MICHAEL KATZ ORAL HISTORY

EMMA MORGENSTERN: Okay, so this is Emma Morgernstern and today is July 24th, 2011. I'm here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts with Michael Katz and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Michael, do I have your permission to record this interview?

MICHAEL KATZ: Absolutely.

EM:Great, thanks. Okay, so can you start by telling me briefly about your family's background?

MK:Yeah. I'm very lucky. I'm at least a third-generation secular Jewish person. My family has been very active in Yiddish culture and Yiddish life, back at 1:00least to my great-grandfather, who was a tailor but also was interested in theater and directed theater. My grandfather, who was a Marxist, Yiddish journalist went back and forth between here and the USSR and back here and wrote for the "Morgen Freiheit," the Yiddish newspaper. My dad and mom, who have been involved in all kinds of Yiddish activism, both Yiddish and progressive activism. So, to me, there's no separation as -- the Yiddishkayt that I've grown up with is also progressive and one doesn't separate it. People say, Well, where 2:00does your cultural program come from? And I say, "Well, the Yiddishkayt." Or they say, Where does your politics come from? "Well, the Yiddishkayt." And that's very much part of it. And then, when Lin and I, who met in high school -- and at one point, my parents caught us snuggling together on a couch when they came home and we were reading my grandfather's book, she read a lot better than I could. But she, at that time, didn't understand as well. So, she was reading and I was translating. Now she's smarter at everything. She's better at everything. But that's normal. That's one of the reasons I married her. And then, when we got to be a family, when we got married and decided to have a family, we decided that this strong cultural life that we were very lucky to have was important to continue and we brought up our kids speaking Yiddish, Pauline and Ben, and continue to be very involved in all kinds of Yiddish and 3:00Yiddishkayt and political activism. So, in a nutshell, that's our life. (laughs)

EM:Okay, so going back to your childhood, can you tell me where you grew up?

MK:Grew up in the Bronx. My folks are in the same house they grew up in, that I grew up in. From kindergarten, I went into shule [secular Yiddish school]. The Isaac Raboy Shul, which was an IWO shule -- the left wing of the Jewish shule movements. There were four or five -- within fifteen blocks of our house, there were at least four shules. One was the Workmen's Circle, one was Sholem Aleichem. One was -- I'm not even sure. And then, the IWO. Went to shule from 4:00when I was in kindergarten through when I went away to college. (laughs) Every Saturday, all that time, I was in shule. I started in the Isaac Raboy Shul. We started out with some of the old-timers, the people who were the traditional teachers. And eventually, I was very lucky to get some of the younger teachers, people like Chana Yachnes, whose father was the head of the teachers' movement. And Chana is just an amazing, amazing person, to this day. Dovid Goldberg, whose dad was Itche Goldberg, who was the director of the IWO shules, who's now a 5:00Yiddish teacher and professor and whatnot. My camp counselor was Gene Orenstein, who's taught Yiddish up at McGill for many years. And to my great shame, and many others who are of that ilk, to my great shame, I didn't learn as much as I should have because perhaps I was a little too rambunctious as a child. But that's -- that's the way it is, you know? Still, they somehow got it across that it's important to me. So, I live with it and it's part of my legacy. I went on from elementar-shul [elementary school] to mitlshul [high school], which was down in 14th Street, Union Square, a few blocks from the Workmen's Circle shule which, of course, because they were two separate movements, we never had any connections. But there we were, you know, going on. And I had Khaver [Comrade] 6:00Korn, who my father had had, who -- it was just this wild continuation. And Ben -- I can't remember his last name right now, but one of the professors, one of the teachers was clearly teaching us Marxist theory but never would use any of the zhargon [jargon], any of the right words, so that later on, when I took classes on Marxism, I said, Oh, I've learned all this, but just didn't know. And then, eventually went on to the kursn, which was the teachers' college, the highest level. And I ended up student teaching back at the Isaac Raboy Shul for a year or two before I went off to college.

EM:And what was your experience of the schools like? How did you feel about them when you were in them?

MK:Well, what kid wants to go to school? I mean, come on. On the other hand, the cultural life and the friends were very strong. It was clear in my family that we were part of it and it was going to be part of us because my mother ran the shule and she was the person who went out and found other kids and found the teachers and did the work and raised the money so that it could operate. So, there was never a question in my mind that that was going to be part of our life. Some of the things, I mean, I remember all kinds of things. But I remember Chana Yachnes sitting on the desk, cross-legged, playing her guitar and teaching 8:00us Phil Ochs songs. So, the political side of the world, and just opening up this whole world of progressive popular culture to us. I also remember it was a basement classroom and I remember climbing out of the windows and climbing back in and making my teachers crazy. But that was part of the fun of it, also. (laughs) Now, this was all coupled with -- this was during the school year, but then in summers, I was in Kinderland. And back then, it was from shule to camp and from camp to shule. So, there was a continuation of the same world, of the same movement. Most of the kids back then who were in Kinderland had also gone to shules somewhere. And that connection from -- and the incredible richness of 9:00life in Kinderland where we were living with each other and the ideals and everything -- and, yes, again, my mother was working in Kinderland and for a number of years, she was my counselor, my group leader, and always warned us that if I was anywhere near trouble, I would be punished so that it wouldn't look like I was being treated specially. So, I just made sure to be always in the middle of the trouble, to actually be doing it rather than just being near it, because if I'm gonna get punished anyway, why not? (laughs)

EM:So, what kinds of trouble did you get into, do you remember anything?

MK:Oh, well, I mean, it was usually things like visiting other bunks at night, just going over and saying hi, which was frowned on. Or organizing strikes against what we thought was unfair, or (laughs) high-level involvement like 10:00that. Yeah, just general -- I mean, I loved camp, so it wasn't like I was gonna do anything that was hurtful or dangerous, in my mind. Adults might have thought otherwise, but it was my place. It was my place that I could be and enjoy it.

EM:And where was camp?

MK:Back then, it was on Sylvan Lake. I was a camper from '61 to '72, and went through CITs and whatnot, counselor-in-training work and all the way up through all the programs. And it was associated with Lakeland, which was the adult camp 11:00that -- they were both on the same campus. Some of the things I remember: singing with Maddy Simon or the storytelling of Haika Klibanski, Haika Moran Klibanski, who was an émigré from the Holocaust. Amazing woman. Her kids were about my age and we were always in camp together, for years. And she was a storyteller of the highest level and incredible sense of Yiddishkayt from her and from Maddy doing the singing and from Edith Segal who was a -- Isadora Duncan dancer and who also wrote poetry and during the McCarthy scare was called 12:00up in front of the House Un-American -- no, the New York State Un-American Activities Committee and asked what she does in Kinderland. And she got up and danced and was thrown in jail for contempt of the committee. And it was true. She had contempt for the committee. (laughs) But these amazing people who were our role models and several of the older -- the waterfront director for Lakeland was a Spanish Civil War vet. And just these amazing people who really lived life to make a better world, to build a better world and knew that if they didn't do it, who was going to? So, that's the kind of world I grew up in. And then, of course, my counselors -- this was in the '60s. You know, our counselors were 13:00deciding whether or not they were gonna go to the war, go to Vietnam, and struggling with that. My bar mitzvah was a speech in English and Yiddish. It was non-traditional, not religious. Was a speech in English and Yiddish that I wrote about what it meant to be a young Jewish boy in America in, I don't know, whatever year it was, '68. Middle of the Vietnam War. And I remember thinking about whether I would go to Canada and in the speech, I talked about whether I would go to Canada or go into the war. Go to the Army if I was called up or be a conscientious objector. And I remember saying that I couldn't be a conscientious objector because there are some times that you, whether or not we want to, we have to fight. Thinking about the Nazis, thinking about some of the horrible -- 14:00there are times when you have to defend yourself. So, I couldn't call myself a conscientious objector. I couldn't leave my country because I loved America, even though I certainly see the ways that we can be improved. So, I couldn't go to Canada, even though I have some good friends who did. I wouldn't go into the Army because I thought they were fighting an immoral war. So, I decided I would, if it came to it, I would probably end up going to prison. And that was pretty heavy things to be thinking of as a thirteen-year-old. (laughs) But that was the world that we grew up in.

EM:And you mentioned that your parents were very politically active and socially active. So, can you tell me about that? How that affected you?

MK:Well, it was part of our life. I mean, between Camp Kinderland and shule and 15:00just the general way we lived and everything that we did, we -- and it was backed up by the Yiddish cultural world that we lived in. It wasn't a surprise that we were reading Peretz, we were reading the sweatshop poets, we were reading the generation before us that were fighting for a better world, that made the reunions, that -- you read some of the Peretz even today, you sit there going how, in his time, in the 1850s, 1860s, he was writing about women's liberation, he was writing about things that we still haven't achieved. And that's pretty -- again, it's pretty amazing stuff. I was at the "I Had a Dream" 16:00speech. We were at the March on Washington when I was seven, I guess? I don't know. All of camp was going or much of camp was going. It was right after -- it was the end of August. It was right after camp ended. There were buses that went down. We went down. The whole family went down in school buses. So, they stopped every couple hours to let people go to the bathroom. But we went down in our car, the whole family. And I remember we were way back by the Washington Monument. And back then, this was one of the first big speeches. First of all, the march, they said, Women and children on the inside and everyone take off your earrings and necklaces and anything else, because we've had experience with people pulling them out of ears, counter-demonstrators. And we all marched, 17:00linked arms to protect ourselves and to show solidarity. We were up, as I said, by the Washington Monument. Was way too far to hear directly because they didn't have the sound systems back then. But there were groups of about forty or fifty people clustered around somebody holding a transistor radio at full volume. And I remember just these groups of people sort of swaying and breathing with King as he was speaking and just this incredible sense of community and strength in a very scary time in America. It was pretty heady. There was a lot going on. So, that's one of the ways it came out. And then, later, when I was thirteen, just 18:00after my bar mitzvah, there was a march on Washington and my parents decided they weren't going. But my friend, Avrom, and I got onto a school bus. Thirteen. My parents told me, If you see tear gas, go the other way. Don't go to the Pentagon, because that's where the civil disobedience was going to take place. And try to come home without getting arrested. I said, "Okay, fine." That seemed like valid things to say. And the two of us hopped on and went down on the school bus to Washington, and were at that march and stayed away from the Pentagon, which is where the tear gas was and whatever. But that was the kind of thing that -- it was part of what we did.

EM:And were you friends with kids mostly from the Jewish schools you went to or from the public schools or --

MK:No, I had very good friends from both. But my closest friends -- I mean, I spent a lot more time with people from school because that's where they were. But my closest friends were the friends from camp, to this day. The people I grew up with are incredibly close and are all, I'm happy to say, still connected and still involved and still concerned. And even if they didn't go quite as far as we did in terms of speaking Yiddish with our kids and really bringing them up as immersed in Yiddishkayt as we chose to do, there's still people who -- I respect the way that they brought up their families. And the kids are now good friends of our kids. And I see them and go, These are great kids. So, it's nice 20:00to see that the generations have continued on. (laughs)

EM:So, did you speak Yiddish growing up?

MK:I understood Yiddish. I could speak it slowly. We were trotted out all the time to do readings for the seniors, whenever -- because we were more immersed in it than a lot of other kids, both in Kinderland and otherwise, and sang at the concerts, the mitlshul concerts in the chorus and then had solos every once in a while. So, certainly, it was very much there and part of my life. But I was never a good student of languages. Even in the public schools, taking Spanish, I managed to do it by the skin of my teeth. So, it's always been -- I can't say it 21:00was as strong as I would have liked. I had a very good background in it and a lot of -- I know hundreds of songs, if not more, and that helps a lot because when you sit there and go, Okay, what is that song? Okay, okay, I got some vocabulary. I find that I can go to most -- unless it's the most philosophical Yiddish lecture, I can go and sit and understand it and could for a long time. But Lin and I, once we got married and once we were in Boston, we actually took classes at Harvard Extension School and started a yiddish-vinkl [Yiddish group] that's still going on that's probably twenty-five, thirty years that we're still continuing with. And in some ways, that continual use of it has done a lot more. Certainly heard Yiddish. My grandparents certainly spoke Yiddish all the time. 22:00My father is fluent. He just translated one of my zeyde [grandfather]'s books, "A dor, vos hot farloyrn di moyre," "The Generation That Forgot Its Fear," that we're hoping to get out some way. (laughs) So, it was certainly -- and, well, one of the things I said that, in terms of how it was -- how much of the culture when I was in college -- I'm in theater, I do theater technology. And I got a call from my folks and from other people saying, We're doing a concert called "A Taste of Yiddish" -- or I think it was "A Taste of Yiddish," doesn't matter -- in New York, can you come in? And it turned out it was at the tail end of our school spring break. So, I was able to arrange it. It was a little bit crazy but fine. I came in and I was the stage manager and was sitting there and among 23:00other people, we had Dovid Opatoshu, David Opatoshu, who's both an English actor and who'd grown up -- his dad was a Yiddish writer who was a good friend of my grandparents, but I didn't know that at that point. But I knew this actor was gonna be speaking and I thought it was going to be in English. I didn't know he was fluent in Yiddish. But there he was. He was gonna be part of this program. And we're setting sound levels at the beginning of the concert and we were there and, of course, because it was the whole family who was there, my grandmother was there, as well, my bobe [grandmother] was there, as well, bobe Esther, who was a Yiddish writer, as well. Wrote a children's book of poetry and wrote many other -- was published a lot in the "Freiheit" and other progressive magazines. And we were sitting there, minding our own business, and I'm trying to get things set up and she's sitting in the auditorium. And David Opatoshu is doing 24:00his sound check. And then, he looks out in the auditorium. Lights were on. Looks out and says, "Esterl?" And we sort of look over, going, What? Turns out that she babysat him. My bobe Esther babysat him when the -- because she ran -- one of the ways they made ends meet, because being a progressive worker didn't make a lot of money. My grandfathers, they were okay but they didn't make a lot of money. So, she ran a boardinghouse and a lot of the writers would stay with them. And so, this was -- one of the kids got left with her and she took care of him. David Opatoshu. So, we were all very -- he jumped out, off of the stage, and went down and gave her a big hug and it was beautiful. So, that's the kind -- again, you grow up in that world. My Yiddish wasn't great, but it certainly 25:00was there.

EM:And do you remember hearing certain Yiddish words or phrases around the house when you were a kid?

MK:Well, specific ones, no. Or I could make some up. But, I mean, we heard Yiddish a lot. My parents didn't really use it as a secret language. They were sending us to shule. We weren't great, but we could pretty much get -- if we knew, were keyed in on what they were trying to say, we could pretty much figure out what they were saying. So, my sister and I, we weren't gonna -- they didn't try to make that one work. So, it wasn't really a secret language. As a matter of fact, later on, when we were raising our kids and speaking Yiddish with them, my father every once in a while would lapse and try to say something in Yiddish so the kids wouldn't understand and we'd look at him and say, Dad, they 26:00understand Yiddish. And he would switch to Russian, which none of us could speak except him. But that's -- (laughs) what are you gonna do? (laughs)

EM:All right, so, let's see. Been through all that. (laughter) So, oh, you went to Carnegie Mellon for college.

MK:I did.

EM:So, can you tell me how you decided to go there?

MK:(laughs) My parents were amazing people. Are amazing people, at eighty-five and ninety. I was doing theater all the way through -- started in elementary school. And probably, actually, the way I got started, I was talking about Edith Segal. And her husband, Sam Kamen, was an artist. Did beautiful work. And did 27:00all the lighting for her Marxist dances, all kinds of -- that we did in camp and all these wonderful things. They were meaningful. I mean, I say Marxist but they were meaningful, caring dances that were about making a better world. And I was, as I said, a little rambunctious at times. And when I got a little too rambunctious, I would feel this hand on the back of my neck and it was Sam, Sam Kamen, who was Edith's husband. He'd say, "Michael, I need some help with the lighting. Can you help me?" (laughs) And I'd say, "Okay, sure" and go off with him and I started working with him. And did that more and more, eventually that -- whenever we in Kinderland had a show, I would do the lighting as I got older, and doing that more and more. And I was in high school, at the Bronx High School 28:00of Science where I met Linda and was working on the shows. Our senior class show was "The Dybbuk." Now, just because we had a lot of people who ended up going on and making their careers in the theater -- we had a lot of really talented people at Bronx High. Who knew? So, we did "The Dybbuk," in English, but still. Pretty amazing choice for a New York City public school show. And I did the lighting and built the scenery and the year before that, I was trying to decide what I was going to do. I was not a great student. But I loved what I did. But I didn't know where to go. And if I was a better math major or better at math, I probably would have become an engineer. But knew that wasn't gonna work. And at some point, my mother, who was a social worker, had seen me growing up in camp, seen me growing up as part of a group of people and really accepting that I was one of a group of people and -- which is pretty special, also, from a parent -- 29:00said, "Michael, there's no reason an avocation can't be a vocation. If you want to do theater, do it." What parent sends their kid into the theater? So, I said, "Okay, fine, that sounds like a good plan." And wanted to go to Brooklyn College because it had a great program and I didn't want to leave New York. They said two things. One is, if I lived at home -- I had to move out. They would help me, but I had to move out. Couldn't live at home if I went to Brooklyn College. And two, I had to apply to one out-of-state school. So, I started asking around my theater friends. By that point, I was actually -- senior year of high school, I was working professionally in the theater, but -- before getting paid. And a bunch of people said, Look, Mike. The best place in the country as an undergraduate is Carnegie Mellon. But they get about 120 applicants for six 30:00places, so you're not gonna get in. I said, "Perfect! Done!" But, of course, in my own inimitable way, I didn't apply, I didn't get my act together, didn't apply. Linda, who was a lot higher in the class than I was, got a little booklet, "Women in Engineering at Carnegie Mellon," filled out the card with my name, the tear-off card, and sent it in. So, that's how I got the application materials. So, okay, at that point, I guess I could fill out the application materials. Filled it out, sent it back, and they said I had to go out for an interview. Went out there, was pretty impressed with the place. Decided that if they did accept me, maybe I would go there. But the chance of that was pretty small. Lo and behold, they accepted me, I went there, and that's how I went there. And freshman year, I was in the dorm, the only year I was in the dorm. I 31:00remember writing up on a big poster, and we didn't have computers back then. (laughs) Big poster, handwritten, and I was not a good writer, but this was important to me. I wrote up Peretz's story of unity about the grains of sand holding back the water. They were so tiny but by working together, they could hold back the big waves and the water. It's a little parable. It's called unity, I believe, and it sort of goes back to -- wonderful little story by Peretz. And brought up this big oak tag poster, put it up, and said, "If you want to talk about ideas like this and about cultural Jewishness and whatnot, contact me." I 32:00got a couple people together and we had a discussion group that met sporadically through the four years that I was at college. Again, that cultural -- the mix of Yiddishkayt and politics, which was really important to me. (laughs)

EM:And what was it like moving from New York to Pittsburgh?

MK:I ended up working in Pittsburgh for a year after college, working for a little theater company. I could've stayed in Pittsburgh except that it was seven hours' drive to my family and that was more than I was interested in doing. But were there things I missed? Sure. Was it a neat, wonderful town with a lot of political and -- I mean, Pittsburgh was, for somebody who grew up in the union 33:00world and caring about unionism, it was the steel mills and I remember going to a Pete Seeger concert that was sponsored by the iron workers. And everyone knew every one of the labor songs. Now, I did, also. But it was rare that -- I mean, this was a Pete Seeger concert where he didn't do any of the kids' songs or any of the -- I mean, it was all the labor songs and it was great. So, again, I found my world, my niche there. But I ended up getting a job, a summer job at the Harvard-Radcliffe summer repertory theater company at the Loeb Drama Center. Worked there that year and then the following year after the summer and then the following summer after I worked in Pittsburgh and then got hired by the Opera Company of Boston. And then, by the American Repertory Theater when they first started. Worked there for five years and then ended up teaching. And so, life 34:00ended up -- I was in Boston and Linda eventually was in Madison, Wisconsin, was in Geneva, Switzerland, and we kept on saying long-distance doesn't work, but somehow we managed to make it work and eventually, we were in the same country and same city. And lo and behold, it worked, twenty-seven, twenty-eight years later.

EM:Can you actually tell me how you two met?

MK:We met in Bronx High School of Science, in the chorus. And we loved singing. Linda was really good and I wasn't. There's this kind of continuing thing that you'll hear from me. And a group of us, friends -- Linda and I knew each other socially. Turns out my sister had known Linda's brother, each of whom were a couple years older than us. So, we knew the families. We had some close friends 35:00in common. We had some close friends who lived in Linda's building and there's a possibility that at some point we were in the same baby carriage together because the mothers used to put all the little kids in one carriage. One mother would rock the little ones and the older ones would go running. So, who knows? But we met in high school, when we were aware of it, and the first social thing we did together was a group of four of us -- Bonnie Abrams, Bobby Meltzer, Linda, and I -- decided that we wanted to sing in harmony. And it was in December and if you're gonna sing in harmony, what are you going to sing around December? Christmas carols. So, the four of us are sitting in Bobby's basement 36:00and Bobby's parents, I think, were survivors but I'm not -- yeah, I'm pretty sure about that but I'm not positive. Bonnie's were. She sings in a klezmer band now in New York State, upstate. Yeah, but these four Jewish kids singing Christmas carols, we go through all the Christmas carols we know. And we're sitting there going, Well, we're not ready to stop singing now but what are we gonna do? And somebody, one of us, started to sing one of the Hanukkah songs, probably in English to start. Well, we realized that all four of us knew all the Hanukkah songs, knew them in Yiddish. All of us had a Yiddishist background. (laughs) And all of us started singing together and singing the Hanukkah songs in harmony and everything else. But it just didn't occur to us that that would 37:00be the thing to do first. It was December, you sing Christmas -- and so, that's how Linda and I met. And then, eventually, we started going out. That was sophomore year and eventually we started going out in senior year. And then, I broke up with her because I couldn't handle how close we were getting and she still doesn't forgive me for it. But somehow, she forgave me enough to marry me eventually. (laughs)

EM:When were you married?

MK:Eighty-four, September of '84, on Labor Day. So, that's kind of fun. We get to celebrate Labor Day, our Jewish birthday, and also September 3rd, which was the actual date. So, we get three a year. But that was after five years. After college, a friend of ours got married. The old gang was all invited. Linda and I came separately and left together. So, and there it goes. (laughs)

EM:All right. So, can you tell me, what was it like moving to Boston?

MK:Well, there was a lot going on in Boston. It was an exciting town. Initially, it was -- well, I was gonna say initially, it was mostly the non-Yiddish world that I was involved in. But that's not really true because very soon after I got to Boston, I met up with people like Steve Perlmutter, who was one of my counselors -- or not directly my counselor but had been a counselor in camp when I started. He was sixteen, I was six, which back then was like a lifetime. Now, we were friends (laughs) and we started doing third seders. Growing up, we never 39:00had a seder in the house. It was never a personal thing. It was a community thing. And we did the third seder, which was to celebrate the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and about progressive causes and whatnot. And we always wrote our own and rewrote them and we created a Kinderland seder based on a whole bunch of things and got together all the friends who were in Boston. It turns out there were lots of friends in Boston who had gone to Kinderland or were connected or went to the shules. And so, there was that going on. Started going on and then, eventually, after a few years in Boston, Linda got back and then we eventually, after a year renting, we bought a house and then a few months after that, we got married. And about the time we got married, there was a push on by the Workmen's Circle in Boston, now -- to organize and to get younger people. Now, I'd grown 40:00up in the IWO. The IWO is the left wing. It had been thrown out of the Workmen's Circle. Originally, the Workmen's Circle was the omnibus for all of the Jewish Left. During the split between the communists and the socialists, the communists were thrown out. The summer camp, which had been founded by the progressive wings of -- the Workmen's Circle summer camp, which had been founded by the progressive wings of the organization, which were the shules and whatnot, were thrown out. Well, they already were the ones who had founded the summer camp, which was Kinderland. Few years later, Kinder Ring was founded on the other side of the same lake that Kinderland was on. Linda went there, I went to Kinder Ring, so we knew we would never see each other in the summers because even 41:00though it was only half a mile apart, (laughs) there was no getting together that way. In my parents' generation, there was no coming together because the IWO had been closed by the New York State. It was an exactly parallel organization to the Workmen's Circle. Had been closed by New York State and millions of dollars stolen by the state for being a communist front organization. The Workmen's Circle, being socialist, wasn't touched. So, there was a lot of animosity in the two groups for all -- both political and practical and you name it. The only way Kinderland was saved, which, as you have heard, is very important to me, was that a group of trade unionists bought it at full 42:00market value the weekend before the IWO was to be taken over by the state. And because it was bought at full market value, they couldn't say no. They couldn't stop the sale. And that's the only way Kinderland was saved and very few -- most of the other properties were lost. And as I said, millions of dollars, in 1950s money, was -- '55 monies were stolen by the state. And I use that word with a very definitive -- for purpose. So, in my parents' generation, there was very little connection between the two. We got up to Boston and where Kinderland was really part of our social life and our full-time life, both in camp and outside 43:00of camp and was still, even in Boston -- but you miss having it on a day-to-day basis, on a week-to-week basis. So, when we heard that the Workmen's Circle was trying to get organized, I was, at that time, getting my graduate degree and also teaching full-time and getting my graduate degree from Boston University and teaching full-time at Emerson and didn't have time to think. So, Linda was going to those meetings and eventually, I got to the first meeting and this was the last organizational meeting before we were gonna form a new branch of the Workmen's Circle, a yugnt [youth] branch, which was eventually called Branch 2001, which we thought was kind of wonderful, sort of new century. This was around '86, '87. I don't know exactly but somewhere in that range. Hankus Netsky 44:00was willing to become the first president and they were looking for -- which was gonna be somewhat of an honorary position. Hankus was very busy running Wholesale Klezmer Band and also -- I'm sorry, Klezmer Conservatory Band and also teaching at the conservatory, New England Conservatory. And they needed somebody to be the treasurer, which was the person who was gonna really -- the financial secretary, who kept the rolls and did a lot of the real work. And at that point, Linda and I were running or helping to run a Yiddish sing on the fourth Thursday of every month. And we were going to different people's houses every -- finding a different house and had to send out a postcard saying we're gonna be at this house or that house and whatnot every month. And it was a lot of work, but it 45:00was important to us. And we still do that to this day, the fourth Thursday of every month, singing, just sit around in a circle and sing Yiddish songs. So, we got to this meeting, first time I'm at the meeting, and they say, We're looking for a financial secretary. And look around, no one's raising their hand. I said, "I'll do it." And I remember Herman Brown, who was the organizer, looked at me and said, "Okay." And then, a little later, he said, "You know you're gonna have to join." I said, "Of course I know I'm gonna have to join! What do you mean?" But that's, again, that's what I was taught by my parents. If you want to do something, if you think it's important, you do it. So, we started getting involved there. Moved the Yiddish sing to the Workmen's Circle, where it's still, as I say, continues on the fourth Thursday of every month, except 46:00November and December. November, so we don't interfere with Thanksgiving and December so we don't do it on the Jewish carpenter's birthday. So, we go on. Start getting involved. Had some wonderful run-ins with the older generation who, at first, wanted us to do it exactly like they did it but with new energy. And of course, our goals, our ideals were different and created some friction. But eventually, we got there. I remember we decided to run a New England Yiddish culture festival. And the old-timers were saying, You can't spend a penny of money until you raise it all. And we said, We're gonna be able to raise it. Don't worry. Well, you can't do it. Well, it ended up between -- we got about, 47:00the first year, about five hundred people to this thing. We got the space donated by Boston University with an all-day program with at least five sessions going at every hour. And I think it was five sessions and it ended up with a concert by Shirim Klezmer Orchestra, just this wild, wonderful day. So, this is all going on and it turns out that not only did we not lose money, which the old-timers were very worried we were going to, but we made enough money that that's actually what the organization survived on for at least four or five years afterwards. So, a few years later, we did a second one. At that time, I was working part-time and I was staying at home with the kids and just working part-time, so I was the chairman of these things. Also working pretty full-time at the Workmen's Circle, even though I was a volunteer and had a group of other 48:00good friends, many of whom are still close friends and are our best friends from that world. So, we were working on the organization while other people were working on the shule. A lot of people knew me and knew my background and how strong our background was in Yiddish culture and education and et cetera so that they kept on -- at one point, they asked us to be on the shule committee before the kids were ready and I said, "Look, right now I'm working on this. When the kids are ready, I'll go on the shule committee." And sure enough, was on the shule committee from when Pauline entered kindergarten until Ben graduated. So, a number of years. And then, actually, I think for a little longer but I was still on the board, building committee, helped organize a lot of the things. 49:00There were some other young activists in New York who started organizing a program called Mame-Loshn on Memorial Day Weekend. And we would get together and meet, we found different places to do it. They asked me if the branch would help co-sponsor it and if I would be on the committee. And of course I would, because it's fun, it's interesting. So, did that, as well. Got to make -- the real, wonderful thing about it -- and went to KlezKamp and KlezKanada, both with our kids. And the wonderful thing about all that was that we really got to know, as friends, a lot of the movers and shakers in the Jewish cultural world. And even 50:00more importantly than us, our kids got to grow up with these people, which is, to me, really incredible stuff. I remember one time, we went -- I think at Great Woods, we went to see "In the Fiddler's House," which was Perlman performing with all the top klezmer bands: KCB, Frank London, really top wonderful people. And afterwards, we were sort of slow leaving because we had a wonderful time. On our way out, we saw some of our friends. I don't remember if it was Michael or Frank or somebody said, "Come to the party after." I said, "Okay, fine." And we go to the party and we're there with our kids, who are little. And they said, 51:00"Hey, you should go to see Perlman." Said, "What do you mean? Who, us?" Said, "Go, go. He'll enjoy you guys." We go in and we start speaking to him in Yiddish. And my son at some point, he was, I think -- I don't know, couldn't have been more than seven, said, "I want to see the greatest fiddler of them all!" (laughs) We went and had a wonderful conversation and it was just very special to do that with the family. (laughs)

EM:It sounds like you have been involved in a lot of different Yiddish activities, excuse me, as an adult and you've still been involved in Kinderland, is that --

MK:Oh, yeah.

EM:-- right? So, can you tell me about that?

MK:Well, Kinderland, it gets in your bones. I've also been on the board of Kinder Ring, which is kind of interesting, which is important and it was kind of 52:00-- they wanted to have the knowledge of somebody who's grown up in a different camp even though the camps are in some ways very similar, in some ways very different. But they're both very important and very -- there's some people for whom Kinder Ring is the right choice and some people for whom Kinderland is the right choice. But they're the two Yiddishist progressive camps left in the country. So, I mean, that's great. How am I involved in Kinderland? Kinderland, I'm still involved with because, again, like I've said, if I want it to be there for my grandchildren, you need to support it now. If my grandparents hadn't, if my grandfather hadn't been in the group that helped to found it, it wouldn't have been there. If my parents hadn't been there in the really dark days when we were trying to -- when it went from six hundred kids before McCarthy, before the 53:00McCarthy witch hunts, to ninety, fifty, seventy, ninety kids after the witch hunts, if they hadn't been involved and on the board and trying to push in the years after that and keeping it alive somehow, it wouldn't have been there. So, I do my part. How do you ensure continuity? How do you make these organizations continue and not only continue but keep them meaningful and important to the world today? So, I work there, I was a counselor for three or four years, then I worked maintenance. I had to work summer stock, it was harder and harder, and eventually you can't be there all summer, even though I have time off. But now, I work, I teach, so I'm off during the summers. But I like spending time with 54:00Linda. But as a counselor, you start seeing camp in a completely different way and some of the things that campers were shielded from. So, after we left Sylvan Lake, you asked where we were, it was in Sylvan Lake, New York. But eventually, because the camp was a for-profit then, officially -- didn't make any profit, but was for-profit -- because the older generation, the ones who had saved the camp who were hurt so badly by the government and by McCarthyism, wouldn't open up their books to the government to become a non-profit. So, the camp had a choice of either paying its tax bills or maintenance. So, the place had to pay the tax bill, so the maintenance didn't happen. So, eventually, somebody made an 55:00offer on the camp property that was tremendous and the old-timers were incredibly courageous and said, Look, the children's camp has to continue. If we don't have Lakeland, the adult camp, zol zayn [so be it], but the children's camp has to continue. Let's find a place to have the children's camp. So, use the money that we get from the sale to be able to continue the children's camp. So, my dad was the head of that committee that went out and was searching for camps and they spent years, literally, trying to find a camp that was good enough to be our camp but that we could also afford. And eventually, they found the place in Tolland, Massachusetts, where we are now. But in the five years, I think it was, that we were moving, the first year we went to a place in 56:00Connecticut. And I was a first-year staff member. It was near Groton, which is, of course, the sub-base and big military presence in the area. And it was a lot -- we didn't know this at the time, but there was a lot of anti-Semitism in the area. And the camp also wasn't ideally situated. It was one of these things where the lake had a road, actually a bridge that actually crossed the lake. And it turns out that that was one of the drinking spots for the young toughs in the neighborhood. And it was very close to the camp proper and it was an issue. And I remember one night, towards the end of the summer, two of our lifeguards heard these kids partying down by the road and went walking down there and were 57:00carrying sticks because these kids were toughs. And all of a sudden, a car started up and came flying down the road with the lights off towards them and the two lifeguards jumped over the fence, the guardrail. And as they jumped over, their sticks went flying, took out the windshield of the car. Well, they went up, told Elsie [Soler?] who was the director of camp, had been for many years. She immediately called the state police. The kids got home, told the mother that somebody had thrown a stick at them while they were just driving innocently. The mother called the state police. State police put two and two together. Had had issues with these kids many times. Brought them into camp to have a discussion. Well, this was late at night at this point. So, the staff 58:00were milling around, pretty angry. And I remember this whole conversation going on and the state policeman was saying, "Well, lady" -- she said, "These guys could have killed my children!" Guy said, "Well, you're right. You can bring charges. But they could also charge you with trespassing and with attempt for motor vehicle homicide and drinking." And so, it was pretty clear the guy was on our side. And so, this is going on and at some point, Elsie turned to me and said, "Michael, could you go down and find Sam, the manager of camp?" Sam -- oh, I gave you his name and --

EM:Shapiro?

MK:Sam Shapiro, thank you. I lose a lot of things. But Sam had been a friend for years and was the manager of camp. And I went down under the kitchen, where his 59:00office was, where his room was. Sort of didn't want to leave this exciting -- all this stuff going on above, but I went down and I knock on his door and I hear sort of mumbling inside. I knock again and I hear some more mumbling and I open the door and I say, "Sam?" He said, "Who is it?" Said, "Mike Katz." Said, "Come in." And there's Sam with a shotgun. Now, I grew up in New York City. I didn't know from any kinds of guns of any sort. And he's loading the gun and muttering under his breath saying, "They got us in Germany, they're not going to get us here." And I'm going -- I was seventeen. I'm going, "Are you kidding me? Whoa!" And I remember saying, "Sam, the cop's here, he's on our side. Put it 60:00away! Don't take the gun out! Put it away!" And finally, I got through to him that, in this case, they were really -- he was on our side. And he put it away and he came out and he saw it was and it was the end of it. But it was, I mean, talk about growing up fast. I was sitting there going, "Whoa!" Just, "They got us in Germany, they're not gonna get us here." I mean, taught me a lot about that generation and about where their heads were and wow, that was heavy. But luckily, we got through that. We chose not to stay at that camp, I'm glad to say. It was okay, but it was not the place for us. Unfortunately, a few years later, Sam was looking for a camp, on the road looking for a camp and got in a car accident and was killed and we eventually named the dining room hall, later the rec hall, after him. But that was certainly something that doesn't go out of 61:00your mind. Still remember that, it's -- wow.

EM:Yeah. It's quite a story. (laughter) And can you just tell me a bit more about your decision to raise your children speaking Yiddish and how that happened?

MK:Well, you're gonna be interviewing Linda and she could tell the story, some of the specifics better because she's, again, the smarter of the two of us and did more of the speaking Yiddish than I did. So, I'll let that story go to Linda to some extent. But again, it was a natural decision. As best as we could, we knew we were going to raise the kids with Yiddishkayt. The step farther, to go 62:00to Yiddish wasn't a hard decision. To have access to -- when you grow up as a progressive atheist Jew, we see a lot of people, we know a lot of people who are progressive atheist Jews who don't have the incredible underpinnings that we have of a real culture, of the Yiddishkayt, of the labor poets, of Peretz, of Sholem Aleichem, all of whom were progressive. I mean, when you read that literature, there's no question about who these people were and about what their -- that they were looking to build a better world. If you reject the idea of a supreme deity; I have the highest respect for my friends who are religious. I just don't buy piece one, which is that there's a deity. That doesn't mean that 63:00my culture isn't important to me, number one. And number two, for me, growing up the way I did and with my grandparents and with my parents, there was absolutely no separation. I cannot understand how somebody who is into Yiddishkayt the way I define Yiddishkayt cannot be a progressive. And I know that there are many people who speak Yiddish who are not progressive. People who speak Yiddish, to me, are not necessarily into Yiddishkayt and that world of Yiddish, the world of the organizers, the world of the unions, the world of the Civil Rights movement, of -- I mean, when we look at what we as Jews in America have done in terms of moving the political world forward, it's very impressive and positive. So, to 64:00me, there's no separation and it becomes not a question of -- it would be more surprising to speak Yiddish with our kids if it was merely a question of nostalgia, that we don't want the language to go away, which we don't. But it's also a question of moral compass. Where do you start from? Where do you make decisions? How do you make decisions? Where does the culture come from? Where do your ideals come from? And to me, there's no separation. So, as we were thinking about raising a family and as we were -- even before, as we were getting involved with the Workmen's Circle, it was because without that kind of culture around us, without that, who are we? How can we do anything by ourselves? And 65:00it's that which makes the Yiddishkayt important to us and the Yiddish important to us. We have friends who I love and respect who speak Yiddish because they were taught Yiddish or they chose to learn Yiddish. But do it strictly as a language. And even though I respect them and love them, to me it's much more than a language. You have to not only read Peretz but you have to understand Peretz or Rosenfeld and you name it. You put your writer here. So, to me, it was a necessary choice. Why did we bring up our kids speaking Yiddish and in the shule and everything else? There was no option. We had to in order -- if we want 66:00our beliefs to be transmitted, our culture has to be transmitted. So, that's why. (laughs)

EM:So, what is it about the language itself that enforces the beliefs and values and ideologies?

MK:Well, the language itself is important because the culture is in the language. I mean, the most easily transmitted, to me, at least, transmission agent is songs. Well, singing Yiddish songs in translations are usually pretty uncomfortable and not especially satisfying. But singing them in the language and when you start understanding just what those words mean and how deep they 67:00are, the well-written songs -- maybe not "Hatshke patshke kikhelekh [Hanky panky cookies]," but these were people who were at the forefront of a movement, of caring, of making a new world. And even though they made horrible mistakes -- and certainly I, as a progressive today, can't agree with some of the choices my grandparents made with Stalinism, with communism, with some of those choices -- on the other hand, they believed they were making a better world and I cannot fault that. I can fault tactical decisions, but not the choice. So, as I'm moving forward, what's important about the language itself is transmission. Now, do I think that everyone is gonna speak Yiddish? No. Do I speak Yiddish fluently? No. So, how do we transmit it? How do we continue? Well, we're in what 68:00we believe to be the world's largest Yiddish chorus, A besere velt, A Better World, which we helped found, which is part of the Workmen's Circle. We originally founded it to be a children's chorus because we thought, again, how do you transmit it? What's the strongest way to transmit it? Through song. Didn't work out. We didn't get enough kids. So, we started saying, Okay, it'll be a mixed chorus. And Pauline, our daughter, was the first kid in the chorus and eventually Sara Israel, I believe, was number two, who is gonna be a fellow next year, this next session. And we're ninety-some-odd people who sing a lot of progressive Yiddish songs. And I remember one time -- why do we sing in Yiddish? Well, one time, we were singing in a -- we were asked to perform in a Haitian 69:00church. Or, no, Cape Verdean church, for some sort of program. And we were asked to sing because we were progressive. And there we were singing and we, of course, as part of our program, well, we translate the songs, otherwise you're not transmitting, and we sang, "Dire-gelt [Rent money]." And the audience went wild. A song about rent money, "Dire-gelt," and talking about why should we pay rent money if the kitchen is broken, if we don't have anything to cook on. And the Cape Verdeans went nuts when we translated. They said, We had no idea that you Jews, who are so well-off, had the same experience as us. And so, that connection, which can only come through those songs, which can only come through 70:00trying to -- you know, I'm not gonna take a vow of poverty. Yes, we're well-off but on the other hand, you can't forget the new groups coming up and what's going on and the fact that America was built on immigration and we were among the immigrants. And to me, that's a critical part of what it means to be a Jewish American. So, it's that singing, the transmittal, in classes reading stories in their original, hearing Pauline reading my bobe's book, "Mariks kholem [Marek's dream]," which is a little book of poetry and then discovering 71:00-- which I hadn't read all the way through, I admit. She read all the way through it now, but -- and now she showed me up. I'm going to have to read it now -- and talking about how even in this little children's book, they were talking about the bad kid had the face of a fascist. (laughs) So, it's that world, without those touches, without that understanding of -- they were really facing some horrible times, both because of the economic situation and also because of political situation. The book that my dad just translated, "A dor, vos hot farloyrn di moyre" was about his dad's -- he wrote it in the '50s about my zeyde's experiences as a revolutionary organizer in Russia. And he started out not especially political but arming the shtetls [small Eastern European 72:00towns with Jewish communities], getting guns to arm the shtetl against pogroms. And then, eventually got caught running guns and went to jail. And in jail, the political prisoners in Russia were the most exalted. They were the highest level of the people in jail. And he started learning -- that's where he started reading the literature, political literature, and became a revolutionary, because of jail. So, that was all part of -- to me, can you be progressive without being Jewish? Of course. Can you be Jewish and not be progressive? Unfortunately, yes, when we look at the world today. Can I be a Jew without 73:00being progressive? No. (laughs) Can I be a progressive without being a Jew? No. Whichever way you want to go. It's part of who I am. And the language is part of that, because it's the raw material.

EM:And how successful do you think you've been in passing on the language and/or the culture?

MK:The culture, I think, we're relatively successful. The language, well, we have fifty-fifty in our family. I think our son Ben understands it pretty well but chooses not to speak it at this point, but does pretty well when he chooses to. Pauline, of course, chooses to speak it a lot more and is very excited by it. For those of you who don't know, she's a fellow here now at the Book Center. 74:00I think we have transmitted our values to our family and certainly the Workmen's Circle in Boston is the one area of the Workmen's Circle that's growing, the one region that's growing and has been for a long time because we have been able to build through not only my work and not in any way, shape, or form, but through a group of people that come together with shared values. Some more interest in Yiddish than others, but everyone realizing how important it is as an underpinning to who we are. We have, as I said, a ninety-person Yiddish chorus where about eight or ten of us maybe know Yiddish, are Yiddish fluent or even semi-fluent. But still, everyone in that chorus has chosen to join a Yiddish 75:00chorus and sing progressive Yiddish songs as part of a Yiddish song chorus. So, do I think that's successful? Yes. We have six hundred people coming to our Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur programs, which are written by us about -- very, very meaningful, very spiritual, but not religious, thinking about, Have we met the mark? Have we done what we can as a person, as a group, as a people to make the world a better place, which to me is the meaning of what Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are about. But different people, different beliefs, different ideals. But to me, that's a critical thing and we regularly meet at a church because where else are you gonna put that many people? And for some reason, all the synagogues are filled on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. So, we find a place where we can 76:00meet. Our building isn't big enough in Brookline. But, again, when we see the things that are going on in Kinderland about the young people caring and thinking and looking at -- just yesterday, at visiting day in Kinderland, there was somebody who just said, "We've been involved with Amnesty International for a long time. The campers have a group that meets year-round that works on progressive causes. But we discovered that Amnesty doesn't have a trade union organization within it that looks at the abuse around the world of trade unionists, which is rampant today. It's ongoing as it was here in America in the 77:00'30s, in the '20s." And the kids wrote a letter and sent off a letter to Amnesty saying, You should create a commission, a program within it looking at these trade unionists. Now, so do I think that we're -- yes, I think we're doing it. Do I wish -- am I upset at the Jewish world today? Sure. A lot of the Jewish world has managed to forget its roots, has managed to forget the traditional -- the big organizations. They're still more progressive than the American population as a whole, but I think they've forgotten where we've come from and it troubles me because I think, when I look at our culture as a people going 78:00back to Biblical days, we have, for the most part, been a progressive force. And it troubles me when we're not.

EM:And I'm just curious, have you ever had a religious connection to Jewishness?

MK:No.

EM:Okay.

MK:(laughs) My great-grandfather, as far as we can tell, was at best agnostic. My grandfather, as I said, was a revolutionary organizer and a Marxist. And my dad was not. My mom and dad were -- my mom had a similar upbringing in Hartford, Connecticut. It's not part of my life and I don't -- I guess, and this will 79:00sound funny, I'm very blessed that we have such -- I don't think I feel a lack of it or a lack of spirituality because of how strong our cultural life is. I don't need a supreme deity. I don't need the belief in a supreme deity to know that we, as a human race, can make ourselves better. And I believe that strongly. We can. It's hard. We go back and forth. (laughs) It takes us all working at it. But it's an ongoing process of moving forward.

EM:And speaking of moving forward, do you have any suggestions or advice for future generations of Jews, of activists?

MK:You have to do it. (laughs) You can't rely on somebody else. If you feel that you're in an organization that meets most of your needs but not all of them, change it. See if you can change it. If you don't have an organization but you feel like there's a way that you might know other people who believe similarly and might go together, get together and invite people in to have other people who might have similar ideas or ideas that you can take from. I'm not religious, but I certainly have read portions of the Torah. I haven't read front to back. But are there great things to take from it? Sure. Are there also things which I don't need? Torah talks about keeping slaves and about concubines and about 81:00taking the fifth wife. Well, I'm sorry, that part of that is not important to me. But there are a lot of parts that are. So, if you want to move forward, if you care about the world, if you want to make it a shenere un besere velt, a more beautiful and better world, well, you've got to work at it. It's not easy. I was the kid, since I grew up the way I did, I was the kid in the New York City -- the only Jewish kid who went to school on the High Holidays, or maybe not the High Holidays but on Shavuos or some of the others, Sukkos, that the New York City Public Schools were optionally closed. They were religious holidays so they weren't closed but I was there with all the Catholic kids, or the few Catholic 82:00kids growing up in the Bronx because there weren't that many. Most of the others went to the parochial schools or the black kids or the Hispanic kids and me because my parents said, If you're not going to shul, you're gonna go to school. And we weren't going to shul. (laughs) So, is it easy sometimes? No. But is it important? Is it the only way I know to live? Yes. And I learned it from my parents. I mean, I get a kick seeing my mother sort of shrugging her shoulders and saying, when people ask her why she did something, why she was the head of the shule or why she worked at Kinderland, or why she's been on the "Jewish Currents" editorial board for years and she said, "Well, it had to be done." It's just done, that's it! So, that's, to me, that's the way you sort of go 83:00about it. I mean, how else do you make a difference? And you stand up for what you believe in, even when it's not popular. Doesn't mean you have to be strident, it doesn't mean you have to be -- you make more friends -- you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. You need to be aware that other people have different beliefs. Will I tell somebody who believes in traditional Judaism that they're wrong? Absolutely not. When they tell me I'm not a Jew, which I've had them tell me because I don't believe in a deity, I say, "You're wrong. I might not be your type of Jew, but I'm a Jew." So, one time, we sent our kids to 84:00-- the closest daycare was in a synagogue, Alef-Bet Daycare. And it happened to be an incredibly good daycare. And we were a little -- mixed feelings about it because we wanted a more multicultural world for our kids. But it really was the best. So, we sent them there. And there was this rabbi who came from the Old Country and he stood about this tall. Certainly under five foot. Wonderful man and spoke Yiddish and we spoke Yiddish with him. And at some point, he said, "So, Michael, what are you doing for the High Holidays? You coming here?" I said, "No. Sorry, no." Said, "What do you do?" And I said, "We go to the Arbeter 85:00Ring. We do a program with the Arbeter Ring." He looked at me, said, "Davenstu? Do you pray?" Said, "No." And he sort of shook his head again, said, "It's okay. I know you're Jewish," in Yiddish. It was just one of those moments that I just felt like, What a mensch. What a true mensch. I mean, he didn't have to. He knew that we believed in who we were and he didn't have to -- if we chose to be the kinds of Jews we were, was enough. So, that was one of those moments you go, "Ah."

EM:So, our closing question is always, do you have a favorite Yiddish word or phrase?

MK:A favorite Yiddish word or phrase? We use a lot. I guess "a shener un besere 86:00velt." It just puts it all -- what are we working for? If you don't want to build a more beautiful and better world, why? (laughs) Why not? Why else? So, I guess that would be certainly the one that comes to mind at the moment.

EM:And are there any songs you want to share with us? (laughter) You don't have to. I didn't mean to just put you on the spot.

MK:Yeah, no. I won't sing them but I think probably one of the -- there's just such a wealth of songs, when you think about it, when they were written -- 87:00thinking of one, "O, di velt geven shener, tsiner [Oh, the world was more beautiful, more connected]," oh, I'm blanking on the words right now. But just, they were written at a time when there was, in the 1870s, 1880s, 1890s -- which were pretty bad -- I mean, it was the Jewish Enlightenment, but it was also a pretty rough time to be Jewish. And they were looking at -- I'm thinking of, trying to build a better world where all people, regardless of their colors and regardless of their beliefs can live together in a new, free world. And songs like that or ideals like that hopefully are not gone from our people.

EM:All right, and is there anything else that you'd like to mention before we finish?

MK:You got the notes there of what I said I was gonna say. I don't remember. (laughs) Did I cover everything?

EM:Think most of everything. I think the one thing was you mentioned you spoke at a convention, a Workmen's Circle convention?

MK:Ah. That was actually an interesting thing because we had talked about how -- I talked to you about how we got involved with the Workmen's Circle and how there was such a -- when I got involved, there was really a rift between the Jewish Left and the Jewish Left, which was very destructive, about the Workmen's Circle and the IWO or what was left of the IWO. And eventually, because I was very active in the Workmen's Circle up in Boston, I was asked to be on a panel of four or five people about building what the Workmen's Circle would be in the new century. This was probably around '92 and it was Moish Mlotek, who later 89:00became the president of the Workmen's Circle, Jonathan Sunshine, who's active in Yiddish of Greater Boston, Mike, I'm blanking his name, who was the, for a while, the director of Jewish Labor Committee, and myself. I mean, it was a pretty heady group of people to be -- good friends. And each person got up, gave a little speech about who they were and then went off, talked about what the Workmen's Circle would be. And I got up and I introduced myself and said, "I didn't go to Kinder Ring. I went to Kinderland." And there was a gasp. I said, "And my grandfather was Moishe Katz. He wrote for the "Morgen Freiheit," as opposed to the "Forverts," and there was a bigger gasp. "And I'm involved with Camp Kinderland and I continue to be involved with Camp Kinderland and I'm an 90:00activist in the Workmen's Circle and I see no problem with saying these things." And there were some people who applauded and some people who booed. And afterwards -- and I went on and talked about how, to me, since the Workmen's Circle was founded as that unifying group of the Jewish Left, regardless of which -ism you were part of, this was just a return to the roots, to who we were and -- along with Bob Kaplan and Peter Pepper and a lot of other activists in the Workmen's Circle, we really were able to accomplish that. And eventually, the Workmen's Circle took on the publishing of "Jewish Currents" and a lot of people came together, for financial reasons. It separated again later but it wasn't for -- it was because we had to, for financial purposes. And later on, some people came up to me and said, We grew up in Kinderland and never told 91:00anyone because we were scared to say so. And then, one of the leaders who is now a good friend came up to me and said, "You didn't have to rub our noses in it. We knew who you are and what your background is." I said to him, "Look, the reason I said that was because I could say it, because I could be both from the old Left and be part of what we're building now." And I think many, many years later, this person understands that and might not agree with everything I do but understands that we all are working to make a better world and working to continue our culture and continue our progressivism. So, it was one of those, whoa, (laughs) kind of an -- interesting meetings. So, I guess that's all I have 92:00to say. (laughs)

EM:Great. (laughter) That was a good closing story. So, thank you so much. (laughter)

MK:Zay gezunt [Be well].

[END OF INTERVIEW]