VELVEL PASTERNAK ORAL HISTORY

HANKUS NETSKY:It's August 15th, 2011, and we're here in Cedarhurst, New York, speaking with Velvel Pasternak, who is a composer, arranger, publisher, conductor, and just generally a major force in Jewish music. And we're gonna start -- let's start by asking Velvel about his early background.

VELVEL PASTERNAK: Uh --

HN:Family background and all that.

VP:Born in Toronto, Canada, in 1933. Came to New York, a public school student 1:00in Toronto. In those years we did not have day schools in Canada. Were very few in New York. And third year of high school, along with ten other young boys from Toronto, we traveled to New York and enrolled in Yeshiva University High School for Boys and spent the next six years in New York, going to Yeshiva College -- graduated from there. And played piano by ear. No training, because when I was a child, I would get near a piano and I would tinkle, and everybody thought I was a genius. But at the age of thirteen, my mother thought that she has to channel this great talent, so she got me a teacher -- happened to be a woman had come 2:00from Poland. And she knew that I had some kind of dexterity on the piano, but she insisted I play scales. And she charged a dollar for a lesson. And I thought (laughs) it was a total waste of money to pay a dollar for that. So, I gave it up. And ended up in a camp when I was sixteen or seventeen, and they needed a music counselor in Canada, Zionistic camp. And so, I pitched in. And somehow, music got into my bones. When I got to Yeshiva University, I was on track in rabbinical school. And during my last year of college, I discovered a music professor who, interestingly enough -- I have written this up in the past -- a fellow by the name of Dr. Charles Gay, who was both a PhD in psychology and a 3:00PhD in music. And for some reason, he was booted out of a bar up in Fallsburg, New York, and the yeshiva students who at the time were waiters for their holiday of Pesach saw him being booted out of the bar, picked him up, and for some reason, cleaned him up. And after the holiday they brought him to New York, and being very, very nice Jewish fellows, they set him up in a little apartment in the Bronx. And he found himself teaching sixty young men who wanted to be cantors. And a whole day and a whole night he was singing "mem-a-mo-me-me" with them. And on Sunday, I discovered who he was. I came to him, and I said, "I'd like to study theoretical music." And he was taken aback 'cause nobody else was interested in it. So, he made a deal with me that he would teach me twice a week 4:00on the condition -- no money, okay? -- on the condition that I would accompany him after each lesson to the bar. (Netsky laughs) Which I did for a year and a half. He was a wonderful human being, great musician. I sat with him while he drank Canadian Club and washed it down with milk and listened to him talk about how much he loved the Jewish people. If I met with him Friday afternoon, he would tell me what time candle lighting was. Got me out of the Bronx. And after a year and a half, he boned me up for the extension division of Juilliard. I went in, and I took literature and materials of music and choral conducting with Abraham Kaplan. Except that it -- the music was all masses and "Jesu Christi," and I found it a little bit difficult to take as a Jew. And so, I left 5:00Juilliard, and I went over to Columbia, because they came over -- the people from Juilliard told us, rather, that it would be very difficult for most of us to make it as -- in the --professional musician. We should go over and get some music education courses and be able to teach. So, I went over to Columbia, happened to meet my wife there, and took a master's degree. And then, the board of Jewish education called me and said, You're not to go into the public school system; we need you in the Jewish line. So, I came out here to Woodmere, Long Island, to the Brandeis School, which is still in existence, and I was the music teacher there for five years. Very, very, interesting: I had to change my name from Velvel to William because there was a dummy on television at the time 6:00sitting next to a ventriloquist named Rickie Layne, and this was a very, very fancy school. I can only tell you how fancy it was: it had two psychiatrists on faculty (laughter) to take care of the -- and the woman said, "You'll have to change your name; otherwise you can't teach here."

HN:The dummy was named Velvel?

VP:Velvel, yes. This Rickie Layne is still around, you know. And so, I became William for five years, which is a little bit -- took me a little bit of time to get used to. And that started it. And I had a lot of free time, so I began to notate and to write down the melodies, et cetera, et cetera, in my spare time. But what happened was I got a call from Sheboygan, Wisconsin. This is all documented. And a woman said to me, "My name is rebetsn [wife of the rabbi] so-and-so. And we have a problem here in Sheboygan." I said, "What is the 7:00problem?" And she said, "My daughter's getting married." And I said, "Mazel tov." I figured it's either a shotgun wedding or what's the problem? And she says, "No, no, you have to understand." She said, "My daughter's khosn, the bridegroom, is bringing sixty boys from a yeshiva in New York, and they need some music to play." And she said, "I'm gonna give you my daughter." So, the daughter got on. The daughter's name is Sylvia Barack Fishman, who is a professor of sociology at Brandeis. It was her wedding. And she said to me, "Mr. Pasternak, we're desperate." She said, "We went to the closest bandleader to Sheboygan --" -- which was in Milwaukee, in Chicago, or whatever it was -- "-- and we asked him, 'Do you know Jewish music?' And he said, 'Of course.'" And she said, "Can you give me a couple of melodies you know?" He said, "Well, 'Hava Nagila.'" She said, "What are my guys gonna dance to? What's gonna be at the 8:00wedding? How long can you play 'Hava Nagila'?" She said, "You must do a mitzvah -- a good deed." I said, "What's the good deed?" She says, "You gotta write down some melodies for me to give to the band." I said, "Uh --" She said, "How much do you charge?" I said, "I don't charge; I don't -- if it's a mitzvah, you know -- whatever you want. I'll tell you how much time, if you want to send me a couple of bucks, gezint aheyt [by all means, lit. "go in good health"]." I sat down and I wrote out twenty-five melodies that were very, very known in the yeshiva world at the time that I figured they would know. And I wrote them out and put a couple of chords in, wrote 'em by pencil, sent them off to her. Two weeks later I got a check for twenty-five dollars in the mail with a lot of blessings that this was a wonderful, wonderful wedding. And it was absolutely terrific and thanked me no end. Good! Fine. Five weeks later I get a call from Tampa, Florida. Mrs. Goldenberg says, (speaks in accent) "We was in Sheboygan, and we have the same problem in Tampa." I didn't know what she was talking 9:00about. I said, "Please explain." She said, "We need music." She said, "We don't have any music." I hadn't even kept a copy of the twenty-five pieces I wrote. So, this time I wrote them out by pen, made it a Xeroxed copy, and I sent them out to her. You know, whatever. Within a period of five months, I was getting requests from everywhere from San Diego, from Boston, from Miami, "We need the music." And I sent everybody -- so I said to myself at that point -- this is 1968 -- "Somebody must need this stuff." Okay? So, I decided I would sit down; I would arrange all this music. I wrote a book called "Songs of the Chassidim." A big volume of the favorite Hasidic songs and stuff that could be used at weddings. I had no money to put it out. I mean, it cost money to -- so I was 10:00able to cover the transcribing of the music and typography, and now I have to get some money to print it. So, somebody said to me, "You know, the cantors may know your name from a couple of the recordings that you did. What you should do is you should send out a prepublication offering." So, I sent out a prepublication offering of this book, $7.50 -- seven dollars and fifty cents -- including the shipping, right? A hundred and ninety pages of music, you know? But it sort of opened the floodgates, and I got three hundred orders, which was enough for me to go to the printer and say, "Print!" And so, I put out that book, and then I took a sabbatical from my teaching; I was teaching at the YU cantorial school in 1970. And was teaching at a couple of Hebrew schools and a 11:00couple of day schools, you know. The way music teachers were at the time, if this is Monday, I belong in Brussels; if Wednesday, I belong there. And in 1971, I put out the second book, which I had done the research in Israel, called "Songs of the Chassidim Volume Two."

HN:Blue book.

VP:But yeah, but they weren't -- they really weren't selling. So, my wife and I were in camp, and we deci-- I decided that I would do a paperback edition of these two books. And I put out a book called "Hassidic Club Date" and a book called "Hassidic Favorites." Little but spiral-bound -- and then we went around to conventions. We went to cantors' conventions; we went to Hadassah; we went to B'nai B'rith; we went to Sephardic; we went to any place where we could put stuff on the table. Because the stores, the Judaica stores, were not willing to 12:00take in music. They didn't even know what it is. I mean, most of the guys in these Judaica shops couldn't hold a piece of music straight up and down. Really. I'm not blaming them; they just had no knowledge of this. Who needs music? What music? But by showing it, right, and putting out stuff that had piano accompaniments so the kids could play it, it opened up the -- and in 1971, we sort of incorporated and made it into Tara Publications. Why Tara? People are always asking me. For a number of reasons. My daughter's name is Atara, which means "crown." And the other names of my four other children didn't seem to go to -- Mayer didn't sound too good for a publishing company, and Gedalia didn't sound -- you know. So, I made it Atara -- Tara. T-a-r-a. Also, Tara's theme in "Gone With the Wind," so it goes with music. And then, my wife told me that 13:00there was a legend that one of the great-great-grandchildren of King David came to Ireland, and she brought with her a "Tarah," as they pronounced it. Not "Torah," but a "Tarah." So, for all that reason, it was Tara. Get a load of it: there are three other companies with the same name, Tara. Tara Productions, Tara Publications -- it's even a nice girl's name now, Tara. That started off. And then -- we worked down here, my wife and I, and could not afford -- we were still teaching at the time, both of us, until many years later. And at night, I would write this stuff. It ended up being about a hundred and fifty books of Jewish music. Many of them I've discarded already because -- but we started with Israeli music, after the Hasidic. Had all kinds of problems because they refused 14:00to grant copyright permission. And finally in desperation, I wrote to the composers in Israel, said, "The company, the copyright company, will not give us permission. Why? We want to put out your material. We'll pay you royalties." And so the floodgates opened up again; they said, Yes, we want our stuff to be seen. I did a book called "Israel in Song," which was very, very successful, and followed that off with "Great Songs of Israel." Okay. And then, started the wedding stuff. I put out a thing called "Mazel Tov." And then, I put out "The Best of Israeli Songs." And then, I put out liturgical materials. So, I started with "Siddur in Song." And then, [Flora Yagoda?] came after me and said, "I need a book." Fine. And then, [Rachel Basliach?], Indian music, "We need --" -- from Calcutta -- "-- we need a book." So we did that. And somebody came after me from Curaçao -- they wanted a Spanish-Portuguese. And Abraham Cardozo from the Spanish-Portuguese in New York, and I did a couple of books of that. And then, a 15:00Moroccan fellow called Eli Malul, so we did Moroccan music. So, we sort of -- and then started, you know, when Henry Sapoznik came to me, said, "We need a complete klezmer." I'll never forget, as a book was being printed, you know, he got the old English version of "compleat," C-o-m-p-l-e-a-t. I got a call from my Hasidic printers -- "No, Velvel, Velvel! Shteyt du 'compleat' [Does it say 'compleat' here]?" (laughter) They had wanted to pull the thing off the press 'cause it said "compleat." Anyway. So, we did that. And then, we followed up with the -- with his other books, and then Pete Sokolow did the orchestral arrangement and the piano, and so it went. And so, it is here. And the last book I put out was called "Nigun," which I did a lot of wordless material. And I put 16:00out some Jewish folksongs. And then now, in the last year, we've been doing the downloads. And that's been taking a lot of time, a lot of effort, but there are more than six hundred downloads of sheet music, liturgical, Hasidic, Sephardic, et cetera. Well, I put out a number of Sephardic books, called -- Nico Castel, New York Met, we did his book "Ladino Songs." And then, Ramón Tasat, who's in Silver Springs, "Sephardic Songs for All." And the late Judy Frankel, we did her book, called "Judeo-Español." And so it goes.

HN:So, can we now -- that's great. Great synopsis of all the publishing activity. However, you've done other things. So, can you tell us about your experience recording Jewish music?

VP:We were sort of in on the ground floor of recording. When I was a music student and getting out of Juilliard and Columbia, I davened -- or I prayed -- in a synagogue in Brooklyn, which is known as the Modzitzer shtibl [small 17:00Hasidic house of prayer]. Modzitz, M-o-d-z-i-t-z. The Modzitzer shtibl is not -- and Modzitzer Hasidim are not a very, very large Hasidic group. Their claim to fame is three great musical rabbis, beginning with Rabbi Yisrael of Modzitz, Rabbi Saul Taub of Modzitz, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu -- who together probably composed more than two thousand nigunim [melodies], many of which have become part of the world Jewish repertoire. And their musical secretary and their singer par excellence, who's Ben Zion Shenker, who we worked closely together and we put out a number of recordings, called "Modzitzer Favorites" -- as a matter of fact, I was in Israel last year at the Mann Auditorium when they put 18:00on a concert of Modzitz. Three thousand people in the audience: secular, religious, what have you. And full -- Helfgot was there also, Benzion Miller, and the orchestra, large chorus, Philharmonic. And I noticed that the three thousand people, everybody was singing every one of the songs that they played. You know? And I turned to my wife, and I said very, very softly, "We recorded every one of these songs in the early 1960s, and they became part and parcel of what Jews sing all over." So, that was the first recording. And then, when I finished those, I was given the privilege of doing the first Chabad recording, the first Lubavitcher recording. Which was a -- really an experience in itself. I love them dearly. It was just -- in retrospect, it was absolutely wonderful. I 19:00mean, in retrospect it wasn't absolutely wonderful (laughter) while it happened, while it happened. All kinds of difficulties. They weren't singers, they were Hasidim, they couldn't follow, they couldn't begin together, they couldn't end together, they didn't want me to conduct because I got in the way of their -- concentration, and all kinds of things. But we became friendly. We put out the first of the Lubavitcher recording. And later on, Seymour Silbermintz and others took over and did some (UNCLEAR) recordings. And then, I was approached by a Ger Hasidic cantor, whose name was --

F:Was it Halberstadt?

VP:No.

HN:(UNCLEAR) --

VP:Cantor.

F:Oh, a Ger.

VP:Uh -- Werdyger.

HN:Werdyger, yeah, of course.

VP:Yeah. Werdyger. Mordechai Ben David's --

F:(UNCLEAR).

VP:-- father, and we did three --

F:Mordechai was on --

VP:-- three recordings --

HN:David Werdyger.

VP:-- three recordings of David Werdyger, one of Ger, one of the last Bobover 20:00Rebbe's own melodies, and one of Werdyger's own compositions, called "Shaleshudes," the third meal melody. So, we did that. And what else did I do? The first recording I did was called "Od Yishama: A Treasury of Chassidic Song," which was done with a group of singers from the Metropolitan Opera who handled music very, very well. And we did a recording, just three-part arrangements of very well-known yeshivish type -- Hasidic-type -- melodies. And I did a number of recordings of children's music during the '60s also. And so, there were a total of sixteen recordings which we did at the time.

HN:Hasidic children's music?

VP:No, it was actually --

HN:Jewish children's music, right? Yeah.

VP:Jewish children's music. It was mostly in Hebrew, and we did things like ethical sayings set to music. We used [Fioroni?] on one of the recordings, a very, very well-known, beautiful cantor. And after that, I basically stopped the recording and concentrated on the publications. Although at the same time, I was redoing all of the recordings we had and putting together the cantorial collections. Because, again, there were a lot of cantorial stuff out there that were done by all kind of com-- but we redigitized and we cleaned them up. We tried to make them as -- (UNCLEAR). I did six CDs for the seminary on Rosenblatt, which we worked very, very hard to clean, to cut, and to debug -- et cetera, et cetera. That was it! And so, we're still here, and still publishing, and -- it's been wonderful.

HN:Yeah. I'm just wondering, in your own mu-- how do you think you got on this path, this musical path? Because it -- one of the reasons there probably weren't publications of all this Hasidic or Orthodox music was people took it for granted that everybody knew it or something. But, I mean, you kind of identified it as a need for the community to have this stuff written down. As you say, Mrs. Goldenberg --

VP:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

HN:-- also did -- (laughs) identified it as a need. But the fact is, somehow, you saw this as something that really had to be done. And, I mean, were you from a family from musical background, or --

VP:I think what gave me impetus was -- you know, you asked me about my musical background -- my father could not sing very well. But he had the most tremendous ear. A wonderful, wonderful ear. And my father used to take me every year in 23:00Toronto as a seven-year-old, as an eight-year-old, to Modzitzer Rebbe -- Rabbi Saul Taub used to come to Toronto for a two-week period. He went to Montreal, and then he came to Toronto. And we used to go on Shabbat especially. He would be in a very -- a different shul every Shabbat. And what did he have to offer? A lot of Torah discourse, which he presented, you know. And also music. He made nigunim, the melodies, and he introduced them. And I was just absolutely stunned by -- the man -- as a matter of fact, there's a book called "Yidishe muzik tsvishn di tsvey milkhomen," by Issachar Fater, in which he has a picture of the rebbe -- "Jewish Music Between the Two World War" -- has a picture of Rabbi Saul of Modzitz in which he says, in Yiddish, "He was a genitn notn leyener 24:00[proficient sheet music reader]" -- that he could read music very, very well. And it's not true. He didn't know a note of music. But since he thought in musical terms -- I mean, I myself heard him say that we could use a trumpet here; we could use a violin here. He thought in terms of orchestra coloration. Not only that, but some of the things that he composed, he labeled them as -- are you ready? -- (speaks with accent) "operas." The ershter opera, the first opera; the tsveyte [second] opera -- I have one of the operas listed -- which were long, extend-- but he was enamored of the larger piece of music, and some of it -- if you see a nigun of Modzitz, and you see it written down, you know it has a shape, has a form. It's not just an A, B, A kind of thing that we have in most of the hopkes that you have, and the peasant dances, et cetera, et cetera. But what really spurred me on was the knowledge that the Hasidic rebbes did not 25:00allow music to be put into print.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

VP:Yeah, but really the impetus for beginning to write this music down was because I knew that the Hasidic rebbes had disallowed the use of writing down music. Why? They felt that once it was written down on paper, it could be part of public domain. It could be used in non-Jewish circles. And there was this fear that once you make something holy -- in other words, you can take something from the outside that's profane, bring it in, and make it holy, and that's called "being mekadesh [Hebrew: sanctified]." Especially with a nigun. We're told -- we know the famous story of Rabbi Isaac Taub, who is the rebbe of Kaliv, who used to go out dressed in shepherd's clothing, right, with a gabbai [manager of a synagogue] and a shames [sexton of a synagogue], two sidekicks, and they used to go out into the fields of Transylvania in order to hear a melody which 26:00shepherds played in order to capture it and to bring it in and use it in Jewish life, right? And so, we know that the idea of bringing in a nigun was something which was very, very desirable. But to then take a nigun and give it out to the world, that was verboten. That was taken care of by the present Lubavitcher Rebbe, who in 1940 -- 1942 -- asked Cantor Yeshua Weisser, one of the great cantors of nusach [traditional melody] and -- to sit with a number of Lubavitcher Hasidim and to write down their music, which they did on -- at 770 Eastern Parkway or wherever they were at the time. And they put out what was called a "Sefer ha-nigunim [Book of melodies]," the first book of Lubavitcher 27:00nigunim. When I did the recording they handed me the nigunim, this book, and they said to me, Rabbi Pa-- by the way, if you worked for Lubavitch in any capacity for more than ten minutes, you're automatically given ordination. So, I was Rabbi Pasternak -- "Shpil, un mir veln zingen -- You play, and we'll sing." And I -- I'm not the world's greatest pianist, but I can read a line of music. So, I played. I was playing in Oshkosh, and they were singing in Boiberik. (Netsky laughs) I mean, the two had nothing to do with each other. So, I stopped, and they said to me, You're not playing correctly. And I tried for a half hour. And I realized after the half hour what was happening, that this Yeshua Weisser, a great cantor, probably sat with these six guys -- six or seven guys -- and each one said, "Nisht azoy," "Not like this; it goes like this." (sings wordlessly) And finally, in desperation, he probably said, "I'm gonna imagine what it really should be." And he wrote it down what he thought it would 28:00be. But they don't sing it like that. So, you have ten thousand books that are sold because every Lubavitcher has to buy a book, whether he reads music or he doesn't. So, you have it in the shank [bookshelf], you know, in there, and it's standing there, "Sefer ha-nigunim," and here comes a guy Pasternak, tells them it's all written incorrectly. So, my first job was to rewrite sixteen of nigunim that we're going to use, and -- so I became aware of the fact that the stuff had to be written down; it had to be written correctly. So, after I finished a Lubavitcher recording, I used those sixteen melodies as the basis of the Hasidic stuff to start putting material together.

HN:In other words, you listened to how they really sang it, and then wrote it --

VP:That's right. Absolutely, sure.

HN:-- according to that --

VP:Absolutely.

HN:-- instead of how Weisser --

VP:That's right, yeah.

F:Because they were --

VP:The --

F:-- all coming from different places.

VP:They all come from different pla-- you know, it's --

HN:So, if they sang it together, you got some kind of combined version of it that -- right? I mean, if you actually --

VP:Yeah, yeah, but it --

HN:-- in a sense.

VP:-- but they were arguing among themselves also. I mean, this is a very interesting group. When I told them that they had to -- for the purposes of recording they had to begin together and end together, they looked at me like I was a meshuge [insane person]. And they said, What do you mean? We always begin together and end together. And I said, "You know, you're used to singing at a farbrengen [Hasidic gathering] with the rebbe, you know. The rebbe is talking about the discourse on Torah, and then when he wants a break, he motions with one finger, and everybody starts to sing. And when he wants to go back to the Torah, he motions with the other finger, and everybody stops. And they think that they're glued in on him because a good Hasidim -- but I said, "If you had a tape recorder in your pocket at the time and listened to this, you'd see it." So, we had to begin them together, end them together, and then try to sing a little bit of harmony and -- forget about it. I had to hire a couple of ringers to sing a second line because they couldn't do it.

HN:The ringers were -- who were the ringers?

VP:Oh, I had trou-- problems. I got Jewish ringers, you know what I mean? And I 30:00remember one of them was walking down the street, and he forgot that he was gonna go to a Chabad recording, so he wasn't wearing the hat --

HN:Wearing the kippah. (laughs)

VP:-- you know. So, the guys are sitting on the porch, in Crown Heights, and I said, "Oh, here comes Daniel [Ferris?]." Daniel Ferris was a -- "ferris" is "iron." His name was Eisen, but for his stage name he used Ferris. A good baritone singer. But he's not wearing a yarmulke. So, I ran over to him, and I said, "Listen, save my life. If they ask if you're wearing tsitses [tassels on the prayer shawl or undergarment worn by Orthodox Jews], make sure to say yes. Otherwise (laughter) they won't let you sing." So, I had two other guys -- three guys -- and we used a group at -- from Radio City, eight or nine musicians, and we did the recording in the midst of rock and roll territory, Fifty-Eighth 31:00Street and Eighth Avenue. It was wonderful. Some very interesting things happened during that recording session. One of the highlights was that there were a couple of the melodies which the rebbes themselves wrote, very holy melodies to them, where the pitch kept rising, going straight up. From beginning to end, there were a tone and a half up. And I was going bananas! I couldn't -- and I realized what it was. They weren't singing to the musicians or to me or to the technical director. They were singing up there, right? And as they were singing, the spirit moved them, and the pitch went -- we went back three weeks later, and with a variable turning -- what do you call it, where you --

HN:A variable speed.

VP:Yeah, right. Richard Neumann, my colleague there, played on accordion, and the engineer kept going like this and moving the pitch up. So, we salvaged three 32:00or four of the numbers. But never experienced that before. But the same time, they were -- they told me that I shouldn't conduct after six months of rehearsal because the conducting got in the way of their --

HN:Did you ever record them just without conducting, just like nigunim just the way they sang it?

VP:You know what, they asked me to come to a melave-malke [evening meal marking the end of Shabbos], a get-together on the Saturday night before the recording. I said to them, "Why do you want to have that?" They said, We can't sing for dead microphones, you know what I mean? We have to get into the spirit. I said, "What does that mean?" Oh, we'll have a little bit of nosh, we'll have a little bit of the drink, have a little bit of fruit and soda -- and at that -- and at somebody's house in Crown Heights that Saturday night, they all insisted on singing solo for me.

HN:Did you record this?

VP:No, I didn't. I should have.

HN:Oh, Velvel! (laughs)

VP:You know what it's called, a "brokh [disaster]."

HN:A brokh. (laughs)

VP:If I had heard them solo -- I mean, together with the group sort of it got covered up. But to hear them sing solo at the time -- my wife is my witness -- I would never have gone through with the recording. It's just that I -- I got them into a cohesive group, so even if I didn't conduct them at the -- nobody watched me at the recording. They were in their own world.

HN:That's great. It's like they say, Paul Whiteman made a lady out of jazz, and you made a lady out of Hasidic (laughs) music.

VP:Yeah, but -- so I had very great difficulty listening to this recording. To this day I have great difficulty -- but the "London Jewish Chronicle," one of the critics there, said it was the best ethnic recording that he had heard because it had that -- it had the pathos and the belief and the what-do-you-call-it that only a Hasid who believes in the melody, you know? So, 34:00there's something there. You can't put that on paper. You can't conduct that. It comes from the kishke [belly], so to speak. So, that was very interesting. So, it was rewarding from that -- the Bobover recording --

HN:I was gonna ask about the Bobover recording.

VP:The Bobover recording was I was called in by the Bobover Rebbe, who told me, together with a producer named Ben Stambler, who ran Collectors Guild, and who told me that his grandchild had come home from yeshiva one day and sang to him a song, "B'ni, b'ni, al teylech b'derech chatam" -- "My son, my son, do not go in the ways of -- in the bad ways." And he said, "I looked at my son, and I said to him, 'Don't you know that your grandfather composed that nigun?'" And he said, "My grandson looked at me, and he said --" He said, "So if my grandson doesn't know what his grandfather composed, how would I expect my Hasidim to know?" 35:00Therefore he told me --

HN:Wow.

VP:-- we have to do a recording --

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

VP:-- gave me his music mentor, a fellow by the name of Rabbi Laizer Halberstam --

HN:Oh, okay.

VP:-- whose daughter's named Yitta Halberstam; she's writing a book called "Small Miracles." She's quite well known. And he was a journalist, a singer -- (coughs) excuse me -- and he was the major-domo of this recording. And we put out this recording of sixteen of the melodies of Bobov, and we followed it up with a secondary recording of Bobov, at which point we hired Rudy Tepel (emphasizes second syllable) -- or Rudy Tepel (emphasizes first syllable), but it became anglicized -- the "Tepel" (emphasizes first syllable) became "Tepel." (emphasizes second syllable) And we put this out, all -- but this time I used cantors, mostly Conservative cantors, who knew how to read music, who understood 36:00the nature of the music, and who I could rehearse one session and then go to a recording session, instead of six months. So, we did the Bobov recording with them, the Werdyger recordings with them, with this group, and that's the way it went.

HN:Can you talk a little bit about Yiddish music? Because you got also into that world and put out a lot of Yiddish stuff. Is that something in your background? Were you someone who was taking the Yiddish theater in Toronto or anything, or were you more in the religious world, or --

VP:I was more in the religious world. But I love the Yiddish music because I listen to the famous singers that were recorded at the time who sang Yiddish. And of course, we spoke -- Yiddish was my first language. And our house was -- only spoke Yiddish. My father, who had been in America for many years, knew how to count up to ten in English, and that was about it.

HN:Where did he come from in Europe?

VP:He came from a town called Khmil'nyk, which was not far from --

HN:(UNCLEAR).

VP:-- (UNCLEAR), and my mother came from a place called Staszów. And to be honest with you, all my years in yeshiva, when I wrote home -- in those years we didn't have email, but we wrote letters -- they were all in Yiddish. It was our -- matter of fact, when I went into kindergarten, they sent me home because I mah nishtnanahed everything I said. You know what "Mah nishtanah" is? (speaks in singsong voice) "Di-da-da-da, ba-da, why should I go to the Bronx by bus when it's quicker by subway?" You know, I -- and the Protestant English teachers couldn't take this kind of (laughter) singsong in the public school, so they sent me home for --

HN:Is this from kheyder [traditional religious school] you picked this up?

VP:What?

HN:You got this from kheyder in Toronto? Did you go to kheyder in Toronto?

VP:I went to kheyder in Toronto, yeah.

HN:And they taught you that way, so you --

VP:That's right. So, yeah. That's the way a Jew talks. (makes sound) You know, that's the "Mah nishtanah" melody. So, Yiddish was always something -- I did not concentrate on Yiddish, but later on, as I began to discover this stuff, I had 38:00the good fortune of picking up some stuff from [Yeshua Rimmer?] with the stuff that went to the -- eventually went to the Yiddish --

HN:Yeah. It was the --

VP:-- Center.

HN:-- Metro Music.

VP:Metro Music, you know, I mean -- and I took only the stuff that I thought I could -- the Yiddish Center was very, very smart. They packaged this stuff in nice cellophane, and they sent it out as a -- most of it was unknown to anybody in the sun. But he was very nice, (laughs) Yeshua Rimmer. He came to me and asked me for -- I should give him a -- what do you call it? I should value his --

HN:Oh, you should credit him --

VP:Appraise.

HN:-- appraise? Appraise what he had in his garage.

VP:Yeah. Yeah. (Netsky laughs) No. So, he said -- no, he was gonna give it to the (UNCLEAR). But he said to me, "I have -- how much is a sheet of 'Rozhinkes 39:00mit mand-- [Raisins and alm--]'" -- I'll give you an example -- "How much is a sheet of 'Rozhinkes mit mandlen [Raisins and almonds]'?" I said, "About a dollar." He said, "I have a thousand copies. Will you give me a thousand-dollar appraisal?" I said, "You can print it for about ninety dollars. What are you --" So, he didn't have a conception at the time that the paper was not -- had no intrinsic value. But the Yiddish Center was very smart. They took all of his stuff, they packaged, they made nice --

HN:Makes handy gifts.

VP:Makes handy gifts. Okay. So, I saw that really the famous stuff from Metro was just going lost. I mean, I had books like "Jewish Nostalgia" and "Popular Jewish Songs from Ethnic Music" that I was dealing with, and I saw this stuff, and it was written -- the transliteration was, like, from a Chinese dyslexic. (Netsky laughs) You know, absolutely could not -- yeah. You know, the way -- I'm not saying that my way of transliteration is the best way, but some of it was 40:00just impo-- and they platshka'd it together. It didn't matter what it was, as long as you put it out. Somebody decided to give me competition. They saw I was beginning to put out books, so they put out a little handbook -- what was it called, "King David" or something? And they put it out with scrawly handwriting. I was determined to put it out in a nice format like they do the non-Jewish music. 'Cause somebody said, "If you have something that doesn't look like it come from the kitchen sink, you know what I mean, that people may be tempted to pick it up." And that's really what it was. And I spent a lot of time on the -- we did everything down here. All the cover work, all the typing, everything down here. The only thing that was done on the outside was the printing. Otherwise we never would have survived.

HN:And an artist that you particularly liked designed them, or you did it all yourself?

VP:No. Did it all myself. Clip art. Paste. (Netsky laughs) A shtikl [little 41:00piece] from here and a shtikl from --

HN:You find a fiddle; you find a star; you --

VP:That's right. The only thing I had an artist do was that book "Songs Never Silenced," which is a Holocaust book. I had somebody do that. Otherwise it was all done down here, and all done on a shoestring because -- but then I discovered -- from some of the old editions, I discovered music of Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, that had -- with piano accompaniment. I found music by Aaron Cohen, and some of the other people had put out Holocaust music with piano accompaniment. And then, I decided why should there be only a "Jewish Fake Book"; there should be a "Yiddish Fake Book." So I put out the "Yiddish Fake Book." And then, somebody from Saint Petersburg sent me a -- Yiddish music arranged for male choir, only Yiddish. So, I did that. And then, somebody sent me an "Ot azoy [Just like that]," and I did that. Whatever it was. And then, I did a little book that was really very, very -- this was redone by a woman, 42:00Ethel Cohen. That famous little book of Yiddish material. Oh, which I just now -- called "Jewish Nostalgia." And I -- now we have a break because we do everything by print on demand.

HN:So, this is Saul Raskin --

VP:Yes.

HN:-- who's a famous woodcut guy.

VP:Yes, I use a lot of Saul Raskin.

HN:Yeah. So, he gave -- you have permission from the family to do --

VP:Oh, he was dead.

HN:Oh, he was dead. So --

VP:Yeah, he --

HN:-- you never heard from him. (laughs)

VP:No, I never heard -- you know, I'll tell you the truth. If anybody ever complained -- (telephone rings) I --

HN:That's okay. We're almost done.

VP:Okay, we'll cut that phone out.

HN:You want to conclude your --- should we go on for about another fifteen minutes or something? Is that cool?

VP:Good.

HN:Okay, good. I just wanted to check the time. Yeah. So you're saying that you would find something like that --

VP:Yeah, no, I said I would find something like that. If somebody said to me, 43:00"You used that without permission," I said, "I thought it was bringing koved [honor] to you." You know what I mean?

HN:Yeah.

VP:"Are you complaining to me?" I had a situation once where --

HN:You always credit things. That's the great --

VP:Yeah. I credit --

HN:-- the cool thing is that, you see, if something like that -- like, you could go through the whole thing and involve lawyers and God knows what and just get permission, but, you know, you don't do it without -- like, I love that you have Saul Raskin's name on there --

VP:Yeah.

HN:-- but didn't necessarily ask him before you did it --

VP:No.

HN:-- but it's like you got --

VP:Well, first of all, I learned something from a fellow who was the chief designer at -- oh --

HN:A record company?

VP:Yeah, a record company.

HN:Jules Halfant?

VP:Vanguard.

HN:Jules Halfant, yeah.

VP:Jules Halfant.

HN:Yeah, I mean, that'd be the guy.

VP:Yeah, Jules Halfant taught me that if something has been in print -- if something has been in print out in public, you do not have to ask permission to reprint that. It's the same thing as with a composition. If something has been 44:00recorded, you do not have to ask permission to rerecord it. The onus on you is to pay the copyright, you know what I mean? But you don't have to ask -- once it's put out there in a pu-- so I once had a guy who wrote a stupid song about an elephant. And he was in -- my son was in his music class in one of the yeshivas. And he said, "Would you put one of my songs in?" And I put in a song about a pil [Hebrew: elephant], a little ditty. I got sued for $750. (Netsky exhales) I said to him, "You gave me permi-- you asked me to put it in." "Yeah, but I didn't know how nice it would look in the book." That was the answer. Okay? And then, I had somebody who asked me -- he gave me permission. I put one of his nigunim in. And then, he sued me for copyrights. I said, "Okay, I asked your permission, you said yes." Okay. I said, "Send me your copyright." He said, 45:00"Don't get fancy with me." I said, "Send me your copyright. I'll give you the exact amount over the number of melodies, the proportion." "Don't be fancy with me." I said, "Listen, what do you want?" He said, "I want a hundred dollars." I said, "You have a hundred dollars. You'll never see another melody of yours in any of my publications."

HN:Right.

VP:So, five years later, this guy's wife calls me and says to me, "Oh." She says, "My husband wants to know how much does it cost to make a book?" (Netsky laughs) I said, "How much does it cost to buy a chicken?" She said, "What?" I said, "Does it have big pulkes [drumsticks] or little pulkes? Fat wings or big wings?" I said, "What are you ask-- I don't know how much music; I don't know how much typography; I don't know how much binding; I don't know how much printing. Why are you asking how much does it cost to make a book?" I said. So, she hung up. That's what ha-- two people bothered me. But -- okay.

HN:I wanted to ask you about -- I mean, your books run the gamut from books for the first per-- the first piano --

VP:Yeah, I put --

HN:-- easy arrangements of Jewish melodies to Yiddish theater, cantorial recitatives, and -- one thing that really interests me that you've put out are Noach Schall's collections. Because it's absolutely -- you're doing something there that is just an incredible documentation of -- he wouldn't put them out himself. And can you talk a little bit about that relationship, those books?

VP:Yeah. By the way, have you seen the Rosenblatt that he did?

HN:I haven't. I can't wait.

VP:Well, you'll walk out with it.

HN:Oh, great.

VP:Noah Schall and I taught in the cantorial school in YU for a number of years, and he was there for many, many years afterwards. He originally put out a two-part setting for evening services, for Friday evening services, for two part, which was published by the cantorial school. And then, they didn't know 47:00what to do with it, so I took it over, and I republished it. I encouraged him to do the other material, and we published it as one book for the three festivals: one for Shabbat -- as a matter of fact, we're just sending out -- this is an order that's going to HUC. They use the Schall books as -- what do you call -- he is a cantor's cantor. His notations are meticulous, every little grace note is there in place, nothing is missing. Exactly as a composer (makes sound) his knowledge. I mean, he did the Rosenblatt, which is, you know -- just to write that down. He did something very, very interesting at one point with Dovid Koussevitzky. Dovid Koussevitzky was singing a composition at a concert, you know, and Noah was sitting there with his manuscript paper, writing it down. At the end he went over; he said, "Would you like to see this composition?" And Dovid said, "Where'd you get this? Nobody ever saw it before." He said, "I just 48:00wrote --" That's the way he writes cantorial stuff. I wouldn't even dare to try, I mean, 'cause not my -- I can do tempo stuff, that's fine, but all the recitive [sic] -- so, we did that. And it doesn't sell very well, but it's -- for students, it's wonderful. Because it's not his nusach [traditional melody]. He took from Rappaport, from Bakon, from all the greats, and he made it in -- the nusach with a normal range. So, it doesn't go up into the high B-flats or to high C, but a normal range. And students are using it, both in the seminary and the -- what do you call it?

HN:HUC?

VP:It's a practical guide. But I did the "Golden Age of Cantors." Have you seen that?

HN:Yeah.

VP:Which we did with Irene Heskes. And then, I put out some other stuff, cantorial stuff, liturgical melodies -- I put out some old Eastern European stuff -- it really doesn't sell, but I keep it in case there's somebody that 49:00wants to do research. Now that we can do print on demand, I can afford to do fifty books. I put out the "Thesaurus of Hebrew Oriental Melodies," of Idelsohn, in three volumes. I put it out in one volume: volume eight, volume nine, volume ten. Are you familiar with it?

HN:Yeah.

VP:Okay. Fine. I did a thousand -- I did five hundred copies.

HN:Yeah, I --

VP:It was -- I have four--

HN:-- the thing was out of print since 1940-something.

VP:Yeah. I have 460 left.

HN:Oh, wow. The "Thesaurus." This is the real -- the original --

VP:Yeah, yeah. Because all -- once in a while, I get an order from Amazon or what do you call it. But people aren't buying -- but you need it to have research.

HN:You have to have it.

VP:Yeah. So, but the thing is that nobody gave me grant money. I'm not saying this as sour grapes. Nobody. Not for the Holocaust book, not -- which I -- I don't want to mention any names, but people said to me, Oh, that's wonderful. We're gonna see that -- gornisht, nothing. When it comes to Jewish music, 50:00unfortunately -- but I just donated 150 volumes to the Hebrew University library because all they had of what we had done was one book of Lubavitcher nigunim.

HN:Wow.

VP:So, I thought to myself, They're never gonna buy it. I'll do the same thing with Bar-Ilan.

HN:Oh, God. That's amazing.

VP:One -- and a recording. Not even a book.

HN:So, you know what I'd love -- I'm gonna ask this; I don't know if you'll be willing to do it, but it would be really, really cool, if you're willing to --

VP:Yeah.

HN:-- do you have any favorite, like, Jewish music that you just sing, that you like to just chant or sing? Favorite nigunim or favorite nusach or favorite anything that -- you know, because -- it's interesting. I mean, of all these recordings, nobody's ever heard you. You sing in your lectures.

VP:Yeah, I hum.

HN:Yeah. You hum.

VP:When I (UNCLEAR), I hum.

HN:Exactly. (laughter) I'm just wondering. In terms of -- you know, this is a -- 51:00this particular interview is kind of archival, and it can be on the internet, and it'll be a way that people can get to know who you are and what you do. So, I'm just wondering if there's anything you'd be interested in kind of putting out there musically. And it could also be if you want to just tell us what recordings you're the most proud of that you've done as a conductor or arranger --

VP:I am --

HN:-- that would also be a great thing to say.

VP:-- I am most pr-- number one, I don't si-- you know, I daven for the omed [cantor's pulpit]. But I don't sing. I'm not so much a singer.

HN:But you're a baltfile [leader of prayers], and you --

VP:I'm a baltfile.

HN:So --

VP:What I consider to be the highlight of what I've done is "Modzitzer Favorites Volume One" and "Modzitzer Favorites Volume Two."

HN:Okay.

VP:Yeah.

HN:That's good to know. It would be good to have something for the website if this goes up, to put --

VP:I'll give you some audio.

HN:Yeah. "Modzitzer Favorites One and Two" are your --

VP:Yes.

HN:That's your proudest --

VP:Yeah. Yeah.

HN:I absolutely -- they're, like, legendary. They're wonderful.

VP:Yeah. I did that with Vladimir Heifetz.

HN:Yeah. And he did the arrangements?

VP:I did the choral arrangements, he did -- well, he -- it was very, very interesting. We did a recording first called "L'koved shabes [Honoring Shabbos]," which was with him and Ben Zion Shenker. And he did the arrangements, both chor-- and the chorus sounded like a Russian group of -- how can I describe it? It didn't sound Hasidic. The chorus didn't sound Hasidic. It sounded like a group of Russian singers. So, I said to him for the future recordings that we did, "Let me do the choral arrangements. I'll do it in close harmony. And you do the orchestral arrangement." He said, "Fine." And that's what we did. So, for the "Modzitzer Favorites One and Two," I laid out the choral parts, and he did the orchestral thing. And it's fine.

HN:Mm. That's great.

VP:Yeah, I have to tell you that he said to me at one point, (speaks in accent) "I always hear it secondhand from you. I'd like to hear it in the raw."

HN:Ah, that's interesting. But what does that mean?

VP:He -- "I always hear the melodies as you sing 'em to me --"

HN:Oh, he wanted to hear it --

VP:"-- I want to hear the Hasidim!"

HN:-- he wanted to hear the original recording, the Hasidim. (laughs)

VP:Very funny story.

HN:That's funny.

VP:Very funny story. But --

HN:"I want to hear them in the raw."

VP:-- I said to him, "You know what?" It's before Simchas Torah. I said, "You know what?" I gave him two addresses. I gave him an address on Bedford Avenue, Satmar. And I gave him an address on Eastern Parkway, Chabad, 770 Eastern Parkway. So, I saw him afterwards, and I said to him, "Tell me, how did it go?" He said, (speaks in accent) "Very interesting." He went to Satmar, and he was dressed in a light gray suit with a white yarmulke. He knew he had to wear a yarmulke. He was a secular Jew. And he came in, and nobody paid too much attention to him, because he was the one guy with a light suit.

HN:No tsitses. Yeah.

VP:But about ten minutes after he heard a good nigun, so he whipped out his manuscript paper, and he began to write the melody. And he said, (speaks in 54:00accent) "Crazy people." Two guys walked over, picked him up by the elbows, (Netsky laughs) (UNCLEAR) --

HN:He didn't know he couldn't do this on Shabbos.

VP:Middle of the -- yeah -- middle of Bedford Ave. (laughter) So, he doesn't know what happened, okay? A cab is driving by, and he flags the cab, and he says, "Take me to Eastern Parkway." He goes into Eastern Parkway, and it's later at night, and he stands there at the entrance in his white yarmulke and his light gray suit. Nobody pays too much attention to him. And when he hears a good nigun, he takes out the paper again and begins to write. This time, nobody bothers him until he finishes. It's Chabad. As soon as he finishes, and he puts the -- somebody goes over and says, "Sholem-aleykhem [Hello, lit. "peace be unto you"]." He says, (speaks in accent) "Such wonderful people." They were up there teaching him Tanya. Two nights later, he was donating to Lubavitch, you know. (laughter) It's a matter of -- one group put him out, and one group said, We're 55:00gonna --

HN:It's outreach.

VP:Outreach.

HN:Outreach versus throw out. (laughs)

VP:So, this is how he heard it in the raw and got put out in the street.

HN:(laughs) That's an incredible story.

VP:It's true.

HN:(laughs) That's the totally -- that so epitomizes the difference between Satmar and --

VP:That's right. In a nutshell, you see.

HN:(laughs) My God.

VP:But he really liked this music afterwards. You know, he did a lot of shul music after these recordings, 'cause he got into it. He saw it was --

HN:Well, secular Jews, it's like -- they don't even know where this stuff comes from.

VP:No, no.

HN:I mean, half the melodies are religious.

VP:No, yeah, right. But he ended up -- a lot of them ended up doing shul choirs and everything else. When he first came all that he knew was the Workmen's Circle --

HN:And it all started with that collaboration, with Modzitz.

VP:It all started with that collaboration.

HN:Oh, man, that's amazing.

VP:He was the most amazing -- I mean, what's his name, the khazn [synagogue cantor] who was -- oh -- anyway. He said he never saw anything like it. He could sit there and play for ten hours without tiring.

HN:Oh, he's incredible.

VP:Incredible.

HN:Yeah. Question: The music you learned as a kid, the music in your family or the music you learned in kheyder or wherever, in shul when you were young -- have you ever written that down? Like melodies you've gathered, not from Hasidim, but your own -- is that in your books? Do you feel like it's in there?

VP:Well, I do the musical Shabbat siddur.

HN:And that's like your --

VP:It's not a question of mine. This is stuff that I grew up on --

HN:That's what I'm saying.

VP:Yeah, yeah. This is --

HN:Isn't that interesting?

VP:Yeah. Those are melodies --

HN:So this are the melodies that you consider your --

VP:Yeah. And here. There's siddur -- song.

HN:-- favorite congregational melodies.

VP:Yeah. And these have a lot of Hasidic things in them. But they're --

HN:Yeah. So, this is -- in other words, this is not like you went to Hasidim and collected it.

VP:No, no, no.

HN:This is like -- this is the stuff I know, and I taught in Hebrew school --

VP:That's right, yeah.

HN:-- I taught --

F:He learned Modzitz from his father.

HN:Yeah, exactly.

VP:I learned it from my father.

HN:It's 'cause your father was a follow-- musical follower.

VP:And I went to the -- I listened to the rebbe, too. That became the fount of music. That became our musical knowledge in Toronto, in all of the shul, for a number of years.

HN:The Modzitz.

VP:The Modzitz, yeah, took over.

F:(UNCLEAR) the Modzitz marches.

VP:And the -- yeah, Modzitz marches. I mean, the Modzitzer Rebbe in 1943 -- I was a young kid then -- 1944 -- no, I'm sorry, 1942.

HN:Nineteen forty-two, yeah.

VP:I remember him at the -- at a shale-shudes [third ritual meal of Shabbos], third meal. And he was singing a march. And he had wonderful percussive with his hands, could do anything. That took the place of all the musical instruments. 58:00And he sang this --

HN:What was it?

VP:-- very, very stirring march -- I don't remember exactly what it was -- and when he finished, somebody at the back of the room yelled out, "Rebbe! Why are you busy --" You know, khutspedik [insolent]. "Why are you busy singing marches?" He said, "We don't have our own flag, we don't have our own tanks, we don't have our own country, we don't have this and that -- why are you busy with marches?" I remember what he said. He said in Yiddish, "Won't it be a tragedy," he says, "if when we finally get our own state, all we can do is take the music of the march kings of America?" Right?

HN:Amazing.

VP:And so, to his tribute, in the military bands of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, you have Modzitzer melodies, okay? Ben Zion Shenker's two melodies, which are known worldwide, are considered to be Modzitz, even though he wrote them. (sings) "Mizmor l'dovid [Hebrew: Psalm of David]," (sings wordlessly) -- known 59:00all over the world. Or (sings) "Eyshes khayil, mi yimtza?/Verachok mi'pninim michera. [Hebrew: Woman of valor, who can find her?/Far beyond pearls is her value.]" Zamir Chorale has done that; everybody has done that.

HN:But that's not really his melody. I mean, that --

VP:His melody.

HN:-- but that was a Hungarian march.

VP:No, no, no.

HN:I have a klezmer recording of that melody from 1921.

VP:Of "Eyshes khayil"?

HN:I'll send it to you.

VP:No, I can't believe it.

HN:"Hungarishe khosidl [Young Hungarian Hasid]," by [Hochmann's?] orchestra has (sings wordlessly) --

VP:You got to send it to me.

HN:I have -- yeah. It's an old melody. He took this from (sings wordlessly) -- it has the second part too. It's not really his melody. I'll send it to you! I'll send it to you.

VP:That I would like.

HN:Yeah. Absolutely. That's definitely -- no. He didn't write that. He thinks he wrote that. (laughs)

VP:Okay.

HN:I'll tell you --

VP:All right.

HN:It's the emes [truth], I'm telling you.

VP:Yeah, okay. I believe you.

HN:I'll send it to you; I'll send it to you.

VP:I believe you.

HN:Velvel, this is fantastic. What did you -- the Zionist youth camp, which one was that in Canada?

VP:It was called Camp Galil.

HN:Ah, Galil.

VP:It's now defunct.

HN:Ah. Near Toronto.

VP:Near Bronte, Ontario. Near Toronto, yeah. It was a Zionist camp. And it stayed for many, many years. And here, we did all the camp circuits when [Saki?] and [Hailai?] and -- and I was the music director of Brandeis-Bardin for seven years.

HN:Can you talk about that for a minute, Brandeis-Bardin?

VP:Yeah, sure. Yeah. Was very wonderful, wonderful experience. Unfortunately, I mean, Brandeis-Bardin is not what it was in the days of Prager and Telushkin. But I went out there for two weeks --

HN:What year was that?

VP:Nineteen seventy-six -- 1976, yeah. Seventy-seven. I went out to try it for two weeks, and I decided that it -- religiously it wasn't for me to bring my family there because, you know, there -- it was good. They were doing a good job with the kids. So, I told Dennis Prager that I could not come back. I mean, I -- we did a job there that in two weeks, the place sounded like a Hasidic shtibl on Friday night. I mean, with zmires [Shabbos songs sung at the table] and everything else. But I told him on Saturday night after the two weeks that I couldn't come back the next year. And Sunday morning, [Shloyme Kunin?], the head sheliekh [envoy] from Lubavitch, came with his kapote [long coat traditionally worn by observant Jewish men] flying, forty miles to the Simi Valley, and he said to me that he spoke to the rebbe the night before, and the rebbe said that I had to come back. So, we went back for six years with the family. And I'll tell you, the outreach was -- our outreach was through music. Our outreach was 62:00through Jewish music. And as a Jewish family, for these college students. And we have such nakhes [joy] because we can go to Israel or -- we just made a wedding now. We had a whole group of those people who are -- I mean, totally Jewish. Doesn't have to be religious, but totally into the Jewish community, and such. Wonderful, wonderful experience. We loved it. I took my family there, and my Gedalia, who just got married, the one who lives in Cambridge. I have a son in Cambridge.

HN:I didn't realize that.

VP:Yeah. He works for Boston Robotics.

HN:Oh!

VP:He just got married at the age of thirty-four. And -- thank God.

HN:(laughs) Mazel tov.

VP:Yeah. And -- and that's it.

HN:Yeah. Probably is. (laughs) Christa, you have anything in particular that you --

CHRISTA WHITNEY: No, that's great.

HN:-- that you were -- I mean, I think we got some wonderful stories, and some 63:00of the --

VP:Christa speaks Yiddish.

F:Great.

HN:Yo [Yeah].

VP:Tsi hot zikh gelernt in universitet [Did you learn in university]?

CW:In vilne, emes gezogt [In Vilna, actually].

VP:In vilne!

HN:Yo, yo.

[END OF INTERVIEW]