TONY MICHELS ORAL HISTORY

ALLIE BRUDNEY:This is Allie Brudney and today is March 21st, 2012. I am here at the University of Wisconsin in Madison with Tony Michels and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Tony, do I have your permission to record this interview?

TONY MICHELS: Yes.

AB:Thank you. So, I want to just start -- could you briefly tell me about your family background?

TM:Well, I was born in --- (laughs) all right, when you say family background, do you talk about my parents, my --

AB:Where did your parents come from or your grandparents?

TM:Okay, my parents were both born in Chicago. My grandparents, my maternal grandparents, came from Ohio. My paternal grandparents -- well, and my paternal 1:00grandmother was born in Russia, came to the United States at a very, very young age. Actually, used to deny that she was born in Russia until she wasn't able to deny it anymore because the information came out. Actually, I think she still continued to deny it, even after the information came out. My paternal grandfather was born in the United States, I think raised in Chicago. Eventually, all my grandparents converged in Chicago. That's where, as I say, my parents grew up.

AB:How did your grandmother deny --

TM:She just said he was born in the United States.

AB:And how did the information come out?

TM:If I remember correctly, it had to do -- it came out after my father applied for a job and I think a background check was done. (laughs)

AB:So, do you know anything about your parents' lives in Chicago before --

TM:Sure, my father grew up on the West Side of Chicago. His father owned a shoe 2:00store in Cicero, which is actually outside of Chicago, just to the west, and my mother grew up in the northwest part of Chicago. This is in the 1940s and '50s. And my father's family did eventually move to the northwest side and they met in high school.

AB:Okay. So, I guess I want to move to your childhood.

TM:Sure.

AB:Would you say that you grew up in a Jewish home with your house --

TM:Did I grew up in a Jewish home? I grew up in a Jewish home, (laughs) yes. But it was not an especially religious home. There were various Jewish artifacts, books, a menorah here or there, some Jewish artwork. But it was not a strong 3:00part of the day-to-day atmosphere of my childhood.

AB:Was your family part of a synagogue?

TM:We were members of synagogues, yeah. Like most Jews, they joined synagogues. And we moved around a lot, so that's why I say we joined synagogues. Wherever we lived, we joined a synagogue and then did not attend, I think was -- is the standard pattern for most American Jews of that time, anyway. But we did belong, usually to a Conservative synagogue, sometimes to Reform. And I went to Hebrew school and became a bar mitzvah at thirteen.

AB:Could you describe what your bar mitzvah was like?

TM:The bar mitzvah was fun. I hated Hebrew school. Absolutely loathed it, at least as I got older. Eventually, I dropped out and my mom hired a tutor. For some reason, even though I hated Hebrew school, I still wanted to become bar mitzvah. And so, she hired a tutor who was actually an Indian Jewish woman, 4:00which I didn't think much of at the time. But now, looking back on it, it's unusual, especially where I was raised, in California, where there weren't many Jews -- in the part of California I'm from. So, in any case, I had a tutor. I learned a lot from her and that led towards my bar mitzvah, which -- the event itself was not especially a major event in my life.

AB:Just hold on for one sec. Okay.

TM:Well, I'd say it actually was a major event in my life inasmuch as it signaled the end of Hebrew school and preparing for my bar mitzvah. In that sense, it was a wonderful change in my life. But beyond that, the bar mitzvah itself didn't mean a whole lot. It was a fun party, you know.

AB:So, I saw that you wrote an article on "Tablet" about surfing and --

TM:Oh, yes, (laughs) that's right.

AB:-- would you mind talking about that a little bit?

TM:No, no. No, I've already gone public, so it's okay. (laughs) Well, so I started surfing just after my bar mitzvah. And I used money I received from my bar mitzvah -- eighty dollars, to be exactly -- to buy my first surfboard, and it was something my friends and I just started doing all together at the same time. And in a way, it signaled the transition, not of going into adulthood as a Jew, but as leaving the Jewish -- my Jewish obligations, let's say, behind. Although I say it's an obligation, at the same time, I did want -- as I said, I wanted to become a bar mitzvah. So, I guess I had some mixed feelings about it. But what it did mean is I didn't have to go to Hebrew school anymore and that was wonderful. And so, I started surfing and that was fun, too. So, that became my major -- for the next -- at least till I went to college, that was my main 6:00interest, I'd say. And my main interest in life was surfing. Not the only interest. I mean, I loved other things, too: music and reading, to some extent. And had, of course, a social life. But that was my main passion, was surfing, which I came to have some understanding of as being a very un-Jewish thing to do. And apparently, at least some of my friends thought so, as well, because at least one of them made a point of saying that. I think I must have been about seventeen.

AB:What did he say?

TM:He asked me in a sort of -- he asked me with a chuckle whether there were any Jewish pro surfers. Obviously, it was not a sincere question. And there was one I could think of, a very famous Jewish pro surfer but -- his name was Shaun Tomson, a South African. But I knew, I mean, I knew my friend was basically 7:00right. There was only one and he happened to be a great one, one of the best of all time. So, I kind of scored a point by mentioning Shaun Tomson's name and my friend, of course, was surprised. But he was basically the one who was right: there weren't many Jews in pro surfing or surfing generally. Just wasn't something many Jews did, and I had that feeling, my parents had that feeling. Apparently, everyone did to some degree or another. And I suppose I still feel that way on some level, that it's kind of a goyish activity. But I still love it. (laughs)

AB:So, I want to just ask you a couple more questions about --

TM:Yeah.

AB:-- your childhood. Did your family celebrate holidays? Are there any ones that stick out in your mind?

TM:We did, but half-heartedly and probably less so over time as I got older. So, we went to shul on the High Holidays. But sometimes my dad went, often he didn't 8:00go. My mom went. We usually showed up late. I don't think anyone's hearts were in it. We had seders, but again, they usually weren't especially elaborate, they weren't rigorous, they weren't festive, just -- so we were usually going through the motions, I'd say more than anything else. I'd say that was -- and when I was younger, in Hebrew school, for that reason, my parents would take me to, say, a Purim celebration, Purim carnival or something like that. So, I do have, definitely, recollections of going to some sort of Purim party or Hanukkah party. But they don't stand out as major parts of -- my recollection was I had -- always seemed that my family was the family that was among the least involved and the other kids' families were more involved. That was my feeling, that we 9:00didn't really celebrate, perhaps, the way we should or certainly the way the others did. That's my recollection.

AB:So, how did you go from this childhood of sort of being half involved to graduate school in Jewish studies?

TM:Oh, (laughs) that's a hard question to answer. It started in college. I went to University of California Santa Cruz and it started in college. It's hard to explain why. I mean, part of the reason, I suppose, had to do with the general atmosphere of UC Santa Cruz, which encouraged interest in ethnic identity, 'cause multiculturalism was big at the time on many college campuses, but especially UC Santa Cruz's campus. So, there was an atmosphere that encouraged that sort of thing, even though there was no Jewish studies program. So, there weren't many outlets to pursue it in an academic sense. There were a few classes 10:00in literature, a class on the Holocaust, but there weren't many outlets. But there was an atmosphere that fostered that interest or encouraged it. And there were certainly a lot of other Jewish students, I'd say, like me in that sense that were developing a curiosity in Jewish identity, let's call it. And there were extracurricular ways to do that. There was a Jewish student newspaper that I was involved in. We started a Jewish student group at one point, a political group, a kind of Left --

AB:What --

TM:It was called the Progressive Jewish Student Union. We weren't a union, but I think we must have liked the connotation of that word, (laughs) so we did that. I think it was our third or fourth year -- my third or fourth year in college. It lasted for a number of years, I know that, and a number of people in Jewish studies today who went to UC Santa Cruz are actually involved in the 11:00organization. And I think the common feeling was that Jewish students needed some sort of political group that fit their identities. Most of us you could describe as being politically on the Left but friendly towards Israel. And I think that combination is what we felt was missing on campus. This was during the First Intifada, so there was -- Middle East was kind of a hot issue. And I'd say most people who joined the group had that, more or less, that combination of feelings. Not that we all had the same opinions but that was our orientation: critical of Israel but sympathetic to Israel, and also having some strong interest in Jewish identity. There were feminists, there were people who came from other political organizations on campus. Some maybe had been involved in the anti-apartheid movement, maybe some had been involved in the Jesse Jackson 12:00campaign, maybe some of us were involved in the Jewish student newspaper, whatever. There was a sort of a hodgepodge. But we were friends and we had this, like I said, shared orientation.

AB:What was the focus of the Jewish student newspaper? What kind of articles?

TM:The newspaper published articles on all kinds of things: Israel, literature, culture, some history. It came out quarterly, and so there was a lot of space in it for lengthy articles of one kind or another. (pauses) Oh man, now I can't remember specific articles. I remember an article on a professor of Sephardic literature who had just -- named Victor Perera who taught at UC Santa Cruz. He had just published a book. I remember someone wrote a piece on him. Someone wrote a piece, I think, on the controversy involving Paul de Man who was, at the 13:00time, a -- important figure in English literature and he had Nazi ties or something to that effect, going back to the World War II period. I think someone wrote a piece on that. Also, I recall an interview with a professor on campus, Bettina Aptheker, who was Jewish and a very important person in the women's studies program who came from a communist family. I remember she was interviewed once. Oh, I remember one time there was a debate on whether or not a Jewish fraternity should be established on campus. That was a really controversial issue. And so, the person who wanted to establish the fraternity wrote an article and then there was an opposing article. In the end, he didn't start the fraternity. He faced a lot of pressure. There was a lot of opposition among students and it was not established. Maybe it was later, in later years, but not while I was there. And that particular student became head of the Dukakis 14:00campaign for president instead, which I think (laughs) probably endeared him to more students than the fraternity. Although maybe not, because Dukakis was on the conservative end, (laughs) so maybe it didn't help his fortunes, his social life on campus. I don't know. I didn't know him. But anyway, there was an article -- there was a debate on that. What else was there? I don't know.

AB:It's fine.

TM:Book reviews --

AB:Yeah?

TM:-- other things.

AB:Are there any classes that you took that were especially influential?

TM:In pointing me towards Jewish studies? I wouldn't say there were any classes that did -- it's hard to explain. I had the interest already, so I chose certain classes that allowed me to learn more about Jewish history. So, I took a course on the history of the Holocaust with Peter Kenez and Murray Baumgarten. I took two courses on Middle East politics. That was one of my main interests, actually, Middle East politics. Was very, very -- I was a politics major and it 15:00was one of my preoccupations, for sure, was that. So, I took that. I took a course in -- is there anything that counted as Jewish? Well, actually, went to UC Santa Barbara for two quarters. I left Santa Cruz. And there, I took a course on the history of Jerusalem, which I loved. I took a course on the history of anti-Semitism, which was of great interest to me. And those were Jewish studies courses that I took. Not a whole lot, but they were some of my favorite courses. And then, I took courses in other subjects that I was able to work in a kind of Jewish interest into. So, I took a course on the history of McCarthyism and I think I wrote on the Hollywood blacklist. And, of course, there was a Jewish dimension to that. So, I remember doing that. But most of my coursework didn't have anything to do with Jews or Jewish subjects. I had other interests: history 16:00of labor and working-class movements, history of socialism, international affairs, the Cold War. These were some of my major interests at the time. And so, the Jewish dimension was really a hobby for the most part. And I read a lot on my own and it was something of great personal interest. Something that I was involved with on campus life and that was it. Your original question was how did I get involved and I supposed it's hard to put my finger on. It was, again, part of the atmosphere. I don't know beyond that why -- I can't exactly tell you why around the time I was eighteen or so it became an interest after five years or so, when it really was. I don't know.

AB:So, when did you start and how did you and why did you start learning Yiddish?

TM:Sorry, if I can say one more thing --

AB:Yeah, go ahead.

TM:I was also around a lot of Jewish students for the first time in my life. That was also a difference. My dorm, I think, was about fifty percent Jewish. 17:00And that was something I wasn't expecting when I came to Santa Cruz. But I liked it. I enjoyed it. There were a lot of very quirky individuals who I became friends with and had a lot in common with, even though our backgrounds were different in one way or another. But so, there were a lot of Jews there and that was an -- all different kinds of Jews, too. A greater diversity of Jews than what few Jews I'd grown up with in California, or my part of California. So, that was probably part of it, as well. There were a lot of Jews there. So, you asked when I started studying Yiddish? I started studying in graduate school, first week of graduate school, first semester.

AB:What made you want to learn Yiddish?

TM:Well, I was told that I had to, so that was actually the deciding factor. I got to graduate school at Stanford and was in the history department. And I was admitted into the Jewish history program but there wasn't much of one yet 18:00because the previous faculty in it had left and my future advisor, Steven Zipperstein, hadn't arrived yet. And Mark Mancall was my advisor and he was a specialist in Chinese history, actually, but had a strong interest in Jewish history and played an important role in getting the program started. And he looked over my list of classes. He said, "You have to take Yiddish if you're gonna study Jewish history." I said, "Okay, that's great, that's fine by me." I would have taken it at Santa Cruz if it were offered. I absolutely would have taken it. No doubt about that. It had an emotional resonance for me. And so, if it were available, I know I would have taken it, as many semesters as I could have. So, here was the opportunity. And I was really delighted. It was the course I enjoyed most, absolutely no doubt about that. It's the first language course I actually enjoyed. I didn't have a knack for languages, but this one I 19:00really enjoyed. I loved it from the start.

AB:Did your parents or grandparents speak Yiddish? Did you have, looking back, did you have a childhood memory of it or --

TM:I did. Yeah, I had exposure to it but nobody around me spoke it fluently. My grandmothers could, but they didn't around me. They had no reason to. But they could speak it fluently. But what I was exposed to were words and phrases, which, of course, was very common. I don't know, it might be a little less common today among young people. I don't know. But I'd say a lot of people I grew up with -- I didn't think about this, but looking back on it, I suppose most Jews in my age group had exposure to some amount of -- I'd say phrases and words. There were the really obvious ones, less obvious ones, whatever. I don't know, we never talked about it, so I don't know the scope or extent of it. But I used to hear it and I suppose I wasn't always cognizant of what was Yiddish and 20:00what wasn't. There were words I heard that I only later found out were Yiddish words. So, yes, so I was exposed to it without thinking about it a whole lot. It was only later that I realized that I was exposed to it, and so that's why I had this emotional attachment to it.

AB:Did you learn Yiddish primarily at Stanford or did you do any of the various summer programs?

TM:I started Stanford, then did a summer program at YIVO. I did it twice, two summers in a row, and I loved that and continued studying it at Stanford.

AB:Did you have any mentors that were important for learning --

TM:For Yiddish?

AB:-- Yiddish?

TM:Yeah, well, my first Yiddish teacher, Hannah Berman, who also was my Hebrew teacher and friend. And so, Hannah and then at the YIVO program, too, I was fortunate to have two phenomenal teachers for language --- one is Mordkhe 21:00Schaechter. So, of course, teacher for countless others. And Avrom Novershtern from Israel, who taught literature, who was one of the best teachers I've ever had, period. He was wonderful. And I had them both for two years, so that was great. And at Stanford later on, Professor Joshua Fishman and his wife Gella Fishman, who is one of the most -- world's leading experts in socio-linguistics, he would spend part of his -- they would spend part of the year in Palo Alto. It was just a wonderful coincidence. So, they worked with a number of the graduate students and that was really beneficial. We were very fortunate.

AB:Could you describe some of the YIVO --

TM:The --

AB:-- your experiences at YIVO back then?

TM:Oh, YIVO. Can I describe the experiences at YIVO?

AB:Some of the classes or what it was like to work with Mordkhe Schaechter and --

TM:That's a good question. I don't recall -- I remember my first day or week or so in class being way out of my depth. I was probably in an intermediate course. I was at the bottom of the class, I think. I think that's fair to say. And I realized very early on that I didn't know what was going on. I couldn't figure out why and then I figured it out. It took me a day or two -- that it was entirely in Yiddish and my course at Stanford wasn't entirely in Yiddish. It was taught in English. And that was my first realization that I had a long way to go. But it was good for me. And so, what did I -- I don't have any particular funny recollections, I perhaps have to think about it, or memorable recollections about anything that happened in class other than I just, you know, I really enjoyed it. And I think one thing I recall is that I think Schaechter might have been the first Eastern European-born native Yiddish speaker I 23:00encountered. Speaking Yiddish, anyway. I mean, I'd met Eastern European-born Jews before. That wasn't new. But speaking Yiddish. That, I think, it was the first time. And so, that, I think, had a strong effect on me, just seeing an authentic Yiddish speaker. I can't tell you what the effect was. It just had an effect and I was glad to be -- now, my other Yiddish teacher, just to clarify, Hannah Berman was, I believe, born in Egypt if I'm not mistaken, but raised in Israel. Her family came from Eastern Europe but wasn't as directly connected as Schaechter, and, of course, he played such an important -- he was such a major scholar and so forth. I loved being around the students. Again, there was a lot of quirky students in the YIVO program (laughs) and we lived in the "yidish-hoyz 24:00[Yiddish house]," is what they called it, the dorm for all the students who wanted to live there. So, we had a great collection of students, some of whom I'm still friends with. And I can't recall a whole lot more. I mean, you'd have to give me very specific questions to prompt my memory. I have recollections but none of them stand out. I don't know if they're worth recording. I don't know if they're that important.

AB:Well, we're a little tight on time, so I'm just curious how -- you talked earlier about that you were also interested in social history and communism, socialism. So, how did you get to focusing on American Jewish socialism and history?

TM:So, it was all my interests -- there were sort of these separate interests. Or maybe they're not entirely separate but they were disparate, I think. And so, 25:00I don't know. I don't know why I had these different -- I had this interest in socialism, I had this interest in Israel, I had this interest in Jewish history and so on. I had other interests in popular culture, it's very strong, as well. And they were distinct but not totally unrelated. Through my interest in Israel, it encouraged my interest in the history of socialism because the labor movement and socialist movements played such an important role in Israel, the making of Israel, so there they came together. I had this interest in Jews and the Jews played, I came to learn, played an important role in the history of the American Left. So, there's a fit. And I love popular culture and lo and behold, Jews play this important role in Hollywood and the entertainment industries. And it just so happened that my interests -- Jews popped up. Jews were -- not popped up. They were central to what my interests were anyway. And so, what I wanted to do is to put those things together in graduate school and that's what I did. Or at least some of them, I was able to do that in graduate school.

AB:So, maybe this doesn't apply at all, but how, if this is accurate at all, do you think your academic interests and personal life (laughter) relate?

TM:Well, yeah, they're very closely related. I chose -- my academic interests are very close to my heart and my intellectual interests at the same time. I mean, there's very, very, very little separation. I mean, there is separation as much as I try to approach my academic work with scholarly rigor that's appropriate for academic work. But of course, underneath that is the personal dimension. So, when it comes to Yiddish, that's very, as I said, very satisfying -- it was satisfying to study. I enjoyed it. It had that emotional dimension to it. So, that was also a part of it, as well. Can I just grab --

AB:Yeah.

TM:-- a glass of water, a sip of water?

AB:Sure. Just one second. Okay. (laughs)

TM:Also, Yiddish is -- and Jewish studies more generally -- but Yiddish is, for me, one of my major -- I don't know what the right word is -- avenues of Jewish identity because I'm still not much of a shul-goer. I suppose I will be eventually when it's time for my children to go to Hebrew school. So, I'll do that. That'll be fine. I'm not against it, so it's okay. It's not a hard decision for me to make. I'm just trying to say that religion's not a major part of my life. And Israel's still very much an interest of me, but I don't live in Israel. So, what is the focus of my Jewish identity today in the United States? It's what I study, and Yiddish is the most Jewish aspect of what I study. Yeah, 28:00so it's very deeply -- it's personal in that sense. It's my Jewish practice in a lot of ways. I don't know if I'm unique in that way. I think there's probably a lot of people who more or less feel the same way. I don't know, I think so. But yeah, so there's a personal dimension. The other part of it, I came to notice, is that a number of my interests are sort of lost causes. Well, not -- well, I don't know, lost cause -- Yiddish hasn't fared well historically and it's still alive and so forth. But it's the underdog, let's say that. Maybe lost cause isn't quite the word. It's kind of the underdog. Socialism hasn't fared too well, either. It's not why I chose these topics at all. It's not why I chose 29:00them, although maybe on some level, there was an element there that I was interested in aspects of the past that weren't visible, so strongly visible in the present, that socialism, like Yiddish, was once very prevalent. So many people thought socialism was the future. Yiddish seemed to have a future and then it didn't. So, there was something that was there in the present for me in the late twentieth century. I had some connection, not so much to socialism through family but through Yiddish. So, I was linked to it in some way. But it wasn't part of the mainstream. So, I guess maybe that was some attract-- the fact that it wasn't part of the mainstream is probably some attraction. I guess that's probably true when I think about it. Yeah, I guess because it's familiar and foreign at the same time, familiar and distant. There is something intriguing about that. And, as I say, I have a direct, personal connection 30:00through family to it and I guess that's part of it. Socialism, again, is different. I don't have an immediate direct family connection to it, although once I started getting interested in the subject, even then my mom recalled, "Well, you have an uncle, and then there's this uncle and then there was that uncle you've never met." And it turns out that I do have a number of left-wingers of one kind or another: social Zionists or members of the Workmen's Circle or whatever, people who are on the Left. And I think also that's not uncommon for American Jews: if you shake the family tree a little bit, they come falling out. (laughs)

AB:Yeah.

TM:It's very widespread, actually. So, you, I think, started asking me about the personal dimension and I maybe have gotten off course, but --

AB:No, that was a good answer.

TM:Oh, okay. (laughter)

AB:I'm curious about how you -- I know you use Yiddish for your scholarly work.

TM:Yeah.

AB:But do you use it any other ways?

TM:My scholarly work -- on and off. I used to use it more. I used to write 31:00Yiddish in emails or whatever to friends, tried to speak it as much as I could. But since I moved to Madison, it's become very difficult to do that because there isn't really Yiddish-speaking community here. So, I don't do that as much, unfortunately. Last week, when I was in Baltimore, though, I had a chance to speak. I wrote an article in Yiddish a few years ago. I was proud of that.

AB:What did you write about?

TM:Yiddish women's reading groups in the 1920s and 1930s. Was a little historical essay I wrote for "Afn shvel." And so, I was proud of that. I'd like to do more of that, actually. I try to expose my little girl as much as possible to Yiddish, bought some Yiddish children's books, (laughs) and she's not that interested, frankly. It's hard to get her interested in it. But I'm trying to expose her to it and insert as many Yiddish words as I can. Some have stuck. She 32:00knows a number of Yiddish words. She refers to her little toy, pet, her stuffed animal -- she has her maysele [fairy tale] and things like that, her ketsele [kitty]. And I don't think she knows the difference. She just -- this is the word she knows for it, so that's good. I've been able to insert some Yiddish into her day-to-day lexicon. That's it. So, that's about it, unfortunately, although, again, what's academic and what's personal is a blurry line. So, I read Yiddish regularly but not for academic purposes. I read the Yiddish "Forverts." I subscribe to it. So, I get that every week. I get "Afn shvel" in the mail. I get some other Yiddish publications in the mail and it's not strictly -- it's not work. I don't read it for work. I read it because I want to, and then I'll read some Yiddish fiction and poetry and so forth. So, again, what's work, what's professional, what's not, what's personal and what's 33:00professional, it's hard to draw the line there. For me, anyway.

AB:So, I would -- hoping to ask you a couple questions. I looked at your book about --- "Fire in Their Hearts" -- and so, would you mind briefly describing sort of the history of the Arbeter Ring?

TM:Of the Arbeter Ring?

AB:Yeah.

TM:That's not my whole -- that's a chapter --

AB:I know, it's a chapter.

TM:Okay.

AB:I know, I know. (laughter)

TM:And I think it was the last chapter, too, I wrote. Sorry, what was the question again? (laughs)

AB:If you wouldn't mind briefly describing some of the history of it?

TM:The history of the Arbeter Ring?

AB:Yeah.

TM:Okay. Well, that organization was started -- it was actually started in 1892 as a self-help organization among some workers, Jewish immigrant workers in -- I think it was the Lower East Side. Yeah, they started in the Lower East Side. Essex Street, if I'm not mistaken, is when the first meeting was held. And then, a couple other branches were founded. In 1900, the three -- I think there were 34:00three branches united to form an order that would be a national order of branches. And the idea was to create a mutual aid organization, meaning a group that would provide sick benefits to workers when they were sick or death benefits if they died. But because this was a socialist group -- there were many self-help organizations. That wasn't unique. But what was distinctive was that it had a political orientation. It was socialist, not affili-- it was non-partisan. It wasn't attached to the Socialist Party or any other party. But it had a socialist orientation. Some members had to be in favor of socialism in some sense, a generic sense. And it had an educational and cultural dimension to it that was built into the founding -- I think to the original constitution of 35:00the organization, that the members had to participate in education, cultural activities. And that was typical of socialist groups at the time, to emphasize education and culture. And so, the Workmen's Circle did that and it grew very quickly. I think by 1910, there were almost forty thousand members. And it grew quickly because it filled such a need in the lives of immigrants, especially those sick and death benefits. There was no welfare state at the time, the unions were very weak and unstable in the 1890s and 1900s. So, if you were unemployed, if you injured yourself on the job, something like that, you had very few places to turn to. So, the Workmen's Circle was a place you could go. You paid your benefits, you paid your monthly dues -- sorry, not benefits. You paid your dues. And so, if you hurt yourself, then you could collect your benefits and not starve. So, it was very practical, very useful, and there was a strong need for it. And for those workers who wanted to be educated or receive 36:00some cultural elevation and education, that had that benefit because they organized lectures and other sorts of educational activities. Eventually, the Workmen's Circle started a whole national education network. Lecture tours, for instance. Correspondence courses, schools for children in Yiddish and English. A book publishing concern, all sorts of things. And so, it was really as much an educational and cultural organization as it was a mutual aid society.

AB:What do you think the role of the Workmen's Circle is today?

TM:I have no idea, actually.

AB:That's okay.

TM:No idea. (laughter) I hope it -- I know it exists and there are a number of branches on the East Coast, I think the West Coast, too, and maybe elsewhere. There isn't one in Madison, Wisconsin. Maybe I should start one, I don't know. But I hope it does well, that's all I can say. Hope it does really well, but I don't know what role it plays.

AB:Yeah. How do you think that the history of Jewish socialism is relevant today?

TM:Oh, how is it relevant today? It's a good question. Well, on one level, you can say that there's a legacy, increasingly probably a tenuous legacy, but there is inasmuch as so many American Jews come from families that were involved in some way or another in the socialist labor movement, in some way or another, meaning that they weren't necessarily hardcore activists but were involved in one or more of the institutions associated with the Jewish labor movement. Inasmuch as that's true, it has left certain legacies. And one has been over the years an orientation towards liberal, progressive, left-wing causes. That's weakened over the decades but it's still there. It still has some presence in 38:00the lives of, I think, a significant number of Jews. I see it in my courses, actually. I have students who come in and they don't think of themselves as socialists. They might not even think of themselves as liberals. I don't know. But they know where their parents or grandparents came from and that has some meaning for them. And this happens every semester. They don't know much about the Workmen's Circle. They don't know much about the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. They don't know much about the, I don't know, the "Forverts." But they know they existed and they know their parents or grandparents were part of that. And when they learn more about it, they do tend to develop an interest in it, as well, because this is where family history merges with a larger story of American history and Jewish history. So, I think it's there. I think it informs, to some degree -- I'd say in the background and I think it informs, to some degree, how Jews view themselves politically, to 39:00some degree view themselves as Jews, which is to say this is their Jewish identity, some weakened version of that older Jewish identity, which is meaning that they have some kind of secular or cultural identification with Jews, maybe an ethnic sense of being Jewish. Religion's not that important to them. But that's who they are as Jews, is, like I said, some sort of version of what was handed down to them from the immigrant generation. Critics say this isn't sustainable, it's weak, it's inauthentic. There's many critics of it and I suppose you can, to some degree or another, you can say these are valid in one way or another. But I'm not judgmental about it. I think there's actually -- that's positive in that legacy. And, in fact, I'd like to see the legacy strengthened. The unfortunate thing about it is that the kind of Yiddish secular 40:00left-wing identity I write about in my book was difficult to sustain because there were built-in tensions within it from the start. There was a tension between the universalism of socialism. It's not an ethnically particular ideology, so there was that. So, there's that tension between socialism's universalism and the Jewishness, the Jewish culture of this movement. At the same time, this Jewish culture was difficult to pass on because it lacked a religious dimension. It was built so much on a foreign language, Yiddish, but foreign languages don't fare well generally in the United States. They tend to wither away with successive generations. So, there was an unstable -- there's instability built into this culture. It was also incredibly creative culture. And so, I don't fault -- in other words, much of American Jewish life contains 41:00that instability, the dynamism that comes from living in a culture and a society that has a lot going on and in which traditions are always being undermined and recreated and reinvented and new forms of culture created that might not last but are vibrant in their own moment. Traditionalists don't like this. I mean, they look for stability and continuity. I think stability and continuity -- well, I don't know. I think there's a cost to pursuing continuity above all else. There's just as much a cost in doing that as embracing innovation and change and so forth. And the cost is conformity. The cost can be something 42:00that's creating something that's actually completely uninteresting and boring. There are advantages, as well, and tradition has its own advantages. I'm saying that various -- what I'm trying to say is that different paths and choices Jews have made come with costs and benefits. Yiddish culture came out of a tremendous cultural -- secular Yiddish culture of the immigrant period -- was a product of tremendous ferment and rebellion and embrace of modernity. And, at the same time, those very elements of modernity undermined it. And that, to me, is sort of the -- what I guess I'm trying to say is even though there's -- it's unfortunate in certain regards, because I wish Yiddish culture was more stable in this country than it is, that it's also, I believe, the condition of modernity. And I don't know how we escape that. Orthodox Jews try to escape 43:00that. Many Orthodox Jews do. But they can't even. No one can.

AB:So, we're sort of running out of time, but I have a few more questions.

TM:Yeah.

AB:You mentioned teaching and how you have some Jewish students. How diverse are your classes in Jewish history and what's it like to teach various student populations?

TM:I'd say moderately diverse, (laughs) meaning that I'd say about -- my survey course in American Jewish history probably gets about -- I don't know, sixty to seventy percent of the students are Jews. That's pretty good, I'd say, to have thirty percent or so that aren't, I think that's pretty good. Fifty-fifty might be better but I'm pretty happy with that. Among the students who aren't Jews, not a lot of diversity because this campus isn't especially diverse ethnically or religiously. Well, I suppose you can say it's religiously diverse. I've had Calvinists, I've had Lutherans, I've had Catholics, (laughs) so, you could say 44:00it's somewhat diverse. But it's not especially ethnically diverse. So, I have some -- maybe one or two Asian American students and occasionally African American student, a couple Latino -- if I taught in California, I think the student body would be very different.

AB:What's it like to teach a class with both Jews who have some personal connection and people, even Jews, who have less of a personal connection?

TM:I don't think about it that much anymore. I would say often, among the best students, among those students who are sort of at the top of the class, it's usually the case that non-Jewish students are well-represented among those. And that's because they're in the class, they're motivated to be in the class, I think. Now, among those students, they could be there for any number of reasons. Some might be devout Christians who want to learn about the chosen people. And 45:00they, those students, can ask very challenging and interesting questions. Other times, you get non-Jewish students who are dating Jews (laughs) and want to learn about their boyfriend or girlfriend's culture. And they can also be very motivated and that's good, too. And Jewish students -- so, one of the challenges, and I don't know if this is more prevalent among Jewish students or non-Jewish -- and I'm not sure about this -- is that they don't necessarily treat the subject, I think, as seriously as some other subjects. I think there's some feeling that this is an easy subject or that they know much -- and easy because it's something they already know or they think they know a lot about. So, one challenge, actually, is dealing with that. And in the subjects that are 46:00more likely to be of interest to them or they come with an interest in subjects are religion, the Holocaust, to some degree Israel, anti-Semitism, summer camps, (laughs) things they know, are most familiar with. Synagogue life and so forth. Social history of Jews doesn't tend to interest them as much. Political movements, things that I write about and do research on, that appeals to a small number, interestingly. I wish it appealed to more. It's a certain type of student that wants to know about Yiddish or wants to know about the labor movement or wants even to know about Israel in a serious way. Those do tend to be the more serious students and I say that because it takes more -- it's more 47:00of a mental stretch for them to get -- this is not the subjects they're immediately familiar with. So, all the Jewish students have some awareness of Yiddish on some vague level. Most don't have a real curiosity. And so, to be curious about something that you're not familiar with means already that you want to learn, where there are students who want to just, in some way -- again, if they want to just hear about the summer camp experiences, that's not especially challenging. Now, having said that, I don't mean to give you the impression that there aren't a lot of serious students who are Jews and non-Jews. There are. And so, I guess my main answer to your question is that I like teaching the mix that I have. To the extent I have a mix, it's a wonderful experience. The challenge is, I suppose, getting them to think about Jews in ways they're unaccustomed to doing. Here's just one other challenge: American 48:00Jews in the twenty-first century are very different from American Jews a hundred years ago and it's very hard, I think, for many to get -- to wrap their minds around that, that they spoke a different language and their Judaism was different and they might not have cared about Judaism at all. And this was before the creation of the State of Israel. And there was this Yiddish culture or there was a -- let's say a richer Jewish civilization than they're familiar with. All that stuff, I think, is so different to what they know as Jews that -- the fact that Jews might not have called themselves -- that the Jews called themselves by different names, a race, a people, a nation, an ethnicity. All these terms and concepts are so unfamiliar. And so, the challenge is getting students to think about Jews in different ways than they know.

AB:So, what role do you think that academics play or don't in the transmission 49:00of culture?

TM:That's a good question. I'm not sure of the answer. Certainly, I can answer for myself, which is that it was through a study of history and -- or let's say a study of Jews in an academic sense: history, literature, culture, and so forth that enabled me to develop an interest in Jewish things. Without Jewish studies, then I don't know what my interest would have been, because it certainly wasn't the synagogue, as I've mentioned before. It could have been Israel, I suppose. But given that I probably wasn't going to move to Israel, then I don't know if that could have played any meaningful day-to-day role in my life. So, I don't know. For me, Jewish studies has always been, in my adult life, scholarship's the primary conduit, I suppose, of Jewish civilization. That's my connection to 50:00it and that's what interests me. And now, so, if your question is do I play any role in transmitting that, I hope so. I can't answer for my students. I don't know what they think. I mean, I do have some sense that some small number of students respond to Jewish studies courses. Some of my students. And they'll take more -- and I say that because they'll take other Jewish studies courses. They might major in it or earn a certificate in it and I'll see them again turning up in my courses or other courses. So, I think it plays some role. And those, again -- I think these students tend to fit a profile and the profile is that the existing forms of Jewish identity, culture, and existing institutions that they know of -- if not existing institutions, then the ones they're most familiar with, the ones that have been part of their lives. They may have positive feelings, negative feelings, or somewhere in between about them, but they don't excite them. And so, that I think what they respond to is that -- 51:00what Jewish studies does for them, I think, is give them a way of learning about Jews in ways that are interesting. And that's what I think they respond to. It's interesting. It can be unconventional. Often it is, because the subject matter is not what they know, and they like it. They're curious about the Jewish past in some way and it provides them with not just information and knowledge. It expands their understanding of themselves in relationship to the Jews in the world and I think that's what they like about it. I don't know how many people I'm talking about. My own sense of it is maybe, I don't know, five percent of the students I teach. I'm not really sure. But I know they're out there and I think that's really -- and even if it is just five percent, I don't think that's such a terrible number, I think. I mean, how -- (clears throat) excuse me. I 52:00don't know how to gauge it. I have no way of gauging how many of my students will take Jewish studies seriously. I don't know. I just know that there is some minority, it's a pretty decent minority in my book, and without Jewish studies, I'm pretty sure they would have no interest in anything Jewish whatsoever. That's my feeling about it.

AB:I have two more questions.

TM:Sure.

AB:I know we're running out of time.

TM:Okay.

AB:What do you think the place of Yiddish is in universities and in the academy?

TM:Well, I think it's been growing slowly but surely, I think. But we need more Yiddish language instructors, we need more Yiddish studies programs, we need more experts in Yiddish literature and culture. We just need more. I think the 53:00demand is there, no doubt about that. I'm really convinced of that and I'm convinced there's an unmet demand. And so, it's been an increasingly -- I'd say it's sort of -- if your question is descriptive, what role has it played --

AB:Or should it play?

TM:Or should, okay. So, what role has it played? I'd say Yiddish over the last three to four decades has become an increasingly important part of Jewish studies. You can see that by looking at course catalogues, at programs. At the Association for Jewish Studies, you can see that a lot of -- there's more and more people studying Yiddish literature, language, culture. There are more doing it and the quality of the work and the quantity of the work just grows and grows and grows. What role should it play? It should play more of the same. (laughs) So, I think there should be more faculty hired, more programs created, more money given to make these things happen. And beyond that, I'd like to see, in 54:00the academy and beyond, efforts made to develop Yiddish language fluency on some level. Fluency can mean different things, different ways of gauging fluency -- so that Yiddish is part of the mainstream of American Jewish life. Not that the majority of Jews will be able to read it or speak it, that's probably unrealistic, but that an important minority will be able to read it and speak it and that all American Jews will regard Yiddish as central to American Jewish culture. That, I think, should be the goal. I think that's actually a feasible goal. And Jewish studies probably stands at the center of that -- if that were to be a project, Yiddish in the university would stand at the center of that project.

AB:Okay. Is there anything else that you'd like to talk about? I have one last question.

TM:No, I don't.

AB:Okay.

[END OF INTERVIEW]