MARILYN CASSOTTA ORAL HISTORY

MARK GERSTEIN: This is Mark Gerstein, and today is December 7th, 2012.  I am here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts with Marilyn Cassotta, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project.  Marilyn, do I have your permission to record this interview?

MARILYN CASSOTTA: Yes, you do.

MG:  Thank you.  So, let's get started.  Can you tell me a little bit about your family background?

MC:  Yes.  I was born in 1933.  I was the youngest of three children.  I had a sister that was ten years older than I was, a brother that was eight years older, and then I was born eight years later.  We lived with my parents in a 1:00fourth-floor walk-up apartment in the Bronx -- Southeast Bronx.  It was basically a working-class neighborhood, very ethnically diverse.  Living with us was a maiden aunt who was my father's sister.  We were in a two-bedroom apartment; it was crowded.  I went to school at a public school right across the street from my house and played with children of different ethnic groups all through the years that I grew up.  My parents were Yiddish-speaking.

MG:  If you'll excuse me for a second -- were your grandparents at all still alive at this point?

MC:  It's possible that my mother's mother was still alive in Europe, because I 2:00remember a certain point in my childhood my mother crying because she had just gotten word that her mother had died.  But it had been many years since they had seen each other.  I don't think they saw each other once she left Europe.

MG:  So, were your parents immigrants?

MC:  Yes, they were.

MG:  Are there any stories about their experiences in the Old Country or coming to America or how they got established here in America?

MC:  Well, not that I'm exactly recalling in this moment.  I think my mother -- my father came here and was in the Army in the United States during the First World War.  My mother came in 1921.  She was probably nineteen years old, twenty years old.  And even though they had both come from the same shtetl 3:00[small Eastern European town with a Jewish community] in Poland, they didn't know each other from the Old Country.  They actually met here, in the Arbeter Ring organization that had a little group that came from that town, and they met in that group.  And he was, I think, around twenty years older than she was.  They never spoke much about the Old Country, except that it was a hard life.  I knew that, you know, that life wasn't easy there for them, but they didn't tell many tales of it.

MG:  Do you know the name of the shtetl?

MC:  Łomża.  Łomża Gubernia.

MG:  Okay.  You don't know how to spell that, do you?  (laughs)

MC:  I would spell it L-o-m-z-e-r.  "Gubernia" is -- I think it means "vicinity" or "neighborhood," so what it meant to me was that they didn't live 4:00in Łomża proper.  Because as Jews, you probably were not allowed to live in the town itself; they probably lived in the outskirts.  So, "Łomża Gubernia," I think, means the outskirts of Łomża.

MG:  What did your father or mother do for a living?

MC:  My father was a carpenter.  He belonged to the carpenters' union in New York.  It was quite anti-Semitic at that point, so he was always the last to get called in any kind of hiring.  He was a somewhat bitter man.  He had suffered a lot.  I think he was arrested when he was in Poland and sent to Siberia.  The story was that he escaped Siberia and walked across Europe to go 5:00to America.

MG:  Do you know more about why he was arrested?

MC:  I think that he had some sort of confrontation with a Polish officer in the army.  I don't know whether they were trying to draft him and he didn't want to go, or he was into some sort of socialist beliefs and there was an encounter of some kind.

MG:  So, you said he was sent to a camp in Eastern --

MC:  In Siberia.

MG:  In Siberia.  So, it was probably under the czarist Russian days -- control of Poland.

MC:  Well --

MG:  So, what year did he come to America again?  You --

MC:  He had to have come before he was drafted into the army, which I think was 1916?

MG:  So, it would have been under czarist control.  That's why he was he sent to Siberia, yeah.  So, from there, he escaped, you said?

MC:  Uh-huh.

MG:  From the camp?  And he walked --

MC:  That's the story.

MG:  -- across Russia?  (laughs)

MC:  Maybe he got a lift.  (laughter) But no, he had to get his -- he had to wend his way across the country and, I think, came to the United States after that.

MG:  He came by himself?  He didn't come with other family members or --

MC:  I think that he had a brother that came later.  He had another brother that went to England -- that I never knew.  I was the baby in the family.  The stories that got told were told probably more to my sister, who was the eldest.  And so, I've probably heard them second- or third-hand.

MG:  And does your mother have any -- did she have an interesting story or background there, in terms of migrating to -- immigrating to America, or why she immigrated?

MC:  I just came across her picture on her passport.  She looked haunted.  (laughs) It probably wasn't good -- she was leaving her family, probably to never see them again.  I don't know anything about the trip over.  I don't remember her talking about it at all.  She was a very beautiful woman.  And I'm sure it was not easy.  I'm sure it was not easy for her.

MG:  Let's discuss growing up a little bit, and your household.  So, would you say it was a particularly Jewish home?

MC:  Very.

MG:  How so?  In what ways?

MC:  (laughs) Well, my parents spoke Yiddish.  That was the -- you know, their most exclusive language.  They also spoke some English.  They needed to get 8:00around in the world outside, so they spoke English, and they spoke it with an accent -- with a Yiddish accent -- but they spoke it.  We never spoke Yiddish at home.  We spoke English to my parents, but they spoke Yiddish to us.  So, I was bilingual for as far back as I can remember.

MG:  That was never a problem, in terms of speaking Yiddish in the home and English out --

MC:  Never.

MG:  -- in the street --

MC:  Never.

MG:  -- or in school?  You'd just --

MC:  They were almost the same language to me.  And what I remember is that at a certain point, I think I -- when I was seven years old, they decided to send me to the Workmen's Circle -- the Arbeter Ring --- shule [secular Yiddish school] that was in the neighborhood to learn to read and write Yiddish.  And they were very proud of me, that I had learned to read and write Yiddish.  They 9:00used to call me "the rebbetzin."  It was interesting, because my father was a socialist.  My parents were very anti-religious.  They would not have anything to do with the synagogues in the neighborhood, never attended services of any kind, never prayed at home, and were very contemptuous of those people who were still, as far as they were concerned, in the dark ages.  So, they sent me to a shule that was a socialist shule.  And there was also no reference to religion, no reference to God, no reference to anything that was related to religious thought.

MG:  Did you have a lot of Jewish friends in the neighborhood?

MC:  I did, yeah.

MG:  And did that ever create a problem in terms of the fact that your family 10:00was (laughs) anti-religion, and maybe they were, you know, not?

MC:  There probably were enough people like that in the neighborhood so that we were not outcasts.  But it was noted.  It was noted.  All my friends' parents went to shul on holidays.  I discriminate between "shul" and "shule," because "shul" is the synagogue and "shule" is where I went to learn Yiddish.  My father would get -- take the Jewish holidays off.  He would put on a suit and he would go downstairs and stand in front of the building, broygez [angry], with his arms folded -- angry -- broygez, maybe you know the word -- watching people go to the synagogue.  That was his statement, is that he somehow was observing that it was a Jewish holiday, but he was not attending the synagogue.

MG:  Did you practice -- I mean, did you celebrate, I should say -- in the home certain Jewish holidays that were not related necessarily to the synagogue, but, let's say, maybe for maybe Passover or sort of other holidays?

MC:  The way the holiday was celebrated was through food.  So, if there was a particular food associated with the holiday, we would eat that food.  My mother would bake the -- whatever was --

MG:  Do you remember any specific foods (laughter) associated with particular holidays from that period?

MC:  Well, let's see if I can remember.  We had a sort of funny little seder, you know, where we would eat matzah and I was allowed to have a little bit of wine, but there was no ritual attached to it.  It was just, you know, the hard-boiled egg in salt water, some matzah, some gefilte fish.  For the other 12:00holidays -- you know, maybe for Rosh Hashanah there would be, like, honey cake.  But I just remember that the -- you know, whatever was supposed to be accompanying that holiday around food, we would eat.

MG:  The political atmosphere in your house -- you said your father was a socialist.  So, how was that expressed in the home itself?  In what ways did you pick up on all of that?

MC:  Well, they were very pro-Roosevelt.  We talked a lot about politics in the house.  And I was born right after the Depression, so I never really had the feeling of suffering in any way.  And I don't know that they did suffer much during the Depression.  I think my father had enough work.  But they were 13:00very, very pro-Roosevelt.  He was sort of seen as -- in a very father-like, you know, paternalistic way.  He was gonna make things good.  He was gonna make life better.  His ideas were good.  Politics were discussed in the house.  I remember hearing it all my life.

MG:  Do you remember -- I know it's a long time ago (laughter) -- anything specific about the kinds of things that were said around the table or in the living room?

MC:  (pauses) I can't right in this moment remember anything.  I remember crying because a friend of mine told me that Willkie had won the election.

MG:  That was 1940.

MC:  Yeah.  I remember crying.  And it was -- you know --

MG:  Not true.

MC:  -- it was not true.  So, clearly, as a little child, that was -- it was 14:00important that that not happen.

MG:  Before we talk about your experiences -- I want to talk about your experiences with the Workmen's Circle -- let's go back to your neighborhood.  Can you describe it and what it was like growing up in that neighborhood?  What was it, circa 1940 or so, I guess, when you were growing up?  The atmosphere, the physical element of the neighborhood, and your friends, and so forth?

MC:  Yeah.  We lived, as I said, in a fourth-floor walk-up.  I ran up and down those flights of stairs, as did all the children in the building, as if they were nothing; we were up and down the stairs all day long.  We'd run upstairs to get a piece of bread, run downstairs to play; run upstairs to get a drink of milk, run downstairs to play.  So, we were -- and the building only was five or six stories high.  They were sort of tenements, but not in bad 15:00shape.  They were fine.  You know, I don't remember there being any kind of sense of decay or decrepitude or anything like that.  It was fine.  My friends were -- when I started going to the shule, my friends became some of the other girls in the neighborhood who went to the shule, so they were all Jewish girls -- with the exception of the girl next door, whose father was a janitor.  And they were Czechoslovakian.  She was a Christian girl, and she played with us all through the years that we were growing up.  We were a crowd of friends.  In my class, all the children were either Jewish or Italian.

MG:  This was public school, of course, correct?

MC:  Public school.  I was in a -- I guess it would be called an SP now; it was a rapids class, so the kids that I was actually in school with were very smart.  And they were all, you know, kids of working-class families who -- you know, whose parents were very aspirational about what their children would become in this country.  And we were mostly Jewish and Italian kids.  There was a few Irish kids in the class, but basically, the Irish kids in the neighborhood -- who we played with -- went to the Catholic school.  And I remember if we were out in the street playing and nuns would come by, the girls would all curtsy to the nuns and say, you know, Good afternoon, Sister.  So, I 17:00did that, you know, because my friends were doing that.  And my mother took me aside and said to me, "Don't ever do that again.  Don't curtsy to the nuns."

MG:  Did she explain?

MC:  She might have.  I don't remember the explanation.  I just remember that I was a little mortified that I had done something that was not pleasing to her.  She didn't yell at me -- you know, she just told me not to do it again.  So, they were equally hostile to all religions.  (laughs) I remember whenever certain holidays came around, the Irish kids would chase the Jewish kids around the neighborhood, yelling that we had killed their Lord -- and sort of hitting 18:00us.  But we were friends, so it was like a mimicry of a pogrom.  (laughs) It was like, somehow they were told the Jews had killed their Lord, and we were Jewish, so they had to do something about it, but it never really amounted to anything really hostile.

MG:  Did it upset you that they were saying these things?

MC:  I think we would laugh at them.  I didn't kill your Lord.  (laughs) I don't even know who your Lord is.  (laughs) You know?  It would be that kind of banter.  Otherwise, I don't remember feeling any discrimination in the neighborhood.  I don't remember ever feeling that we were looked down upon or in any way lesser.

MG:  Now you were growing up -- well, you were a young girl during World War II.

MC:  Um-hm.

MG:  Can you tell us a little bit about what you remember about that time period, in terms of living in New York and what you heard about the war or any 19:00other things that were going on during that period?

MC:  Well, all our brothers were being drafted.  My brother managed to get enough of -- I forgot what the term is -- he didn't get called out --

MG:  Deferment?

MC:  Deferments.  He was getting deferments because he was in college.  He finally was drafted into the Navy and served for the final few years of the war -- even went to Japan, I think, after the bomb was dropped -- was an MP in Japan.  My neighbor upstairs was drafted into the Air Force and was killed.  I remember that as being a very horrible understanding of war, you know, that Clifford had been killed.  But they would come home on leave.  They would be 20:00in their uniforms.  They were handsome.  There was a lot of patriotism around the war.  There was --

MG:  You hear a lot of stories about the home front and children collecting (UNCLEAR).

MC:  Yeah.

MG:  Can you tell us anything about that?

MC:  Yeah.  We would collect rubber bands and make a big ball out of the rubber bands.  I don't know why, they needed rubber of some kind.  We collected -- (pauses) -- there was rationing.  There was a lot of rationing.  We'd have to go downstairs shopping with these little booklets, and you would get stamps in the booklets for when you had used up your quota of what you could buy.  (pauses) You know, I don't remember that we suffered much.  There was -- 21:00the older girls would complain about silk stockings not being available.  And that was when all these new kind of stockings came into being, (laughs) you know, that we, to this day, still use.  But before then, there were silk stockings that women wore.  But I do remember that there was a lot of pride and patriotism about the war.  The war was considered to be a good thing.  We had to fight it.

MG:  Was your family at all aware at the time of what was happening to the Jews in Europe?

MC:  Not that I heard.  Not that I heard.  And I was already in shule, so that would certainly have been a place that we would have heard about Jews being in trouble in Europe, and we didn't hear anything about it.  By the time I was 22:00in mitlshul [high school], the war was over and the story was, you know, known, and there was a tremendous amount of attention given to the Holocaust, and a lot of music around it, and a lot of stories told about it.  But as a young child, I don't remember hearing anything -- or even hearing them talk about anything to each other.  So, I have no idea whether my mother's mother died in a camp. 

MG:  But she was in Europe at that time?

MC:  Yeah.  Yeah.  (pauses)

MG:  Well, we can move on.  I'd like to talk about your experiences in the 23:00mitlshul and your memories of that, and the Workmen's Circle school.  Can you share some of that with us?  I know it was very important to you.

MC:  Very.  My mother died when I was twelve.  And I think I started mitlshul -- I think I must have been, like, thirteen.

MG:  This was just after the war, then -- somewhat after the war?

MC:  So, that would have been -- if I was thirteen, then it would have been '45.  So yeah, it was just around.  I would go down every Saturday and Sunday for nearly a whole day each day to Washington Irving High School in Manhattan, and the mitlshul occupied one whole floor of Washington Irving High School.  24:00It's hard to remember how many kids were there, but I would -- I want to say thirty or forty kids were down there.  Our teachers -- this was a very formative period in my life.  I didn't know it at the time, because as a child, you don't have a sense of the value, the quality of the people that you're meeting, the quality of your teachers even, you know?  But at the point that I'm at now in my life, and I see the arc of my life, I understand how powerfully influential that period of time was to me, and these people.  They were Yiddish intellectuals, and I think many of them were famous and great, so we were in the 25:00presence of giants -- who were teaching these bratty kids, you know, who wanted to run outside and go to the automat and (laughs) --

MG:  Do you remember any specific teachers?

MC:  There was somebody by the name of Singer -- Khaver [Comrade] Singer, we called him.  A woman -- a woman teacher -- she was very unusual.  First of all, she was a working woman, and most women were housewives that I knew -- stayed home.  Her name was Opatoshu.  I think she had a son who was in the theater industry, I think David Opatoshu.

MG:  David.  Very famous.

MC:  Yeah, I think he was her son.  She had short hair.  She smoked.  She had an altogether different quality about her than the women like my mother had.  And she was brilliant.  And she was an intellectual.  And she hung out with all these guys who were intellectuals.

MG:  Did that impress you?

MC:  Very, very much.  Very much.  She was powerful.  Mikhl Gelbart, who was 26:00the music teacher, was, you know -- was a great man, wild man.

MG:  You say wild man -- why that description?

MC:  He had long, white hair, and he was writing songs and teaching kids songs and very energetic about it, and very impassioned about music and wanted us to be -- you know, to understand what we were singing about and to deliver.  So, he was -- there was a lot of theater in his presence.  Mr. Bernstein.  I just know them by their last names.

MG:  What did he teach?  Do you remember?

MC:  Well, what did we learn?  We studied literature.  We read a lot of literature in Yiddish -- you know, Mendele Moykher-Sforim, Sholem Aleichem.

MG:  Do you remember any -- I know it's a long time ago -- any specific stories or -- that stood out for you from that time?

MC:  I don't remember the stories.  What I remember is how much I fell in love with the language as a result of the literature.  Because I always loved the language.  You know, it's mame-loshn [mother tongue].  But basically, what I loved when I was reading the great writers was that the language was so plump and so sensual and so expressive and so full of feeling, you know?  And I got to see the scope of it.  I got to hear what they could say, you know?  And it 28:00was delicious to me.  I could not believe what I was reading.  So, it was very influential to me.  Very.  We studied history, mostly socialist communities and utopian communities.

MG:  In the United States?

MC:  In the United States -- I remember Robert Owen.

MG:  That was Europe -- in Europe.  Yeah.  But yeah, it's -- right, utopian socialist philosopher.

MC:  And all this was in Yiddish.  This is what was so great about it, is that I was learning whatever we were learning totally in Yiddish.  I was totally immersed in every aspect of Yiddish, whether it was music, socialism -- they were very hot on socialism.  And because I came from a socialist house, it was 29:00very synchronous with my beliefs.  And these people were wonderful people.  So somehow, it became the core of my being.  It became what I believed about humanity, what I felt was right, what my politics became about, what my profession became about.  It was very, very formative.

MG:  You mentioned the music and your music teacher.  Do you remember any of the songs or music from that time period?

MC:  Yeah.  All of them.  (laughs)

MG:  Can you share a little bit with us?  Whatever you'd like to do.  (laughs)

MC:  Well, I can sing a Hanukkah song, since it's timely.

MG:  Sure.

MC:  (singing) "Khanike, o khanike,/a yontef a sheyne,/a lustiker a 30:00freylekher,/nito nokh azeyner,/ale nakht in dreydlekh shpiln mir,/zise heyse latkes, esn on a shir./Geshvinder, tsindt kinder,/di khanike likhtelekh on,/zol yeder bazunder, bazingen dem vunder,/un tantsn freylekh in kon./Zol yeder bazunder, bazingen dem vunder,/un tantsn freylekh in kon. [Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah,/a beautiful holiday,/a cheerful one, a happy one,/there is no other like it,/every night we play with dreydels,/we eat sweet, hot latkes endlessly./Come quickly, children,/to light the Hanukkah candles./May everyone separately celebrate the wonder/and dance joyfully in a circle./May everyone separately celebrate the wonder/and dance joyfully in a circle.]"

MG:  That's wonderful.  (laughter) Do you know more songs?  (laughter) This is wonderful.  I'd love to hear, if you have any other memories.

MC:  Well, I have the songs that were part of the Passover seder.

MG:  And this is in Yiddish?

MC:  In Yiddish.

MG:  I'd like to hear.

MC:  The whole seder was in Yiddish.

MG:  This was the seder you held at your family's house?

MC:  No, this was the Arbeter Ring seder that they held in the Waldorf Astoria.

MG:  Can you tell us about that?

MC:  Oh my God, this was the event of the year.  (laughs) They rented a ballroom in the Waldorf Astoria.  We practiced for weeks beforehand, from the -- our hagode [book of readings for the Passover seder], which was not the Hebrew hagode --

MG:  This seder was just for the one shule, or a variety of shules?

MC:  Well, what I remember is that we were the only performers, so it must have been the mitlshul had put on the seder.  And it may be that people came to the seder who were, you know, involved with the Workmen's Circle, who were involved 32:00with the shules all over the city.  It must have been a public event for people to attend.  You probably had to buy a seat, have the meal and everything like that.  But we were the performers.  And the seder had certain similarities to the hagode that most people use.  There were a few songs that were similar.  The Four Questions were in there.  There were certain form things that were in there that they retained, but there was no reference to any religious stuff in the seder.  Furthermore, they added other events out of Jewish history to the seder readings.  So, there were scenes from the Marronim in Spain -- a song or 33:00a recitation, I can't remember.  There was something from the Warsaw Ghetto.  There was something from -- I can't remember it right now, but there were scenes of various moments in Yiddish history in which the Jews were persecuted, and a lot of music that Mikhl Gelbart wrote to all those events.  So, there's a lot of great music (laughs) in this seder.  And we would get up and do the recitations.  And the entire audience, including all the other children in the mitlshul, would do the choral recitations, and then we would do all the singing.  And it was a very beautiful event.  I've never been able to sit 34:00through another seder since that one that pleased me as much as that did.  First of all, I understood every word of what was being said -- and it was not in Hebrew, which was not understandable to me.  It was about events that touched me.  And the whole ceremony made sense to me.  When Israel became a state, some of the parents of the children that were going to the shule wanted their children to learn Hebrew, and there was a big uproar at the shule about whether or not to teach Hebrew.  Because Hebrew was the language of religion, and it was considered to be sort of the ignorant part of Judaism.  So, I had to 35:00sit through Hebrew classes with teachers that hated teaching Hebrew and hated that Israel had become a state, because they didn't believe in nationalism.  Nationalism was one of the ills of the world, and they saw this only as more trouble.  They were right.  (laughs)

MG:  So, this is -- I'm just curious about this -- this is right after the Holocaust, and some of these teachers who were anti-nationalists -- even after all of this anti-Semitism, they still felt that setting up a Jewish state was not the answer.

MC:  Right.

MG:  Yeah.

MC:  Right.

MG:  Can we go back to that -- I love that -- the story of the seder.  I think that's great.  You said you performed there.  Do you remember any of the songs or performance (UNCLEAR)?

MC:  Well, I have -- I brought the seder book with me.  I could, if you would 36:00like, record all the songs from the seder for you at home and mail it to you so that you can have it as part of your --

MG:  You don't remember anything, though, right now, or a little snippet or -- perhaps, of some sort.

MC:  Sure.  I'll sing "The Partisan Song" from the Warsaw Ghetto.

MG:  This was part of the seder, though, you're saying?  It was done --

MC:  Um-hm.

MG:  -- during the seder?

MC:  Everybody would stand when this song was played -- sung.  It makes me cry just to think of it.  I'll try to do this without weeping.  (laughs)

MG:  Okay.  Well, we have some tissues over here for you.

MC:  Oh, thank you.  (laughter) (singing) "Zog nisht keyn mol, az du geyst dem letstn veg,/ven himlen blayene farshteln bloye teg./Vayl kumen vet nokh undzer oysgebenkte sho,/s'vet a poyk ton undzer trot: 'Mir zaynen do!'/Vayl kumen vet nokh undzer oysgebenkte sho,/s'vet a poyk ton undzer trot: mir zaynen do!/Fun 37:00grinem palmenland biz vaysn land fun shney,/mir zaynen do mit undzer payn, mit undzer vey,/un vu gefaln s'iz a shprots fun undzer blut,/shprotsn vet dort undzer gvure, undzer mut!/Un vu gefaln s'iz a shprots fun undzer blut,/shprotsn vet dort undzer gvure, undzer mut!/Derfar zog keyn mol, az du geyst dem letstn veg,/vin himlen blayene farshteln bloye teg./Vayl kumen vet nokh undzer oysgebenkte sho,/s'vet a poyk ton undzer trot: mir zaynen do! [Never say that 38:00you have reached the final road,/when the skies filled with lead cover blue days./Because our promised hour will soon come,/our marching steps ring out: 'We are here!'/Because our promised hour will soon come,/our marching steps ring out: 'We are here!'/From green lands of palm to lands with white snow,/we are here with our pain and our woes,/and from where a spurt of our blood falls,/will sprout our strength and our courage!/and from where a spurt of our blood falls,/will sprout our strength and our courage!/So never say that you have reached the final road,/although the skies filled with lead cover blue days./Because our promised hour will soon come,/our marching steps ring out: 'We are here'!]"

MG:  That's a wonderful song.  That's beautiful.  You had mentioned that you had gone to a summer camp, I believe, (UNCLEAR) --

MC:  Kinder Ring, a velt a naye [a new world].

MG:  Tell us about that.

MC:  Another song.  (laughter) I think it was also a Mikhl Gelbart song.  So, we go to this camp -- I think I started, again, when I was around thirteen.  It's a wonderful camp -- all Jewish children.

MG:  Where was it located?

MC:  In Dutchess County in New York State.  I forgot the town.  It still exists.  At the time, they would have the camp on one side of the property, and 39:00on the other side of the property they would have the guest side.  So, it was sort of like a resort for people who wanted to go to a Jewish place.  But once again, the food was not kosher; there was no praying; there was no synagogues; there was no --

MG:  Were you there for the whole summer or just for a couple of weeks or --

MC:  Well, when I first started to go as a camper, I just went for a month, and then by the time I was sixteen I was a CIT, and I think I worked there for a few years as a CIT -- a counselor -- maybe three years I worked as a counselor.  So, I was there for a lot of years.  I made some very close friends there.  There was a very wonderful community of people that were very -- that fell in love with each other.  We were adolescents.  We fell in love with each other.  We had romances.  We saw each other all year long when camp was not in 40:00session, even though they lived all over the state.  And we had a color war in which we had to write Yiddish songs.  (laughs)

MG:  Yiddish color war songs.

MC:  That's right.  Those I don't remember, but I wrote them.  (laughs) I wrote them, and I taught the other kids, many of whom were not Yiddish-speaking -- even though they came from Jewish homes -- or Yiddish-reading and -writing.  So, we had to transliterate it, I guess, for them to --

MG:  Now did this camp have a political orientation as well?

MC:  Yeah.  It was Workmen's Circle, so basically, it was -- they didn't ram it down your throat.  You were a kid away for a vacation, and so you -- you know, you did kid things.  You played ball and you sang and you had campfires and -- it was a wonderful place.

MG:  You mentioned your love of Yiddish literature when you were growing up.  What about Yiddish theater?  Did you see any of that?

MC:  Oh, sure.

MG:  Can you tell us about that?

MC:  Well, what do I remember?  I remember going down to Second Avenue -- I think there was a theater down on Second Avenue then.  We would see -- I don't remember any -- or maybe Molly Picon, I remember I saw her.  I don't remember who the other actors were, although if I heard their names, I might recognize them.  I just don't recall.

MG:  Do you remember some of the plays that you (UNCLEAR)?

MC:  I don't remember.  I don't remember.  I remember enjoying it.  I remember we even did our own shows -- we did shows, as well -- we did theater.  But I don't remember any of the stuff that we did.

MG:  Were you seeing mostly comedies, musicals, dramas, or all of those things?  (laughs) Or --

MC:  Well, I think probably we saw things that were more comedy, although I have a vague memory of seeing Shakespeare in Yiddish.  That really sort of blew me away.  (laughter) (pauses) Not much memory in particular about that, but we did it.

MG:  Were there any other facets as you were growing up of Yiddish-Jewish culture that you'd like to share -- during this time period?

MC:  Well, I have a great love and fondness for Jewish food.

MG:  Was this mostly something that was developed from the family?  Or --

MC:  That was mostly familial, yeah.  And, you know, I remember my mother would make fresh gefilte fish every week.  And she would buy the fish live, and it would swim in our bathtub until she killed it and gutted it and did whatever you do with it, ground it.  (laughs) It was all happening while I slept.  (laughs) And she would -- this is another example of her doing something that was in the tradition of the religion, but had no religious qualities to it: she would cook on Friday, all day Friday.  She'd make the gefilte fish, she'd make chicken, she'd make chicken soup, she'd do the whole thing, so that she didn't 44:00have to cook on Saturday.  But it had more to do with her being able to have a day off than that she wasn't allowed to cook on Saturday.

MG:  Besides gefilte fish, were there any other particular foods that you --

MC:  Oh, kugel -- lokshn [noodle] kugel, potato kugel.  Potato latkes.  (pauses) Tsimes [sweet dish with vegetables and/or meat].

MG:  Are there -- I'm getting hungry listening to this.  (laughter) We're gonna move on, but before we do that, I just want to -- are there any other kinds of memories from the Workmen's Circle days, the school days, that you might want to share?  I know we talked about music and classes and --

MC:  I have one memory of when I was -- before I was in mitlshul, when I was in 45:00the regular shule, which is, like, five blocks away from my house, and he used to teach -- the teacher would teach several different classes at different levels of ability.  And our class, I think, was one of the higher levels of ability, so we were -- or maybe the younger ones -- so we were earlier.  And we finished our class and we left, walked down the stairs.  And when we got out into the street, we saw the headlines on the newspapers saying that Roosevelt had died.  So, we ran up the stairs of the shule and burst into the room and said, Roosevelt iz toyt [is dead]!  Roosevelt iz toyt!  And my teacher grabbed his heart.  I mean, we nearly killed him (laughs) with this news.  He grabbed 46:00his heart, sat down.  You know?  I'll never forget that.  That was a child's thing to do, but harshly done, you know?  But then I remember it in Yiddish.  (laughs)

MG:  You remember it in Yiddish?

MC:  "Roosevelt iz toyt!"

MG:  Oh.  And I hope your teacher recovered.

MC:  (laughs) I'm sure he recovered.

MG:  Yeah, the shock of it.  Yeah.

MC:  Jurkevic.  Mr. Jurkevic.  "Mr. Jurkevic, Roosevelt iz toyt!"

MG:  When you were a teenager in the late '40s, you go to mitlshul, and you have this socialist orientation to life.  And this is the period in American history where we're getting the beginnings of what --

MC:  McCarthy.

MG:  -- was McCarthyism.  How did that affect you when you had a belief system that seems to be out of sync, at least, with what the national mood is?

MC:  It was very frightening.  You know, we were frightened.  And I think that I may even have known some people who were blacklisted.  Because there was a world of people -- I mean, we were not very active politically, but our belief system was socialist.  But there were people who were -- called themselves communists.  There was a Communist Party on the ballot at that time.  You went in to vote, there was a place there that you could vote communist.  So, people would call themselves communists.  On the street corner in my neighborhood, there were people who would get up on soap boxes and talk about communism.  So, when this thing started to come around, it felt very -- like it could hit very close to home, you know, that there were people who were endangered.  And it 48:00was frightening.

MG:  Did it intimidate you at all?  Did it shake your beliefs? 

MC:  It didn't shake my beliefs.  I would say it probably was intimidating.  I think that the world that I traveled in were all people that felt as I did, so I didn't feel alone in the world.  I mean, it was New York City.  I was going to City College at that point, so everybody at City College was like, McCarthy (laughs) -- you know, bad man.  There were some teachers that lost their jobs there.  I remember, it was quite scary.

MG:  When the -- I'm asking these historical questions -- when the Rosenberg case came up at this time, in the early -- well, 1950, actually -- I'm just 49:00curious, 'cause New York City -- I'm just curious what your reaction was --

MC:  It was heartbreaking.

MG:  -- within your circle?

MC:  It was heartbreaking.  It was heartbreaking.

MG:  What did you assume or your friends assume was going on at this point in terms of the Rosenbergs?

MC:  It felt like they needed to have a visible scapegoat.  That's what it felt like to everybody.  They needed to have somebody that they -- that went down for the sin of being a communist.  And what was terrible was that they had children, and I think their children were close in age to me, so it was -- it was horrible.  It was a horrible story.  At the time, I think we probably felt that they were framed.  I don't know that I subsequently believed that -- you know, that there was something going on that was not great in that story.

MG:  As a Jew -- and they were --

MC:  Yeah, yeah.

MG: -- Jewish, of course --

MC:  Yeah, yeah.

MG:  -- did you feel that somehow --

MC:  Absolutely.

MG:  What were your assumptions there?

MC:  That it was anti-Semitic.  That it was a way of, you know, addressing a group -- an ethnic group in the United States that for the most part was liberal.  It's no longer so, but for the most part, at that time, they were liberal.  And so, they were sort of warning you off that position.  It was a horrible story.

MG:  Do you recall any other -- well, I know the Rosenberg case is infamous -- any others from that late '40s, early 1950s period that came home to you in the New York City area?

MC:  (pauses) Nothing comes to mind immediately.  But those were two important 51:00-- I was in college at that point; I remember the McCarthy stuff being talked about a lot in the cafeteria.  It was --

MG:  We're gonna move on, obviously, to your adult life, but before we do that, I just wanted (laughter) to ask you -- maybe it's kind of obvious already, but you can just tell us, looking back on your childhood, what values or practices do you think your parents were trying to pass on to you?  What were the most important values, I should say?

MC:  That it was important to be a mensch in the world.  And by that, they meant that you were decent, that you cared about other human beings, that you identified with human suffering, and cared about doing something about it.  Even though they were not activists in any way, they believed that.  They believed that.  And I -- you know, coming through the Holocaust and all that 52:00stuff sort of reinforced what it meant to be indifferent to human suffering.  And that a whole group of people that were kindred spirits to me were -- I mean, not just those people -- plenty of people were killed, but just that so many people that were kindred to me were killed, and that nobody lifted a finger, really, to do anything for them, was -- it was unthinkable.  It was unthinkable.  So, it forged me politically, there's no question about it.

MG:  So, so far, we've been talking most about your early life, okay, so let's make a little transition here.  Can you just -- and we'll fast-forward -- and can you give us a little -- sort of a snapshot of your adult life, your career, family?  And then, we'll go into some more specific questions from there.

MC:  Well, when I was in my early twenties, I married somebody who was not 53:00Jewish, but who came from an anarchist Italian family, so we were sort of the same religion.  And we were married for twenty-some-odd years.  We had a daughter, Amy.  And that's why my name is Italian -- I don't know if you noticed my name was Italian.  We got divorced when I was around forty-five.  We were living in Manhattan.  He had been an electrical engineer and then became a psychologist.  And I started to work as a psychologist.  I had gotten my master's degree -- and at that time, you could just go right into working in 54:00psychology; it's no longer true now.  But I started working and have worked for fifty years as a therapist.  And I continue to do that.  (pauses) I met Jody, who was a son of a friend, and we've been together for twenty -- thirty years.

MG:  So, you went to -- what school did you go to -- college?

MC:  City College.

MG:  City College.

MC:  Yeah.

MG:  And you did graduate work there, as well?

MC:  I did my master's there as well, yes.

MG:  Let's talk about your adult life a little bit, and some of the experiences of that that might have shaped or influenced -- either events or people -- your identity, perhaps, as a Jew.  We talked a little bit about sort of the McCarthy 55:00era and how that might have shaped it.  Are there any other kinds of -- going through, like, let's say, the '50s or the '60s, particularly, that you can remember or shaped your identity -- influenced it in some way?

MC:  Well, I would say that it worked in the other direction: that my identity as a Jew and the things I came to believe in were good for the human soul attracted me to the hippie movement, to all the ideas that were being experimented with and enjoyed during the '60s and '70s.  I found it so attractive and became very engaged with it and by it.

MG:  When you say you became engaged, what does that mean?

MC:  Well, I hung out with a lot of people who were very edgy at that point.  You know, we were interested in the edgy ideas in psychology, we were interested in acid -- I took acid, we experimented with marijuana, we experimented with mescaline.  (laughs)

MG:  Did you see any part of that kind of, you know, attraction to that alternative lifestyle stemming at all from your Jewish experience or Jewish values at all?

MC:  In the sense that it was not closed down and rigid -- that it was an open, voluptuous relationship to life.  And that felt so Jewish to me.  (laughs) You 57:00know, that felt to me like it had everything to do with the kind of Jewish upbringing that I had.  Not all Jewish upbringings are like that, but that I had -- were, you know, that you're open, you accept new ideas, you're interested in new ideas, you give 'em a chance.  You know, you don't stay locked in the past.

MG:  You were attracted to these cultural movements during this time period.  Were you attracted to the -- some of the political aspects of this same era?

MC:  Oh, sure.  Sure.  You know, all the stuff that was going on around civil rights.

MG:  Is there anything specific that you can relate?

MC:  (sighs) I went on a million marches.  I don't remember in particular which ones I went, but I was down in Washington a lot on those wonderful marches.

MG:  You're talking about civil rights now?

MC:  Civil rights marches and -- mostly they were civil rights marches.  (pauses)

MG:  Vietnam War?

MC:  Vietnam War marches.  How could I forget that?  (laughs) It's a senior moment.  Yeah.  Those were the kinds of things I became engaged in.  And I loved the music of that period.  You know, I, to this day, still love that music.

MG:  How has your relationship with Yiddish evolved over your lifetime?

MC:  Well, because I drifted away from people who were Yiddish-speaking -- I mean, I would say that a good number of the people that I know and that I 59:00socialized with through the years were Jewish, but most of them were very assimilated and did not have much contact with the Yiddish language, except for little phrases here and there.  My parents are no longer alive.  I didn't really know anybody who spoke Yiddish anymore.  So, it went into a kind of dormancy -- the actual language.  I would, from time to time, when the "Forverts" was still publishing in Yiddish, I would, you know, check the headlines and read some of the columns in it.  I even was -- subscribed to "The Forward" when it became an English newspaper, because it spoke about Jewish stuff.  But I didn't really have any kindred spirit at all to speak Yiddish with, so my Yiddish fell away, hard.  I've forgotten a lot.  And even when I 60:00try to read it -- it was once completely fluent to me to read; it was like English.  And at this point, you know, I can strain.  So -- but I heard this guy on WAMC talking to Alan Chartock (laughs) about this Center -- I guess it was, uh, Adam?

MG:  Aaron Lansky.

MC:  Aaron.

MG:  Yeah.

MC:  And it just lit a fire in me.  I thought, I have to get connected here.

MG:  What does Yiddish mean to you today?  I know you don't speak it fluently anymore, but where do you see it going?  What does it mean to you personally?

MC:  Well, all of the things that I've been saying to you -- that it feels as though it's -- what I loved about Yiddish was that embedded in the language was 61:00everything that was wonderful about being Jewish.  It was in the language.  It was in the sound of the language.  It had a kind of softness to it; it had a kind of an indulgence to it; it had a lusciousness to it.  It was fun, you know?  Everything was built into the language that I love about Yiddishkayt.  And all those things, I've taken with me.  I mean, the language may not have come along, but all those qualities feel like they are great values of mine.  I went on YouTube to listen to some Yiddish music about a year ago -- just es hot mir arayngegust [it filled me up] to hear it.  And there were these young kids who were singing in Yiddish.  And it wasn't right -- they were singing 62:00German.  It was Germanic.

MG:  It was Yiddish, but it was in a Germanic tone, or?

MC:  Pronunciation.

MG:  Pronunciation.

MC:  And it was -- I was horrified.  (laughs) I was horrified by what had been done to this language.  So, when I heard somebody's around who's trying to preserve the sound of this language, I wanted to be part of it, I wanted to participate in it.  Because it felt like it transformed all these wonderful Yiddish songs that I loved (laughs) into something altogether different.

MG:  We're getting close to the end of our time.  Are there any other topics that you would like to touch upon?  I have a few more questions, but I want to ask that question first.  Things that you'd like to talk about, people you knew, perhaps?  You had mentioned earlier -- I know you mentioned memorable 63:00teachers; are there any other intellectuals or artists or writers or anyone else?  Or any other stories?

MC:  (pauses) I enjoy all things Yiddish -- you know, Yiddish comedy and all the comics that are Yiddish.  It makes complete sense to me that comics are Yiddish.  I have tried to teach my grandsons some Yiddish, and they're very good-natured and fun-loving about it, so it's nice.

MG:  How old are they?

MC:  One is nineteen and the other is fifteen.

MG:  Oh, so they're old enough to -- to (laughter) -- to pick up on it.

MC:  (laughs) And they work those sounds.  They're not familiar with the sound of it, but they work it.

MG:  So, what do you try to teach them?  I mean, some phrases?  Some --

MC:  I was trying to teach them "Zolst nor vaksn vi a tsibele mitn kop in 64:00dr'erd arunter un di fis arop."  And they --

MG:  And that, translated for our audience (laughter) -- well, we could have subtitles, but it means?

MC:  "May you grow like an onion, with your head in the ground and your feet in the air."

MG:  That's not a very nice thing to say, is it?

MC:  Well, Jewish cursing is very amusing.  When you curse somebody in Yiddish, it's funnier than any -- I mean, other languages, I'm sure, have their wonderful phrases as well, but when you grow up around all the cursing that goes on in Yiddish, in a Yiddish household, it's better than anything (laughs) --

MG:  Do you have any other things that you'd like to share?  (laughter) I mean, "Vaks vi a tsibele" is a very famous one, I know, but --

MC:  Okay.  Oh, the curses, you mean?

MG:  Yeah, sure.  Why not?

MC:  "A khalerye zolst khapn."

MG:  And that?

MC:  Is, "May you get cholera."  (laughs) (pauses) When somebody was fat, you 65:00would say, "Zi iz a ferd" -- which is, "You're a horse."  (pauses) "Hak mir nisht kayn tshaynik" -- which, I think, translated is, "Don't bang on a tea kettle."

MG:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  (laughs) That's great. 

MC:  Which --

MG:  Do you have -- getting away from the -- I don't want to keep you (laughter) on the Yiddish curses -- do you have any favorite Yiddish expression or word, I guess, that particularly is important to you?  I mean, it's tough sometimes to answer, but -- you know, a favorite phrase or a song or a word or --

MC:  I can't think of anything.  Although I did give myself a handle on Facebook, "bobe [grandmother]."  (laughter) I can't really think of anything 66:00that -- in particular.

MG:  All right.  Finally, what kind of advice -- or let's put it this way -- what would you think is important to transmit to future generations about Jewish identity?  What do you see as important to sort of pass on to future generations?

MC:  Well, I'm very organized on the not-religious aspects of it.  So, I would be more inclined to encourage people to hear the lusciousness, the generosity, the freedom, the good-heartedness, the fun.  It feels very -- you know, maybe 67:00because I felt loved in that language, it feels very loving to me, whereas a language that sounds very similar to it, which is German, doesn't feel like love to me.  But so, I would say that if you are studying this language, surround yourself with those vibes, because that's gonna help you to speak this tongue and know the wonderfulness of this tongue.

MG:  And any other advice that you might have for future generations?

MC:  In general?

MG:  In general, or beyond the love of Yiddish?

MC:  (pauses) That's a big one.

MG:  Well (laughs) --

MC:  To challenge fear -- that fear is a dark element in life.  And it's not to be trusted, mostly.  (laughs) I mean, once in a while it's to be trusted, but mostly, in our lives, fear is conjured for no reason.

MG:  Does your son --

MC:  My daughter.

MG:  Daughter -- I'm sorry, you have two grandsons, right?

MC:  Right.

MG:  Your daughter and two grandsons -- do they identify as Jews?  And in any specific way?

MC:  They don't.  Although my grandson was writing on Facebook that he was 69:00Jewish.  I was surprised when he did that.  And one of his friends started calling him "Jewnah;" his name is Jonah.

MG:  (UNCLEAR).

MC:  And it felt anti-Semitic.  So, I understood why their tendency was to lay low.  If you're not living in an urban area where there are a lot of other Jews -- if you're living in a -- you know, where we are, up in the country, there are not a lot of Jews, (laughs) and there's anti-Semitism.  So, I understand that it's not something that gets advertised much.

MG:  So, even today --

MC:  Yeah, even today.

MG:  -- yeah.

MC:  Right.

MG:  Okay.  Well, I don't know -- before we conclude, any other things you'd like to share?  Or talk about?

MC:  No, this was lovely.

MG:  This was great.  I really enjoyed myself.

MC:  Yeah.  Thank you very much.

MG:  This was a wonderful conversation, and I really got a -- learned a lot, particularly about your life experiences in the Arbeter Ring.  And it was just 70:00very enlightening and enjoyable.  So, I think we're done.

[END OF INTERVIEW]