Contemporary witnesses

Ilana Shmueli, criminologist and social work educator, author and translator, was 21 years old when she came to Kestenberg in 1945. At the time, she was taking lessons from a violinist in the Palestine Orchestra and was searching for career prospects. Their first meeting took place at Kestenberg's apartment, where he was giving a lecture series, as he had done during his time in Prague, with the appealing title, "You and I, we want to learn to hear music".

Kestenberg had just stepped down from his post as general manager of the Palastine Orchestra and was working on the founding of a music teachers' seminar, called the "Midrasha leMenchanchim leMusika". In so doing, he once again created a place where he could transmit his concepts of music pedagogy and put them into practice.

Ilana Shmueli was one of the Seminar's first students, and soon afterward found employment there as his secretary.

Beyond this, she took private piano lessons with Kestenberg. While he usually taught only highly gifted master pupils, Kestenberg had offered her this opportunity even though she had no pianistic ambitions. Ilana, whose interests at the time were pronouncedly intellectual, today in hindsight supposes that, by encouraging her to actively practice music on the piano, Kestenberg wanted her to share more intensively in the creative processes of musical works.

When Kestenberg was nearing the age of seventy, he began to train Dr. Herzl Shmueli, Ilana's husband, as his successor. In 1952 the transition was made, and Kestenberg withdrew from active participation in the Midrasha. Ilana Shmueli then pursued other paths. She studied criminology and social education, became a probation officer and worked with young homeless girls from European refugee and displaced persons camps. Today she works as an author and translator of literary works, including the poems of Paul Celan.