Flutist Ariella Perlman, daughter of violinist Itzhak Perlman, and her husband, Robert Johnson, new principal horn player with the Dayton Philharmonic (shown here in Oakwood on June 21), will move to Dayton in August

By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer

Only a week after their wedding, Ariella Perlman and Robert Johnson sit at the Starbucks in Oakwood getting ready for another day of house hunting.

Ariella, a flutist and jewelry designer, is the daughter of violinist Itzhak Perlman and Toby Perlman. Rob has just signed a contract to serve as principal horn player with the Dayton Philharmonic.

Both are just getting over a stomach bug.

“ I think it was the fact that we were de-stressing,” Rob says. “ Dayton was the last of a string of about four or five auditions that I had taken in about six weeks. I finally won one, and less than two weeks later, we were married.”

The 25-year-olds met while still in high school, when they auditioned for Rice University’s music program. Both are graduates of Rice and come to Dayton from Houston.

Rob has played with the horn sections of the Houston, Honolulu and New World symphonies. Ariella has also performed with the Honolulu Symphony.

When asked if it feels different now that they’re married, Rob thinks for a moment. Ariella gives him a broad grin, waiting for his reply.

“I had read in a Jewish publication, that when you finally get married, God enters your relationship for the first time,” he says. “There was something that struck me about that line. Prior to this, it was wonderful. We had a fabulous time. But there’s a real sense of religious weight that is now placed upon us. And it’s our duty to be there for each other and raise Jewish children and make a Jewish home.”

Beaming from ear to ear, Ariella’s eyes well up.

‘Something I knew I wanted to do’

Rob converted to Judaism through the Reform movement in the summer of 2008, when both were living in Hawaii.

“It was just something I knew I wanted to do,” he says. “I didn’t know when, and I didn’t know how it was going to happen. I met with the rabbi, the only rabbi that’s on the islands, and we had an instant connection. And though he was very challenging to me and he challenged me a lot, it really made me think outside the box.”

The rabbi, Peter B. Schaktman of Temple Emanu-El in Oahu, initially turned Rob away.

“He made it very clear to me that conversion to Judaism is not a conversion to Ariella’s family,” Rob says. “‘If you’re converting for Ariella, you can walk out the door. You will not be my student and I will not teach you and that’s it.’ So I showed up and had this very abrasive meeting. And I left and I had a lot of thinking to do.”

On one of their first dates in college, Ariella says she told Rob that she had to marry a Jewish person. She never brought it up again.

“I fell very in love with Rob, but I just thought, when it comes to that (interfaith issues), we’ll do that when we get there,” she says. “And so he called me and said, ‘I met with the rabbi’ and he sounded so sad. It was really tough. I said, ‘Yeah, that’s usually how it goes, that’s what I’ve heard. They’re supposed to be tough.’ I started crying. I had a very strong reaction because all at the same time it was like, ‘I’m sorry that my community is being so hard on you,’ but at the same time I thought: what if he (the rabbi) was so hard on him that he doesn’t want to do it anymore?”

But Rob stuck with it. “The more I learned, the more I was attracted,” he says. “And as great of a rabbi as he is, he’s just a brilliant teacher. And the way he taught Judaism, it really was open and friendly, yet it was a clear distinction that I was a student and was not Jewish. My Jewish upbringing was born in Hawaii.”

Rob says the Hawaiian Jewish experience, imbued with the spirit of “Aloha,” is unique.

“There’s a very interesting mix of people that come to Hawaii to live,” he says. “People go out there for a reason. So you have this eclectic group of congregants. Some of them aren’t even Jewish. They show up and they just love to be there.”

His family

As a child growing up in Cincinnati, Rob’s family would visit his mother’s parents in Bellbrook every Sunday. They’d attend mass at a Catholic church, then spend the rest of the day with his grandparents.

But when his grandparents passed away when he was in fourth grade, his family didn’t go to church anymore. He describes his religious experience growing up as a blank slate.

When Rob told his father he was converting to Judaism, he was supportive. “My Mom was initially reticent,” he says. “I think for Mom, she didn’t want to feel that she was left behind. She wanted to still feel connected to her son and I think she was afraid that my conversion to Judaism would take me away.”

Now, Rob’s parents even host Shabbat dinners at their home for the couple.

“They love it,” he says. “Everyone wears a kipa and we have these printed up prayer sheets and we all sort of stumble through the Hebrew together, and it’s wonderful.”

Her family

Ariella says she was brought up in a ”very identified” Jewish home. As a youngster, she and her family attended an Orthodox synagogue; the Perlmans switched to a Conservative congregation one when she was older.

“I actually got to study Torah with an Orthodox woman,” she adds. “She lived in Brooklyn and she would come in and I would see her once a week. I studied with her all through high school. And I loved working with her. It was very specific, very interesting.”

In college, she says she fell out of touch with connections to Judaism. “I was going to temple still. But at one point — it was after senior year and I went to our synagogue in New York for the High Holidays — I didn’t know what I was doing there. I didn’t feel connected. I felt like I was going through the motions.”

When Rob started learning about Judaism, it was an awakening for her.

“When he was learning, going through the process, he’d call me and we’d talk about the Torah portion and I’d say, ‘Oh yeah! Isn’t that when such and such happens?’ And he’d say, ‘Really? I did not know you knew all of this.’ Yeah, well I knew that, we just never discussed it. I don’t know if it was luck. It was more than luck. I walked into services and I was like, ‘Yeah. This feels good.’

Rabbi Schaktman officiated at their wedding on June 14 at the summer home of Ariella’s parents in East Hampton, N.Y.

A honeymoon of a summer

In a few days, Ariella and Rob return to Hawaii for two weeks for the first part of their honeymoon.

“Then we’re back here for three days, hopefully to close on a house, and then we go to Europe for five weeks,” he says. “I’m playing the music festival in Graz, Austria. And we have a few days after that festival just to look around Vienna and we’ll have one night in Paris.”

With the Dayton Philharmonic season starting in mid-September, they’ll return to Dayton with their kitten, Matzah Ball, in mid-August. Initially, they planned to add 10 days in Israel to their summer travels, but that was before Rob won the philharmonic audition.

“There’s a two-year tenure process,” he says, “so for sure, we’re here for two years, and hopefully, a lot longer. I’ll come in and do what I do, and play what I play and if it’s a good fit, which I hope it will be, hopefully I’ll get tenure.”

Both say they’re happy they’ll be part of a thriving Jewish community of Dayton’s size.

“I grew up my whole life in New York City,” Ariella says. “Every congregation is big. They’re all huge, they all have four or five Bar and Bat Mitzvahs every weekend, and it’s just crazy. Being in Hawaii and being part of a small community for the first time in my life, I really thought, ‘I like this. I love this.’ I love how it’s a real community.”

But today, the house hunting continues. “When we go and we look at houses for the past few days,” Ariella says, “literally, I am thinking to myself, ‘OK. This doorway from the kitchen to the dining room…if you had a big plate of chicken for Shabbat, can I get it through for a table of 10?’”