Gilbert Levine Quotations

I would go into synagogues and talk to people before that concert and they would say, 'Oh, the pope and the Catholic Church -- you know what they did to us at the Holocaust and ... after that concert -- Wow. I would go out after that concert and people were astonished.

There's a tremendous statement there about the universality of man. It's who the pope is.

The relationship found its rhythm. He began to rely on me for ideas of where music could express ideas that he wanted to achieve.

I remember him saying -- he reached out his hand and said, 'If I stretch my hand, will a hand come to meet me?' He wondered if Jews would come, if Holocaust survivors would come, whether the mistrust that existed would dissolve enough for people to come in an attempt to reconcile.

It was conferred on me for my art, not for my being Jewish -- for my art and my service to this pope. And it doesn't get any better.