Newspaper Page Text
Friday, August 2, 1903
THE SOUTHERN
Page Five
8 R A E L I T E
Fanny Bloomfield Zeisler
From Child Prodigy to Great Concert Pianist
When the little girl of twelve
walked out on the concert stage
to make her first public appear
ance in Chicago, the audience
gasped in amazement. How could
one so young play the difficult
“Andante Favori” with the aug
ust Beethoven Society orchestra?
But after she had finished the
difficult piano concerto, the same
audience rose as one man to give
her a standing ovation and cries
of “bravo” resounded through
the hall. The girl was Fanny
Bloomfield Zeisler who rocketed
to fame and became an interna
tionally known concert pianist.
The American Jewish Archives,
on the Cincinnati campus of the
Hebrew Union College-Jewish
Institute of Religion, calls atten
tion to the fact that the 100th an
niversary of the birth of this
gifted and intelligent woman will
be celebrated in 1963.
Bom July 16, 1863, in Austrian
Silesia, the young daughter of
Salomon and Bertha Blumen-
field, Fanny Bloomfield Zeisler
was a cousin of Moritz Rosenthal,
the famous pianist and pupil of
OBITUARIES
Ben Bluestein
Ben Bluestein of New Orleans,
formerly of Savannah, died July
5.
Surviving are his wife, Mrs.
Bernice Hubbard Bluestein of
New Orleans; a daughter, Miss
Rebecca Bluestein of New Or
leans; a son, William J. Blue
stein of New Orleans; a brother,
Sam Bluestein of Savannah; and
two sisters, Mrs. Temi B. Wolf
and Mrs. Sam Blumenfeld, both
of Dothan, Ala.
Morris S. Friedman
Morris S. Friedman, 71, of
Atlanta, died July 29.
A native of Poland, Mr. Fried
man lived in New York and
Dalton before moving to Atlan
ta about 10 years ago. He was
retired.
Funeral services were held
July 30 at the Grammercy Park
Memorial Chapel in New York.
Burial was in the United He
brew Cemetery on Staten Is
land.
Mr. Friedman is survived by
a daughter, Mrs. William Alter-
man of Atlanta; a son, Kermit
Friedman of Pensacola, Fla.; a
sister, Mrs. Emanuel Edelstein,
and three brothers, Joseph, Jack
and Jess Friedman, all of New
York
Mrs. Anna Halperin
Mrs. Anna Halperin of Bay
onne, N.J., mother of Sydney S.
Halperin of Savannah, died July
26 in Jersey City.
Funeral services were held
Sunday in Jersey City.
Surviving also are three other
sons, Max Halperin of Atlanta,
formerly of Savannah; Albert
Halperin of Englewood, N.J., and
Milton Halperin of Tenaneck,
N.J.; three daughters, Mrs. Sam
Kimerling of Bayonne, N.J.; Mrs.
Alice Levin of Flushing, N.Y.;
Mrs. Milton Levine of Brooklyn,
N.Y.; 17 grandchildren and 10
great-grandchildren.
Mrs. Ethel Strauss
Mrs. Ethel Apple Strauss, 74,
of Atlanta died June 9 in a
Macon hospital after a short ill
ness.
A native of Savannah, she was
visiting a daughter, Mrs. Harry
M. Schwartz, when she was fa
tally stricken. She had made her
home in Atlanta for 42 years
and was a member of Temple
Synagogue there.
Surviving besides the daugh
ter in Macon, are Arthur D
Strauss; a son, Capt. Ben A
Strauss of the U. S, Navy; four
grandchildren and four great
grandchildren.
Rabbi Jacob Rothschild of At
lanta conducted the funeral June
11 at Sipple’s Mortuary. Burial
was in Bonaventure Cemetery.
Liszt. Her father emigrated to
America in 1866, and the next
year his wife and three children
joined him. After a brief stay in
Appleton, Wisconsin, the family
established permanent residence
in Chicago. There Fanny re
ceived her first piano instruction
from her brother, Maurice
Bloomfiled. Maurice later
achieved fame, not in the field
of music, but as head of the
department of Sanskrit and Phil
ology at Johns Hopkins Univer
sity.
When Fanny was ten, she be
gan systematic training under
Carl Wolfsohn, a fine musician,
who established the Beethoven
Society in Chicago. She soon be
came his most famous pupil, and
he helped arrange an American
tour for her in 1877. A year
later, when Fanny was fifteen,
she went to Vienna to study un
der Leschetizky. After five years
of intensive work, she was ready
to give her first full-lenght con
cert in Chicago’s old Hershev
Hall. That same year she played
with the New York Orchestra
under the baton of Frank B. Van
Der Stucken.
Having achieved kudos in this
country, she made her first Eu
ropean tour. For the next two
years, she toured the capitals of
Europe and, wherever she played,
won great triumphs. Even the
severe German music critics con
ceded her faultless technique,
her energy and depth of feeling.
The greatest feather in her cap
was the coveted invitation to
play at the Lower Rhine Music
Festival in Cologne.
Meanwhile, she had married
Siegmund Zeisler, a prominent
Chicago attorney, whom she bore
three sons. Zeisler was one of the
lawyers defending the anarchists
in the famous Haymarket Riot
case of 1886. Throughout their
married life, her husband main
tained a rare appreciation of her
art and her career.
Fanny Bloomfield Zeisler often
told of the famous incident which
occurred when she was making
her first appearance with the
Lamoreux Orchesra, in Paris, in
1902. Parisians did not take
kindly to the foreign artists.
The gallery was crowded with
a boisterous anti-foreign claque
and when she appeared on stage,
there was an outcry of boos and
hisses to prevent her from play
ing. With coolness and aplomb,
she seated herself at the piano,
and with great courage, she held
her ground. So impassioned and
masterful was her interpretation
of the Saint Saens C Minor Con
certo, that the noise died away
and, at the close of the perform
ance, the protest demonstration
was turned into a paean of ac
claim for the pianist.
Modem musicians still talk of
her tremendous repertoire. At
San Francisco, in the course of
eighteen days, she played eight
full recitals with no repetitions
In 1925, the Chicago orchestra
gave a special concert to cele
brate her Golden Jubilee as an
artist. It was her last appearance
on the concert stage, and she
played the same Beethoven “An
dante Favori” with which she
had begun her public career fifty
years before.
In her later years, she devoted
herself to teaching. One of her
last acts was the establishment
of the Fanny Zeisler Musicians
Relief Fund. She died in August,
1927, two years after her Golden
Jubilee performance.
The story of this remarkable
and gifted Jewish woman is one
of the many to be found in the
files of the American Jewish
Archives.
Ford Foundation
Selects Brandeis
For Study of Aged
WALTHAM, Mass., (JTA) —
The Ford Foundation has com
missioned Brandeis University
to undertake a three-year study
of the obstacles to effective
community planning for the
elderly, it was announced here
this week. Dr. Robert Morris is
principal investigator and Rob
ert Binstock is research associ
ate for the $120,000 study, which
will begin in January. Both are
members of the university’s
Florence Heller Granduate
School for Advanced Studies in
Social Welfare.
The study will be conducted
in a number of communities
across the country. Dr. Morris,
professor of community plan
ning, was social planning con
sultant for the Council of Jew
ish Federations and Welfare
Funds, prior to coming to Bran
deis. Mr. Binstock is a teaching-
fellow in the Department of
Government at Harvard Univer
sity, and a research associate at
Brandeis.
Sponsored by 0» Dept of Industry »nd Trade A Os. Press Assn.
GEORGIA HERITAGE—For nearly two decades after the
founding of Georgia, the colony was governed by the Trustees
in England and their officials in Georgia. In 1750, however, the
Georgians were granted the right to have a small voice in their
affairs. On January 15, 1751, Georgia's first representative
assembly met in Savannah. This historic meeting was opened
by an address from William Stephens, then going out of office
as Trustee-elected President of the colony. The assembly con
sisted of sixteen deputies chosen by local voters, with no quali
fications for office-holding required. Within a few months, how
ever, certain occupational qualifications were stipulated by the
Trustees: initially, the wouH-be deputy had to have planted
100 mulberry trees on each 60 acres of his land; later, 15 pounds
of silk had to be produced from each 60 acres and also there
must havo been at least one female in his family who knew
how to reel raw-silk. Although Georgia’s first Assembly was
not empowered to make laws or to vote on colonial matters, it
could and did register grievances and make suggestions—and
therefore serves as a land-mark in Georgia’s phase of the
growth of American democracy.
Washington Dismisses Nuclear
Potential of Israel and Egypt
WASHINGTON, July 2, (JTA)
State Department sources said
this week that Israel and Egypt
have been urged to subscribe to
the American-British-Soviet ban
on nuclear weapons testing as
part of the overall policy of the
United States, and not because
the nuclear potential of the two
countries is being taken serious-
>y
There is no current evidence
to justify either Israeli or Egyp
tian fears of nuclear attack from
the other, it was stressed. It was
emphasized that, in the official
American view, neither of the
two countries is within sight of
nuclear arms capability, al
though the United States desires
abandonment of any such ob
jectives in the Middle East.
(Egypt’s President Gamal Ab
del Nasser announced last night
in Cairo that his government
would adhere to the nuclear test
ban treaty initialed in Moscow
last week by the United States,
Britain and the Soviet Union.
At the same time, it was report
ed in London that Egypt is now
operating “at least one plant full
time producing poison gas.”)
JERUSALEM, (JTA)—Israel’s
adherence to the nuclear test
ban agreement signed in Mos
cow last week, is expected to be
decided unanimously when the
pact comes up for discussion at
next week’s Cabinet meeting, it
was reported here.
The United States and Britain
have officially invited Israel to
join in the agreement, in ac
cordance with the third article
of the pact which permits ac
cession at any time by other
countries. The invitations were
extended to Israel by the Brit
ish and U.S. ambassadors dur
ing the past few days.
Prime Minister Levi Eshkol
meanwhile welcomed the three-
power nuclear agreement as a
“positive step towards the re
laxation of international prob
lems.” Addressing a conference
here of an Israel Bond leader
ship group from Chicago, Mr.
Eshkol also expressed hope that
the resultant change of atmos
phere would bring about im
provement in the situation of
Soviet Jewry, and that “Russian
Jews will at some future date
be able to rejoin families here,
and also come to participate in
the workings of society.”
STOCKHOLM, (JTA) — The
nuclear test ban treaty initialed
in Moscow last week by the
United States, Britain and the
Israelis Go Wild
Over Richard Tucker
TEL AVIV (WUP) — Israelis,
most of whom are great music
lovers, have gone wild over Rich
ard Tucker, the Brooklyn-born
tenor who had given up one of
the top cantorial posts to make
his debut in the Metropolitan
Opera in 1945.
Hundreds of enraptured wor
shippers followed the famous
tenor up the jammed aisles of the
Great Synagogue here recently
and formed a procession behind
him through the downtown
streets of this metropolis as he
led them in the singing of “Shol-
om Aleichem,” “Adon Olam,”
and other traditional Sabbath
hymns.
The unprecedented demonstra
tion took place following a serv
ice at which Tucker had offici
ated as guest cantor.
Automotive Service
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Atlanta, Ga.
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Soviet Union is “not, in itself
enough to affect the Middle East
situation,” Abba Eban, Israel’s
vice-Prime Minister, declared
here this week. “Later develop
ments,” he said, may affect the
situation. “But,” he added, “the
lessening of world tensions will
favor our region.”
Mr. Eban made that statement
to the Jewish Telegraphic Agen
cy upon his arrival this morning
to attend a meeting of scientists
discussing the contributions of
science to the welfare of hu
manity. The Israeli vice-Premier
is president of the Weizmann
Institute of Science at Rehovot
His first official meeting here
was with Sweden’s Prime Min
ister Tage Erlander, with whom
he exchanged impressions re
garding the general interna
tional situation. It was Mr. Er-
lander’s first conference with a
member of the recently-formed
Israeli Government.
Moscow Publishes
New Monograph on
Sholem Aleichem
LONDON, (JTA) — The late
Sholem Aleichem was praised
"not only as a great Jewish clas
sic but a great figure in world
literature,” in a new monograph
on Sholom Aleichem issued by
the State Publishing House in
Moscow today. The book, by
Hersch Remenik, a Soviet Jewish
literary critic, was published in
Russian in a de luxe edition, lav
ishly illustrated, according to a
Moscow dispatch received here.
Treating Sholem Aleichem in
the traditional Communist ap
praisal as a “proletarian” writer,
Mr. Remenik, in his introduction
to the volume, declared that “al
though much has been written
about Sholem Aleichem, there is
still room for a new appraisal.”
The great Yiddish author was
called by Mr. Remenik “both a
writer and a social critic.”
In connection with the publica
tion of the monograph. It was
noted here that, since the Soviet
regime came to power in 1918.
502 editions of Sholem Aleich-
em’s works have been published
in the USSR, in 20 languages, in
cluding Yiddish. However, it was
pointed out that the Yiddish-
language editions were the smal
lest in number of copies issued.
Altogether, a total of 225,000 cop
ies of the Sholem Aleichem in all
of the 20 languages have been
distributed to date.
Poland Short
Yiddish Teachers
LONDON, (JTA) — Jewish
youth clubs throughout Poland,
which are major sources of in
struction in Yiddish language
literature and Jewish history, are
currently suffering from an acute
shortage of instructors with suf
ficient Jewish knowledge, it was
reported here today from War
saw.
The problem is especially diffi
cult with regard to Yiddish lan
guage instruction, since the other
subjects can usually be taught in
Polish.
Southwest Georgia’s
Abe Kruger Honored
FITZGERALD — Abe Kruger
who is serving as Mayor Pro-
tern of the City of Fitzgerald has
been appointed a member of the
Georgia State Heart Association
Board . This carries with it a
membership in the American
Heart Association.
23RD DYNAMIC WEEK
BOBBY LONERO
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