CHANA MLOTEK ORAL HISTORY

HANKUS NETSKY:So, we are here on August 15th, 2011 at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Center for Jewish History, and we are very privileged to be talking with Chana Mlotek, who has been writing the "Pearls" column in the "Forward" for forty years now and has been active in Yiddish culture since the 1940s, at least. So, we'd love to hear about your family background and how you came to all of this.

CHANA MLOTEK: Well, I grew up in a Yiddish-speaking home. And my father was an amateur actor -- not professional. And he instilled in us a love for Yiddish 1:00music. And when we were growing up, I and my sister -- my sister was five years older than me -- she passed away last year -- Malke Gottlieb. So, we always sang in the house. We were very musical. She was a pianist; I played the piano. And I wrote music; she wrote music. And we sang the songs of the early Yiddish theater -- that were wonderful songs -- songs of Zunser, of Eliakum Zunser -- of the 1860s; songs of Velvl Zbarzher; Goldfadn, of course -- most of Goldfadn -- we loved Goldfadn. And he sang us certain ditties. And I asked the greatest experts -- Yablokoff and others -- if they knew these songs, and they didn't know these songs that my father remembered from the theater. Lately, I've been going through some theater works, and I found some of these songs, so it's really a 2:00thrill. So, that's why I call it my first inspiration, because he instilled in us a love for music. And we had a wonderful piano teacher, Professor Helmann. So, our house was always full of music -- filled with music. And then, I went to a Yiddish school. It became Workmen's Circle; when I went to it, it was a heym-shul [home school]. And I had a wonderful teacher, Bromberg. And he also was like a mentor, it was wonderful. And I studied music. And I went to Jewish -- a Yiddish high school. And then, I went to college, Hunter. I graduated. And then, I came to YIVO. A friend of mine was giving up a job and she asked if I would want it and I said, Sure. And I came and I was introduced by Weinreich's secretary, who was then Lucy Dawidowicz, and she engaged me. And little by 3:00little, I became his secretary. He started to dictate to me. I was very good in Yiddish, and he would go very slowly at first, but then I made my own system of speed writing, and I was able to take his dictation in Yiddish and English. And later on, he called me his assistant. So, here I was -- started working on Washington's birthday, February 22nd, 1944, and in 1946, I became his official secretary. And in 1948, we were given scholarships -- it was the first time that any university was giving courses in Yiddish linguistics and folklore, and they invited Max Weinreich. And the YIVO gave twelve scholarships to people who were graduate students. And we went to UCLA. And he gave these wonderful courses. And 4:00the course in folklore I was especially interested, and he had songs in it, and I sort of connected -- re-connected with the Yiddish songs that I knew from before, and I became very fascinated by the subject and about the work that the former people -- students and researchers of YIVO in Vilna had done. So, I thought I would sort of continue that -- I would go into that field. Yosl was there too, then; he was one of the scholarship recipients. And when I came back, we started a club, the Y.L. Cahan Folklore Club at YIVO. And we published magazines of newly collected folklore material. And I had the folk songs there. And I wrote from where they came and who wrote them. And I wrote about variance and how they resembled each other or how they contrasted with each other. And 5:00that's the story of my connection with the YIVO. Then, as I told Hankus, I got sick for a while. And while I was home, my husband and I -- he was a writer and he was the educational director of the Workmen's Circle, and he became the associate editor of the "Forward," the "Yiddish Forward." So, he thought up this idea of writing about songs -- people wrote into the "Forward" saying, I know this song, I remember from -- and I can't find it in any store, I went to many stores and I can't find the song; can you help me? So, we thought this was a good idea to bring into the paper. And that's what we did. And we started that in October 1970. And it's been going on -- after my husband died eleven years ago, I continued it on my own. And as Hankus said, in 1984, I became the music archivist here. And that's been my work --

HN:Yeah.

CM:And I published books -- these are three of the books that I published. And I wrote articles. And I have a biweekly column in the "Forward." And I make a puzzle and I make (UNCLEAR) song. And I write articles. And that, in short, is my life.

HN:Yeah, we'll that's the capsule. Now we actually ask questions. (laughs)

CM:Okay.

HN:So --

CHRISTA WHITNEY: If you want to go into Yiddish at any point, that's okay.

HN:Oh, and if you want to go into Yiddish, that's also fine.

CM:All right.

HN:Of course, of course. But -- so -- by the way, I just wanted to ask -- so Helfmann?

CM:Helmann.

HN:Helmann was your teacher.

CM:Professor Helmann.

HN:Was he a music teacher? Yeah. Tell us about him.

CM:He -- Professor Jacob N. Helmann was connected with the Ekaterinoslav Conservatory of Music. Now, he was a student of Benois -- Professor Benois -- who was a student of Liszt. So, there is a terrific lineage. And he taught us -- he inspired us with a love of music. He could barely speak English, but we had 7:00this connection, and we really loved music because of him, and loved to play classical music. So, that's when we started going away from the Yiddish songs of my father and going into classical music. And then, I went back -- as I said, I went back to the Yiddish songs.

HN:What was your family's background like?

CM:My father and mother both came from White Russia, Belarus, near Minsk. My father came from a little town, Stolpce. And it's the same town that Zalman Shazar, the nasi -- the president of Israel --- yeah, where Shazar came from. They were landsman [countrymen]. And he used to tell us stories about the town, and I don't remember them. But they were immigrants. They came here, they got married, and they raised a family.

HN:Did they have a traditional background? Like kheyder [traditional religious school] and --

CM:No, they had traditional backgrounds, but they didn't -- they led a secular 8:00life. But they had a traditional background.

HN:Yeah.

CM:And I think my father's father -- my grandfather -- was a rabbi, as a matter of fact. But they went away from that.

HN:What was the name, by the way, of the --

CM:Gordon.

HN:Gordon? So, he was --

CM:Yeah.

HN:He was, like a rabbi. And --

CM:And he used to correspond with Mendele Moykher-Sforim.

HN:Oh my God.

CM:Yeah, yeah.

HN:He was -- I assume he was an misnagdish [non-Hasidic Orthodox] rabbi, not a Hasidim --

CM:Yeah, misnagdish --

HN:-- where he was. But then -- so can you tell us about Bromberg?

CM:Bromberg -- Aaron Bromberg -- was a teacher -- a naturally, a born teacher, who loved children. And he liked me. And he skipped me twice, to different classes. And I used to come and play for him on Friday nights. There was singing. So, he asked me to play for the children to sing along.

HN:This is Jewish things?

CM:Yiddish songs.

HN:Yiddish songs.

CM:And they -- I liked him. And I loved to go to school, to Yiddish school.

HN:Yeah.

CM:I really loved it. We went three times. And then, when he was skipping me, I went two more days. So, I went every day, five days a week, after school.

HN:So, the Jewish high school -- the Sholem Aleichem high school -- was --

CM:That was afterwards.

HN:After school -- or was that a Yiddish high school?

CM:That was a Yiddish high school.

HN:Did you go to another high school, or just the Yiddish high school?

CM:No, I went to regular school, too.

HN:Regular school, and then also a Yiddish high school.

CM:And then -- yeah.

HN:And Sholem Aleichem, meaning the Sholem Aleichem schools kind of?

CM:There was an institute that was called Sholem Aleichem Institute -- Folk Institute. It was named after the writer, Sholem Aleichem. And they had schools -- elementary schools -- and then they had this high school. They had this wonderful Camp Boiberik that I used to go to. And later I became the singing teacher of Camp Boiberik.

HN:And we'll talk about that soon, too.

CM:Yeah.

HN:I wanted to ask about Boiberik --

CM:Okay.

HN:-- at some point. But first, I want to ask before that -- so then you went on 10:00to college, and what did you study?

CM:I studied French. My mother disapproved of my taking music. I loved music, but they said, Eh, it's not for a girl. So, I studied French language, I studied Spanish, I studied Latin, I studied Italian -- different languages. And then, I started taking music on the side -- theory and harmony.

HN:You didn't do that at Hunter? You just did languages --

CM:At Hunter, I did that. Later on I did that; I took a music course. I had wonderful teachers. And I excelled in music. French, I did all right, but it was mostly music that I was good at. (laughs)

HN:(laughs) I've never seen you write anything in French. So, how about folklore and writing about music? And how did you get interested in that -- in the -- collecting music and writing about music, and did you have any training in that period?

CM:Well, I didn't have training in that, but I -- Weinreich would tell us about 11:00the aspirant. These research trainees -- students that they gave scholarships to -- fellowships. And one of the fellows -- the people was Shmuel Zaynvl Pipe, who was a collector of folklore, and then he started to write about folk songs, mainly folk songs. And I read all his work. And we would always bemoan the fact that they were destroyed, they were killed, and none of the folklorists remained -- none of the writers or the collectors remained. So, we were trying to sort of fill in this terrible gap. And I became very much interested in it.

HN:So, it was reading --

CM:It was like a sort of a mission that I was going into.

HN:So, reading inspired by the folklorists that had already written for the collection -- was it all -- I only wondered -- you mentioned --

CM:Pipe. Pipe.

HN:-- you said Pipe, but also Cahan, right?

CM:Oh, Cahan? Yeah.

HN:Would his work be also in the YIVO --

CM:Okay, but he died be-- I -- my mother knew him. But of course, he died in '37, so I never had the -- and I read his works, too. Of course he inspired us. We called our club at --

HN:Yes, I was --

CM:-- the Cahan Club. And then, we published material. But Cahan inspired Pipe.

HN:Oh. And Pipe was still alive when you --

CM:No. No. We didn't know Pipe --

HN:He was killed also --

CM:He was killed in the Holocaust.

HN:-- in the Holocaust.

CM:Yeah.

HN:Yeah.

CM:But we read his works and we did -- and then Dov Noy and Meir Noy put out a book of his writings and his letters to his brother, who was in Israel, telling him about all the courses in the YIVO and describing all the courses and discussions. It was very fascinating reading.

HN:I didn't even know about that.

CM:Yeah.

HN:That's fantastic. What did Pipe write about, by the way?

CM:Pipe wrote about songs. There was a lot of controversy between the Soviet 13:00writers and the writers of the YIVO. And they called the YIVO writers nationalists and bourgeois. And there was this controversy, and they would attack each other. Beregovskii was one of the people who would -- later on he changed his mind, but at the beginning, he attacked the YIVO people terribly. And that the YIVO only wanted to have the perfect original version, which wasn't true, and that the YIVO goes and publishes holiday folklore. We publi-- the YIVO published questionnaires on holidays. So, this was -- and Pipe was one of the people who defended the Anskys and the Cahans --

HN:I didn't know that at all.

CM:-- and the --

HN:Yes. And Beregovskii (UNCLEAR) --

CM:-- and the Weinreichs. Yeah.

HN:Yeah. The idea of the whole culture rather than just the music of the people, 14:00which was --

CM:Yeah.

HN:-- Beregovskii. Yeah. So, okay -- so can you tell us -- now we're in the 1940s, so tell us about Yosl.

CM:Well, Yosl was a -- came from Poland. He was born in Proszowice, but he moved to Warsaw at a young age. And he started writing when he was very young. He wrote for the "Kinderfraynd" -- that was the children's magazine of the Bund. And then, he went to the Medem Sanatorium. And that was a place where they had cultural things. And he became very active, preparing radio programs and newspapers and plays and songs and everything. And all the people that went to the Medem Sanatorium all remember Yosl worked there. And then, he was engaged by the -- what is it called, I forgot the name -- "Folks-tsaytung" -- that's the Bund newspaper -- to be a reporter. He was the one that went to Przytyk, where 15:00Gebirtig -- he wrote his famous song, "Es brent, briderlakh [It's burning, my brothers]." And he wrote a report of that. So, when he came -- when the war broke out, he was going to -- the paper closed up, and they moved -- they were going to go to Lublin, but on the way, they saw that -- they heard that Lublin was taken, so they decided to go to Vilna. So, he came to Vilna, and he was there for two -- for a year. And he started with Pryłucki. Pryłucki was one of the giants of the YIVO. He was a philologist and a -- he was in the Sejm with the politics. And he gave Yosl a job of writing down gvies-eydes --- testimonies, eyewitness testimonies -- of the problems and everything. And then, he was stranded. They were sent to Japan. And he tried to get a visa. He got a 16:00visa from Sugihara to go to Japan. And they were in Japan a year and then he was in Shanghai. Shanghai, he lived there for seven years. And there was a ghetto there. And he became a librarian in the Russian library. And then, finally he was given -- after the war, in '47, he was given a job in Calgary. And he lived there for two years. And while he was there -- and I met him on his transit visa. And while he was there, he received this invitation to come to UCLA from Weinreich. And so, he came. And we met again. And that's the story.

HN:And you said he was playing mandolin on the beach?

CM:Oh, yeah. (laughs)

HN:Tell us (laughs) --

CM:That's how we met him -- when we met him. He came -- he was a friend of Manye Pat -- Emanuel, Dr. Pat -- and I was a friend of Reyzl's; she worked at the YIVO. And we met one Sunday. And he came with a whole group of people. And they 17:00were singing songs. And he was singing and playing songs. It was a wonderful afternoon.

HN:Wow. (laughs)

CM:It was wonderful, really. I can't describe it.

HN:Yeah. Yeah. It stayed with you all these years.

CM:Yeah.

HN:That's great. Can you tell us about your sister a little bit? Tell us about Malke.

CM:Malke was a pianist. She studied piano. She could have been very great if she had worked at it. I mean, that sounds silly, but --

HN:Yeah --

CM:-- but she was a very fine pianist. Her interpretative skills were amazing. She could give you the feeling of Beethoven or Chopin or Mozart. And she had a -- you see, my piano teacher had this theory about a singing touch, and he wrote a book about it. That you control your finger before you play it, and you can produce a different sound. As a matter of fact, he took an umbrella and he 18:00controlled the umbrella, and before he placed it on the key, it had -- it would come out differently. (laughs) And he had a theory about legato, too. And she was one of his best students. She was able -- no one could play like him -- could produce such a tone. With Bach, for instance, it was almost like an orchestra. And she was almost as good -- or -- had that same tone. She was a wonderful pianist.

HN:Your son's not bad, either. I just want to say (laughs) --

CM:She was her -- first teacher.

HN:Oh my God.

CM:Yeah.

HN:So, she taught him to play with that kind of sound. Oh my.

CM:Yeah. And he had that sound, that touch -- like velvet. So, that's that. And she was a -- had a wonderful personality. And very attractive. And loved Boiberik. And her husband was being a dentist. And he became the chairman of the 19:00Boiberik Committee. And for them, Boiberik was the most important thing. He was very active in the Sholem Aleichem schools, too.

HN:My next question is, of course, tell us about Boiberik. When did you start working there and what (UNCLEAR) --

CM:Well, first I started as a camper in '31 (UNCLEAR). And my sister had gone there, too. And we loved it. We loved the songs, we loved the people, we loved the traditions of the Shabbos, of wearing white, and singing special songs. And then, years later, I came back, and it was so ter-- I came to the felker yontef [holiday of nations, lit. "folks' holiday"]. They have a beautiful event there. At the end of the year, every group becomes a nation and dresses in the costume of the nation and sings the song and does the dance and has the -- and has a tower of the nation. And the theme of the nation is peace, with Isaiah's -- and a little child to lead them. And we had this idea of peace. And it's a beautiful 20:00ceremony. And the children love it. So, we used to came back for it, and I came back once and I thought it was terrible. The songs were so terrible. I said, I could do better. So, that's all he needed?. And he said, "Okay, you're gonna do it."

HN:So, when you were a camper, it was wonderful; then, it got bad; and then you came back and made it good again (UNCLEAR) --

CM:It was not (UNLEAR) that was bad -- the felker yontef was bad.

HN:The what was?

CM:The felker yontef. The nation holiday.

HN:I see. The nation holiday. A lot of the things were good but --

CM:That that event --

HN:-- they got mixed up about the nation holiday.

CM:-- everything else was good; this is what I heard about the --

HN:I see.

CM:-- that ceremony -- that event -- which was a highlight of Camp Boiberik.

HN:But when you said special songs on Shabbos, can you give us any examples (UNCLEAR)?

CM:Well, one that the kids loved is the nation that I gave them -- for France, for instance. (sings) "Royte vayn un vayse -- royte vayn un vayse troybn,/a gut 21:00yontev, kumt arayn./Ouh là là, bonjour, frantsoyzn,/es iz felker-yontev haynt./A gut-yontev, yontev, yontev, yontev, yontev, ale fraynt./Ouh là là, bonjour, frantsoyzn,/es iz felker-yontev haynt./Sur le pont d'Avignon, on y danse, on y danse,/sur le pont --/afn veg -- fun glik, afn veg --/En passant par la Lorraine,/her zikh a geshray:/'Vive la France, le jour est arrivé!/Vive la, vive, vive la liberté!'/Da-da-da-na,/ale, ale kumen on,/ale tsupn mit di fis./Ale, ale kumen on,/fun marsey un fun pariz! [Yiddish and French: Red wine 22:00and white -- red wine and white grapes,/happy holiday, come along./Oh la la, hello, French people,/it is the folks' holiday today./Happy, happy, happy, happy holiday to all our friends./Oh la la, hello, French people,/it's the folks' holiday today./On the bridge of Avignon, we dance, we dance,/on the bridge -- /on the way -- with joy, on the way --/As we go through Lorraine,/hear our cry:/'Long live France, the day has arrived!/Long live, long live, long live freedom!'/Da-da-da-na,/every, everyone is arriving,/everyone is throwing up our legs./Every, everyone is arriving,/from Marseille and Paris!]." And so on and so on. So, that -- every nation had a song. And the theme. And then, the --

HN:Did you teach them all the songs?

CM:Yeah. And then there were basic songs about the felker yontef -- about being --

HN:I wanna hear the Italian one.

CM:What?

HN:I wanna hear the Italian one.

CM:(sings) "Tiri tumba, tiri tumba" -- you know that song.

HN:Yeah. But in Yiddish, I don't know it.

CM:I forget all the words. I don't remember the words.

HN:Were there any other favorites? The French -- that was amazing! (laughs)

CM:The French was good. The Ukraine was good.

HN:What was Ukraine?

CM:Greek -- I'll do you Greek. (pauses) -- (sings) -- I don't remember the words. It goes like this: (sings) "Oh, grikhn kumen, mit frishe blumen -- zing grikhn zuntik un montik un din--zingt, 'Yasu!'/Na-na-na-na-na-na,/zing grikhn 23:00donershtik un fraytik un shabes, in di tog fun ru,/da-na-na-na-na-na,/oh, grikhn kumen -- mit blumen./Zing grikhn fraytik un shabes, zuntik, 'Yasu!' [Oh, the Greeks are coming, with fresh flowers -- the Greeks sing Sunday and Monday and Tues--they sing, 'Yassou!'/Na-na-na-na-na-na,/the Greeks sing Thursday and Friday and Saturday, the day of rest,/da-na-na-na-na-na,/oh, the Greeks are coming -- with flowers./The Greeks sing Friday and Saturday, Sunday, 'Yassou!']"

HN:That's wonderful.

CM:But I don't remember the words. But so the kids loved these songs.

HN:Oh, yeah.

CM:They still sing them.

HN:And you obviously made up the Yiddish versions of them. They all were things that you already knew --

CM:And then we found the music.

HN:-- and then you found ways of bringing them in and making them accessible.

CM:Yeah. So, every song was sort of typical and catchy and easy to learn and easy to sing.

HN:Wow. What were some other highlights about Boiberik that were wonderful?

CM:Well, that was the most important.

HN:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

CM:The felker yontef was the most important.

HN:Yeah, but Sha--

CM:But the Shabbos, yeah.

HN:You mentioned Shabbos also. What was Shabbos?

CM:Shabbos, they used to have a ritual. Everybody dressed in white. And they 24:00moved to the dining room. And we sang songs. Someone bentsht [said a blessing] and we sang songs. And then later we went to the auditorium and we had a procession of (sings) "Gris, bagris zey mit gezang [Greetings, we greet them with song]" -- greeting them. And then, they sang songs that Lazar Weiner wrote music to -- (sings) "A lid vel ikh zingen, a lid fun mayn hartsn [I will sing a song, a song from my heart]" -- using basic liturgical motifs. That's the akdomes [hymn recited by Ashkenazi Jews on the first day of Shavuos motif. Then he used something with the (UNCLEAR) -- the Sukkos motif. So, he brought in through melody, too -- Jewish melody -- he brought in songs that Leibush Lehrer wrote. And then, there were traditional songs -- (sings) "Shabbos, Shabbos, Sha--" and they sang the "Lekha doydi [Come, my beloved]."

HN:Which "Lekha doydi" was this?

CM:(sings) "Lekha doydi, lekras kala [Come, my beloved, to meet the bride]." And they sang "Shir hashirim [Song of songs]." (sings) "Shir hashirim, asher 25:00l'shloymen, asher kidshanu b'mitz-- [Song of songs, which is Solomon's, who blesses us with --]" No, I'm mixing it up already. I'm sorting -- everything is coming to me, so I get mixed up.

HN:I'm sorry. Well, I put you back there, and I realized, you looked like you were about thirty-five --

CM:Yeah, I'm --

HN:-- (laughs) -- I mean, I --

CW:Can I ask about untern boym [under the tree]?

CM:Oh, that's for the guests. The guests had -- they had a guest side. And every week, there was a lecture that Leibush Lehrer organized and invited. And there was this tree -- they called it "untern boym." It was a lecture where the guests would assemble and hear a writer, a poet, a so on -- not politics, we didn't talk about politics -- but on cultural topics. And it was very interesting. And -- discussions. That was one of the things that the guests had. They also had a program -- an evening program -- of singers and invited actors. And that was 26:00very nice, too. But the children's program was separate from the guests' program.

HN:And were there other teachers at Boiberik that you thought were, like, inspiring that we should hear about also? Somebody who is mentioned a lot -- who does Josh Waletzky always talk about who taught (UNCLEAR) --

CM:He came after me.

HN:Oh, so this was a time when you weren't even there (UNCLEAR).

CM:He was a camper.

HN:Wolf something --

CM:Wolf Younin?

HN:Yes, yes.

CM:He was -- was he --

HN:(UNCLEAR) in your time?

CM:He wasn't a counselor when I was there.

HN:Oh, he wasn't? He was later. Okay.

CM:No, but he was a writer --

HN:Yes.

CM:-- for the -- and he was -- at one time he was the city editor of "The Day," the newspaper.

HN:Yes.

CM:And he was a teacher of Yiddish. And he was a folklorist. He used to write about folk songs and folklore.

HN:Yes.

CM:Yeah.

HN:So, then you -- obviously you raised a family, and as you said, you were not well for a while --

CM:Uh-huh.

HN:-- so you -- you know, I assume, didn't do that much in that time.

CM:Right.

HN:But then you came back to it and you said that you started writing the column. So, what kinds of things did you write about when you --

CM:Oh, we wrote -- as a matter of fact, Zalmen printed an index -- a bibliography -- of all the songs that people asked us about.

HN:Yes.

CM:And we had about over two thousand songs. Now it might be three thousand, by -- since I did that. And these were -- we wrote about writers, poets. We called it "Perl fun der yidisher poezie [Pearls of Yiddish poetry]." We wrote about all poets. And we put in some of the -- at the very beginning, we made it a game. We'd say -- we wrote, for instance, "Ale mentshn zaynen brider [All people are brothers]." And we'd have that. And we'd say, Who wrote it? And they would answer. And Peretz wrote it. And we'd sing music by Shake-- by Beethoven, and it 28:00was a game. And at one time, we had two hundred people answering.

HN:Wow.

CM:And they were -- it became -- it was very successful. It was a hit, a real hit.

HN:Yeah.

CM:And we started getting letters from people about songs that they remembered. Do we know about songs? Do we know who wrote them? Where can I get it? Where can I get -- remember more stanzas? And we started writing -- answering that. And as I had a little practice when I did yidisher folklore [Jewish folklore] with the Cahan Club, I was able to answer those questions. Yosl did the article -- the writing about the poets, and I wrote the answers to the letters.

HN:The Cahan Club -- how did you do the Yiddish folklore in the Cahan Club? Did you --

CM:Well, we put out free magazines. And the songs that people sent in, at that time people at the YIVO --

HN:So, it was the same thing. It was like --

CM:It was the same thing -- that I sort of broadened out --

HN:So it was like the seed was there from the Cahan Club.

CM:Yeah.

HN:Now I just want to go, though, to before you came back -- in the 19-- we're gonna go to the '50s, because I know, for example, that when I went to see "Hershele Ostropolyer" --

CM:Oh!

HN:-- you know, so I said to Zalmen -- I said, "Okay" --

CM:He knows everything. (laughs)

HN:"Okay, hello, Zalmen." So --

CM:Everything he knows --

HN:-- so this show -- you know, I had thought when I had seen it advertised, I thought, Okay, this is a Yiddish show, but I can't find any record of it anywhere. And of course, this is a character from Jewish folklore. And I said, "Zalmen, why don't I know about this show?" He goes, "'Cause my mother wrote it."

CM:(laughs)

HN:(laughs) So, you obviously were active doing Yiddish with --

CM:I --

HN:-- different kinds of groups -- already amateur groups of various types in the 1950s -- which is very interesting, 'cause you said your father was an amateur actor --

CM:Yeah.

HN:-- and apparently you continued that, like, as a hobby -- or --

CM:Right.

HN:-- you know, almost really doing that -- even while you were working, I assume, for Max Weinreich, you were organizing -- can you talk about that a 30:00little bit?

CM:Well, I know when the children were growing up, they went to school -- a Yiddish school. And the mothers became very active. And we started a mothers' club. And the mothers' club was -- kept the shul [secular Yiddish school] going and the activities going. We were very active. And they decided to put on plays. They all had dramatic dreams -- aspirations. So, they did a few. And then, one of the plays was "Hershele Ostropolyer." And I found the music for that -- and we prepared it. And it was a hit. The only thing -- we used to play these things only once on Purim, and then once for the old age home. And so, we did it twice. And that was all -- but everybody was so excited. They loved to play, perform. And we had a -- and they put on men's costumes. And so, the women became men. And there was a lot of singing and dancing in the plays. And they were light and 31:00-- light-hearted. And lots of fun. And I told Zalmen -- I said, "Why don't you do 'Hershele'?" He said, "No, it's too simple." And then, my other son, Moish, he knows every song of it. He said, "But the songs are great." And so, Zalmen said he'll try it out. And he tried it out with a group of students of the trupe [theater group] -- at different colleges at CUNY. And it went over so well that they decided to bring it back.

HN:Now you were -- when you raised your children, you were on the ground floor of Bainbridgivke, I assume.

CM:No, that's --

HN:Oh, you weren't?

CM:I wasn't there.

HN:You weren't there. So, where did you raise your children? And was there a group of people who had this idea -- got together and said, We're going to raise our children speaking Yiddish and learning this culture and -- I mean, so how did that work for you, then? You were not part of the Fishmans and the Gottesmans and that --

CM:Well, I was a -- I'm a very good friend of the Fishmans.

HN:(UNCLEAR).

CM:I went -- Shikl was one of the (UNCLEAR) of the -- so we were in California together.

HN:Oh.

CM:We know each other a very long time.

HN:Okay.

CM:And so, the kids really knew each other. But we had a network of kids and parents that -- around our school -- we had a hundred kids in our school. And the mothers' club -- we used to put on puppet shows -- puppet shows.

HN:Which school, by the way?

CM:This was the Workmen's Circle School Three.

HN:And where was that (UNCLEAR)?

CM:That was in the Amalgamated Houses.

HN:Amalgamated Houses (UNCLEAR) --

CM:In the Bronx.

HN:In the Bronx.

CM:So, we had a -- and we became very close friends. And the actors were wonderful people. And we had this actor who was a former actor/director, Glikson, Yosef Glikson, from Yung-- not Yung-Vil-- Yung-teater, Weichert's Yung-teater.

HN:(UNCLEAR).

CM:And he and his wife were both actors there. And so, they -- the farvalter, the executive came to them and said, "Would you do something with the mothers' 33:00club?" And they put on these plays. And they were very good directors. And we had a dancing -- a choreographer. We had someone who painted the sets. And the men in the farvalter helped us with making a stage for the puppet shows or fixing things or building things around it. It was a whole community venture. And it was very successful. Our plays were very successful and full of fun. And they're remembered by everybody. There are still two or three still alive from the mothers' club.

HN:Mm. And what are some of the other -- I just wonder, besides "Hershele," what were some of the other --

CM:We did "Dos groyse gevins [The big win]," Sholem Aleichem. We did "Kuni lemel," by Goldfadn. We did "Khazn in shtetl [Cantor in the shtetl]," by Yosl. We did the "Megile lider [Megillah songs]," by Manger. We did a Purim play that I wrote. Yeah. A Gilbert and Sullivan Purim play.

HN:Where is this now? (laughs)

CM:I have that.

HN:Whoa! (laughs)

CM:And --

HN:Is this going to be revived? (laughs)

CM:Well, Zalmen's been doing it a few times.

HN:Oh, my! Great!

CM:And other plays like that.

HN:What was the -- wait a minute -- Gilbert and Sullivan Purim play --

CM:Oh, you don't know that?

HN:The -- the -- the --

CM:A-ha --

HN:(laughs)

CM:(laughs) I found something you don't know.

HN:What's the name of this --

CM:It's called Gilbert and Sullivan Purim play.

HN:It's just called the Gilbert and Sullivan Purim --

CM:Do you want to see it?

HN:Sure! (laughs)

CM:Can you stop that for a minute?

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

HN:Oh my God! (laughs)

CM:I'm gonna let you have one.

HN:(laughs) This is a -- oh, you've got a box of them! (laughs)

CM:No, not a box. (UNCLEAR) --

HN:Oh, it's the Chana -- it's your archive box.

CM:It's one of my archives -- a whole section of mine.

HN:It should be a whole floor.

CM:You can have this. This is (UNCLEAR).

HN:Oh my God! Look at that! There we go. (laughs)

CM:And it's based on mostly the "Pinafore," but I have "Iolanthe," I have "Pirates," I have "Mikado."

HN:Oh my God! And you knew all that from just --

CM:Oh, growing up.

HN:Oh, we should get going again. So --

CW:(UNCLEAR).

CM:And I raised my kids on the (UNCLEAR) -- on all of Gilbert and Sullivan.

HN:Yeah. Your kids were brought up on -- on just culture. (laughs)

CM:Right.

HN:Plus Yiddish. (laughs)

CM:That's right.

HN:So, they knew also -- all of the songs are Gilbert and Sullivan songs in Yiddish. And it's di-- but it's very different than the "yam-bam-ditn" and all that, you know? Those -- that's a whole --

CM:Oh, no. I mean, this is Purim.

HN:-- deal. That was a whole thing. Because --

CM:This is only Purim (UNCLEAR).

HN:-- this is a Purim play -- a Purim Gilbert and Sullivan play. I mean, that's amazing. Isn't that wonderful? I didn't know this -- I had never heard about it.

CM:A-ha!

HN:(laughs) So, can you talk a little bit about how it came to be that you went back to work at YIVO? What were you doing when you went back? 'Cause you went back working here in 1978 --

CM:Now you had -- the National Endowment for the Humanities had a opening. And I had a friend, Rishke Klepfisz.

HN:Yes!

CM:And she was friends with Hannah Fryshdorf, who was the assistant executive director. And from word to word, from Yosl speaking to this one -- and then they 37:00told me, Are you interested? I said yes. And I came, and Marek engaged me.

HN:And what was your -- this is Marek Web at the time?

CM:Yeah.

HN:Yeah. And you -- what was your job, though? He engaged you to do what?

CM:Oh. First he gave me a (laughs) Kahan collection to do.

HN:Ah!

CM:He gave me the Ethnographic Committee of Vilna, of hundreds of songs -- seven hundred songs that they collected. He gave me a collection of Litwin, who was a folklorist and a journalist. He gave me the collection of Shmuel Niger, one of the greatest literary critics; of Opatoshu, with letters from Chagall and from all the Russian writers. He gave me wonderful collections --

HN:And you organized them? Was that the idea?

CM:I organized them, I arranged --

HN:And published things about them -- translated or wrote articles a little bit --

CM:No, I had to write a --

HN:Yeah.

CM:-- a survey of it --

HN:Right.

CM:-- a scope and content.

HN:Right.

CM:And I had -- Morris Rosenfeld, I did -- he gave me very good collections to work on.

HN:And again, you had those skills not from going to study folklore in college --

CM:No.

HN:-- but from learning from --

CM:Just from working with (UNCLEAR).

HN:-- (UNCLEAR) -- working with that all those years. So, you learned how to basically organize collections, be a folklorist, write a --

CM:Right.

HN:-- write kind of an abstract about what was in it --

CM:Yeah, (UNCLEAR).

HN:-- and all those things just from try--

CM:(UNCLEAR) --

HN:-- just from seeing what people did.

CM:The Shmuel Niger collection is one of the largest collections there, a wonderful collection. And the Joseph Opatashu. And Morris Rosenfeld.

HN:Oh!

CM:What could be better? (Netsky laughs) I really -- and then after, in '84, he started giving me the music collection. So, I did Weiner; I did Heifeitz; I did [Smulewitz]; I did (UNCLEAR). I don't know, I did about twenty or twenty-five 39:00collections --

HN:I remember you did Heifetz -- I remember that was (UNCLEAR) --

CM:Yeah, but then --

HN:-- in the '90s, you were working --

CM:-- then it was -- a lot of material was added to it.

HN:Yeah.

CM:So, someone else was working on it.

HN:Yeah. And so, from the grant from the National Endowment, then they created a position later on that they just --

CM:Right.

HN:-- they funded somehow.

CM:Yeah.

HN:And they still do somehow. So --

CM:Well, it -- no, we get different funds from different places --

HN:Different funds for different things.

CW:Can I (UNCLEAR)?

HN:Yes, of course, of course.

CW:I mean, you've worked on all of these things, but have there been anything that you came across that you were just, like, Oh, wow! You know, This is --

CM:Well, there are so many things. Let me see. When I saw the letters to Opatoshu from Chagall, and every letter had drawings on it. I -- that was --

HN:(laughs) Wow!

CM:-- that was very exciting for me. When I saw different writers that I knew about -- Upton Sinclair and American writers -- in the archive. Those were 40:00exciting for me. I saw musicians' works that I had known about, but I didn't know the composer, and I saw these things written out. There's a song, for instance, "Fayer, fayer, fayer, fay-- [Fire, fire, fire, fi--]" that we used to sing in shul and I gave over to my kids, and it ends with "Fayerdike [Fiery]" --

HN:"lokshn [noodles]" --

CM:-- "lokshn."

HN:-- or not -- not "lokshn."

CM:Lokshn. And when I was a teacher -- and see, in Yiddish school, I was a teacher also, of -- a singing teacher. I changed it to "latkes." (Netsky laughs) And then, I found that it was by Heifetz. So you know, learning different things -- every day is a learning experience for me. So, that's -- no matter what happens, I learn something. Someone will ask me about a candy man. So, I started delving into that -- I found it's related to Yente Telebende.

HN:Really?

CM:There's Pine, the candy boy.

HN:Oh!

CM:And he sings about it. Not only that; he says, "And you'll find me on page four of the 'Forverts'" --

HN:(laughs)

CM:-- in this song. So, those things are enjoyable and interesting.

HN:So, would you be willing to share with us the list of what you have --

CM:Yeah --

HN:-- gone through in the last month; the questions that people have been asking in the --

CM:Okay.

HN:-- last little while?

CM:Oh, sure.

HN:I can help move the box on top of this.

CM:These were some articles that I wanted to show you.

HN:Yes -- oh, yes! Oh, great. Well, we'll look at those. But I just thought that it would --

CM:Okay, these are --

HN:-- be nice to have this review.

CM:-- a view.

HN:Perfect.

CM:Let me put my glasses on. Someone asked -- this doctor, Ostrover -- asked about humor and the Holocaust. You don't think there would be humor --

HN:Oh, there's so much.

CM:Huh?

HN:I know a lot of these. This is a gr--

CM:Yeah.

HN:Yeah.

CM:And there are a lot of humorous songs.

HN:Yes.

CM:So, I helped with that. Marek Web told me --

HN:What did you tell them about?

CM:Well, there were songs, and Kaczerginski --

HN:Yes.

CM:-- a lot of songs describing the everyday life. And those were songs that people would make up, and there were a lot of songs like that. So anyway, I gave her that. Marek Web asked me -- somebody said, there's a Polish play that's gonna be done in Philadelphia, and the man says -- and the words are, "Tsuzamen, di fon iz greyt [Together, the flag is ready]." So, I told him, it's "Di shvue [The oath]," and where he could get that. This girl asked about the candy kid. Eleanor Reissa asks about "Shloymele, malkele [Little Solomon, little Malka]," the song -- fun a more estere [from a teacher Esther] --

HN:What did you tell her about "Shloymele, malkele"?

CM:She wanted to know when it was -- whether it was part of a play and who wrote it and when it was published. And some of the stanzas -- there are some stanzas that are off-color, you know? And so we disc--

HN:I wondered the same thing. I mean, what -- is that a folk song or is it --

CM:No. It's -- no.

HN:Rumshinsky, I think.

CM:Rumshinsky.

HN:Yeah. Yeah.

CM:They asked about "Es brent, briderlakh." Someone asked about "Oy mame, bin 43:00ikh farlibt [Oh mama, I'm in love]," for a chorus. This cantor asked me (laughs) about the song, "Leybke iz kayn amerike geforn [Leybke went to America]." He just called me before. And this is a song he remembers from when he was two years old. And he comes from Palestine -- he lived in Palestine -- but he remembers his mother singing this song. And he asked -- he says, "Nobody knows this song." Sirota -- he went to Sirota, he went to Reyut -- something. And they said, Go to Chana Mlotek. And of course, I had it. And it tells about this man deserting this wife and going to America. And his wife -- his mother was in Palestine, and the father went to America, so now he sees the connection -- why she sang it -- now. Anyway, it's --

HN:Oh, boy. Oh my God!

CM:Someone asked about a song from 1886, "In droysn, blozt a vint a kalte 44:00[Outside, a cold wind blows]." And it's the same melody as "Me'al pisgat har hatzofim [Hebrew: From atop Mount Scopus]" -- the Hebrew song. And I showed the same -- that it's the same melody, and how they compare. Someone asked about [Baruch Lumet]. She's writing about Sidney Lumet; she wanted to know about [Baruch Lumet].

HN:Whoa!

CM:Someone asked about "Skrip, klezmerl, skripe [Play, klezmer, play]." Someone asked about Goldfadn -- she's doing a program on Goldfadn. And Sophie Karp, who was the first woman actor in Goldfadn's trupe. Someone asked about if there's a "Habanera" in Yiddish. One man from Poland asked about --

HN:Did you find her one -- a Hab--

CM:No. (laughs) No.

HN:Oh, okay. (laughs)

CM:They asked about Dovid Edelstadt. Oh, this is interesting. This doctor asks about this song about the President Arthur's ship -- it's a Zion -- it was called the Zion ship. And it was -- it's twenty-five -- 1911 -- 1925. It's the 45:00first Zionist ship that went to Palestine. And they came there in time for the Hebrew University that was opening. And this was the -- [Solomon Shmulewitz], the one who wrote "A brivele der mamen [A letter to my mother]," he wrote this song about the excitement of going on the first Palestine ship.

HN:Oh, wow.

CM:Then, there's -- they ask about copyrights of poets. Someone asked me about Leonard Bernstein and songs of the Yiddish theater that he might have known about.

HN:Did you -- what'd you say? (laughs)

CM:Well, we spoke about Secunda and Ellstein.

HN:Yes.

CM:And Gershwin --

HN:Sure, sure.

CM:-- how they were related. Someone asked about a Dutch composer -- oh, he got material from a Dutch composer, Hans Krieg. And someone asked me about music -- the songs of Jewish peddlers. BKG -- Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett -- she's in 46:00Poland at the Polish museum there, so she asked about artifacts about Yiddish and the Ethnographic Committee of the YIVO in Vilna. And they asked about songs like "My yidishe mame [My Jewish mother]"; three inquiries about "Shvayg mayn harts [Be still my heart]" -- that's the Yablokoff song --

HN:"Nature Boy."

CM:-- that became "Nature Boy," right. Yeah. They asked about Polish Yiddish cabaret songs; about synagogue music of the Bernstein and the Leo Low collection. They asked about the words of a song in Thomashefsky's film, "Bar Mitzvah."

HN:"Bar Mitzvah Boy." What was that one? I'm curious. (laughs)

CM:Yeah. About Elye Shtayn.

HN:Oh, yes. Yes.

CM:And then, someone asked me to identify some Hasidic songs. (sound of papers shuffling) So, these are just random that I picked out.

HN:I was thinking, the "Habanera" question -- I would have told them about "Carmen Katz" --

CM:What was that?

HN:Mickey Katz's version of "Carmen." (sings) "Oy, mayn karmen, du bist mayn karmen [Oh, my Carmen, you are my Carmen]" --

CM:I don't know that.

HN:(laughs)

CM:Now you have one on me. I don't know that.

HN:(laughs) Oh, it's cute.

CM:I don't know, maybe -- yeah.

HN:It's very funny. It's pretty dirty, you know?

CM:Oh, yeah. (laughter) No, they asked for real opera.

HN:Oh, real opera -- that's another story.

CM:Yeah, she wanted -- (laughs) --

HN:Can't really send them to Mickey Katz. (laughs)

CM:That's some of the inquiries we get.

HN:So, the articles -- yeah.

CM:And this is what I'm working on --

HN:Yes.

CM:-- the Hebrew Actors' Union -- I have -- it's a hundred sixty-five pages, a catalogue of --

HN:Oh! 'Cause you received the material, right?

CM:We got the materials, so I'm finished with that.

HN:You catalogued the collection!

CM:I catalogued it.

HN:Wow!

CM:It's a hundred sixty pa-- the catalogue was a hundred sixty-five pages.

HN:That must have taken you the last three years.

CM:Well, it's because I haven't been working on it steadily.

HN:Yes.

CM:And then, I've been doing the play --

HN:Anything good? (laughs)

CM:Well, they had an evening for the man who donated the money for this, so they had an evening, and I picked out two songs, and Donald played. Mike Burstyn was here, and he had a girl, Daniella Rabbani, and they sang a few songs about the payday -- "peydey" and "Amerike." And of course, he sang "Rumanye, rumanye 48:00[Romania, Romania]." I said, It's legitimate because it's in the archive.

HN:Yes. But so this was material that -- when you did the Hebrew Actors' Union, I'm sure you found things --

CM:Oh, there --

HN:-- that you never saw.

CM:Oh, never -- from 1888 -- from songs before -- Perlmutter and Wohl -- I thought they were old, but these were [Finkelstein] and [Hellman], way before them.

HN:Oh! In the archives.

CM:Wonderful material.

HN:Incredible.

CM:And there's Wohl, who wrote beautiful material.

HN:Oh, he's so good.

CM:And there was this combination of Perlmutter and Wohl -- they had wonderful -- they wrote "Lebn zol kolumbus [Long live Columbus]," another wonderful song.

HN:Yes. Wow. And you wanted to show us articles --

CM:Yeah.

HN:-- in the box a little bit?

CM:Oh, yeah.

HN:Yes. Is that cool? I'll get -- I can get it. That's okay. So, there are some things here.

CM:This is a -- I think a shortened version I wrote about [Velvl Zbarzher].

HN:Oh!

CM:Now [Velvl Zbarzher] was a folk poet, and he was like a -- the epitome of the drinking poet, who would go to the wine cellars and inns and make up songs. And he would write songs about the -- he was one of the maskilim [non-Hasidic Orthodox Jews]. He would write songs disparaging the Hebrew -- the miracles of rabbi, things like that. One of his famous songs is "Kum aher, du filosof [Come here, you philosopher]" -- you know that, right?

HN:Yes.

CM:And so, I wrote two articles about [Velvl Zbarzher].

HN:Mm.

CM:(pauses) Oh, here's one about -- the songs of Goldfadn that became folk songs. And they're believed to be folk songs, and actually they come from Goldfadn.

HN:Oh.

CM:So, that was -- I wrote that. One of the very famous songs, "Ikh bin, ikh bin a shnayderl [I am, I am a little tailor]" -- (sings) "Ikh bin, ikh bin a 50:00shnayderl" --- stems from Goldfadn. And then, every collection is -- it's written as a folk song.

HN:So, it is a folk song -- or it is Goldfadn, actually, but he wrote it --

CM:But it became a folk song --

HN:-- and they thought it was --

CM:-- but it stems from Goldfadn.

HN:Yeah.

CM:Here is an article that was in "Di goldene keyt" about Sholem Aleichem and the music in his works and his life. How he -- from childhood on, and the music, and all of the songs he wrote. And I think it's a pretty good article.

HN:Yeah. Has it ever been published?

CM:Yeah. This was in "Goldene keyt." This was in the --

HN:Oh, in "Goldene keyt ," yes.

CM:-- "Tsukunft."

HN:Yes. Yes, there we go.

CM:I don't have -- oh, this I can show you. I was on the --

HN:Looks like a diploma.

CM:-- Hall of Fame.

HN:Oh, yes! The Hall of Fame, right! For Hunter College.

CM:(pauses) This, I wrote about --

HN:Music of Judaica.

CM:-- Soviet scholarship.

HN:Yes.

CM:And I wrote about [Beregovskii]. Yeah. And the controversy.

HN:What -- the controversy of --

CM:Between the -- between the YIVO people and the Ansky people and the Soviet people. This, I wrote about American folk song --

HN:Oh, wow.

CM:-- about the agunes [women who cannot remarry because their husbands have not given them a divorce through Jewish law] and how they adapted here and the changes that went -- I write about the spread of Sholem Aleichem's lullaby, which spread to far different counties, and it was considered a folk song.

HN:Mm. (sings) "Shlof, mayn kind [Sleep, my child]" --

CM:This is one I wrote for the ballads. I wrote about international ballads, comparing the Yiddish ballads with them. And then, after that, I had another one in the -- "Field of Yiddish" about -- a continuation of this. So, I compare nineteen songs -- nineteen ballads -- with international ballads. (pauses) This 52:00is a song we wrote about the folklore -- I and Marek wrote about the folklore materials in YIVO.

HN:In Russian?

CM:Yeah.

HN:You read -- you write in Russian?

CM:Yeah -- no, he wrote it. But we -- it was published in -- this I wrote about Slobin -- about his --

HN:Oh!

CM:-- [Beregovskii] collection. I don't know, and so on.

HN:Yeah. But these are not online, Chana. (laughs)

CM:No. (laughs)

HN:They're only in this box. (laughs)

CM:But my article in the encyclopedia is online.

HN:Yes!

CM:I found it myself.

HN:Yes, isn't that great?

CM:Yeah. I looked for Yiddish folk songs, and I found my article.

HN:Wow. That's fantastic.

CM:So, that's --

HN:That's amazing.

CM:Yeah.

HN:I wonder --

CM:So, now you laid me bare. (laughs)

HN:(laughs) No, no. I mean, this is the idea. I want people to know just how prolific you are and how much you've done. I wondered --

CM:And then, I wrote ten songs -- music to Sutzkever poems.

HN:And these are the ones -- and you actually wrote -- and I wanted to ask you about that next, because you put out, for example, books of your own original --

CM:Oh, these are my books.

HN:-- settings -- but first of all -- your books, but before that, there's the "Lomir kinder zingn [Let's sing, kids]," there's the "Yontefdike teyg [Celebratory days]" --

CM:Yeah.

HN:-- there's the --

CM:Can we get the --

HN:-- I mean, these -- I'm talking about the --

CM:-- get the --

HN:-- out-of-print ones. (laughs)

CM:-- Holocaust songs.

HN:And -- and --

CM:Two Holocaust books.

HN:-- and some of them are your own songs. I mean, for example, you wrote a song that we sing --

CM:Rosh Hashanah.

HN:(sings wordlessly) -- yeah, yeah, yeah --

CM:That's it.

HN:-- it's not (UNCLEAR) -- it's the Rosh Hashanah one --

CM:Yeah.

HN:-- I'm trying to remember it now -- you know --

CM:(sings wordlessly)

HN:(sings wordlessly) -- (Netsky and Mlotek singing together) "a gut yor. Lomir zingn, hoykh un klor, leshone toyve, a gut yor. [a good year. Let's sing, loud 54:00and clear, happy new year, a good year]." (singing while murmuring lyrics and banging on table) -- (singing together) "Leshone toyve tikateyvu, a gut yontev, a gut yor! Leshone toyve tikateyvu, a gut yontev, a gut yor! A gut yor, a gut yor! [May you be inscribed for a good year, happy holiday, a good year! May you be inscribed for a good year, happy holiday, a good year! A good year, a good year!]"

HN:So, how does this come about? You were just -- had -- teaching your class? You --

CM:Oh, I used to be a singing teacher in one of the shuls in Arbeter Ring and one of the shuls in Sholem Aleichem.

HN:Ah-ha!

CM:And so, I used to bring in new material.

HN:And -- that you wrote.

CM:Yeah, that I wrote.

HN:Anything else you remember that you'd like to share?

CM:There was another one that's very cute --

HN:(laughs)

CM:(pauses) This one's a cute one.

HN:Yeah see, I love this book. And it's not available anymore. (laughs)

CM:Wait, let me sing you this one. (pauses) I wrote the -- I took a Goldfadn song -- (sings) "Dreyn zikh, dreyn zikh, un drey zikh shoyn dreydl [Spinning, 55:00spinning, the dreydl spins]" --

HN:Yeah, and you made it into a song about --

CM:Yeah.

HN:-- for Passover.

CM:Yeah, but this is -- this one is cute. (pauses)

HN:(sings wordlessly) (laughs) Right? (laughs)

CM:It's a Tu Bishvat song.

HN:Ah!

CM:They didn't have one, so I made one. (pauses) Oh, here it is. (sings) "Inem sheynem land fun khumesh, blien itster boym un blat,/lustik iz di zun un varem iz itst in kaltn khoydesh shvat./Likhtik iz di zun un varem, blien itster boym 56:00un blat./In dem sheynem land fun khumesh, s'iz der yontev tu bishvat, s'iz der yontev tu bishvat. [In the beautiful land of the Bible, the trees and leaves are in bloom,/the sun is strong and now it's warm in the cold month of Shvat./The sun is bright and warm, the trees and leaves are in bloom./In the beautiful land of the Bible, it's the holiday of Tu B'Shvat, it's the holiday Tu B'shvat.]"

HN:Oh, cu-- great! That's wonderful. That's great!

CM:Yeah.

HN:Oh, so one question. I'm just wondering, when you're doing all this, were there colleagues -- were there other people in New York who also were doing this kind of collecting, or colleagues --

CM:Well, we had this wonderful group with Shikl Fishman and the club -- Uriel Weinreich, Bina Weinreich -- we were very close.

HN:And this is -- is this the Cahan Club? Or was this --

CM:This was the Cahan Club.

HN:Cahan Club.

CM:And then, later, Shikl, Uriel, Bina, and I -- and Younin -- put out our magazine.

HN:And that was all just your -- I mean, you -- nobody paid you to do that. This was just like, just together, because --

CM:Just to do it.

HN:-- you loved it. Because you --

CM:Because we --

HN:-- felt you had to do it.

CM:Oh, we had to do it.

HN:Yeah.

CM:We loved it. And Yosl was like that, too.

HN:Yeah. And -- so someone like --

CM:And we were collectors. There were different ways of collecting folk songs, and we collected through writing to people, correspondence.

HN:Mm.

CM:And we got thousands of songs that way.

HN:Right, it was different -- 'cause like, Ruth Rubin would have sessions where she'd invite people to come in and --

CM:Yeah.

HN:-- record. That was -- you never did that.

CM:No, I didn't do that.

HN:That wasn't your method. You would have them -- the people actually would do the work --

CM:Oh, yeah.

HN:-- and send --

CM:And we have the letters that they sent in. We have hundreds of letters.

HN:Yeah. Oh, that's --

CM:At the beginning I saved them. Now I don't save them.

HN:Wow. That's just incredible.

CM:And we have a lot of -- I have all the books here, and I have -- very convenient -- we have wonderful collections here.

HN:And you said that you're -- that (UNCLEAR) --

CM:This is my sheet music collection.

HN:But you have a poetry book that is in the works also --

CM:(UNCLEAR).

HN:-- so I wanted to hear about that.

CM:(UNCLEAR).

HN:Oh, look at this! So, this is your --

CM:This is song sheet, and this is composers and compilers.

HN:And this is the song -- this is the sheet music collection --

CM:That we have here.

HN:-- of what you've collected from --

CM:And this is (UNCLEAR) --

HN:"Pearl" -- this is what you collected through "Pearls"?

CM:No, this is YIVO collection.

HN:YIVO collection.

CM:And this is what I have here in the YIVO collection of composers and compilers.

HN:Mm.

CM:And this is choral music. And this is the supplement that we have -- different catalogues that I've prepared.

HN:I see. So when somebody says, Do you have a song, you go --

CM:So, I (UNCLEAR) --

HN:-- over here and you can look, and then if you get a new one, you can add it in.

CM:Right. Yeah.

HN:Yeah. And --

CM:And this is our book of poetry.

HN:Yes.

CM:And this came out in English now, in translation.

HN:That's what -- you just -- that's what I was going to --

CM:That's here.

HN:-- ask you. I was gonna ask you about that.

CM:That's this one.

HN:'Cause you have a new book that just came out. Right? This is this year.

CM:This is last year.

HN:So, last year, but you -- it's very recent.

CM:Yeah.

HN:And you --

CM:And then, we did this one.

HN:Oh, Dr. Zumoff. Okay.

CM:We did this one, too.

HN:Oh, yes, of course -- with Marek.

CM:Yeah.

HN:Which is to finish, you know, Ruth Rubin's collection that she --

CM:Yeah.

HN:-- she wanted to put out. Did you work together at all with Ruth?

CM:Of course -- with Ruth Rubin?

HN:Yes.

CM:Well, I used to invite her to lectures and everything.

HN:Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. She worked independently --

CM:But I didn't work with her.

HN:She was a very independent person.

CM:Yeah, she was -- she worked separately.

HN:I understand. No, that makes sense. This is fantastic. Wow.

CM:But in my book -- my article about Soviet Russia, I print the letter that she gave me -- to [Beregovskii].

HN:Oh!

CM:From [Beregovskii] -- from Ruth Rubin.

HN:And [Beregovskii] wrote her the letter?

CM:Yeah. He was sick; she couldn't see him. So, he sent her the letter, so she gave it to me.

HN:Do you -- you don't have her archive here, though -- she gave it to --

CM:We have it.

HN:You have it? So, you have the stuff that --

CM:We haven't done it yet, but we have it.

HN:She gave it to City Lore, but they gave it to you, I assume? Or they --

CM:No, she gave it to us.

HN:She gave it to you?

CM:She gave it to the -- Library of --

HN:To [Zeitlin]?

CM:-- Congress.

HN:Oh, Library of Congress? And you?

CM:And us. And Israel.

HN:Oh, you mean the music collection?

CM:Yeah.

HN:Ah! But you haven't catalogued that yet?

CM:We haven't catalogued that.

HN:Yeah, but that -- ah! That's fantastic.

CM:We have Wolf Younin. That's a new collection.

HN:Yeah.

CM:And we have (UNCLEAR).

HN:Oh, of course! Wow. So, let me ask -- do you feel like we've covered most of what we --

CM:You want to ask me something?

HN:(laughs)

CM:Go ahead, ask me.

CW:Sure. I'd love to hear a little bit about the home you grew up in.

CM:Well, it was a home where I went to school every day. After school, I went to shul. The people say -- they complain today, our kids have too many things to do.

HN:(laughs)

CM:We went to shul every day after school. We took piano lessons. We had to practice. We took dancing lessons. We took art lessons. And there was no television. And there was a radio; I didn't listen to the radio much, but people 61:00did. And that was our work. We had -- we would go to the movies -- and see a (laughs) feature for five hours. Triple features. And that was a lot of fun -- that we looked forward to.

HN:Where did you grow up?

CM:In the Bronx.

HN:In the Bronx.

CM:I was born in Brooklyn, but I grew up in the Bronx. And I loved to read. That was one thing -- I was an avid reader. I would stay up all night to read. I did "Gone with the Wind" in one night.

HN:(laughs) Whoa!

CM:And I read Dickens -- I read -- what did I read -- I read Guy de Maupassant. I read -- not Dickens, I forgot who it was -- in Yiddish.

HN:Ooh.

CM:I read --- (laughs) we had a bookcase -- my mother bought a bookcase, and she didn't have books, so she would buy sets of books in Yiddish. And I would read 62:00the -- I would read anything. So, I read the world -- the classics in Yiddish, too.

HN:Mm.

CM:And that was -- and I had friends. We went to shul. I made friends -- like, we had a party -- a Johann Strauss party where we would sing and dance to Johann Strauss waltzes. We had -- let's say -- we were fans of Laurence Olivier and went to all his movies and all his plays when he came here with Vivien Leigh. And we went -- we had piano lessons. And my sister and I played four-hands together; we did that a lot. Even after we got married, we used to meet and play four-hands. We'd do Mozart. We did Beethoven's "Pastoral." The Seventh. The Eighth. We did Mozart's in D minor. We did the Brahms Hungarian Dances -- so 63:00beautiful. And we used to get together and play four-hands together. It was a lot of fun. So, my life went by before I knew it. Everything was happening and I was doing all these things.

CW:And was there, like -- what was the political, cultural sort of atmosphere?

CM:Well, we lived in the Sholem Aleichem Houses. And that was -- it started off as a co-op, but it failed. And it was a very -- it was a cultural center. But there were two divisions: there was the left wing and the right wing. Now the left wing had their shul; we had our shul. They had their activities, their poets; we had ours. It was separated. So, that was the main thing about being a -- not left or being left. And later on, we all got together -- many years 64:00later, we all got together. There was no division anymore. But at that time, that was the political division. And of course, we were for the more progressive side, more liberal side -- in politics. And I know there was this communist writer -- who became communist -- Winchevsky -- and our shul marched in the funeral -- memorial for him.

HN:And other ones didn't, because they didn't want to be associated with communists?

CM:Yeah, but -- you know, we didn't -- they kept separate.

HN:Yeah.

CM:But a lot of them came back after the -- after the Hitler-Sov-- Ribben--

HN:Yes.

CM:-- Soviet pact. They left and they became -- they were against it.

HN:Mm.

CM:But that was the most political thing. But it was mostly cultural. My sister 65:00and her, she had a group of people from Juilliard, and they used to give concerts. And so, we had concerts, we had movies. My father would take me to the Yiddish theater to see Molly Picon. That I remember. That's the -- our life. And we saw the -- and the family -- family dinners, family celebrations.

CW:Did you have any special traditions or foods in your family for the yontoyvim [holidays]?

CM:We had the Pesach seder, where my father had his book, the machzor [Hebrew: holiday prayer book], and -- which was stained with a lot of wine. And he would put on his hat. And we went through the Pesach seder, but never the whole thing. And we had that every year. And we --

CW:In Hebrew or Yiddish?

CM:In Hebrew and Yiddish. And we remember the songs that my father -- the Hebrew 66:00songs that my father sang.

HN:Anything you remember that you could share?

CM:(sings) "Echad mi yodea? Echad ani yodea, echad -- shebashamaim uva'aretz -- mi yodea -- ani yodea -- luchot habrit [Hebrew: Who knows the One? I know One, one -- in the heavens and the earth -- who knows -- I know -- tablets of the covenant] --" (sings wordlessly) (sings) "Echad mi yodea." (sings wordlessly) Then, we sang -- what else did we sing? We sang a whole --

HN:(UNCLEAR) "Chad gadya [Hebrew: One little goat]" --

CM:(sings) "Chad gad--" well, that, we sang the Yiddish version.

HN:Yeah, okay. Okay.

CM:(sings) "Chad gadyo, chad gadyo -- d'tate hot a tsigele, gekoyft far [One little goat, one little goat -- my father had a little goat, bought for] --"

HN:Um-hm, mm-hm.

CM:And -- oh, we had our whole -- all our songs, and we sang them every year. And then, Bing brought in songs that his family sang. And then, Avram, Yosl's brother, remembered songs.

HN:Mm.

CM:So, we were -- our seders were always full of music or singing.

HN:Mm.

CM:Yeah. Our kids -- Zalmen remembers these, too.

HN:Oh, wow.

CM:Moish remembers them.

HN:Yeah, yeah.

CM:And at the seder, we get together -- we sing these songs.

HN:So are --

CM:My father's songs.

HN:So, have you trained anyone here to also work with you? Are there people -- who work with you --

CM:Well --

HN:-- on what you do now, or are you really by yourself, basically, doing this?

CM:There was somebody who was working with me, Fern Kant --

HN:Yeah.

CM:But then the -- the budget --

HN:Oh!

CM:-- they had to release her.

HN:Ah!

CM:But otherwise, I don't know --

HN:Was it Lyudmila? It was --

CM:We have a lot of volunteers, but no one who feels like working with music.

HN:Ah! So, you're really doing this on your own --

CM:On my own, yeah.

HN:-- at this point again?

CM:Yeah, I have no help.

HN:Wow! I thought there was someone -- wasn't it Lyudmila or something or --

CM:Oh, she's the librarian now.

HN:Ah, so she doesn't work on the music collection.

CM:But -- no --

HN:She works --

CM:-- she works on the concerts that they have.

HN:I see. So, you really are -- I mean, you have your --

CM:I'm the archivist --

HN:You have your work cut out for you for a long time.

CM:Yeah. It's a lot of work.

HN:Yeah.

CM:And it's been interesting work. And as I say, every day brings something else new.

HN:And how many days a week do you work?

CM:And the main thing is -- you too -- do something that you like to do.

HN:Well, she's doing that. (laughs)

CM:That's the best advice.

HN:(laughs) Yes. Yes. And how many days a week do you -- are you --

CM:Three days a week.

HN:Three days a week. So, you're here Mondays --

CM:And one day --

HN:-- Tuesdays, Thursdays?

CM:-- I write the article for the "Forward."

HN:Yeah. Oh, so you have three days here and --

CM:One day at home.

HN:-- one day you write -- and then you have one day off.

CM:Yeah.

HN:Whoa! (laughs)

CM:I have more than one day off. I have the weekend off --

HN:Well, yes, but I mean --

CM:-- Friday off.

HN:(laughs)

CM:Yeah, I mean, as far as working, I work the weekdays.

HN:You work full-time. You work full-time.

CM:Yeah.

HN:Yeah. And still live in -- where were you coming from?

CM:I'm still in the --

HN:In the Bronx?

CM:-- Amalgamated.

HN:In the Amalgamated?

CM:In the Bronx, yeah.

HN:Wow.

CM:Very comfortable apartment, and with hundreds of books.

HN:So, you take the subway?

CM:No, I have a --

HN:Or you --

CM:-- car service.

HN:You have -- okay. So, yeah. So, is there --

CW:I have one more --

HN:Yes, please.

CW:-- yeah, one more question.

HN:Sure.

CW:Considering people -- lots of people might see this -- you know, why is folklore important? You know, what is it that makes this kind of work important?

CM:(laughs)

HN:She is very good.

CM:That's a very good question.

HN:(laughs) No, but see -- I mean --

CM:And, you know, I (UNCLEAR) --

HN:-- that wouldn't occur to me to ask (laughs) somebody --

CM:And I would say it's der iker -- der iker -- the real essence of the whole thing. Of course folklore is very important, just like everything of literature is important. It's part of your culture. It's part of why you do things -- why you conform to certain practices and customs and traditions and why you'd want to know of your people, and you collect songs, and some of the songs are so 70:00beautiful, they're part of your tradition, your heritage. Everything is part of your heritage, your roots. You go back to your roots, you find out -- you remember your parents and your parents' parents and what they liked to do and what they thought was interesting in their lives, and what enriched their lives. And this is one of the things that enriches -- music enriches your life. And literature does. And we have a wonderful theater collection. So, I'm involved with that cultural aspect of Jewish life, and it's very interesting and very enriching.

HN:Mm.

CM:Can you add to that, Hankus?

HN:She's not asking me.

CM:Oh, come on! (laughs)

HN:(laughs) I would say that culture tells you who you are and where you come from, and that if you don't know your own culture, you're missing a very big part of what you would want to know as an artist. So, it's valuable for that reason.

CM:And I'd like to add that it's a great honor that Hankus is interviewing me. I should be interviewing --

HN:Oh!

CM:-- Hankus.

HN:(laughs)

CM:Because of his great contribution to our culture, our music.

HN:Oh!

CM:And of course, he deserves a lot of credit and acclamation.

HN:I'm workin' on it, but I mean -- (laughs) not like what you have. It's -- Chana (laughs) --

CM:It's very true. It's very true, Hankus.

HN:I (laughs) -- so --

CM:And I thank you, Christa. It was --

CW:Thank you.

CM:-- very nice to --

HN:Thank you.

CM:And you asked very good questions.

CW:(laughs) Thanks.

HN:Yes, absolutely. That's beautiful. So, I should put that --

CM:I'll put it back.

HN:-- back and I'll put this back on the shelf --

CM:I'll put -- yeah.

HN:-- and that back in the --

CM:Right here. Right.

HN:-- box. Between these two, right?

CM:Yeah. This I did, too.

HN:That -- yes! And this is -- oh, look at this!

CM:This is -- started (Bob)Freedman on his thing -- he says he -- he said this 72:00inspired him to do his own.

HN:Wow!

CM:And then, at the end I have an index.

HN:You know, we interviewed Isabel Belarsky.

CM:Oh, of course.

HN:Oh, wow! What a trip! (laughs)

CM:(UNCLEAR) the end.

HN:Yes!

CM:So, he said that started him -- Bob Freedman.

HN:Wow! All of this?

CM:You've seen -- you've interviewed him, of course?

HN:Well, Bob -- you haven't interviewed him, though -- Bob Freedman? Freedman is quite the collector.

CM:Oh, yeah.

HN:You know, and -- I mean, he was very important for me, 'cause I'm from Philadelphia, so he was always giving me things.

CM:How is your work with your collection?

HN:Good. You know, the thing that's interesting right now is that, you know, one of the reasons I haven't -- I mean, eventually, we want to bring some things from the Book Center, of course, down here. Right now, though, they're doing -- yeah, that's a beautiful book --

CM:(UNCLEAR).

HN:-- you should -- hold up everything. (laughs)

CW:(laughs)

HN:Get (UNCLEAR) the --

CW:(UNCLEAR).

HN:Yes, yes.

CW:Oh, yes.

CM:And this was the first one.

HN:Yeah.

CW:The blue book, the red book. (laughs)

HN:(laughs) Yeah, we're glad you made them different colors.

CM:Yeah.

HN:This is fantastic. This was with Malke Gottlieb. This is what we were --

CM:This was my sister.

HN:This was really a joint --

CM:Yeah.

HN:-- a joint -- 'cause she wrote the --

CM:The music.

HN:Well, and the translations are by the --

CM:-- no, that's Roslyn Perry --

HN:-- other person -- that was -- that -- Bresnick-whatever-her-name-is --

CM:Bresnick-Perry, yeah.

HN:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. The one who did the stories of a shtetl [small Eastern European town with a Jewish community] childhood or something. She did --

CM:Oh, yeah. She does stories --

HN:Roz Perry. Roz Perry.

CM:Roz Perry, yeah.

HN:Yeah. That's a beautiful book. And --

CM:So, I feel proud of those books.

HN:Oh, they're fantastic. Although that one was so poorly bound; it always falls apart. (laughs)

CM:I know. But these things are so useful.

HN:Yes.

CM:People ask me and I can find the songs there.

HN:They're right there, yes.

CM:I like that.

HN:Yes, yes. We should put them back on the shelf. You shouldn't have to work too hard.

CM:This was the first ghetto book.

HN:That was the first book that I -- this is the first Yiddish book I ever had, and you put this out.

CM:Yeah.

HN:And you know what was interesting about it was, that I learned my songs from this from a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto.

CM:Really?

HN:This was Glicksman -- Avram Glicksman -- and he was a professor -- William Glicksman -- from Philadelphia. But this is the book; this is what he --

CM:Oh, yeah?

HN:-- he said, "I want you to understand what I went through," and he gave me this. (laughs)

CM:(laughs)

HN:So, I mean, and you put -- 'cause you put this out -- when you put this out, there was nothing available.

CM:I know.

HN:This is the --

CM:This is one of the first.

HN:-- very important to know about, because it was --

CM:One of the first.

HN:-- it was the educated -- you know --

CM:And I transcribed the "Babi Yar" song there. And another song, "Shlof mayn kind, zolst vider ruik zayn [Sleep my child, may you be calm once again]" that wasn't --

HN:But it's not like --

CM:-- we didn't have any (UNCLEAR) --

HN:It's not like this is from, like -- you know, this is from 1968. So, that's -- there were no resources available that had translations -- transliterations 75:00of all the songs in here. I don't think there's translations, but there were transliterations --

CM:No transliterations --

HN:-- transliterations of everything.

CM:That was the first.

HN:And so, we could all sing that when we learned Yiddish --

CM:Yeah.

HN:-- in the '60s. We've got some more here. (pauses) Here we go.

CM:Do you know Yiddish songs? You do? Yeah? Which ones do you like?

CW:(laughs) I don't know very many yet, but --

CM:Ah.

CW:-- some in that book. (laughs)

CM:Uh-huh.

HN:Yeah. We have Yuri Vedenyapin --

CM:What?

HN:-- who teaches for us -- he comes from Moscow.

CM:Oh.

HN:He's a young Yiddish teacher, and he's a wonderful singer.

CM:Oh, great.

HN:And he plays guitar. Right? I mean, Yuri really is -- like, Mr. Music --

CM:Uh-huh.

HN:-- at the Book Center. You know, he really does -- I feel like he -- you know, he has this special kind of spirit. He's like a pied piper kind of --

CM:What does he play?

HN:-- singer. He plays the guitar.

CM:Oh, how nice.

HN:And he sings very beautifully. And he's one of these kind of young Yiddish 76:00teachers who's very enthusiastic. So, he taught at Harvard for five years. And he studied in Columbia with Roskies, I guess --

CM:Oh, yeah?

HN:-- as his advisor. But it's great, 'cause he teaches all -- teaches songs very much like you've taught --

CM:There's someone that's here --

HN:-- you know, always have taught.

CM:-- that's like that, Zisl Slepovitch.

HN:Oh, yeah. Zisl is very enthusiastic. I just played this show with him last week --

CM:Oh, yeah?

HN:Yeah, up in Boston. We did --

CM:Oh, that's where my --

HN:We did a two-person version of it.

CM:At Brandeis?

HN:Yes. (laughs)

CM:That's where my grandson was.

HN:Your grandson was there?

CM:Avram was there.

HN:Really? I didn't see him.

CM:That's Zalmen's son.

HN:I didn't see him there, but I guess he was teaching there.

CM:He was teaching there for about three weeks or four weeks.

HN:Oh my God! He didn't come to this? I didn't see -- at least I didn't see him. But Zisl did his little "Yiddishland" show.

CM:Mm.

HN:And I played piano, he played clarinet. 'Cause I wanted to help him out --

CM:Yeah. He's very good.

HN:He's a good -- he's a very spirited --

CM:Right, right. Yeah.

HN:-- you know, nice, young kid. (laughs)

CM:Right, right.

HN:And we're workin' on him (laughs) --

CM:A lot of Russians are very --

HN:Yeah.

CM:-- have enthusiasm.

HN:Yeah. So, we've got what we --

CW:I think so.

HN:-- came for, pretty much?

CW:I just have one last question --

HN:Yes! Please.

CW:-- if that's okay --

HN:No, no --

CW:-- I know we don't have time --

HN:-- Christa, anything. You know, I just don't wanna take Chana's whole afternoon.

CM:I'll answer --

CW:No, no -- this is the last one.

CM:-- anything you want to ask. (laughter)

CW:I'm just wondering -- and this, again, is a similar type of question -- but I'm wondering, since you're here, you've done this amazing work, but for young people, you know, what is your advice to the next generation of folklorists? You know, what would you --

CM:Well, nowadays we're very lucky that Hankus Netsky and others started the klezmer movement. And the klezmer movement brings in a lot of Yiddish songs, and they've been attracting a lot of young people. And that's why more and more young people are involved in Yiddish music now -- and learning it and singing it and performing it. And a lot of that is due to the work that Hankus did bringing 78:00in the klezmer sound. Because most of these young people that come here are involved in some way with klezmer music and the songs that the klezmer have been performing. And I think that would be the answer for that.

CW:Thank you.

CM:Right? Or is there something else --

HN:And I have one more question, which is kind of inspired by Christa's questions (laughs) -- because -- why music? I mean, why music? In other words, there's -- because the Book Center -- I mean, I ask this question because, of course, the Book Center is about books, and so the question is, why is music important to people?

CM:Well, music -- it's a natural thing. Any kind of music is attractive to people. People are drawn to music, to the songs -- the rock 'n' roll and the different melodies that come out and the different rhythms -- so they're attractive. But when you add the Jewish element, it's doubly inspiring, because 79:00you have the feeling of your Jewishness and the love of music. And when they're combined, it creates more feeling -- a stronger feeling in you. And that's why a lot of people -- young people -- respond to it too.

HN:Mm.

CM:And I think that would be one of the answers.

HN:That's a great answer. Thank you. (laughs) Thanks so much, Chana.

CM:Thank you.

HN:This is -- I mean, you've said a lot of things, and Christa will edit it beautifully, and it'll be --

CW:(laughs)

HN:-- on the web, and --

CM:Okay.

HN:-- people can find a good interview with you. I hope you're happy. Is there anything you wanted to say that we didn't ask you about? There's another question.

CM:I'm just trying to think.

HN:(laughs)

CM:I know I prepared -- but I prepared -- (phone rings) --

HN:You really prepared beautifully. I loved that list.

CM:Okay.

HN:The list was incredible. [BREAK IN RECORDING] The artwork?

CM:That I took from a Gilbert and Sullivan.

HN:Ah. Ah. I love it. We asked Velvel about the artwork on his books. He goes, "Clip art!" (laughs)

CM:(laughs)

HN:I thought that was great.

CM:Yeah, yeah. That's what they use on (UNCLEAR).

HN:Like, clip art? Oh my God! (laughs) That's terrible! (laughs) I thought that was great. (laughs) Oh man. Because they're great little drawings. Oh, isn't that great.

CM:Anyway, it's nice meeting you.

HN:"Vos zhe daygen [What are you worried about]" -- oh my God!

CM:What?

HN:Look at that! (sings wordlessly)

CM:(sings) "Vayl er iz a guter yid! [Because he is a good person!] --"

HN:(sings) "-- yid. Mordkhen zol men loybn [We should praise Mordecai]" (laughs) --

CM:(sings) "-- loybn./Zayn nomen hoykh derhoybn/Vayl er iz a guter yid./Vayl er iz a guter yid./Er hot fun beyzn r-- [praise./We should elevate his name./Because he is a good person./Because he is a good person./From angry l--]"

HN:(laughs) "Roshn [Leaders]."

CM:(sings) "-- roshn/gemakht a homentashn [leaders/he made a hamantaschen]" --

HN:(sings and claps) "-- gemakht a homentashn/vayl er iz a guter yid, vayl -- [he made a hamantaschen/because he is a good person, because --]"

CM:(sings) "Vayl er iz a guter yid -- vayl er iz a guter yid,/vayl er iz a yid. [Because he is a good person -- because he is a good Jew,/because he is a Jew.]"

HN:Oh! So, what you did -- I mean, it's like, you took what was just the best culture around and then you found a way of making it Jewish. It's kind of like 82:00Yung-Vilne. (laughs)

CM:Well --

HN:Right? I mean, it's like your own version --

CM:-- we had (UNCLEAR) --

HN:It's like Yung-Bronx!

CM:I didn't tell you about that. We had the inspiration of Weinreich.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CM:He could inspire anybody. And I must have been at a formative age. And I came and he opened up this world of Yiddish for me. His Yiddish was like music for me. And I was inspired just to hear him speak it, and to read and to -- and his dictation. And when he lectured. It was his -- it was very inspiring. And he was a perfectionist. He would read every letter that I would type and make sure that it was perfect -- otherwise, I would have to do it again. I learned to become a perfectionist because of Weinreich and because of Professor Helmann, with the notes -- with reading all the little notes. And I proofread -- did you know this? I proofread Uriel Weinreich's dictionary, the second proof.

HN:Wow! You were the proofreader for the book?

CM:Yeah. Here.

HN:We know the book -- yeah -- let's hold it up. (laughs)

CM:I'll show you where it says (pauses) -- I loved Uriel, and when he died, Bina started reading it. But she was very sick -- sick with grief. So, I decided I would do it.

HN:You took it on. Yeah. There we go. Yeah. "Mrs. Chana Mlotek kindly participated in reading the page proofs." That's kind of a big thing.

CM:So, that's one of the things I learned from Weinreich -- being, you know, precise, perfect.

HN:Wow.

CM:So, that was -- and then he -- when he gave these courses, he was able to make them very interesting. This was a new subject matter, new names we had to learn. We had to learn new things about folklore that none of us ever knew about. And he brought it into us in such a way -- like Glatstein says, on a little teaspoon, a little bit at a time, so it shouldn't be like medicine.

HN:(laughs)

CM:And we learned -- learned the music -- folklore from it. We were very inspired. And after the classes, we would have sessions where we would all -- like, for -- conversations. And he would talk to us and tell us about different things -- about different people, about different ideas, adapt-- different ways to do things. And he gave us each an assignment. And my assignment was -- I found -- a friend of mine sang a variant of Mikhl Gordon's "D'bord [The beard]" of 1868.

HN:(laughs)

CM:And I started researching it. And he was always -- I always came to him, and he always gave me advice and told me what to read and where to look. He was very important for me.

HN:Mm.

CM:And I became a researcher because of that.

HN:Yeah.

CM:Because you have to have a feeling for that, too. It's like detective work, you know? One source leads you to another. It becomes very interesting.

HN:But I love the idea that you were able to combine all the cultural elements that were around you. Because you took it all in. I mean, you had the dancing lessons and you knew the music and you knew Gilbert and Sullivan, and you took it all and you brought it into the world of Yiddish. And because of that, you could make it -- the kids who were learning from you were not learning something that was foreign to them; they were learning how they could own other cultures through the culture that they knew and loved, and that --

CM:Well, that's what I felt when I spoke with -- Hunter College. I said my feeling for French that I learned and music that I studied in Hunter -- I was able to adapt it to Yiddish. And the same -- it's sort of -- I sort of 86:00translated it to Yiddish --

HN:Yeah.

CM:-- the feeling for the culture and the language and the music.

HN:Yes. That's fantastic. Yes. Thank you.

CM:Okay. (laughs)

[END OF INTERVIEW]