Profile of a unique couple

The best part of being a program director for the Jewish Pavilion is that it gives me the opportunity to meet interesting and sometimes outstanding individuals in our community. Two of these residents, whom I had the pleasure to meet recently at the Village on the Green, are Mati Braun and his wife, Rachel Heimovics.

Mati is a native of Israel where he graduated from the Israel Academy in Tel Aviv. He came to America in 1962 to study with Joseph Fuchs at the Juilliard School, and in 1969 he joined the New York Philharmonic, a position he held until 2006. Mati's musical talents were noticed at a ripe age of 6 months by his father in Jerusalem. Mati would respond to the mood of each piece of music that was played and thus, his father made sure that Mati began serious study at the age of 6 years.

Neighborhood teachers gave Mati his start on violin, however, moving to Tel Aviv afforded him better opportunities to advance in his studies and eventually graduated from the Israel Academy of Music.

In 2004, Mati married Rachel and came to Orlando and for a few years taught at Rollins College. Rachel is originally from the Middle West, born in Milwaukee and living in Highland Park, Illinois, before she moved to Central Florida. She has had an extensive background in writing and editing, having graduated from Northwestern Journalism School. She worked for the Wall Street Journal in Chicago as well as in public information for the Chicago Department of City Planning. She also lectured on the

History of the Jews of Chicago until 1984 when she moved to Orlando. Since retiring from Harcourt Brace in 1997 as an editor, she co-founded the annual peer-reviewed journal Southern Jewish History and served as its managing editor until a few years ago.

In 2003 a friend from Highland Park, who happened to be Mati's second cousin, introduced Rachel to Mati and the rest is history. They built their relationship from the start on their common love of music.