Amnon Weinstein, Master Violin Maker

Amnon Weinstein

Internationally noted Israeli Master Violin-maker Amnon Weinstein is involved in violin projects around the world. He works with orchestras and artists both in Israel and abroad. Weinstein learned his craft from his father Moshe Weinstein. He studied in Cremona with Pietro Sgarabotto, Giuseppe Ornati, Ferdinando Garimberti and in Paris with Etienne Vatelot.

Amnon Weinstein is the initiator of the Violins of Hope project, recollecting and restoring the instruments as of 1995. Today his collection consists of 28 violins of which 25 can be played.  The violins are mainly the origin from Europe and some of them were donated by private owners. From the violins 15 have the Star of David, and 21 have a connection to the Holocaust. The full story of each violin is known for the major part of the collection.

Mr. Weinstein won a gold medal for sound of the violin and is a holder of a certificate for construction of another violin from The American Association of Violin Makers, at Salt Lake City in 1982.  He is a member of Entente International des Maitre Luthiers et Archetiers d’Art, a member ‘Bienfaiteur de Groupement des Luthiers et Archetiers d’Art de France’, and was a member of the Violin Society of America. He was appointed a judge in the violin-maker’s competition in Salt-Lake City in 1998, and served as a judge in the Etienne Vatelot Competition, Paris 2004. He was awarded the prestigious Ole Bull prize, Bergen, Norway 2007. As one of the founders of Keshet Eilon, Amnon Weinstein participated in each Master-course until 2010 and created art and archery, a unique project that combines violin playing with archery. Upon his initiative an exhibit took place in the Rubin Museum Tel Aviv (November 2010) of the ‘resonance boxes - artists transform violin cases’.

Amnon Weinstein and Shlomo Mintz share a working relationship and friendship of more than 50 years. Shlomo Mintz first entered the Weinstein workshop at the age of 4 years old. A true partnership for life !

Asseala Weinstein-Bielski

Assaela (Assi) Bielski, wife of Amnon Weinstein, was born in Belorussia in April 1945, some 9 months after the Jewish partisans were freed by the advancing Red army, (on July 1944). She was born the same day when her mother got the message that Assael Bielski, her father was killed in action on German soil, as a red army recruit.

Her mother was determined to leave Russia and emigrated to Palestine. She managed to smuggle her family out to a DP camp in Germany, where she met her second husband. They arrived in Palestine on June 1947, to a kibbutz where they lived for 7 years. At the age of 9 Assi was told that her biological father was killed in the war.

She studied NYU journalism in the US where she got to know her enlarged family who lived in Brooklyn – her Bielski uncles and many others. After 5 years + a BA in journalism and a MA degree in teaching English as a second language, she returned to Israel. She taught English for 2 years and found a job as a journalist on a newspaper where she was an editor and  resenter for 13 years.

At 40 she left the radio and went back to writing in a newspaper as a magazine writer, later becoming the editor of a weekly children's magazine for the next 18 years. In the meantime – she published a novel, and a book for young adults, "The Forest Girl", about a 6-year-old girl who lived with the partisans. In the past 6 years Assaela is a free-lance writer for various magazines and as editor. She is working on publishing her mother's memories in Yad VaShem Museum Jerusalem.  She often gives lectures in Israel about the Bielski partisans' legacy. Assaela married Amnon Weinstein when she was 30 and they had 3 children. Their oldest son, Avshalom Weinstein, is working today with his father in the Violin workshop in Tel Aviv and has opened a 2nd violin workshop in Istanbul.

Story of father of Ernst Simon Glaser

'He was a German-Jewish violinist (student of Carl Flesch) who moved to Oslo, Norway in 1928 to become the concertmaster of the Oslo Philharmonic. He thought he and his family would be safe in Norway when the Second World War broke out, but Norway was clearly an important country for Hitler and was attacked and overtaken early on in the war. My father had survived the first couple of years of Nazi occupation, but in January of 1941 he was to perform in Bergen, as soloist with the Bergen Philharmonic, on a violin previously belonging to the Norwegian virtuoso Ole Bull. The concert never took place... There was a tense atmosphere brought on by the presence of the “Hitler Youth” in the auditorium. My father’s entrance for his concerto appearance was delayed, and the orchestra played a piece of music planned for later in the program. After this piece my father still did not appear and now the Hitler Youth became anxious and blocked the doors out of the auditorium. When an audience member called out “Is Glaser not appearing because he is a Jew?” chaos broke out. The Hitler Youth threw out leaflets reading "How could we allow such a violin, Olé Bull's Guarneri, to be sullied by the hands of the Jew, Moses Salomon, alias Ernst Glaser", and protestors from the audience started fighting. There was a veritable bloodbath only to be stopped by the conductor Harald Heide who raised his baton for the National Anthem, forcing the Hitler Youth to stand in the Hitler salute position. During this National Anthem, played a little slower than usual, Ernst Glaser was helped out of the building through a back exit where a vehicle was waiting to drive him to safety.

Amnon found the story very moving. The fact that my father was to play on this Ole Bull's violin put him and his family in grave danger. But at the same time this instrument inveritably saved his life as he became more protected and eventually managed to escape the Nazis into neutral Sweden. Had it not been for this violin, I may not have been born. Amnon was even more moved that I knew where the violin was: still in the Oslo Philharmonic.'

Note: this instrument was played in the Violins of Hope concert in Jerusalem (2008), in Paris (2009) and in Sion (2010).