Honored Maestro! I feel the need to express to you how much I admire you and honor you. You are not only the incomparable interpreter of the world’s musical literature, you are as well a man who has shown the greatest dignity in the fight against the Fascist criminals. I feel a deep sense of gratitude for the aid you have promised the newly to be formed Palestine Orchestra. The fact that a man such as yourself is living among us compensates for the many disappointments which one continually experiences…. With love and high admiration, I greet you . . .
Well before accepting Huberman’s invitation to conduct the Palestine Orchestra, Toscanini (1867-1957) had become a staunch enemy of Nazism, due in part to his father, who had served with Garibaldi and gave the young Arturo a love of democracy that in later years led to the conductor’s general interest in Israel. As early as 1933, he courageously refused an invitation to conduct at the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, a grand honor, in protest of the Nazis’ treatment of Jewish musicians, and he also turned his back on the Salzburg Festival because Germany refused to air Jewish conductor Bruno Walter’s performances there.
Toscanini had developed a particular sensitivity to Jews. For example, when told by an auditioning clarinetist that he could not perform on Shabbat or Jewish holidays, the conductor hugged him and said “now I like you even more!” He not only refused payment from the Palestine Symphony, even for his travel costs, but he also assumed the expenses of passage for many of the musicians’ families and paid to set them up in apartments in Eretz Yisrael.
During his first trip to Eretz Yisrael, Toscanini experienced what he called “a continuous exultation of the soul.” He characterized it as “the land of miracles,” where Jews who had been doctors, lawyers, and engineers in Germany had become farmers who transformed sand dunes into olive and orange groves. His wife wrote to their daughter: “When we left, we were both crying. If you stop to think of what they have achieved through sheer labor, it is nothing short of miraculous.”
Affectionately called “the Passionate Sightseer” because of his keen interest in experiencing Eretz Yisrael, Toscanini was particularly eager to see its agricultural settlements, and he visited kibbutzim and farms, where he planted trees. The New York Times quoted him as saying “I like to go into Jewish homes, eat Jewish food, and feel the pulse of Jewish life.” Among other activities, he attended a Seder; visited Hebrew University, where he attended a lecture on Hebrew literature; and was presented with a deed to an orange grove, where he and Huberman planted a tree.
When Toscanini returned in 1938, not only had the situation for Jews in Germany become dire but things were hardly tranquil in Eretz Yisrael either. At one point during the conductor’s stay, a bomb was thrown at the vehicle carrying him and his wife in Jerusalem, but nothing would stop the formidable maestro. There was such demand for his concerts that throngs of people had to be turned away and, seeing that response, he opened his rehearsals to the public. On a return visit to “his” orange grove, this great friend of the Jews and Israel wept when a beautiful freshly picked orange was placed in his hands.
