by Abby Meth Kanter
NJJN Managing Editor

March 12, 2009

Anyone who knew Jerry Ben-Asher must agree there could be no more fitting tribute to the memory of the venerable NJ Jewish News music critic and beloved community leader than the events that will take place at the College of Saint Elizabeth on March 15.

A concert presented by the New Philharmonic of New Jersey — featuring acclaimed cellist Carter Brey — will celebrate Ben-Asher’s life and service.

Ben-Asher, amateur musician, musical scholar, and critic — a role he filled with NJ Jewish News for 36 years via his “Music Notes” reviews of orchestral and chamber ensemble performances — died last May at the age of 91.

The longtime Short Hills resident led numerous organizations devoted to cultural and Jewish interests, including groups centered on his greatest passion, music.

Through the Livingston Music Group — which he founded in the ’50s and chaired for 50 years — he cultivated an appreciation and love of classical music among the wide circle of friends who attended performances of prominent musicians and studied and discussed the classical repertoire and works of notable composers.

Among the musical organizations that Ben-Asher generously supported was the New Philharmonic, about whose performances he often wrote and whose concerts and musicales he regularly attended for a quarter-century.

Leon Hyman, the orchestra’s music director and conductor, told NJJN he got the idea to say “thank you” to a man who was “a supporter of music, an innovator, a creative force for music.”

“Jerry had a way of introducing people to the orchestra and to classical music,” said Hyman. “I got to know him well and felt he was such a wonderful person and did so much for the community — now that he’s gone we should recognize his contributions.”

The memorial concert, added Hyman, is a way to say to people: “Look what this individual did, how great are the many things he left behind that give so much to all of us. We will recognize him for the past, for the future, for what he’s left to us, and we will carry that on.”

At the event, prominent Newark heart surgeon Dr. Victor Parsonnet, former longtime chair of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, will make a special presentation to Ben-Asher’s wife, Nessa.

Stating she is “very touched and happy” about the concert, Nessa Ben-Asher said of her late husband: “He did so much for music,” including establishing and supporting an array of programs, particularly at the Northfield Y (now the Cooperman JCC). It was at a concert at the Y in West Orange that Sylvia Tylber, a Warsaw Ghetto survivor who lost her entire family in the Holocaust, met her future husband, whom she married in 1968. And it was he who renamed her “Nessa” — Hebrew for “miracle” — because of her “amazing” survival.

“Jerry was supportive of every orchestra,” said Nessa Ben-Asher. “He encouraged so many people to go to concerts, and he loved musicians.

“To Jerry, music was everything in his life. When he was nervous or upset, he just closed his eyes, listened to the music, and found peace.”

She said she was “jealous,” and would wish that she “could be so happy from something as he was from music.”

The soothing value of music figured in his last hours, she recalled. “It was five in the morning, and he wasn’t doing well, and he told me, ‘Please put on the music.’” He died later that day. “I miss him so much,” she said.

Born in Jersey City, Ben-Asher graduated from Rutgers University and later studied history at Columbia University’s graduate school. He was a chemical consultant at West Penetone Inc. for more than 60 years and was a union organizer during the Depression.

It was in the world of music that he truly found his passion. A founding member of the board of directors of two music schools — the Suburban Community Music Center and the Newark Community School for the Arts — Ben Asher was a member for 10 years of the board of trustees of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.

Gifted with a strong and beautiful baritone voice, he was a former member of the Masterwork Chorus, singing in Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. In his youth, he was a French horn scholarship student of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Prominent within the Jewish community as well, Ben-Asher was a former president of the Jewish Education Association of MetroWest and a founder of the YM-YWHA, originally in Newark, and JCC MetroWest, where he served as chair of the arts committees and on its boards of directors for more than 40 years. He also was a founder of the Bet Yeled School in Newark.

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