Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Yehudi Menuhin's son - antisemitic, neo-Nazi......

This astonishing account in the London 'Times' relates that the son of the late, world-famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin has been force to resign from a foundation set up by his late father.

Gerard Menuhin, 57, caused uproar by suggesting that Germany was being blackmailed by an international Jewish conspiracy preying on the country’s war guilt.

The rest of the story is simply bizarre, and shows that the aforesaid Gerard has a long history of very strange and obnoxious views.

Mr Menuhin, who describes himself as a film producer and writer, is something of a maverick within the family. “He was the least musically gifted,” a family friend said, “and he suffered from that emotionally.”

Yehudi Menuhin (later Lord Menuhin) was quite a mild and reasonable character. He was a great peace-nik in his opinions on the Middle East, but (despite claims by anti-Zionists) he was not anti-Zionist, and accepted the prestigious Israeli Wolf Prize in 1991. He believed passionately in the power of music to heal and make peace, and straight after the War toured Germany giving concerts in the camps for refugee and survivor Jews. As a teenager in the 1960's I met him and interviewed him, and asked him about his Jewishness. He referred to his Hasidic background and to Israel, which he first visited in 1950.

However, the same cannot be said for Moshe Menuhin, his father and Gerard's zaidey. (Yehudi Menuhin disassociated himself from his father). Moshe Menuhin was a Russian-Jewish Hebrew teacher who emigrated from the Yishuv to San Francisco before WW1. He became obsessive and controlling over his infant prodigy son, and the two ceased to have contact with each other. Moshe's claim to fame was that he was the father of Yehudi. He became a fanatic anti-Zionist, published a disgusting book, and became a darling of the American Council for Judaism and their fellow-travellers. Seems as though the genes skipped a generation. BTW - Gerard is also a direct descendant of the Ba'al haTanya.

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