Coalport wrote:
The violin has occupied an important place in the culture and music of northern European and Russian Jews for many generations and since the theremin is a "stringless violin", perhaps it is not surprising that there was a good deal of Jewish interest in it right from its birth.
There is another linguistic link between the theremin and the violin: In German Nazi times and still later in the GDR (communist part of Germany), loanwords from other languages were often forbidden and replaced by generic German word creations. Thus the Theremin was there called "Ätherwellengeige" which can be translated as "Ether waves violin"...