even more, a general feel for humanity that has become interdependent and must be considered globally in terms of education and responsibility."<br /><br /> If Menuhin was involved in a variety of political and social issues, it was his musical talent that originally brought him under the international spotlight. He was known for his interest in a variety of musical styles—recording an album with the jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli and playing with sitarist Ravi Shankar.<br /><br /> When Albert Einstein heard him play a few days before Menuhin reached his 13th birthday, Einstein reportedly followed him backstage after the concert and told him, "Now I know there is a God in heaven."<br /><br /> Menuhin, who was living part time in London and Switzerland at the time of his death, is survived by four children and his second wife, Diana Gould, a British ballerina and actress, whom he married in 1947.</p> <p> </p>

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