ANTHONY RUSSELL ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY:This is Christa Whitney, and today is January 9th, 2012.  I'm here in Oakland, California with Anthony Russell.  We are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History.  Do I have your permission to record this interview?

ANTHONY RUSSELL:Indeed you do. 

CW:Thank you.  So, just to start, can you -- do you know when your family came to the US?

AR:Oh, when my family came to the US.  I couldn't possibly tell you, because, like a lot of African Americans that came to the US as part of the slave trade, so, it would be easier to tell you when my family came to Texas which is where 1:00they're originally from, which I imagine is sometime in the mid-nineteenth century. Yeah, so --  

CW:And you were born in Texas?

AR:Um-hm, I was born in Fort Worth, Texas.  

CW:And, I know you moved around a lot in your childhood, but can you just tell me, are there any family stories that have been passed down through generations? 

AR:Hmm, are there any stories that have been passed down.  You know, it's funny that you should ask that, because I'm actually in the middle of trying to figure out what those stories are, because, I mean, after a while I got tired of hearing so many amazing people attached to Yiddish with amazing family stories.  And I was like, Where are my family stories?  So, goodness, you know, off the top of my head I really can't think of any, I'm really sorry.  

CW:No, that's fine.  Can you just describe the home that you grew up in?

AR:My mother was a classical pianist, and she used to be on the piano 2:00competition circuit in Fort Worth, Texas.  And she met my father in high school, they were kind of high school sweethearts.  So they married, and they had me very shortly after.  I'm not gonna go into that. (laughs) My father was in the military, so we did a lot of moving around, which was both a virtue, and it was a little bit of a problem as far as trying to figure out exactly where I was from, trying to feel connected to a particular place.  I've lived in California the longest, so that's the place I consider myself to be from, despite the fact that I was born in Texas, and I've lived in Connecticut, Mississippi, San Diego, Virginia, the list goes on.  But, I don't know, in many ways, I feel like it was a home in which education and literacy was definitely 3:00strongly emphasized.  My mother was extremely well-read, and she kind of gave us that gift of wanting to be well-informed, of wanting to learn about things.  So I grew up in a home in which learning was a very important thing, and there are aspects of that that I'm still living today.  

CW:So what aspects of culture were particular important to your mother, or in the family?

AR:Well, it was a couple of things.  My mother was something of an autodidact, so I would see this happen when I was child, she would read about something, or she would see a movie about something, and then she would read a number of books about it because she was interested in it.  And I did exactly the same thing.  I think I'm the only child who grew up during the '80s who did the absolute 4:00opposite of what every other child was doing.  When I watched a television show, it made me want to get a book and read it.  Like, if I saw a movie, I'd want to read the novel version of the movie, or if I saw anything, and it interested me, I ran straight to the library and started reading about it.  So I definitely got that from my mother.  She also had a very strong interest in classical music, of course, being a classical pianist, even though she really didn't play the piano when we were children because we couldn't really have a piano, moving from place to place as we did.  I knew that she really loved Debussy, I think she still loves Debussy.  So, just knowing that your parents have this interest, in learning, in music, provided you want to emulate them in any way, shape or form, it already gives you a great surrounding in order to create these interests for yourself, and that's definitely what I had.  

CW:And can you just tell me a little bit about the presence of religion in your growing up? [BREAK IN RECORDING]

AR:So, I don't think initially I really grew up in a very religious background, but somehow my family became religious.  I know that my mother, at least, grew up in a very religious background.  My grandfather is, at this very moment, a deacon in Forest Hills Church of Christ, in Forest Hills, Texas.  And it's not exactly like my grandfather being a Cohen, but it's certainly important.  So I knew that religion was a very important thing in my family's history, and it eventually became an important thing in my family's immediate history, to my family, as we somehow became more religious, around when I was seven or eight.  We started attending church regularly, and the same amount of, kind of 6:00intellectual rigor that my mother applied to a number of things in her life, she also applied to the Bible.  So I grew up in surroundings where the Bible was read, the Bible was discussed, the Bible was analyzed.  The narratives were very familiar to my brothers and I -- I have three brothers.  That's just kind of the surroundings that I grew up in.  Little knowing that it would be an asset to me, as I would eventually become a Jew. (laughs) So, it's funny how that works out.  But yeah, that's kind of the surroundings in which I grew up.

CW:And, what was your awareness of Judaism, Jewish culture, as you were growing up?

AR:It's very funny, because only now do I realize there was a certain amount of disconnect.  I felt very close to the people of the Bible, I mean as close as 7:00one can with a childhood imagination.  I thought about the narratives in the Bible, I thought about the characters of the Bible, I had my opinions about them, I had ones I loved, I had ones I hated.  But, for some reason, I couldn't make a connection between that and Jews, because as far as I knew, I didn't know any Jews.  Now, the interesting thing is that I remember, around when I was eleven or twelve, a Jewish man coming to my church and giving a presentation on Pesach.  And I remember walking up to him and looking at his Haggadah, and asking about afikomen, and the whole deal, but for some reason, there was this disconnect.  I didn't realize that Jews and people in the Bible could possibly be the same people.  And another funny thing, is around when I was eleven or twelve, my mother bought "Fiddler on the Roof," the video, and I sat down, and I 8:00watched it religiously.  That's a funny word to use, religiously.  But yeah, that's how I watched it, to the point to where I know the entire show.  I could do it as a one-man-show, which may happen. (laughs) But -- I had parts that I loved, and I watched them over and over again.  But once again, in my mind, there wasn't a complete connection in the way that there is now, in between my love of the narratives in the Bible, and the books that comprise the Torah, and with Jews.  And I don't know why, it's very strange.  I mean, maybe it's cultural.  I think if you grow up in a Christian surrounding, the connection between the two is not obvious, and maybe that's for reasons of doctrine, or theology, but it didn't -- the connection wasn't there for me.  Like, it makes sense to me that I would have sought out Jews, having as much of an interest in 9:00Judaism as I had, but for some reason I didn't.  It's odd because when I was eleven or twelve, I think when I was twelve, I learned my first phrase of Hebrew.  I was in a homeschooling group, 'cause I was homeschooled, and there was somebody's parent in the homeschooling group who was Jewish, and she decided she would give a little presentation about Israel.  And part of that presentation was teaching us a little phrase of Hebrew.  So I learned, Hodu l'adonai ki tov, ki l'olam khas do [Give thanks to God for He is good, for His mercy endures forever].  That's what I learned.  And I was so excited, 'cause I was like, Oh my God, I know something in Hebrew, that's so exciting. (laughs) But, I think, you know, what happened was, shortly after that, my parents divorced, and suddenly everything was like blown to the four winds. My ideas 10:00about religion, my love for religion, everything was completely different, so it kind of brought that all to an end.  Until, I met my partner, who happened to be a rabbi.  So. (laughs) [BREAK IN RECORDING] 

CW:So, opera and --

AR:Yes, opera.

CW:-- singing.  I know you decided at a pretty young age that --

AR:Yeah.

CW:-- that's what you want to do.  So, how did that come about?

AR:Well, it's really interesting.  So, it happened in a couple of different ways.  My mother liked to sing, and she sang in the church choir.  When she was younger, she actually played for her church's choir, so there was already kind of that, relationship between music and the church, and music and religion.  But this particular time, she was in a cantata, and in that cantata, they decided to excerpt a piece from Handel's "Messiah," "Every Valley."  So what 11:00she did is she went out and bought a tape of Handel's "Messiah," excerpts of Handel's "Messiah" and other pieces by Handel.  And she listened to the tape in order to, kind of learn the music and get familiar with it.  And, so for a while in the house, everyone listened to this tape, and then they stopped listening to it.  And then I listened to it, and I listened to it over and over and over again, and I knew every single note of "Messiah" at that point.  And I was singing along to it, it just seemed natural to me, in spite of the fact that the music's kind of difficult, it's very melismatic, complicated, virtuosic.  But I loved it, so I sang along to it.  And around when I was thirteen I decided, you know what, I'm really interested in classical music.  This is what I'm going to be interested in, this is what I've decided, yes.  And by chance, around when I was thirteen, we moved into a house where the previous resident 12:00had all of these illegally recorded videotapes, and one of the videotapes was "Amadeus."  So I watched it, and I became completely hooked, and it was much like the tape of Handel's "Messiah," I watched "Amadeus" over and over and over again, practically every day of the week, late at night, early in the morning.  I had the tape set to various points at which I wanted to see certain scenes, because it was all so exciting.  And it really got me interested in the world of opera, so I just decided, okay, this is what I'm interested in, I'm interested in opera.  So, I did a lot of reading, and I did a lot of listening, and I tried to attend operas.  And, I always knew that I liked singing, but I never thought that I would do it professionally, little knowing that I was kind of training myself to be a singer by singing along to these tapes of Handel, or whatever else I happened to like.  So at that point, I was taking piano 13:00lessons, and it was going alright, it wasn't going great, because I started kind of late for piano lessons, I started around when I was fourteen or fifteen.  And I was at a recital, and I think an eight-year-old got up and started playing a piece by Chopin, and I remember thinking, I am never going to be able to do that, (laughs) like, ever.  I'm never going to be able to play as well as this child.  So I thought, Well why don't I try, why don't I try voice lessons?  I mean, I love singing, I sing along to opera all the time.  I kind of give an impression of an opera singer that sounds moderately good, so why don't I try that? And I found a voice teacher, and I started taking voice lessons, and within about a year of taking lessons I won my first competition, so I thought, Okay, this is it, I get up, I sing, people give me money.  Not a bad model.  Hasn't been a very consistent model. (laughs) But yeah, that's how I started. 14:00I've been doing it since then.  I started around when I was like seventeen.  

CW:I just am curious of the -- has "Fiddler on the Roof" remained a favorite for you since then?

AR:That's so funny, you know, I've tried to stay away from "Fiddler on the Roof" in an odd kind of way, because I'm afraid of what I'll find when I watch it.  Like whether -- I want it to kind of stay as good as it remained in my memory, as this like essential document of my childhood.  But, man, it was on Turner Classic Movies about a month ago, and I started watching it, and I was like, Oh my God, I love this so much. (laughs) I mean, to the point to where there was one of the daughters I strongly identified with. 

CW:Which one?

AR:Chavaleh.  Except I would never marry some goyishe and leave my family, 15:00because why would you want to leave that wonderful family?  But I seriously, there were serious parts of myself that I poured into that movie, and just watching it again was amazing.  And what's crazy about watching parts of it again, was how much I learned since I watched it when I was a child.  There were things that happened in that film that I had no idea what was going on.  Like, I had no idea what tzitzis was.  I saw that he had them on, I didn't know what they were.  Before "Sunrise, Sunset," I think they set -- they bentsh likht [bless candles], right?  They light Shabbos candles.  I had no idea what they were doing.  I'm like, It's getting dark, they're lighting candles, because it's getting dark, and they don't have electricity, so what do you do when it gets dark, you light some candles.  I had no idea they were lighting Shabbos candles.  So it's a trip watching it again, because now I'm a Jew, and I wasn't when I watched the film, it's insane.  

CW:What about the music?  Do you have a favorite song from that?  

AR:Do I have a favorite song?  My favorite part of the entire musical is 16:00"Tevye's Dream."  I just think that was absolutely wonderful.  And it's interesting, because in many ways, of that musical, it feels the most real.  I mean, I've heard stories that sounded just like "Tevye's Dream."  So the fact that they were able to take that, that kind of moment of realness, just strange, curious, odd stories, and dramatize that for a mass audience, it's crazy.  I mean, how many people watch "Fiddler on the Roof" and have no idea, these things that are entertaining you, these are a part of history.  They were a part of a reality for these people.  It's really interesting, yeah.  And, of course, I only realized that now.  

CW:Yeah, yeah. So, I kind of want to skip ahead a little bit, but I do have a 17:00question sort of about the order of things.  So, Sidor Belarsky, becoming a Jew, so, which happened first?  And is there a correlation between them?

AR:I feel like becoming, well, okay, so as far as becoming a Jew and Sidor Belarsky is concerned, I was kind of on my way to becoming a Jew, and then I discovered Sidor Belarsky.  Now, formally, I became a Jew before I discovered Sidor Belarsky.  But when I first heard Sidor Belarsky, it was before I formally became a Jew.  I was kind of practicing, for many years -- well not for many years, but for about three years, I was basically practicing as a Jew, I hadn't formally done my conversion, but I went to Shabbos services, 18:00and I celebrated the holidays with my partner.  You know when your partner's a rabbi, it's not a very hard thing to do, to be a practicing Jew.  But I was really practicing, I was not a Jew, I was practicing.  Practicing to be a Jew. So -- 

CW:So do you want to tell me a little bit about that conversion, and sort of how you became interested in it?

AR:Yeah, it's an interesting story.  So, I started dating my boyfriend.  His name is Rabbi Michael Rothbaum, and I started dating him, and, he lived in New York, and I lived in San Francisco, and I met him over the course of a production of "Così fan tutte," one of the worst productions of my life, and then I went back to San Francisco.  So, I was very serious, very seriously in love with him, and I thought, Well you know what, he's a rabbi, so I should go 19:00to a synagogue, and figure out what this whole, being a rabbi, being Jewish, thing's about.  And very much after the fashion of me being an autodidact, I just, I just decided to go, one day, to a synagogue.  I walked into Congregation Sha'ar Zahav, in San Francisco, which was the gay and lesbian synagogue, because I thought, Okay, if I'm just going to walk into a synagogue, I might as well go to a place where I feel like I'm welcome.  Welcomed, rather.  So, that's where I went, and I just started going to services, and I really didn't have a complete idea of what was going on, and I had a lot of questions for Michael, when I would call him, every night, which I did at that point.  And he kind of guided my way.  But really, the most defining moment for -- when I decided formally to convert, was, I was working for a retailer in Nyack, 20:00New York.  And I asked for Yom Kippur off.  Because at that point I had been practicing for about two years, two and a half years, I was very serious.  Completely serious, I had decorated a sukkah the year before, I had helped build it, I cleaned out the house for Pesach, everything out of the house for Pesach, that's like, serious stuff.  So, I was really serious.  I really wanted to go to Yom Kippur services.  It wasn't like a question, it was what I was going to do.  So I asked my boss, could I have Yom Kippur off, I need to go to services.  And she said, "Absolutely not."  And I said "Why not?"  And she said, "Because I need you to work here."  And I said, "Well, I'm not sure if I'm going to be available.  I'm not going to be available.  I need to go to services.  It's Yom Kippur, it happens once a year, I need to go."  And she said, "But Anthony, you're not even a Jew."  And I think my head exploded, I was like, Ugh.  But it was true.  I wasn't a Jew.  And -- the lamest thing, 21:00it was like, I said, "Well, well, I'm gonna be a Jew."  You know?  I was just like, "I'm gonna be a Jew.  Shouldn't that be enough?  Shouldn't that be enough to let me go to Yom Kippur services?"  And she was just like, "Whatever."  And she was like, "You know, I've had Jews who have worked for me on Yom Kippur.  I don't know why this -- why it's a problem."  And I said, "Well, I feel sorry for them."  I was just on this, like, "I feel sorry for them.  Jews working on Yom Kippur, they should be ashamed of themselves."  I don't even know where that came from, but I was just going for it, because by that point, I was angry.  I had found somebody who could cover the day for me, I had done everything that I needed to do to go to services for Yom Kippur, and she just wasn't having it.  So, I went home, and I threw myself on the bed, and I sobbed.  I was the most miserable I think I had ever been.  And I said, you 22:00know what?  I need to make sure no one ever says to me, "You're not even a Jew."  I need to make sure that this is like, the real deal.  I need to become a Jew.  If this is this important to me, I need to become a Jew.  So, luckily, I lived about four or five blocks away from a shul, that I attended occasionally.  Congregation Sons of Israel in Nyack.  And I called up the rabbi, and I said, you know, I'm really serious about doing this, can I just meet you every week and can we just do this?  And he said, yeah.  So, I waited until the high holidays were over, during Cheshvan [Hebrew: Jewish month after the high holidays], when there are no holidays, and I met up with him for every week, and soon after, I formally converted, and I was a Jew.  And I was like, yeah.  So now some random person can't say "You're not even a Jew."  I did not want that to be the takeaway.  Because I was very serious about it, but, you 23:00know, I imagined to the outside world, it didn't make any sense.  I mean, here's this black guy, he's with a rabbi, but that doesn't mean you're a Jew, right?  But I was very, very serious.  There were very strong feelings that I possessed about being a Jew, about Judaism, about the practice of Judaism, and those had only grown stronger the longer that I did it.  So it was very important for me to take a stand, and I was helped in taking that stand by my partner, which isn't hard when your partner's a rabbi.  (laughs) And that's when I decided, I need to become a Jew.  So that's how it happened.  

CW:I'm curious, what aspects of Judaism were really important to you?  You say it became, you know, a real central part of your identity.  What in particular -- how did you go from asking questions about the process to knowing that this was important for you personally?  

AR:Well, having been raised in a household where biblical literacy was of great importance, I already felt a very strong relationship to the patriarchs and the matriarchs, which seems a little odd, but I really did.  So much so, that the first time I went into a synagogue, it was for a Friday night service, a lot of it was completely foreign to me.  But then we got to the Avidah, and they said the names of the matriarchs and the patriarchs.  And it was like, here I am.  These people are like members of my family.  I know them so well that just hearing their names just made me feel warm inside.  And also, growing up in a household where there was an amount of engagement with biblical narratives, I think also informed my decision about becoming a Jew, because suddenly, I was in 25:00a surrounding where everyone -- not everyone, but a lot of people have an engagement with the text.  That's who they are.  When I was in college, people used to ask me, Why is it that you're able to -- why is it that you're able to analyze text on this level?  How were you able to do this?  When I first started going to college, which was around when I was sixteen, and all I could say was like, when I was younger, this is what we did with the Bible, we looked at the text, we analyzed the text, we tried to figure out what was the meaning of the text, what were the main themes, that kind of thing.  This is how I was raised, so doing it with a short story, well that's easy.  (laughs) Maybe it's even easier.  But that was how I was raised.  Goodness, I feel like I'm getting off the track of your question, what was the question again? 

CW:Oh, I was just curious--you know, I mean, I think you're talking about it--what, that the text was one of the important aspects for you. 

AR:The text was definitely an important aspect for me.  And it's funny, there's really kind of a through-line with me and text.  The importance of text was a big thing when I was a child, with the Bible.  The importance of text was a big thing when I was an adolescent and I was interested in opera, and the importance of text remains an important thing to me as I sing in Yiddish.  I mean, it's this ability to express, to interpret, to really live words.  To make words which have outlasted their creators into life, into truth, into love, into drama.  That was always really important to me.  So there's kind of this through-line of the importance of texts throughout my life.  In that way, I think I was almost kind of set up to be a Jew.  Because, I mean, text, that's a lot of Judaism right there.  You know, we're really about our books.  And I 27:00love myself some books.  (laughs) And I'm gonna go on loving books, now that I'm a Jew, so yeah.  

CW:Yeah. So can you tell me sort of the story of hearing Sidor Belarsky, and realizing that you were hearing Sidor Belarsky?

AR:Yeah, it's a really funny story.  So, my boyfriend and I were watching this movie, "A Serious Man," which, if you've ever seen it, it's a little bit of a stumper, there's a lot of things going on in that film.  And at one point the main character throws himself down on the couch, and he puts on this record, and out came this voice, just this beautiful voice, that was singing "Der milners trern [The miller's tears]" -- (sings) "Oy vifl yorn, zenen farfaln [Oh, how many years have gone by]" -- you know, it's like, then I was like, Oh, that's beautiful, sounds like it's in Yiddish, and it's this voice.  And it was this 28:00really deep, beautiful, kind of burnished, definitely kind of older bass sound.  Because, as far as voice types are concerned, there's a quality to voices, and you can kind of pinpoint at which particular time a particular voice comes from.  Like, when you think about "Snow White," if you listen to "Snow White" now, she has such quick vibrato, you know it's not anybody from the past forty years, because no one from the past forty years has sung with that kind of vibrato.  It's impossible, no one would be able to listen to them.  And yet, when you listen to "Snow White," you know that's obviously someone from the '40s, or the '30s, because that's how they all sounded then.  So when I heard Sidor Belarsky, I knew that it was a singer from an earlier time, but I didn't know who it was, and hearing the quality, the timbre, the beauty of the voice, I assumed instantly that it was Paul Robeson.  Which, you know, honestly, it was 29:00a little bit of nakhes [pride] for me, because I was like, Oh this beautiful voice, singing in Yiddish so well, it must be a black man, it's Paul Robeson.  And I didn't really think anything else about it, because I was like, Oh, Paul Robeson sang Yiddish in this movie.  And there are so many things going on in that movie, that was the last thing that I was thinking about.  I mean, it was beautiful when it happened, but you know.  So, I went on being an opera singer, and then I got tired of doing opera, because I wasn't making money, I was spending more money than I was making, so I decided I needed a job singing.  So what I started doing was auditioning for Broadway shows, and that was horrific, because I would go on these cattle calls, and there would be literally three hundred people there, and they were all Broadway people.  Which, if you're an opera singer, is the furthest -- I mean, it's not the furthest thing from what 30:00you do, but it's really the vocal quality, the amount of energy -- it's just very different.  I mean, suddenly I was in this room full of people and everyone was like (singing) and dancing around, and singing, and it was just way too much for me, but I had to do it, because I decided I needed a job singing.  I needed to make money singing.  I went to college and got a degree in music, I needed to find a job doing this.  So that didn't work out, and I had auditioned for an opera company, to do an apprenticeship, but it was like, I didn't really think that went very well.  And, what happened was, they called me back, and they said, We'd like you to be an apprentice in this program.  And I was thrilled, because I was like, Okay, good, I actually can do something with this, somebody else appreciates what I do.  So, I basically was understudying a role in "Tosca," and I learned it up and down, I went to every rehearsal, and, I 31:00was ready to go on.  And the guy who was actually playing the role didn't know it as well, like when the production started, and didn't go to every rehearsal, which I resented, because I was like, I'm the understudy, and I'm at every single rehearsal, and you're not even here.  So, one day I was backstage, and I was moping around.  And the person playing the role said, "Anthony, do you want to sing this role?"  And I was like, "Well yeah, of course I want to sing this role, I've been studying it for the past three or four months.  I know it like the back of my hand."  And he said, "Well, pick a day, pick a day that you want to want to come in and sing this role and I'll call in sick.  But you need to be here.  Be a block away from the opera house, so when they call you, and say, Oh my God, he called in sick, we need you to come in, you're here, and you're ready to go."  So, I picked a day, he called in sick, I was there.  And I waited, and I waited, and I waited.  And I never got a call.  And then, 32:00suddenly I did get a call, and it was the guy who played the part, and he said, "The general manager told me that I'd better be dead, lying on the ground, because otherwise, I need to come in and perform the role, and that if I wanted the understudy to perform the role, I would have hired him to do it."  And I was like, Well, okay, fine.  Obviously they don't need an understudy.  So I don't know why I'm wasting my time doing this anyway.  And in addition to having to be the understudy, I had to sing in the chorus, which is like the worst job ever, I hated singing in the chorus.  Puccini choruses are the worst.  Anyway, I was really sad, it was really hard for me to just decide I was gonna give up on something, because I never really give up on anything.  I am willing to put up with a really bad situation until I find something I can take away from it, and I went through this situation, and I didn't find anything I could take away from it.  The only thing I could find was that somebody told me that they didn't like my singing enough to not want me to go on for somebody else.  So, I went home, and I decided that I wanted to give up singing, because I 33:00just couldn't do it anymore.  I had spent so much time, energy, God knows, so much money, oh my God, just trying to live this dream, and it just wasn't happening.  And I was trying to remember when the last time it was that I felt like singing was actually a good thing, like it was a positive thing, and I remembered about a month before, I had done solos for high holidays, I sang "Unesanneh toykev" for Rosh Hashanah.  And it was for twelve hundred people, it was in this giant tent, and I got up and I sang it, and I just kind of went to this other place.  It was like -- I had an out of body experience.  I sang it, and it was -- it put so much of my anxiety, and my grief, and just 34:00my need to pray, it was very tfiledik [prayer-like].  You know?  It was very -- I just put so much of myself into it, that when it was over, it was this strange thing.  Like, I opened my eyes, and it was over, and there were like twelve hundred people sitting there, and they were staring at me, and I didn't hear anything.  And then there was this immense sigh, just like (sighs) and I could hear people sobbing, and I was like, What's going on?  (laughs) Because I thought I had done an okay job, you know?  I thought I was -- you know, I was just kind of doing it, and it was whatever it was.  I mean, I know it was a moving experience for me, but I wasn't thinking it was like that.  But there were -- people were crying, and so I was like, yeah, that was the last time singing felt like a really meaningful experience to me.  So I need to recreate, 35:00in some part, that experience, every single time that I perform.  So I thought, Okay, let me try to find something that I'm performing for Jewish audiences.  Which sounds very mercenary, it's like, "Ah, Jewish audiences, that's where it is, yeah, let me do that."  But there was this -- Jewish audiences really give you a lot of themselves.  It's like performing for your family.  They want you to do well, they really do.  This has been my experience, anyway.  You get up, and you sing for them, and they really want you to -- they want you to do a good job.  They're there for you in a way that opera audiences really are not.  Opera audiences are kind of waiting for you to fail.  They're waiting for you to make a mistake, they're waiting for you to kind of screw up, every -- I feel like almost everyone who goes to the opera is secretly a reviewer.  And they're really waiting for you to screw it up so they can, in 36:00their own personal review, like, Okay, not gonna see that person again.  That's really not the case with Jewish audiences, at least it hasn't been with me.  And, so, I thought, Okay, I need to find my audience.  I need to find that audience, the audience who's really into what I'm doing.  So, at first, I decided I would try to get into khazones [Jewish liturgical music], and it was really complicated, bec-- khazones is like -- I mean, you'd think, okay, you're an opera singer, you like to sing Handel, you have training, khazones would be what you would do, it's the closest thing to what you do.  But, oh my God.  It's super, super complicated.  I mean, khazones is something completely different altogether.  

CW:Can you talk about what was it like coming -- I mean, what is the difference, for someone who doesn't know. 

AR:What is the difference?  Okay, so, the difference between, I think, what I do, which is, essentially, art song, and khazones, is that khazones is 37:00really, it's like high synagogue music.  It's very complicated, it's in modes, not that Yiddish art songs aren't in modes, but it's just -- it's very complicated, it's like a system of music.  It's really interesting, because I took master classes with cantor Jack Mendelson, and he handed us some music, I still have the music, he handed us this music, and he's trying to teach us khazones.  And it was like, it was impossible.  (laughs) I mean, you were trying to read these notes, and the notes were just all over the place, without seeming rhyme or reason.  I mean, it was so foreign to what my experience had been with music in general.  But then he said something really interesting. 38:00 He said that the way you really learn khazones is that you have someone sit there, and they play it for you, and you just parrot it back to them.  And that's how, in the beginning, he learned all of the khazones that he knows.  So, I started attending his classes, and he would hand us music, and I would take the music, and I would put it down.  And then I would sit there, and I would listen to him, and I would parrot it back to him.  And I got really good, because that's the way it's taught.  Literally, it's like from mouth to mouth.  Like, you sit there, and you listen to what you hear, and then you do it back.  And there's still some kind of, God, I don't even know what to call them, I want to call them licks.  There's still some licks from khazones that I remember.  But the ones that I remember are not the ones I learned on the page, they're ones that I remember hearing directly from cantor Jack, and then reproducing them in my head. 

CW:Like what, do you mind sharing?

AR:Oh my goodness.  There was one that was -- I'm trying to remember what it was.  It was like -- (humming) God, I can't remember what it is.  Oh, that's 39:00so sad--I'm sorry, I don't remember what it is off the top of my head, because I'm nervous, that's why.  I really apologize.  (both laugh)

CW:It's okay, don't worry.  No pressure. 

AR:I mean, I could go grab some music. 

CW:No, I mean, we can maybe do that later, if you want.  

AR:Oh, alright, so, I'm sorry.  I'm remembering where I was.  So, initially I tried to do khazones, and it didn't work out, because it was so much of a different kind of music.  And, I think, a lot of khazones is really written for tenors, and I am definitely not a tenor, I'm not even a bass-baritone, I'm just a bass.  That's where I sing, nothing's going to move me from that particular range into bass-baritone, baritone or tenor.  So, I thought, 40:00Okay khazones is not for me, because I'm not a tenor, and I'm not sure I have the technique, or the ability to do it.  So I thought, Hm, well, maybe I should start singing that, the Jewish repertoire of Paul Robeson, like that song that I heard in that movie, I should try to track that down.  So, I went to Google, and I put in "Paul Robeson A Serious Man."  And I didn't get anything, or what I did get was completely off the wall.  So, I started looking for "A Serious Man" soundtrack and there was this guy named Sidor Belarsky.  And I was like, Okay, never heard of him, but let me do a little digging.  So I started, so I put Sidor Belarsky into Google, and I got this, you know, tiny little Wikipedia article about Sidor Belarsky.  And then I went to YouTube, and I put his name into YouTube, and I got these videos of him singing Yiddish songs, and I was 41:00like, Wow, this stuff is great, this is beautiful, it's beautiful music, and it sounds like me, it sounds like my voice.  Which was an issue, because I feel like a lot of Jewish music, like khazones, is for -- when it's for male voices, it's for higher male voices, it's not necessarily for the low male voice.  And it was very important, after I made the decision that I wasn't interested in opera anymore, or rather that opera wasn't interested in me, that I find a music that would suit my voice as a person.  I knew that I wanted to find myself in a music.  This is going to sound very, I don't know, Kabbalistic, artsy-fartsy, whatever, but I always had this image of the etz chaim, of the tree of life. 42:00 And I knew that I wanted to find a branch on the tree of life that was my branch, that was, like, me.  I wanted to find a part of the etz chaim that was, like, me, that was my branch.  So finding somebody who was a bass, who had an operatic background, and yet was so fully Jewish, had so much Yiddishkayt, was -- it blew my mind.  I was like, Oh my God, this is the answer to my prayers.  So I started trying to find music of Sidor Belarsky, and I found, practically, his entire Yiddish and Hebrew discography on the Florida Atlantic University Judaic Sound Archive.  Oh my God, that place is a treasure.  It was amazing.  So I sat down and I listened to everything.  I went through every single track, I listened to everything, and it was amazing.  And I started writing down the titles of songs that I just knew I wanted to get up in front of 43:00people and sing.  And it was amazing to me to hear Belarsky's voice, because his voice was so, it was so heymish [familiar], it was a heymish voice, I mean, it's very hard to explain exactly what that means, except, I don't know, I can compare him to Leon Lishner.  Leon Lishner, also was an opera singer, also Jewish, also sang Yiddish repertoire, but Leon Lishner has a quality of presentation which is very operatic, very bassy.  Not that Belarsky isn't bassy, but just very, it's very operatic in its presentation.  He sounds like he does singing Boris Godunov, as he does singing, you know, "Zol shoyn kumen di geule [Let the coming of the Messiah happen soon]."  Like, he sounds the same in each of the repertoires.  Whereas with Belarsky, Belarsky, Belarsky 44:00sounds like a Jew.  I don't even know what to say.  He sounds like a Jew.  He's at home in the music, he's at home in the text, he has a largesse of feeling, and the way that he interprets it.  I love it, I heard it and I felt liberated.  I was just like, Yeah, this is a way that I could be, I could be myself, and I could be a Jew, and I could be a bass, and I could be a black man, in this music.  This is what I'm about.  I need to make this happen.  So, I found out that he had a book of art songs, and, even more important than that, they were art songs in bass keys, which is crazy, because almost nothing is ever written in bass keys.  So it was a book full of music that I could actually sing.  Oh my God, it was like I went insane.  So, I went to the Performing Arts Library in Manhattan, and I had a little date with the book, because the 45:00book couldn't leave the library, it was library use only, so I was looking at the book, and I'm sizing it up, and I'm going through all the songs, and I'm trying to figure out which ones are the low ones, because that's where I kind of want to start, on the lower side.  So, I'm going through all of these songs, I'm copying them, and then -- I lived in Hudson, New York at that point, so I lived upstate.  And I had to take a train that was like two and a half hours from Hudson to New York and back.  So I copied a clutch of songs that I thought I'd just learn.  I was ready to go.  And, on the train ride back to Hudson, I was sitting there and learning the songs, and I was just like, Yeah, this is what I'm doing now.  The first song I ever learned was "Piramidn [Pyramids]," so, you know, it's funny, every time I hear that song, I go back to that moment, I was on that train, I was picking out those notes, and trying to figure out the pronunciation, which I had no idea how to do, at all.  I knew that Belarsky had 46:00great pronunciation, so basically, I listened to him, and I imitated exactly what he did.  And it was really funny, because I went back to one coach, one opera coach that I had used before I had got involved in Yiddish to go over the repertoire, and it was amazing.  He said -- he started one song, and then he stopped and he said, "You sound so different in this music."  And I was like, "Really?  Like, how?"  And he was like, "Well, you sound like you like it."  (laughs) I was like, "Okay."  And he said, "You know, there was a quality when you used to sing opera, you just sounded like you were just pushing it uphill."  And I was like, "Well yeah, partially I was pushing it uphill, I'm not sure how much it loved me.  Like, I thought I loved it, but I'm not sure it loved me, I'm not sure I was really suited to it."  And the other really interesting thing that he said is that singers can't make the "nn" sound.  This "Piramidn," no, you can't sing like that, that's not how classical singers sing.  "Nn" is not a sound that classical singers should make.  Well, 47:00I'm happy to tell you for the past year I've been making "nn" all over the place because "nn" is a sound that you have to make in Yiddish.  If you don't make "nn" you're not really singing in Yiddish, so.  (laughs) I was like, Okay, this is complete, I really, my break is complete, in order to assimilate this music and this sound, and this culture, I just kind of have to separate myself from everything I did before, and just become it.  I have to embrace the "nn."  (laughs) You know?  You know what I mean?  I mean, I just -- yeah, that's what I had to do, so.  Oh goodness, the story goes on.  Okay, so --

CW: Well, can I interrupt you for a sec?  

AR: Yeah, yeah, yeah.  

CW: Do you mind singing a few lines from the first, from "Piramidn"? 

AR: Yeah. [BREAK IN RECORDING]  It's like the second song in the book.  I 48:00probably didn't even get very far before I was like, Look, there's a song.  Let's see.  (singing in Yiddish) [00:48:12-00:48:23] (laughs) I probably haven't sung it since I learned it the first time, but, I don't know, should I sing some more?  (laughs)

CW:Yeah, please, I would love to hear it, if you -- however much you feel like singing.  

AR:Alright, let's see.  Oh, this poor book is falling apart. (singing in Yiddish) [00:48:43-00:48:55] Mm, see, shoot.  (snapping) This is what I was 49:00doing on the train.  (laughs) I was like, Oh shoot, that's not right.  (singing in Yiddish) [00:49:07-00:49:36] Yeah, that was the first melody in Yiddish I ever knew.  (laughs) That's so funny.  Boy, I should warm up before you interview me.  (both laugh) I didn't know I was gonna be like woo--

CW:Sorry.  No, it's great, and, now, I mean, I can really imagine you, you know, trying to learn these on the train.

AR:Yeah, yeah, I was by myself, and I was trying to hum, and I was doing it in solfege, and I was like (singing) you know, and people were like -- (laughs) so, 50:00it was strange.  So, basically what happened was, I did a lot more listening, and I did a lot more learning.  Listening and learning.  And I kind of got a group of songs that I really loved, and I felt like an absolute missionary zeal to perform.  I knew that I had to perform them.  So it was a matter of finding out where I was going to do that, and that was kind of complicated, because it's not like there's a Yiddish open mic night anywhere, which there should.  And I'm actually trying to get happen -- I'm trying to make that happen here in the Bay Area, because I think, you know, people don't have an encouragement to perform this music if there's no place to really do it.  So people need to make places to do it.  I didn't have a place like that, so I had to start looking 51:00around.  And I emailed a bunch of people, I cold emailed a bunch of people, like, Hey, I'm this black guy, and I like Yiddish, and I'm an opera singer, and I want to perform it, so what do you think, you know?  Is this a good thing?  Let me know, write me an email back.  And lots of people did not write back to me, because I'm sure it seemed like absolutely insane, this email from this guy, who's like, I'm black and I'm an opera singer and I want to sing in Yiddish.  But some people did get back to me, and they were like, I'm not the best person to talk to about this, but talk to this person.  And then that person's like, "Talk to this person," and that person would be like, "Talk to that person."  So, eventually, someone's like, you should talk to this guy, Itzik Gottesman, and I had no idea who Itzik Gottesman was.  So they gave me a number, and I called the number, and I was very nervous, I knew that I didn't want to talk directly to Itzik Gottesman, I didn't have the koyekh [nerve], or whatever, so, I was just like, Okay.  I had already composed a message to leave 52:00on his voicemail, and he picked up, I was like, Oh, no.  I was like, "I'm this guy, and I sing in Yiddish, and I found these songs by Sidor Belarsky, you've heard of Sidor Belarsky?"  He was like, "Yes."  "And do you know of any place that would be interested in having me come and perform them?"  And he was like, "Yeah, I do have a place, I have these Yiddish afternoons that I do with the Sholem-Aleichem Kultur-Tsenter in the Bronx, and if you have about an hour's worth of music, forty-five minutes or so, I'll put you on the program in January, which is like in a month."  And I was like, "Okay."  So, I did it.  But, he didn't decide to engage me immediately.  So it's funny, while all of this is happening, while I was cold calling, and cold emailing these people, I decided I was just gonna jumpstart this whole thing by myself.  So I had this 53:00little tiny computer, I set it up in my room, and a cappella, I sang this Yiddish art song, "Der gemore nign [The Talmud melody]," which I adore.  I love this song, I love it so much to this day.  I try to perform it as much as I can, that's how much I love it.  So I set up this computer, and I performed it, and it was really poor quality, to the point where the sound and the image didn't even match up.  (laughs) It was really bad.  And I put it on the internet, and people just kind of started getting back to me, like, This is amazing, this is really good, this is good.  To the point to where, when I met Shane Baker for the first time, which was actually at this gig that Itzik Gottesman gave me, he said, "I didn't even know if it was really you, you looked like you were lip-syncing," because the sound was off, so much with the image. 54:00 But yeah, I was like, I'm going to put myself out there.  I love this music, I'm going to get in front of the computer, and I'm going to perform it, and I'm going to put it on YouTube, and I know it's crazy, but I'm just going to do it.  And I did it.  So I had my first gig at the Sholem Aleichem Center, and the response was very, very, very positive.  People were just very much into what I was doing.  And I thought, Okay, okay, I can do this.  And Shane Baker happened to be there, and he gave me a little spot in his vaudeville show, and that was the next thing.  And then there was another thing.  And then there was another thing.  And then, I'm here.  (laughs) It's been the past -- in the past year, it's like, one thing after another, after another, first it was a trickle, and then there was a little bit more.  And now, it's a little bit like a down.  Like, now I get emails from all kinds of random people, and it's like, I don't even know how to answer them, just like, "Okay, I guess, I'm kind of 55:00interested."  I mean, there's a guy in Miami who just emailed me yesterday about this concert that he does that's on Jewish Life Television.  And he's like, "Are you interested in doing that," I'm like, "I don't know."  And there's something in Toronto coming up, and then there'e Yiddish Fest in Moscow, and I just received another email, said there was a possibility that I might be performing for that, which is insane.  So, yeah, that's kind of how it started.  I was like, I really want to do this, and I did it.  And then it was done, and I got a response, which, even to this day, seems like a miracle to me.  I mean, I don't know, because I've been in the classical world, I never really felt like what I was doing was really that important, because there's always somebody who's there behind you, ready to take your spot.  Like, if you don't have the goods, get off the stage, because there's somebody who's ready to replace you.  That doesn't exist, to a great degree, in Yiddish.  (laughs) If 56:00you're there, and you're ready to go, and you're ready to give yourself over to what you're doing, there are people who are there who are ready to hear you, and to give you their opinion, which is a little scary, but after a while you get used to it.  

CW:So tell me about performing, for Yiddish-speaking audiences, Jewish audiences, this music. 

AR:Well, I'd say it's interesting, it's very different than performing for operatic audiences, because you could do an absolutely terrible job, and opera audiences are too polite to tell you.  (laughs) So that's kind of strange, and distancing.  But the other thing is that, Yiddish audiences really want to interact with you, as a person, as somebody doing something in Yiddish.  I mean, I did a performance for the Ashkenaz Festival, and I was up there, and I was singing these songs, just kind of telling these little silly stories about 57:00my life, like I'm telling you now.  And, people just started screaming out questions, like, "When did you become a Jew?"  And, you know, "How did you learn your Yiddish?"  And, "You have a good Yiddish accent, where did you get it from?"  And, "Tell us what --"  It was like they really wanted to know about me, and at first I was a little freaked out, because I'm not used to having that level of interaction with my audience, and I'm like, This is what I signed up for.  This is what I do, people want to know about me, and my life, in Yiddish.  So, I totally gave myself over to them, and that's kind of how it is.  And, you know, it's different, in Yiddish.  How do I put it?  If you're singing an opera, and you have some diction issues, you're not doing very well with the language, a diction person, or a person who's sung the role, will approach you, maybe, and say, like, "Hmm, it wasn't so good, let me give you 58:00some pointers."  In Yiddish, every single person who's ever heard Yiddish, who's ever spoken Yiddish, or who ever knew someone who's spoken Yiddish, has an opinion about how it should go.  And they're waiting for you, at the bottom of the stage, when you're done singing, to tell you exactly what you should do and how you should do it, which is crazy.  But then it, in a way, it's great, too.  Because it's like they're your family, like they really want you to do a good job.  They're trying to help you, that's what they're trying to do.  They want you to do a good job.  They want you to have a relationship with them and their experience.  And by giving you a part of their experience, they're giving you a part of themselves.  And that's why, I think, performing for Yiddish audiences has been absolutely unparalleled in my performance experience.  

CW:I know, we've talked about a couple -- about Itzik Gottesman, and a couple, 59:00and this -- your singing teacher.  But are there any other important mentors, or people along the way that you'd like to talk about?  

AR:Yeah.  I would love to talk about Shane Baker.  Shane Baker is a mensch.  Shane Baker, like I said before, was at the first performance that I ever gave in front of a Yiddish-speaking audience.  And, he's just been such a great guy.  Very approachable, very knowledgeable.  And he has a real sense of humor, which sometimes is kind of hard to come by in the world of Yiddish.  Especially in the scholarly world of Yiddish, because people are very serious.  And they should be serious, because it's a serious thing, but he approaches Yiddish with such humor and such love, and such knowledge, that it makes it an attractive 60:00thing if you don't have those things in Yiddish.  He let me be in a show, which was amazing.  It seemed like an immense amount of confidence to take in some random black guy that you saw sing in Yiddish some place.  He's just a great guy.  I think Yiddish is just really lucky to have him.  So that's somebody I definitely would like to talk about, and to praise.  Itzik Gottesman as well has been a real mensch.  An amazing amount of knowledge is in that man, he's like a walking encyclopedia.  And he always has really interesting facts and details about things that I am singing, things that I would never know. I'd really have to go out into the field, amongst a concentrated group of Yiddish speakers in order to get this information, or, I can just go up and sing in front of Itzik Gottesman and he can give me all the information off the top of 61:00his head, which is what he has, which is -- amazing.  So there's that.  

CW:Like what? What kind of thing will he come out with?

AR:Okay, so, here's one interesting thing.  I mean, maybe everybody knows this, but I didn't.  So, you know with some things in Yiddish, issues with attribution, especially things that have anything remotely folk about them, trying to figure out exactly who wrote them or where they come from is complicated.  I have a song that I love to sing called "Bessarabia," and in the Sidor Belarsky songbook, "Bessarabia" is attributed to Itzik Manger, because it's very Manger-esque, as a song.  Except it's not by Itzik Manger, as Itzik Gottesman told me, it's by a completely different poet, who moved to 62:00Brazil, and when he was in Brazil, he wrote the words to "Bessarabia," because he missed being in Moldova.  So, it's information like that which is like, crazy, he just, he had it.  I got up and I sang "Bessarabia," and I was like, "'Bessarabia,' blah blah blah, Itzik Manger," and he was like -- after I was done, he was like, "No actually, there's a story behind it, somebody else."  And it enriches my knowledge, and my love for the song, having information like that.  And you only get that by being in contact with people like Itzik Gottesman. 

CW:So the language itself, I know that in the opera world, you're sort of used to singing in languages that you probably don't understand.

AR:It's not that you don't understand them so much as that you don't speak them.  I mean, it being, opera being a poetic form, there are certain words that are 63:00frequented, as you can imagine.  Love, passion, thought, pleasure, disappointment, you know, there's a number of themes that are treated over and over again in opera, and once you learn a role, you suddenly have a vocabulary of these things.  And after a while, you understand, pretty much, most of what you're saying, eighty percent of what you're saying.  And the rest are details.  And in a lot of cases you translate extensively, what you're singing, so that it gives you more dramatic verisimilitude.  So --

CW:And how did that translate to when you started with Yiddish music?

AR:It translated to Yiddish in the sense that I paid a lot of attention to the sounds, and I had a toolbox of abilities as far as creating them, in a way that I think that if I hadn't been in opera for fifteen years I would have been completely in the dust.  It would have been impossible for me.  I was able to 64:00assimilate certain sounds really quickly.  And it wasn't the first time I'd had that experience.  A lot of people in synagogue would say, Oh, I noticed you pronounced the Hebrew so well, do you speak Hebrew?  And I would be like, "No, but I'm an opera singer, and I listen to people who obviously are familiar with Hebrew, and I pick up my diction from them."  So, in much the same way, that was how it was with Yiddish. [BREAK IN RECORDING] I did have one coaching with Binyumen Schaechter, and he gave me a lot of clues as to how to make Yiddish actually sound like something somebody could recognize as a language, as opposed to a lyrical mess, which is usually how singers usually tend to make things.  And it was only about one hour long, but there are some things he went over in that one coaching session that I have used practically every day of my 65:00life since then.  I mean he's another one of these people, who are just an amazing font of knowledge.  So, I mean, in that way, being an opera singer made it a little easier getting myself into the sound world of Yiddish, because I already had an ear and a mouth that was ready to accept those sounds, in a way that maybe somebody who weren't so intensive with those things wouldn't have.  

CW:I know you met Isabel Belarsky, Sidor's daughter.

AR:Yeah, okay, so, I talked to her two days ago, because I'm going back to New York for my solo show at the JCC.  And, oh my gosh, she's just the most wonderful person in the world.  I mean, it was really funny, she actually ended the conversation by saying, "You need to let me know when you're coming by so I 66:00can put on my lipstick."  Which I thought was hilarious.  (laughs) Still coquettish at ninety-two, there you go.  But I'm sorry, go on with your question.

CW:So how did you get in touch with her, and what was it like when you first met her?

AR:Through Shane Baker, which is another reason why he's, oh my God, he's so wonderful.  I think the first time I met him, when I had that gig at the Sholem Aleichem Center, he said, "You need to meet Isabel, you need to meet Isabel.  I know Isabel, I'll make it happen."  There's an Isabel?  I didn't even know.  I mean, I read an article about his daughter, and about her memories about Sidor Belarsky, but I didn't know that she was tangible, that I could actually meet her.  So, eventually, Shane kind of set up a meeting between her and 67:00myself, and I went down to Brighton Beach, where she lives, and I walk into the apartment, and there's all these pictures, of Sidor Belarsky, everywhere.  And they're not like they were on the internet, they're like the real pictures.  It's like someone took a picture of the pictures that I was looking at and they put those on the internet, while I was seeing the real picture, I was, I went insane, (laughs), because I was like, Oh my God, it's my hero, he's here, and this is his daughter.  And I was really, really nervous, initially, meeting her, because I didn't know how she would take me.  I mean, you know, I was in love with her father, and listened to him all the time, and tried to emulate him as a vocalist, but also kind of tried to emulate the music that he sang.  I tried to take the music that he sang and give my own kind of spin on it as well, 68:00so I wasn't sure how much she would be into that, and I was a little afraid.  So I didn't really say much.  But Shane was like -- Shane was great.  Shane asked her a bunch of questions, and Shane kind of explained to her what I did, and who I was, and then Shane said, "Well, maybe Anthony can sing a little something for you."  And I sang for her, and she -- she totally loved it.  She gave me a little kiss on my cheek.  (laughs) And, it was like I had died and gone to heaven.  I was like, Yes, yes, this is it, this is happening.  By the end of the visit, I had made a really important realization, which was like, I was there in her apartment, and she was ninety-one years old at that point, and I was thirty-two years old at that point.  And we'd never met each other, we'd 69:00come from very different backgrounds, but we were both complete fans of her father's music, and because of that, it was like -- to a certain extent, it was like we had known each other all our lives.  It was really kind of insane and wonderful at the same time.  She started talking about songs that he sang, and how he sang, and I was just like, Yeah, I totally know where you're coming from, because, this is my experience too.  I'm a complete fan of your father just like you are, you know?  So, that was an amazing experience, and one that just totally made me happy to be alive.  And singing for her, and watching her enjoy it -- it's great.  It's so life-affirming, I can't even begin to tell you.  And she just really -- she likes what I'm doing, which is really important.  It's important for me to have somebody who has a connection to this great person, Sidor Belarsky, and for her to accept what I'm doing, I mean I just -- you know, it's funny, I told her about when I -- I was moving to California, I 70:00told her I was moving to California -- and she said, "But Anthony, why?  Why are you moving to California?"  And I said, "Well, you know I have family there."  And she said, "But Anthony, I'm your family."  And my heart broke.  I mean, I was like, "Yeah, to a certain degree you are my family, we have a lot in common.  It doesn't look like it, I mean, you're ninety-two years old, I'm thirty-three years old, but yeah, when we get together, it's there, it's totally there."  So, so yeah. 

CW:She's pretty amazing.

AR:Yeah.  I'm gonna go out and see her when I'm in New York, I'm really looking forward to it.  Do a little singing for her, give her a little show. 

CW:Nice.  (both laugh) Well, I have a couple of other things about -- I'd like to ask you, just, what it's like being a black Jew, and what is it like singing 71:00this Yiddish music?

AR:Alright, well, being a black Jew is strange in the sense that -- it's strange to everyone else, it's not strange to me.  To me, it's like, it's who I am.  I mean, there's parts of me, I could say, that I've kind of been Jewish all of this time.  So to me, being a Jew doesn't seem strange.  However, to other people it's bizarre.  I mean, I remember I met this guy once, and he found out that I was Jewish, and we were talking, and I said shul.  And he said, "You use the word shul?"  And I'm like, "Well, of course I use the word shul, that's where I go to pray."  And he's like, "I never thought I'd ever hear a black person say the word shul."  And I'm like, "Well, you're seeing it right now."  (laughs) It's the only word I know for -- it's the word that I use for synagogue, because it's the word that my boyfriend used for synagogue, so when I heard him use it, I picked it up, and that's how I tell people that's where I'm 72:00going, I'm going to shul, it's shabbos, I'm going to shul.  Sometimes it's hard, because people really think that you don't know anything.  They assume that you don't know anything, and then when you do know something, they're super surprised.  And I'm not exactly sure what I want the response to be, or even if I want a response, but if I did want a response, I'd want it to be somewhere in the middle, or maybe not at all.  I'm just a Jew, if I'm in synagogue, I'm there to pray, I'm there to do my thing, you know, I get all kinds of questions, are you Ethiopian, which is hilarious for a couple of reasons which I will go over now.  Have you ever seen an Ethiopian before?  They don't look anything like me.  I live in Oakland, there's Ethiopians everywhere, they don't look anything like me, I mean, they're dark, but they don't look like me, they don't look like African Americans, they don't.  I mean, I remember once I went to 73:00France, and I thought, Well maybe in France I will be mistaken for a West African, but even West Africans don't look like African Americans.  African Americans look like African Americans, they don't look like Ethiopians.  So, my God, last shabbos, I went to a -- was it a kabbalah shabbos service, and someone came up to me and spoke in Hebrew, asking me, do I speak Hebrew?  And I said, "Lo [Hebrew: No]," because I don't, not very well, if at all.  And he said, "Oh, I assumed you were Ethiopian, I assumed you were Israeli, and you were from Ethiopia."  And I said, "No."  And then I thought, Okay, well he assumed I was from Ethiopia, one, because I was in the synagogue, and two, I guess because I knew what I was doing in the synagogue, right?  Like, I knew my way around the prayers, that kind of thing.  But here's the strange thing.  Okay, so if I was 74:00Ethiopian, why would I necessarily be so comfortable with an Ashkenazi way of davening, wouldn't I have my own Ethiopian way of davening?  Wouldn't I be in an Ethiopian synagogue?  Why would I be in an Ashkenazi synagogue, praying in an Ashkenazi fashion, with my big Ashkenazi tallis, it makes no sense.  (laughs) Someone didn't think it out.  It's kind of insane.  This is a whole other thing, but I think it definitely informs the question that you asked me.  In many ways, being black and being Jewish is like being somebody who does something in Yiddish and being black.  It's almost exactly the same thing, due to the fact that the surprise and reaction when the information comes out, and I might -- of one or the other, is about the same.  You know, I've encountered 75:00these people who say terrible things, are small-minded, bigoted, saying horrible anti-Semitic things, and they say it in my presence, and they don't know that I'm a Jew.  And then, all of a sudden, they see this person in the distance, that's walking towards them, with this look in his eye like he wants to kill them, and it's me, and it's me because I'm a Jew, and in spite of the fact that I try to follow the Ten Commandments, I kind of do want to kill them, because they're saying this terrible thing and they thought that they could get away with it because they didn't know that I was a Jew.  Very much in the same way, (laughs) does this happen with Yiddish, people will say all kinds of terrible things about Yiddish -- oh it's such an ugly language, nobody speaks it anymore, who wants to hear this in Yiddish, who wants to hear that in Yiddish, and they don't know that I'm somebody who does things in Yiddish, and I actually have a 76:00lot to say about Yiddish, and I think Yiddish is really great.  So, God, this one time I encountered this speaker who was speaking, of all things, about kabbalah.  And I had a conversation with him, and after a while, it got around to the subject of Yiddish.  And he said, "I don't really like Yiddish."  And I said, "Why?"  And he's like, "Well, I don't think we need Yiddish.  Yiddish is the language of exile.  You know, we have Israel, we have Hebrew, we don't really need Yiddish."  And I said, "Well, I don't really think that's the case.  You see, the stone that the builder refused will always be the head cornerstone, and if Yiddish is not the head cornerstone then I don't know what is."  And his eyes like, popped out of his head.  Because I think he wasn't expecting me to have anything, really, intelligent to say about Yiddish, and he 77:00sort of wasn't expecting me to quote Tehillim while I was doing it, but, you know, as they say in my mame-loshn [mother tongue], whoop, there it is.  I mean, (laughs) I had something to say about Yiddish, I'm like, Yeah, I think what you're saying is kind of BS, so, I'm going to let you know, and it's going to come from a person you weren't expecting to get that information from, but there it is.  (laughs)

CW:Well, I just would -- I mean, we just have a couple more minutes, but I want to ask about -- you know, these new projects that you told me about, sort of combining folk music material.

AR:Yeah, so, I have an engagement coming up for the JCC's Artists Celebrate Martin Luther King Day celebration, in the symphony space.  And, I was excited 78:00that I kind of needed to create a repertoire for that, and I had already been creating a repertoire for that.  And basically what I started doing, and this was almost a year ago, was, I decided to take songs that I felt a real connection to in Yiddish, and put them together with songs that I felt a real connection to from the African American spiritual tradition.  And as I started looking through these songs, which seemed disparate in their content, I started to find these really interesting parallels, and a lot of songs that share similar texts, similar themes, and in many ways, they're kind of like dialogues between each other.  The very first song that I did this with were two songs, one, "Der gemore nign," which I mentioned before, just this kind of wonderful song about this boy in heder [traditional religious school] who misses his 79:00family, and how he feels like a ship without a rudder when he thinks about them, because he's so alone.  And then I took the song "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child," which is a very traditional negro spiritual, and they're both in minor, and they're both modal, and they both share the same words, which is crazy.  Mother, lost, it was like they were using the same vocabulary to express a feeling of loneliness and loss, and I thought, Oh, this is amazing.  So, I decided I would just take one line from one song, and one line from the other song, and I would just stack them, and then see what would happen.  And I created this piece, and I started performing it as an encore at my Yiddish 80:00performances, and people went insane.  I don't think they had really ever heard anything much like it, where these two songs are just kind of in relationship to each other.  So I decided, maybe I should create more pieces of this type.  So I found more songs, and more texts that seemed to speak to each other.  And, so now I'm going to be performing it for this program at Symphony Space with Michael Winograd, who's amazing, I'm really stoked that's happening, and with composer Anthony Coleman, which is also like, I can't believe this is happening to me.  They're both people that I met at KlezKanada, so KlezKanada, that's the place to go if you want to make things happen.  I met them there, and they both seemed interested in what I was doing, so now we're going to be putting together this wonderful collaboration, and that's kind of the next direction that I'm moving in.  Yeah, it's exciting, it's exciting.  It's a tikn 81:00[healing gift], I mean, that's how I think of it.  It's a tikn, yeah.  

CW:I have one other question, but if there's -- is there anything that you particularly wanted to tell in this interview that you haven't yet?

AR:Huh, is there anything I want to tell in this interview that I haven't yet--I don't know, I've already said so much, I feel like my brain is like -- if there's anything I want to say, it's that languages are interesting, if you're in English, and you decide you want to say something specifically very romantic, 82:00or meaningful, or forceful, you sometimes might go to another language in order to express that particular idea.  French, of course, is looked on as being particularly melodious, or Italian.  Or, if you want to be officious, there's always phrases in Latin.  In this way, languages are mediums of expression, and what I don't understand is why Yiddish isn't more often used as a medium of expression.  It totally is that for me.  I found Yiddish at a very critical point in my life, and I knew that I had feelings and ideas and ways of looking at the world that needed to be expressed, and when I was looking for a way to express them, I found Yiddish.  And, I guess what I'm advocating for, is more 83:00use of the language of Yiddish as a form of self-expression.  It's as much a medium as anything else, and I think that's a good thing.

CW:Yeah, and sort of going off of that, is there any advice that you have to people sort of coming to Yiddish music for the first time? 

AR:Coming to Yiddish music?  It's funny, because the question that I get asked a lot, almost to the point where I resent it, is who is your audience for this music?  As if, you know, it was like music from Mars.  And I always say, "My audience for this music is anyone who has two ears on the side of their head."  Like, if you have ears and a heart, then you too could be somebody who listens to Yiddish music and finds it to be an amazing experience like I did.  It's not this thing that people don't know anything about, I mean -- all right, I'm going 84:00to get very biblical with you here.  So, in the Torah, there's this phrase, I'm trying to remember exactly what it is.  The Torah's not in heaven, the Torah's on Earth.  And it's close to you.  And it's in your heart.  Like, if you want to know what to do, you don't have to go to heaven to figure out what to do, Torah is here, it's everywhere, it's imminent.  I feel the same way about Yiddish.  If you want to interact with a beautiful language, a language that has immense meaning and expressivity, Yiddish is there, it's not this foreign thing, it's there, you just have to open yourself up to it.  That's pretty much what I have to say about that.  Does that make any sense?

CW:Absolutely.  (laughter) Well, a sheynem dank, thank you so much --

AR:Of course.

CW: -- for speaking with me as part of this Yiddish Book Center project too, it's really great to talk with you.

AR:Thank you for giving me a chance to talk my head off about Yiddish. 

[END OF INTERVIEW]