There has been a discussion about Hungarian conductors recently, which made
me think of another question: Why are nearly all the greatest violinists,
in the past 150 years or so, of Jewish origin? I can hardly think of a
great master violinist that was not a Jew: David, Ernst, Joachim, Flesch,
Auer, Wieniawski, Kreisler, Elman, Heifetz, Oistrakh, Szeryng, Menuhin,
Stern, Kogan, Shaham, Perlman, . . .  all are of Jewish descent.  WHY? Is
violin playing closely related with the Jewish culture? Also, are there
many great Jewish pianists (or other instrumentalists) and conductors?

Gilbert Chang