Saving Monticello: The Newsletter
The latest about the book, author
events, and more
Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson
Volume XIV, Number 9 September
1, 2017
CHARLOTTESVILLE:
Back in the spring my wife
Janna and I planned a trip to Charlottesville, one of my favorite places on
earth, to see Lyle Lovett. He was playing (with his Large Band) on Wednesday evening,
August 16, at the Pavilion on the downtown mall.
We’d done it before
and always had great times, eating dinner downtown beforehand, seeing the
concert, spending the night, and then driving home to Northern Virginia in the
morning. After we learned of the horrific events of Saturday, August 12, we
didn’t know what to expect when we arrived.
To our surprise (and delight) when we drove into town at
around 3:00 on Wednesday afternoon things seemed calm and normal. Still, the
concert was just two short blocks from where the unspeakable happened, and it
was sobering to walk the downtown mall fourdays afterward.
The good news is that the concert was great, with Lyle
Lovett expressing his admiration for the people of Charlottesville and
performing four gospel songs (with an added church choir from Richmond) all of
which resonated poignantly with everyone in the crowd.
I took the picture above of the Rotunda along the Lawn, the
Thomas-Jefferson designed space on the grounds of the University of Virginia,
at around 6:30 a.m. on Thursday during my morning walk. As I walked through
downtown C’ville and the grounds, I couldn’t help but breathe deeply and
appreciate the stillness and calm—and at the same time recall that just five
days earlier men wearing Nazi regalia marched in my steps shouting venomous
racial and anti-Semitic slurs. And that one of them killed a woman right there
on the downtown mall.
Alan Zimmerman, the president of
Charlottesville’s Congregation Beth Israel, which is two blocks from the
downtown mall, described the scene in front of the temple in a letter to
congregants. Here are excerpts:
“On Saturday morning, I stood outside our synagogue
with the armed security guard we hired after the police department refused to
provide us with an officer during morning services. … Forty congregants
were inside. Here’s what I witnessed during that time.
“For half an hour, three men dressed in fatigues and armed with semi-automatic rifles stood across the street from the temple. Had they tried to enter, I don’t know what I could have done to stop them, but I couldn’t take my eyes off them, either. Perhaps the presence of our armed guard deterred them. Perhaps their presence was just a coincidence, and I’m paranoid. I don’t know.
“For half an hour, three men dressed in fatigues and armed with semi-automatic rifles stood across the street from the temple. Had they tried to enter, I don’t know what I could have done to stop them, but I couldn’t take my eyes off them, either. Perhaps the presence of our armed guard deterred them. Perhaps their presence was just a coincidence, and I’m paranoid. I don’t know.
Several times, parades of
Nazis passed our building, shouting, ‘There’s the synagogue!’ followed by
chants of ‘Seig Heil’ and other anti-Semitic language. Some carried flags with
swastikas and other Nazi symbols.”
THE
WASHINGTON POST: The morning
before we left for Charlottesville, I had an email from Rachel Siegel, a
reporter at the Washington Post. She said
she wanted to ask me some questions about the Levy family, Monticello,
anti-Semitism, and Charlottesville. I told her I’d be happy to do an interview,
and suggested she get her hands on Saving
Monticello, which she did.
As she was on deadline, I took the call in the car driving
to C’ville. We spoke for a good half hour. She had gone through the book and
asked good questions.
The following Wednesday her excellent article, headlined “Neo-Nazis
Rallied Around Jefferson’s Statue. But it Was a Jewish Family that Saved Monticello,”
appeared in the online Post; the
following day the article was on the front page of the print edition’s Metro
page with a slightly different headline: “Who Saved Monticello? A Jewish
Family.”
Rachel Siegel did a fine job. The quotes she used from me
were accurate and in context. You can read the article at http://bit.ly/MonticelloSaving
LEVY
OPERA HOUSE: The night of the concert on our way
to dinner, we saw the Robert E. Lee statute (all was quiet there) and then walked
a few blocks up to High Street with our Charlottesville friends Amoret and Mike
Powers and over to take a look at the Levy Opera House 350 Park, near the
corner of Park and High Streets.
Jefferson Levy, an extremely active real estate and stock
speculator, acquired the building in 1887, eight years after he had bought out
the other Uriah Levy heirs and gained control of Monticello. The Opera House—Charlottesville’s
former City Hall—was his first significant purchase of property in the city. He
would buy (and sell) more than a few other buildings in town in the coming
decades.
When Levy bought the large,
three-story Georgian style brick structure built in 1852, it was still known as
Town Hall. The building was used as a gathering place for local groups,
traveling, and touring theatrical companies. By the mid-1880s, though, it had
fallen into disuse.
As I wrote in Saving
Monticello, Jefferson Levy remodeled Town Hall and in 1888 renamed it the
Levy Opera House. He enlarged the stage and put in a new orchestra pit with
dressing rooms below, inclined the floor to improve sight lines, and installed
a horseshoe-shaped gallery, new opera chairs and two boxes on the sides of the
stage.
The Levy Opera House hosted the first symphony orchestra
that played in Charlottesville, the Boston Symphony, which came to town in
1891. That year Jefferson Levy leased the Opera House to Jacob (“Jake”)
Leterman and Ernest Oberdorfer, sons of the founders of Charlottesville’s
German Reform synagogue. Leterman and Oberdorfer brought in other symphony
orchestras, minstrel shows, and various types of theatrical productions.
In 1907, Levy leased the building to the Jefferson School
for Boys, a small boarding and day prep school, for $400 a year. An addendum to
the lease stipulated that if any theatrical performances were given in the
Opera House, it “shall be advertised as the Levy Opera House,” and that
Jefferson Levy retained the right to his box there. The school moved out in
1912.
Two years later Levy sold the building, and it was
subdivided into apartments. It was subsequently remodeled into office space.
EVENTS: Here’s a
rundown on my September speaking events, including talks on Saving Monticello and my new book, Ballad of the Green Beret. For info on Ballad, please go to http://bit.ly/GBBallad
·
S Saturday,
September 9 – Talk on Ballad of the Green Beret and book
signing at the monthly meeting of DAR Providence Chapter, Fairfax Station,
Virginia
· Tuesday,
September 12 – Leading a 7:00 p.m. discussion on “World War I and America”
at the George C. Marshall International Center in Leesburg, Virginia. Sponsored
by the Marshall House and the Loudoun County Public Library. Open to the
public. For info, call 703-777-1301
· Thursday,
September 14 – Washington Metropolitan Oasis Center, Bethesda, Maryland,
1:00 p.m. talk on Saving Monticello
and book signing. For info, call 301-469-6800.
· Thursday,
September 28 – Arlington Central Library, Arlington, Virginia. 7:00 p.m.
talk on Ballad of the Green Beret and
book signing. 1015 No. Quincy St. Arlington. Free and open to the public. For
more info, call 703-228-5990 or go to http://bit.ly/2BalladArlington
If you’d like to arrange an event
for Saving Monticello—or for any of
my other books, including Ballad of the
Green Beret—please email me at marc527psc@aol.com
For details on other upcoming
events, go to http://leepsoncalendar.blogspot.com
GIFT IDEAS:
If you would like a personally autographed, brand-new paperback copy
of Saving Monticello, e-mail me at Marc527psc@aol.com I also have a few
as-new, unopened hardcover copies. Or go to marcleepson.com/signedbooks.html to order copies through my local
bookstore, Second Chapter Books in Middleburg, Virginia. We also have copies of
Desperate Engagement, Flag, Lafayette, and What So
Proudly We Hailed, and Ballad of the
Green Beret.
