Beatrice Weinreich Obituary

WEINREICH--Beatrice (Bina). The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research mourns the passing of our dear friend and colleague, Bina Weinreich, widow of Uriel. An author and ethnographer, Bina was affiliated with YIVO for over 50 years, first as assistant to Max Weinreich, then as a researcher, teacher and editor. Her publications include "Yiddish Folktales" (1998), a classic collection of Eastern European Jewish folklore. She will be sorely missed. We send our deepest sympathy to her children, Stephanie and Don. May her memory be a blessing. Bruce Slovin, Chair Carl J. Rheins, Exec. Director

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Published by New York Times on Mar. 30, 2008.

Memories and Condolences
for Beatrice Weinreich

5 Entries

Sara Lambert Bloom

March 23, 2025

Has it really been 17 years since Bea's passing? I still draw on all that I shared with her and learned from her. I'd love to be processing today's upsetting happenings but I'll do my best to continue to explore "what would Bea think?"

Sara Bloom

March 28, 2020

Reading what I wrote about Bea 12 years ago brings back such great memories and undiminished love for all that she was. I think of her often as I continue my life's journey and I continue to carry with me her great sense of what is important and what is chaff to be shrugged off, an important gift from an important friend.

May 10, 2008

Barry Hecht

March 30, 2008

Her life, work, and loving nature is even more priceless for the respect that she extended to all, in every aspect of her listening and doings.

Sara Lambert Bloom

March 30, 2008

There is no way to say in a few words what my friendship and musical collaboration with Beatrice Silverman Weinreich means to me. She will be recognized by all for her intelligence, kindness, humor, beauty, dignity, and great loving heart and will be terribly missed. Someday when I get to quit my day job and write more books, Bea will be one of the women I attempt to describe for my daughter's generation and for their daughters and granddaughters, to inspire them to live life with as much passion and integrity as she did as a wife, mother, grandmother, scholar, author, teacher, musician, and friend. I feel privileged to know a woman of such depth and consequence, and I keep that verb in the present tense because I intend to carry that knowledge long beyond March 27, 2008.

Bea cherished our musical collaboration but hopefully she knew that it meant as much to me as it did to her. While music from the Baroque and Classical periods was our favorite repertoire, it was great fun planning the commission of a new work for the two of us plus the Amernet String Quartet based on Ashley Bryan's poetry, with Ashley narrating. Throughout my career, when commissioning composers I was deliberately nonspecific about what I expected or hoped for except perhaps to suggest instrumentation; I generally only accepted new works written for me or only approached composers whose music I knew and loved, trusting that the composer knew my artistic and technical strengths and would write to them. Or that I would knock myself out stretching to perform the new work if the writing went beyond! But breaking my own protocol for this commission, I did make a specific request to the composer, a young woman just graduating from a prestigious school who was unknown to me but who came highly recommended. I explained Bea's love of and artistry in playing both folk music and instrumental arias from the 18th century. I was looking for the composer to create a late 20th-century Bryan-inspired aria for Bea that would be running through her head (and his and mine) day and night for years to come. With little time to react before the scheduled premiere on my annual faculty recital at the Cincinnati Conservatory, we received a score of the new work featuring writing for the mandolin that was the antithesis of our dream! And what did Bea do? Charged right into it, learning it's intricate rhythms and non-melodic complexities through total immersion and hard work. While my efforts did not result in that quintessential mandolin aria I was seeking to spark as a gift to Bea, a gesture of my esteem for her, still we were thrilled with the opportunity to collaborate once again with each other and with Ashley, whom we both admired. And still we had a lovely time during Bea's visit to Cincinnati to premiere it at the Conservatory and then again in a repeat performance at the College of the Atlantic concert in Bar Harbor the next season, masking our disappointment and laughing together as we did so many times over so many of life's inexplicable curve balls.

I loved Bea's gentle nature but also loved how irate she could get over things that were not right, that hurt people or communities or programs or institutions or diminished something important to our humanity. I loved that she connected me to my husband's cultural heritage and loved that she was tuned in, without much discussion, to the challenges of working in the same field as a husband who was a giant in the field. During his 24 years on Cranberry Island, Bea was a special friend to Bob as well and I remember many good times discussing music or recipes or family or politics or just watching the sunset together. I will always be grateful that she came with me to the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center in 1998 to hear the first public release of the first performance of the NBC Symphony with Arturo Toscanini conducting. Without so much as exchanging a glance, we both sensed that we were in the presence of greatness as we tried to absorb the extraordinary performance of Brahms's First Symphony broadcast across America on that Christmas Eve in 1937, reverently sharing the experience with the private gathering of surviving family members and friends of Robert Bloom and the other musicians of that elite orchestra.

For Bob's memorial just four years earlier in the Cranberry Island church, Bea "sang" on her mandolin a traditional Yiddish folk piece of her choosing, The Sun Will Set, giving us her balm and wisdom. There is a Hebrew saying, "The gates of heaven open but to the sound of music." Swing wide and welcome a wonderful musician and friend.

And to her dear family, Julia and I and all the Blooms send our love and sympathy.

Much love, Sara Lambert Bloom

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