Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T20:31:32.021Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

All in the Family: Brandeis University and Leonard Bernstein's “Jewish Boston”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Abstract

This article examines Leonard Bernstein's affiliation with Brandeis University, where he served as a faculty member from 1951 to 1956, a Fellow from 1956 to 1976, a Trustee from 1976 to 1980, and a Trustee Emeritus from 1980 until his death in 1990. In particular, the article explores why Bernstein chose to spend his time in Waltham. By the early 1950s he had already achieved celebrity and was busy with multiple conducting and composition projects; why did he commit to teaching at Brandeis and supporting the school until the end of his life? Bernstein's commitment to Brandeis appears to have been a manifestation of his ongoing connection and sense of duty to the Boston Jewish community of his childhood and, more specifically, to his father. This article summarizes Bernstein's activities at Brandeis, gives a brief history of the university, and discusses the ways in which Brandeis can be understood as an expression of Bernstein's ties to Boston's Jewish life, as well as to the Jewish immigrant experience of his parents and their generation.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Music 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Business Consultants. Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television. New York: Counterattack, 1950.Google Scholar
Argyropoulos, Erica. “Bernstein at Brandeis: A Study of Leonard Bernstein's Collaboration with Brandeis University, 1951–1955.” Master's thesis, University of Kentucky, 2005.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Burton. Family Matters: Sam, Jennie, and the Kids. New York: Summit Books, 1982.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Burton, Thomas, Jamie Bernstein, and Simmons, Nina Bernstein. Interview with Katherine Lee, Drew Massey, and Carol J. Oja, as part of “Bernstein's Boston” seminar, Harvard University. Video recording. 7 March 2006. Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
Burton, Humphrey. Leonard Bernstein. New York: Doubleday, 1994.Google Scholar
Campbell, Corinna. “Legacies in Conflict: The Opposing Aspirations of Samuel and Leonard Bernstein.” Paper presented at “Leonard Bernstein: Boston to Broadway Symposia,” Cambridge, Mass., 14 October 2006.Google Scholar
Cohen, Judith. Interview by Sheryl Kaskowitz. Tape recording. 14 April 2006. Norwood, Mass.Google Scholar
Congregation Mishkan Tefila. “Our History.” <http://mishkantefila.org/aboutus.html>..>Google Scholar
Congregation Mishkan Tefila archives, Chestnut Hill, Mass.Google Scholar
DeLapp, Jennifer. “Copland in the Fifties: Music and Ideology in the McCarthy Era.” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1997.Google Scholar
Festival of the Creative Arts Collection, Robert D. Farber Archives and Special Collections Department, Brandeis University.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Israel. Brandeis University: Chapter of Its Founding. New York: Bloch Publishing, 1951.Google Scholar
Gottlieb, Jack. “Symbols of Faith in the Music of Leonard Bernstein.” Musical Quarterly 66/2 (April 1980): 287–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karabel, Jerome. The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.Google Scholar
Kaufman, David. Shul with a Pool: The “Synagogue-Center” in American Jewish History. Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Leonard Bernstein Collection, Library of Congress American Memory Project. <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/lbhtml/lbhome.html>..>Google Scholar
“Leonard Bernstein Gives Brandeis Microfilm Records.” Brandeis University Bulletin(May 1967): 18.Google Scholar
Novick, Peter. The Holocaust in American Life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.Google Scholar
Office of Communications Collection. Robert D. Farber Archives and Special Collections Department, Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass.Google Scholar
Oja, Carol J. Bernstein and Broadway. In preparation.Google Scholar
Pearlmutter, Alan J. “Leonard Bernstein's Dybbuk: An Analysis Including Historical, Religious and Literary Perspectives of Hasidic Life and Lore.” D.M.A. diss., Peabody Conservatory of Music, 1985.Google Scholar
Pollack, Howard. Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man. New York: Henry Holt, 1999.Google Scholar
Raider, Mark A. “Pioneers and Pacesetters: Boston Jews and American Zionism.” In The Jews of Boston, ed. Sarna, Jonathan D., Smith, Ellen, and Kosofsky, Scott-Martin, 249–81. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Ramey, Phillip. Irving Fine: An American Composer in His Time. Hillsdale, N.Y.: Pendragon Press/Library of Congress, 2005.Google Scholar
Rosovsky, Nitza. The Jewish Experience at Harvard and Radcliffe. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Sachar, Abram L. Brandeis University: A Host at Last. Rev. ed. Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sachar, Abram L., Papers, Robert D. Farber Archives and Special Collections Department, Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass.Google Scholar
Sarna, Jonathan D. “The Jews of Boston in Historical Perspective.” In The Jews of Boston, ed. Sarna, Jonathan D., Smith, Ellen, and Kosofsky, Scott-Martin, 318. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Sarna, Jonathan D.. American Judaism: A History. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Schiller, David M. Bloch, Schoenberg, and Bernstein: Assimilating Jewish Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“The Music of Congregation Mishkan Tefila: A History Based on Documents in the Archives of the Congregation and on the Memories of Cantor Gregor Shelkan, Music Director Carrol Hassman, and Members of the Mishkan Tefila Choir, Past and Present.” In Congregation Mishkan Tefila 1858–1983. Newton, Mass.: Congregation Mishkan Tefila, 1983.Google Scholar