"The Violin That Survived Auschwitz Played on Its Own": A Fascinating Interview with the Violinist Mirel Reznik

One of the most famous Jewish violinists in the world, Mirel Reznik (63), a world-renowned virtuoso, returned to faith eight years ago and has since devoted himself to studying the Talmud, learning Halacha, and praying. "Always strive to do more and persevere," he says this week. Reznik is a Jew with a big heart. He speaks with no airs and with much humor. To illustrate, millions of people worldwide recognize the violinist who performs with a kippah on his head, ranked among the top ten violinists globally. The honor and success were not enough for Reznik. He felt there was something beyond, a spiritual calling he had to touch upon, otherwise, as he puts it - what is the purpose of life?

About two months ago, the renowned pianist Miriam Reznik-Wolf, his only sister, passed away. Reznik, a Jew with a gigantic heart, mourned his sister's passing, the one whose encouragement got him to begin playing the violin as children in the city of Arad in Romania. "Her passing is not a cruel decree or punishment – it's Hashem's will, and Hashem does only good." In the coming days, seven years after releasing his previous album, Reznik is issuing a new music album that is somewhat different. It includes covers of Israeli classics like 'Jerusalem of Gold' and 'The Policeman Azoulay', alongside international classics.

Today (Sunday) is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This day, marked on January 27th, is the date when the Auschwitz extermination camp was liberated by the Red Army. For Reznik, this is a symbolic day, as he plays a violin once belonging to a Jewish prisoner in the infamous death camp. "In Auschwitz, there was an orchestra where Jews played," Reznik recounts, "The musicians, relatively, had better lives compared to other Jews who were forced into hard labor. That Jewish violinist, whose violin I have on loan, played the entire day for the birthday of one of the officers. In that situation, the Nazis got drunk, including the commander. Nearing midnight, the commander ordered his deputy to shoot the Jew. He refused, so the station chief pulled out a gun and shot him himself. He died on the spot, and his violin shattered into pieces.

"For some unknown reason, one of the soldiers gathered the violin fragments and placed them in a newspaper. Another Jew in the camp, who knew the violinist, paid money for the violin fragments. In time, the violin was smuggled to Jerusalem, assembled, and restored. Somehow it ended up in my hands. When I received it - I trembled. I felt the soul of the Jewish violinist in the violin. Every night I slept with it and cried. Previously, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I was invited to perform, and the violin seemed to play on its own. The violin is with me until the third Beit Hamikdash is built, until the resurrection of the dead."

From Childhood in Romania to the Meeting with the Lubavitcher Rebbe

Reznik, a resident of Ramat Gan and father of three sons (36, 33, 12), was born in the city of Arad in the Transylvania region of Romania and began his violin studies at the age of 5. In 1975, he graduated with honors from the Cluj Academy of Music, participated in many competitions, and won awards, including first prize in the national George Enescu competition for young musicians in Bucharest. In 1976, he immigrated to Israel with his sister, the late pianist Miriam Reznik-Wolf, and since then has been involved in composition and arrangements and playing various musical styles: Gypsy, Mediterranean, Latin, Balkan, pop, country, jazz, and big band music. Over the years, Reznik became a prominent instrumental representative of Jewish music and Klezmer tunes around the world. As mentioned, Reznik was ranked among the top ten violinists in the world by Columbia Records (the oldest brand in the field of sound recordings, dating back to 1888 in the United States).

(Photo: Ari Shor)

Reznik's father was a heart surgeon by profession and aspired for his son to heal broken hearts with a scalpel. The son also aspired to heal hearts but in a somewhat different manner. When he was 20, he was orphaned from his parents and immigrated to Israel with his late sister. "In a sense, all my life, I was like a lone wolf," he recalls, "In Romania, we were a very wealthy bourgeois family. When we immigrated to Israel, the contents of the house were left to the communists. To illustrate, today this property is worth half a billion euros, while Miriam and I immigrated with only two suitcases. When we wanted to take belongings and property with us, we were told that according to Romanian law, 'Jews,' as they called us, could not emigrate with property. We were afraid to say a word. Anything could have endangered us and gone against us."

Reznik is a Russian-Jewish surname meaning "butcher." Indeed, Reznik comes from a family with roots on his father's side in the kosher food industry and ritual slaughter. "My father's entire Haredi family perished in the Holocaust. My late mother maintained tradition but more out of obligation; that's a huge difference in outlooks. Thus they couldn't reach a mutual understanding. As a child, I actually was a believer, following my father, but since I was close to my mother, I leaned towards her perspective. My mom didn't want me to invest in studying at the Talmud Torah, she didn't want me to dig too deep, but to study just enough to say I learned. I insisted on learning, imploring her: 'Mom, let me learn so I won't be ignorant.'"

When did your love affair with the violin begin?

"When I was 5 years old, I started playing by mistake. My father was very angry about this mistake. My mother wanted me to be a musician, while my father wondered: 'What is there to be a violinist?' He wanted me to study medicine and thought that a son must follow his father's profession. Honestly, he didn't just think, he acted on it. At age 12, once a week, my father would take me to the hospital to start exposing me to pathology. When I entered the mortuary, I was terrified and afraid I would start vomiting due to stress. My father wasn't fazed by my reactions. He sewed me a white coat and reassured me that everything would be fine. Back then, deceased weren't stored in refrigerated rooms. They were laid out on tables, with a huge ice block placed to cool their bodies. It was horrific. After practicing in pathology, my father took me to the ward to visit heart patients. He gave me no freedom, he was all over me. He was serious, but after a whole year of close exposure to the medical world, I couldn't take it anymore. I was merely a 12-year-old, pre-bar mitzvah, and seeing dead bodies didn't exactly put joy in my heart.

My sister Miriam, of blessed memory, was a year older than me. When she was 6, she studied music at the conservatory while I waited outside. I was actually bored by this. One day, a Gypsy music teacher with a mustache down to his knees passed by and suggested I learn to play. My mother agreed, and I was forced to take lessons, although I wanted to play soccer and basketball. When I entered the lesson, he gave me a big violin, and I was trembling with excitement. He said to me: 'By the way you hold the bow and violin, you'll be a great violinist.' At 9, I began to love playing very much, practicing 4-5 hours a day. My mother told me that if I didn't want to continue, I didn't have to; she said, 'If you play, it's for yourself.' This time, it was for me. I invested countless hours practicing and became very attached to the violin."

The biblical violin (apparently not a stringed instrument) is the first musical instrument mentioned in the Bible, where it is stated that it was one of the first tools invented: "And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all that handle the harp and organ". (Genesis 4:21). This instrument is often associated with Nevel in the Book of Psalms and linked to King David, both in stories about him and in relation to the renewal of the Temple in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, when the instrument was called "King David's harp." To this day, the violin is considered an instrument associated with Jews and Gypsies.

In communist Romania, you couldn't freely express your Jewish identity. How did you manage?

"Back then, there were wiretaps in almost every house. People didn't realize it, but their homes were wired with microphones and listening devices, so everything said was recorded and reported to the authorities. I discovered this fact by chance only when I turned 18. Until then, we spoke freely at home; who suspected the conversations were being taped? One evening, on the third night of Chanukah, when I was 13, my father decided I should play classical music on the violin for the Jewish community. Even though I didn't know how to play the songs my father requested, he believed I'd manage—and so it was. I don't know how it happened, but I didn't play falsely on stage. Everyone applauded me, my father was pleased.

"When the evening ended, we stepped outside into the cold and snow, starting towards home as I held my Italian violin. We had a relatively long walk before exiting the synagogue complex. Suddenly, a jeep appeared before us, and four stout men emerged from it, wearing leather coats and hats. They stopped us, preventing us from continuing. The first thing that crossed my mind was that I must save my violin. I didn't know what they wanted, and somehow I managed to escape back to the synagogue to entrust my violin to a 72-year-old Jewish man there. This move cost me dearly. When they caught me, I received a heavy beating. Thankfully, due to the cold, I didn't feel the full impact. I was covered in blood, but that didn't stop them from throwing me into solitary confinement, where I was detained for about three months. We received beatings left and right. To this day, doctors don't understand how I'm alive; I had 84 fractures and 14 serious bruises. While we were detained, my mother didn't know why we hadn't returned home. When I got out of jail, it was nearing spring. The policemen ordered me to tell my mother we had gone to buy cigarettes at the corner store, and there was a long line, hence the delay. When I asked them: 'Why did you arrest me?' They claimed we were making anti-communist propaganda. That's how they interpreted the Chanukah songs - as anti-communist propaganda. To this day, I have a trauma."

How was your meeting with the Lubavitcher Rebbe?

"The meeting with him was before I returned to observing the faith. Like many other Jews visiting New York, I also went to ask for a dollar. I stood in line, and after six hours, I reached the Rebbe. When we met, he gave a dollar to each member of my family, asking me to wait for him in his office. When I entered his room, the energies were such that I almost suffocated. Not everyone could handle this experience. He was a very spiritual person. He arrived after 45 minutes, and what happened there was both moving and shocking. My knees buckled before the Rebbe. I understood we had a spiritual connection. It was like Pandora's Box opening. It was ethereal. I felt enveloped in infinite love. I couldn't leave. I was like a drunk; they brought me water and food. Later we stayed in touch. I saw him one more time before he passed away."

Following the meeting, Reznik began observing Shabbat and keeping kosher, but he still hadn't made a significant change in his life. "I wasn't studying Torah at this stage, nor was I regular in my prayers." Over time, in 2009, he fully returned to his religious roots. "17 and a half million people worldwide recognize me, and among millions of violinists, I was announced as one of the top ten violinists globally. It's insane. I felt my ego could reach the skies, and that's not a good place to be. I decided to work on myself, to nullify my ego. I started to return to faith, to take action. I understood the insignificance of man, and the fact that compared to the world, a person is like a grain of sand, no more. I realized I had to put my ego aside. I didn't want a life of excess; I wanted meaning and truth."

About two months ago, his only and elder sister Miriam passed away from a severe illness: "We had a very warm connection. I was in great pain, but I understand it's Hashem's will; it's not a punishment. Hashem does only good. The bad only comes when a man thinks of something in his mind that he shouldn't think of. Bad is an acronym for 'Self-Permission.' If a person allows himself to speak evil gossip or spread slander – that's bad, meaning self-permission. Bad isn't the opposite of good; bad means I permitted myself to deviate. One must know that everything has an "expiration." There's a reckoning, and eventually, you have to pay up."