Tag #127921 - Interview #89861 (Dan Mizrahy)

The ‘Haim and Sara Ianculovici’ Foundation in Haifa awarded me the diploma and title of ‘Laureate emeritus’ for the year 2000 and invited me to come to the bestowment ceremony in April. I found out along the way that this foundation had been created a few years earlier by a couple of Romanian-born Jews who had settled in Israel in 1950. In the last decade of the 20th century they became a sort of Maecenas [patron of arts], supporting young Israeli artists and awarding personalities of science and art from Israel and Romania. I learnt that among the 1999 laureates was Academy member Nicolae Cajal [17]. In 2000 they also awarded literary critic Zigu Ornea [Ornea, Zigu (1930-2001): Romanian literary historian, editor, editor-in-chief, then manager of the Minerva and Hasefer publishing houses] and philosopher Henry Wald [Wald, Henry (1920-2002): Romanian philosopher of Jewish origin; he wrote studies on epistemology, logics, and semantics.]. The concerts I held on 28th and 29th June 2000 in Jerusalem had, of course, a special meaning for me. 59 years after I had first set foot in the ‘Holy City,’ I returned as a soloist of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, having my friend, Sergiu Comissiona, at the conductor’s rostrum. Another important factor, emotion-related, was my family. Six of my first-degree cousins were still alive at that time, scattered throughout the Israeli cities. They all came, together with more distant relatives who lived in Jerusalem or in other places. Dina – my niece – took a lot of photographs in the concert hall and in my booth, capturing the moments of that evening.