Rebecca Levine's Oral History

Rebecca Levine, a former computer scientist at NASA and Yiddish teacher, was interviewed by Jordan Kutzik at the Yiddish Book Center on April 19th, 2013. Rebecca describes growing up in Brooklyn New York in the 1930s and 1940s with her immigrant parents and their relatives, including her grandmother. She grew up working in her family's grocery which her whole family ran together. She recalls that her grandmother taught her the evening prayers and would show off her ability to pray to neighbors. Rebecca's first language is Yiddish and she describes in detail during the course of the interview the Yiddish schools that she attended in Brooklyn (IWO/JPFO shules) where she spent most of her weekends. Because she did not get to attend the social events that her classmates in public school did (concerts, shows, etc.), she felt that she was "American Culturally Deprived." She describes how she is still haunted by the treatment of her leftist Yiddish schools during the McCarthy period and the fate of her relatives in Europe. She describes how her family initially reacted to the German occupation of Europe during WWII with little concern but later learned the fate of her family when some of her relatives who survived the Holocaust came to live with them. She recalls listening to the Yiddish radio with her grandmother as well as listening to the news about Israel in English. She describes attending Brooklyn College when it was a "hotbed" of leftist activity, followed by the culture shock of moving to Virginia afterwards where she taught high school math during a time of segregation. After moving from Virginia to New Jersey, she became a computer science technician at NASA in the 1950s and 1960s. She had three children with her husband and around the same time became a Yiddish teacher at a JCSS school where she would remain from 1964-1985. She describes her efforts to pass on a love of Yiddish culture to her children and feels that she was successful although they never learned the language fluently. She continues to teach Yiddish at the JCC in Rockaway, New Jersey. She was a volunteer and vice-president of Hadassah for many years and felt a strong culture-clash there regarding her colleagues' antipathy towards Yiddish. Hadassah profoundly influenced her life as it connected her more closely to Israel and started a tradition of sending her children to Israel for a summer. Towards the end of the interview she notes how Yiddish remains an important part of her and her children's lives and how she is proud that her grandchildren are receiving a secular Jewish education.