Keywords:cousins; father; Fresh Meadows, Queens; Manhattan, New York; mother; New York City; parents; Queens, New York; sister; Stuyvesant Town–Peter Cooper Village, Manhattan; World War 2; World War II; WW2; WWII; Yorkville, Manhattan
Keywords:Altoona, Pennsylvania; aunt; Brooklyn, New York; cousins; English language; father; German language; grandmother; great-grandmother; Hudson, New York; Hungarian language; mother; New York City; North Adams, Massachusetts; parents; Texas; The Bronx, New York; uncle; Upper Manhattan, New York; Yiddish language
Keywords:"Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb"; film; film critics; Manhattan, New York; MoMA; movies; Museum of Modern Art; New York City
Keywords:Binghamton University; Binghamton, New York; Brooklyn College; Brooklyn, New York; children; college; communism; Francis Lewis High School; Fresh Meadows, New York; Harpur College; high school; Holocaust survivors; Jewish communists; Jewish identity; Jewish secularism; Jewish socialists; Jewish summer camps; mother; New York City; New York State Regents Scholarship; NYS Regents Scholarship; Passover; Pesach; peysekh; Queens College, City University of New York; Queens, New York; red diaper babies; Regents Examinations; RFK; Robert F. Kennedy; Robert Kennedy; secular Judaism; seders; State University of New York at Binghamton; SUNY Binghamton; university
Keywords:1970s; census takers; college; Columbia University; English department; film department; film society; films; freelance writing; graduate school; literature; MFA; movies; New York City; New York City Water Board; NYC Water Board; photographers; taxicab drivers; theater; theatre; university
Keywords:"Catskill Honeymoon"; "Image Before My Eyes"; bar mitzvah; bar-mitsve; chedar; cheder; Delancey Street; exhibit; father; grandmother; Hebrew language; Hebrew school; heder; Hollywood; Jewish culture; kheyder; Lower East Side, New York; Monticello, New York; Neue Galerie New York; New York City; Orchard Street; photographers; progressivism; secular Yiddish school; Sholem Aleichem Folkshul Sistem; shule; traditional religious school; Upper Manhattan, New York; Yiddish culture; Yiddish film; Yiddish language; YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Keywords:"Bridge of Light"; chedar; cheder; College Yiddish: An Introduction To The Yiddish Language And To Jewish Life And Culture; Columbia University; Hebrew alphabet; Hebrew school; heder; Itsye Mordkhe Schaechter; kheyder; Manhattan, New York; Mordche Schaechter; Mordekhai Shekhṭer; Mordkhe Schaechter; Motkhe Schaechter; New York City; School of the Arts; traditional religious school; Uriel Weinreich; Yiddish course; Yiddish film; Yiddish language; Yiddish newspapers; YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Keywords:"The Village Voice"; 1970s; film criticism; films; movie theaters; movies; New York City Water Board; NYC Water Board; writing; Yiddish film; Yiddish language
Keywords:bas mitzvah; bas-mitsve; bat mitzvah; bath mitzvah; children; Christmas; daughters; father-in-law; grandparents; immigrants; immigration; Israel; Jewish home; Jewish identity; Jewish traditions; kids; KlezKamp; New York City; New York City Department of Education; parents; Passover; Pesach; peysekh; seders; sister; social workers; The Bronx, New York; wife; Yiddish language
Keywords:films; Henry Sapoznik; KlezKamp; klezmer music; klezmorim; movies; musicians; National Center for Jewish Film; Yiddish film; Yiddish language; Yiddishkayt; Yiddishkeit; YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Keywords:father; Jerusalem Film Festival; Jerusalem, Israel; Jewish Identity; Jews; Maurice M. Dwek Guest House; Mishkenot Sha'ananim; Moses Montefiore; Oslo Accords; Palestinian National Authority; Ramallah, West Bank
Keywords:1980s; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Cinema Studies; film history; Harvard University; Jewish film; Jewish students; Manhattan, New York; New York City; New York University; newspapers; NYU; teaching; The Cooper Union; Yiddish culture; Yiddish film
Keywords:"Footnote"; "Hearat Shulayim"; authors; Cannes Film Festival; Cannes, France; editors; Festival de Cannes; Franz Kafka; Israeli films; Jewish films; writing
Keywords:grandparents; Holocaust; Jewish history; Jewish identity; Latin language; Poland; psychoanalytic theory; Shoah; Sigmund Freud; silent films; silent movies; World War 2; World War II; WW2; WWII; Yiddish language
EMMA MORGENSTERN: So this is Emma Morgenstern, and today is June 26th, 2011.
I'm here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, with JimHoberman, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish BookCenter's Wexler Oral History Project. Jim, do I have your permission to recordthis interview?
JIM HOBERMAN: Yes.
EM: Great. Thanks. Okay. So, can you start by telling me briefly about
your family background?
JH: Sure. I was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1949. My parents were also
born in New York. My father's parents were born in -- well, his father was 1:00born somewhere in Bessarabia, the southern Ukraine; came to the United Statesvery early in the twentieth century. And his mother was born in a -- Ihesitate to call it a suburb -- a kind of Jewish slum on the outskirts ofWarsaw, called Maków. And she also came around the same time. My mother'sparents were born in New York, although their parents were immigrants. So, mygrandfather's parents -- his mother came from Slovakia and was Hungarianspeaking, and his father came from Bohemia. I mean, this is obviously still 2:00when the Habsburg Empire is intact. And my mother's mother's parents came from-- they said -- Alsace-Lorraine. They were German speaking.
EM: Okay. And what part of New York did you grow up in?
JH: When I was young, my parents lived in -- I guess then it was Yorkville,
East Seventy-Seventh Street. You know, the Third Avenue L was still up. Itwas basically a Czech and Hungarian neighborhood. And they had gotten thisapartment from cousins of my mother who were Viennese and who had stayed with 3:00her family right before the war. In other words, you know, they had foundrelatives in the US who sponsored them in 1938. And then they had gotten us --they knew about -- they found these neighborhoods and so on. They got thisapartment, and my parents got it after they moved out.
EM: Okay. And who did you grow up with?
JH: My parents, and I have a younger sister. And by the time she was born we
had moved to Queens.
EM: Okay. What was Queens like at that time?
JH: Well, we lived in a very new housing development called Fresh Meadows,
which was constructed by Metropolitan Life Insurance, the same people whodeveloped Stuyvesant Town. And in fact, my parents wanted to get an apartmentin Stuyvesant Town, and they were on the waiting list, and they needed to move 4:00because the apartment that we had was relatively small. And so, they moved outto Queens. Neither of them could drive, so it was strange to be living outthere. And -- but it was a great place for kids. I mean, there was a lot ofspace to run around in and so on. It was a mixture of three-storyapartments. There were some garden apartments, or duplexes, they were called,and a few high-rise buildings.
EM: And would you say that you grew up in a Jewish home?
JH: Well, you know, what I would say is that I cer-- I grew up in a Jewish
environment. The neighborhood was probably half Jewish, half Catholic. But 5:00the Catholic kids all went to -- virtually all went to parochial schools. So,the public schools that I went to -- certainly the elementary school and, to acertain degree, the junior high school -- were very, very Jewish. Theelementary school was almost a hundred percent Jewish. And my parents weresecular. And the only holidays that we celebrated were Passover, which was abig deal, with two seders, one with my mother's family, one with my father'sfamily. And to a degree, I mean, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I mean, theschools were closed, though, those days, so there was nothing involved withthat. I went to Hebrew school for a year, but I really was not that interestedin it. And that was my -- I went because most of the other kids I knew were 6:00going, so I was sort of interested in it. But I didn't care for it. Myparents certainly didn't care. I never had a bar mitzvah. I also had to goto school -- I mean, the school was so Jewish that there would be nobody thereon these mi-- you know, Simchas Torah, you know, Shavuos, (laughs) there wouldbe -- I would be the only kid in class, 'cause my parents made me go toschool. They were sort of, like, astounded that people were staying home. And I remember there was an Italian girl, Barbara Denardo. And so, we'd be theonly kids on these holidays throughout junior high school. So, if you ask whatmy Jewish background was, I -- to me, I had no sense of Jews as being aminority. I mean, I knew there was a difference between Jews and Catholics. 7:00I was aware of that. And -- but I was growing up in really a Jewish milieu. And it's not as if my parents didn't have a Jewish identity. They did. Imean, it was something that I was aware of. My father's mother was an OldWorld person, and he had lots of relatives that were not particularly observantbut still very Jewish. And -- I mean, it's interesting. I realized at acertain point that there was not a single religious functionary in either mymother's family or my father's family. No rabbis, no cantors, no mohels[ritual circumcisers], no shochets [ritual slaughterers], nothing. But youknow, these families were very Jewish. There also was almost no 8:00intermarriage. Everybody was Jewish. So, it's a situation I think that isprobably unique to growing up in New York in the 1950s.
EM: And how did they express their Jewish identity if they weren't religious?
JH: (long pause) You know, that's -- difficult to describe exactly. I would
say it's part of a gestalt. I mean, they had a certain worldview, which Ithink grew out of their identity. I would say that they both -- both of myparents were politically aware. By the time I was born, I would put theirpolitics as sort of, like, left New Deal politics. But they were -- had a 9:00critical view of things. I mean, they were both -- had an interest in civilrights in the '50s and a sense that there were injustices and inequalities, thatI came to associate with a Jewish point of view. I mean, my father had been inWorld War II, so he had -- and then actually had been in Germany in the latepart of the war -- so I knew about Hitler growing up. I mean, I knew about thepersecution of the Jews. And also, my mother had this experience withrelatives coming over in the late 1930s and staying with her family. And theydidn't have a large apartment, so it was really -- I mean, they just had theseforeign people staying with them. And so, I was aware of that. And she would 10:00have described them as refugees. And in the neighborhood, also. There were anumber of people who we thought of as refuges, who were mainly German Jews orEast European Jews, who came here after the war, had accents and so on. Imean, the term "survivor" did not really exist then. Not the term "Holoc--" --you know, neither did people speak about the Holocaust. But I was aware ofthese things that happened. And I really don't remember anybody ever sittingdown and telling me about them; I just knew about them. I do remember thatduring the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, when I was about seven years old, but-- that my mother had some kind of response. It triggered off something in her 11:00as if -- that reminded her of the situation in the '30s. She said, "Oh yes,there'll be a lot of refugees now coming over." And in fact there were -- Jewswho came from Hungary after 1956. But as I said, their -- my parents' focuswas secular and American. I mean, I was aware of Israel, too. I had norelatives there. I thought that -- I remember thinking that maybe somehowthat's where we came from, because I knew it was a Jewish place, but it was notsomething that anybody, either in my family or my extended family, ever thoughtof going to. Everybody was very happy to be in the United States andspecifically in New York.
EM: Was all of your family in New York?
JH: Pretty much. I mean, there were people who moved out. I mean, I had
cousins who moved to different areas. There were people on both sides of my 12:00family who were -- did various things in the garment industry. And so, I hadan uncle who (laughs) moved out of New York to places where there was no unionto set up a little factory -- in Altoona, Pennsylvania, for a while, and then inHudson, New York. And my mom had an uncle who moved to Texas. But everybodypretty much -- I had an aunt; they moved to -- actually, not far from here -- to-- her husband was a chemical engineer, got a job in North Adams,Massachusetts. But it still was very -- everybody was not only in New York butwas in cert-- you know, my mother's family all lived in Brooklyn, and myfather's family lived in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx.
EM: And did you all speak English?
JH: We did. I mean, my dad would -- my grandmother would sometimes speak to
13:00my dad in Yiddish. And -- which I heard. I mean, I don't think -- I thinkthat he probably understood Yiddish. I don't remember him speaking to her inYiddish. But there was a lot of Yiddish in her -- even in her English and inthe ways that she referred to people and so on. I mean, these characters, youknow, relatives -- they sort of -- she uses a kind of Yiddish terminology. So,I heard that. And on my mother's side -- actually, my great-grandmother, whowas alive during my childhood, I think had kind of learned Yiddish once she was-- grew up -- Hungarian might have been her first language, but she also wouldspeak Yiddish when she felt like it, or some form of Yiddish.
EM: Can you give some examples of Yiddish phrases you heard your grandmother use?
JH: (sighs) Well, I remember that there was a relative who she referred to
always as der alte, as if that was the -- you know, like, the old guy. Um --geez. That was -- I mean, there were a lot of words that were just used in ourfamily that I never really thought of where they came from, but which wereobviously a Yiddish -- derived from Yiddish. Some of them probably came frommy mother's family, which meant that there was some kind of GermanizedYiddish? I mean, who knows. But they -- one was -- you know, like the word"shmey-drey [thingamajig]," which sounds like -- I mean, I've asked people aboutthis. It probably was an American coinage because if you think about it it's,you know, "drey," "to spin," and it's odd that the "shmey" comes first. It 15:00would be "drey-shmey." But anyway, the way I heard it was "shmey-drey," whichjust meant to do something aim-- to be aimless. To be an aimless child, youknow, like hanging around. That would be something -- "What are youshmeydrey--" And they could turn it into, like, a verb. "What are youshmey-dreying around the house?" But -- I mean, certainly terms like "nosh"and things were just used as if that was normal English, without any -- therewas another term also applied to kids that my mother used, and she pronouncedit, "ausgelösn [German: dissolved]," which is a kind of German word. I mean,it would be -- in Yiddish, it would be something closer to "oysgelosn[melted]." But it's something that's like a kid -- when a kid goes wild, youknow, is acting too -- being obstreperous. So, I don't know where -- wethought of these things as family words, basically. That's how it wasexplained to me. I didn't think that much about it, to tell you the truth. 16:00It just was there. It was interesting to me when my grandmother was speakingto my father in a foreign language. But it's hard for me to rememberspecifically what she would have been talking about.
EM: Okay. So, I know you're a film critic.
JH: Um-hm.
EM: When did you first become interested in film?
JH: (sighs) Well, probably -- I mean, I always liked going to the movies as a
kid. I think that the first movie that I really took seriously -- or let's sayI got -- I started getting interested in movies in a serious way, I guess, whenI was a young teenager. I would say that "Dr. Strangelove" is the first moviethat I actually went to see a second time because I was so interested in it. And then, when I was in high school I really got interested. I used to take 17:00the -- go into the city, Manhattan, and go to the Museum of Modern Art and otherrevival places and go to the movies a lot. And that just continued when I wentaway to college and so on.
EM: Can you tell me a little bit about college? Where did you go to school?
JH: Yeah. I went to -- well, then it was called Harpur College, and then
while I was there it became the State University of New York at Binghamton, andnow they call it Binghamton University, which is -- I can't think of it thatway. And it was a state school. I was a bright kid, but I was not a verydiligent student. I was interested in what I was interested in. And thatwasn't necessarily school. But I did very well on the Regents Scholarshipexam. And at that time, that was the entrance exam for the state university. 18:00So, I did so well on that I immediately got -- knew that I could go to the stateschool. I had assumed that I was gonna go to Queens College, which is wheremost of the kids in my neighborhood went. We didn't live that far from it. My mother went to Brooklyn College. City Col-- I mean, that would have been,like, the normal thing to do. But I got into a state school, and it was --cost my parents nothing. And so, I went there. And that was very interestingtoo, because that -- I should say that I became -- my consciousness of myself asa Jew was enhanced by being outside of New York, in a paradoxical way. Evenwhen I was in high school I didn't have -- it's not like all my friends wereJewish. I mean, particularly in high school, there were other ethnic groups. The high school that I went to in Queens, Francis Lewis -- Franny Lew is what 19:00they call it now -- was split between Jews, Catholics, who were either Irish orItalian, and African American kids. Although there was an interesting kind ofinternal division in the school because there were different degrees that werepresented. You know, academic, general -- different kinds of diplomas --academic, general, and commercial. And the academic diplomas were very, veryheavily Jewish. But most -- but, you know, by that time I had -- my friendswere all sorts. And they were -- in particular, I had a number of Irishfriends, kids who had gotten kicked out of parochial school, which -- and sothey were very interesting. So -- but when I got to Binghamton, I don't knowwhether it was the idea of being out in America, which I had never really seen, 20:00and -- you know, Binghamton, New York was a very depressed area. It actuallywas -- while I was there, or shortly before, it was included as part ofAppalachia. Robert Kennedy was the senator from New York, got it included. It was a very depressed area. Nothing like New York. And the school itselfwas kind of not in the -- it was sort of out in the countryside a little bit. But it was filled with kids from New York and the suburbs, most of whom hadnever been away from their -- away from home before, except to go to summer campor something. And so, there was a very high percentage of Jewish kids there. And that must have somehow been -- made me think about a number of things. Also, I met a lot of kids there who were the children of survivors, which was 21:00then that I heard that concept. There really were a -- or at least I becamefriendly with an unusual amount of them. So, I learned about some things fromthem. I was very interested in their backgrounds. In Queens, a lot of thekids that I knew were red diaper babies, were political kids. And so, I madethat association also very -- I mean, I knew a lot of kids who went to theseJewish communist summer camps and so on. And there was more of that inBinghamton, too. So, it was paradoxical to have this that -- to get more ofthis -- and even enhanced Jewish identity outside of New York. But it nevertranslated into any religious feelings whatsoever. And never has. I mean, Ihave to say that I don't even -- these aren't issues that I ever think about. I enjoy Passover to this day. My kids like it. I mean, I would feel like I 22:00was missing something if I didn't go to a seder. But it's something else. It's a historical holiday. And that's my sense of what Jewishness is for me. It's a historical construct. It's a particular tribe that has a certainhistory. The history is extremely important, and that's where the identitycomes from.
EM: Can you tell me a little bit about this Passover tradition?
JH: You mean when I was a child?
EM: Both.
JH: Well, you know, Passover is a lot of fun for kids anyway, I think. I
mean, that's -- and I think that that's probably true in general. And it wasfun for me because my mother's family was different than my father's family. My mother's family -- they were the ones who had this German Jewish component. 23:00And also they were just better off. I mean, they weren't all German Jews, butthere was this element there, and we used to go to my -- I think that the sederswere held at my mother's uncle's house. And they were sort of Reform Jews. They belonged to -- there were these big Reform synagogues in Brooklyn and thatall had these names that to me seemed hilarious, like, you know, TempleGarfield. They were named after places. But, I mean, they had thesenon-Jewish names. And my mother's aunt was very active in the Sisterhood andso on. And he was a doctor. And they had what we would call a private housein Brooklyn. So, they actually would do, like, a seder, some -- you know, notan Orthodox, but a seder. And in the meantime, my mother's father was a totalskeptic, as was my mother. So, there was always this interesting back and 24:00forth. I mean, it was fun for a kid, that this was going on. And that was --but that -- and then my father's family was something else. His mother livedin this -- had an appetizing store. Oh, that's another way I knew I wasJewish. My grandmother had an appetizing store, which was the equivalent of aJewish bodega. And then, it ultimately became a bodega. It was just likethis hole in the wall in Inwood, New York where she sold smoked fish. And shewould always give us the ends. So, we always had a lot of smoked fish in the-- when I was a kid. But she had a small apartment, and -- a one-bedroomapartment. And the entire living room would be taken up -- she would somehowget these tables together or something like that. It took up the entire livingroom. You couldn't -- everybody was sort of, like, wedged in. And that wouldbe my father's brother and other miscellaneous relatives, whoever was around. I mean, it was a much funkier thing. And that was conducted in Hebrew. My 25:00uncle would go through the Haggadah, and we used these Maxwell HouseHaggadahs. My grandmother, because she had a store, (laughs) had this giantcollection of Maxwell House Haggadahs, which I really liked. I liked thepictures in them. And it -- you know, it was more -- it was a longer seder. But on the other hand, they were as -- she would always be in the kitchenpreparing everything, doing the whole thing herself. And as long as she heardsomething going on, she didn't -- she was happy. She heard that -- you know,my uncle would be -- Hebrew, and then sometimes my father. And I remember onetime -- and they would skip over stuff. They just -- they were like -- theydid their own version of it. And I remember one time one of her brothers wasthere -- my uncle Harry, I think. And not somebody I know. I mean, my father 26:00had an enormous family. He probably had thirty first cousins or something likethat. So, there were always relatives who -- that were turning up that Ihadn't known and so on. And he didn't get it. He didn't see what they weredoing. He wanted to participate too, but he was so slow and going through thiswhole thing. We -- everybody was -- "platsing [bursting at the seams]." That's a word that my family would have used, my mother would have used. Justwaiting for the -- we thought he was so dumb. He didn't understand that youcan, like -- (laughs) you speed it along. You keep it going, but you speed italong. So anyway, I loved this stuff. I always looked forward to it. And Iliked the contrast of the two seders. It's not like I preferred one to theother. I sort of liked that they were so different. 27:00
EM: And how did that evolve when you went to college?
JH: Well, then I didn't -- I certainly was never -- I mean, if I was home I
guess I would have gone. Then my grandmother moved away -- she gave up herapartment. She went to stay with her daughter out of the city, and my parentsnever made a seder. I think that I got -- probably didn't attend any seders incollege. And then, when I got married, my wife's family used to have somethingthat they called a seder, although to me it wasn't anything like a seder; it wasjust going there with some relatives on Passover. So -- you know. I mean, weused to do that. It was a family thing. But when we had our own kids, wejust invented a sort of seder -- you know, for ourselves -- which continued, anddoes continue to these days. I mean, sometimes we would go to seders at other 28:00people's houses, but we basically worked on something.
EM: And what's that one like?
JH: Well, we made our o-- it's in English, for the most part, except for some
of the blessings and so on. It's -- we made up our own Haggadah, based on anumber of things, which is actually not all that unusual. There are, like,three thousand variants on the Haggadah. My sister, who lives in Berkeley, haddeveloped something, or she was aware of something. There was a kind offeminist Haggadah and a progressive one, and we took elements of that. And Iknew people who were Yiddishists by that time, and so I was familiar with the 29:00Bundist Haggadah. We just -- we created something out of that, which reallyemphasizes the moral and historical aspects of the -- meaning of the holiday. With music and so on. It's fun.
EM: Sounds fun. (laughs)
JH: Yeah.
EM: All right. So, going back a bit to your college days, you studied film
and literature as an undergrad --
JH: Yeah.
EM: -- you said? So, can you tell me about that?
JH: Yeah, I mean, I became a -- I was interested in writing. And -- I didn't
know what else, really. You know, I liked to read novels. I mean, I washappy to be a lit major. It seemed something that could be -- would be fun forme. Again, I was still a kind of indifferent student. I was interested in 30:00what I was interested in, and that was -- those were the courses that I likedthe most. I was active in the film society, however. That was -- but therewas no film department. And then, late in my undergraduate career, a filmdepartment was kind of born out of the English department. And so, I was very-- I was -- I think the first person, or certainly one of the first few people,to graduate with a degree in that. I just took all film courses for, I guess,the last three semesters that I was there. And that's how I got my degree.
EM: And did you go straight to graduate school?
JH: I did not. I went back to New York. I did a number of things. I was
a cab driver. I worked for the Board of Water Supply as a photographer. I 31:00was on unemployment for a while. I was trying to be a freelance writer. Didother -- I was a census taker. I did a bunch of things. And this was in theearly '70s. It was still possible to live pretty cheaply in New York. And Iwas -- had no interest in what you might call a middle-class career. I mean, Ijust was not -- I was doing what I was doing. I was involved in variousunderground film and theater things and stuff, and I was happy doing that. Andthen, at a certain point -- and I don't remember exactly what triggered it off-- I decided to go to graduate school in film at Columbia. And -- but I was 32:00already -- I was in my mid-twenties or maybe even a little -- late twenties --when I did that. And I paid for it myself. I took out a loan, and I gotjobs, and I got a degree from there. So, that was my graduate education.
EM: And was that -- in that interim period, was that when you were a
photographer for YIVO?
JH: Yes. I had that job -- that was one of the -- that was a work-study job
that I got. And by that time, however, I already had -- Yiddish culture wasone of my interests. And I should say that that was something that -- I wastrying to figure out how I became interested in that. And to tell you thetruth, I'm not really sure. It was one of these things I became aware of, thatthere was this other language. I do remember that I had a friend who, instead 33:00of going to Hebrew school, was going to a Sholem Aleichem school. And got barmitzvahed in the middle of the week. And I thought that was very cool. Andthis was -- so already -- you know, I was thirteen. I don't think that --like, to have made this distinction that he was learning Yiddish, not Hebrew. I thought that was -- this seemed to be politically more -- I wouldn't have usedthe word "progressive" then. But it seemed to be more political. I mean, thewhole thing in -- I have to say that one of the things that was a big turnoff tome about Hebrew school was what I would have perceived -- but again, this is nota word that I would have used. I don't know how I would have described it. But it seemed very chauvinist to me, very nationalist. Very -- and I didn'tget it. I mean, there were all these -- to me, it was all these privilegedmiddle-class kids. You know, what was the big deal? I just could not connect 34:00with it at all. Whereas what my friend was doing just seemed -- the wholething seemed very interesting. And in a funny sort of way, more authentic. But I didn't have enough -- I wasn't motivated enough to tell my parents, "Yes,I want to go to the Sholem Aleichem shule [secular Yiddish school] like Mattie,"or something like that. I wasn't gonna take it that far. So, I do rememberthis interest going back to -- very early. And then, we would sometimes takemy grandmother downtown for -- we would always take her -- every other Sunday wewould take her out for dinner someplace. She lived in Upper Manhattan, butsometimes we would go downtown. We'd go to the dairy restaurants or theRomanian restaurants down there. Even in the late '50s and early '60s, there 35:00still was a pretty strong remnant of Jewish life in the Lower East Side. Youknow, lots of signs in Yiddish in these places. And so, I always enjoyedthat. I mean, even when my dad -- when we first bought a TV set, we went downto Delancey Street or Orchard Street to buy the TV. (laughs) So, there was --I was aware of this other wor-- you know, this Old World that existed there. And that just was with me. I saw a Yiddish talkie in 1969 at college becausethere was a film teacher who showed us one. And this was, like, so funny tous, so astonishing to see this. And it was a terrible movie. It was a realshund [art deemed of inferior quality] movie. It was "Catskill Honeymoon." But there's a scene in it where -- so it's one of the last Yiddish talkies evermade, and there's a scene where a number of young women, they're singing a song 36:00about hitching up to Monticello on Route 17. And it was so delightful because,of course, our school was on Route 17. We had to drive through Monticello toget there. I mean, the whole thing was so crazy. So that -- I wasimmediately fascinated that this existed. And I was already very sympatheticto movies that were made outside of Hollywood: How did it get made? Who was itfor? This, that, and the other -- I mean, the whole thing was very interestingto me. So, this is already almost ten years before I went to work at YIVO. So, I enjoyed myself very much at YIVO. I loved working there. I mean, itwas a fascinating place to me. I mean, I really was so fond of the -- I wouldhave thought of them as old-timers, although some of them weren't even reallyall that old. And observing this whole Polish Jewish thing right there was,like -- that was a lot of fun.
EM: What exactly were you doing for them?
JH: Well, there was a big show that went up, called the -- at this time --
37:00called "Image Before My Eyes." Famous show. And you know, the technology ofcourse was so primitive then that they -- (laughs) it's before CD-ROMs oranything -- they wanted a slideshow made on it. And so, I knew how to dothis. I had worked as a photographer for the Board of Water Supply and soon. So, I was the photographer. I would -- I had a light box, and I wouldphotograph the artifacts, and made a slideshow. It was easy. It was fun todo that. And I would talk a lot to the people that worked there. And ofcourse, the thing was that it was such an eccentric place. The building wassold, so it's not the sa-- now it's the Neue Galerie. Which, you know, at thetime when I -- the first time I went there, I was so taken aback with what hadhappened to it. But -- you know, because I was -- they would ask me to do 38:00things, like if they needed a light bulb changed. 'Cause I was an Americanboy. I could do this stuff. It was so funny, that the level of thetechnological expertise was so limited there. It really was like a cliché. And not that I was so tremendously handy myself, but still, I mean, in thatcontext I was very handy. And soon after that -- or maybe even just beforethat -- I got involved in programming Yiddish film. So, the two thingscomplemented each other.
EM: Were you ever able to learn Yiddish?
JH: I taught myself to read it. When I was at Columbia, I did take a course
-- I was in the School of the Arts, in the filmmaking school, and you got veryfew electives. I mean, there were some things you could take outside ofthere. And so, one semester I did take an elementary Yiddish course, which was 39:00sufficient for me to get the alphabet down and to learn a few things -- not verymany -- some things about the grammar and the alphabet and so on. And once Istarted researching "Bridge of Light," which was sometime after -- I mean, thatwas already in the '80s when I started working on that -- I did retain enough ofit, or was able to build on that, so that I could go through Yiddish newspapersand figure out things that somebody could translate for me. So that I -- and Ialso was able to fill out the call slips in Yiddish at YIVO, which makes a hugedifference. Doing research at YIVO -- I mean, I also knew the place from theinside. So, I knew how they could just torture people (laughs) who were doingresear-- just what a nightmare it could be. So, that -- I knew enough Yiddish 40:00for that. I never felt comfortable speaking Yiddish, other than expressionsthat I knew from childhood or things like that, or terms. But when I wasworking on the book I could understand some. I could read some. And when I-- to this day, when I look at the movies with the subtitles, it's like readingpoetry (UNCLEAR), you know, with the -- you know how you can -- so I can -- ithel-- I can see that, and then I can hear things that aren't translated and soon. And that was -- that's the extent of it. I had it more twenty-five yearsago when I was working on this book than now. But there's a little bit still there.
EM: Who was in your Yiddish class?
JH: At Columbia? Gee, I don't remember. The teacher was Mordkhe Schaechter
41:00-- he was a friendly guy. I really don't remember who the other -- thestudents were, or what brought them there. I think this was before they reallydeveloped a Yiddish program at Columbia in conjunction with YIVO. He may havehad a connection with YIVO, but he was really -- he was in some lang-- I don'tknow what that -- I can't even think of what department it would have been in. So, I don't have -- he used the Uriel Weinreich text, and that's basically whatI remember. It was a lot of conversational stuff, which is probably how I gotproficient at reading it. Because I didn't even know the Hebrew alpha-- Imean, I had learned -- I had one year of Hebrew school, so I guess I had learnedsome things. But it's not like it had stuck with me at all. 42:00
EM: So, when did you become a film critic?
JH: Well, I was a freelance -- I mean, I -- by degrees. I had this job with
the city, at the Board of Water Supply. I got laid off, which had neverhappened in the city before. This is in 1974, when the city went -- was gonnago into default. They laid off all the junior people, the people working outof title, and so on, and -- which I was. But I did get unemployment insurance,and -- which was very nice. It was like having a -- like getting a grant orsomething. And during that time, I started freelance writing. It was a very-- and so I wrote articles for various places. A lot of them had to do withfilm. And I wrote a number of pieces for the "Village Voice," and at a certain 43:00point, they needed somebody as a third-string film critic. And I knew a lotabout avant-garde film. I knew a lot about -- I was never primarily interestedin Hollywood movies. I was always interested in other stuff. And, in fact, Idid an article for them on Yiddish -- it was a cover story, in the mid-'70s. Because, as I said, I had been interested in them since 1969, when I saw thismovie. And if you were attentive, you could still in the '70s find theaters inNew York -- in Brooklyn, mainly, but also in the Bronx -- where around theholidays they would show Yiddish films. And I would go. And I would alwaysbe the youngest person by like -- I mean, the next youngest person wouldprobably be three times as old as I was, you know. But I would go to the -- soI did -- I wrote an article about this for the "Voice." And so, they knew that 44:00I knew about all this film stuff, and they gave me this job. And I just -- atthe time, it wasn't something I had set out to be. I was actually interestedin other things. I was interested in making movies and theater stuff. It wasa way to pay the rent that was fun for me. But it worked out so well. And Igot so much satisfaction and also so much positive feedback from the world thatit just became what I did.
EM: And you still are working at the "Village Voice"?
JH: Yeah. Yeah, I'm still there.
EM: And what's it like there?
JH: Well, it's very different than when I started. And it's actually -- from
my perspective, you know, it's -- I would say it's bittersweet. I mean, I'mglad to have a regular paycheck in this economy, and particularly since print 45:00journalism is in terrible shape. Film criticis-- all these things are -- it'svery hard. I mean, somebody starting out now would have a much, much hardertime than I did, certainly. But on the other hand, it was such a more dynamic,vibr-- it was a real place when I started there. And there really werebrilliant people working there. And it was just a great place, a greatenvironment then. And it's just depleted. So, it's sad. I can't -- if Ithink about that, it's too much for me, really. I mean, it's like -- it wouldbe melodramatic to say that it would be like working in a graveyard. But itdefinitely is like living in the afterlife of something. And I don't wantto. It's painful for me to dwell on it. But I'm not depressed. Happy with 46:00my work.
EM: And so, you talked about this cover story that you wrote about Yiddish
film. In what other ways is your main work connected to your work with Yiddishand Jewish film?
JH: Well, the thing is that -- you know, things followed from that cover
story, which I did because it was something I knew about that was fun for me todo. They got very exci-- even to this day, people are still like, "Oh, there'sYiddish --?" I mean, it's amazing that they still could not realize that thisstuff exists. And in 1975, '76, it was -- there was a novel aspect to it. Itwas a result of that -- that story actually was a -- had repercussions in theworld. For -- on the one hand, it turns out that Sharon Rivo was alreadynegotiating to get this collection of Yiddish films, unbeknownst to me, when 47:00this came out. And it sort of was like an incentive. I mean, she was able touse this, I think, to get funding. "Oh, look, it's -- they're writing aboutthis in the papers," and so on. Although I didn't find that out till muchlater. But it got somebody else interested, a guy -- a psychoanalyst in NewYork. I remember his first name is Arnie. I'm forgetting his last name then,who was kind of a Yiddish buff. So, he then saw this; he got veryinterested. He organized this thing with a bunch of Jewish organizations, of-- it's so funny to think of all these things together. And this was a sort of-- (laughs) this was another kind of education. YIVO, the American JewishCongress, the 92nd Street Y. Oh God. The Workmen's Circle. Like, all these-- you had to, like, have ten groups to get together to have a festival ofYiddish films. I mean, why you would need so many -- and everybody in theJewish Museum, they all had -- I mean, it was just a crazy kind of thing having 48:00to do that. But there was a series that was held at the 92nd Street Y, becausethe -- the music director there was a guy named Omus Hirschbein. Do you --does the name ring a bell to you? His father was Peretz Hirschbein, theYiddish playwright. And even though he was a totally American guy, he had alot of yikhes [ancestry]. I mean, he came from -- his mother was a Yiddishpoet and so on. And so, he -- in fact, his father wrote the "Grine felder[Green fields]," which was the first movie that we showed there. So, there was-- that was very successful, and that went on for three years. And as a resultof that, Sharon was sort of continuously restoring new films. And she opened"Tevye" at a theater, the Film Forum, in New York. And a curator who I knewfrom the Museum of Modern Art saw it, and then she said, "Oh, we have to do a 49:00whole season of that." And you know, museum time is its own -- so, I mean, ifshe had this thought in 1980 or '81, the show -- (laughs) ten years later, therewas this show, which was a very complete show. And I did the book for that. And so, that was the period that I was really most engrossed in. Although Icontinued to have an interest in -- my book was reissued recently, and I added anew chapter and so on. And so -- just last week I was in Montreal. There wasthe International Yiddish Theater Festival. I was up there doing some lecturesand so on. So -- that's how my interest evolved. I also would write aboutthings. I mean, I was the sort of de facto theater critic at the "Forward,"the English-language "Forward," in the early '90s. And I wrote articles on alot of different things for them during the early part of their existence. And 50:00on Jewish-related things occasionally for the "Voice." So, I wrote for the --actually the -- a couple of articles for the "Pakn Treger," if it's -- does itstill exist? Yeah? Okay.
EM: Yeah, actually the new issue just came out.
JH: Oh, okay.
EM: (laughs) And so, what kinds of surprising or challenging things did you
learn in that time working on Jewish and Yiddish film?
JH: Well, I mean, a lot of it would have been surpri-- it's hard for me to
sort of sort that out. I certainly learned a tremendous amount about EastEuropean Jewish history, just in the -- and -- but I sort of set out to learnthat. I mean, you have to learn that material to be able to put these moviesin context. I was always -- my basic thing was always -- confronted with any 51:00one of these movies -- and they're all different, in a way -- was, like, How didthis come into exis-- like, what brought this into existence? And what didpeople think of this when it came out? That was always what I was mostmotivated to work on. So, consequently, I think that I -- by asking thosequestions and trying to answer them, I became educated in that part of Jewishhistory, and also in Yiddish culture and literature, although in translation.
EM: And moving into some more personal things, how did you meet your wife, and when?
JH: We had gone to the same school, so we knew each other then. But we then
52:00really got together a few years after that. And have been together since. So, we've been together since the -- we got married in 1974, so we've beentogether a long ti-- you know, thirty-five -- more. Thirty-seven years. Wehave two kids, who are grown now. What else? She's a -- works for the NewYork City Department of Education, as a social worker.
EM: And how did you create a Jewish home for your family?
JH: You know, not through anything more than just a certain acknowledgment --
I mean, she also came from -- her background is not dissimilar from mine. Shegrew up in the Bronx. Her father's family were more recent immigrants, so 53:00there was a lot of Yiddish. And her father was actually fluent in his versionof Yiddish. I mean, so she heard a lot of Yiddish as a kid. But again, not asingle -- I mean, we were amazed when we thought about this -- not a single --no rabbis, no cantors, nothing. And I think that this is actually somethingworth exploring. Because I don't think that she and I can be all thatunusual. And my -- one explanation for that is that the -- we have, in a way,sentimentalized the -- like, they'll say, The great generation of immigrants,the people who came in the 1890s and before World War I. 'Cause most of them, 54:00they were the poorest, the least educated, and the youngest Jews. They werethe people who had the least to lose, and the most to gain. And so, theirattachment -- even though they -- you know, it's like they were Jews the sameway that they breathed air. I mean, what else could they be? But their --connection to the tradition that existed in Eastern Europe was in some ways themost tenuous. And they tended to settle in such -- and particularly in NewYork -- I mean, the critical mass was -- you know, when I was a kid, they wouldgive the population of New York as eight million, and they would say there weretwo million Jews in New York City. I mean, that's astounding, if you think ofit. And so, that critical mass creates its own environment. I mean, it's so 55:00different for somebody to -- since I've met people who grew up all acrossAmerica, there's -- they know every Jewish family in town. It's a verydifferent thing. So, this is what I'm saying, is that -- so that our kids,they knew they were Jews. They knew we were Jews. They knew theirgrandparents were Jews. I mean, they -- for a while, when I was wor-- in the'80s, when they were very young, I used to go to KlezKamp. I was sort of --kind of on the staff there. It was good. Because you never -- even assecular as we were, we all naturally hated Christmas. I mean, we couldn'tstand it. And it's very hard when you have kids, because they're just --that's when you become aware of the -- that it's this thing that goes on, this 56:00magical thing, and that you don't care about. I had this argument, thisongoing argument, with my younger daughter about a Christmas tree. She wantedone. And the thing is that "No, no, you can't -- we don't -- you can't --" Imean, it was -- and then finally, because of some circumstances that -- whenyou're just, Okay. You can ha-- what's -- and now you -- what was the big --why did I -- you know, what was the problem? And then after that she ceased tobe -- oh, I know what it was. It was somebody who lived downstairs from us whohad a Christmas tree, and the kids used to -- the kids used to go down there andtrim it for her, the whole thing. Anyway. It was nice to go to KlezKamp'cause it was always over Christmas week. So, you could just avoid that wholething. They timed it very well. You just -- you know, you were out of thecity. The kids would do this stuff, and -- so that's probably the Jewisheducation that they got. And my younger daughter, I was in residence in Israel 57:00for a period, and she went with us there, so she got that. And they've had allthe seders and so on. But they didn't have bat mitzvahs. Their -- my olderdaughter is getting married. Her -- she's marrying a guy who is basicallyJewish the way -- you know, identifies as Jewish. And my younger daughter, Idon't think she's probably ever had a Jewish boyfriend, but she's actually moreidentified -- identifies herself more as Jewish. I mean, that's the way itis. My sister married a non-Jew, and became more Jewish as a result. Which-- so, that's -- I don't know how to ex-- that's what it is. It's somethingthat they're aware of that was emphasized to the degree that it was part of my 58:00work, or just part of the way that my wife and I saw the world, that they absorbed.
EM: Can you tell me a little bit about KlezKamp at the time when you were going?
JH: Oh, yeah. Do you know anything about it?
EM: Yeah, yeah.
JH: Yeah. Well, it was set up -- in those days, it was run by this guy,
Henry Sapoznik, who I had met -- I don't know if he was at YIVO. He must havebeen -- I don't think I knew him from YIVO. I think I knew him from someplaceelse. But to my mind, he was the guy who -- I know he wasn't the first newklezmer musician. But he seemed to be the one who was, like, the key figuresomehow in this -- in the klezmer revival. Which to me is an amazi-- that'sthe most amazing part of the interest in Yiddish and Yiddishkayt, that it would 59:00include this place and the National Center for Jewish Film and all these otherthings, because they really took something that was, like, almost not the-- hadvirtually vanished, and made it come back in an extremely organic way. And so,that was -- KlezKamp was basically -- I mean, really, it was set up as a way forall these musicians to get together and jam. And that was -- but there wereall these other -- it was a Jewish thing; there had to be classes; there had tobe this, and that, and the other thing. So, people, like -- I would go upthere, and I would do a little seminar for whatever it was, a week or something,five days or a week, in -- I would prepare something, Yiddish film. Which Icould do. I've done a lot of teaching, and it was fun. I would show themovies and talk about them. And for me, it was actually even doubly useful, 60:00because this is when I was working on the book in the late '80s. And therewould always be people there who it was good for me to interview. I wouldalways find out information from the people that they had there, actors orold-time klezmorim [Jewish musicians] and so on. I mean, it was really -- Ienjoyed it. It was a lot of fun.
EM: And you also said you went to Israel.
JH: I went to Israel. I was on the -- well, I had been to the Jerusalem Film
Festival a number of times. And they have a -- for a while they had acompetition. And so, I was there for, I guess, two weeks, doing -- looking atmovies and giving talks and so on. They put me up in the Mishkenot -- is thatthe -- I don't know, there's some place. It's very prestigious to staythere. It's something that somebody had built, like, on the -- before -- in 61:00the days of the yishuv [Hebrew: Jewish community in Palestine prior to 1948],somebody had built -- some rich person had built some kind of villa, you know,with different apartments, and very famous people stayed there -- it's stillsomething. It's on a very beautiful spot. And supposedly if you've stayedthere once, you can always go. I don't know if that's really true, if I canalways go back and stay there. But that was great. And I actually was there-- (sighs) I mean, that time it was -- actually, it was at a great time to bethere. It was really at a very optimistic moment. It was right shortly afterOslo. I mean, there was -- the Palestinian Authority was -- to my sense of it,very friendly. I mean, there was a lot of going to places on the West Bank and 62:00Ramallah and so on. It was before -- it was when Rabin was the prime minister.
EM: And did you find that Israel was part of your Jewish identity? Or --
JH: I liked being there always. I mean, the thing -- I don't know -- it just
seemed to me to be to be a Jewish place, which is something that has -- thatI've always liked. I mean, I -- even though I was not religious and had verylittle tolerance for that, I always enjoyed being with Jews. I mean, I just --you know. And I attribute this to my father's -- you know what I mean? Tothese family things. I mean, it was always fun for me. I just -- so I foundthis really -- you know, I've been there a number of times. The thing thatstruck me the first time was that it was -- like, every kind of Jew you couldever imagine was there. But, like, with bells on. Like at a more heightened 63:00level of awareness. And I think that -- my own feeling is that people can'tunderstand Israel unless they've been there. And that Israelis understandIsrael much better than Americans. (laughs) That's my sense of it.
EM: Okay. And I know you've been teaching.
JH: Yeah.
EM: Can you tell me a little bit about where you teach and what you teach?
JH: Yeah. Well, I've been teaching -- my most -- I started teaching in the
'80s at NYU as -- during the summer, teaching courses. And also occasionallyduring the year at the department of cinema studies. And then, I also beganteaching at the Cooper Union, which is an unusual school in New York. It'sfree. There are only three kinds of degrees: architecture, art -- studio art 64:00-- and various types of engineering. In some res-- I mean, it's an amazingplace. Amazing students there. And so, I started teaching there, in thehumanities division, which is where they have electives and things, and teachinga film history course. And I've been doing that pretty continuously for twentyyears. Occasionally I would take a semester off. One semester I taught atHarvard. That was interesting too. So, that's my -- Cooper Union is my mainaffiliation, and film history is what I teach there.
EM: Did you ever do any Jewish film courses?
JH: I did. I taught one at NYU one semester, at their -- it was their idea,
and I was glad to do it. It was a very good course. I'd be glad to teach it 65:00again sometime.
EM: What was the mix of students like?
JH: In that course? Well, I think I probably had -- it was graduate and
undergraduate. It was a nice size. It was somewhere between twelve, maybefourteen. I mean, it was a manageable size. I would say -- let's say therewere fourteen students. Probably twelve out of the fourteen were Jewish. There were some -- mostly American; there were a couple of Israeli students. Iwas sorry there weren't more, that -- but that's -- Jews are interested inJews. I know that. So, that was okay.
EM: And what do you like about teaching?
JH: I like it because I can show things to people that I'm enthusiastic
about. I like to talk. I like -- you know, I like talking to younger 66:00people. And also, it's stimulating. It makes you think, in a way. I mean,I think it's incre-- actually, it's incredibly valuable. I learn a lot fromstudents. I mean, whether they mean to, you know, just by what they -- howthey are, what they say. It's always interesting. I like to ask them aboutstuff. I'm always curious. So, I think it's good. And you know, writing isa very solitary occupation. I mean, I like newspapers also. I'm very sadthat the whole ambi-- that the -- because of computers and the internet. It'snot just that they've eroded print. They've eroded the newspaper as a social 67:00milieu -- as a workplace. I mean, it's just not the same thing anymore. So,I like that kind of interaction. And I feel like I still get that fromteaching. I like to be able to engage with people over ideas and so on.
EM: And do you find that your students now are interested in Jewish and
Yiddish film?
JH: Yeah. Well, I -- it's not -- I've never taught this at Cooper. Because
it's a much more general film history thing. I did find the students at NYUwere -- seemed to be interested in that course. I mean, it was -- to judgefrom their participation in class and the work that they did. But the -- Imust say that in the lectures and so on that I do on Yiddish film, it's always 68:00an older audience. And to me, this is -- it's so funny, because when I startedout doing this, in the '80s, I was in my -- still in my thirties. And so, itdidn't seem that strange to me that everybody was twice as old. And now I'm asold as that audience must have been, and they're still older than me! I mean,I -- (laughs) it's like I still am like a kid, talking to them about thisstuff. I mean, it's so odd. But that's the way. So, in answer to yourquestion, I don't know. I mean, there obviously are young people who areinterested. But somehow, when you show these films somewhere -- when I was inMontreal, again, it was these older people who were there.
EM: Do you ever write on contemporary Yiddish film?
JH: Well, yeah. I'm actually gonna write something this week on "Romeo and
Juliet in Yiddish." Have you seen that?
EM: I haven't seen it, but --
JH: But you've heard of it. Yeah. That's opening in New York. And
there's also a documentary on Sholem Aleichem, which is opening in New York. So, I'm gonna write about those. Yeah. "Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish," Ireally support. I mean, that was -- I really liked that film. And in a way,I felt that -- you know, it's hard for me to be objective, because, you know,from my point of view it was so interesting in so many ways. Not least ofwhich the filmmaker, Eve Annenberg, really was just like -- didn't even knowthis tradition existed. She was just working out of some other dynamic. Andmade this movie. But from my perspective, as somebody who's a historian ofthis, it just was remarkable and exciting to see this happen. So. But that's 70:00really -- I mean, there are very few recent Yiddish films, so -- new stuff. Although somebody in Montreal told me that she was also working on one, so maybethere'll be more.
EM: And would you say there's something like a Jewish film these days?
JH: Well, that's a very tricky question. I mean, yes. Some of them are
Israeli. But I would make a distinction. Of course, all Israeli films aregonna be Jewish films, in a way. But I -- there's a film that I saw inCannes. The English title is "Footnote." And it's about this -- it's a kindof very dark comedy about a father and son, both of whom are Talmudic scholars,and this kind of rivalry that they get into -- which struck me as an amazingly 71:00Jewish film. As opposed to being -- of course it's an Israeli film, but itsperspective on things was something that I would see as intensely Jewish. Andthere are other films that -- from time to time -- not necessarily made in theUnited States -- that are full of Jewish content. But, you know, from myperspective, Kafka is a very Jewish writer. Maybe the most Jewish writer. But he never uses the word "Jew." So, you know.
EM: And so, we've talked about you writing articles, writing books, editing.
I think you've done some editing; is that right?
JH: Yeah. I mean, not in a systematic way. I've filled in as an editor.
I've been -- I edited a couple of anthologies of things. So, I've functionedas an editor, yeah.
EM: And you've also curated exhibits, and you've taught. So, what's your
favorite of those?
JH: (sighs) Well, let me see. Let me think of it in terms of things that I
72:00feel like I haven't do-- that I would want to do more of. I mean, I would beglad to curate again. That was -- curating the show at the Jewish Museum inparticular was arduous but really rewarding. And so, I would like to do moreof that. I mean, I still like writing, and I still like teaching. So, I'mnot tired of those things.
EM: What kind of exhibit would you theoretically like to curate?
JH: Well, actually -- you know, I co-curated the exhibit at the Jewish Museum
with Jeffrey Shandler, whose name you may know. He's a Yiddishist and ahistorian of Jewish media and so on. And we had an idea for a follow-up show,which -- I don't know. I don't wanna say it was too Jewish for the Jewish 73:00Museum, but it was -- they didn't really -- we wanted to do something on --specifically on Yosl Cutler. He was a -- and Zuni Maud. They were Yiddishartists, Bohemians, and they had a puppet show that they did in the '20s andinto the '30s, and they -- it involved a kind of artsy Catskill retre-- I mean,there was -- in other words, these guys were sort of at the center of a kind ofleft-wing Bohemian Yiddish culture that existed between the wars. And wewanted to do something -- to focus on -- use them as a way to put a light on 74:00this culture, which we felt was insufficiently known about and appreciated. And I don't know if it was too Jewish, whether it was -- came too close tosomebody else's turf, whether the fact that we were sort of freelance -- whoknows. But it never got further than just a few proposals and meetings and so on.
EM: Um-hm. So, you mentioned earlier that Jewishness is more of a historical
construct to you. That's what it means to you.
JH: Yeah.
EM: Can you talk about that more?
JH: Yeah. I mean, I think that -- well, there are two ways to talk -- I
would say that for me, you know, history is what there is. I mean, that's howI understand things. And I would say that it's also a way of looking at 75:00things. And it's not just things that happen in the world; it's people'spersonal histories. I mean, that's my understanding of Freud andpsychoanalytic theory, that somebody's personal history is what -- you know,your childhood is something that you continue to play at. You have to knowyour -- where you came from as an individual to really find out who you are. And I think that that's a very Jewish perception. I mean, you know, the Jewsbasically invented the idea of history as a force, something that goes on. Andif you -- whether you think it's God that's creating this history, or whetheryou think there's other things that are at play, it still is an identity that's 76:00based on history and the knowledge of history. So, I think that that'ssomething that I didn't even have to, like, come to. I mean, I maybe had tocome to the fact that I knew it, but I think that it was something that I wasborn into, a sense of that. That historical identity was really crucial. AsI say, I was -- you know, knew that my grandparents came from someplace else,even before I really understood -- you know, I didn't know what Poland was,particularly. But I knew that there was this thing that happened. There wasthis process that I was a part of. And so, that's -- I guess that would be mysense of it. And -- you know, there's philosophies of history, why things 77:00happen the way they do and so on.
EM: And what does Yiddish specifically mean to you?
JH: Well, I think of Yiddish as being like a place that people basically
carried with them, since there are only a few sort of anomalous examples of sortof autonomous Yiddish regions. I mean, it was -- you know, as a place, as aculture, a way of thinking, it's something that -- the tragic thing is thatYiddish didn't really -- it didn't die out, like Latin. It still was in its --it was still developing. To take another example, which is not as tragic, butjust -- you know, like silent movies. Silent movies are an art form in and of 78:00themselves. There's nothing -- no reason why silent movies couldn't havecontinued, except that somebody developed another technology, and then themarketplace decreed that that was what was going to -- I mean, there's no reasonwhy Yiddish wouldn't have continued to develop. Although there are reasons whyit might not have continued to develop -- forever, historically, if it weren'tfor World War II. So, that's -- that adds a tragic dimension to the culture. And so, it's something that's like a phantom limb for -- that you feel, but it's missing.
EM: That's very interesting. (laughs) So, we just have a few minutes left.
79:00So, is there anything we didn't touch on that you'd like to mention?
JH: No, I think I got to say what I wanted to say. I mean, I feel strongly
that it's possible to have a secular Jewish identity, and I think that Yiddishis also probably key to that. I think it was in my case, that I recognizedthis as something that was intensely Jewish, that had nothing, necessarily, todo with religion. That -- you know, in my own case, I realized at a prettyearly age -- I mean, certainly before I was thirteen -- that I just -- I didn'tbelieve in God. And my reasons for coming to that were actually, I would laterfind out, extremely Jewish. Because I just was very concerned about the end of 80:00the world when I was a kid in the '50s. I was really convinced that there wasgonna be a nuclear war. I lived in New York City, and we had these ridiculousshelters in the apartment basement and stuff. But I saw that there -- (laughs)I read that people were building fallout shelters, you know, out of thesuburbs. And kinda saying, Well, that's not fair. Why are these people gonnalive in their fallout shelters? How could Go-- I mean, it sounds like so --it's such a childish thing. But it just, like -- the unfairness of it justconvinced me that that was -- you know, that there was a basic unfairness in theuniverse. And so, I was not interested in, like, a superior force. And nevermissed it after that. You know? Never really thought about it much. Hence-- but still had this sense of identity. So, I think that that explains 81:00probably some dynamic in my own thinking about these things.
EM: And do you have any advice that you would give to future generations of
Jews, people interested in film, any --
JH: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that -- I really think that -- you know -- I
mean, this is gonna sound corny. I just think that people should try and findthings to do that they want to do that they enjoy doing. Follow interests thatengage them. I think that -- you know, it's -- people do have to earn aliving. It's not as if money is nothing, and economic security is nothing. But I think that this other stuff ultimately is more important. In a more justworld, we would all have economic security and could do -- follow our specific 82:00interests and desires and goals and so on.
EM: Okay. And I have a last question, which is: do you have a favorite
Yiddish word, phrase, or song?
JH: Oh my God. I should have (laughs) had you ask me to think of this. So,
so many things that -- I'm gonna mention one, but it's not really my favorite,but it just came: shlep. I mean, that's a concept that is, like, so deep in mychildhood. I mean, both my parents -- "I have to shlep this around." Andjust, like -- it just -- the combination: it's funny, it has this sense ofresignation, but it also is making light of a burden, in a way. So. Let's gowith that.