Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Sergeant Mordechai Shenwald (34 years old) was one of the performers at a concert held at the Jerusalem Theater on July 7, 2024, where he performed the “Theme from Schindler’s List” on a restored violin belonging to a young boy murdered in the Holocaust, accompanied by the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.
The moving performance took place at Yad Vashem, Israel’s World Holocaust Remembrance Center, which recently held a two-day inauguration celebration for its Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus and the David and Fella Chappelle Family Collection Center.
Yad Vashem President Dani Dayan, who attended the event, told Fox News Digital that “music has the power to transcend suffering, giving people hope and dignity even in their darkest times.”
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“We strive to preserve the stories and memories of the Holocaust victims and survivors so that future generations can understand the profound impact of the Holocaust,” he added.
The center houses the world’s largest collection of Holocaust documents, artwork and photographs.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Sergeant Mordechai Shenvald, 34, plays the violin. (Yad Vashem)
Also attending the center’s opening ceremony were Israeli President Isaac Herzog and his wife Michal Herzog, as well as Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council and a Holocaust survivor.
Sergeant Schenwald told Fox News Digital he was called to war at 8:07 a.m. on Oct. 7, 2023. According to multiple sources, it was just after members of Hamas killed approximately 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 in a terrorist attack in southern Israel.
Shenwald said he was part of Unit 401, the lead unit that first entered Gaza, and fought there for several weeks after defending a kibbutz that came under heavy attack.
When he regained consciousness, Schoenwald recalled telling himself, “Thank God I’m alive.”
He described what happened when he was repairing the tank’s engine on November 2, 2023. A bullet struck the tank, causing an explosion, and the impact propelled Schenwald about five meters into the air, he said.
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“I feel like Superman,” he said.
The explosion left him with a concussion, and when he regained consciousness he remembered saying to himself, “Thank God I’m alive.”
Fellow soldiers took him to the nearest Israeli hospital, Barzilai Medical Center, 12 miles from Gaza.
Eight surgeries and counting
Schoenwald said doctors told him it was a miracle he survived, and that he suffered 11 broken ribs, a ruptured lung (pneumothorax), a broken right hip and injuries to his back.
He has since undergone around eight surgeries and is expected to take another year or more to fully recover.
Seated Sergeant Schenwald comes from a musical family and began playing the violin at age 6. “Music lifts people up,” he says. (Sergeant Mordecai Shenwald)
Schoenwald said he is a person of faith, saying, “I believe God has a plan… I pray every day. I’m training my brain, training my mind, changing my behavior and trying to understand how to do my best.” [of] How can we make this situation — the world — better?”
He comes from a musical family – his mother is a pianist and his father a violinist – and the whole family plays together on holidays and the Sabbath.
Mr. Schoenwald said he had a special friendship with his “funny uncle” Meir, a violinist and soldier who he said was killed in 1995 while stationed in Gaza, just minutes from where Mr. Schoenwald was wounded in November 2023.
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Schoenwald shared how she began playing the violin at age 6 after hearing her favorite song at her uncle’s memorial service a year after his death.
When he was 26, his grandfather gave him his uncle’s violin, which he still plays to this day.
He said playing the violin helps him heal emotionally, even though this type of exercise hurts him.
“I believe God has a plan…I pray every day.”
“It physically hurts, but the music takes me to another place,” he said.
“They gave me ketamine and a lot of heavy drugs, but it didn’t help me fall in love with music. When I was playing, I forgot about the pain, I forgot about everything,” he said. Music “gives me a high,” he said.
A video posted online shows Schoenwald in a hospital gown playing the violin as an emotional crowd gathers and sings along. Since his injury, Schoenwald said he wanted to find a creative way to practice his breathing, and has also started playing the saxophone.
Schoenwald said he has performed in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, New Jersey and Miami since the end of February. The July 7 performance will be his third at Yad Vashem, including one where he said he would be honored to perform before Israeli President Herzog on April 17, 2024.
April 17, 2024, Sergeant Shenwald, second from the right, with Israeli President Herzog, his wife Michal Herzog, and Dani Dayan, far right. (Yad Vashem)
Shimmy Alen, Yad Vashem’s international media director, told Fox News Digital that Yad Vashem contacted Mordechai Shenwald about a special violin they wanted him to play on July 7. The violin had belonged to Mordechai “Motareh” Schrein, a young partisan who fought against the Nazis.
They share the same name and are both talented violinists.
Allen added, “Both men were true heroes who fought to protect Jewish people from danger.”
“Live Forever”
On the night of the performance, Allen said Mordechai Shenvald would record the life of Mordechai “Motareh” Schlein on Yad Vashem’s testimony page, “so that his name and memory will live on forever.”
Mr. Schoenwald said he was surprised to see the date 1895 stamped on Mr. Schlein’s violin while practicing for the show.
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“It’s very special to have something from the Holocaust or something from so many years ago,” he said. “All the violins are [has] The soul… you actually feel the person.”
He said Shriner’s violin tone is “very warm, beautiful, powerful and youthful.”
“It’s very special to have something from the Holocaust or from so many years ago,” Schoenwald said of the Motareh Shrine violins shown here. “Each violin is [has] The soul… you actually feel the person.” (Yad Vashem)
A video produced by Yad Vashem shows how Schlein was born to poor peasant parents in Krasnowka, Poland, and was adopted by a wealthy Jewish family who gave him a violin and taught him how to play.
In 1941, when Schlein was 11 years old, German troops invaded and he witnessed the Nazis murder his family from his hiding place in the attic.
Schlein witnessed the Nazis murder his family from his hiding place in the attic.
According to the Times of Israel, Schlein fled into the forest with his violin and joined a group of Jewish partisans.
Sefi Hanegbi told Fox News Digital that his grandfather, Moshe Gildenman (known as “Uncle Misha”), and his father, Simcha, were part of the partisan unit that Schlein joined, which included both Jewish and Christian fighters.
Hanegbi said his father, Simcha, was close friends with Shlain and they fought together, worked as spies and played music together.
Since the end of February, Sergeant Schenwald has performed in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, New Jersey and Miami. The July 7, 2024 performance will be his third performance at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. (Yad Vashem)
Hanegbi described Shriner as a “very talented kid. He was a really good player.”
I didn’t know he was Jewish.
According to aish.com, Schlein began playing folk songs on his violin outside churches in Ukraine at the age of 13. He drew large audiences, including a Nazi officer, who asked him to perform at a restaurant for his fellow soldiers.
They didn’t know he was Jewish.
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The restaurant offered him a job, and he saw it as an opportunity to spy on the Nazis.
While over 200 senior Nazi officers were dining in the restaurant, Schlein went down to the basement and lit the bomb’s core.
Schrein noticed a deep crack in the restaurant’s basement and hatched a plan with the unit’s commander, Hanegbi’s grandfather “Uncle Misha,” to fill the crack using dynamite hidden in a violin case.
According to aish.com, Shlain made six such “death-threatening journeys” and smuggled nearly 40 pounds of explosives.
On the left, Sergeant Schenwald plays the violin in his hospital room. (Sergeant Mordecai Shenwald)
One night, while more than 200 senior Nazi officers were dining in a restaurant, Schlein went down to the basement and lit the bomb’s core.
Henegbi said his grandfather showed Schlein how to detonate TNT and was waiting for him outside the restaurant when it exploded.
“My father waved, he came on his horse and they left. Nothing happened to my father or Motare,” Henegbi told Fox News Digital.
According to multiple sources, Schlein was just 14 when he was killed in a Nazi ambush in 1944.
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Henegbi said it was a “heroic death” because Schrein lost his life trying to protect a partisan group from Nazi forces.
According to Yad Vashem, Henegbi’s father treasured Shriner’s violin because it made him feel close to his friend.
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In early 2000, Henegbi donated the precious violin to the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum.
The condition of the donation was that the instrument “must continue to be performed around the world in order to keep the spirit of Motale alive.”
