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                        He had only two years of formal education.
He couldn’t read sheet music.
He learned to play the piano at 45 — and only played on the black keys.

And yet, he became America’s most beloved composer.

More than 1,000 melodies,
450 hits,
35 songs that became timeless American classics.

His name was Irving Berlin.

He was born Israel Beilin on May 11, 1888, in a small Belarusian town called Tolochin — the son of a synagogue cantor.
When he was just 5 years old, their home was burned down during a pogrom.

Fleeing persecution, the Beilin family immigrated to New York in 1893.
At Ellis Island, a clerk misheard their surname and wrote “Beilin.”
Later, a typesetter accidentally replaced the i with an r on printed sheet music.
To blend in, Israel changed his first name to Irving.

And so, Izzie Beilin became Irving Berlin — the man who would one day write the songs of a nation.

At just 13, he sang in bars and wrote songs at night.
Soon, performers were fighting for the chance to sing his work.

One day, a singer named Dorothy Goetz broke into his office, begging for a song.
Another woman barged in seconds later — and the two began to fight right there on the floor.

Berlin recalled:

“They scratched, screamed, and pulled hair, yelling they wanted to sing my songs.
I once dreamed that people would fight to perform my music — and now that dream has come true.”

He gave the song to the second woman.
But he married Dorothy.

Five months later, Dorothy died of typhoid fever. She was only 20.

Years later, Irving fell in love again — this time with Ellin Mackay, the daughter of a wealthy telegraph magnate.
Her father was furious: a Jewish immigrant was not the husband he had in mind for his daughter.

He forbade the marriage, kidnapped her, and sent her to Europe.
But love found its way.
Ellin escaped, returned to New York, and married Berlin in secret.
She was 22; he was 37.

Her father disowned her.
When their first child was born, Berlin wrote “Russian Lullaby” — which became Song of the Year in 1927.

In 1918, Berlin wrote a song called “God Bless America.”
He set it aside and forgot about it for two decades.

Twenty years later, after hearing about Kristallnacht — the “Night of Broken Glass,” the first large-scale attack on Jews in Nazi Germany —
he pulled out the song again.

In 1939, it was performed publicly for the first time on Armistice Day.
The audience stood in silence, hats removed, as if hearing a national hymn.

The song brought him a fortune — but Berlin refused to profit from it.

“You don’t make money on patriotism,” he said.

He donated 100% of the royalties to the Boy Scouts of America — a fund that continues to this day, having raised over $10 million.

Irving Berlin lived to be 101 years old.
He passed away quietly in his sleep in 1989 —
the same way he lived: with grace, humility, and music in his soul.