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Amnon Weinstein, Renowned Holocaust Violin Restorer, Passes Away at 84

Amnon Weinstein, an Israeli luthier who restored violins belonging to Jews during the Holocaust so that musicians around the world could play them in hopeful, melodic tributes to those silenced in Nazi death camps, passed away on March 4 in Tel Aviv. He was 84.

His son Avshalom Weinstein confirmed his death at a hospital.

Mr. Weinstein was the founder of Violins of Hope, an organization that provides the violins he restored to orchestras for concerts and educational programs commemorating the Holocaust. The instruments have been played in dozens of cities worldwide, including Berlin, at an event marking the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

“Violins of Hope, it’s like a huge forest of sounds,” he said in a 2016 PBS documentary. “Each sound is standing for a boy, a girl, and men and women that will never talk again. But the violins, when they are played on, will speak for them.”

There are more than 60 Holocaust-era violins in his collection.

Some belonged to Jews who carried them in suitcases to concentration camps and were forced to play them in orchestras as prisoners marched to the gas chambers. Others were played to pass the time in Jewish ghettos. One was tossed from a train to a railway worker by a man who knew his fate.

“In the place where I now go, I don’t need a violin,” the man told the worker, in Mr. Weinstein’s telling. “Here, take my violin so it may live.”

The son of a violin repairman, Mr. Weinstein worked in a cramped and dusty workshop in the basement of an apartment building on King Solomon Street in Tel Aviv.

“Walking in there was like stepping in time,” James A. Grymes, a University of North Carolina-Charlotte music professor who wrote a book about Violins of Hope, said in an interview. “It really felt like you were in Stradivarius’s workshop — the smells of varnish, there’s parts of violins everywhere. It’s like he was the Willy Wonka of the violin.”

One afternoon in the 1980s, a man with a prisoner identification tattoo on his arm arrived with a beaten-up violin that had, like him, survived Auschwitz.

“The top of the violin was damaged from having been played in the rain and snow,” Mr. Grymes wrote in “Violins of Hope: Violins of the Holocaust — Instruments of Hope and Liberation in Mankind’s Darkest Hour” (2014). “When Amnon took the instrument apart, he discovered ashes inside that he could only assume to be fallout from the crematoria at Auschwitz.”

Mr. Weinstein, who had lost hundreds of members of his extended family in the Holocaust, nearly turned the man away; working on such an instrument seemed too emotionally fraught. But he ultimately repaired the violin, and the man gave it to his grandson to play.

Mr. Weinstein didn’t reflect much about working on Holocaust-era violins again until the late 1990s when he was training his son to become a luthier. The experience made him reflect on the role of violins in Jewish culture, from the shtetls of Eastern Europe to klezmer bands to Itzhak Perlman’s soaring concertos.

“It was kind of a must for the young generation to learn to play the violin,” he said in the PBS documentary. “And when you have a violin, Friday or Saturday evening, always somebody was taking it and playing on it.”

During a radio interview, he asked listeners to bring him instruments connected to the Holocaust. Soon, families began showing up at his workshop with violins that had been stored away in attics and cellars, each with its haunting story.

Mr. Weinstein was especially shaken by those recovered from concentration camps after the Allied invasion of Germany in 1945.

“This was the last human sound that all of those people heard, the violin,” he said in a 2016 radio interview on WKSU in Ohio. “You cannot use the name beauty. But this was the beauty of this time, these violins.”

Amnon Weinstein was born on July 21, 1939, in Mandatory Palestine and grew up in Tel Aviv. His father, Moshe Weinstein, was a musician and violin repairman. His mother, Golda (Yevirovitz) Weinstein, was a pianist and a secretary in her husband’s workshop. They had immigrated from Lithuania to Mandatory Palestine in 1938, just as the persecution of Jews was escalating in Germany.

Mr. Weinstein grew up helping in his father’s violin shop. In his early 20s, he moved to Cremona, Italy — a city long known for its master luthiers — to study violin making. He continued his training in Paris under Étienne Vatelot, one of the world’s most renowned luthiers. In 1975, he married Assaela Bielski Gershoni, whose father was a Jewish resistance fighter during World War II, made famous in the 2008 film “Defiance.”

After his father’s death in 1986, Mr. Weinstein took over the family violin shop; he started Violins of Hope a decade later. The first concerts with the violins in the collection took place in Turkey and Israel in 2008. Others followed in Switzerland, Spain, and Mexico, as well as in Ohio, North Carolina, and Virginia.

“Each concert is a victory,” he would often say.

Musicians, especially Jewish ones, have described playing violins from the collection as a soul-stirring experience.

“It’s emotional for me because I’m not there to play this violin, I’m there to let it speak,” Niv Ashkenazi, a violinist who recorded an album featuring an instrument from the collection, said in an interview. “Our job as musicians is to just let these violins shine through.”

In addition to his son Avshalom, who plans to continue the Violins of Hope project, Mr. Weinstein is survived by his wife, two other children, Merav Vonshak and Yehonatan Weinstein, and seven grandchildren.

In 2016, Mr. Weinstein was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, one of the country’s highest honors.

During the award ceremony, Germany’s foreign minister at the time, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, spoke directly to Mr. Weinstein.

“A human soul lies behind each of your priceless violins,” he said. “A human who was persecuted, tormented, silenced by unimaginable violence and cruelty.”

Mr. Steinmeier spoke about the man who had tossed his violin from the train. He described a prisoner playing a violin in Auschwitz.

“Each violin represents a person, Amnon,” he said. “And when your violins play, they represent six million people.”

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Kevin McCarthy, former House Speaker, seeks revenge

Ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is out for vengeance. After being voted out as House speaker, McCarthy left office at the end of 2023. Now, he is traveling the country giving speeches, appearing on TV, and plotting revenge against those who orchestrated his downfall.

Eight Republican lawmakers joined with Democrats in toppling McCarthy, marking the first time a House leader has been voted out. Two of the Republicans who voted against him are retiring, while three others are facing strong primary challenges. McCarthy is working behind the scenes to ensure their defeat, using his political connections and resources to support their opponents.

McCarthy’s main nemesis in this battle for vengeance is Rep. Matt Gaetz, who was instrumental in McCarthy’s ouster. During a recent appearance at Georgetown University, McCarthy accused Gaetz of pushing him out of the speakership due to an ethics complaint involving a 17-year-old girl. Gaetz denied the allegations and called McCarthy a liar.

Despite the turmoil of his speakership lasting less than nine months, McCarthy feels liberated and focused on campaigns and elections, which have always been his forte. He remains close to lawmakers he recruited and maintains a vast donor network built over years as a top GOP strategist.

McCarthy’s top priority is to secure Republican control of the House in the upcoming elections. He is also focused on reelecting key members, such as Young Kim, Michelle Steel, and Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who have diversified the House GOP.

At a recent seminar on American democracy, McCarthy displayed both charm and self-deprecation. He broke with former President Trump by supporting aid for Ukraine and acknowledging Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. However, McCarthy also dodged questions and made false equivalences, drawing criticism from his detractors.

Despite speculation about a second Trump administration, McCarthy has not shown interest in becoming an influence peddler. Instead, he prefers working in the campaign realm, where his skills and talents are best utilized. McCarthy’s focus is on electing viable Republican candidates and achieving payback against those who pushed him out of power.

In conclusion, Kevin McCarthy is on a mission for vengeance, using his political savvy and resources to take down his opponents and secure Republican victories. His determination and focus on campaigns and elections show that McCarthy is not one to back down easily, making him a force to be reckoned with in the world of politics.

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