DAVID SLUCKI ORAL HISTORY

JESSICA PARKER: This is Jessica Parker, and today is December 16th, 2012. I am here at the AJS Conference -- the Association for Jewish Studies Conference -- in Chicago, Illinois with David Slucki (pronounces with short "U") -- Slucki (pronounces with long "U") --

DAVID SLUCKI: (laughs)

JP:-- and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. David, do I have your permission to record this interview?

DS:Yes, you do.

JP:Thank you. So, last name mistake aside --

DS:(laughs) That's okay. I get it all the time. (laughs)

JP:-- can you tell me briefly what you know about your family background? And --

DS:Yes.

JP:-- maybe there's a story about the (laughs) last name in there?

DS:Well, the name is still -- the name was originally Slutski, from the town of 1:00Slutsk in now-Belarus. Beyond about my great-grandfather, we don't know anything on that side. So, they're from Warsaw, that side of the family. Basically, my grandparents were all Polish Jews. And so, we're not sure where Slutsk came -- Slutski came from. But yeah, that -- so my paternal grandfather was born in Warsaw in 1901. His father was born -- and I've actually just seen his headstone in the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery, which was amazing -- and it was sort of buried in the back corner and one of the guards took me through. And so, they're from Warsaw, going back at least to the, I guess, 1860s or '70s, but before that, we're not quite sure. So yeah, in terms of the name, that's (laughs) the best I 2:00can offer. Would you like me to -- should I talk about all the sides and --JP:Sure, sure.

DS:Okay. Okay. So, my paternal grandfather was born in Warsaw in 1901. His father died in 1916, when he was a teenager. And it was a -- they were a religious family. And by the time the Russian Revolution came, my grandfather was already a -- well, a socialist. So, he -- during the Russian-Polish War, he joined the Polish Army and tried to defect, but the war (laughs) -- the war ended before he made it to the Soviet side. So, during the sort of famine years, he moved to a town -- I think it's about a hundred kilometers outside Warsaw -- called Włocławek, where he lived until the outbreak of the war, and escaped Włocławek when the Germans invaded for -- Russia and ended up in Siberia. He 3:00lost his wife and two sons in the war -- I think either at Chełmno or Treblinka, but it's not clear. So, his wife, who he married after the war -- my grandmother -- was born in a town in Galicia, Stary Sącz, which is near Tarnów, and quite a small -- I guess a shtetl [small Eastern European town with a Jewish community] in that sense. She was one of three sisters. They also escaped when the Germans invaded. She was sixteen when the war broke out, and her father dragged her -- literally dragged her by her pigtails and -- she wanted to stay in Poland, and he said, "No, we're going together." She was the eldest of her three sisters. And they made it across to the Soviet side. And then, they -- and this is how she met my grandfather, they ended up in a 4:00settlement in the far east of Siberia called [Minor?], which was near Yakutsk. And then, they married on the way back (laughs) -- when the war finished, they married on the way back. He was twenty-one years older than my grandmother. And so, I'm not sure if my great-grandfather approved. (laughs) And on my mother's side, my mum's dad was born in Warsaw. He was raised in a Bundist family; his father was a union -- head of the leather workers' union. And they, again, also escaped when the Russians came -- when the -- sorry, when the Germans came -- escaped to the Russian side. And he was actually a communist by then, so they took the Soviet citizenship oath, and he traveled around Russia looking for work. And then, his wife, my grandmother, was born in a town called Biała 5:00Podlaska and then was raised in Warsaw. So, we have very strong connections to Warsaw. For me, going back there this time around, it was very kind of emotional. Yeah. So, that's -- well, that's the grandparental history. (laughs)

JP:You clearly know a lot about that family history. Where --

DS:Yes.

JP:-- did that level of knowledge come from?

DS:Just from my grandmothers telling me stories, basically. I mean, my grand-- my dad's dad died in 1978, before I was born. I mean, he was already seventy-seven when he died -- then, and he was quite sick, I think, throughout the last part of his life. So, my grandmother, you know, was a fountain of information. She talked a lot about it. She told us all the stories of the labor camp in Siberia and -- and she was an extraordinary -- she passed away a few 6:00years ago, but she was an extraordinary woman and extremely resourceful, and really, in so many ways, was responsible for her family surviving, as well, because of her resourcefulness. And --

JP:Do you have any specific stories about that?

DS:Yeah. I mean, one thing about my grandparents that I always knew growing up is that -- my grandfather was an accountant, so he was a professional sort of white-collar worker, and my grandmother was the blue-collar worker. She was the one who -- in Siberia, she learned to work as a projectionist in the cinema in the settlements, as a sixteen-year-old. She learned Russian against her father's wishes so she could sort of take on that job. And that meant she worked indoors, which was really crucial. And because of her knowledge of Russian, she could also sort of haggle and negotiate with the guards about -- she used to tell this story about how her father -- she managed to get her father a job inside. And he 7:00was really very ill, and she got him some whiskey to help -- not some -- some vodka to help warm him up. (laughs) But yeah, I mean, she used to tell us stories about the train ride and the -- because it was a train and a boat and then by foot. And she used to show us the photos of the people there. And so, she also knew about my grandfather's past. And between her and my father -- and then later through my actual academic research, I used to come across my grandfather's name -- particularly obituaries and things like that after he died, so I sort of cobbled together some of his life story that way, as well. And then, on the other side, yeah, my -- the same story -- my grandmother, who passed away just a year ago -- she used to tell me stories about it. My mum and uncle never asked, so she was quite happy to tell us all about their lives in 8:00Russia. So, yeah, I mean, it was generally fairly open. It wasn't that kind of -- well, I don't want to say cliché, but it wasn't that kind of familiar story of -- and I guess it's because of the nature there in the Soviet Union that they did talk about their lives.

JP:Before we talk about how your grandfather cropped up in the course of your research, I'd like to hear a bit about how your family came from Eastern Europe to Australia.

DS:To Australia. Right. So, on my dad's side -- so when the war ended, they were in Siberia, and they were among the -- I think, off the top of my head -- but I'd want to check the figures -- I think it's about a quarter of a million Jews were repatriated to Poland from the Soviet Union -- or to back -- at least back west, Poland or the DP camps. So, they were among that wave that came back by boat down the rivers and then by trains. And it was -- I don't remember how 9:00long, but it was quite a long journey. They -- so my dad's parents went back to Poland. They went to Wrocław, which was at the time a growing center of postwar Jewish life, because the main cities that Jews lived were largely destroyed -- Warsaw and some of the eastern cities. So, they ended up in Wrocław. After the Kielce pogrom of 1946, they joined, again, the throngs of Jews escaping Poland. My grandfather had a cousin in Paris, so they went and stayed in Paris -- went to Paris in 1947. My dad was born in 1948. And they really couldn't work or anything -- they didn't have working rights -- so they were pretty destitute in Paris. And they were really waiting for a visa to the US, which they couldn't 10:00get at the time. And my grandfather had a friend from Włocławek, or a couple of friends from Włocławek, who had made it to Melbourne -- one who had actually made it as early as 1926 or '28. So, they managed to get family re-- I mean, the story of Jewish migration to Australia after the war is also a bit complicated because of their status under Australian law, but basically, they received family reunion kinds of visas, and they came to Australia in 1950. My mum's parents went back to Poland. They settled back in Łódź, which is not where they lived before the war, but we've got these really extraordinary photos of them finding their hou-- their homes, which were rubble. So, there wasn't 11:00really a prospect for them to move back to Warsaw, so they left for Łódź. And they lived -- and they were communists, so they were quite pleased for -- you know, that -- the advent of a communist government. My grandfather's brother was an advisor to the finance minister, and they were not too badly off under communism. But then again, you know, the -- my mum was born in 1954, and not long after, in 1956, there were further waves of anti-Semitism, so that's when they decided to leave. And again, they wanted visas to the US, but they could only get to Australia. And they got visas through the Joint -- so they came to Australia in 1958, when my mum was four and my uncle was ten -- nine or ten. So yeah, that's how we made it to Australia. (laughs)

JP:And you said that there's a story about them finding their homes in rubble -- 12:00just to jump back a bit to that (UNCLEAR) --

DS:Right. I'm not -- we've got photos --

JP:Oh, photos?

DS:-- but I'm not sure about the story, exactly. But they're -- you know, they're photos of my grandmother, especially, sitting in the rubble of her home. And I guess they're quite devastating photos.

JP:Definitely.

DS:Yeah.

JP:And you said there were fairly circumscribed categories under which people could come to Australia postwar?

DS:Yeah. Yeah. Jews -- I mean, there was a big immigration wave. There was a slogan, "populate or perish," because Australia was underpopulated at the time, and so there was a big push to increase immigration numbers. And what they -- and there was a kind of hierarchy of, you know, who was a desirable migrant. So, the British were seen as most desirable, and then when not enough British took up the opportunities, then they sort of moved to Northern Europeans, and then Central Europeans, and eventually Southern Europeans and East Europeans. So, you 13:00know, there was big waves of Italian, Greek, and migrants from Yugoslavia who came to Australia in that period -- and also as DPs -- you know, people out of the DP camps, so there were Ukrainians and Poles as part of that wave. But Jews weren't -- I mean, Jews -- as Jews weren't -- didn't qualify for the refugee program, so most of the Jews that came to Melbourne came as part of family reunion programs, as essentially, sponsored migrants. So, they needed to have someone who actually went and vouched for them and acted like a guarantor and sort of helped them settle when they came. And that's something my grandparents did, as well -- when they arrived, they put deposits down on houses for people and things like that.

JP:Can you describe the Jewish community that they found there or that --

DS:Yeah.

JP:-- they helped create.

DS:Yeah. In 1950, when they arrived, they were part of a wave of -- to Melbourne, specifically -- and there's a distinction in that period between Melbourne and Sydney's Jewish communities, because Melbourne was the site -- and actually, I was just talking about it this morning in my paper -- Melbourne was the site of predominantly Polish Jews -- so, Yiddish-speaking, have practiced, you know, their Jewishness or expressed their Jewishness in a particular way, whereas Sydney was the site for really more Hungarian, German, Austrian, as well as British -- British Jewish migrants. And so, the kind of natures of the communities were very different at that point in time. So, they came to a kind of growing Polish Jewish outpost, almost. There was a Yiddish cultural center 15:00and library, so when migrants came, they went, you know, to speak a word of Yiddish and to read a Yiddish newspaper or a journal or a book. And it was a very supportive community. I mean, there was a -- the Jewish Welfare Society, which helped people get visas and helped house them when they came. So, when my mum's parents came in 1958, they stayed in a Jewish Welfare Society hostel in Coburg, in a suburb -- a northern suburb of Melbourne. So, you know, it was a small community -- I mean, in 1933, there were about twenty-three thousand Jews in Australia, and that number trebled by the beginning of the 1960s. So, there were about sixty thousand Jews by the end of the 1950s in Australia -- pardon me -- over half of them were in Melbourne, and just under half were in Sydney. So, 16:00you know, they came to a small but sort of geographically concentrated and quite lively community, actually. They had Yiddish newspapers -- they had a couple of Yiddish newspapers. There were journals. There was a cultural center. There was this Bundist group. There was Yiddish supplementary school -- well, there was a Yiddish supplementary school and then subsequently another, so -- it was a fairly lively place they came to. And then, they, you know, threw themselves into the activities of the community. So, yeah, definitely.

JP:And to skip ahead a bit -- you know, what was your interaction with the community -- sort of -- growing up, you know, would you say you grew up in a Jewish home? What --

DS:Yes.

JP:What was your interaction with the Jewish community life?

DS:Yeah. I went to the -- Melbourne has a Yiddish day school, so I went to the -- it's an elementary school, so I went there as a kid. And then, I also went to 17:00-- and we also have a Bundist youth movement, SKIF, so I was sent there as a kid. I mean, my family sort of held onto the -- you know, the Bundist akshones, I guess -- the stubbornness. So, that was the kind of -- so I grew up in a kind of -- fairly secular, left-wing, Yiddishist environment. And -- you know, so I participated in those institutions. We had Holocaust commemorations every year, Bund anniversary events. When I was growing up, we had an annual community festival, in which -- they used to say it was the biggest event in the Southern Hemisphere -- sorry, biggest Jewish event in the Southern Hemisphere -- and the upward estimates, when it was at its peak, was around fifteen thousand people would come.

JP:And what kind of festival was that?

DS:So, that was a -- like, celebrating Jewish life in Melbourne. So, there would be concerts all day with local talent, and then local organizations would have stalls, and it took place in a big park. You know, and that was run by SKIF and the Yiddish cultural center, Kadimah. So, you know, as a kid, I was always involved in that -- selling raffle tickets and things like that.

JP:And what does SKIF stand for?

DS:SKIF stands for Sotsyalistishe Kinder Farband, or Socialist Children's Union. And -- I mean, that was established in Poland in 1926, and then the Melbourne branch was founded in 1950 by, obviously, refugees, who were kind of trying to -- you know, I mean, they were trying to carve out a little bit of Jewish Poland in Australia -- (laughs) which, in some ways, in that period, in the 1950s and 19:00'60s, they did quite successfully. They lived in a kind of immigrant slum neighborhood, and they were quite concentrated. They were involved in the local -- well, the major left-wing party, the Labor Party. So, they were very active in establishing institutions and networks and things like that.

JP:How was your neighborhood or community different at the time you grew up in Melbourne?

DS:Yeah, by the time I grew up -- so when Jews -- the sort of traditional area of Jewish settlements -- and certainly, it's that way in Australian Jewish memory. It's probably a little more complex than how we characterize it, but there's a suburb just north of downtown Melbourne called Carlton, which was kind of the first port of call for a lot of Jewish migrants, and that's where my grandparents lived when they came to Australia, and my dad grew up there. By the 20:00time I was born, the Jewish community had -- was already more affluent -- upwardly mobile -- so they shifted south of the Yarra River into an area around -- called St. Kilda, which is by the beach, and then a bit further away from the beach. So, we already grew up -- it was more suburban. In the particular neighborhood I grew up in, it wasn't a very Jewish neighborhood. But, you know, we drove everywhere. It wasn't far to go -- to participate in Jewish life in Melbourne.

JP:You mentioned attending a Sholem Aleichem College, which --

DS:Yes.

JP:-- was a Yiddish --

DS:I'm impressed that you knew the name, because I don't think I called it by its name. But that's great. (laughs)

JP:Can you tell me a bit about a typical day and the kinds of things that your schooling there encompassed?

DS:That's an excellent question -- (laughs) one I'm not sure I can answer. (laughs) Just to delve back into the deepest recesses of my memory -- I mean, 21:00what I do remember is that every day there were Yiddish classes -- Yiddish language classes or yidishe geshikhte [Jewish history] -- so our Jewish studies, I suppose, was in Yiddish. I'm not sure if they still do that at Sholem, but I grew up learning about Jewish history in Yiddish, which was quite -- I guess as an eight-year-old, you don't really appreciate it. (laughs) But it's something I definitely appreciate now. So, that -- you know, there was that. And, you know, we'd have weekly assemblies and learn Yiddish songs and -- you know, there was a big focus on Yiddish culture as well as language. We read Sholem Aleichem's stories as kids, and Peretz and things like that. But, you know, I think it's probably just a typical school day with a bit of Yiddish thrown in.

JP:Was Hebrew or religious studies part of that curriculum?

DS:Hebrew was, from -- only from third grade. At that stage -- again, I can't talk for what they do now. But it wasn't taken particularly seriously. It wasn't taught seriously. And the focus was then still very much on Yiddish as the kind of import-- most important Jewish language. It might have changed a bit, because back then, there was still -- you know, the generation of old, fiery Yiddishists and Bundists who had set up the school were around and still involved or in control. So, I'm not sure how that's changed now. But yeah, it's a pretty un-- it was a pretty unusual thing growing up. And people would ask, What school do you go to? And you would say, Sholem Aleichem College. And even Jews had trouble with it (laughs) -- with pronouncing it, with sometimes not even knowing the 23:00school -- not to mention non-Jews. (laughs)

JP:Did a lot of Jewish kids who went to a Jewish school go to another school?

DS:Yeah. I mean, Sholem was a small school. You know, the Jewish community in Melbourne has a handful of Jewish day schools that sort of cater to different political and religious convictions. I mean, one thing they basically all share now is that they're Zionist. And then, it's -- there's modern Orthodox and liberal -- Reform. And there's a Chabad boys' school and girls' school and a secular Zionist school. So, it's kind of -- you know, the idea was, once upon a time, that you sent your kids to the place that sort of aligned with your convictions, but now I think it's more to do with the quality of education -- unless it's a question of religion.

JP:I know your school was secular and Yiddishistic, but also supportive of the 24:00state of Israel.

DS:Yes.

JP:Was that ever difficult for the school to negotiate, or did the two go hand-in-hand well for --

DS:No, I don't think it was ever difficult. I mean, the Bundists in Melbourne were -- pretty quickly, they were quite -- I guess you could say pro-Israel or supportive of Israel. I mean, they fought bitterly with the Zionists in the community, to the extent where in 1960, there was elections to the Jewish Board of Deputies -- the umbrella body -- and it was discovered that the election was rigged, that one of the electoral offices had made three hundred of the Bundist votes disappear. (laughs) So, they had a reelection, and the Bundists received seven hundred votes and came in second behind the Zionist list. So, they fought 25:00very bitterly. At Sholem, it was never -- I mean, it wasn't a Bundist school, per se. I mean, it was set up mainly by Bundists -- not only by Bundists. And -- but, you know, it was set up in 1975 -- ish. Don't quote me on that one.

JP:(laughs)

DS:By the time I went to elementary school, you know, that -- all that bitterness had been -- had subsided so much. So, you know, I grew up, and there was Yom Ha'atzmaut every year -- they used to get a -- like a sponge cake log -- like a roll -- Swiss roll, I guess it's called -- put into the shape of a mogn-dovid [star of David] with, like, sprinkles on top. (laughs) So, I -- yeah. And I suspect -- I think now they have a lot of Israeli families that go there, 26:00so I suspect Israel is even more prominent. But yeah, like I said, it wasn't a Bundist school, per se. I mean, there were ways that it was Bundist, but it wasn't a Bund school. So --

JP:I'm curious about your parents, if they were involved in any organizations. I mean, they were the ones who sent you to this school.

DS:Yeah.

JP:What were some of their affiliations?

DS:My dad was particularly involved. My mum was the -- sort of -- you know, the woman behind the man -- sort of -- you know, she wasn't really very involved in organizations per se. But my dad was very active. He was a leader at SKIF when he was quite young. He was involved in setting up a youth Yiddish theater, which, you know, they ran for a couple of decades. I wasn't so youthful (laughs) when it finally finished performing, but he was very involved in that way. And, 27:00you know, they set up when he was in his early twenties, they set up a Bundist youth movement for people -- for Jews in that age group -- university age and above, so they would have political meetings and things like that. So, he was very involved in -- particularly in that sense -- in the political -- left-wing political part of the Jewish world, but also particularly the theater world. And that continued, really, into the early-to-mid-'90s, that he was involved in that way. And then, I mean, he taught -- he was a schoolteacher. He taught at one of the Jewish schools for a decade. Yeah. And my mum -- my mum went to SKIF as a teenager, but organizationally, she wasn't so interested. Yeah.

JP:Did you grow up in a multilingual house?

DS:Yes and no. I mean, my parents tried -- with my older brother, my parents tried to speak Yiddish to him from the beginning, and they found it too difficult to kind of negotiate day-to-day life in, you know, the contemporary world in Yiddish with a baby. You know, and I think my mum probably just wouldn't feel confident in her Yiddish speaking. She -- they -- her parents spoke Polish to her growing up, or her mum spoke Polish to her growing up. So, that was a bit hard. So, we had Yiddish in the house. And my grandparents only spoke Yiddish to me and my brother. But -- so it was multilingual in that way. We grew up with Yiddish. But not in -- you know, I mean, not in the way that I see some people raising their kids fully in Yiddish.

JP:So, how did your education continue on from Sholem Aleichem College? And where did the Yiddish come in later on as well?

DS:Yeah, I mean, immediately after high school -- immediately after elementary school, we -- for maybe a year, we did some informal classes with one of the ex-teachers. And then, really -- I mean, I was a passive speaker of Yiddish. I was more a listener of Yiddish. When my grandparents spoke to me, I would generally answer in English. I think that's a pretty common story, probably. But it was really when I was in the final year of my undergraduate degree and I was writing a thesis on Bundists and Zionists in interwar Poland and I really -- you know, my research was in Yiddish, so I just spent grueling days on microfilm machines, and that's really where my Yiddish improved a lot, 'cause I just spent 30:00hours writing words I didn't understand in a notepad and looking them up and making sure I wasn't having to keep going back and forth. And then, I did -- so -- and then I made a conscious effort to speak Yiddish more to my grandparents while they were still alive. And in 2008, I went to one of those summer programs (laughs) in Tel Aviv.

JP:And how was that? Did that --

DS:It was unusual, because I hadn't studied Yiddish formally in the way that basically everyone else had. So, I didn't -- it was, in some ways, alienating, 'cause people had read literature quite widely; people knew grammar and syntax, which I just didn't know. You know, for me, it was all just what sounded right -- you know, that was right (laughs) -- even if it was not right. And so, that was kind of -- that was a kind of weird experience. It was also weird to me 31:00'cause Yiddish was just something that I, like, inherited -- something I grew up with -- and it was interesting to me to see people who actively sought it out. And then, that was probably the first time I had seen it. I mean, that was an advanced Yiddish seminar, as well, so it wasn't -- it was people who were already quite proficient. And I was very interested to see, you know, who were the stronger speakers. I found the Israelis in the program the strongest, which I thought was quite natural, actually. And --

JP:Why? Why was that quite natural, in your opinion?

DS:Partly because there's crossover in terms of the language -- and, I guess, things like syntax and sentence structure. And also, the accent -- you know, it's easier to go from Hebrew into Yiddish than from, say, English into Yiddish. You know, things like a "reysh." Without growing up doing a "reysh" on the back 32:00of your throat, it's sort of hard to -- I think it's hard to pick up later in life. So, that sort of stuff is quite interesting, I guess, in a weird anthropological way. (laughs) But that was a pretty -- yeah, that was a pretty funny, interesting experience -- and a totally different way for me to learn and interact in Yiddish. Because for me it was -- you know, it went from being -- firstly, a language that I associated with the home, with my grandparents -- and, you know, with a shtikl broyt mit piter [a piece of bread with butter] -- it was beyond that -- it was, like, high culture by then. It wasn't kind of folky in the same way that it was as a kind of family language. Because I guess people study Yiddish for all different reasons, so some people do it because of political reasons or an affinity with the culture, and some people just do it, 33:00you know, 'cause it helps their research or whatever. So, it was kind of interesting why different people came to it.

JP:Was accent ever an issue or of interest to you? I mean, from your example, I can tell you have a somewhat poylish [Polish] --

DS:Yes.

JP:-- accent, and did that ever kind of hit heads at all with the Litvak accent?

DS:Always. Still. (laughs) Still. It's so tsemisht [mixed up], my Yiddish. And because in primary school we learned -- you know, we learned the klal [standard] Yiddish, which is very litvish [Lithuanian Yiddish dialect], and so when I get up at a commemoration or an event and read poetry, I -- my grandmother used to tell me how kind of -- you know, how nice my Yiddish was, 'cause she was from Warsaw and my zeyde [grandfather] was from Warsaw and so they, you know, had -- she used to say "ets" and "enk" instead of "dir" and "ir." And she thought it 34:00was so refined and elegant that I could pronounce Yiddish with a litvish accent. But I was also kind of -- you know, at times, I also made a conscious effort to talk with a Polish Yiddish, because that was like the legacy. I mean, partly, it's what I heard, so it would never have occurred to me to say "puter [butter]" instead of "piter" -- or, you know, I had a friend whose grandfather was from Vilna, and he used to say "yoykh [broth]," and we grew up saying "yokh." So, it -- the way that Yiddish is kind of taught today -- I mean, it's at odds in a lot of ways with just how -- what I grew up hearing -- and not just in class, but -- you know, what I heard in class was one thing, but going to grandparents' houses or to functions and events and people with all their different accents. (laughs) 35:00You know, people from Łódź talking with that kind -- what sounded to me, as a kid, like a speech impediment. (laughs) But it obviously wasn't. Yeah. But the accent is still something that I sort of get tongue-tied around often. And when I, you know, read Yiddish, it's hard to know whether -- you know, it gets mixed up -- my instinct to pronounce thing with a Polish acc-- a poylish accent or litvish.

JP:Sort of like a dual identity or two skills sets that --

DS:Yeah. Yeah. And it's -- you know, you've just -- it is something I'm conscious of, though. Because I really -- I mean, I love the way my grandparents spoke Yiddish, as well. I thought it was -- it was real. It was folksy, you know? It was so distinct from what I heard in school in so many ways. And I kind 36:00of -- in a way, still want to carry on that legacy. You know, like, I don't want their dialect to finish with them. So yeah, it's a bit of a conscious effort. But it's also just -- yeah -- I mean, it came up, things like -- when I go to a Yiddish seminar in Israel with other students who learned to speak a particular way and, you know, there's the question -- do I pronounce things in a klal way? Or do I sort of just stick with my instincts? Or -- yeah.

JP:And does that get different reactions from people?

DS:No, not really. I think people are kind of used to it -- to hearing different accents. I mean, someone commented to me recently that they hadn't really heard people -- and this was someone who had studied in a YIVO program or something -- and they said they hadn't heard people talk that way. But I think, you know, for 37:00people who have been around kind of Yiddish communities -- Yiddish-speaking communities -- at least, who still speak Yiddish -- it's probably not as unusual. What's unusual, I think, is how tsemisht my (laughs) -- my accent is. It's not very pure either way.

JP:Well, it sounds like it's a product of your sort of newer, more recent generation context, where you got Yiddish in different places.

DS:Yeah. I think that's absolutely right. And it's a kind of -- I think it's probably the only generation that will -- ours is the only generation that would have that particular way of doing it, because we still had contact with the grandparents. Yeah. I'm not sure what'll happen with the next generation. I'm sure you -- that's a question you'll probably ask later. (laughs)

JP:Well, I'd like to turn now to asking about how Jewish, and especially Yiddish, topics became an academic focus for you.

DS:Yeah. I don't know. I just started writing essays as an undergraduate about 38:00the Bund, really. (laughs) 'Cause I was a leader at SKIF and, you know, I took first-year Jewish history courses. And probably I started writing about it 'cause I thought it would be easy. (laughs) You know, I was probably a cocky eighteen-, nineteen-year-old who thought I knew everything about the Bund already (laughs) and really didn't know anything. So, I think that's probably how it came up that I started working with that material. And then, when I was thinking about a thesis -- my fourth-year thesis -- someone told me there was all these Yiddish materials on microfilm in the library at my uni, so I basically chose a topic based on what was available locally. So, I think that's sort of how I stumbled upon it. And then, when I started my PhD, it was kind of 39:00natural to continue looking at the Bund, and I sort of was aware that there was this niche to fill, and that's how I went in that direction.

JP:What was that niche?

DS:My dissertation -- which is now my book -- was about the Bund after the Holocaust. And basically, there's -- the bits and pieces I read -- there's only -- there were only bits and pieces written about it before that, and they really focused on this very narrow period and -- immediately after the war. And basically, what they argued consistently was that the Bund died during the Holocaust, and that they basically just became small groups of émigrés who were trying to cling onto a glorious past. And that was quite at odds with my reality growing up, because the Bund was actually, in Melbourne, quite a 40:00fundamental part of the Jewish landscape. Even as a kid, for me, in the '80s and '90s, you know, the Bund still had a presence. You know, I remember -- I was telling about the big community festivals that SKIF and Kadimah used to run. In 1990 -- and I've got an amazing photo I found of this -- of the prime minster at the time -- it was a week before a federal election, and the prime minister came and put on a SKIF t-shirt. And, I mean, if you can draw the prime minister and put him in your t-shirt, I think, you know, you still have some kind of presence. So, you know, reading that stuff was really at odds with my -- just my reality, I think. So, I wanted to investigate that a bit further, and that's how I got into that area. And it was -- you know, I mean, you're always looking for an original -- something original to write about, but it just made sense to me 41:00to fill in those gaps. And I thought it was a -- I didn't know much about Bund organizations in other countries, except that they existed in other countries, so it was, you know, a sort of nice opportunity for me to -- oh, sorry -- for me to see what actually happened. Yeah. So, that's how I stumbled on that.

JP:Was it also connected at all to personal beliefs informing academia or vice versa, or was it just sort of a milieu in which you grew up that you sort of moved into academically?

DS:To write about the Bund or to move into academia?

JP:To write about the Bund.

DS:Yeah. I mean, I definitely -- it was some-- I wrote sympathetically about the protagonists. And it's something that -- because I came with my sort of expectations, and because I was aware that Melbourne was -- what I didn't know 42:00when I first started was that Melbourne was an exception. And so, that's something I discovered along the way. I mean, I'm still sympathetic -- in a way, I'm sympathetic to all those people who escaped death camps and Siberian labor camps and ghettos and rebuilt new lives and communities. So, in that way, I'm quite sympathetic to my subject matter. Politically, I guess, there's a bit of sympathy, too. But, you know, I try to separate politics and my professional work, because I think that it can only undermine the actual argument I'm making if it's sort of tainted by political convictions. So I -- you know, I try my best to be clear-eyed and objective. And -- yeah.

JP:You've written that your research is often at odds with people's memory of their past.

DS:Yes. (laughs)

JP:I'm curious about that statement and what that means for you.

DS:Yeah. I mean, just to illustrate this: I gave a talk at the Jewish Museum of Australia maybe a couple of months ago now. And, you know, people -- if what you say based on your research is at odds with what people remember, they attack you for it. (laughs) So, I can't remember exactly what I was attacked for, but -- you know, people are quite firm in their -- you know, what they remember, however close it is to reality. So, that's something that I had to come to terms with presenting my work to community audiences -- because, you know, firstly, you don't want to offend people, but you've also got to deal with when people say, Well, no, you're wrong, because I was there and I remember. (laughs) And 44:00you say, Well, I've got all these other sources of evidence that tell me otherwise. (laughs) So, you know, it's a kind of -- it's a line you've got to negotiate when you're dealing with memory. And I -- I mean, I didn't conduct oral histories in my research, because it was a bit too long after the fact. You know, my research focused on the 1940s and '50s, and so by the time I came to write, there really weren't -- I didn't feel like there were enough people still around to get a really good kind of sample. So, my research was predominantly based on archives -- in New York, in Melbourne, but also in, like, published sources. And often, they are at odds with what people remember.

JP:Do you have an example of that?

DS:What people remember differently?

JP:Um-hm.

DS:I mean, just -- you know, in terms of politics -- the way people talk about the Bund's position towards Israel is really interesting. Because the Bund 45:00maintained the label -- maintained that they were anti-Zionist, which meant something completely different in the 1950s and '60s to what it means today. And -- you know, but it -- they really kept that kind of self-definition -- that they were against Zionism, they were against the -- you know, they believed in doikayt or "here-ness" in the idea that the Jewish community should be fostered wherever they live, and, you know, there's no -- it was kind of a -- running against the center-periphery model, that Israel or the US were centers and everything else was peripheral. But, you know, they called themselves anti-Zionists for a long time after the war, even though they -- by 1955 already, they had accepted Israel as a fact, and they were supportive of the 46:00state of Israel and the important Jewish community. But they also recognized -- they still maintained their doikayt belief. So, you know, where that's interesting is the way people downplay -- I think people downplay the Bund's anti-Zionism -- I mean, when I talk to people, in their memories. Or if they're kind of -- you know, sometimes if they're Zionist-leaning, they downplay the role of the Bund in the Melbourne Jewish community, for example. I mean, my interactions are mostly with Jews in Melbourne around these issues of memory and stuff, so those are the examples I mainly have. But, you know, I avoid talking to Melbourne Bundists about the Melbourne Bund. (laughs) 'Cause I realize that -- you know, people know a lot of that already. You know, they know what 47:00happened. They know the hist-- especially that older generation. They don't want some young upstart to come and tell them their life story.

JP:Sort of on the flipside of that, what are some of the challenges or delights of teaching Jewish studies and Yiddish studies at the university level to sort of an upcoming generation?

DS:Yeah. I don't teach Yiddish Studies; I teach Jewish history. I mean, I -- to me, it's exciting to teach Jewish history generally. I mean, I'm not too fazed whether the students are Jewish or not. Actually, I'm kind of -- you know, I think it's exciting that non-Jewish students are also interested in Jewish history. So, I mean, that's -- that's more in a professional capacity, though. You know, it's my passion, so I'm really, like, eager to share that with my 48:00students. And it's really exciting that -- you know, I had a student this past year write an undergraduate thesis on -- an honors thesis, a fourth-year thesis -- on SKIF and the Bund in Melbourne; I have another student who wants to write on the Bund. So, you know, that stuff's really exciting for me, that people are interested in Jewish history and interested in similar kinds of things to me. So, that's quite exciting. And -- yeah.

JP:You're teaching general Jewish Studies, to some extent --

DS:Um-hm.

JP:-- but it's clear that you're integrating Yiddish history and Yiddish Studies into that overview of Jewish history. Is that common? Or -- I mean, or --

DS:I mean, when I was an undergraduate, my Jewish Studies lecturer was in Israeli literature -- that was his field, Israeli literature. So, in that case, 49:00it wasn't. And, you know, I think it -- I mean, like in any field, I think it depends where people are coming to the subject from. So yeah, I mean, probably that's a factor -- that, you know, there's more of an element of -- I mean, I try and -- but I also try and show the diversity of the Jewish experience, so I make sure that, you know, we spend time looking also at Jews in North Africa and the Middle East and looking at the experience of Jewish women and making sure that -- you know, that we're looking at the full breadth of Jewish life in the modern period rather than sort of focusing too heavily just on sort of Ashkenazi Jews in Europe and America. But yes, I mean, it's obviously informed by my own interests -- in sort of Yiddish -- Yiddish-speaking Jewry.

JP:Right. From your perspective, what is the place of Yiddish within the academy?

DS:Within the academy? Yeah. I mean, it's a tough question in the sense that -- because I teach in Australia, we don't have many students taking Yiddish. I mean, I think what's really important for Yiddish in the academy is that -- to sort of foster researchers who are gonna do really solid East European Jewish history. And even American Jewish history and Australian Jewish history -- it's -- Yiddish is a critical language to have, to do topics in that area. So, I mean, I think we have a big responsibility to include Yiddish language training for, you know, our prospective graduate students and sort of future professors. 51:00And in that sense, you know -- in Australia, it's difficult when there's only a few students to sort of maintain it, because you need numbers to really maintain units. So -- but I think -- you know, I think it's very important. It's obviously important for our students, too, to learn Yiddish if they're going to take on those kinds of topics.

JP:I guess further to that, what do you feel the place of Yiddish is within broader culture?

DS:Broader Jewish culture or even more broadly?

JP:Either.

DS:In terms of Jewish culture -- I mean, I think what's obvious to me is that it's -- Yiddish has become a kind of home for people, young people who are politically left-leaning and, you know, they kind of identify with the radical 52:00past. Not that Yiddish was only spoken by radicals -- you know, of course, all Jews in Eastern Europe at one point spoke Yiddish, no matter their politics. But I think there is this association -- and probably it's got to do with a kind of dichotomy -- or a -- even a simplistic view of Jewish history in which, you know, Zionism is associated with Hebrew and kind of diasporic Jewish thought is associated with Yiddish. And so, people who kind of associate themselves -- you know, a lot of people I think -- young people more and more identify with this notion of doikayt in various ways, and so Yiddish is a kind of way into that. It's also a way into a sort of hard secular Jewish culture -- you know, with a body of literature that exists, with folklore, with songs. And so, I think -- you know, in broader Jewish culture, it's a way for people to connect with 53:00Jewish life and Jewish history in a way that they perhaps haven't before -- and a way to give them, you know, some hard Jewish culture, I guess. And that's not to disparage other forms of Jewishness or Jewish life, but it's one way -- one way into this sort of broad tapestry. And in terms of general life -- I mean, in America, what's clear to me is that, you know, Yiddish has kind of penetrated popular culture broadly, at least from an outsider's perspective. I mean, I sit at home and watch "Curb Your Enthusiasm," and I say so often to my wife, "How do non-Jews get this humor?" Like, because it's so based in these -- you know, even East European Yiddish traditions. But people -- like, they're popular shows. 54:00People get the humor still. So, I think that's a sign that, you know, that kind of vernacular has entered mainstream popular culture in the US. In Australia, it's -- you know, we're a smaller group of -- a smaller community. We're less sort of publicly prominent, so it's a bit different in Australia to what it is in the US. And again, you know, people always tell me how funny they think the "Survivor" episode of "Curb" is -- you know, non-Jews and Jews alike in Australia. So, yeah, people are tapping into it. Definitely.

JP:And there's consumption of American Jewish pop culture by those --

DS:Widespread.

JP:-- by those Jews and non-Jews, even in Australia.

DS:Yeah. Right. So, I mean, Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" was hugely popular in Australia. Whether you call it a Jewish film or not is another question we can talk about in another (laughs) interview, but -- definitely, yeah. In 55:00Australia, we're big consumers of American popular culture. So, in that way, those cultural references translate. But, you know, then again, we always -- you know, my wife and I always get the feeling that we're laughing at different places when we see a Woody Allen film or -- you know, I mean, we -- I remember going to see "Borat," and we really did laugh in different places to other people in the cinema. 'Cause there are in-jokes -- still -- even though it's so -- I mean, I guess also 'cause Sasha Baron Cohen's British -- but even though it's so prevalent in American popular culture, there's still the in-jokes.

JP:So, even if it does sort of penetrate, it doesn't translate fully, it doesn't mean that --

DS:No.

JP:-- that Yiddish is circulating in Australia in quite the same way amongst --

DS:No.

JP:-- non-Jews?

DS:I mean, people would have their collection of, you know, cheesy words that they've picked up from American television -- "shlep" and "shmuck" and all -- you know, all those sort of funny onomatopoeic words. But no, it hasn't 56:00penetrated in the same -- to the same extent. I mean, coming here and -- just this last week and people saying "Happy holidays!" to me. (laughs) Seeing -- you know, I saw a photo on Twitter of some actor lighting a hannukiah who wasn't Jewish -- she was Catholic, I read (laughs) -- but she posted a Tweet of her lighting a hannukiah and said, "Happy Hanukkah!" You don't really get that in Australia. (laughs)

JP:I'm curious what you think -- or if you think that there's a role academics play in the transmission of culture.

DS:Of culture? Generally?

JP:Um-hm. Inside or outside the academy -- if the role of academic includes that cultural transmission piece.

DS:Yeah. I mean, I'm a public historian, so, you know, I very strongly believe in engaging with the broader community -- I mean, Jewish and non-Jewish. I 57:00don't, by any means, just want Jews to read my work. And, you know, but I want it to be also part of a broader convers-- you know, I want my work to be part of a broader conversation about, you know, how ethnic groups like the Jews imagine themselves -- how they function internally, how they relate to the world broadly, and how, you know, particularly migrant groups, diaspora groups -- how they operate in society. So, you know, as an historian, I try and disseminate my research in the public sphere -- so, on -- in the press and in various ways. And, I mean, I used to work in a museum, so I'm very -- you know, a strong believer that we have -- we definitely have a role to play outside the academy in raising discussions and sort of -- I'm not sure about fostering culture, 58:00necessarily, but that's only because I'm a social historian, and I'm sure a cultural historian would see things differently. But there's definitely a role for us to play in engaging with the wider public.

JP:I'm curious if you think that there's a Yiddish revival.

DS:Probably not. Probably not a revival. I mean, I think something different is happening. You know, there's a lot of young -- seems to me there's a big number of young people interested in Yiddish for various reasons, and that's great. (laughs) Maybe a revival is too strong -- I think it's probably just a transformation in the role Yiddish plays in society. And, you know, I borrow heavily from Jeff Shandler's "Adventures in Yiddishland" and his ideas about 59:00postvernacular culture here, because I think he really hit the mark with where Yiddish fits -- that it's not the same anymore, that it's not a language that many people speak to their kids. And I think that's crucial, that -- you know, that there are a lot of people learning Yiddish and participating in Yiddish life and creating Yiddish culture, but if it's sustainable? I don't know. I don't know if it represents a new wave of Yiddish life. But it's different; it's something different. It's a new stage, I think. I'm definitely not on the kind of "Yiddish is dying"-type bandwagon, but I'm also wary about claims for revival. Yeah. But that might also be because I -- you know, like, growing up with Yiddish and sort of coming to that world from a different perspective, 60:00probably I tend to see more the picture of decline because I've seen, you know, the grandparents who spoke it, the parents who spoke it less, and then my gen-- most of my friends don't speak Yiddish -- who grew up in similar contexts to me. So yeah, I'm probably a bit less hopeful in that sense. But, you know, I love that I can go to New York and meet people who speak Yiddish. (laughs) That's cool. (laughs)

JP:Do you plan to speak to your daughter in Yiddish? Or --

DS:I have a son.

JP:I'm sorry -- your son. (laughs)

DS:Well, we have the Yiddish storybooks that we can -- you know, the "Zayer hungeriker opfreser [Very hungry caterpillar]" -- there's me doing my Litvak accent. (laughs) So, I read to him the sort of bits and pieces -- we go out and we try and kind of translate other English books on the fly. And generally, we try and be a bit bilingual -- a bit. (laughs) It's hard. It's hard for us. 61:00Because, you know -- I mean, my wife speaks -- she understands better than me and speaks less than me. And I think that's purely a matter of confidence, but -- I mean, we'd love to say, Yeah, we'll definitely talk Yiddish to our son, but the reality is that our Yiddish just isn't good enough for that. It's not good enough to conduct just the day-to-day affairs when we think in English. But we try and encourage our parents -- all our parents speak Yiddish, so we try and encourage them to talk Yiddish to him as much as they can. But it's -- again, it's the same issue. It's about how you negotiate having to change a nappy -- a pooey nappy (laughs) -- and all -- you know, just the day-to-day things you have to do with a baby. You know, where it's not always just so calm and you have time to think and formulate what you're going to say -- you know, where you have 62:00to be instinctive, and your instincts are to talk English. (laughs) So, in that sense, we're -- yeah, we're still feeling our way through. And, I mean, that's going to be one of the challenges for us -- is, what sort of Jewish child do we raise? 'Cause for us, Yiddish was a big aspect of why we were Jewish and how we were Jewish. And for Arthur, I'm not -- not sure what that's gonna be. But we're improvising. (laughs) We're doing it on the fly. He's nine months, so we'll -- you know, we can do, like, another interview in ten years and see where we're at -- (laughs) see how successful we were.

JP:Well, that sounds like a good amount of parenting. You know, it happens on the fly -- despite, you know, best intentions or planning.

DS:I would say that's been all our parenting so far. And so, we cross those bridges when we get there.

JP:So, we're nearing the end of our time, but I'd like to ask just a couple more questions.

DS:Sure.

JP:I mean, you talked a little bit about what you see as the future of Yiddish. Is there anything else you'd like to add about what you see as the future of Yiddish?

DS:What do I see as the future of Yiddish? I mean, I think academia's going to be a big part of it -- grad students learning Yiddish, using it in their research. And I -- you know, I don't think that should be poo-pooed. Like, that's really important. And it's no small thing to have, you know, people in their mid-to-late twenties and early thirties learning Yiddish, learning Yiddish culture, and actually using all those vast repositories of documents and archival materials and newspapers and -- and that's wonderful, you know, because that stuff -- that stuff's not going to last forever. You know, all those crumbling papers, they've also got a shelf life. So, I think that's really important. And, I mean, I -- you know, I see people trying to raise their kids 64:00-- well, I see people raising their kids in Yiddish quite successfully, and I really admire that. But I worry -- you know, I worry about what comes next. You know, how many other kids do they have to speak Yiddish to? So, I'm not sure -- in the secular sense, I'm not sure what the future of Yiddish is. Obviously, in the Hasidic world, it's a different question, because it's much easier to -- in that sort of setting, in a more insular setting -- to pass that on. But, you know, we're at a -- well, I think we're at a crossroads in terms of Yiddish as a spoken daily language. I mean, I think we're al-- it's already not a spoken daily language for most secular Jews, except for a particular generation. And 65:00even then, you know, there's only so much you can interact with the world in Yiddish. So -- I mean, like I said, though, I think it's a transformation, and it's got to do with, you know, people like us utilizing all the Yiddish materials that exist. And people are creating Yiddish and -- music's obviously been a big area where, you know, people with an interest in Yiddish have expressed their affection for Yiddish and created new Yiddish music. You know, I mean, Yiddish hip-hop and (laughs) there's that great band -- or that great album -- Yiddish Princess -- the pop -- the '80s pop ballads -- or the rock ballads. So, I mean, there's definitely a role. And as a kind of alternative form of Jewish expression -- I think that's where it is now, and that's probably 66:00where it'll continue through this generation.

JP:Is there a distinct and specific future for Yiddish in Australia?

DS:I'm not sure what it is. It's something I think about occasionally -- I wouldn't say often. (laughs) But -- yeah, I'm not sure what it is. Because, you know, the SKIF youth movement where I grew up -- even in my time there, Yiddish became less and less prominent, to the point where not many of us -- when I was a leader already -- spoke Yiddish or even understood Yiddish. And it goes through cycles, you know, depending on the sort of cohort of parents and how their kids -- how they raised their kids with Yiddish -- whether or not the groups speak Yiddish. But definitely, like, in terms of content, it's less and less within the SKIF youth movement. And probably that's indicative -- probably it's going to go in a similar kind of direction to here, where it becomes an 67:00avenue for a kind of alternative Jewish expression. I mean, we still have Yiddish events, don't get me wrong. Like, I just read a Gebirtig poem two weeks ago at a Gebirtig memorial event. But, you know, the challenge is, how do we get my mates to come along? We haven't worked that out yet. (laughs) That's what we're still trying to deal with -- how will they become interested enough to come to an evening of Yiddish whatever -- poetry or music?

JP:I don't mean to put you on the spot, but on a lighter note, I'm curious if you have a favorite Yiddish word or phrase?

DS:A favorite Yiddish word or phrase?

JP:Or just one that kind of resonates for you?

DS:No, not that I can think of (laughs) off the top of my head. No. I mean, you 68:00know, I think of all the, like, little turns of phrase that my grandmothers had. Or whenever something bad happened, my dad would say, "Vayter fort di ban [The train keeps traveling]." He always used to say -- my grandmother -- my bobe [grandmother] used to say, "Vayter fort di ban" if someone died or whatever -- you know, as in "the train goes on." And I'm fairly partial to all those curses and (laughs) -- you know, the -- "zolst vaksn vi a tsibele mitn kop in der erd [may you grow like an onion with your head in the ground]" -- those kinds of curses. But no, nothing particularly -- no single word or phase in particular. I always thought "far fetched" -- should be a Yiddish word. Someone told me I stole that joke, but (laughs) I maintain that that was original. (laughs)

JP:No, but I think those are very evocative --

DS:Yeah.

JP:-- expressions and turns of phrase, so --

DS:Yeah, yeah. I mean, I always used to love how my mum's mum used to say "ets" 69:00and "enk." It was very, like, street -- Warsaw street Yiddish. (laughs) Even though she actually didn't speak Yiddish growing up. But that was quite -- I had a lot of affection for how she spoke Yiddish. I think it's the -- you know, it's -- to me, it's like those memories of how that was. You know, I -- for me -- I think I said it before, about the whole broyt mit puter -- it sounds alien to me, so I have, like, affection for remembering -- you know, every time I would leave my grandmother's, she would say "nem a shtikl broyt mit piter [take a piece of bread with butter]." (laughs) And I couldn't leave without it. So, it's -- yeah, I guess things like that that -- just little things.

JP:In closing, I just want to ask: what advice do you have to students of Yiddish?

DS:For students of Yiddish? Read lots. (laughs) And, you know, don't be scared 70:00to have your head in the dictionary, 'cause it takes a lot of, you know, reading -- scanning through the dictionary to read quickly and well. But read widely. It's hard work. (laughs) But it's so rewarding to get to the end of a novel or even a difficult short story. That would be my best advice. That was something I had learned from my grandparents. That's how they learned English -- they just read the newspapers every day, even when they didn't understand it. So, yeah, I think that's the best advice I can offer. But I'm also not a Yiddish teacher, so (laughs) I should leave that to Yiddish teachers.

JP:I bet -- I think that's wonderful advice, and I've heard that advice from Yiddish teachers, as well, so --

DS:Right. (laughs) Yeah, I hope I didn't plagiarize it. No, I did -- I 71:00plagiarized it from my grandparents. (laughs) I plagiarize a lot from them. (laughs) Yeah.

JP:Wonderful. Well, I want to thank you for sharing your stories and reflections with me today.

DS:Well, thank you.

JP:And I also want to thank you on behalf of the Yiddish Book Center for participating in the Wexler Oral History Project.

DS:Thank you very much.

JP:Thank you.

[END OF INTERVIEW]