The Listening Hand
Chapter One
How I Gave Up One Kind of Music for Another
Music saved me.
My mother, Bluma, had a beautiful voice and loved to sing. My father, Leopold, studied as a classical pianist — with the same teacher as Vladimir Horowitz. But he gave it up during the Russian Revolution when he fled Russia for Germany before going on to Palestine.
My mother’s large Orthodox Jewish family also fled Russia, and landed penniless in Paris. My grandmother held them together. She was a baker, and the children sold what she baked. The family’s dream was to live in America, but they were stuck in Europe. Eventually, they were allowed to emigrate to Palestine, which is where my parents met. My mother was slight, with bright blue eyes and long blond hair; she must have been a knockout. My father was brilliant, dynamic and told great jokes. I’m not surprised she was attracted to him. Every second person contracted typhoid in those days, and Father was one of them — while my mother was pregnant with me. He spent many months in the hospital, and ... read full excerpt from The Listening Hand ebook
