The late Jerry Ben-Asher, seen here at his 90th birthday celebration in 2006, has inspired local music lovers to help a teacher in Israel by collecting money for violins and other instruments.
Photo courtesy Bob Cowen
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October 14, 2009
Jerry Ben-Asher loved music and inspired others with that love — including readers of “Music Notes,” his classical music column, which appeared in this newspaper for decades.
Now, a year and a half after the Short Hills resident’s death, Ben-Asher has inspired a program that will help bring music to children in Israel, both Jewish and Arab.
A New Jersey architect, motivated by two local filmmakers, is spearheading a campaign, in Ben-Asher’s name, to buy violins and perhaps other instruments for students of Wafaa Younis, an Israeli Arab music teacher. Younis lives in the town of Wadi Ara, in the Haifa District.
Younis, 54, has been teaching music to Jewish and Arab children in Israel and to Palestinian children in the refugee camp in Jenin. Many of them had no instruments and their parents had no money to pay her, but Younis, who taught for the Israeli Ministry of Education for 32 years, has found ways to get by with very little.
Twice a year, Younis has her “Strings of Freedom” orchestra — made up of children from all groups — play for different audiences in Israel. This past March, she brought a group of children from Jenin to play for a group of elderly Holocaust survivors in Holon. The performance was a revelation both for the audience members and the musicians, but angered Fatah leadership in Jenin, who resist attempts to normalize relationships with Israelis. They ordered Younis to stay away and called for an end to the music classes in Jenin (see sidebar).
Younis’ story came to the attention of Ellen Friedland and Curt Fissel, a husband-and-wife team from Montclair who make educational documentaries about Jewish culture through their company, JEM-GLO.
Friedland, a lawyer and former writer for NJJN, sent out an e-mail to friends in the United States this past summer telling them about Younis. “This could be a wonderful b’nei mitzva or other community service project! (It’s also an opportunity to give a good musical instrument on the verge of being recycled a much-needed home!),” she wrote. “Feel free to get in touch with us about Wafaa’s contact information if you have ideas regarding how you can help.”
When Livingston architect Stephen Schwartz — who has long known and admired the work Friedland and Fissel do — heard about the couple’s latest effort, it spoke to his strong commitment to Jewish education. He is well known locally for his own particular path to fulfilling that commitment: the projects he organizes that have children building Jewish landmarks out of LEGO blocks at schools and community gatherings.
Friedland’s e-mail struck another chord in Schwartz — his love for music.
At a Rosh Hashana dinner last month, he related the story to his friend, Nessa Ben-Asher of Short Hills. He suggested to Jerry’s widow that inviting donations for violins in his name would be a wonderful way to honor him. She agreed.
“Jerry would have loved this, for sure,” she told NJ Jewish News. “And everything that relates to my unbelievable, wonderful, gentle Jerry is balm for my soul.”
Educating young musicians was a passion for Jerry. “He helped Judith Wharton found the Wharton Music Center in Madison,” Nessa said, “and he started the Livingston Music Group” — a music appreciation society and performance series — “that is still going strong after 50 years.”
Through Friedland and Fissel, Schwartz contacted Younis and told her of the Ben-Asher plan. She was delighted. She wrote back to him about her students, and the kind of instruments they need.
There are still details to iron out and choices to make, for example, whether it makes more sense to buy the instruments here and send them to Israel, or to send the money over and have Younis buy them there.
What is settled, however, is that a bunch of eager young musicians in Israel are going to have far better instruments to play on, and a fearless educator will know she is not alone in her determination to grow the kind of music lovers Jerry Ben-Asher would have kvelled over.
For more information on the Jerry Ben-Asher violin fund, contact Stephen Schwartz at swsaia@aol.com. To contribute, make checks payable to Temple B’nai Abraham, with “Ben-Asher violins” in the memo line, and send to Temple B’nai Abraham, 300 E. Northfield Road, Livingston, NJ 07039.
Music teacher stands her ground
Contacted by NJ Jewish News in connection with the Jerry Ben-Asher commemorative project to gather violins for her students, Israeli music teacher Wafaa Younis e-mailed back about her work with Jewish and Arab children, in Israel and in the West Bank town of Jenin.
She was writing after spending 48 hours in Jenin “with my lovely music children.” Since the attempt to stop her classes there in March, she has quietly returned and insisted on continuing. She was welcomed with open arms by her students and their parents, she said.
The threats against her originated with a woman hungry for publicity who wanted the project for herself and who has ties to the Fatah leader who threatened her, said Younis, who decided to ignore that.
“She is crazy and I have no contact with her. I do not waste my time on empty words,” Younis wrote. “I went to the camp with a high head. I smiled to all. People held me, and my students cried a lot when they saw me. I said to everyone, ‘I’m here to play music; my school is open and no one can close it.”
There were 40 in her orchestra, though only 13 played at the March concert. Another 50 have come to her classes since then. And there have been no further threats.
Next year, she said, she plans to have a concert in her hometown of Ara and to invite people from Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem, as well as elderly Arab people. Last year, she held a concert called “Freedom for all prisoners, here and there.” Senior Palestinian leader Kadura Fares came, and so did Shlomo Goldwasser, the father of Udi Goldwasser, who was captured and killed by Hizbullah in 2006.
When was asked by Ha’aretz magazine why she does what she does, Younis responded: “I said that my students will never bomb themselves because I give them music and love. This is the way to keep them alive. When they don’t bomb themselves here in Israel, I save Israeli lives. Jews are our cousins and we live together. Let us make all of us one family.”
Younis concluded: “I ask everyone through your newspaper in New Jersey to help me to get music instruments for children in Palestine and Israel. I hope that President Barack Obama will read your newspaper and support my project with his Nobel prize.”
— ELAINE DURBACH
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