BORIS RUBINSTEIN ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney, and today is May 15th, 2011. I am here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, with Dr. Boris Rubinstein, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Boris, do I have your permission to record this interview?

BORIS RUBINSTEIN: Yes.

CW:Thank you. Can you briefly tell me what you know about your family background -- your family origins?

BR:The family of origin? My father was born in a town in Russia -- now Ukraine -- by the name of Kovel in 1910. He was one of -- was it five children? -- that 1:00owned land. And apparently, they were a relatively wealthy, well-to-do family -- until, of course, the Bolshevik Revolution. His father died quite young -- he was forty-four -- and apparently he died from typhoid fever, whatever that was at the time. And the person that actually took over the running of the family was his older brother. And I can go into the details of some of the -- what happened in the family, but by age nineteen -- around 1929 -- two of his brothers already had come to Mexico. One of them was running from the army; 2:00actually, he had been in prison and was slated to be executed for crimes that I'm not totally clear what they were, and they managed to somehow bribe one of the jailers. He escaped, went to Mexico, established a factory of socks. [Boifort?] was the name of the factory. And then, his older brother came in, Gersh. And then, my father got there in about 1929, at the age of nineteen. And of course, he stayed in Mexico. My mother was born in a godforsaken town in Poland -- which actually we visited a couple of years ago -- by the name of Hrubieszów and Korytnica; they were two adjacent towns. And she got to Mexico 3:00by the age of seven or eight -- so 1921 or thereabouts -- with her other two sisters and her mother. My grandfather had gone to Mexico years before, and then he brought the family to Mexico. So basically, my parents met in Mexico -- in their youth. They dated for a while. And my father was, of course, five years older than my mother. He was born in 1910; she was born in 1914. And they married in 1938.

CW:And how did your -- do you know how your family ended up in Mexico -- you know, as opposed to other countries in America?

BR:Well, again, my father ended up there because his two brothers were there, 4:00and they already had opened up a factory. I don't quite know whether they were expecting to come to the States or not. And my grandfather -- I'm not sure exactly why -- why Mexico -- whether this was just a wait station. You see, for many of the Latin American Jews, Latin American countries were a wait station to come to the United States, and then immigration was clamped down. So, I'm not sure why Mexico. But once they got there, there was -- life was relatively okay for them, so they established businesses and other things like that, and they just stayed. I understand that in the 1920s, if I remember correctly, there was actually an attempt from Mexico to bring Europeans into Mexico, with the belief 5:00that that will help stimulate the economy, and they would bring culture, they would bring knowledge and other things like that. So, there was a relatively open immigration policy into Mexico in the early part of the century. So, while the US was clamping down on immigrants, Mexico was actually opening up their doors to Europeans, and there was no issue about Jews coming in. And so, a large number of Jews came during that time.

CW:Would you say you grew up in a Jewish home?

BR:Very. Very Jewish home. Very committed Jewish home. And in fact, I don't think I had a friend that was not Jewish until I got to medical school -- so you're talking about the first twenty years of my life. My contact with the 6:00non-Jewish world was really peripheral in Mexico. All of my friends, basically, were Jews. And that was not unusual. That was true for most of the people that I knew in my circle.

CW:What were the most important holidays or events during the year for your family?

BR:The most important was clearly Pesach. Pesach was the event. And Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Those were the highlights of the year. Pesach in my family was legendary. As far as I remember -- you know, recently I saw a movie -- I must have been four and asking the Four Questions -- the fir kashes [the 7:00Four Questions at the Passover seder], right, but in Hebrew. So, this was a very long tradition. And we were a relatively large family, so the seders were thirty, forty, fifty people seders. Most of them, as far as I remember, were in my parents' house. They happened to have the largest sort of living room, dining room combination. So, that's where we used to hold them.

CW:And what do you remember that was specifically iconic about the way your family celebrated Pesach?

BR:Well, first of all, we read the whole Haggadah -- in Hebrew, because everybody read Hebrew. One of the jokes is, we used to use the Maxwell House Haggadah, because we didn't care about the English -- everybody read Hebrew -- so we just read it in Hebrew. And was the singing, was constant singing. And as 8:00time went by and we became older, more songs would be added, because we would learn new songs in school -- so new songs would be added to the mix. And in fact, many of the songs that we sing in our seder now are songs that we have brought in from our seders in Mexico. And in my family, part of the family had married the Sephardic Jews -- we were all Ashkenazi Jews, but part of my family had married some Sephardic Jews, so we had some Greek and Turkish Jews in the family. So, they brought in some of the melodies of the Sephardic folklore from Pesach, so we used to sing not only the Hebrew songs, but also the Ladino songs. 9:00And the seders would go on forever. I still remember that in Pesach, one of the traditions is that we would take a nap in the afternoon so we can actually last all the way through the whole seder. And the seders would go, I don't know, twelve, one o'clock, some incredible number of hours. And the kids were at one end of the table. And it was always a lot of fun. It was something to really look forward to.

CW:I mean, can you tell me a little bit more about the songs? Were there any songs that you remember in particular? From -- I'm just curious about the Sephar-- how the Sephardic mixed in your family --

BR:Well, the main songs -- at the end of the seder, where you have the "Chad gadya [Hebrew: One little goat]" -- and the "Echad mi yodea [Hebrew: Who knows 10:00one]," right? Who is one? One is the Lord, one is God. Or the "Chad gadya" -- you know, the little goat. So, we would have the Yiddish version, right? And I'm -- I just had a senior moment, so I'm trying to remember the -- (sings) "Ikh hob far aykh a maysele, a maysele gor sheyn [I have a story for you, a very nice story]" -- you know. (sings) "Mayn tate hot a tsigele, gekoyft far tsvey gildey. A tsigele, a vaysinke, a sheyninke vi gold, un tsvey gildey mizumines hot im far im batsolt. Khad gadya, un khad gadya. [My father had a little gold, which he bought for two gulden. The little white goat, pretty as gold, and he bought him for two gulden coins. One little goat, and one little goat.]" -- and then we would do it in Ladino, right? Which would go something like (pauses) -- (sings) "Un kabritiyo ke kompro mi padre por dos levanim, por dos levanim. Y vino el 11:00gato y mato al kabritiyo ke kompro mi padre por dos levanim, por dos levanim. [Ladino: The one little goat that my father bought for two levanim, for two levanim. And the cat came and killed the little goat which my father bought for two levanim, for two levanim.]" And you'd keep on going and going and going. And of course, the last one would be, "Y vino hakadosh barukh hu, ke mato al shoykhet -- y vino hakadosh barukh hu, ke mato al shoykhet, ke mato la vaka, ke bevyo el agua, ke apago el fuego, ke kemo el palo, ke pego el perro, ke mordio el gato, ke komio el kabritiyo, ke kompro mi padre, por dos levanim, por dos levanim. [Ladino: And along came the blessed One, who killed the butcher -- and along came the blessed One, who killed the butcher, who killed the cow, who drank the water, that put out the fire, that burned the stick, that hit the dog, that bit the cat, that ate the little goat, which my father bought for two levanim, for two levanim]." So, it just would go on and on and on like that. So it was just -- we would just go on and on, singing and -- my sisters had 12:00beautiful voices. One of my sisters should have been -- had she been in another era, another time, she probably could have been a professional singer -- just absolutely gorgeous, beautiful voice. So, there were harmonies. And my dad was sort of a frustrated pianist -- a frustrated musician. The joke was that he -- if he had it again, he would have played in a bar -- you know, piano, with having someone else sing. He was really a fabulous musician -- and intuitive harmonies. So, there were harmonies, there was singing. It was just incredibly, incredibly happy.

CW:What languages were spoken in the home growing up?

BR:It was funny -- mostly Spanish, although my parents -- if I have this correctly -- actually, my father grew up in a relatively not -- secular -- in a secular home in Russia. Apparently my parents decided that they're gonna speak 13:00Yiddish -- you know, as they -- they met and they decided -- so Yiddish was the language that they spoke among themselves. And they wanted us to learn it. But to me, sort of -- Yiddish was the language that I should not know, because that's the language they were speaking when they didn't want us to hear. (laughs) And later on, as I became sort of a Zionist, Yiddish became the language of the galut, of the Diaspora, so I was completely against learning any Yiddish at all, and it sort of was on principle that I didn't want to (laughs) learn it. I was a Hebraist. So, I spoke Hebrew. But the -- I mean, the language that we spoke among ourselves was Spanish.

CW:And was there anyone -- I mean, was there anyone around that spoke Ladino as a language?

BR:Not as a language, but my uncle -- by marriage -- they knew Ladino.

CW:Did people in your family talk about the Old Country? Was that something --

BR:A little bit. Not as much. My mother didn't remember much about the Old Country, because she came here when she was seven. My dad remembered, but he really, for some reason, did not want to talk a lot. And, you know, his one brother and two sisters -- actually, there was -- yeah, one brother and two sisters -- and his grandma and his mother -- together with the wife and husbands of their other -- died in the Holocaust. And I think he always felt very guilty that he did not rescue them, that somehow they did not do enough to bring them to Mexico. So, there was things that he never wanted to talk about. There were a 15:00few scenes that he had described to me -- for instance, that he -- one of the few memories he had of his father -- you know, he was four when his father died -- was his father holding his chin with the hands like this. "Ah," he said, that that was a memory of his dad -- one of the few memories. He remembers that in the house, they were relatively well off, so they had, you know, Oriental carpets on the floor, but the floor was dirt. (laughs) But they had Oriental carpets. Apparently they had a sugar cane mill and they had their own buildings and other things like that.

CW:Did you ever go to the factory that your uncle had -- the sock factory?

BR:Oh, of course. Of course. That was sort of a yearly ritual, because I would go there to get my socks. So, I would go there, and, you know, we would come out with (laughs) a ton of socks for each one of us.

CW:What did it look like?

BR:Very, very good socks, actually. Very good quality. They lasted for a long time. They looked very much like, you know, socks here. I still remember that many of the socks that I used to have were argyle -- you know, the --

CW:(laughs) And who worked in the factory?

BR:Well, everybody in the family was supposed to work in the factory. And there was a rift. Early on, when my dad came in, he was supposed to work in the factory also. But as the legend goes, my uncle and his wife -- which apparently she was not a very nice person, or so it seems -- I don't remember her; I was 17:00just too young -- didn't like my mother and didn't like the fact that my father was dating her. And so, he actually left the factory. I understand that for years, they didn't speak to each other -- because of this. It took years for them to make up. And he became an accountant. And it's a whole story, because he never went to school to become an accountant; he basically learned accounting on his own. But once I was a little bit older, they already had made up. And so, my cousin, whose name is also Boris -- you know, we're the only two Boris Rubinsteins in Mexico. There are about seven Borises in Mexico in the Jewish 18:00community. And interestingly enough, our nickname is Bubi -- but it's spelled B-u-b-i. So, we're only -- the only two Bubi Rubinsteins. So, it was Bubi Rubinstein the big one and Bubi Rubinstein the little one. He's about five-three, and I am about six feet, so -- but I was the little one in -- because when I was little, he was clearly bigger. So, he was an engineer. He's a mechanical engineer, so he actually designed a lot of the machinery that they were using. They did very well. Actually, my uncle ended up being a very wealthy -- a very wealthy guy.

CW:What neighborhood of Mexico City did you grow up in?

BR:I grew up in a place called Hipódromo. And the reason it was called 19:00Hipódromo is because way before I was born, there was actually a hippodrome -- you know, horse races -- there was a place where horse races there. It was a small apartment. And the apartment next door was my grandfather and my grandmother, my mother's parents. And my -- one of my uncles was around the corner. So, everybody lived very, very close. Across the street there was a park. So, it was just a great place. I was probably four or five when we moved to Polanco, to a slightly bigger apartment. And we were there probably for about seven years. And then, we moved back to -- close to Hipódromo, which was called Condesa, which was really next door to Chapultepec -- to the park of 20:00Chapultepec, which is the equivalent to Central Park. It was not as fancy as being in Central Park West, but it was a -- you know, a very nice place. And one of the first tall buildings -- tall apartment buildings in Mexico -- was eight floors high. It was really high, and we were on the seventh. And we lived there -- gee, probably fourteen years or thereabouts. And then, we moved to Polanco, to a -- it was a duplex or triplex -- about a year before I got married. Or two -- a year or two before I got married.

CW:And were there aspects of Jewish culture that were particularly important to you as a young person?

BR:Well, as most Jewish kids at the time -- you know, most of us attended Jewish 21:00schools. You know, for a population, about thirty thousand -- thirty to forty thousand -- there were, what, seven Jewish schools. So, about ninety percent of Jewish kids would go to a Jewish school. So, the school I went to used to be -- was the Tarbut. In Spanish, it was Colegio Hebreo Tarbut -- that's Beit Sefer Ivri Tarbut -- which was founded by Zionists and was mostly a Hebrew-speaking school.

CW:And it originated in Poland, right?

BR:Right. The Tarbut schools were from Poland. So, since a lot of the educators that came to Mexico were from Poland, so they brought the Tarbut, you know, way of making a school. Then they had a yidishe shule [secular Yiddish school], and 22:00they had a splinter from the Yidishe Shule, which was the Naye Yidishe Shule. And the Naye Yidishe Shule were actually the Bundists. The Bund sort of made that one. Then you had the Yavneh School, which was the sort of religious school -- not quite a yeshiva, but was the religious school. Those kids had -- wore a kippah and learned to daven and things like that. And then, you had two Sephardi schools: the Mount Sinai School and the Sephardi school, El Colegio Sefaradí, which -- most of the kids that went there were Sephardi, although we had a lot of Sephardic Jews in Tarbut. So, I grew up in -- basically in a Jewish environment. You know, by third or fourth grade, my Hebrew teachers were Israeli 23:00shlichim -- Israeli envoys. They used to come and stayed in Mexico for two, three, four years, mostly to teach. And we used to have two hours a day of Hebrew. So, it was incredibly intense. And we used to speak Hebrew quite fluently in --

CW:Were there subjects taught in Hebrew, or was it Hebrew language for two hours a day?

BR:Well, it was Hebrew language, and then we used to learn Torah -- Bible -- and we used to learn Jewish history, all of it in Hebrew. So, it was really quite -- quite complete. Now, our learning of Torah and things like that was not religious, which is something that for Americans is sort of hard to understand 24:00-- how can it be secular? But it was totally secular.

CW:Were there religious influences in your family, or was it a secular environment?

BR:It was sort of a secular environment. For instance, although we celebrated all the holidays, we didn't keep kosher. In fact, we ate ham and cheese sandwiches and we had pork and we had lobster and -- in fact, my wife and I did not -- started to have a kosher home until after we got married and we decided that we really wanted to have a kosher home. So, we've been -- you know, we observe kashrut for many, many years now, but in my youth, absolutely not. You 25:00know, we used to eat pork and lobster and -- and, you know, shrimp, and -- the whole thing. My mother never ate pork, but my dad did. So, there was not really a real religious observance in that sense, but we had all the holidays, right? And we didn't go to shul on Shabbat, but we went to shul on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. That was --

CW:And back to the Colegio, did you like the school system you were in? Did you ever feel that you wished you had been in a different school?

BR:I loved it. I loved it. Classes were relatively -- it's funny, my class was one of the largest classes -- we were thirty-three -- but it was still considered a small class. And we had relatively good teachers. I still remember, 26:00some of my Hebrew teachers were terrific. And we were very happy in the school. You know, I never thought of another school. In fact, there was -- my school went up to ninth grade. You know, in Mexico, you had elementary school, which was until sixth grade; then you had high school, which was the equivalent of seventh, eighth, and ninth; and then you have prep school, which was ten and eleventh -- we only had eleven years, by the way. And in eleventh grade, you would graduate. Tarbut only went to ninth grade. So, I had to change schools for ten and eleven. And at that time, I wanted to go to the public school, because a 27:00lot of my friends were going to the public school. And I just wanted to go to the public school. My parents really put their foot down and said, Absolutely not. And of course, I caved in. What am I gonna do? I was fifteen. So, at first, I didn't like going to the Yidishe -- because now I had to move to the Yidishe Shule. And there was an eternal rivalry between the Yidishe Shule and Tarbut, right? First of all, they were about three times as big as we were. We were a school of four hundred kids; Yidishe Shule was twelve hundred, so they were really big. And so, when we had the -- we used to call them the Interscholastic Games every year, they used to win most of the stuff -- because, you know, they had a larger population, so they had more to -- so there was always a fight. And we were Zionists. And a lot of the kids from Tarbut actually were members of the 28:00Zionist organizations -- Hashomer Hatzair, Ha-No'ar ha-Tsiyoni, Ichud -- while very few of the Yidishe Shule. So, you know, they were the snooty -- they were the upper class, upper crust -- all kinds -- you know, there were all kinds of names that we had for them, some not very nice. So, I basically was, you know, cohabiting with the enemy. So, for me, it was terrible. But it actually ended up being a great experience, really a great experience. First of all, I had a fabulous Hebrew teacher, [Ala Raviv?] -- which, actually, she just died, not even a month ago. She was a very, very influential teacher. And I learned some Yiddish because I had to. And I met there the woman that is my wife, although we didn't -- we were not going out together, but, you know, we met in high school. 29:00And some very good friends, so it actually ended up being a fabulous experience. So, I'm not at all sorry.

CW:And so before, you had mentioned you were a little resistant to learning Yiddish, but had you had any Yiddish language education before those --

BR:Not at all.

CW:-- two years? Okay.

BR:Not at all. All the Yiddish I knew is listening to my parents. My great-grandmother -- you know, she lived until she was in her nineties -- she spoke only Yiddish. So, I sort of muddled Yiddish with her or whatever; I made it up. And my grandmother spoke Yiddish and a little bit of Spanish. So, you know, I would hear Yiddish, speak a little bit of Yiddish. I'm not very good at speaking Yiddish. I understand quite a bit, but I'm not very good speaking it.

CW:So, were you involved in any of the youth groups? The --

BR:Very much so. I was involved in a youth group that was called the Ha-No'ar ha-Tsiyoni, which at the time was the youth group of the Progressive Party, which was sort of a centrist party, right -- we were to the right of Ichud -- of the Habonim. And my father was a member of the Progressive Party, my sister was in the Ha-No'ar ha-Tsiyoni, my second sister was in the Ha-No'ar ha-Tsiyoni, so I was in the -- I was sort of a natural. And from my friends in my class, ten of us were part of the same group in the Ha-No'ar ha-Tsiyoni, so basically we would 31:00go from being in school together to being in a youth group together. So, it was sort of back and forth. So, we were very, very active in the movement, and really relatively very happy there. You know, we used to have -- we used to go there every Friday night, and although this was not a religious group, we used to have a Oneg Shabbat, and we used to light candles and then sing songs and play games and dance. And then, on Saturday we had our regular meetings, which were very structured -- there was a structure to them. You would come in and then we would have games, we would have a talk, and then we'd have dancing. And you'd always learn a song. So, our repertoire of actually Zionist songs was just 32:00enormous. It was really paradise. It was really a very healthy, very safe environment. We went camping three times a year. You know, in Mexico at the time, the long vacation -- what is now the summer vacation -- was really in the winter. So, in the winter there was a long camp, and then the two other times, which was May and September, we had one-week camps, in which we'd really -- would go out. And then, every week we had -- every Sunday there was something else to do, another activity. We would go -- what we used to call "tiulim," which in Hebrew means "excursions." You know, so we would go out to the boonies and walk. So, it was really a fantastic, fantastic time. And we would learn a 33:00lot about Israel. We were all committed to Israel. They would talk about making aliyah, going to the kibbutz, and things of that sort.

CW:Were there aspects of Mexican culture that you identified with as -- in your youth -- that were important to you?

BR:(pauses) Just being in Mexico. You know, especially the food. (laughs) The food was very, very important. Mexican food is fabulous. So, food was important. So, we celebrated some of the national holidays as part of -- you know, as part of the school year. So, we had September fifteenth, sixteenth -- which is Independence Day. Cinco de Mayo was not that important, actually, but, you know, 34:00Cinco de Mayo. Mother's Day. You know. Actually, much more important was March eighteenth, which is when, in 1938 or thereabouts, the Mexican took over the oil companies of the United States, so there was a national holiday. (laughs) The day of the expropriation of the oil -- día del expropiación petrolera -- where, you know, they nationalized the oil companies. It was crucial for Mexicans' independence -- not independence, but independence in terms of autonomy. As I grew -- as I became a teenager, you know, I was very interested in the left-wing intellectual leanings of Mexican politics, so I used to read 35:00the lefty magazines and things of that sort.

CW:Do you remember what, if any, papers or publications you would get in your home growing up?

BR:Well, the newspaper that we got was "Novedades," which was sort of the equivalent of, like, the "New York Times," kind of, at the time. We also -- when I became twelve, I requested that we buy a subscription to a political magazine called "Siempre," which was sort of a lefty-leaning -- then when I was in medical school, actually, I used to buy -- I'm trying to remember the name of that one that was really a -- really lefty. (laughs) A lot of the communists 36:00used to write there, although I never belonged to any party -- (laughs) I think like that. And then, we used to get two of the Yiddish newspaper -- "Der veg," and the other one was "Di shtime." And my father used to read those religiously, those two newspapers.

CW:What was the reaction to -- of your family -- when you were all involved in the youth group? Was Zionism part of your family environment already?

BR:Very much so. Very much so. They were very supportive. There was never any question about going. There was never an issue. We were all relatively good students, so there was never an issue that school would be suffering because we 37:00were going there. So, we were very, very active. So, they were very supportive. In fact, you know, when I look back, to me it's amazing how my parents allowed us to do all the things that they allowed us to do. At the time, Mexico was a very safe place to grow up. You know, my friends and I, at age twelve, thirteen, could go -- could be walking in the streets at eleven o'clock at night. There was no -- no questions about it. You know, there was not too many problems with it. And so, they were very supportive in, you know, letting us go on an overnight trip, and the madrich, the troop leader, was nineteen, maybe twenty, right? And we were twelve. There was no question. If I want to look back, when I was at that age and I used to take -- I took a troop of kids -- we were six or 38:00seven kids -- that I took them all through the Gulf Coast of Mexico, okay? You know, we took a bus to the north -- I don't remember which of the cities we -- but then we just went down all through the coast. A lot of it was just asking people to take us -- not even paying -- you know, just --

CW:Hitchhiking. (laughs)

BR:-- dump trucks and trucking and all -- and they would take us. And parents never -- I mean, I was -- I was a twenty-year-old pisher [youngster], a nineteen-year-old pisher. There was never any question that it's okay. I mean, you know, if you were to ask me, would I let my kids go? Absolutely not! Over my dead body. But at the time, it was part of the culture. So, they were very supportive. My oldest sister is Jackie; she's seven years older. My next oldest is Annette. And Annette decided after high school that she was gonna go and 39:00spend a year in the university in Jerusalem. So, she spent a year in Israel. And then, I wanted to spend a year in Israel, too. And that was a -- from the point of view of the Zionist organization, it was really a rite of passage, right, to go and spend a year in Israel, because that -- you would learn how to be a madrich, to be a leader, and stuff like that. That's the place where my parents really had a lot of trouble with. They didn't want me to go. And it's not totally clear why. And I don't think that had to do with the fact that it was in a Zionist organization, because they let Annette go. Although in part they let her go because she was dating a kid that was a Sephard -- a Turkish Jew. So, I think part of it, they wanted her out of Mexico so she can forget him, right -- because at the time, they didn't feel that it was proper for an Ashkenazi Jew to 40:00have the low-class Arabs and Turks and stuff like that, bad. That has disappeared. But anyways, so -- I think that in part, that's what motivated them to let her go. And I remember -- it used to burn me up, because my mother used to say, "I'm too young to be alone." You're not alone! You have my father! You know. (laughs) Let me live my life. Finally, actually, when Annette came back, she actually helped me convince them that it was okay to go. I think the other part that they were very scared is that I would go to Israel, and either I won't come back or I would not follow my studies -- you know, I would not go to university. I think that that's probably what scared them the most, that I would just not do that.

CW:Well, I want to ask about your year in Israel, definitely. But first, looking 41:00back on your childhood, what values or practices do you think your parents were most trying to pass on to you?

BR:(pauses) Being a mensch. (laughs) You know. There was a lot of issues about just doing the right thing, doing the proper things. So, I think that that was -- from eating rightly, we used to joke -- call my father "fon Rubinshteyn [Sir Rubinstein]" -- because, you know, for instance, you couldn't fill up your glass of water all the way to the top. You had to do it about, you know, a little bit -- two-thirds, at the most, because you don't fill it all the way to the top. If you want more, you can get another one. And manners were very important. Dressing correctly was very important. Speaking correctly was very 42:00important. So really, it mostly was doing the right thing and doing the proper thing.

CW:And can you tell me a little bit about arriving in Israel (laughs) that first time?

BR:It was quite an experience. You know, first we were sent to New York, right, because we were -- the Jewish Agency was paying for the trip. We were going to a place called Machon l'madrichei chutz la'aretz -- Institute for Young Leaders from Abroad. And so, we went there -- we were sent there. So, a group of us -- we were five or six Mexicans. My wife -- current wife -- my only wife, actually -- my wife was also part of the group, but she belonged to a different -- she 43:00was part of the Hashomer Hatzair, which was a different youth group. So, we came to New York. At the time, I was sixteen, so basically I was put on a plane with a few other young people, and we all came to New York. My parents stayed in Mexico. I mean, again, when I think about the things that we did -- first time I was out of the country. And we were supposed to be in this hotel -- I don't remember the name of the hotel, but Midtown one that those -- sort of -- I think it was a seedy-looking hotel, but that's what the Agency would pay. And we took a ship -- you know, the SS Tzion, which basically was a tiny boat that took close to two weeks from New York to Israel.

CW:What was that crossing like? What do you remember?

BR:Oh, I -- first of all, I was in a cabin down below. There were, I think, six people in the cabin. And I was seasick the whole time. I remember just feeling seasick, puking a lot. I must have lost probably ten pounds, if not more, during those two weeks. I was sick as a dog. I remember -- actually, when I came to Israel, a friend of mine that had been there from before -- when he looked at me, he said, "You don't look well." (laughs) I was really sick. So, we had a couple of really fabulous weeks during there. One of the experiences I had is that one of the waiters actually came to us, to me and my -- I had a girlfriend 45:00at the time -- to me and my girlfriend and asked if we could put in our luggage some stuff for him and his wife, because they -- you know, it was -- either they were smuggling something or he was just bringing things from America for his family and didn't want to pay the extraordinary import quota that he had to pay. So, we said yes. And I remember -- actually, when we got to Haifa -- first of all, I remember, the day that we were gonna arrive in Haifa, waking up very early and going to the deck. We really had to -- this was, like, almost paralleling the experience of the boats in World War II, right, of the Jews that were refugees, and they needed to see the coastline of Haifa. So, we actually 46:00went out -- we needed to see the coastline of Haifa. That was sort of quite an experience. Very, very emotional. And when the (laughs) -- the boat docked, actually, the police came to interrogate us. Somehow, they got wind that someone had given us stuff. So, we actually confessed and (laughs) gave them the stuff. And I think we even told them who the guy was. I don't remember, but I think we did. I mean, you know, you were sixteen -- I didn't want to start my Israeli career (laughs) --

CW:In prison. (laughs)

BR:-- in prison. (laughs) And I remember just being in Israel and seeing the sights and breathing the air and feeling the sun was really sort of an incredible experience -- something that I had dreamt for years. Now 47:00interestingly enough, in the Machon, we were placed in different classes depending on our level of Hebrew. So, if you were a beginner, you were in Kitah alef [Hebrew: Classroom One]; if you were really advanced, you would be in Kitah vav [Hebrew: Classroom Six]. And of course, I was in Kitah vav. And I remember, one of the first classes, one of the teachers was sort of talking about how we looked like, and she singled me -- we were a class of, what, seven guys -- seven people -- she singled me out as the one that look the most as a tzabar -- as an Israeli native. I had -- you cannot tell it now, but I had dark, curly hair, and a lot of it. My Hebrew was almost impeccable, without an -- almost without an accent. And the way I dressed looked very much like an Israeli kid. So, I remember, I was -- I probably did not fit in the room. (laughs) You know, I was 48:00so swollen with pride that I had been singled out as the one that -- because to me, that was -- you made it. If you just look like an Israeli, if you can speak like an Israeli, then you -- you've really made it. You're in heaven. So, to me, that year was a fabulous year. And I took advantage, because since I knew the language, I used to read the papers, listen to the radio, understand, be able to talk. So, it was quite an eye-opener of a year.

CW:And were you in Israel in '63? Is that -- or which --

BR:Sixty-two.

CW:Sixty-two, okay.

BR:Sixty-two.

CW:Do you remember the Eichmann trial?

BR:Yes. Yes, in fact, we went to the Eichmann trial once. And we would read 49:00about the Eichmann trial all the time. Hauser -- or Hausner was the prosecutor. And I remember, listening to the trial was really very, very important. In fact, I think I -- we were in Israel when Eichmann was executed. I think I was still there.

CW:I think it was May -- May of that year. Yeah.

BR:Yeah. So, we were still there when -- and I remember the -- you know, listening to the news in the morning that he had -- I think he had been hanged. I think he was dead by hanging.

CW:And --

BR:And I think that's the only time that the State of Israel has executed anyone. (laughs)

CW:What did you take away from that year when you came back?

BR:Well, that year was for me paradise. It was a year of incredible freedom -- 50:00you know, coming and going all over the place. Learning a tremendous amount. I remember, one of my fabulous teachers was Binyamin -- and I don't remember his last name -- and he used to teach us Bible, but in a very interesting way, because not just the text, but he used to bring all kinds of other texts. So, this is when I first started to hear about Gilgamesh and the -- you know, Noah's story and the stories in Gilgamesh about the floods and things of that sort. You know, he brought Pritchard, which is -- you know, that he wrote a lot about the Near East -- archaeology. That was the first time in my life that I heard things 51:00like that. So, to me, this was -- like a sponge, I was just absorbing all that information. And to me, it was an eye-opener. We had a teacher called Yonah David -- (pronounces with an Israeli accent) Yonah David -- who was our literature teacher. And he really taught me Hebrew in a good way. He taught me about how to read poetry and understand poetry. So, this was -- although -- I mean, this was like a university year. It was just fabulous. I loved to dance -- Israeli dances, folk dancing -- so there was a fabulous teacher that used to be the director -- choreographer -- of a troupe. So, he liked me, so he used to teach me extra stuff. So, it was just -- just marvelous. So, being in Jerusalem that year; it was just a marvelous year. And then, six months we spent in 52:00kibbutzim. And again, it was just fabulous to be in the kibbutz and work. And I volunteered to work in the refet [Hebrew: cowshed], which is with the cows. And so, in one of the kibbutzim, I used to basically be a farmer; I used to go and milk cows. I still remember, my routine was, in the morning, one of the first things I used to do is take a big cup and put it in the refrigerator with the milk -- it had just been milked, right, and it was just in the refrigerator, and just drink my cup of milk. (laughs) You know, this was paradise. And in the second kibbutz, I was a cowboy. So, every morning, I would go, saddle my horse -- with an Arab worker -- and take the cattle to pasture. So, you know, (laughs) 53:00for a kid from Mexico, to be able to do that was just incredible. So, the independence, the autonomy, a lot of physical work. You know, one of the things that we always emphasized -- both in Hebrew school and in my house and in the youth movement and in Israel -- is, no work is ever beneath you. Okay? And you can never say, "That's not my responsibility." For instance, I still remember, in Hebrew school, walking in the hall, and the principal say, "Can you pick up that paper?" And you would say, "I didn't do it. It's not my paper." And he 54:00would sort of say, "Well, but this is your school. This is your community. So, you have to do that." So, all those experiences that were then reinforced in Israel, too -- that you clean the latrines, because that's part of the community. To me, those have been life lessons in terms of, how do you behave, and what do you do for the community. So, no work is ever beneath you. We used to read Gordon and we used to read all the Zionist writers about going back to the earth and work -- how work is important. And so, I practiced all of those things. And also, intellectually -- you know, it became very important to know how to speak, to be able to debate, to be able to put your arguments across. So, that really made very, very -- it was very important.

CW:So, I have a linguistic question. Does it feel different to you to speak Hebrew -- I mean, did it feel like it was -- did it have a certain taste in your mouth or something?

BR:Oh, very much so. Even now. Even now. You know, I love to read something -- I love the construction -- I like it in English, too and in Spanish, too, when there's a good writer and you read these beautifully crafted sentences, that the sen-- but there's something about the Hebrew that is even a little bit different, that has a different sound.

CW:Can you describe it at all, for someone who doesn't speak Hebrew -- what it feels like?

BR:You know, because the construction of Hebrew is different from Spanish and different from English, how you craft your sentence and the verbs and how you 56:00really get the right word in the right tense, it was really sort of -- it was almost like gymnastics. Once I was listening to a course of -- a writing course in English, and he used the word, you know, "writing gymnastics." This is what I used to feel in Hebrew, and taking pride in making sure that I have the right -- say it correctly.

CW:Um-hm. So, so far, we've been talking about the early part of your life. Can you just give me a snapshot of your life today -- your career and family and sort of who you are today?

BR:Well, I'm a very committed Jew, a very committed Zionist. My wife and I started dating -- after we came back from Israel, about a year later, we started 57:00dating. And we dated for many years, about six years. I have to tell you -- it's a cute story -- because, you know, I was really waiting to finish medical school, and then thinking about -- then we'll come to the States, maybe we'll marry, right? And I remember, once I -- we were going to the movies and I told my wife that I forgot something at home. And of course, she was exasperated, because I always forget something someplace. So, she said, "I'm not going up. Just hurry up." So, we were still living in that building -- apartment -- that I told you about, seven floors high. So, I went up, because I needed -- I don't remember what I forgot. And my dad is there and says, "Can I talk to you for a second?" And I said yes. And he said, "You know what? You've been going out with 58:00Helena now for five years. Don't you think it's time for you to start thinking of what you're gonna do? You cannot keep just going out. What are you gonna do?" And we started talking about actually proposing and we talked about getting a ring and getting married. And of course, he said he would help us -- because I had no money -- so he would actually help us. And you can think -- I'm on the seventh floor, right, talking about marrying my future wife, and she's downstairs, feeling that I just dumped her and I don't know what I'm doing up there. She was so angry when I came down. But I said, I'm not gonna tell her anything. This is gonna be a surprise. You know, we're gonna have an engagement party, it's gonna be a total surprise. So, I had to swallow my pride and let her blast me. But anyway. So, we got married and we came to the States. And we realize, you know, in Mexico, it was very easy to be a Jew. We were part of the 59:00Jewish community. We looked different, right, from the local population, anyways. And we had the school -- we had everything. We come to the States. We're in Boston. How are you a Jew here? And so, when Rachel was born, our oldest one, we actually started to doing Kabbalat Shabbat. That was the first time that we actually -- as a couple, we decided, every Friday, we're lighting candles, we're doing the Kabbalat Shabbat. Then, we moved from Boston to New York. I finished my residency in Boston and then we came to New York for my second residency. And our second child was born. And my wife then -- she was a stay-at-home mom, but she became very active with Hadassah. And you couldn't have anything with Hadassah -- let's say -- Hadassah women could not come to 60:00your house and have a study group or a whatever if your house was not kosher. So, we decided, You know what? We have to have a kosher home. So, we got the rabbi from our synagogue to help us make the house kosher. And then, we've been very involved in temple. You know, I was part of the youth committee, then I was part of the board. Our temple was Greenburgh Hebrew Center. And I was part of the rabbinic advisory committee. And then, I was head of the cantorial search committee when then we needed a cantor, and I was an executive vice-president. And then, of course, like happens in many synagogues, we fought -- there was a fight, there was a rift -- and we decided we don't like the rabbi, we don't like the synagogue, and we moved. Basically we created a new synagogue, a new group. 61:00And I've been the president of that group up to now; I'm gonna stop being president in -- next month. But so, for eight years, basically, I've been the president of a synagogue -- of shul. My wife, when we were in Mexico, she studied anthropology. And then, in here -- and she also became a Hebrew teacher. And so, for years, when we were in Mexico -- when I was in medical school, she was a teacher at the Yidishe Shule -- she was a Hebrew teacher in the Yidishe Shule. So, we're very -- again, very involved. And then, in here, she taught at a Temple Beth Shalom, which is a Reform temple. And then, eventually she had an opportunity to start taking courses at JTS. So, she took courses at JTS, and 62:00then she decided she's gonna do a master's in Jewish studies. And then, she went for her PhD in Jewish philosophy, although she never -- she did ABD, all but the dissertation -- and then she had one after another advisor that left to get another position, so she became very disillusioned. She stopped, and she never finished her dissertation, but then she went into -- become a rabbi. So, basically she -- two years ago she got ordained. So, at one point when I was talking about not running for president, I said that never in my secular Zionist youth I thought I was gonna be married to a rabbi and be president of a synagogue.

CW:Yeah, what was that like, you know, to sort of create this Jewish life that was so different from what you grew up with?

BR:Well, you know, although we think of ourselves as sort of Conservative Jews, 63:00from the point of view of my Mexican family, we're Orthodox. (laughs) Because we keep kosher, right? (laughs) My wife is the rabbi. And so, it's very, very different. It's very different -- you know, from that. But it has been a great experience in terms of learning about Judaism, in terms of seeking ourselves in Judaism. And the interesting thing is that so much so that Rachel -- you know, our kids -- I didn't mention it before -- our kids went to Hebrew school. And the story is quite interesting. When my son -- my middle son -- was in first grade -- I think it was first or second grade -- he became very enamored with 64:00Judaism, right? He used to go to the public school with tsitses [tassels on the prayer shawl or undergarment worn by Orthodox Jews] and a kippah, and finally my wife and I looked at each other and said, You know what? This is silly. He's going to Solomon Schechter. So, he went to a Solomon Schechter school. And then our youngest daughter went, too. And then, with Rachel, she always wanted to learn more about Judaism. And I remember having a meeting with the rabbi and the cantor. They said, You know, if you really want your kids to learn about Judaism and all these things, they cannot do it in the Sunday school; they have to go to a Hebrew school. So, actually then Rachel ended up going to the Westchester Hebrew High School, which was a yeshiva. So, Rachel ended up being a professor of American lit, but really doing Jewish studies. And she married Justin, right, that does Eastern European studies -- he's a Yiddishist and works here. And our youngest daughter went to Brandeis and -- although first she wanted to be a 65:00physician, she didn't like, you know, all the studies -- but she's a good musician, so she ended up being a cantor. So, it's very funny, right, that from this sort of secular family, now we have a rabbi and a cantor and Jewish scholars and the president of a synagogue. And as I wrote to you, my joke is, my son is -- he's into Jewish engineering -- he's an accountant. (laughs) Right? So, it has been quite -- a different experience. And when I see my friends who grew up -- who stayed in Mexico -- or actually came to the States but did not pursue this -- they have a very different Jewish experience. So, we feel very Jewishly committed. And so, to come and see my grandchildren speaking Hebrew and 66:00doing the thing that they do is just -- you know the word "kvell"? We kvell. (laughs)

CW:So, since you've spent most of your adult life in the States --

BR:Now we've spent more time in the States than we did in Mexico.

CW:Looking back -- or, you know, with this perspective -- can you explain a little bit about how it's different being Jewish in Mexico versus the States through your experience?

BR:When I grew up in Mexico, there was very little mixing of Jews and the non-Jews, okay? First of all, because I was young and I was in the Hebrew school. But they were really two separate worlds. What has happened now is that there's been much more mixing, and many more Jews have non-Jewish friends. None 67:00of my parents -- my parents' friends, any relative, nobody -- had non-Jewish friends. At all. This was just not happening. I think, in part, because the Mexicans did not necessarily integrate with the Jews, and the Jews did not integrate with the Mexican population. So, that was very different. In fact -- see, my wife comes from a mixed marriage. And so, that was quite a problem for my parents for a long time -- you know, the fact that -- her mother's Jewish, so there was no question that she was Jewish, but the fact that there's a whole side of her family that is not Jewish -- this was really -- not kosher. It was 68:00not yikhes [ancestry]. You know that word, "yikhes"? For my family, it was not good yikhes. So, we were living and growing up in this enclave of basically -- it was a modified shtetl [small Eastern European town with a Jewish community] to a certain degree, right? Although we had much more contact with the outside world -- and learning about Mexico and the language than probably people in the shtetl that never learned anything but Yiddish. But it was a bit of a shtetldik [small town] existence. But it was -- although it was limited in some ways, I also have the sense that it opened a lot of other opportunities to look at the world in a very different way, and help us to be very, very committed -- both to Judaism, but also to other causes, as well. And my sense is that in the United 69:00States, because there's less differentiation between Jews and non-Jews, and much more mixing, you know, keeping a Jewish identity is a bit more difficult. You really have to struggle a bit more to do that. In Mexico, it's basically -- at least when I grew up, it was a non-issue. It was not a struggle. It was not a struggle. But later on, I think -- in the United States, it becomes, I think, for -- much more of a struggle to do it. And the problem also is that in Mexico, there was -- you could be a secular Jew very comfortably. In the United States, it's very difficult to be a secular Jew.

CW:How so?

BR:Because first of all, this is a religious country in many ways, and it's expected that people in communities belong to their religious -- they have 70:00religious affiliations. So, if you're a Jew that is a non-practicing Jew, it's sort of more difficult.

CW:And that's different than in Mexico?

BR:It's different from what it was in Mexico. Although Mexico's a very Catholic country, we didn't feel that we needed to practice religion. You know, we didn't have to go to temple, believe in God, pray. We could just be Zionists. That was probably our religion, you know, in a certain way. So, I see that as a difference, that in the United States, we have not found a way of being committed Jews and being secular. Okay? In the United States, if you're a committed Jew, you -- almost by definition, you have to attend shul, belong to a temple, and things like that.

CW:Is that because shul is, like, the Jewish community? I mean --

BR:Probably. Probably. One of the things that they developed in Mexico which I've thought -- you know, looking back, was really a stroke of genius -- they built something called the Centro Deportivo Israelita -- the Jewish Sports Center -- which was a totally secular place where everybody would go and play sports and swim and have weddings; actually, we married there. And basically, it was really like a JCC kind of thing. And it was really a place where people from all different denominations -- the Sephardim and the Turks and the Arabs and the Ashkenazim -- would meet and mix and do things. So, I think that that was a place where all the Jews could get together. The other thing that happened in 72:00Mexico is that the Zionist movement was very, very strong. So, you know, what do you do Saturday afternoon? You go to the Zionist club, right? We don't have that in here -- you know, in part, probably because -- I don't know. My guess is, in part, because a lot of the Zionist organization was sort of left-leaning. (laughs) Right? Except for Betar. But everybody else was left-leaning, so that was sort of distasteful to the American psyche at the time, and even now. And we don't have the Centro Deportivo Israelita or the JCC in which everybody can go. Right now, they're about to expand the JCC in Westchester, and they really are trying to make it sort of a big social place. And that may make a difference. That may make a difference.

CW:Would you say that language has influenced your sense of identity?

BR:Yes. Very much so.

CW:And how so?

BR:Much more Hebrew than Yiddish, in a way. Much more Hebrew than Yiddish. In the sense that I -- it resonates with my core. You know, for instance -- and I always talk about this -- Americans very often don't quite understand it, but for me to be in temple, and when there are English readings, to me it feels like being in church. It just doesn't -- it doesn't sound right. For most Americans, it's a non-issue. And I understand it intellectually. But just affectively -- and I do pray in English, and when I lead services, I make sure that we say 74:00prayers in English, et cetera -- but I still feel like "dearly beloved" (laughs) -- you know, kind of church-like, as opposed to in Hebrew. So, there's a certain affective tone that the language gives me that I don't have it in other languages. And what is happening to me -- you know, with age and you begin to have problems with memory and remembering, which -- you know, which is not unusual -- sometimes to me it's interesting that I'm speaking in English and suddenly, I lack a word, and sometimes the word comes in Hebrew. And now that -- I'm not longer that fluent in Hebrew, although if I spend a week in Israel, it sort of comes back. But I'm not as fluent as I once was, because I don't practice it -- I just -- but still, very often, there are words that only have 75:00meaning (laughs) when I say them in Hebrew. Which is quite interesting.

CW:Yeah. And what place has Yiddish had in your life over the years? I mean, you talked about it being attached to your -- members of your family --

BR:Yes.

CW:-- but over your lifetime?

BR:Again, in my youth, Yiddish was sort of the language of the galut, the one that I had to sort of ignore and distance myself because I was Zionist and, you know, Hebrew was the language of the future; Yiddish was the language of the past. I've changed my views (laughs) quite -- quite a bit. And not in small measure because my kids are doing -- you know, are Yiddish scholars. But also, you know, thinking of the richness of Yiddish and how so much was lost -- you 76:00know, with the Holocaust -- it's really something that I think is important to keep and cherish. Although I understand it's not gonna be a live language -- a living language, like once it was. You know, I -- it's mixed to me the fact that, for instance, the Jewish schools in Mexico -- and you mentioned that we were having a private talk -- rather than making Yiddish central, now Yiddish is being taught almost like a second language. When my wife learned Yiddish -- she's a fluent Yiddish speaker -- you know, this was the language to learn. Just like I learned Hebrew, she learned Yiddish. It was a live -- living language. Not anymore. So, I understand why, but there's a certain sense of sadness about 77:00abandoning that centrality of Yiddish. So, you know, any opportunity I have to say something in Yiddish or to read about Yiddish -- yeah, I take it. (laughs)

CW:And what -- I mean, what place do you think Yiddish can have now and in the future?

BR:Well, clearly, Yiddish represents many, many years -- centuries -- of Jewish life and culture and literature and philosophy and all kinds of things like that. I think it's important to preserve it, even if it's on translation -- which, you know, always loses something, but even if it's translation, just the fact that we know about what Yiddish was -- once was -- and being able to have 78:00at least a few people that speak it. I know that there's a whole Orthodox community that communicates in Yiddish. Somehow, I don't see that the same Yiddish that I tend to equate with the shtetl. Again, that may be my biased and sort of jaded view, but it sort of doesn't feel the same when I hear them talk, partly because of their accent, also, but it doesn't resonate with the same tam -- "tam" is, the same flavor -- that Yiddish once has when I heard my parents or grandparents speak it.

CW:Can you describe the tam that Yiddish had -- or has, in your mind?

BR:Very folk. Heymish [familiar]. There's a warmth to it that I really like. So, 79:00it's sort of -- the only way I can describe it is sort of warm and fuzzy. (laughs)

CW:(laughs) And just -- we're nearing the end, but I have a couple more questions. Can you tell me a little bit about the Sephardic, Ashkenazi communities in Mexico? What was -- was there tension?

BR:Well, you know, for a while -- again, I don't know whether this is true or not, but we used to think of the Arab community as lower class, and the Ashkenazi were sort of the educated upper crust. I'm not sure if it's the same now. And a lot of the people in the Arab community were not as well off as the 80:00Ashkenazi community, or so it seemed. Okay? The kids were wilder. I remember, for a while when I was in medical school, I actually -- for a year, I was a Hebrew teacher -- I taught Hebrew at the Sephardi schools. And, I mean, they gave me the kids who had learning problems and issues. So, of course my view was very jaded, right, because I had a biased population -- a selected sample. They were wild. And I remember, they were ninth graders, tenth graders -- and I remember, in one of the classes, that the kids came in and said to me, you know, You have to wish this girl -- I don't remember the name -- Fortuna -- whatever her name was -- the equivalent to "mazel tov," although they didn't say "mazel 81:00tov" -- I'm trying to remember what they say. "Kadosh baruch mashok hazeh [The holy One, blessed be]," something like that. And -- because she just got engaged. And of course, my mouth dropped, because this was -- you know, the kid was in tenth grade; she had one more or two more years of school to go to before -- but she was already engaged. So, to me, that was -- you know, that was the Sephardic community. And at the same time, there were -- in the Zionist group, we had a lot of mixed -- you know, a mixed population of -- which were terrific people. Terrific people. In fact, when my parents did not want my sister to go out with -- Eddie Hayme was his name -- because he was an Arab, I was very upset with that. I didn't think that that was right, that was correct. Jews are Jews, 82:00et cetera. And I remember several years that the Sephardic community had a fabulous hazan [synagogue cantor] -- Behar was his name. Just fabulous. And I remember that a few of my friends -- we used to go to the Sephardic temple to listen to him on Kol Nidre rather than go to the Ashkenazi temple, because his voice was fabulous. So, it was much more fun to go and listen to a good khazn. On a couple of occasions, also, as an older teenager, young adult -- older teenager -- we actually -- the Sephardic community hired a few of us to take care of the kids during the High Holidays -- since we were part of the youth group, to organize activities while the adults were praying, to really entertain the kids. So, I was mixing with them. But in general, there was not a proper 83:00mix. And what has happened now is, although there's much, much more mixing going on from the two communities and much more kids -- Ashkenazi kids marry Sephardic and Arab kids and vice versa -- the tables have turned. The Sephardic and Arab communities have become incredibly observant. So, the ultra-Orthodox and incredibly wealthy -- much more -- much more than the Ashkenazi community. Now they're really the aristocracy, at least wealth-wise. And with that, there's much more availability in Mexico of kosher goods. Which was not so when I was 84:00growing up. There weren't as many. Now there's much more availability, because now there's a market. (laughs)

CW:So, is it kosher Mexican cuisine?

BR:There's a kosher Mexican cuisine. There's actually a place that has kosher mole. So, every time that we go and visit our relatives in Mexico -- which we do that maybe once a year, sometimes more often -- we actually buy tons of this kosher mole that -- the paste -- that then we bring to the States, we freeze it, and we use it through the year. So, there is now quite a bit of a Jewish-Mexican kosher cuisine.

CW:(laughs) A couple more questions. What has been most important for you to transmit to your children and grandchildren about Jewish identity?

BR:(pauses) That we are. I'm not sure that -- I'm not sure that we've done -- I've done anything sort of explicit in terms of, you know, sitting down and saying, "You know, you have to be Jewish because there are so few of us," and blah, blah, blah. It's just a sense that we are. We enjoy it. It's -- it's just who we are. You know, part of the American culture and -- I remember, when I became a citizen -- you know, when I left Mexico, I had never voted in an election. It just was a non-issue. And then, for many years, when I was here, I 86:00couldn't vote, because I was not an American. So, I remember becoming an American and just making a point of voting, that I'm not gonna miss any election. So, important to be part of the fabric of America. But at the same time, the sense of -- enjoy -- of celebrating and being a Jew.

CW:So, what is -- (laughs) this is sort of a silly question, but do you have a favorite Yiddish word, phrase, or song?

BR:(pauses) "Oy vey"? No. No. We use -- you know, very often, I use Yiddish in sort of -- in a -- as a joke -- of an expression. I have a lot of Yiddish songs 87:00that I love, that I like. Not one in particular. Not one in particular.

CW:And just as a closing question, what advice do you have for future generations of Jews?

BR:Well, you know, we've been at the verge of annihilation many, many times, and somehow we've managed to survive. I don't know how lucky we're gonna be in the next round or the following round. So, I think it's very important to really preserve the heritage and the identity. I am very concerned -- very scared -- about what's going on in Israel. I don't think that holding on -- and this is my 88:00political shpil [line] -- I don't know -- I don't think that holding on to the territories is that smart, and I think that that's creating a different psyche. I grew up with an Israel that was ethical, that was pioneer, that -- that I don't -- that I don't see it now necessarily, at least not as -- not as obvious. So, you know, preserving the Jewish values, I think, is really, really important. Because I don't think that we're necessarily totally safe. And as the numbers of Jew haters increase and the number of Jews doesn't increase as proportionately (laughs) as much, I am concerned about the future of Jews. So, I 89:00don't want us to become just another -- you know, museum piece, like the Jewry in -- you know, when we went to Eastern Europe and we realized that most of the temple -- most of the synagogues are sort of museum pieces -- it's sort of -- it's a pretty scary thought. So, I'm concerned.

CW:Well, thank you so much.

BR:Thank you.

CW:This has been really great.

BR:This was fun.

[END OF INTERVIEW]