Photo Credit: Mendy Hechtman / Flash90

Our photojournalism agency, Flash 90, published this image today, with the following cryptic explanation:

An Ultra orthodox Jewish youth plays the violin at the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City, on July 30, 2013.




When I see this image, I think Jascha Heifetz. Not because he was born into an ultra-Orthodox Jewish family—he was not—but because he was so very Jewish all his life.

Here’s a recording of Jascha Heifetz, at age 11, playing Mozart’s Gavotte in G from “Idomeneo,” transcribed for violin by his great teacher Leopold Auer. The piece was Recorded on a wax cylinder for Julius Block, on November 4th, 1912, at the Block’s estate in Grunewald, Germany. According to the person who posted the clip, this is not the first recording made by little Jascha Heifetz, he started recording in 1910.