The Day That Changed My Photographic Life, Part Four

Everyday, for almost one hundred days, I walked, drove and ran all over Israel and occupied territories in my efforts to find pictures. I shot 88 rolls of film in 100 days (no bracketing then, less than a roll a day).

On some occasions if I was working in the old city of Jerusalem, I would meet Alexander Schneider (know as Sasha to his friends) a Lithuanian violinist, and Nicholas Nabokov a Russian-born composer and choreographer for lunch in a little restaurant that sold a famous fish from the Sea of Galilee. Both Nicholas and Alexander were both in their late seventies and each had been married five times. They had known each other for many years, and with a little wine the conversation would flow about their various wives. Each would confuse which wife was present at what time, and by the time the fish arrived I was on the floor hysterically laughing at the utter confusion and despair of trying to remember what wife had done what to whom, who had been where when, what affairs had preceded what wife, and all together a complete riot of confusion.

So this is life in your late seventies. Even though I never expect to have five wives, I loved their intimacy, their laughter, and mostly the fun they had with life.

What happened to all this? Where did it go? I think laughter turned into greed and humor piety and morality.

The world was wonderful and so funny in these years. So after this humorous and historic exchange on women, with wine and laughter, lunch arrived with the whole fish placed squarely on Sasha Schneider’s plate. The eye of the fish was staring directly at me and to this day I still have a strong aversion to anything that swims in the water. Sasha noticed that I was uncomfortable.

In his strong Lithuanian accent he looked at me and said, “You don’t like the eye of the fish? It’s the best part.” And with this he cut off the fish’s head and slurped the eye in his mouth and responded with deep satisfaction as he swallowed it.

I will never forget my complete disgust and fear at what he had done. He laughed at me with his deep baritone, affectionate, Lithuanian laugh as I almost threw up on the floor. The more disheartened and uncomfortable I became, b0th men seemed to become more and more happy. Sasha slapped me on the back and said; “Now you are a man!”

Well I don’t know if that made me more of a man, but despite my unease I was a part of the group. I loved it all. I felt it all so deeply. The good times, the lunch and the food.

At that lunch Sasha said he was off after his nap to the music center to teach a Master Class to Israel’s prodigies. He said Isaac Stern was there now and told me to go over for an hour and sit in. “You’ll Learn something,” he exhorted me. So off I went to the music center, which was adjacent to the place we were living. I was quietly ushered into the room where Isaac Stern was teaching who I was told was Israel’s greatest violin prodigy.

He seemed about eighteen and like me you could feel the majesty and awe of being in this room with this extraordinary talent.

This is what I remember, this is what I learned as I had been exhorted by Sasha to listen.

I am a classical music fan, and for some unknown reason I have always been, even since I was a young boy. I like all types of music, but Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, and Brahmas’ are not just entertaining you, they are screaming at you to listen, to feel their call from your heart. Their music is full of emotion and has always appealed to me.

Now back to the story. Isaac Stern and the prodigy were practicing a small section of the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s’ violin concerto. It is a piece I know well. First came the prodigy, he played flawlessly for three minutes. Technically, and most probably emotionally for him a virtuoso rendition. It was perfect, but…

Then immediately upon completion as the notes still resonated in my ears, Isaac Stern picked up his violin and played the same three minutes of the concerto.

The lights exploded, my heart swelled with wonder and joy, and as Sasha had exhorted at lunch on this afternoon, I truly learned something.

The Israeli prodigy was technically (perfect like the Yale students I would teach some years later) but his rendition was lacking soul history and emotion. It was the same notes that Isaac Stern had played; yet they were worlds apart.

Isaac Stern had invested not only his time and energy, but somehow found a way to his very being. His notes were as if the Gods were singing. I remember thinking that if only I could make one picture that has the emotion and power of Tchaikovsky and to be able to express these feelings to the world as well as Isaac Stern.

My life in those hundred days was changes forever. To this day I am trying to live what I learned in Jerusalem.