THEODORE STEINBERG ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney, and today is December 16th, 2012.  I am here at the Association for Jewish Studies Conference in Chicago with Theodore Steinberg.  Do I have your permission to record this interview?

THEODORE STEINBERG: You do.

CW:  All right.  So, as a place to start, can you tell me briefly what you know about your family background?

TS:  Yes. It's not a whole lot.  My father was born in Baltimore, and his parents came to this country around 1900 -- I think -- if I'm not mistaken, my grandfather a little before and my grandmother a little after.  My mother has 1:00an interesting story, if you want to hear it. She was born in Germany. Her -- do you want to hear this story?

CW:  Yes, I do.

TS:  Her father was originally from Vilna and moved to Germany -- married my grandmother there -- who was German.  And because he was not born in Germany, he was considered something of an outsider. They lived in a very, very tiny village, which I have visited.  And the German Jews were not as close with them as they might have been. But my grandfather was very friendly with a gentleman in the town who -- apparently, against his will -- became the local Nazi leader.  But he always warned my grandfather when things were going to happen, so if there was an inspection that had to be made, he would say, "We're going to 2:00be doing this inspection. If there's anything you don't want us to find, get rid of it."  And he would -- my grandfather was a shoemaker, and he would -- this gentleman would leave his boots in the woods and my grandfather would go out and get them, do whatever repairs were necessary, take them back, and there would be money there.  They provided them with food and so on. And eventually, he said, "You really have to get your children away from here. This is gonna be bad." And my grandfather and grandmother sent their three oldest to this country, including my mother. And they -- about a year later, with the baby -- went to what was then Palestine.  And so, my mother came here and lived with a foster family. But it puts me in kind of an odd position, because I grew up learning a little bit of German from her -- not Yiddish -- and I have a terrible Yiddish 3:00accent, because whenever I open my mouth and try to speak Yiddish -- and I don't have that much opportunity to speak Yiddish -- it comes out sounding German.  So, she was sympathetic to Yiddish, but didn't speak it.

CW:  And what was the name of this little town in Germany?

TS:  Sennfeld.  You would -- it's -- I mean, it's really tiny.  We went there -- we were in Germany, and -- actually, we had to go pretty much past it, so we stopped there, and she told us we could recognize the house where she lived because there were one and a half trees in front of it.  And there was a whole tree and there was one that had been cut off. And it still -- you know, she left in 1935, and we were there, if I recall correctly, in 1995, and it was still the same way. In fact, we asked -- I found an older woman there who remembered the 4:00family.  It was very difficult to talk to her -- not just that she only spoke German, but that she also didn't have any bottom teeth, and so it was very difficult (laughs) to understand her. But she remembered. I had some pictures, and she remembered. She remembered my grandmother.  And we tried to find the Jewish cemetery where my great-grandfather was buried. And I'm named after him -- he was Teodor, so I'm Theodore. But we could never find him. My uncle went a couple of years later and did manage to find -- people had given us directions and I think we just didn't follow the directions, because no matter which way we turned, we ended up in a cornfield.

CW:  So, would you say you grew up in a very Jewish home?

TS:  It was very Jewish, but not in a religious way.  My father believed that 5:00Orthodox Judaism was the only legitimate kind of Judaism; he just didn't do it.  And my mother -- her parents had been very strict, but when she came to this country, she was forced to live with an aunt who was not terribly sympathetic, and she became friendly with a girl at school, and this girl's family were apparently really nice and took her in.  They were Reform. And so, she sort of grew up in that kind of a milieu. And so, it was a (laughs) -- in a sense, a mixed marriage, because we had a non-practicing Orthodox Jew and then my mother, who was -- who believed in sort of Reform things. And the house was pretty much kosher, but not completely kosher.  We followed all the holidays -- 6:00that is, we acknowledged all the holidays, but we didn't really observe them the way I observe them now.

CW:  So, you mentioned that you spoke a little bit of German in the home.  Was that between your parents and --

TS:  Oh, no.  No. My father never learned a language besides English.  He was very American in that way. (laughs) But my mother taught us a little German.  It was not one of those households where they used a foreign language to convey secrets.  That was -- my wife grew up in a house like that -- though her parents did let -- teach her Yiddish.  But her friends' parents always used Yiddish for conveying secrets. And so, my wife's friends would invite her over, and they would sit there playing, but my wife would be listening to the Yiddish 7:00conversations and then tell her friends what her parents -- their parents were saying.  (laughs) She always liked that. (laughs)

CW:  (laughs) And were there aspects of Jewish culture that were particularly important to you as a kid in this sort of mixed marriage scenario?  (laughs)

TS:  It's a -- yeah, I don't want to over-emphasize that, and I'm sure that my parents would object if they heard me say that.  They really agreed on many -- most things. For some reason -- and I've often tried to figure this out -- there are things that I became interested in as a -- really as a little kid that have stuck with me.  One is music. My parents liked music, but they weren't particularly musical, and yet, when I was four, I begged for piano lessons, and music is just a major part of my life. Today is Beethoven's birthday. And the 8:00other thing was Judaism.  They sent me to an Orthodox religious school. It was not a day school -- it was what we used to do -- I guess they still do it in some places, but it was two afternoons a week and Sunday mornings. But I just remember being absorbed by it. I was just -- I've always been attracted to Jewish religious and cultural life.  And I can't explain that. It was just something that appealed to me.

CW:  And the -- was Yiddish at all present -- you said your mother was sympathetic to it but didn't speak it.  Was there any discussion or --

TS:  No.

CW:  No?

TS:  There was no disparaging talk about it.  But there was not much in the way of Yiddish -- except for, you know, the kind of common terms that everybody 9:00knows: "shlep" and you know, things like that.  But -- no.

CW:  And you grew up in Baltimore.  Can you describe a little bit about what that neighborhood -- Jewish community -- was like at that time?

TS:  It was a community called Pimlico.  It bordered the Pimlico race track. My grandfather -- my father's father -- lived across the street from the race track.  And he was still Orthodox, I'm told -- to the extent that he was -- this was before my time -- but he was a chain smoker. But on Shabbos, he wouldn't smoke.  And then, as soon as Shabbos was over, he'd light up. As soon as the -- he passed away, the race track bought his house and tore it down. We lived maybe a mile from there.  It was almost entirely a Jewish neighborhood -- 10:00not quite entirely. First- and second-generation Jews, mostly. Row houses -- I don't know if you're familiar with the Baltimore row houses.  It wasn't the ones with the marble steps, but they were row houses. We could knock on the doors and converse with the people next door -- knock on the walls, rather. Lots of kids, some of whom I'm still in touch with.  The local shul that we went to, Petah Tikva, which has since moved. Shopping areas in Pimlico and so on. Very close-knit. Local elementary schools. You know, those kinds of -- no buses.

CW:  And in terms of the population, were there -- was it a mostly American-born Jewish population?  Were there immigrants --

TS:  It was mostly American-born Jewish population.  There were some 11:00immigrants. But -- now this -- I'm thinking about the immediate area where I lived.  Now at the shul, there were a lot of older people, and so they were immigrants, and then the younger families were not.

CW:  And were there -- I mean, I'm curious that you just sort of discovered this love of Judaism at a young age.  And were there -- was there a particular teacher or mentor that you remember?

TS:  I remember my teachers vividly.  There was a woman named Mrs. Bobrowski, Ida Bobrowski.  I'm happy to say that one of my granddaughters is named Ida -- not after her, but I like that.  But she was a really good teacher. I remember there was -- Leon Rivkin was very influential. But it was -- as much as I love 12:00teachers -- and I'm a teacher, so, you know, I want to credit teachers with everything -- but it was just -- there was something about learning these things about the rituals and the Tanakh and I just always liked it.  I was fortunate to have good teachers. And then, while I was in public high school, I went to the Baltimore Hebrew College High School division as well -- that was also afternoon and Sunday mornings. But I had some great teachers there. I didn't know this at the time -- 'cause I was in high school; what did I know about these things? But some of them were very famous scholars.  I was very fortunate to have that experience.

CW:  And you -- moving forward a little bit, you have your PhD in medieval and Renaissance literature.

TS:  Yeah.

CW:  What drew you to that field?

TS:  I -- well, I'll tell you.  One of the things that really got me interested in the Middle Ages, again, is the religious aspects.  It was a time dominated by religion -- in Europe, the Roman Catholic Church. But there's something about that kind of religiosity, obviously, that I like.  And I just -- I like the literature. And I like the sense of otherness of these periods, as well as trying to find similarities with us. I'm interested in the way people from different cultures -- which means religions, genders, ethnicities -- respond to what it means to being human.  And that interest extended into the Renaissance, which I consider the very late Middle Ages. So, certain English 14:00poets like Spenser and Sidney, I'm particularly interested in.

CW:  And then, how did sort of Jewish studies interplay with this -- not every -- you know, these English writers that you were looking at?

TS:  I went through a period where I sort of wasn't that interested in the Jewish aspects, and then found myself again drawn to them.  In the Renaissance, Jewish life was really difficult. And since I was working on England -- the Jews had been expelled from England in 1290 -- there wasn't a lot to look at there -- until I realized what was going on on the Continent later.  For the medieval Jewry, I just find that really a fascinating subject: looking at biblical 15:00commentators like Rashi or the commentaries of Rambam or the Tosafists -- many others. One of the things that strikes me as really interesting is that if you go to especially an Orthodox shul today and you hear a drash [non-literal interpretation of Torah], the -- whoever's giving the drash will refer to these medieval commentators.  They are still relevant. Whereas, even though I've done lots and lots of work on people like Augustine and Jerome and other Christian commentators, they don't come up in church sermons -- those are specialized studies. So, there's this relevance of the Jewish commentaries that I really think is wonderful.

CW:  And it seems like it was some -- sort of a recent thing, but maybe I'm wrong -- how did you come to Yiddish?

TS:  (laughs) Back in the early '70s, I had been studying Yiddish writers in 16:00English -- I had been reading a lot of Yiddish writers in English -- and I really liked them.  It was a time when, for instance, Isaac Bashevis Singer was popular. Now he's not one of my favorites, but he sort of got me interested. And I started learning a little bit of Yiddish.  And there was a -- the Twain series of literary studies announced that they were gonna be doing Yiddish authors. And I thought, That sounds really interesting. And I didn't know what I was getting myself into.  And I said I'd be interested in doing the volume on -- actually, I think I said Singer first, and that was already taken, so I went for Mendele -- Mendele Moykher-Sforim. And -- you can see I don't say it right: 17:00Mendele Moykher-Sforim.  And they said, Okay. And I had to get the books. And this was before the Book Center, so it was not easy finding these volumes. And then, I had to learn to read, you know, this relatively difficult Yiddish. My mother-in-law, fortunately, was a native Yiddish speaker from Poland and was delighted to help -- and was a tremendous help.  And I learned the language well enough to do that book. And I've retained that interest in Yiddish.

CW:  Who were the writers that you particularly liked when you started reading?

TS:  I liked -- well, honestly, I didn't know Mendele very well before I decided to do this book.  I really was captivated by him, because I'm interested -- I have -- it sounds silly -- I have a tremendous number of 18:00interests.  When I first came to Fredonia, I mentioned this to one of the senior people there, that I'm interested in so many things -- he said, "Oh, you have to focus on one of them.  Otherwise, you'll just be a utility infielder." But I like utility -- you know what that is?

CW:  Can you explain it?  (laughs)

TS:  (laughs) Well, you know, on a baseball team, you have famous third basemen or famous outfielders -- left fielders or right fielders.  And then, there are the guys who can play any position, and they may not be the stars, but they're very versatile. And I like that. That's a utility infielder.  I like that. Academic stardom is a very tangential thing to me, and I like just looking at all of these things and then finding connections among them. That's why -- this morning, I did a paper of Sutzkever and John Milton.  And it seems ludicrous, but it really made sense. So, I really liked Mendele. And one of the reasons was 19:00that his career and what he did with Yiddish is so similar to the beginnings of the novel in English. The English novel really got started in the eighteenth century, as you had an increase in literacy and people having an interest in reading literature about people like themselves.  So, early novelists like Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding transformed what had mostly been prose romances into the novel, which has a greater sense of verisimilitude. And here comes this educated maskil [follower of the Haskalah], Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh, and writes under the -- in the character of Mendele, and brings 20:00literature to a people who is starved for that in a language they can understand, and makes it relevant to them.  And then, he's followed by his literary grandson -- they weren't that many years apart, but Sholem Aleichem, and then Peretz, and then this explosion of Yiddish literature -- just like in English in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, you have the explosion of novelists. So, I just thought there were interesting parallels there.

CW:  Yeah.  And I'm curious what other parallels you see between these -- you know, some of your Jewish and Jewish literature interests and the medieval -- you know, Middle Ages?

TS:  Well, there's the -- the deep sense of religiosity I really appreciate.  And going back and reading Rashi's commentaries -- now I'm -- I remember, when I first studied Rashi, thinking, Why the heck are we reading this stuff?  And actually, I remember a conversation I had with one of my teachers in which I said, "This really is barely worth reading" -- because, of course, I was a teenager and knew everything.  I have discovered why it's worth reading. But I'm fascinated by looking at Rashi in two senses. One is, what's he saying about the text that's relevant to us now? But the other is, in what ways is Rashi expressing the concerns of his time?  You have to look at -- I mean, you have 22:00to remember that Rashi, for all his genius, was a man of his time, and that he's expressing concerns that were relevant to his time, many of those concerns having to do with pressures that were being brought on the Jews by the Christianity that was all around them.  At the time that Rashi was writing -- earlier in his career, conditions were not too bad, and then late in his life, you had the First Crusade and the massacres all around him at Speyer and Worms and Mainz, and he's reacting to Christian pressures. And I really think it's interesting to look at how he negotiates -- of course, he was writing in a language that the Christians couldn't read.  But he never -- he doesn't say things overtly that are anti-Christian, but he does say things that say, "This 23:00is the Jewish perspective, as opposed to what we're seeing around us."

CW:  What you're saying is reminiscent of some of the Yiddish writers, as well.

TS:  Yes, yes.

CW:  And you must, you know, make some of those connections (laughs) --

TS:  Oh, yeah.

CW:  -- too, I'm sure.

TS:  Yeah, yeah.  Because the -- because when you're that kind of a minority, you always have to be aware of the pressures that are coming to bear on you.

CW:  Is there any -- do you have any anecdotes or, you know, memories of learning the Yiddish language?  I mean, you (laughs) -- you talked a little bit about your -- going to your mother-in-law to help --

TS:  Yeah.

CW:  -- but --

TS:  I remember being very frustrated at times.  And my sense of triumph when I could read Mendele -- with some of the -- I remember starting with some of the stories and then moving on to the novels.  And most of the novels were 24:00translated. And I always checked the translations and realized -- you know, I was happy when I could see where I thought the translator perhaps got it wrong.  And then, one of his novels, "Dos vintshfingerl [The wishing ring]," was not translated at the time, so I had to get through that. And I remember the -- feeling pretty good when I did that.  (laughs) It was -- it was difficult. I mean, I -- you know, I knew enough German and enough Hebrew that they helped. But that's not enough. You really have to learn Yiddish. And as I say, my mother-in-law was a big help.  I think I dedicated if I'm -- I dedicated the Mendele book to my in-laws.

CW:  Now you've talked about having many different interests.  And also, I know you've -- identify with the term "generalist" (laughs) --

TS:  Yes.

CW:  So, what does that mean to you, and how does that play out in everyday life in the academy?

TS:  (laughs) One of the things -- for instance, when I say that I'm interested in medieval and Renaissance literature, I studied mostly medieval literature in graduate school.  I love that stuff. But I was very interested in a Renaissance poet named Edmund Spenser, who wrote "The Faerie Queene" -- great, great poem. And I did a dissertation on Spenser.  So, this was a peculiar thing to do, because usually you do -- if you say you're a medievalist, you do a medieval dissertation. At the time -- this was back in the late '60s, early '70s -- it was very popular for medieval graduate students to do editions, to find works in manuscript that had either not been edited or had been edited a long time ago, and to do a new edition.  And I -- in graduate school, I took a course in 26:00paleography, which is working with the manuscripts, and it turned out that I was violently allergic to the manuscripts, either to the -- I don't know, to this day, whether it was the dust or the mold on the manuscripts, but whatever it was, it was terrible. And the teacher (laughs) was a world-famous paleographer who was visiting the University of Illinois from London, and he just thought this was about the funniest thing he had ever seen.  But it kept me from doing an edition. So, I did a dissertation on Spenser, who is still one of my great literary loves. I go to a conference every year and mix with people who work on Spenser. In fact, I've been on the organizing committee for years. And so, I do -- you know, I do medieval lit, I do Renaissance lit, but I'm just interested in literature as a phenomenon, so I try to read as many different kinds of literature as I can, and I teach a wide variety of courses. When they ask what I 27:00want to teach, my answer is always, "Fill in the holes with me.  Whatever you need, I'll do." I just -- before I came up here, I was at a discussion of Canadian Jewish literature -- really, Fredonia is just across the lake from Canada, and so I'm really interested in Canadian stuff. I've been doing some French Canadian stuff lately. I just really like literature. I just think it's the -- it's fascinating. And to look at literatures from the ancient world and the modern world and to see how they develop -- I teach a course called "Epic and Romance," and we begin with the "Iliad" -- which is another thing that I love deeply -- and move on to -- finish up with Tolstoy.  So, I just like to do a lot of things. I have friends who are Spenserians who spend all their time 28:00working on Spenser. And I think that's great, and they get into a lot of depth. I guess I have a short attention span. I just can't do that. I like to move around.

CW:  Yeah.  Keep it interesting.  (laughs)

TS:  Well, I -- they're interested in what they do.  I have friends who work on another Renaissance English poet, Philip Sidney.  Sidney is a fascinating character. But you know, they've sort of worked out every detail of what he did every day -- like, what did he have for breakfast?  And I just can't do that. (laughs) I'm interested in seeing a wider picture.

CW:  Have you had -- oh, sorry -- not the question I wanted to start with -- okay.  (laughs) I'd like to talk now a little bit about the interplay if there is any, between your academic and communal Jewish life.

TS:  Hm.

CW:  I know that you're very involved in your shul -- in your synagogue -- and 29:00other Jewish organized -- organizations.  So, what is the interplay there? What's the connection between your academic work --

TS:  Okay.

CW:  -- and personal life?

TS:  Well, we moved to Fredonia, New York, in 1971.  Fredonia is a small town. At the time, it had about ten thousand people.  It's a -- I guess they call it sister city to Dunkirk, New York. Dunkirk, at the time we moved there, had about fifteen thousand people.  And there's a synagogue in Dunkirk. At the time we moved there, the synagogue had a membership of about sixty families. I remember the first Rosh Hashanah we were there, we had to bring in extra seats, because we had an overflow crowd.  There was a diverse population: there were, of course, faculty members, there were a lot of students who came, but there were 30:00also lawyers and doctors and shopkeepers and -- just a lot of people. And we -- there's a city called Jamestown that's about twenty-five miles away, but we were the synagogue that was the furthest west in New York State.  People don't realize how wide New York is. And actually, Fredonia is closer to Chicago than it is to New York City. So, this is the only synagogue in town, and we have to serve everybody. So, we have -- we had services that were a combination of Conservative, Orthodox, and Reform. We have a cantor who comes for the High Holidays now, and he said people say to him, Is the place where you daven -- is it Conservative, Reform, or Orthodox?  And he says, "Yes." Because we have to serve everybody. Unfortunately, at the time we moved there -- just at the time 31:00we moved there -- urban renewal came into existence in Dunkirk. And what urban renewal meant was, tearing down blocks of businesses and replacing them with parking lots, basically. And so, a lot of the shopkeepers left, and gradually, the doctors and lawyers either left or passed away. So, we are down to really just a handful of people now.  We have not had a rabbi in -- I'm sure it's twenty years. And so, everything is done by volunteers. I've served as the rabbi. I've taught kids' bar mitzvahs. I've done funerals -- which I don't like, obviously. I've even done the religious parts of a couple of weddings -- that was nice. And so, you know, we are now -- my wife and I -- the Jewish presence 32:00in town. We once got a letter delivered to the house that was addressed to "the rabbi, Fredonia, New York" and it just -- the post office delivered it to our house, (laughs) because there was no place else to put it.  So, we have run that, but we don't get a minyan anymore. We still have services on Rosh Hashanah, on Yom Kippur. We have a communal seder, which this past year had about forty people. But it's very difficult. Students who come to the State University of New York at Fredonia tend not to be really observant, because it would be too hard. It would be almost impossible to keep kosher unless you were completely vegetarian. And so, my wife and I have joined a shul up in Buffalo, which is about fifty miles away. And we even have now a -- what we call a 33:00"Shabbos apartment" -- we have an apartment up there, and on Fridays, after I'm through teaching, we drive up there and we spend Shabbos there and part of Sunday and then come back for classes.  My wife retired several years ago, so she's free, and I've got my schedule arranged so that we can do that. But it's very sad to see this building. Because we own the building. We have a -- I think it's called a trust fund or an endowment that a rich member gave us years ago. We don't have any financial problems. We just don't have people. It's very sad. 'Cause that was such a big part of our lives. Our kids grew up there and got their Jewish educations. And two of our three kids are involved in Jewish life for their careers, so we must have done something right. But that doesn't exist anymore.

CW:  What -- I know that you don't only teach Jewish Studies, but when you do, 34:00what is it like to teach Jewish themes in a small town -- you know, at that university?

TS:  Well, I think it's fascinating.  Because most of my students, obviously, are not Jewish, but when I'm teaching courses like "Medieval Literature" or "Renaissance Literature" or "The Bible as Literature," what I end up doing is teaching Christianity to the Christian students.  Because as I'm sure you know, most kids today are not growing up getting religious education -- or they do -- you know, the old kind of joke about Judaism -- that kids go through bar mitzvah age, or bat mitzvah, and then they stop. But it's also true for many of my non-Jewish students.  So, they know religion with the understanding of a ten-, 35:00eleven-, and twelve-year-old. So, I have to teach them Christianity. And so, I always throw in some Jewish aspects. When I teach "Medieval Literature," I'm always including some of the medieval Hebrew poetry from -- mostly from Spain.  I think that's important. In fact, I have an article that's coming out next year on including Jewish literature in Medieval Lit courses. And so, it requires explaining to them what Judaism means -- which I find many Jews don't have much of an idea about, either. And examining that -- now I just taught a course in Jewish Literature this past semester, and of the twenty students in the class, only one was Jewish.  And so, I spent a lot of time talking about the 36:00relationship between Judaism and Christianity, and explaining a number of Christian concepts to them. Only a handful still go to church -- which I think is unfortunate, but it's a nationwide trend. But there's always that -- you know, giving them as much background as I can.

CW:  And what is the role that you think academics do -- should -- play in the transmission of culture?

TS:  Well, the first thing we have to do is teach students how to think.  And unfortunately, my feeling is that a good deal of education today doesn't do that -- that there's a good deal of rote learning.  I mean, it's the -- you know, my complaints are the usual -- it's teaching to the test. When we have candidates 37:00for jobs at Fredonia, they'll ask us, What are your students like?  And we'll say, They are good examples of a New York state education -- which is not necessarily a compliment. They don't get content. They know how to take tests; they know how to comb through passages, perhaps; but they don't have content.  And it's really unfortunate, and it's got to change. So, one of the things I try to do is give them content. And the other is, give them practice in using it. So, I give -- actually, I give no tests. I don't think tests are very useful -- not in my field.  I think they are in some fields -- math and sciences, for instance. But my students do a tremendous amount of writing. And we spend a good deal of time working on their writing, either in class or individually, because 38:00it's really important for them to learn how to think.  And students are always coming and saying, I want to be an English major, but my parents say, What can you do with an English major? And I say, "Well, what does an English major do? Read, write, think. There are always openings for people who can do those." And -- but they have to get the practice in the thinking.

CW:  Do you feel any duty to transmit Jewish culture, as someone for whom that is important?

TS:  I think it's really important that while I give them a feel for my values, that I not try to impose my values on anyone.  I think it's important for them to know where I'm coming from, and so I do tell them that. But I always try -- 39:00it's -- for instance, like, when I'm teaching "The Bible as Lit" course, and I will give a Jewish interpretation of a passage, but then also, what are more Christian interpretations of the passage?  I want them to be able to make up their minds and not feel that I'm imposing something on them. I mean, I think that -- I hope that everything I do somehow conveys the values of Judaism that have influenced me. I mean, how could they -- how could it not? But I don't want that to be what I'm teaching them.

CW:  Do you ever have opportunity to use Yiddish in --

TS:  No.

CW:  (laughs) -- speak Yiddish with anyone?

TS:  (laughs) No, I don't.  I work on it. I read it.  As I say, I don't have a chance to speak it.  I am hesitant to speak, because -- of the reasons I said before.  And I have very little chance to do anything practical with it.

CW:  I know you work in an English department.

TS:  Yes.

CW:  What is the place of Jewish topics within English departments?

TS:  Well, we -- let me speak about my place.  We are a relatively small -- we're five thousand students -- rural campus -- as I say, fifty miles from Buffalo.  Our students tend to come mostly from the three surrounding counties. We get some from further away, but most are from the three surrounding counties.  And many come from small towns. So, Fredonia is not as diverse a campus as we would like it to be. We are constantly trying to get more students of every minority to come.  But it's very difficult, because it would be 41:00difficult for, say, an African American student to find foods that he or she might be used to -- or to get their hair done. And so, there are those kinds of difficulties.  So, what we've done -- well, we did a survey. We always say that the campus is too -- people are too much the same. But we did a survey some years ago, and we were completely floored by the results, because the students were telling us that this was the most diverse place they've ever been.  Well, they come often from small farm towns, and so for them, they thought they were in the United Nations. And you know, we feel just the opposite. There's a tremendous sense on campus of people getting along and learning each other's cultures. We have what we call the Center for Multicultural Affairs, and it includes Latinos Unidas [sic] and LGBT and the Hillel and a couple of other 42:00organizations.  And they are so supportive of each other that it's unbelievable. They go to each other's events. They publicize each other's events. They each have a budget, but to show support for each other, they contribute parts of their budget to each other. I guess it all evens out in the end, but it's a symbol of how united they are. So, that's wonderful. But we decided in the English department when we redid our curriculum some years ago that we wanted to have courses in minority studies.  So we have African American Lit courses, we have courses in Women's Studies, we have courses in American Indian Studies. And there's a course in Jewish Literature. But we also said we didn't want to create ghettos for these -- like, Oh, you want African 43:00American? Go over there. You want Women's? Go over there. And so, we make it a point to incorporate those areas in our regular offerings. So, I'll be doing next semester a survey of British literature, but it's going to include various minority studies.  It's our attempt to give the students a more diverse education. I think it works. It's not like having actual people there, but I think it makes a difference. And of course, we require a certain amount of studies in World Literature. So we try.

CW:  Is there -- do you have a sense of -- in your -- among your colleagues and in the institutions you're familiar with -- of what the place of Yiddish is in 44:00Jewish Studies and in the academy?

TS:  Well, the issue never, ever comes up on my campus.  I mean, it's just not something that would. I'm -- my daughter lives in the Bronx, and I was invited to talk at her synagogue one Shabbos.  And my subject was Yiddish literature. And I mentioned that there are fewer and fewer people who speak Yiddish -- which is true. And there was a person there -- someone -- an older person with whom I'm very friendly -- who took great offense at my having said that.  I mean, it was a very personal thing for her. But it's true. And I think that it's really important for colleges to be offering courses in Yiddish Literature. Just today in the two sessions I've attended, I spoke to so many people who were teaching 45:00Yiddish in one way or another.  What the Book Center does is vital. I think it's really, really important that we keep this alive. One of the things that upsets me is that I'm really -- another one of my interests, obviously, is world literature. And I looked through some of the anthologies -- you know, publishers make a lot of money from anthologies.  And there are anthologies of world literature -- there are the three big ones that I know of -- I mean, I'm talking thousands and thousands of pages. And there's no Yiddish. So, there's something wrong there. They have Inuit poetry -- and it's fine -- but there should be some Yiddish, as well. For that not to be included really bothers me.  The other day at the Jewish Film Festival -- or, I'm sorry, the Jewish Book Fair in Buffalo -- 46:00my wife and I are on the committee, and they -- we showed the film about Sholem Aleichem. And they asked me to say a few words before, and I just encouraged them to -- you know, If you don't read Yiddish, go home and read some Yiddish literature in English.  It's just -- we've got to keep this stuff alive.

CW:  Do you have any hypotheses about why Yiddish might not be included in these anthologies?

TS:  Well, it -- I suspect it's because the editors don't know it and it never occurs to them.  I don't think there's a conscious decision not to include it. I think they're just not aware.  Somebody's got to tell them. Actually, I should write a letter. (laughs)

CW:  Have you noticed any trends among -- or changes among your colleagues or your students in their -- in interest in Jewish topics?

TS:  I think there's a great deal of interest in religious topics.  "The Bible as Literature" is not a required course at our school; it's one of the most popular courses.  I'd love to say it's because I'm such a phenomenal teacher, but I think it's because there's a tremendous interest among the students whose religious education has been deficient to find out what's really going on there.  And it's fascinating to watch their responses. They come into the class, I'm convinced, thinking that everybody in the Bible is holy and they all wear halos and they all walk six inches above the ground, and when they read the Bible and they see the kinds of things people do, they're just astounded, and they don't know what to do with that at first.  We used to have a course in the 48:00English department that was called "Sex, Violence, and Racism in American Literature." And it was a popular course. I said, Why don't we name all our courses like that? "Sex, Violence, and Racism in British Literature," "Sex, Violence, and Racism" -- you know -- "in Shakespeare," "Sex, Violence, and Racism in the Bible."  But it would be very appropriate, because there's a lot of that stuff. And they're just dumbfounded when they see that. But then, they start to see the human dimension, and that here's this book that might actually have something to do with them as human beings. And so, they learn.

CW:  Is there -- I mean, we've talked about sort of within the course of teaching that you don't want to be didactic about passing on necessarily your views, but more broadly, sort of beyond the classes, are there values or ideas 49:00that -- for which -- that you would like to pass on to future generations?

TS:  Oh, sure.  You're trying, or I'm trying.  I think all good teachers are trying to -- I really, truly believe that literature -- that studying literature the right way should make us better people.  Now I've known plenty of English professors who are not better people. I've seen their performances at conferences, and sometimes they do shameful things. But I think that if you study it the right way, that it should make us better people.  I get that from the poet I mentioned before, Philip Sidney, who said that poetry should do two things: it should teach and delight. Well, he got that from the Roman poet Horace, and I think that's true. And I always tell my students on the first day 50:00of class, "This class should teach and delight.  You should learn, but it's important to have a good time while we're learning." But then, he says the ending end of teaching and delighting is being moved to good action -- to doing the right thing. That's one of the things we should learn from studying literature. And I really do think that literature has a moral dimension, and that we can't ignore that.  A good deal of some of the trends or fads in recent literary study ignored that, but I think it's really central. And so, of course, values get promoted in studying the literature.

CW:  Just a couple -- I have a couple more questions, but is there anything that you'd like to add about these topics?  Any --

TS:  I don't know.  I always think I talk too much.  So (laughs) --

CW:  Well, that's what you're supposed to be doing here, so (laughs) --

TS:  No, I just -- I really think -- this may sound like it's overboard, but I really do think that a teacher has a sacred obligation.  I think that there is something -- that you're playing with people's minds, and it's important to do the right thing with them. As -- you make mistakes sometimes, but that it's really important to deal with each student individually and to get them to see the kinds of things that you're seeing.  As I say, I think that you have to study the literature in the right way. You have to see what's really there. To give you an example, I mentioned before that I really love the "Iliad." The "Iliad" is often regarded as a poem about war. According to Plutarch, Alexander the Great would sleep with two things under his pillow: one was a knife and the 52:00other was a copy of the "Iliad."  This is probably -- either it's not true, or Alexander didn't sleep very well, because a parchment copy of the "Iliad" would not be conducive to a good night's rest. But that's that association with war. It seems to me that if you read the "Iliad" closely -- if you really pay attention to what it's saying -- it is a terrible denunciation of war; that throughout, it talks about what a terrible thing war is.  Now here's a poem that was composed about three thousand years ago that says this -- to me -- so clearly. One of the points I always make to my students is that you don't see women very much in the "Iliad," but when they're there, they're really important. Because the men have a choice: they can go out and fight and they can either be victorious or get killed. Nobody just gets wounded badly; there are no 53:00amputees.  So, they're either gonna win, in which case they're victorious, or they're gonna lose, in which case they're dead. But who is it who does the suffering? It's the women, who don't have a choice. So, that when Hector comes back to Troy in Book Six and his wife says, "I don't want you going out there again. My life depends on you, and our little baby's life depends on you. What you should do is bring the army inside the city and guard that weak spot in the wall, and you'll be safe, and maybe the enemies will go away."  And he says, "You're right. I know you're right. Can't do it. The shame would be too great." And then, there's that scene where he picks the baby up, and he's got the big helmet on, and the baby cries, and he takes the helmet off, and the baby laughs (UNCLEAR). And it's the only family scene we see. It's so sad. Because you know 54:00what he's gonna do -- he's gonna go back out there and he's gonna get killed, and his wife is gonna be taken as a slave, and his baby's gonna be killed. Nobody can tell me -- nobody can convince me that this is a book that glorifies war.  It says, This stinks. Don't do it. We haven't learned that yet. We continue to make those mistakes. So, I try to convey that to the students.

CW:  I'm -- just have a couple more questions.

TS:  Sure.

CW:  One is, now that you've read -- since writing this book on Mendele, you've read a little -- and you've given papers on other Yiddish writers, as well.  Is there a writer that you are particularly interested in or connect to right now?

TS:  That I am interested in?

CW:  Yeah.

TS:  (laughs) Another terrible thing that I do is that I keep creating new 55:00projects for myself.  Do you mean strictly a Yiddish writer?

CW:  Yeah.

TS:  One of the things that I really am interested in is not a particular Yiddish writer, but in getting Yiddish literature recognized as part of world literature.  Because the Yiddish writers, by and large, were readers of world literature. Sholem Aleichem knew Tolstoy's works intimately. Mendele knew the European writers.  Sholem Aleichem was influenced by Dickens. They read widely. I'm not gonna go through the names of the authors, but all of those great late eighteenth-, early nineteenth-century writers influenced them.  And their works may not always be on a par with those -- those people who influenced them, but 56:00they are part of that tradition. And so, one of the things I'm trying to work on now is not so much a single writer, but to make the point that, Look, here's this Yiddish literature that's part of the continuity of European literature -- or, in some cases, American literature.

CW:  Do you have a favorite Yiddish phrase?

TS:  (laughs) A favorite Yiddish phrase.  Gosh.

CW:  Or word?  (laughs)

TS:  My wife and I use a lot of Yiddish phrases and words.  I think -- just -- a word that we use all the time because we drink a lot of tea is "tshaynik [teapot]."  I just (laughs) -- I don't know why, I really love that word. (laughs) But yeah, we talk about the tshay-- we just got a new tshaynik -- it 57:00was a Hanukkah present from our daughter, 'cause our other one got worn out, basically.  And -- yeah, we really drink a lot of tea. (laughs) My wife drinks -- I should say, for posterity, that she drinks plain hot water, which I've never quite gotten into.

CW:  (laughs) And what advice do you have to students, or potential students, of Yiddish literature?

TS:  Stick with it.  I mean, it's just really important to preserve it.  The Yiddish-speaking population was not wiped out, but nearly wiped out by Hitler, and it's really important that we not let that happen, even this long after the Holocaust.  I just think it's so vital that we preserve -- whatever Yiddish you can learn, learn it. It's a great language. And I'm not being all nostalgic and, 58:00you know, all that business about, Oh, you can say things in Yiddish you can't say in any other language, because that's true of every language.  It's just an important part of our heritage. I would say the same about Ladino. That also should be preserved.

CW:  Right.  Well, a sheynem dank -- thank you so much (laughs) for --

TS:  It was a pleasure.

CW:  -- talking with me, and also sharing your story with the Yiddish Book Center.

TS:  It was a pleas-- it was an honor, actually.

CW:  (laughs) Great.  Okay.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

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