HELENA LIPSTADT ORAL HISTORY

AGNIESZKA ILWICKA:My name is Agnieszka Ilwicka, and I am now in Los Angeles. Today, it's 19 February, 2013 and my guest is Helena Lipstadt. Welcome, Helena.

HELENA LIPSTADT:Thank you so much.

AI:Do I have your permission to record this interview?

HL:Yes.

AI:It's oral history project, provide by the Yiddish Book Center and founded by Wexler family. I would like to ask you, Helena, can you tell me briefly what you know about your family background?

HL:My knowledge is pretty exclusive to my parents, (laughs) because I didn't know any of my grandparents. I have -- I have a few notes that I took from my mother, when she was alive, about my grandparents. But it's almost -- it's 1:00almost theoretical, you know? It's really from my parents and me and my brother.

AI:Do you have any famous or infamous family stories you would like to share?

HL:Hmm. Hmm, I can't -- (laughs) about our relationships with each other? About -- or not --

AI:Sure. Or just about your life.

HL:Oh, I can -- I have a story, I have a story. So, I think I told you, actually, the other day, when we came to the United States, we were helped by ORT to come here. And my parents were both urban Jews. And ORT, in its wisdom, decided that a smooth transition from living life in urban Poland to the United States was to become a chicken farmer. So, they -- (laughs) we moved to a small 2:00town in central Connecticut, and my father began to undertake the job of being a chicken farmer. And he, in fact, made up a song about it, in Yiddish. (singing) "Man grubt di ayer, man zamlt zikh in drek, ober di tsures, zey gayen nisht avek [We dig up the eggs, we gather up the poop, but the problems, they won't go away]! Oy, zudington" -- which is the name of the town, Southington -- and on, like that. (laughs) Anyway, needless to say, they were very unhappy on the farm and as soon as they could, they moved to the city, where my father bought a little shop, a candy shop.

AI:Okay, but before you moved to United States, where you were born?

HL:Yes. I was born in Berlin, in Schlachtensee, in a DP camp there, in 1947. My 3:00parents had fled from Poland. My mother was pregnant with me while they were smuggled out of the country, and arrived in Berlin -- I mean, I don't really know very much at all about those circumstances. But not long after they arrived, I was born there. I forget --

AI:And how long did you stay in Berlin?

HL:In Berlin? We stayed in Berlin for almost five years. We were in the DP camp for -- from my research, it seems we were there quite a long time compared to other people. We were there, I think, two, two and a half years. And then, somehow, they managed to get an apartment in Berlin, and from there, we -- and, you know, I don't know how we came to the United States. I imagine it was by 4:00boat, but I don't know that story. We don't -- we don't have stories about that.

AI:Do you remember the time in Germany?

HL:I don't know. You know how it is when you have photographs and you see the photographs and they influence your memory?

AI:Um-hm.

HL:So, I think -- I think that my memory comes from those photographs rather than actual, visceral recollection.

AI:Would you say you grew up in a Jewish home?

HL:Oh, absolutely. In fact, when I met American Jews, I was very confused by them, because my family was traditional Jewish European, and I thought that's what Jewish was -- their way of being Jewish, our way of being Jewish. And American Jews didn't quite see Jewish to me. But, yeah, my parents were both Orthodox in -- in Poland, from Orthodox families.

AI:What do you mean by traditional? What is this European sense of tradition?

HL:Part of it had to do with language.

AI:What language?

HL:They spoke Polish and Yiddish at home. They were very eager -- my parents were rather forward-thinking. They were very eager to learn English and spoke English very well, although with accents, once they learned, as compared to some of my friends' parents, who had a slower entry into that language. But they -- yeah, they spoke Yiddish and Polish. They never wanted me to learn Polish. Yiddish was -- little more neutral for them as regards me and my brother. I forgot what the question was.

AI:Yeah, the -- well, that was the question, would you say you grew up in a Jewish home?

HL:Oh, yeah, and what -- also, the follow-up was about what do I mean by traditional European.

AI:Yeah.

HL:Yeah, so language was part of it, and kind of mannerisms. There were more -- I think they were more tied to the Orthodox manner than the people I met in the United States. And, in fact, I considered myself not so much American. I considered myself European, and it wasn't until I took my first trip to Europe that I realized I was an American, because my whole family's community were all survivors. That was the environment of our world.

AI:Okay. What were the most important holidays or events during the year for your family?

HL:Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur were big. We belonged to a synagogue growing up. Of course, Passover. I think those two sets of holidays kind of bracketed the year 7:00for us. Hanukkah was, eh, not such a big deal as it is now -- you know, made into a much bigger deal now to compete with Christmas, but -- and in my family, my father was much more serious about practice than my mother. My mother, frankly, lost her faith in the war. It didn't make any sense to her. But my father was more attached to it, and I think I actually inherited from him my deep love of the tradition. I find a lot of meaning in it. And I do love ritual, and I feel like one of my roles is to pass that on to -- especially my nephew, who is -- my brother's Jewish, and his -- my nephew, Isaac's mother is not 8:00Jewish. And I want him to have that, and that's why I took him to Poland two years ago. I wanted him to know that. And he's very open. He was ready to go.

AI:That's wonderful. Among all of the celebrations as you had in your home, were there any foods you particularly looked for -- toward to?

HL:Sure! (laughs)

AI:Can you describe it?

HL:My mother was a very good cook. She was a plain cook, but her food was always very delicious. She was a wonderful baker. She had -- I think in that story that I sent you, she used to make a cookie with ground nuts, and shaped like a crescent moon. And she was just very -- in Yiddish, the expression is she had 9:00"goldene hent [golden hands]," you know? She was very aesthetic, and whatever she presented, she did in a beautiful way. I loved the blintzes that she made. She was really good at making the thing pancake that you put around the cheese. She also made kreplach, pierogi, and then the food was -- let's see, I'm trying to think of anything special. Oh, she made a wonderful borscht, (laughs) which I have emulated since then. And my father didn't go in the kitchen except to sit down at the table and eat. (laughs) Again, a kind of a traditional man, yeah.

AI:Who were the people in your home growing up?

HL:My mother and father, and after I was five-and-a-half, my brother was born, and it was the four of us. We were very much of a unit.

AI:Did your parents -- were telling you story -- from Old Country about your family, about your grandparents?

HL:No. As was quite common in the survivor community and probably for about twenty years after the war, people didn't talk, at least in my experience. And it was when I began to extract stories from them that I got some stories. But I feel like it's a very small basket, you know? That most of their life was a 11:00mystery to me, and I so regret now not having access to all the -- answers to all the questions that I walk around with. And having, you know, established this relationship with Poland, a bit, they come -- the questions come more and more. And it's very sad and frustrating to me that there's no one I can ask. And in my family, too, my brother -- my brother was born in the United States. He has a very different attitude towards all things European, or I should say all things Polish, 'cause he loves Paris and London. (laughs) But when I proposed a trip to Poland, that my nephew is very eager to take, my brother had no interest, which (laughs) is a little hard for me to accept. I'm constantly kind of, like, pushing him about it. But, you know, he was born here. He comes from a 12:00different -- he comes from different soil.

AI:Right. So, let's talk about the soil. Can you describe the physical space of your home? You mentioned the chicken farm.

HL:The chicken farm, yeah. We lived in a new-built home -- house that was built for us. My father -- you know, again, I know almost nothing about how he managed to get the money to buy the land to build the house to start the farm. To buy chickens every year. But we had a house that was built -- we were the first people in it. Behind the house were two very large chicken coops. They -- there were thousands of chickens on the farm. I think three or four thousand chickens. That's part of why I'm a vegetarian. (laughs) And do you -- do you want, really, 13:00like the physical layout of the place?

AI:Tell me, absolutely.

HL:Yeah, yeah.

AI:Of course.

HL:So, the town that I grew up in was Southington, between Hartford and New Haven. Not rural, but small town when I was a kid there. We lived a few miles from the center of the town. And across the street from our house was the property of a summer camp. So, my friends and I used to go there a lot and play in the lake and rummage around in the cabins that were there. (laughs) That was our playground. And the grammar school that I went to was within walking distance. And I would ride my bike up and down a lot. And my brother had his own room and I had my own room, my parents had their room. But it was a -- you know, 14:00it was a modest -- a modest place, a modest life, and --

AI:Yeah, it was surrounded by other survivors?

HL:There were probably five survivor families in Southington. Most of the community that we interacted with was in Hartford and West Hartford, where there was quite a large community. And they would come sometimes to visit us on the weekend, and it was like they were going to the country. They were going out of Hartford to, you know, to this rural experience. And I think there was a way that my parents chafed at that, because, as I said, they were both urban people and they were used to the culture of a city and the proximity between people in a city, which they didn't have in Southington. They were quite relieved when they moved, we all moved to New Haven, yeah.

AI:And how was New Haven? Did you leave -- how long did you stay there?

HL:In New Haven? I lived in New Haven -- well, we moved, I was a -- I guess I was a junior in high school. So, I was only in school there for a couple of years before I went to college. And it was a hard transition. I didn't want to leave my friends in Southington. But I was curious about the kind of world that there was in New Haven. They're more sophisticated kids. I met some really great artistic kids and very bright kids. Not to say that there weren't bright kids in Southington, but they're just a different milieu. Yeah.

AI:Your family were high-educated before Second World War?

HL:No. No. My father went to kheyder [traditional religious school] as a boy, and then I don't know what level he went to in gymnasium. But they were late 16:00teens when the war broke out. So, their lives were very -- disruptive, and I don't -- I don't know -- you know, I don't know what the possibilities would have been for them if the war hadn't come. Both of my grandparents were jewelers. My father's father, more of a craftsman jeweler. My mother's father, more of a sale -- retailer, jeweler. So, they were in business. But they were both very intelligent people, even though they didn't have the opportunity to have deep education.

AI:So, that means that you grew up in an intelligent home, right?

HL:Oh, yeah.

AI:You were surrounded by books, art?

HL:Yes. Yeah, yeah.

AI:What kind of books?

HL:My mother loved novels, and I did, too. My father didn't read fiction that 17:00much, but he was very interested in world affairs and politics and economics. And he would stay abreast of things in a very deliberate way. And I think there was a way that they felt a bit frustrated by their community, that -- the survivor community was kind of a hodgepodge, you know, of people torn from whatever their lives had been, thrown together in this situation where they made family with each other. When we had holidays, that's who we'd celebrate with, you know? We didn't have our blood family, extended. We had each other that way. But there was a certain -- I don't know, I would say in general it wasn't such a sophisticated community. And my father, being from Varshava was used to more 18:00culture. He would talk about the opera a lot. He loved music. He was a wonderful singer.

AI:I would like to ask you, was there a particular political atmosphere in your home?

HL:(laughs) My mother and father didn't have the same attitude. My father was -- you know Jabotinsky? (laughs) My father liked Jabotinsky. My mother was more peaceful (laughs) than my father. My father believed that a strong army was an important thing and, you know, he was kind of belligerent that way. My mother was much more open-minded and would allow a wider variety of attitude than he. And my father and I would argue a lot about politics, because I was -- you know, 19:00I believed in -- I believed in a world that could be peaceful, and that we had to act in peaceful ways to bring that about. And he thought no, might makes right. (laughs)

AI:I would like to ask you about your friends. Who are your friends, especially when you were teenager, growing up in Connecticut?

HL:I had two close friends, Gayle and Marianne. I totally lost touch with them when I moved from Southington. I have no idea where they are in the world now. Oh, and I had -- I had a very close friend when I was younger, Sherry, who -- we used to do a lot of -- kind of adventures, like -- we used to (laughs) break 20:00into the swimming pool after hours. And once we were caught by the police and was, yeah, whole thing. But anyway, so she and I -- Sherry and I, we used to be kind of, you know, bad girls. But not really bad. And Gayle and Marianne were more straitlaced, I would say. I can't even remember what kept us together in those years. I have a friend, Sarah, who's my lifelong friend, who also grew up in Southington, and also was from a survivor family. She was also born in Berlin. And she and I are very close friends yet today. So, she's kind of my through thread, you know? The friends I had in Southington I let go of when I moved. The friends that I made in New Haven, there's one that I'm still close to 21:00now. And again, there was something -- I mean, I feel a little awkward saying this, but I felt like some of the artistic, intellectual opportunities in New Haven really sparked me, and I went after that, you know?

AI:Do you think that your relationship with Jewish friends and non-Jewish friends is different?

HL:Well, that's kind of interesting, because in Southington, I felt like -- did I have any? There weren't an-- there were very -- there were a handful of Jews in Southington that I knew. My friend Sarah. But Marianne and Gayle were not Jewish, and most of the kids were not Jewish. So, I had this role of being the representative of the Jewish world to my friends. And I took that role on very proudly, you know? I -- since I had very positive feelings about my culture, I 22:00wanted to let them in on how fabulous it was. And I would teach them songs and dances and invite them over to the house if something was happening. And I don't know what they made of it. But I felt like it was my responsibility. I had to educate them.

AI:And what kind of songs did you teach the --

HL:Probably Hebrew songs, 'cause I did go to Hebrew school as a kid, which I totally hated. But probably Zionist songs, and taught them the hora and stuff like that. (laughs) Can -- I'm just remembering this scene, you know? Me and my friends on the front lawn doing the hora (laughs) in Southington. Funny. (laughs) And I didn't encounter very much anti-Semitism at all. Oh, another 23:00interesting thing about Southington is that demographically, it was largely Polish and Italian. So, it was very Catholic, but the fact that there were a lot of Poles there -- I mean, I don't know if that was accidental, I don't know how that happened, how they landed in a place that had quite a substantial Polish population. My mother had a friend who she'd go and visit, Pani Kobyela. And they would speak Polish together, and that gave her -- sense of rootedness. Was very important to her, so -- (laughs)

M:(whispering) Just be careful when you rock, because a shadow goes across sometimes (UNCLEAR).

AI:Were there aspects of Jewish culture that were particularly important to you as a child or young person?

HL:Let me think. I mean, I know that I'm heading towards Yiddish, but I don't 24:00think that was a conscious thing when I was a kid. You know, language altogether was this kind of mysterious mash, because I couldn't tell one language from the other. When we all -- we all spoke a few languages. And, in fact, even now, I'm extremely comfortable in conversations with people who speak a few languages where we interchange the languages. But I was interested in learning about Judaism, the religious aspects of it. I liked the form. And, you know, as witnessed by my feeling like I needed to teach my friends about what Jews were about, I -- I relished the strong communal sense that I feel like I got from 25:00being a Jew. Part of it is being a minority. You cling together when you're minority. And so, being a Jew, being in a survivor community, the clinging was pretty important, you know? We had to reinforce our sense of reality for each other, which we did. And that became a through theme for me, also, making my way in, often times, communities that were on the edge, you know? That was another point of comfort for me. I understood that kind of instinctively. So, food, yeah. Jewish food, which was -- you know, I define that as what my mother made. And it was interesting to go to Poland and see it wasn't only Jewish. It was also Polish. And from my father, very strong connection to music. He would sing 26:00a lot. We would sign with him. Yeah.

AI:I would like to ask you, can you briefly tell me about your education, both in terms of general education and Jewish life?

HL:Well, as I mentioned, I went to Hebrew school as a child, which was a horrible experience for me. Socially really hard, because there was no synagogue in Southington, so we would go -- Sarah and I would go -- our parents, our fathers would drive us alternating weeks. And we would be thrown into this kind of clique of wealthier kids, and they didn't want to let us into that clique. So, it was -- ew, it was terrible, yeah. (laughs) I used to hide when it was time to go to the Hebrew school. (laughs) I once hid in the clothes hamper, so 27:00-- (laughs) anyway, I really hated it. What was the question? (laughs)

AI:About your --

HL:Oh, Jewish education, or education in general. So, Hebrew school, oh. (laughs) So, regular public school education until I graduated from high school, then I went to a small college in Massachusetts, Wheaton College, for a couple of years. It was a terrible choice for me. I didn't get into my first choice, which was Vassar, so I wound up in this girls' school that was -- really bad atmosphere for me. So, I left school. Also, this was in the late '60s. There was a lot going on in the world that was a lot more interesting to me than college was. College felt very dull. So, I was interested in all the political movements 28:00that were happening. So, I took a -- so, I left school and went into the world that was happening around me. And I didn't go back to college until I was forty, I think. I didn't get my BA until I was in my forties, and that was fine with me. I had other things to pay attention to. So, when I was older, I went back to my education with kind of a vengeance. I, at this point, had moved to Maine. Found myself in a position of organizing a lot of Jewish events in Maine. And I wanted to go to learn more about my culture. So, I went to Israel, studied in a 29:00yeshiva in Israel. Realized that I might like to go to rabbinical school and move back to Maine and be a rabbi there. Since I found myself -- I keep finding myself in these kind of teaching positions, where I was teaching the people around me. So, I thought it would make it official. So, I had to get a BA before I could go to rabbinical school, so I went to Vermont College, I got my BA in Jewish studies and creative writing, and then went to Reconstructionist Rabbinical College with the aim of becoming a rabbi. [BREAK IN RECORDING] So, Passover was my father standing up -- because he was very well-trained in Hebrew and prayer book and all of that. Passover was my father standing up, saying the entire Haggadah by himself, and then sitting down and us having the meal. That 30:00was Passover. Oh, then there were the Four Questions. That's it. (laughs) And it was -- I mean, compared to what Passover is now, in my world, it was so restricted. Anyway, I don't know why I had the need to include that, but I did. (laughs)

AI:And what did you feel -- that time, with this experience, with your father standing and --

HL:I think it began to chafe me a lot when I got older, mixed with this real discomfort I had in the Hebrew school. I felt like there was something wrong with what I was getting. It wasn't suiting me. And when I got older, I really actively worked on making kinds of celebrations that did suit me. I mentioned that my father and I had a lot of arguments about politics. It was, you know, 31:00that time when you differentiate. And my Jewish identity was part of that. My identity, obviously, was very colored by being a daughter of survivors, and I carried that pain forward a lot. And maybe that was part of my need to be a Jewish representative, 'cause I felt like it was dangerous not to have contacts with other people, you know? It was to my safety and my family's safety that they would know us in a positive way. And that was my role. I don't think I formulated it in those words until now.

AI:Let's go back to '60s. You said that you felt like you were interested in the political things going on at that time. Please, describe what was, for you, specifically moving and important.

HL:Well, there were a few -- there were two sides of it for me. One was politics and one was culture. Someone once said you can't have a revolution without music. So, you know, there were politics and culture and they were like this with each other. So, I was really alive with the music of the times. And I participated in a lot of anti-war activities, and I -- at the time, I -- when I was younger, I had a boyfriend who -- I think we, together, developed our kind of ideology. And we were partners in kind of egging each other on into that culture. This, again, a point of real disparity between me and my family, which was a common story at that time. I mean, I wonder now about -- I'm in wonder now about the closeness between generations, because what was called the generation 33:00gap then was very real. I really felt it myself and my parents felt it, and they were saddened by it and I was liberated by it, you know? I was choosing my own way. So, there was that amazing sense that we could change the world. And we actually saw it happening. The energy of that change was happening around the world. It was happening in China, it was happening in France, it was happening everywhere. And it was very thrilling. And that formed me as a person, the feeling that not only could I dream about a better world, but there was a power behind that dream that I shared with a lot of people.

AI:What did you feel at that time about your Jewishness luggage?

HL:My Jewishness --

AI:Luggage. The luggage of culture and tradition?

HL:Luggage?

AI:Um-hm.

HL:Hmm. I think I would say that, at that juncture of the late '60s, early '70s, 34:00my Jewish identity was a little bit behind -- you know, I tucked it away, in a way. It was not foremost for me in those years, although you might say coincidentally, but probably it wasn't a coincidence, I was with Jews all the time. But we just didn't label ourselves that way. I mean, I think it was identity politics later. We all labeled ourselves very strongly. But in those years, not so much.

AI:How 'bout Judaism? What did you feel at that time about Judaism?

HL:Not so much. You know, my earlier attachment receded, and it wasn't till later that I picked it up again. And, let's see, I'm trying to remember. It 35:00wasn't till -- it wasn't till probably fifteen years later that I really turned around and looked back at my heritage and had that, and integrated it back into what was important to me. Then, in those years, in the late '60s, it was really the sense of being part of this river of change. It was very heady. I mean, it's hard to describe. I mean, I don't know how that seems to you at all, you know? The energy and power of that coming together was really something. (laughs)

AI:Can you describe -- I'm just curious how did you feel as a part of this movement? Did you feel strong?

HL:Yeah! I felt invincible! I mean, which is a typical thing to feel when you're in your earlier twenties anyway. But to have it mirrored back to me by other 36:00people and to read the writings of people who were philosophizing about this, you know, all added to the sense that we could make this world better. A shayner un besere velt [A prettier and better world], I mean, we can say it in Yiddish now, but that wasn't a language I was using then. I was using more this language of radical change, you know? And with a strong stream of utopianism.

AI:I would love to ask you about feminism and feminist movement, which -- that time just came up.

HL:Right.

AI:To what extent that gave impact to you?

HL:It was major. It was really major. I felt like my head was split open, really. And I began to have a language for -- I mean, my father was always kind 37:00of the -- the rock that I beat my head against, you know? So, he was the example of what I wanted to turn away from. But I remember very clearly when I began to hear the voices of women talking about the kind of limitations that we found ourselves in and the prospect of breaking free of those limitations. When I -- let's see, in the late -- so, I'm -- I don't want to skip ahead too much, because we're talking about the late '60s now.

AI:No, please, please skip.

HL:Skip? So, in -- in the late '70s, I was living back in New Haven. I had a large community of friends who were doing all kinds of innovative things on many 38:00levels. And I decided that I wanted to leave the city and move to the country. And I was part of a women's group at that time, and I had taken a trip to the mountains in New Hampshire. And it came to me very clearly. I said I want to move, so I came to a meeting of my women's group. I said, "I want to move to the country. Who wants to go with me?" And several women said, "Yeah!" So, immediately coalesced this group of women who decided that we were going to look for land in the country. And we were -- (laughs) I mean, we were dreamers to the extent that we said, "We're going to build our own houses." I had no experience of this. My father had a hammer, maybe, you know? I was not -- I never looked in that direction. That was part of the opening for me, was -- the point was to do something that I hadn't been trained to do. The point was to take on something 39:00new for me and broaden myself, you know? I could read novels and think about literary criticism all day long. But what about this? What if I took a hammer and a saw and I built my own house? Wow! In fact, I have a photograph somewhere of my father, when he came to see the house that I was building, and the look on his face is priceless. It's, like, where did this come from, you know? And there was some pride in it, I have to say, on his -- on his part. It was kind of amazing. But for me, it was really hard work, because I was taking on something that I had -- knew nothing about. Three of us in the -- our group was called the "Land Band," and we went to a -- owner-builder school in Maine, where I literally learned that to build a house, you start with a foundation. I didn't 40:00know! I didn't know anything. I built a house! I built a house. (laughs) And a beautiful, beautiful house that's still standing in Maine, on the land that I own. So, that was -- I mean, that's part of the excitement of that time, was I can do this now, you know? I can learn how to do this. I can learn how to -- (laughs) how to work with a collective of women who were trying to do things that they didn't know how to do. So, there was a lot of tension in that, you know? But we managed beautifully, we really did. I'm very proud of what we did. We were a strong, cohesive, productive collective for ten years. And that's amazing. (laughs)

AI:I found it amazing, as well. (laughter) Tell me, please, more about your -- 41:00women who -- involvement in this time of transformation. Because one -- on the one hand is this women group as you -- founded, actually, as you were a founder. Did you -- a member of any other women's group?

HL:Like national groups or --

AI:No, or just any --

HL:The community that I kind of evolved from in New Haven was a very, very progressive community. And there were all kinds of breakthroughs going on as far as social arrangements, like communal living and food coops and cooperative restaurants and cooperative daycare. And I began to notice, one by one, all of my women friends were coming out as lesbians. I didn't know where it was kind of 42:00coming from. I mean, the feminist movement opened my eyes a lot. But lesbianism as, you know, the famous quote -- "Feminism is the theory, lesbianism is the action." I -- it kind of crept up on me, basically because I saw my friends coming out and I thought -- talk about, you know -- I mean, this -- building a house came later, but talk about doing something that you hadn't done before, you know? I -- when I was twenty, the boyfriend that I had when I -- who I mentioned, that we kind of developed our political philosophy together -- he and I were together. He got cancer and he died when he was very young. So, you know, 43:00I was through that for -- until I was twenty-five. But after William died and I noticed what was going on in the community around me, I mulled it over (laughs) and thought that this was another place where I could experience something that I hadn't experienced before and see where it led me. And so, I fell in love with my best friend and entered into a whole other world that was equally as thrilling as what I described before. I mean, there were wonderful women's music festivals that were just fantastic scenes of kind of feminist utopia. Again, this utopian direction. And my world became a world of women. We created 44:00together, we danced together, we made music together. We were making -- we were making a world that was born from women. It was amazing. The first music -- women's music festival that I went to -- to see women doing all of the sound, constructing the stages, doing all of the lights -- at that time, that was so unusual. Now, you know, Kathryn Bigelow won an Academy Award. It's about time. But then, you know, to see thousands of women working this way was just a total revelation. So, moving to Maine with a group of women was, you know -- came out 45:00of that energy. And, again, I -- you know, I -- I know that the confidence that we had in our ability to do whatever we wanted to came from youth, partially, but also that there were these strong movements that supported us and nourished us in those directions. (laughs)

AI:Amazing. Fabulous. (laughter) I would like to ask you about historical events, other from this -- as we already describe. Oh, social movements, maybe, that were particularly formative to your sense of identity.

HL:Social movements. Besides --

AI:Or political -- yeah, besides this, would be --

HL:Besides these? You know, I'm sure there are ones, but I can't think right now. Well, civil rights movement, gay rights movement all kind of rounded me out 46:00to think about other conditions in the world that I hadn't known anything about. And I think I began to think of myself as a global citizen in a different way, different than thinking I was a European when I was a child, you know? That there were levels of oppression that I really wanted to understand and wanted to be part of changing. And I think my whole sense of social justice, though, is, I mean, necessarily connected to what happened to my family, you know? I -- it was important for me to build a world where those kinds of things weren't going to happen. And, you know, at age sixty-six now, I don't know what to say about 47:00that, because the world is just dealing with so many problems. And the misunderstandings are rampant between people, and between people and the planet. And I feel like I've kind of changed my mission and brought it a lot closer home to me, that I began to -- begin to feel now that -- how we change the world is one person at a time, one relationship at a time. It doesn't have that sense of river in it, you know? So, social movements were eye-opening to me, and I -- I feel my -- my life -- having been transformed to that, transforming to something 48:00else. And that goes along with life stages, also. But it's a response to -- to the world as I see it now.

AI:I would like to ask you: how does your connection to Yiddish, Yiddishkayt, Eastern European Jewish heritage fit into your broader sense of Jewish identity?

HL:My broader sense? Well, that's my home. That's my base.

AI:But that's the base where you get it from? Or where you come back to?

HL:Both. Both, yeah. We were talking a little bit before about how -- when there 49:00was the klezmer revival in the late '70s and early '80s, an inordinate number of queers were -- Jewish queers were taken up by this movement. And there's the sense of -- I mean, start with being a Jew in the world where we're very small percentage. Start with -- being queer is probably bigger percentage than being Jew, right? Ten percent, probably, of the world is queer in some way, if not more. But what I'm getting at is that working from a place of being in the minority binds you together in a certain way. So, we're Jewish and we're seeing this culture that is very fragile and on the edge of dissolution, perhaps. And it's our -- it says something to our hearts, somehow. I mean, Yiddish has that 50:00way of speaking to the heart. And so, we attached to that and we claim it, and we say this is how we can express ourselves as Jews. The patriarchy of the religion won't hold us, but perhaps this has more room for us. And being a minority is familiar to us already. So, we can take that. We don't need to be so mainstream. We can take this little niche and make it ours and have the freedom to really shape it and claim it. Again, I forgot what the question was. (laughs)

AI:We're talking about Yiddishkayt and Yiddish. How did you feel -- that time, as a Jewish person? You grew up in a home where Yiddish was spoken language but not towards -- to you, right?

HL:Um-hm.

AI:How did you -- how did you find yourself and where did you find yourself -- 51:00that time towards the Yiddish?

HL:You mean, when I began to feel like it was a home for me?

AI:Yeah.

HL:So, you know, I'm thinking about how I'm feeling about Poland since my trips there, where -- and I -- I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I do -- I'm just very aware right now of my longing for gan-eydn [paradise, lit. "Garden of Eden"], you know? Longing for a place where we can live out what we dream of. So, Yiddish -- Yiddish is culturally so rich, its expression in literature and in music and in theater. It was like walk-- it was like going into this 52:00sumptuous department store of possibilities of how we could express ourselves artistically. And so, it -- it has the comfort of feeling familiar, and also the excitement of feeling like there's endless possibility. And I kind of want to bring back to this notion of what started -- what has been stirring in me about Poland is -- so, if Yiddish is coming home, what is Poland, and what is -- how do Yiddish and Poland fit in with each other? And if Poland was the home for my ancestors who I didn't know, have no idea how they lived there, what is it to me? When people say, "Where do you -- where -- where are you from?" I met, actually, last summer a young woman, a young woman on the Gwoździec project, 53:00and she said that -- someone asked her where she was from, and she started to say Poland, and I thought that was such an interesting answer. She wasn't from Poland any more than I was from Poland, but I am from Poland in some way. So, what of that can I reclaim? What of Yiddish can I reclaim? What of it is rightfully mine? What of it doesn't matter if it's rightfully mine or not? I feel something. I feel a longing to have continuity, you know? Being an immigrant cuts you off from a huge swathe of yourself. And you want to make that whole.

AI:Let's talk more about this Polish experience. Why did you take part in Gwoździec project, which is a huge step in the Polish-Jewish relations?

HL:When I took my trip with Isaac, my nephew, in 2011, I said, "Isaac, we're 54:00going to Poland, but we're not going to any concentration camps. This is not going to be a trip about that. We're gonna go there and we're gonna see what we can understand about where my parents" -- his grandparents -- "came from, and try to get a sense of what the sun looked like filtering through the park in Kalisz, you know? What the river was like in Varshava. That was our trip. Eating cookies in that bakery in Krakow or wherever that was. You know, making that bridge through life rather than death, even though it was very difficult, 'cause the -- what history happened is always present for us. And Gwoździec was all of a sudden -- it was totally about life, and it was about life from the midst of a 55:00time so far before the Holocaust that it wasn't even in the story, right? And that through art, I could connect with that history.

AI:Please describe this project.

HL:The project -- (laughs)

AI:Yeah.

HL:(laughs) The project is making a replica of a seventeenth century wooden synagogue that was in -- at the time was Poland and now is the Ukraine. A group of artists from Mass Arts in Boston conceived of the idea, because they had a philosophy that you can understand history through making things, which my house-building experience, you know, fit in very neatly. I understood that, also. And so, there were so many levels of exciting things about it. The project 56:00was to end up, finally, in the New Museum of Polish -- Jewish (laughs) -- Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Varshava, in a corner of what was the ghetto. So, not only was this gonna be an art project, it was gonna stand in this museum as a reference point for all of the Jews and Poles who came to see it. And I could have a hand in it, you know? I could put my -- my col-- I could put my brush, I could put my colors in this amazing, life-connected structure, and I could work with other artists and I could work with Poles, and we could learn from each other while we were wielding our brushes and mixing our paint colors. 57:00It was totally exciting. And, I went with my friend, Sarah, who's my friend for my whole life. The two of us went together and spent a month experiencing this together.

AI:And what do you feel about this experience for yourself? What did you take to you?

HL:When I first went to Kalisz and learned that the cemetery in Kalisz was from the 1200s, I thought -- first of all, that I have no idea how long my mother's family was in Kalisz, and that there's a possibility that my family lived in Poland for many, many hundreds of years. I have no idea. I mean, they might have come from Czechoslovakia for all I know. But the idea came to me. So, the sense 58:00-- the sense of me being connected to my own history is -- I don't know how to describe it. It's almost overwhelming to think that I have a connection to my own past. My past starts, up till now, with my parents. I never saw my grandparents' faces. I barely know their names. So, to think that I might have that -- in that piece I wrote, I mentioned that I had a girlfriend whose family was from Maine and that their portraits, their oil portraits, hung in the library in the town where she lived. And I thought that is beyond me, to have that sense of your own history. And to think that I might somehow tease that out of Poland, which has such a bad reputation to my family, you know? Was a taboo kind of place. And that I could be the one who makes that bridge for myself and 59:00for my nephew and for my brother, even, as much as he doesn't care about it? It's kind of thrilling. I have to kind of keep a lid on myself that -- you know, my utopian tendencies, that I don't kind of overlook the dark places in this journey. But it's very exciting. (laughs) It's very exciting. I don't know if I'm getting it across, what it could mean to me, to one such as me. And I do talk about this with Sarah. We share this -- we share these questions, these questions that come with being exiled.

AI:Do you find Yiddish culture in Poland?

HL:I'm trying to think what I personally found of that. (laughs) Well, I brought 60:00some -- I brought some -- we were taking outing with this -- with a group of painters from the Gwoździec project, and we were gonna be on the bus for five hours. And I said, "Perfect time to teach them Yiddish songs." (laughs) So, I did. I taught "Shnirele, perele [A string of pearls]" on the bus, and I enlisted the aid of one of the painters who's a really good guitarist. And he could pick up stuff just by ear. And so, we, you know, we worked on the song and we sang it on the bus. And then, we made a Shabbos evening and -- because we had already -- you know, the -- all the rest of the crew was familiar with it, we could sing 61:00together on a Shabbos evening. But did I find Yiddish culture? In Zamość, I. L. Peretz was born. (laughs) But live Yiddish culture? In Krakow, we went to Ariel Restaurant, and there was some klezmer musicians, but that wasn't really it. You know, there's a cemetery in Szczebrzeszyn, but that wasn't it. What did I find of Yiddish culture? I think I'm -- I have a feeling I'm forgetting something major, (laughs) that I'm giving short shrift to something that was there that I can't remember right now. But what comes to me is -- not so much. I mean, almost an anticipation of it, but not actually it. Yeah.

AI:Wonderful. I would like to ask about something similar to this -- what we were talking about. What has been most important for you to transmit to the generations after you about your Jewish identity?

HL:Well, the main recipient of this is my nephew. And I was at my nephew's birth, and he didn't have an easy birth. And I kept thinking about my father, about -- I'm going to cry now -- what it would do to my father if Isaac died. And I feel like I have kind of a promise to him to let Isaac see some of the 63:00beauty of that culture. I think one of the -- one of the things that I bring is that there's a real deep and broad love of the culture in me, and just that -- I bring that, and it gets absorbed by Isaac and -- when we make this fabulous seders where we all dress as Bedouins and (laughs) sit on the floor and act out the plagues and stuff, you know? It's just -- it's through the positive of it, you know, the love of it, the profundity of it that I know. That's how I want to 64:00transmit it, and I think that's the way it gets transmitted, you know? It's -- yeah.

AI:Wonderful. Fabulous. I would like to come back to you and your relationship with Yiddish. How has your relationship and interest in Yiddish evolved over your lifetime?

HL:When you asked before what -- where was Yiddish during those revolutionary years and I said that it had kind of been on hold, I -- I took a trip to -- or I 65:00spent a few months in San Francisco in the early '80s, and I found that there were some musicians there who were doing concerts and -- and giving classes on -- (laughs) on Yiddish music. And I was curious. I think my -- I think I didn't realize what a door into my own heritage that this could be. But I was attracted to it, so I went to some classes, and then I learned about KlezKamp and went to KlezKamp and found this unbelievably vibrant community of musicians who were teaching and performing and dancing and playing Yiddish music. And they were 66:00teaching Yiddish dance steps and showing Yiddish films and reading Yiddish poetry. And the music was so infectious, so danceable, so cryable. It just -- you know, it made me feel so happy and held. (laughs) And that -- that period of time really opened it for me, and I began to more actively kind of fill myself with it, following -- there was a wonderful theater -- a group of -- of people who were doing theater in New York City, and I made -- you know, I made my way to -- to see these performances. And the energy of it was -- was really -- was 67:00really exciting. There's so much creativity there. And the connection between that kind of artistic bubbling and the historical piece fit together in a way that made me really happy. Really, really happy.

AI:Did you attend -- to summer programs or any other -- that type of -- schools for Yiddish?

HL:I did go to YIVO zumer program [summer program], which was an amazing experience that also was tied in with -- because I don't know if you ever heard of Adrienne Cooper? Yeah, she came and taught Yiddish songs there. I had the chutzpah (laughs) to apply for a job teaching Yiddish at Gratz College in Philadelphia, and I taught Yiddish, you know, kind of in a very bumbling way, 68:00but I liked being in the atmosphere. I also led Yiddish conversation groups for elder hostels at various summer -- summer programs and -- let's see, what other settings were there? I think one of the things that was hard for me was, you know, if I was gonna find myself in a kind of pioneering situation, like how do I bring Yiddish culture to my friends in Maine when there's no one to speak Yiddish with -- (laughs) that's why it's nice to clump together at places like KlezKamp, because you can have a back and forth there. Or even, you know, leading a -- a Yiddish conversation group, I could hear the language and speak the language, even if it was a little bit fractured. I got a lot out of it.

AI:So, how do you use Yiddish? Do you use Yiddish in your everyday life?

HL:You know, again, I don't have who to speak with in my daily life. I did -- when I first moved to Los Angeles, I heard that there was a Yiddish chorus at Workmen's Circle, so I scooted right over there and sang with them for a while. It wasn't the greatest, but it was -- I learned a wonderful tango piece there. And I bring Yiddish to my Shabbos celebrations. I celebrate Shabbos every week. And I do it mostly through music. I don't read Yiddish very well. I can pick it up, but it's not very -- it's not very fluent. And my vocabulary is also limited, because it's from my parents. Whatever they spoke about, those are the 70:00words I know. Outside of that vocabulary, I'm an ignoramus. But it's deep in me.

AI:I would like to come back to your relationship with your nephew and ask you what kind of values, traditions, rituals, and language you would like to transmit into --

HL:To him?

AI:-- to him.

HL:Well, as I mentioned, the -- Passover is kind of a highlight. So, you know, in the Jewish calendar, there are these natural places where we gather and the culture supports us. And even for Hanukkah, I -- I really make sure that I include Yiddish and stuff. It's, again, a little bit hard, because I don't have the cohort to flesh out the knowledge of Yiddish, you know, to -- you can't have 71:00a conversation by yourself, so -- but through music, it's a little bit easier. I think one of the things that I want Isaac to know is that there's this huge, rich resource for him if he wants to go there. And maybe it'll happen when he has kids himself. That's a very common place when people look for -- look to understand what their values are so that they can pass them onto their kids. So, I want him to know that that's there for him, and just how rich it is. So, I feel like over the years that I've been in Los Angeles and had this wonderful proximity to my family, I worked really hard to make a basis for him. And also, 72:00my niece, Miranda -- she's not my brother's daughter. She's not Jewish by blood at all. But she has now four children, and last Hanukkah, when the two -- Jamie is seven and Madeline is four -- when we were playing dreidel and I watched Jamie tell -- Jamie, the seven-year-old, tell Madeline the four-year-old what the letters on the dreidel were, I can't tell you how happy that made me, 'cause I knew that I had given that to him. He didn't know where that fit into his life, you know? He doesn't consider himself Jewish in the least, but it doesn't matter. He has that in his vocabulary now. He has those wonderful memories of eating piles of chocolate coins, you know? It's positive for him. (laughs) So, 73:00it -- it feels like we need the milieu, making the milieu so they understand that, so they have a place where there are references for that, and it's all to the good.

AI:For sure. Are there any particular works of art -- songs, piece of literature, maybe -- that remained important to you or have taken on new meaning in your adult life?

HL:You mean, things that I had from childhood?

AI:Doesn't have to be.

HL:Or things that came into -- yeah. You know, it's funny, I'm not very well-versed in Yiddish poetry, but I love -- I love to -- like, to hear Moshe 74:00Shklar the other day, to hear just the tone of his voice and his -- his pronunciation -- I don't know how to say this. It's a kind of coming together of different parts that -- where history and artistic expression and home all sit together for a moment. I think -- yeah, that's what I'll say for now. (laughs)

AI:Have there been any specific rituals that you have adapted for your own family life?

HL:Shabbos. Shabbos. We -- you know, when I was a kid, we didn't -- we weren't quote-unquote religious about Shabbos, meaning that we didn't -- you know, my mother would light candles most of the time, but not every week. And it -- I think it was a bit drier than what I try to create. But for me, to have -- to have that marker every week, to come to, acknowledge not only the rhythm of the 76:00week and the cycle of the year, but also to acknowledge that this is the basis from which I spring, you know? And every Friday, I can come together with friends and eat and sing and be grateful. It's hugely important for me. And, again, I keep coming to this place where I feel like my tradition gives me something that I can give other people, you know? I think, actually, that's some of the thing-- that's happening with your generation in Poland, too, is that there's something that you see in Jewish culture that enriches your life. And 77:00that's what I feel it -- I mean, without question is what it does for me is, it makes my life richer and deeper, and precisely because it's about sharing it -- you know, it's not a hermetic culture. It's about drawing together and passing it on.

AI:What do you think you, as an American Jew from Poland and Germany, can give to Poles today?

HL:You know, when I was struggling to understand what -- what the relationship between Poles and Jews is about now, someone at JIH said to me, and I've heard 78:00variations of this metaphor used a lot -- she said that it's like having your limb amputated to have a culture taken out of your culture the way Jewish culture was taken out of Polish culture. It's about making wholeness, you know? If there's been an amputation, you long for the part that's missing. Even if you don't understand it, there's a place in you that longs for it. And to have that longing satisfied is priceless. What a sense of peace to have that longing satisfied. Yeah.

AI:To what extent do you think language plays a role in transmission between generations? And not only in America, but in the world?

HL:It's vital. I mean, whole cultures are built on language. And the nuances of those cultures are embedded in that language, so it's huge. And, I mean, I'm -- I'm thinking of a -- of a small child who can't talk yet, and there's a lot that happens between a parent and a child or an adult and a child. But once the words come, once that child absorbs the sounds and learns that that's how you communicate, that's how you let your desires pass between you -- I mean, what's more basic than that? Touch is, but language is a close second.

AI:And what is the closest language to you? What is the language of your heart?

HL:(laughs) I can only say Yiddish! (laughter)

AI:So, what does Yiddish mean to you today?

HL:I'm getting all these images. It's a long line to the past, to the far, far past. And it's kind of a precious -- it's, like, something precious that I can 81:00hold in my hand and hold out, you know? I wish I were more surrounded by it, you know? I wish -- I wish it was as alive in my life as it was once. That would be amazing. I think it would be really amazing. I mean, I do have some kind of envy about the Hasidim who have Yiddish, you know, really, really alive for them. Not that I want their lives in any way, but they do have that piece. And I wrote that my stepdaughter, Shalvi, lives in Jerusalem in a -- ultra-Orthodox enclave, and she speaks Yiddish to her kids. And it's incredible! I love hearing them 82:00speak to each other. It's, you know -- it just rings with so many layers of nuance and it's beautiful. (laughs)

AI:What do you see as the future of Yiddish?

HL:I don't know. I really don't know. Maybe it's because the introduction for me back to Yiddish was through music. I feel like that is a very, very strong place for Yiddish. As far as, you know, imagining a world where there were enclaves that were speaking besides the Hasidim, I don't know. I don't have the faintest idea. (laughs)

AI:We are nearing to the end of our time, but I would like to ask you two more questions. The first one is: what is your favorite Yiddish word, phrase, or song?

HL:(laughs) I mean, my favorite song is "Shnirele, perele." Favorite word. I don't even know if this word is Yiddish.

AI:What --

HL:No, I don't think I have a favorite Yiddish word.

AI:Would you like to sing for me "Shnirele, perele"?

HL:(laughs) Sure. (laughs) Want to sing with me? (laughs)

AI:Sure.

HL:(Singing) "Shnirele, perele, gildene fon,/moshiakh ben dovid zitst oybn on./Er halt a bekher in der rekhter hant,/makht a brukhe oyfn gantsn land./Oy, omeyn veyomeyn dos iz vor,/moshiakh vet kimen hayntiks yor./Oy, omeyn veyomen dos iz vor,/moshiakh vet kimen hayntiks yor./Vet er kimen tsu raytn,/veln zayn 84:00gite tsaytn [Ribbons, pearls, golden flags,/the Messiah, son of David, is above us./He holds a goblet in his right hand,/gives his blessing to the whole earth./Oh, amen and amen, this is the truth,/the Messiah will come this year./Oh, amen and amen, this is the truth,/the Messiah will come this year./If he comes by riding,/there will be good times]" -- can't remember how this goes.

AI:(singing) "Vet er kumen tsu geyen [If he comes by walking] --"

HL:(singing with Agnieszka) "Geyen [Walking]" -- no, that's last one. That's the last one. (singing) "Vet er kimen tsu raytn,/veln zayn gute tsaytn./Vet er kimen tsu geyn,/veln di yidn in erets yisroel aynshteyn. [If he comes by riding,/there will be good times./If he comes by walking,/every Jew will be settled in the land of Israel]." (laughs)

AI:Thank you very much for this beautiful song.

HL:(laughs) You're welcome.

AI:My last question to you is: what advice do you have for future generations?

HL:(laughs) Sing a lot, bake cookies, and love your (laughs) -- love your little 85:00ones with everything you have. Love the little -- the children in your life. (laughs)

AI:Thank you. Thank you very much for this interview.

HL:(laughs) You're welcome.

[END OF INTERVIEW]