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