What's Missing from 'Maestro'?

On July 9, 1967, Leonard Bernstein conducted a mountainside concert in a Roman amphitheater in Jerusalem that became a celebrated historic event. The Prime Minister and President of Israel both attended, as did the young nation’s founding Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, the “Grand Old Man” of Zionism. The visiting American Maestro led the Israel Philharmonic plus a huge chorus that featured the finest voices available for the grand celebration.

They performed Gustav Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony to honor the rebirth of the Jewish state and the new life of the Jewish people. Less than a month earlier, Israel had miraculously escaped a near-death experience, faced with annihilation by invading armies from three major Arab States. Not only did the defenders turn aside the threat, but in six days took control of the West Bank of the Jordan River, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and, most importantly the eastern portion of Jerusalem, previously occupied by the Jordanian Army. Teddy Kollek, the ebullient Mayor of Jerusalem, hailed the Bernstein concert as “the cultural opening of the united and liberated city of Jerusalem.”

Hatikvah on Mt. Scopus: Concerts recorded July 1967 in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, featuring Leonard Bernstein, Isaac Stern, and the Israel Philharmonic, Columbia Records