Slain Journalist Honored in Song

From a concert hall in Tel Aviv to an intimate nightclub in San Francisco to a high school auditorium in Van Nuys, musicians of all genres joined in a worldwide tribute honoring slain journalist Daniel Pearl on Thursday, the day he would have turned 39.

Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and slain by terrorists in Pakistan in January, was an accomplished classical violinist, bluegrass fiddler and mandolin player.

In every community he lived, event organizers said, he joined a band, orchestra or chamber group, leaving behind a long trail of musician friends.

The Daniel Pearl Foundation, established by his family in April, put together the international concert to commemorate Pearl’s love of music and commitment to dialogue among people of different backgrounds.

Pearl’s desire for tolerance and global unity was evident at performances throughout Los Angeles on Thursday as musicians playing jazz, bluegrass, rock, folk and classical works came to celebrate his legacy of promoting cross-cultural understanding.

At the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, more than 200 visitors viewed a large photograph of Pearl set above his beloved violin and signed a memorial book as traditional Jewish folk music played.

“We decided that this was a way to both celebrate this Renaissance man and to remind people that he was murdered because he was a Jew and an American,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the museum’s associate dean. “It is the kind of gesture he would have appreciated and lets our small corner add something to the musical quilt in his honor.”

Pearl was memorialized at his alma mater, Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, in an hourlong concert before several hundred students in the performing arts center.

Israeli American singer and songwriter Tova brought many in the audience to tears with a haunting ballad, “Dear Daniel,” written from the perspective of Pearl’s infant son.

Pearl’s widow, Mariane Pearl, gave birth to the couple’s only child, Adam, four months after her husband disappeared on Jan. 23 in Karachi, Pakistan, while investigating local ties between “shoe bomber” Richard Reid and Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network.

Among the verses of “Dear Daniel,” which the 17-year-old Tova sang plaintively to a hushed audience:

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I want to tell you that I’m sorry

That you can’t see me laugh or cry

I never got to call you daddy

And I don’t know the reason why

They say you couldn’t wait to hold me

And that you couldn’t wait for me to know

All the things you planned to teach me

All the things I would’ve known

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Other local tributes Thursday included a jazz concert and readings from a collection of Pearl’s articles in Covina, and performances by the Kadima String Quartet at three locations in the San Fernando Valley.

Orchestras and ensembles were scheduled to perform in remembrance of Pearl in more than 50 cities worldwide, including Hong Kong, Shanghai, Bangkok, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, London, New York, Boston and San Francisco, organizers said.