PAUL KAYE ORAL HISTORY

HILLARY OSSIP:This is Hillary Ossip, and today is July 28th, 2011. I'm here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, with Paul Kaye, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Do I have your permission to record this interview?

PAUL KAYE: You have my permission.

HO:Thank you.

PK:(laughs) Any royalties, though, you got to go through my attorney. (laughter)

HO:All right. So, to begin, could you tell me briefly about how your family ended up in New York and where they came from originally?

PK:Yes. My dad originally was from Odessa, Russia. Ukraine. And my mother was from Lemberg, which is today called Lvov, Poland -- Austria-Hunga-- you know, it 1:00changed back and forth. And they came to this country, and they met -- I don't know how they met, but they met in the Lower East Side, New York. And I was born down in the Lower East Side. My dad spoke no English, only Yiddish to me, and Russian -- some Russian. My mother spoke English very fluently, very good. And her background was she was a milliner. She made fancy hats with ostrich feathers, in Europe. Here she was, like, a good housewife. My dad provided the funds to live on. And it's very interesting that my folks got together, and we spoke pure Yiddish in the house, always. My first language was Yiddish. My dad passed on when I was just eight years old. I lost him. And he wanted to become an American citizen. And I was helping him a little bit to start to learn a little English. But it didn't go too far, of course; I lost him. My mother 2:00stayed with me all the way through. We lived in -- oh. I was born in Lower East Side, Manhattan, in a hospital -- I think it was on Sixteenth Street or Fifteenth Street. Trying to remember the name of it. Anyway, we lived -- when I was four months old, my family moved to the Bronx. And I grew up in the Bronx, off Tremont Avenue, 178th Street, Arthur, Monterey. And I grew my whole childhood there. Everyone in the neighborhood spoke Yiddish. The butcher, the gro-- they all spoke Yiddish. In fact, the sign on the window was, "Bushe kusher," "Kosher meat," but in Hebrew it's "buseh" is "meat," kosher, but my mother said, "bushe kusher." (laughs) You know? That was my background. That's where I come from.

HO:Can you describe the neighborhood that you were growing up in?

PK:All young boys. My friends. The block I was -- the street, 178th Street, Monterey Avenue, was just one block off of Third Avenue, where the Elevated ran. And I lived on 178th Street, just off Lafontaine, it was called. And then, there was Arthur Avenue, which is very popular, Arthur Avenue, down -- the section I lived in was all Yiddish. If you went to the right, it was Italian. If you went to the left, it was Irish. So, we had -- it was sort of cliquish. And I grew up in a neighborhood of all Jewish kids. We played stickball and, you know, it's a street -- checkers and all young children games. And I even have a couple of pictures, maybe, of -- I can show you later, in my -- I found this album just last week. My daughter gave it to me. And there's pictures of me when I was 4:00growing up in there, so I'll show it to you.

HO:Do you remember any particular smells or what was going on when you'd come home from school and you'd get home, what would be going on?

PK:Oh, the house was beautiful. We lived in an apartment, third floor up. Had to walk up three flights. It was -- yeah. No elevator in the house. No -- in those buildings. And -- (coughs) -- excuse me -- and it was always good. Good cooking. Mom was -- you know, I was a young kid. I'm going back a couple of years, you know? This year I turned forty-eight, backwards. (laughs) So, you know, it was beautiful growing up. It was a lot of love. I grew up with a lot of love. My dad and I were very close, the few -- the short time I had with him, we were very close. I'm going to give you something very unique that happened to me. Because 5:00I lost my dad when I was eight, I had an uncle who was quite religious. Was my mother's sister's husband, my uncle Schwartzes. And because I was what they call in Yiddish a yesoyme -- "yesoyme" is the Yiddish word for "orphan" -- I was bar mitzvahed when I was twelve, instead of thirteen, a year earlier. Very unique. Few people heard of this. I have a picture of me in my tallis in this book I found, standing on the roof in the Bronx, with my tallis. My first pair of long pants. My mother took me to buy me long pants for the bar mitzvah. And I was bar mitzvahed at twelve. I became a man one year early. My whole life was different. I grew up working all the time, different odd jobs, bringing some money into the house. All the time. Always something. That's my --

HO:Do you remember what your bar mitzvah was like?

PK:Yes. It was a place called Fordham Talmud Torah. Now, Fordham Talmud Torah 6:00was on 180th -- 181st Street, I believe, and off Arthur Avenue. I think it was Arthur Avenue. I'm trying to remember the avenue. Long time ago. Arthur Avenue, 181st Street, somewhere around there. And it was a beautiful shul. I forget the rabbi's name. I was educated in a little shtibl [small Hasidic house of prayer] right across the street from my house -- although when I say shtibl, a shul. It was a shul. Still there. I think it's a -- today it's a -- I think it's a church -- on 178th Street, just east of Lafontaine Avenue, between Lafontaine and Arthur Avenue, is a little shul. And there was Rabbi Taub and Rabbi Sherman, who lived in my building, and his sons and I were like brothers. He taught me Hebrew, to daven, et cetera, when I was a little boy. He taught me for my bar 7:00mitzvah, and then I went to the Talmud Torah to study bar mitzvah with the regular rabbi, regular shul. And that was at Fordham Talmud Torah. That's where I was bar mitzvahed. Yeah, it was beautiful. Beautiful. I'll never forget that (UNCLEAR). Rabbi's speech and everything. Just beautiful.

HO:What did it feel like, being up there on the bimah?

PK:Oh, it was beautiful. 'Cause I used to sing in the choir as a kid. With the shul. So, I was always up there, you know, in the middle. It's always in the middle. Not, like -- you know, the bimah's there, and then the center section. I was always -- so it was not new to me, you know. I was always in -- every Shabbos I was in shul, Friday nights I was in shul. My mother was Orthodox. Super Orthodox. Today you call her Glatt kosher. But there was no Glatt, but it was su-- only ko-- in fact, the first time I ever saw milk with meat, the first 8:00time in my life, I was already almost seventeen and a half, and I was inducted into the American Navy -- I'll tell you how I got there; that's a whole other story -- into the American Navy. World War II was on, and I volunteered. I graduated high school -- I went to Chelsea High School in Manhattan and studied vocational -- how to be an engineer, how to be a mechanic. And the first time I ever saw milk with meat was when I was going to -- and I thought I was going to die. "You can't eat like this! It's impossible." But I survived. (laughs) And I learned the goyish way ever since then, you know. I was just -- yeah, that's the first time. But we were kosher at home, my mother and I. Yeah. A hundred percent. In fact, on Friday afternoon, we'd have the fish swimming in the bathtub, and she was making the chicken kosher in the -- you know, for Shabbos, 9:00Friday afternoon for Friday night dinner. We kept a very strong -- I had a brother and a sister, older. I was the youngest of the group. They're both gone. But that was -- my brother, my sister was -- my sister was, like, my first love. Just beautiful. She raised me, actually.

HO:So, did you have a favorite food of all those foods that your mother cooked?

PK:Any what?

HO:A favorite food?

PK:A favorite food? Oh. (laughs) In those days, food was favorite. (laughs) If you got food you were happy, you know? My mother's kneydlekh [dumplings] were always good. Oh, I know what. She made homentashn for Purim. She'd show me how to do it. We used to make them together. So, that was also very favorite. In fact, we would stuff one of them with eggshells and coins. Whoever got that lucky, got an extra quarter or something like that, you know? But it was hidden 10:00inside. She always had some kind of gags going on. But the homentashn. But Friday night dinner was my favorite, usually. You know, it was chicken soup and -- I looked forward to that. It was just a wonderful dinner. Yeah.

HO:So, you said that Yiddish was spoken in the home. When did you realize you were speaking Yiddish and not English, or when did you start --

PK:Oh, I always knew, because in the street we spoke English. My friends, we played ball, stickball; I went to school where everybody spoke Eng-- even when I was a little boy, people in the street were speaking English. Just in the house and amongst my adult -- like the butcher and so forth, they would speak Yiddish to me. When I was very little, they all spoke Yiddish. But my dad, like I told you, never spoke any English. (laughs) When he was going for his papers, I said to him, "Papa, ver geveyn [who was] the first president?" And he answers me 11:00back, "Georgie Vashing Soda." I said, "No, Washington!" Washing soda was what my mother used to use to clean the place. And I explained it to him. I said, "Dad, you're never gonna pass!" Well, he never got the chance to, you know. My mother became a citizen. Yeah, her English was perfect. She was good. Yeah. But I always -- I spoke both languages, always. Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell you later how Yiddish saved my life against the British. Yiddish was very important to me, very -- later on in life, you know. After the war and so -- yeah. For the Israeli forces, you know.

HO:So, within your family, did you have any political leanings as a child, or did your family read any specific newspapers?

PK:Yeah. We had the "Forwards" in Yiddish. I used to kid that Mom would read the "Forwards" backwards. She used to laugh. We had the "Forwards," which is still 12:00here today, and I'm very friendly with the people at the "Forwards." They wrote me up recently and so forth. I'm just remembering -- there was a newspaper called "Freiheit" in those days. "Freiheit" was a communist paper, from what I was told. Labor movement. But that's about all. We were not politically inclinated at all in my home. It was strictly Yiddishkayt, shul, davening every morning. After bar mitzvah, I had to make tefillin every day. It was very strict. My dad died, I said kaddish for a full year, morning and night. Never missed a day in the whole year of saying kaddish. And since then, I've never missed a yortsayt [anniversary of death]. They're very important. 'Cause that's my background, that's the training, you know? My mother's the same way. So, no, we -- I was speaking English when I was a kid and all the time, both. And the 13:00language, as you know, if you don't use it you lose it. So, my Yiddish today is so-so. But not bad. (laughs)

HO:So, speaking of how religious your family was, did you carry that on with you as you grew older and left your home?

PK:Oh, yes, yes. All my children always belonged to synagogues, always belonged to shul. It changed a little bit because the Orthodox -- when I came out of service, out of American Navy, I was then clandestinely recruited to the Israeli -- there was no Israel -- Palestine -- '47. I sailed illegal ships as an engineering officer. And I kept Yiddishkayt with me. And to this day, I have a yarmulke in my pocket right now, sure. I always -- in fact, I work for a company, and over thirty-some-odd years, we do mincha [Jewish morning prayer] every day in the office, and I have my -- and I look forward to it. I look 14:00forward to davening every day. Susan and I -- my wife Susan -- we go to shul almost every Shabbos, pretty much. Friday nights, we have a wonderful time in the shul. They have what they call "Ahavah," Friday night Ahavah, and there's dancing and singing. It's just beautiful. But I got off the Orthodox a little bit -- a lot. My synagogue's called Temple Hillel, in North Woodmere, Long Island. Valley Stream. And it's Conservadox, we call it. It's a Conservative movement, but no women on the bimah, no women allowed up for any aliyah, nothing like that. Just recently, they let them come up after every service was over to accept an award or something like that, if they're being called for the khupe or something -- the oyfruf [aliyah for the groom, lit. "call"], you know. So, they're allowed to walk up. That's my shul. Susan's shul is completely the other 15:00way. Women run the services, get aliyah -- and it's new to me, you know? It was quite new. I'm married fourteen --- thirteen and a half years now. Last fourteen years, I've come to realize there are other types of religion. And one of my children belonged to the Reform synagogue. And it's good, because his wife came from a home that they knew nothing about Yiddishkayt. And so, she's associa-- she's at home there. And I'm very happy about it, because it's Yiddishkayt. Whatever degree, but it's important to stay Jewish, to belong to a shul. That's my feeling. Yeah.

HO:Could you tell me a bit about your education?

PK:Education's very -- I went to public school in the Bronx, P.S. 92, on the Crotona Avenue and 179th Street. I think that's the street; I'm trying to remember. Walked there every day. I did that -- not far away, about seven blocks. I used to count the blocks. Think it was seven blocks. I don't remember 16:00-- you're bringing back a lot -- (laughs) and then I went to junior high school. My sister went to 57, but a brand-new school opened up one block from where we lived, called P.S. 118, Niles Junior High School. I went there. I made the rapid advance, and in my junior high school, I was called the extra bright or whatever, and I was becoming an engineer. I wanted to 'cause my father told me when the teacher sat with me and said, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I said, "I want to be like my dad. He was a mechanic." And so, she said, "Sure. We'll send you to a school." They sent me to -- instead of the Bronx High School of Sciences I wanted to go to become a real engineer, they sent me to a vocational high school in Manhattan called Chelsea. And I was the president of the general organization of the school. I went to school on Chelsea. It's on -- today the school's still there. It's on Broome Street and Sixth Avenue in 17:00Manhattan. There's a park outside. It's a vocational high school. I studied in that school as a -- in high school as a mechanic. And when I graduated, World War II was on, by going to that school, the Navy -- and I'll tell you how I got into the Navy. It's a crazy story. In those days during the war, we had -- the National Guard becomes the Army, and we're at war. World War II's full in. Guys in my senior class are old enough -- I wasn't old enough -- went into the service, got their diploma. I didn't get -- I had to go through the whole thing. But as we were going to school, they made what is called a state guard in case we had riots in New York. And they trained me in infantry training while going to school. I have pictures in my album of me in the state guard. I have pictures; I'll show you later. And I became a sergeant there, and I played 18:00basketball for the state guard, and still finishing my high school as a mechanic -- vocational. All kind of -- airplane engines, car engines, you name it. In those days those were combustion stuff. You know, it was -- today it's all high-tech. It's different. But I studied that, and I became a sergeant. And I was ready to go to officer school with the Second Service Command to become an officer. And then, I graduated. And the war's on, and I enlist in the Marines. I want to become a Marine, to go over and fight Hitler. Hitler was very strong then. And they tell me in order to become a Marine -- I go to the recruiting station -- you have to -- my mother would not get an allowance as a volunteer. If they drafted me, she would, but as a volunteer -- and my teeth were not good. I had to fix my teeth. So, that was two strikes. I'm in the elevator, coming down in the building in Grand Central Terminal in New York, and that's where the 19:00recruiting station was for the Marines, on the seventh floor, eighth floor. I'm down -- the elevator stops on the fifth floor, opens the doors, and there's my friend Sid from my neighborhood. I said, "Sid, what are you doing?" He says, "I'm joining the Navy, Paul. Come on!" I got off the elevator with him, bashert [meant to be]. I joined the Navy. That's how I got into the American Navy, World War II. I joined right there; they gave my mother an allowance; they fixed my teeth in boot camp, up in Sampson, New York; and then I went ready to go overseas. A couple of guys were wounded by -- but they sent me to engineering school in the Navy. That's the difference. And then, Hitler heard I was coming, so he quit. He gave up. And then, I was getting my orders out of engineering school with a whole Seabee group -- construction battalion group, Navy group -- and they were gonna put me on amphibious forces to make the landing in Japan. And they dropped the atom bomb. And I was -- my orders were rescinded. I got out of it and I came home; and that's -- I came back. I came home. But that's where 20:00we're all -- how it -- that's my education. You know, I became an engineer, then I went back to college to be -- I'll tell you, I went to -- I had the GI Bill, it was called. And they paid for your college. So, I was clandestinely recruited to go Palestine by illegal ship. I was an engineer. And I took a ship called the "Hatikvah." Was the old "President Warfield" out of Balt-- the "Tradewinds." The "President Warfield" became the famous "Exodus." We sailed together, two ships. Both ships. The crews were interchangeable, some of them. I can tell you -- it'd take me an hour to tell you. And I served on that ship, the British caught us and so forth. Would you like -- you just want my education right now, right?

HO:You can go into --

PK:Well, when the British caught us, I was with the Mapu -- we sailed from New York -- from Balt-- I came from New York, we went to Bal-- how was I recruited? 21:00Here's a famous story. I'm waiting to go to college. I'm working in a record shop, in the Bronx, living with my sister. My mother passed away the same day I was discharged from the Navy -- which was a kick in the head. And I'm waiting to go to school. I'm gonna go to an engineering school. Uncle Sam's gonna pay. And I'm working in the store. And the phone rings and says, "Paul Kamenetsky?" That's my real name, Kamenetsky. I said, "Yes." He says, "Would you like to help your people?" So, I look around the store. "Who is this?" "If you want to help your people, it's very important. We know you're a marine engineer. Be on the corner of Thirty-Ninth Street, southeast corner, Lexington Avenue, Thursday at four o'clock. A man with a black leather jacket will walk by. If he puts a newspaper under his arm, follow him. If he puts it in the wastepaper basket, 22:00leave quickly; you're being followed." Click. You get a call like that, what do you do? I go to my friends, my sister -- I thought they were all a joke -- it was a joke, you know? They thought I was nuts. And I could see on their faces that they didn't know what I was talking about. So, this was real. I go down, I stand on the corner. Four o'clock, a man walks by with a black leather jacket, puts a paper on. I follow him around the corner. There's a building there -- today it's the Bnai Zion building. And that building is my headquarters for my AVI, American Veterans of Israel. In those days, it said Palestinian Students Lounge. I'll never forget that, walking up those stairs, I saw that written -- what's this all about? And as a young boy, my mother always said, you know, (UNCLEAR), "Next year, bay yerushalayim [in Jerusalem], we're going to Israel," you know? But there was no Israel. There was Palestine. And the guy shakes my hand. He says, "My name is Akiva Skidell. We know you're a marine engineer. We need you to sail small ships between Palestine and then Cyprus. If the British 23:00catch you, they will hang you. You wanna go?" I said, "Let's go." And the next thing I know, the next -- I left my sister a note. I gave up going to school. I was in Baltimore the next day by train on a ship, a little small vessel called the "Tradewinds." It was an old training vessel from the coast guard that looked like it was gonna fall apart. It was a real rust bucket. And I got on her, and we sailed her across the Atlantic. Tied up near us was the President Warfield. She became the famous "Exodus" I was telling you. She couldn't make it; the weather was too bad. She had to go back to Norfolk to refuel, then she came across. These ships, there were ten ships like that. There's a book written, called "The Jewish Secret Fleet," by Murray Greenfield. If you ever get your hands on that book, let me know. I'll get you a copy (UNCLEAR). Anyway, we 24:00sailed across the Atlantic. We wind up in Portugal, in Lisbon. Go to the Azores to get -- oh, when we're in the Azores to get fuel, they won't give us fuel. The British stopped all -- we had a Panamanian flag. All these ships, they knew who we were, the British, they were looking for us -- they stopped us. And they wouldn't give us fuel. And we're walking on the dock in the Azores. And I'm walking with my buddy, Abi Rosenberg and the chief engineer, Marvin -- Marvin Rosen -- and Chai Braverman, the chief. I was the third assistant. And we're walking on the pier, and I say to him, "Oy vey, what are we gonna do?" My Yiddish -- "Oy vey"? Man walks over to me, he says, "Hosti gezugt 'oy vey' [Did you say 'oy vey']?" "Did you --" I say, "Yeah." He says, "Vos tistu du -- What are you doing here?" He says, "Darf men hobn shemen [We need oil]?" "Shemen" was oil. He says, "Kum mit mir [Come with me]." He walks us to the office, stamps our papers, (claps hands) we load the ship with fuel, and we sail out. To 25:00Lisbon. And there we outfitted the ship, the back of the ship, to hold fifteen hundred of our people in shelves. If you go to Israel today there's a museum that has a replica of these ships. It's in the -- b'haifa [Hebrew: in Haifa]. It's called the Maritime Museum. And people coming onboard would slide in, you know? Fifteen hundred on the little ship, 1450 of us. The "Exodus" became famous -- she had forty-five hundred on her ship. And I was speaking Yiddish to the people, thanking all the -- (UNCLEAR). We outfitted the ship, we went down -- cutting a little bit -- we went down to Italy. And there, by rubber boat, hand over hand, we brought the people on to the ship. In the film that was made recently, called "Waves of Freedom," they actually show you pictures of bringing the people on the ship, in this film. If you can ever get "Waves of Freedom," get hold of tickets. A fifty-two-minute documentary. Shown all over the world. 26:00I've been flying all over with it. I show it, I speak. And we leave Lisbon -- or we had to get out of Lisbon. In Lisbon, we had some very beautiful things happen. It was Pesach, and we went to make a seder. And there's guards on the ship. So, there was a British tugboat tied up next to us, and we walked ashore -- go over the tu-- they say, Hey, Yanks. There's a Jew ship in port. We're looking for it. Would you help us find it? We said, We surely will. (laughs) It was us they were looking for. And you know, it was a secret ship. It had "Tradewinds," Panamanian flag, and we're outfitting the thing -- one day, the Jewish representative comes onboard, says, "Get out, they caught us. My hotel room has been ransacked. Get --" So, we try to leave that evening, and the anchor wouldn't come up. And I'm the engineer and I go on deck. And we start to drag the anchor. "We have to go!" And I see the lights going out in Lisbon. 27:00We're pulling up the electric wires in the port. (laughs) True story. I finally got the anchor to come up, and the next thi-- I had all the wires on the anchor, we had to cut 'em off and so -- but anyway, we got out, and we went to Italy. And in Italy, clandestinely, I first met my displaced persons for the first time. Greatest thrill. Hand over hand by rubber boats from the shore. A mogn-dovid [Star of David] on the shore lit up with flashing lights (UNCLEAR) -- first night, we couldn't go in, we had to get out there. It was too wavy, it was too stormy, or maybe they had trouble with the police or something. And they're bringing these people down by truckloads from all over Europe. They were going to Palestine. And hand over hand, we bring them on the ship. And we can't speak -- even though I speak Yiddish -- because my English-Yiddish would spook the people. They would think it's a trick from the British. So, we just point to each one. Each one, as they come on the ship, hug you. And there's my mother, my 28:00sister, my brother, my whole family coming on. And they're, Itst geyt men tsu erets yisroel [Now we're going to the Land of Israel]. And they kiss 'em. You know? It was a -- first time. We had 750 the first night. Second night, we're out on -- and we hear "tsh-tsh-tsh" in the distance, and there's these what they called lighters. Lighters are big barges. And they're being pulled with 750 people or more to bring 1500 or 1400, 1500, onto the ship. We took 'em out, and then we're heading for Palestine. The British intercept us, come in -- that's a story in itself there, too -- and they catch us, put us in prison ships, take us to Cyprus. And there was detention camps there. Everybody spoke Yiddish. And coming into the detention camp, there's a British guy sitting and a Yiddish guy. And he says to me, "Vos iz dayn nomen [What is your name]?" And I look, and my 29:00buddy Abi's standing next to me, and he can't speak a word of Yiddish. He's going to get caught. And they're gonna hang us if they catch us, or they'll put us in jail, 'cause they're looking for the crew. And we become DPs. And he -- he can't talk. So, I said to the Jewish guy -- (laughs) so brilliant I was -- I said, "My nume iz peysekh bruder un dos iz mayn brider, avrom bruder [My name is Pesach Brother and this is my brother, Abraham Brother]." I was thinking "brother," you know, what the hell. So, the British guy says to the Jewish guy, "Why doesn't he speak for himself?" So, I don't understand English, so he says to me, "Varum redt er nisht far zikh aleyn [Why doesn't he speak for himself]?" So, I -- I remember what the people told me. The most dreaded thing that they had in their mind was the "Hitler lager [concentration camp]," it was called, the lock-up. So, I said to him -- I point to him, I say, "The lager. Er redt nisht [He doesn't speak]." So, he says to the British guy, "He hasn't spoken in many, many months. Hitler did this to him." The British guy starts to cry -- true story -- and walks out of the room! The Yiddish guy jumps up over the 30:00table, and he wants to hug us, and he says, "Khevre [Friends]," he says, "Vosere numen iz 'bruder' [What kind of name is 'Brother']?" Said, "It's a goyishe [non-Jewish] -- nem a yidishe [take a Jewish name], like Rosenberg." And Abi says, "No, no, no, that's my real name!" We couldn't stop laughing. That's like a Hollywood scene, you know? So, we laughed, and we got papers for Bruder, and to this day -- that's a lot of years -- we still -- we spoke on the phone not la-- we call each other or we email each other: "Bruder." To this day. And that's where Yiddish saved my life, right there. Sure. Speaking Yiddish. So, that was a very interesting part of my life. 'Course, we went to Cyprus, and then from Cyprus we went to Palestine. And the British ship that we were on, the prison ship, we blew her up and sank her. Yeah, with the Haganah. That's another story. Yeah. It's in that film, "Waves of Freedom." See it. You'll see the -- everything is in there. And then, I went to Atlit, another prison camp -- a detention camp. And I escaped from there. Came back to America, took another 31:00ship across from New York -- after outfitting five sub chasers, which the American government wouldn't let go out. It was a warship. They wouldn't let 'em out, so we didn't go. But I went out with a Panamanian ship called the "SS Director," from the East River. And then, went to, same route, Canary Islands. This time we went to Marseilles. And then, it became a state, Israel became a state. It was '48 already. And we put a regular flag up. And I was second engineer of the ship. I became a higher-ranking officer of the engine department. And we took her across. We kept bringing fifteen hundred people, back and forth. And then, after that I got off of the ship. My friend came to me and took me into -- he says, "You're in the merchant --" -- I was a merchant seaman. Those were merchant ships. "Come into the Israeli Navy with me," he says, Paul. He was on the first ship with me out. I get off the ship after a few more trips, 'cause they had no engineers in those days, and I get off the ship, 32:00and he puts me in the jeep, we drive to Caesarea -- (pronounces Latin way) Caesarea. And there, buried in the ruins -- today it's a museum -- was our barracks. We lived there. And we was the first Navy SEAL unit. I was a SEAL, Navy SEAL. When I got there, I says, "Where are the ships?" He says, "No. You're not --" I says, "I can't swim." "Well, we're gonna teach you how to swim." He says, "We don't swim on the top, we swim on the bottom." Makes sense. (claps hands) I became a Navy SEAL. I spent the War of Independence in the SEALs. That's -- many other stories. And then, I came back to the States -- we're talking about my education, right? I don't want to lose the subject. We came back, and on the plane coming home -- I was going to go to engineering school. At MIT, you know, one of the engineering schools. Uncle Sam was paying for it. Guy sits down next to me on the plane coming home. He says, "Paul, we want you to study phys ed so you can teach phys ed in (UNCLEAR) College and go with the 33:00Olympic team all over the world. And then, what you could do is help us Nazi hunt all over the world as a Olympic instructor." So, I love playing ball, you know? (laughs) It was right up my alley. I came back to the -- I went to NYU, and I got my degree in phys ed at NYU. That's my education. I got a BS in Education at NYU to teach phys ed. That's my education.

HO:Did you end up traveling around?

PK:No, I did other things. Not with the education that we just spoke about. I did none of that for edification. I did none of that. I did no searching, no nothing. I was out.

HO:What did you end up doing instead?

PK:Oh, I opened my own sales company. I met a nice young lady who thought an alef was in a martini, and she did not ever hear of Palestine or Israel. Israel was a state. And so, we -- she taught cooking. I was married forty-two years to this lady. We have two children, beautiful. Have grandchildren. And she passed on fifteen years ago. But we stayed -- we lived in Brooklyn for a short while out of her parents' home. I met her in a chil-- I was teaching phys ed, and so I went to a children's camp, you know, up in Lake -- what the hell? I forget the name of it. Anyway, we wound up meeting in a camp, and we got married. And we stayed in Brooklyn. And she'd never been to -- she'd never been religious. Her background was they never saw a seder in her house. They had dinner parties as a Pesach, you know? But later on in life, she became vice president of Hadassah 35:00and Yiddishkayt became very important. And so, she graduated NYU, and we graduated together. So, it was a common bond -- it was beautiful. Married her. She became a vice president of Hadassah National. Yeah. Programming. She wrote music; she played piano -- concert piano. It was beautiful. Beautiful. We had a beautiful life together. So, that's my education. I have a BS in Education of NYU.

HO:So, when you were raising your children, did you teach them any Yiddish or --

PK:Yes.

HO:You did.

PK:Yes. My daughter more than my son. She knows a little Yiddish. They are both in the Jewish world today. And they know the Jewish rule. They both belong to synagogues today. I told you my son is a Reform today, which is beautiful. And my daughter belongs to one in Merrick, Long Island, for I don't know how many 36:00years now -- many, many years. Rabbi Klein there. He and I are friendly. And that's a Conservative shul. Yes. The children got Yiddishkayt from my wife, from -- she made seders for thirty, forty people all the time. Oh yeah. We had a real Yiddish home, no question.

HO:How did you decide to teach them Yiddish? Was that --

PK:Well --

HO:-- a conscious decision?

PK:-- I didn't teach them Yiddish. I would give them a few words, and when -- I remember my son growing up, when he'd say, "You speak -- papa, you -- dad, you're speaking Yiddish. It sounds like (makes garbled noise)," you know, he would grumble it. We'd laugh. So, I really didn't get into Yiddish; my kids didn't. But my daughter a little bit more than my son. She's older. I guess that should tell the story.

HO:You want to tell me a bit about Cyprus and --

PK:Cyprus you want to hear about?

HO:Sure.

PK:Okay. Cyprus was a detention camp. We mixed in with the people. There was a 37:00few Palestinians -- or Israeli -- guys snuck in to the camp. We used to call them, nickname, "Shu-shus." The word "Shesh" in Hebrew means "silence," or "secret." So, we'd call them "Shu-shu Boys." And they planned our escape or our get-out from Cyprus. The crew was about thirty members. And they had to keep us hidden. 'Cause if the British caught us, you know. We drew lots, twelve -- fifteen one time and fourteen the next, approximately. And I won the first lottery, but I gave it to my friend Hal, the one I told you recruited me? He had scabies from the heat, so I had to get him to a hospital in mainland Palestine. So, I gave him my little ticket that I won, and he went, and I stayed in the prison camp an extra month. Staying that extra month meant becoming involved -- 38:00I wasn't involved at all, per se, but they were bringing in explosives from a tunnel dug outside the -- from the end camp of the camp. The camp had guard houses with guns and everything in 'em. Barbed wire. You were confined in a regular -- it was a camp, detention camp. The British had all this. And everybody spoke Yiddish there. Now in the camp itself, it was divided up into sections: the Romanians, Jews, Hungarian Jews, Polish Jews, Czech Jews, all in little clans in the prison camp. There were two camps: a summer camp and a winter cam-- a lager. A summer lager, winter camp. And Yiddish was spoken purely. Half the guys -- and how we left Cyprus was with a quota system. The 39:00British allowed fifteen hundred Jews a month to go into Palestine, seven-fifty from Cyprus and seven-fifty from all other places, like Atlit, which was the second detention camp, which I'll tell you about. That's where I wound up. And so, at that time the "Exodus" was captured. She had forty-five hundred people on board. And what they do is they take you, they put you on prison ships, the British, when they catch you. And Bevin told Truman, President Truman, that he was sending these forty-five hundred people to Cyprus. He lied. They wound up back in Germany. When the Haganah heard that -- remember, there's Pale-- there's no country. It's still Palestine -- they decided to blow up these prison ships wherever we can to stop the British with those ships. So, being in Cyprus, they smuggled in gelignite, which is a explosive. And we smuggled it -- my turn to 40:00leave as a DP, the British search you, they went through, and I -- there was a little girl by the name of Bootsie, I remember. She was about eight years old. And she had a fake bottom suitcase with gelignite in it. And my friend Moshe -- who I still talk to to this day, Moishe -- says, "Bootsie, nemt nisht -- she can't take --" -- he had no Yiddish. I spoke the Yiddish for -- "-- you can't take this thing 'cause they'll catch us." We heard them speaking. They heard that they're gonna -- they're trying to blow up the ship. And one of the officers said, "If they blow that ship, I'm going to Australia back." And I was gonna say, "Man, you're going, but the -- (laughs) you know? So, in Yiddish we said to her, Leave it here with us. She says, "No! If I can do something for my new country, I'm gonna do it." And she's about to pick up her bag when a British 41:00sergeant runs over and says, "Bootsie --" -- a woman sergeant -- "-- you're going to your homeland!" She hugs and kisses her, picks up her bag, "Come, I'll take your bag for you with you on your --" -- and she -- and the British guy's (UNCLEAR), "This is my friend Bootsie, you can't look at her. Come on, Bootsie." And she puts the (claps hands) gelignite on the ship for us. You had to be there to see it, what I'm telling you. It's unreal. And so, Bootsie -- we got the gelignite, and we were sailing with the ship. They put you in like animals, into a hold. It's a prison ship. It's terrible. And we're down in the hold, underneath -- and that's good for us, 'cause that way we can blow the ship from down below. We put the gelignite in -- and all of a sudden, I hear from down below the anchor going down. That means -- see, every ship going to every port, the board of health comes on board and inspects it. That's a law of every ship in the world, no matter where you go into port. So, I said, "Moshe, the detonator's set?" He says, "Yeah." I says, "We're gonna blow up out at sea. 42:00Everybody goes down. Can you change it?" He says, "When I went to school, they taught me how to set it. They never taught me how to -- (laughs) how to unset it. There's nothing I can do." But then I hear (makes shuddering noise), and I hear the anchor coming up. So, I said, "I think we'll be okay. How much (UNCLEAR)?" "Got another hour," he says, "on it, forty-five minutes to an hour." I says, "All right, we'll make port by then." We make Haifa port. And we rush the people off. We don't tell anybody anything. The people go off. (claps hands) I was the last one off the ship. I heard, Boom. And I see a crew member hollering, "Fire in the hole!" That's a terminology on the ship that's, "Emergency." And she sank. And the British -- I have at home telegrams that I got smuggled out from the British thing that says, "No more prison ships. They just blew up a prison ship in Haifa port, and we're stopping all the ships. They have to use their own." And we use our own, instead of seven-fifty, you know, the (claps hands, points to his head) yidishe kop [Jewish mind] -- we bring out 43:00more people. We could get 'em out, get 'em out. Of course, then -- you know, I told you I went back to the States. I went to Atlit from there. And if you go to Atlit today it's a museum. And it's got all the pictures and everything of all -- the detention camp is still there, intact. And if you go on the computer, you'll see my picture. The reason I know is my rabbi, one of my rabbis, just called me not too long ago last year. He says, "Paul," he says, "I saw you in Atlit," he says, "but you had more hair." (laughs) We couldn't stop laughing. So, I spoke for him, slikhes [information] night, and we showed a film, "Waves of Freedom," in his shul for slikhes night. That's a good film. If you get it -- you can Google it -- yeah, I told you about it. Cyprus was a place with no food. Some water was smuggled in to us on canisters by the -- Cyprus is two people: Turkish and Greek. The Greeks were sympathetic to our cause. The Turks were on 44:00the British side. So, you had to know who you're talking to. And in the picture "Exodus," you remember the Greek guy, buys a ship? The "Exodus" picture's completely -- it's not what really happened, no way. In fact, my friend Hal became an actor in later life; he's in the film. And he goes over to Preminger, and he says, "That's not how it happened!" Preminger fired him. (laughs) He's in parts of the film, though. You can see -- Hal's in there. He rescues (UNCLEAR). Anyway, there was -- it was difficult days. No food. In fact, I was with a couple of British guys who were sneaking in with us. They were pilots. They fought in World War II. They were aces; they were great pilots. And we're sitting by the fence, and we see German prisoners of war walking free. Of course, you know, the war was over, and they were in their uniforms. And we both -- I never forgot that. But anyway, we got out of Cyprus, blew up the ship, went 45:00to Atlit -- I was the last one -- the British were looking for us, of course. But I spoke Yiddish and no problem. And in Atlit, I spent a month --- no, three weeks in Atlit. Three weeks. Moshe told me I was there with him a month. I thought I was there two weeks. Felt like it. Anyway, under the fence, into a cab. We're still Palestine. Into a hotel in Haifa called the Carmeliyah Court -- never forgot that -- on a hill in Haifa. And there they gave us different papers again until finally I got on a ship, came back to Marseilles. I worked in Marseilles for a while with the underground, but nothing -- just communication things. And that's the story. Cyprus was no food, no water. The displaced people, they used to peel the potatoes with knives and throw the peels away. And 46:00I used to look at my friend, say, "Hey --" -- see, remember I told you the different -- the Hungarians would make magnificent cakes out of nothing. So, if you had a birthday -- we all had a birthday all the time. So, we'd make cakes for us. They knew who we were. See, the people in the camp knew who we were. One guy says, "We know how you walk." He says, "You walk differently than us." (laughs) When we walked through the street in the prison ca-- in the detention camp. And I used to take these potato peels and stick 'em in water, some water, and boil it, make potato soup. Why throw 'em out? There was no food! And there were all outhouses there. There was no sanitary conditions in the camp. The camp was terrible. The British were not very kind. In the winter camp. In the summer camp, you had a beach. That's why it was called the summer camp. And if you swam out too far, the British would come by with a boat, beat you with sticks. And the Irish troops in the British army disliked the British more than -- and they 47:00used to sneak us out to swim in the garbage trucks. In fact, Paddy Fitzgerald saved my life one time when they stopped my truck going between two camps. The reason they transferred us to another camp is so we can get out of the quota system. The British guy, he says, "Those guys, I heard 'em speak English." And we're on the back of a truck. And we don't know what he's talking about, you know? So, the British guy jumps on -- he sees a -- one of the guys from my ship was Hugh MacDonald, he went to Harvard. He had his law books with him. So, he says, "Whose is this?" Hugh says -- picks 'em up -- Hugh's a Irish -- Hugh MacDonald -- he says, "I learn speak English." He says, "That's good. Nice going." And he gets off. And Paddy Fitzgerald pulls up with his truck, honks the horn -- and the British are very stately. So, the officer in charge with his swagger stick -- "Stop the rioting," he says to the -- (laughs). "Move those trucks." And we got us out of there. And he waved to me like this. And for about 48:00twenty-five years, I used to send him a Christmas card, Limerick Island. Paddy Fitzgerald. We stayed friends. Yeah. These are things that, you know -- Yiddishkayt. It's all in Yiddishkayt. That wraps it up, I guess. No?

HO:Yeah. I --

PK:Got any more que-- I'm sorry.

HO:-- I have a question actually going back to the beginning of how you ended up on these ships. That whole group of people that was organizing in --

PK:In New York.

HO:-- in New York --

PK:Yeah.

HO:-- who were they?

PK:It was a company -- (sighs) American guys, financiers -- who -- the name of the company was called Land and Labor. And they -- rich Jews -- financed the purchasing of these ships. These are derelict ships that were given up for lost. There were about fifteen of them. Meanwhile, from Europe, small ships were trying to break into Palestine with our people, just to get 'em out of Europe, 49:00'cause they had no place to live! They had no place to go. They had no -- couldn't go back to their homes in those days. People moved into their homes. They'd kill them if they came back to Poland. A lot of our people, they had -- so they couldn't go back. They had to go either America or Palestine. Some went to Cuba. A few, a handful. In New York, there was -- I'm trying to remember some of the guys' names. There were a couple of guys who were ahead of the -- this thing here, this movement. And there was an underground -- it's a good question -- the headquarters was in the old Copacabana nightclub on Sixtieth Street, and if you go there today, you look at the sidewalk east of Fifth Avenue. There's a plaque in the sidewalk; it says, "This is where the Jewish underground started." In the sidewalk today. And Cindy Adams, in her column in the "Post," "New York Post," wrote about it two years ago. I have a copy of the article. But that's where the headquarters were. And also, they had a headquarters down in City 50:00Hall, out of there also. There were three different places. And they were buying the ships for cash. Cash money was c-- one of the biggest contributors to our cause in those days, I found out later years from Teddy Kollek, he told us -- Frank Sinatra. And the boys, sure. They were giving cash money to buy the ships. Big, big contributions. Sure.

HO:Let's see. I have a lot of questions written out for you.

PK:Okay, go ahead.

HO:So, in your adult life, after being on these different ships and serving in the Israeli Navy, and then you got married later on. You were married later on --

PK:Yes.

HO:-- after that. Can you tell me a bit about your involvement in the Jewish community once you were back in the US and settled down?

PK:Oh, yes. I was hired by the speakers' bureaus of the various Jewish organizations to -- I was questioned by the FBI, of course. State Department took my passport away. I got it back later on in life, when I changed my name to Kamenetsky to Kaye. My wife wouldn't live -- she -- 'member I told you about her. So, she wanted a very short name. My brother was Kmness, K-m-n-e-s-s, something like that. My family was Kmness. I changed it to Kaye. She -- "Okay, Kaye." (UNCLEAR). That was the (UNCLEAR). But what was the question again? The --

HO:What was your involvement in the Jewish community?

PK:Just the shul and speaking Sunday mornings all over the United States for the UJA, for Hadassah, for various groups of Jewish organiza-- fundraising. I was a 52:00fundraiser for them. They always offered me a lot of money, percentages. To this day, I never took a penny from any of them. I thanked them. Occasionally they would buy me a ticket on a train or a plane or something. That's about it. And even then, I used to -- my business was going good. I was in the consumer electronic business. I was making a very fine living for my family. That's all my intentions were. I did work with the Israeli consulate a couple of times on different things, but I don't want to be on record with it. It's not important.

HO:What drove you to be involved with all of these different organizations? Or what did they ask you to speak about?

PK:Two things. Some of my experiences that I gave you and the importance of UJA-Federation, where their money goes, you know, how important it is that the Jews -- you know, I used to start my speech, "There are good Jews and better Jews. Good Jews give from the heart. Better Jews say, 'Better ask my wife. Better ask my accountant.' Today we have only good Jews. You're gonna give 53:00plenty to UJA, and I'll tell you why," and then I get in, and I make them a little talk about how I got recruited and so on, like you got on the tape here. And then, I would tell them the importance of the organization, like Hadassah, what they do, UJA, how they build kibbutzim and how they -- you know, the importance of giving for the -- it was fundraising. And I used to do it all over the world, all over the United States. I didn't go out of the United States. When I say all over the world, I didn't go to Europe. I just -- in the States. And I spoke for all these major organizations. In fact, I'm still scheduled with them. I'm going down in September to Savannah to speak for a federation. They called me to come and give the story. In fact, this one, the federation is for non-Jew-- you know, Righteous Gentiles. I'm gonna speak on that. We had them on my ship. We had two of them. Beautiful guys. So, that's -- that was what I did, mostly, for our people. And I did a few works with the consulate on various 54:00things that I don't want on tape. It's not necessary, you know?

HO:So, in your adult life -- I know in your childhood you had said you lived in a really Jewish neighborhood.

PK:Yes.

HO:In your adult life, were you also living in a very Jewish --

PK:Absolutely. 'Fact, we lived in Brooklyn. I'd never been in Brooklyn in my life, just to maybe go to Coney Island to swim with my mother, you know, when (laughs) I was a kid, from the Bro-- I lived in the Bronx the whole time. That's like going overseas. And -- (laughs) if you go to Brooklyn from the Bronx, it's -- anyway. Being a New Yorker, going to high school in Manhattan -- again, the question was?

HO:Was your neighborhood very Jewish?

PK:Very Jewish, yes.

HO:Yeah.

PK:In Brooklyn, we lived in a section that was Jewish, with my -- I'm trying to periodically get -- then when I wanted to buy my first house, how did I buy a house? I had friends who lived in Valley Stream, a place called Green Acres. And 55:00on Hanukkah, we drove through the streets to see if -- where I wanted to buy my house -- if the candles were in the windows. And Green Acres was all Jewish. Every house had a candle. I said to my wife, said, "This is where we gotta bring our children. This is where we gotta live." And we bought a house in Green Acres. I lived there for twenty-five years or so at Green Acres, and then I moved to a bigger house in Green Acres. I was supposed to go to North Woodmere. I didn't want to go. All Yiddish. All -- right -- walking distance to the shul, or a bus service for the first shul, right in Valley Stream. My kids always went to Hebrew school, kheyder [traditional religious school], you know, and they learned -- they all read Hebrew, and they know -- and their children do too. And I have a grandson that's twenty-some-odd -- twenty-one -- he's going to Israel now. Told me he won't go, now tells me he wants to -- it's a story in itself. 56:00But all my children -- my son was bar mitzvahed in Israel, in my navy base. We had it, of course, beside the Wall. And took him to Masada and so forth and toured Israel. During our tours, the Air Force sent out a couple planes and dropped a few bombs out in the fields. (laughs) My son, he's the bar mitzvah boy, "This is how they're celebrating for me." Because I still remain my officership in the Israeli forces. That's another story. But -- yes, my children, my family, we lived very Yiddish, to answer your question.

HO:And so, did you continue using Yiddish in your adult life?

PK:No, almost none. I spoke only English, only English. That's all. The only Yiddish I ever -- is when I was contacted by -- Lansky, is it? And he wanted -- so when I heard he's conserving the books, came to my hou-- in fact, he sent me 57:00a book from here. You sent me a book. It's called "Imlegale yidn shpaltn dem yam [Illeagal Jews divide the sea]." It's written by [Auber?], I think his name -- on the "Hatikvah," on my ship, there was a reporter for the "Forwards." And he wrote a book about the ship. It's in the museum here. And they sent me an original copy. It was printed in Argentina, back in 1955 or something like that. I have the book home. I treasure it, you know? And you sent it to me. Yiddish book club sent it to me. And he wrote it in pure Yiddish. So yes, Yiddish was used by me as a young man, saved my life -- you know, I told you. We used it. But when I was questioned by the FBI, you know, about -- they were looking for communists and stuff like that, which we had no idea what the hell it was all about. I was an engineer working on a ship, really. And helping my people. That 58:00was the bottom line. Getting them out of Europe to Palestine. And at no time did I go against the allegiance of my country. That's how I signed the papers to the FBI, had 'em put that down. In fact, when I graduated college, they called me into the office when I -- at NYU, they were opening up a phys ed department down in -- Camp -- in the South, where the FBI trains with the Marines, and they wanted me to go down there and instruct. And I signed up for it, to become an FBI man. And then, on the application it says, "Married or single?" You have to be single to become -- in those days -- you have to be -- to be an FBI man, you gotta pass the bar or have a CPA. And they opened it up for one year for phys. ed. instructors to come down. And they called me to go. And I signed to go. But I was getting married. (claps hands) I didn't qualify. So, I didn't -- that was a different phase of my life. But Yiddish -- I never used Yiddish after -- my 59:00family, we were all in Yiddish neighborhoods, but everybody spoke English. There was no Yiddish. My children, very little. But when Lansky, when he started going for the books, that was so important to me. It's the saving. Just look around. It's magnificent. And it's being projected to the youngsters, like -- I couldn't believe it. When we walked through the hall just now, it's beautiful! And if I can be of any help to you at any time, please, don't hesitate.

HO:What do you think is so important about Yiddish? What makes it so significant?

PK:Because it's the foundation, background of our being. Anti-Semitism is growing so badly in this world, in America, all over -- it's just horrible. And the basic of Yiddishkayt is the Yiddish language. Because even as a young boy, it became the central part of all of the Jews coming together. And it should be 60:00kept. It should be -- it's very important. It's the foundation. And we have enough tsures, as they say, enough problems, around us, you know? Just recently I was a guest speaker up in Calgary. And there's three synagogues up there. The day I was leaving, two of 'em were -- Nazi paintings on the walls. So, that's the importance of Yiddish. Very important. This language should be -- God bless this pla-- it's wonderful. It's a wonderful thing. And the fact that you broadcast it out to the colleges is magnificent. Keep it up. And whatever I can do to -- I'm there for you, really.

HO:What do you hope for the future of Yiddish?

PK:Well, from what I -- I thought it was gonna be dead after my generation, that's the end of it. But now I see you are keeping it alive and keeping it going. And Yiddish is a bonding thing for the Jewish people to keep us alive. 61:00And each Yiddish in each country is different. For example, (laughs) in America, how do we say "grocery store" in Yiddish? How do you say it? (says with Yiddish accent) "Grocery store." You see? But in Israel, it's "machsan." In Germany, it would be the "shulegaye," you know? Different words for -- the Yiddish language picks up the language of the country. My mother used to say words to me in Polish, for instance. Or Russian, my father -- Yiddish, while speaking Yiddish. You have certain words that come out of the language that you emanate from. But it's so important. And what you're doing here in this Book Center is -- (laughs) is so important. Because we have enough anti-Semitism around us. And it's growing. And this is a foundation for youngsters to feel Yiddish, to feel 62:00Jewish. Very important for you. You know, Hillary -- it gives you a foundation. And it's very important, the Yiddish language. I think. That's just a humble opinion. (laughs)

HO:What do you think the books signify?

PK:What do -- the books?

HO:Yeah.

PK:It's keeping alive the background of Yiddish literature, Yiddish writers. I love to go to -- this Sunday I'm going to a klezmer -- yeah, the Klezmatics, up in New York, I'm gonna see them. We know someone who plays the violin for them. It's family, from Susan's side of the family. Yeah, she's gonna be -- she's in the Klezmatics. It's all very important, very important. I just recently spoke to a Yiddish book club. Very important. It leaves -- otherwise it'd be dead! And 63:00you young people would never know about where Yiddish comes from. You know? It's very important to keep it alive because it gives you a foundation. And the fact that young kids are learning it and bringing it up, you know, very important. I honor -- I feel so gratified. What I saw here today, it's just beautiful, just beautiful. And I hope you keep it up, you know?

HO:Speaking of Susan, can you tell me more about you two and how Judaism and Yiddish might come into your lives? Like you said, klezmer --

PK:Oh.

HO:-- and your involvement here --

PK:Well, various ways. We have a khazn [synagogue cantor] friend of ours in Long Island who still goes down into Manhattan to the Jewish theater, which is so -- you know, Jewish theater -- Menasha Skulnik and Molly Picon, all the various -- 64:00in fact, Molly Picon had an exhibit on Sixteenth Street at the museum in Manhattan, up until last -- this last five or six months ago. She had the lobby about her life. This cantor every year invites us to a seder about two or three weeks before Pesach in the Jewish -- the Yiddish -- Union Hall Actors. They make a seder in pure Yiddish. And I love it. I look forward to it this year. I haven't got my invitation yet this year, but I'm gonna call and make sure we go. And I spend a night there -- it's so -- Yiddish theater is fantastic. It used to be on Second Avenue in Manhattan when I was a kid -- you know, growing up they had Yiddish theater. Very important. And even now, again, occasionally you get -- it gives you pride. It was a wond-- well, look at your Hollywood stars, all 65:00the Yiddishkayt for -- yeah, what's-his-name who played Mickey Marcus. What's his name -- oh, boy. I'm on camera; I don't want to (UNCLEAR). But he -- he's an old man now in Hollywood. His son is in New York. He played Mickey Marcus in "Cast a Giant Shadow." And he felt so moved by it that he became Orthodox. He's a star in Hollywood. What's his name. Oh, boy. I'm losing it. I'm having a senior moment. Very famous star. We honor Mickey Marcus, who got killed in the War of Independence up in West Point, every year -- my group, American Veterans of Israel. We honor him in West Point every year. And this last year, we honored him and invited all non-Jews who fought in the '48 war. It was very important. 66:00This coming year, it'll be any woman who fought in the '48 war. There's quite a few of -- ladies, who were nurses and who were in the '48 war with us. So, Mickey Marcus was the general from West Point. He graduated West Point. And he was nicknamed Aluf Stone. "Aluf" means "General" Stone. That was his nickname, his fake name. He made the Israeli Army, his mentality. He fought in World War II. He parachuted on D-Day into -- behind enemy lines. So, he's a hero. And he's buried in West Point. And that's Yiddishkayt. Very important. There's a beautiful chapel, a Jewish chapel, up in West Point. If you're ever in New York, you're gonna be in New York, take a trip up to West Poi-- if you're in New York next year -- April 29th, I think it is -- call me. We'll get you to come up to West Point and you'll see it. Oh, I love it. Absolutely. You're invited.

HO:Thank you. (laughs)

PK:And any of your friends. And your family. We'll take you all up there. Well, we won't, take you up there, but we'll invite you up.

HO:Is this with the American Veterans of Israel?

PK:Yes.

HO:Could you tell me a bit about -- were you part of the beginning of that group, of --

PK:Yeah, we started it way back in -- oh, about 1960, I guess it was. I'm just trying to guess now. A group of us talked to each other. We're called Machal. Machal is a Hebrew acronym for Mitnavei chutz la'aretz [sic]. "Mitnavei" is "volunteer"; "chutz," "from outside"; of "aretz," "of Israel." Those who came from outside to volunteer for Israel were called "Machalniks." And we still get together to this day. We're all -- most of 'em are gone, just a few of us left. And there's a new group called AVIL, Legacy, American Veterans of Israel. And they're carrying it on. And they're running the West Point thing with us, with -- they're in charge of that now. We put them -- and there's a new group now of younger people called Aluf Stone, guys who've fought in the different wars of 68:00Israel and are back in America, American boys. And then, there's another group I spoke to last week called the Lone Soldier: American or any outsider guys from Europe or South America, Canada, who fight in the Israeli Army and have nobody there when they got free time. We started a Lone Soldier group. It's like the USO that I had in the World War II, you know. And we take these young people, and we take 'em to homes, and they feed them, and they show them what Israel's like. It's called the Lone Soldier. I made a speech to the parents two weeks ago in a synagogue in Manhattan called the Brotherhood Synagogue. There were twenty-five sets of parents there who had -- one guy, he -- all the years I've been speaking, one guy moved me, blew me away. His two sons came home from serving. And his third son just spent a second week in the Israeli Army, as 69:00fighters. Trained -- and then we had a guy in Susan's shul who's on leave, and he's a lone soldier. So, that's very important right now, the Lone Soldier, if you hear about that you'll know more. It's all Yiddishkayt. It's all -- they don't use the Yiddish language. Hebrew's the main language now. But, you know. I used to read Hebrew letters, Yiddish words. My mother and I used to sit and read the books like that. That was my education when I was a kid. I'd read Yiddish words in Hebrew letters. (laughs) The Yiddish language was very -- it's a beautiful language, I think. And it's just -- it keeps the foundation. And the fact that you're doing this, I find it intriguing and very important.

HO:One more question I have --

PK:Okay.

HO:-- for you is you were talking before we came in about the youth trips that you've been working with. Could you tell me a bit about what they are --

PK:Yes.

HO:-- and what you do with them?

PK:Yes. These are young people that started in 1994. That's the year I lost my first wife. I was married forty-two years. And they called me up: Would I like to take a trip? What it is is young people who are going for a six- to eight-week vacation or touring of Israel for the summer, summer trips. Instead of flying from America straight to Israel, they fly into Rome. They spend three days in Rome. They see where the Jews started from in Rome. They educate them there. They tour 'em through the synagogue there. There's a great synagogue. And the Yiddish families make all the kosher meals there for the kids. It's a group of about two hundredy fifty to three hundred kids, sometimes three-fifty. And some years, as this program grew, it was six hundred, eight hundred. They made many -- and then we arrest them. We make them displaced persons. We put 'em on a 71:00ship in Naples or some port city of Italy, and we reenact the exodus with them. There's a film about that, which I have. In fact, I have a copy in the car I'm taking up north. It's called "Exodus '94." And it's the -- they learn all about the exodus on the ship. Then the boats come out, like the British, and capture us, and they take 'em into Haifa, put 'em on buses to Atlit. The kids. And on the ship, we tell them these stories about how it really was like and what it was like, and they do that every year. It's the last weekend in June, first weekend in July, on the way for their vacation. Instead of just flying straight to Israel, they go via this short stop. (laughs) It's a different way of going to Palestine -- to Israel. And they learn about the exodus that way, firsthand. 72:00I have a twenty-minute documentary that I'll show before I speak many times of the kids on the ship and the whole thing I just told you. And that's the whole program. It's done by the Hechalutz department, which is the education department of Israel. They sponsor it. And it's through Hadassah youth movement, through -- on the ship is the Betar. There's all the different Orthodo-- not too much Ortho-- they -- but there's some. The ship is koshered. And all the different youth groups come together, and they learn to live together, young people like yourself, learn the different factions. Very important. It's in this film, by the way. And it's a beautiful thing. Up until -- when the intifada started, a lot of the kids stopped going to Israel. They held back. So, only one ship -- one year I had three -- four shiploads. I was flying back and forth to Greece to pick up a ship, Cyprus a ship, and bring the kids, just to teach them 73:00about the exodus. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful -- isn't that? How do you like it?

HO:It's great, yeah.

PK:Yeah. It's a beautiful way of going.

HO:Do you tell them a lot of the stories that you were telling me, like --

PK:Yes.

HO:-- how Yiddish saved your life?

PK:Everything. Sure. About Yiddishkayt and -- oh, yeah. Definitely. All that you heard so far, they get that. And it's not only me, it's other guys who sail the ships, go on the ship. I had two or three guys with me from the "Exodus." Some of 'em are gone -- most of 'em are gone. I'm the very few left, (laughs) you know? My age. But they're all gone. And they go on the ships, and we ma-- Murray Greenfield got me involved in this thing. And he was -- well, he's gone the last two years out of Cyprus. He flew quickly back and fo-- 'cause he lives in Israel. And he called me, and it just -- you know, it's a wonderful thing. Yeah. It's called -- I think it's called the Reenactment of Exodus, yeah, of that 74:00year, nine-- I started in '94, '95. Every year, shiploads. They got more and more, bigger and bigger. And it's Russian cruise ships that they use. Very nice. Very beautiful. And the kids have a wonderful time. But they learn Yiddishkayt. That's important. That's it?

HO:Let's see. What have I not asked you? Let's see. My last question for you --

PK:Good.

HO:-- will be, do you have a favorite Yiddish word, phrase, or song?

PK:Yes. (laughs) How 'bout the word "dafke"? You ever hear it?

HO:I've heard of it. Can you tell me about it and what it means?

PK:Sure. It means many things to many people. It means "because of." "I carried my umbrella today; dafke it won't rain." Hadassah last year had a contest of the 75:00whole United States, what the word dafke means, and they got people writing back magnificent answers of what dafke means. There's a few words I have, but that shines out real good. Dafke. "Because of," "maybe," "might happen." "Because you did that, dafke, that's why that happened." Another very beautiful word that I love is bashert. That you know. Things happen because they're bashert. And I believe in that very strongly. I've had the experience. Bashert, things happen. Here. I'm speaking here, bashert. I don't know how I got here. I don't know why you got my name or how you got it, but bashert that I'm here. And of all places, the Yiddish Book place, because I love this pla-- I helped start it, you know. When he first needed help, we were there for him right away, by the way. 76:00Absolutely. Yeah. Okay?

HO:Yeah. Is there anything else I forgot, or you also --

PK:You didn't forget anything. (laughter) Okay?

HO:Forgot to ask?

PK:If you remember, call me up, okay? (laughs)

HO:Well, thank you.

PK:Thank you, dear.

[END OF INTERVIEW]