PHILIP REINISH ORAL HISTORY

JESSICAL PARKER:  This is Jessica Parker, and today is Wednesday, March 13th, 2013.  I am here in Boca Raton, Florida with Philip Reinish, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project.  Philip, do I have your permission to record this interview?

PHILIP REINISH:  Yes, you do.

JP:  Thank you.  So, to start, do you mind telling me briefly what you know about your family background?

PR:  Unfortunately, as -- when we were young, we really never thought about what they do today, the backgrounds of your family, where did they come from?  It happened, actually, when some of our -- my nieces and nephews got older, they were curious about the family.  So, I had a friend who was into genealogy.  1:00So, we did trace some of the things, and we have a silly story about the family, 'cause -- background.  And we're -- with the Reinish name, we don't fit with a lot of people in this country or -- whose name is Reinish for whatever the reasons.  So, we made up a story about it.  But as a young boy, I grew up in a great place.  Brooklyn, Brighton Beach.

JP:  Before we go there, what was the silly story you made up?

PR:  Oh, that my grandfather, whom I never knew, was a black sheep in his family.  Did things that were not norm-- at the time, like having relations with sisters and -- of people that were married into the family and had children.  And so, I thought, well, I'm one of those kids who were not legal in a sense, at one time, based on who my father might have been.  But these are 2:00things that we -- you find out as adults, so -- but --

JP:  And why didn't you fit in with the other Reinishes?

PR:  Well, because what we did, once we found out that there -- every -- I used to believe that every Reinish in New York City was related to me, and most of them were.  And, as life went on and if I -- you find there were Reinishes all over, and slightly -- sometimes different spellings and stuff.  And so, there are Reinishes that I say they must be family, now that I have this -- thoughts about who we are.  And so, you go through life this way, and you think about it.  And I've tried, personally.  I registered to vote here in Florida one year, and I lived in -- Aventura area.  And there was a Reinish right there, right above my name.  So, I said to my sister, "There's a Reinish living in the next building.  Let's go over and find out if they're part of our family!"  3:00So, we go and we ring the bell downstairs.  We tell 'em we're Reinish and they said, Oh, we don't have Rein-- we come from Philadel-- from somewhere else, and we don't -- and they wouldn't even come talk to us.  And then, an aunt and her husband who was Reinish, my father's brother, went to a family on Long Island and asked -- told them they were Reinishes.  And that woman came to the door, answered the door, and her husband was walking down the stairs, and she -- this is the aunt's story.  She said that man looked just like her husband, but they refused to talk to them, also.  So, here we have -- try to make contact.  I would be interested even if they weren't family.  But they weren't interested in even talking to us.  And I met a doctor on -- that I had a doctor -- a dermatologist.  And I was interested in meeting him because his last name was the childhood doctor that I had, a primary care doctor.  So, I was interested 4:00in meeting him, and he was waiting to meet me because his mother was a Reinish.  So, when we met -- and he told me that she comes from Russia.  I said, "Your mother doesn't come from Russia.  Her background is Austrian, and we most likely are related."  When -- the next time I saw him, no talk.  We -- it was over.  And so, here you have three instances that -- meeting people whose name -- related to Reinish, do not want to know us for whatever reason.

JP:  And so, you know your background is Austrian?

PR:  Yes, that I know, because the name Reinish comes from the Rhine, okay?  And so, my grandmother, who -- my father's mother, whom I think was one of the people who might have had a relationship with this grandfather, because he's the father of -- and she was never married, and -- she was later married to somebody 5:00in the States.  But there was something -- you know, we were kids.  We didn't know.  And I remember one time going to -- we had -- my mother had relatives who were lawyers and -- when I was very young, we went to change names or something and they said, no.  They -- parents don't tell you the reality.  But I -- afterwards, when you get older, you think about why did we do this?  So, they might have been -- names changed, whom I -- the name of my father, possibly, at one point.  Whatever.  I don't know.  We don't know.  (laughs) But I had -- as I said, I do have my genealogy, tracing things.  People living in the same building in New York, doing the same things that my father's mother -- grandmother was a finisher in the fur industry, and there were other furriers in that same building.  So, you put together what you think is an interesting story and you talk about it.  You don't know for sure, but we do know that there were three sisters, grandparents, different sons and stuff.  So, there 6:00was something (laughs) that wasn't so kosher in Europe or wherever, or in the States, so --

JP:  And do you know when your family came from Europe to --

PR:  Yeah, my -- well, my mother --

JP:  (UNCLEAR)

PR:  -- my mother came from Russia when she was five years old.  So, she was a child.  My father was born here in the United States.  So, he's -- and so, we do -- and I knew -- I knew -- my two grandmas -- I didn't have a grandfather that we could put our fingers on.  But I had two grandmothers, and one of them, I -- it's a -- unbelievable.  Of my mother and my grandmother, I remember my grandmother, as an infant, telling me bobe-mayses [fairy tales] when I was a baby in -- laying in bed, and I'm touching her.  I don't know how old.  Maybe two, maybe -- I don't know.  But I remember -- I can't remember my mother ever hugging me.  She was not that kind of a person.  So, I didn't have that, but I 7:00had it from that grandmother when I was very little.  So, I remember her.  We have people ask me about -- I can't remember my mother ever hugging me or stuff like that, so -- but I was brought up in a Jewish home, in a Jewish community.  And by the time I was nine years old, I wanted to go to Hebrew school.  (laughs)

JP:  You wanted to go to Hebrew school?

PR:  Yeah, I was -- yeah, everyb-- all the kids went to Hebrew school.  So, I did go, from nine to thirteen, I went to Hebrew school, too.  And I -- my brother and I both, we -- I remember this very -- I still, if you wanted to hear, I can remember the beginnings of shakhres [morning prayers], 'cause I used to daven in the children's service.  Shakhres, my brother would daven musaf [additional morning prayer for Shabbos and certain holidays].  So, I can remember the first lines -- you want me to say them?  I mean --

JP:  Sure.

PR:  "Shochen ad marom v'kadosh shemo [Hebrew: He dwells forever, exalted and 8:00holy is His name]."  And I remember the first few lines of my haftorah: "Munach zarko, munach segol, munach revi'i, munach pashto" -- enough.  (laughs) So, there's a part of me that's always inside, -- and I feel that everything I did in my life was because I was Jewish.  So, that's the beginning of my life.  You want to -- I don't know what else you want to do?

JP:  Sure.  So, I'm curious about the home in which you grew up.

PR:  Okay.

JP:  What about your house felt Jewish?  What about your house felt Jewish to you?

PR:  Well, my grandmother, she lived almost -- she lived -- my whole family -- her -- my mother had brothers, and an -- about four, I don't -- I could name them -- at least four or five of them lived in Brighton Beach.  So, our cousins and us, we were all very close as children, so -- and my grandmother, she didn't speak English.  My mother's mother.  She only spoke Yiddish.  So, I learned 9:00to speak Yiddish.  And I was amazed that when I did meet my first girlfriend, her parents came from Russia, too.  And they spoke English, but broken English, but Yiddish was more of their language.  So, I had an opportunity in those days to speak Yiddish.  And, in fact, when I was in the Navy, my form-- mother -- former mother-in-law -- I wrote her a Yiddish letter.  She couldn't believe -- I didn't -- and I never learned Yiddish, 'cause I learned Hebrew in Hebrew school.  But I wrote a -- I was able to take the words and write her a Jewish letter.  So, it always make me feel good that she felt that I could do that.  And, so --

JP:  How were you able to write if you hadn't been formally taught?

PR:  Because -- you want me to say -- I'm pretty smart.  I can adjust my -- I've done -- my whole life, if you listen to my life, I've done things -- I'm very spontaneous.  I don't have -- I've owned six homes.  I don't have an 10:00engineer come and check out the house.  I know when I do things -- I can -- I bought a house in twenty seconds.  I bought a boat overnight.  I don't have to go looking.  The homes that I've sold, people have bought -- they don't call engineers, because I convince them that -- I tell them everything that is possibly wrong.  So, I learned about myself.  That's why I keep trying to change my memoirs, because I keep thinking about who I am.  Even coming here today, while I was shaving, I'm -- my mind is constantly working about all the things that I've done that I wish I could -- I'm trying to leave for my future generations.  So, that's why I'm here, to leave you with some of that, in -- Yiddish part of me, which is from head to toe, I'm Jewish.

JP:  Wonderful.  You mentioned earlier that your grandmother told you bobe-mayses.  Do you remember anything in particular she used to share with you 11:00or sing to you or say to you?

PR:  No, I really don't.  (laughs) It's so long ago.  I'm lucky to remember -- I tell my children, "When I don't remember your name, it's time for me to go."  (laughs)

JP:  Were there any special foods you ate or loved growing up as a family?

PR:  My mother wasn't very -- I don't think she was a very good -- but she did make lokshn kugel [noodle kugel].  And I'm the possessor of that, and I'm the house -- the family, when they want a lokshn kugel, I make my mother's lokshn kugel -- it's not the sweet -- it's a -- salt and pepper and stuff like that.  So, it's -- I'm a good cook, too.  I do everything, not only cook.  I do every -- I do my own -- when I buy a home, I do all the furnishings.

JP:  Wow.

PR:  I never have a -- and the people that buy my homes, they buy my furniture (laughs) 'cause they -- and I have a home now that -- very nice, and I have 12:00interesting things.

JP:  Were there things that you did together as a family growing up?  Any special meals or outings or traditions?

PR:  No, we -- my parents were not educated.  So, I look back, I most likely -- my father and I really didn't get along, in a sense, when I -- from the time he -- he was a -- he's an interesting person.  I think about it now.  I thought about -- he used the expression -- I forgave him when I was forty-eight years old, based on my life and stuff.  And I realized that he did the best he had with the tools he had.  And they weren't very many.  And I think back -- I was asthmatic as a child, till I was thirteen.  And when I got older, I realized that it was psychosomatic.  It had to do with my father.  And when I was thirteen, I stood up to my father, and I --

JP:  In what way?  For what?

PR:  Oh, well, I must have done something that he didn't approve of, but -- and 13:00he's a hitter.  He spanks you or whatever you do, he's a very -- was a very gruff kind of person.  And at that point in my life, and I remember this like it was yesterday, I said to him, "You can hit me and beat me, but you're not going to make me cry.  You're just gonna" -- and my mother was standing there and my brother was there.  But -- she says, "Cry!  Cry!  Your brother will cry."  I said, "Nope.  You can beat me into the ground, but I'm not going to cry."  I stopped having asthmatic attacks after that.  And so, afterwards, I never -- I was -- kid.  I never realized, a -- thirteen years old.  And I've never had it again.  So, I said that.  That was most likely part of what it was when I was a child.  I don't know, but it's a guess.  Educated guess, sort of.  So, I look back -- the one thing I do talk about my parents is I have 14:00brother, two sisters, I -- my -- one of -- my brother died a year and a half ago.  We'd -- and we -- we're still friends.  We talk.  I meet people -- when I came to Long Island, "You mean brothers and sisters talk to each other?  They're still family?"  I said.  "Yeah."  So, I realized that something happened in that home that kept us together, to this day.  I'm -- my sister and I, we have a common wall and I -- where we live.  I'm her next-door neighbor.  My younger -- my baby sister.  In fact, she was the flower girl at my wedding.  That's the difference -- twelve-year difference in our age, so --

JP:  Do you think your parents were trying to impart something to you as a family?

PR:  I don't think -- I don't know.  I don't think they had anything to offer me.  And if I look back on my life, in fact, I was smart in school, my mother would tell everybody.  I'd get hundred in math and this and that.  And you 15:00don't know what you are at twelve years old.  And now that I look back on my life, I see the things that I did that were brilliant for the times, really.  At eleven and twelve, I said to the family, "How can you retire at sixty-five," when all my aunts and uncles were dying at sixty and sixty-two.  I said, "If you're going to retire, you retire at forty-five and live -- and if you're still alive at sixty and you get -- why don't -- if you need to work, go get a job."  But I didn't think I was put on this Earth to work till I died and never see anything in the world.  And so, I used to say that, from the time I was twelve years old.  And I didn't mature -- I mean, if you want to know -- by the time I -- we -- I tell you about my life in Brooklyn, thing is that --

JP:  Please.

PR:  -- we played in the streets.  We played football on the beach.  We played ba-- I -- my mother told -- right before I got married, my wife, she 16:00said, "All you have to do is give him lettuce and tomato sandwiches.  That's all he eats."  Because I didn't have time to eat.  I didn't eat anything as a child, practically.  Foods.  I would run to the schoolyard, be out all day, play ball in the streets.  Playing games with my friends.  And that was my life.  And if you ask me that one, even when I'm writing -- up until -- I see the smart parts of me.  I was smart and good in school and testing and stuff like that.  But if you ask me as a human being today, I was just an average American -- Jewish American kid growing up in Brooklyn.  I didn't have any real background -- had anything to say, "You should be this or doctor or a lawyer" or something like that, which is a Jewish thing.  You have to be somebody.  I never had that.  And so, when it came time for me, I did all -- you would think all the wrong things, as you --

JP:  In what way?

PR:  Well, I didn't like the school -- I took an exam because a friend of mine who lived next door, it -- took this test the year before I did.  It was called Brooklyn Tech in Brooklyn -- in New York.  And it was a prestigious boys' school, six thousand boys.  And you had to take a test to get in.  And for me, it was a day off from school.  So, I went and took the test, and I passed the test.  And I was accepted to this prestigious school in Brooklyn.  And when I got there, I would play -- I was a kid playing ball.  I'm little.  So, when I went out with the guys that I played basketball -- for the team, they made the team, but I would -- they didn't even look at me 'cause I was too little.  And so, whatever I did in my life -- football, whatever I played -- I couldn't play on a level in high school or anything like that.  So, I became this -- here's a boys' school that I don't fit in.  And so, I wanted to leave.  So, my parents came to the school and they said, "No, he's okay.  Keep him here.  Don't" -- I 18:00wanted to transfer out to the school in the community where all my friends and everybody went.  So, I didn't -- so, this was the -- about a year and a half now, and I've been going to this school, and by the second year, it's -- I used to have to go by train to school.  So, I'd get a quarter for lunch and nickels when the train was a nickel.  And I'd go into Manhattan -- you could -- for a quarter, you can go to the Paramount and see top musicians and -- and a movie for a quarter.  And I spend most of that year, that term, and then they said that I'm not doing it.  So, then they --

JP:  And most of that term going to the movies?

PR:  Yeah.  I --

JP:  Instead of going to school?

PR:  Instead of going to school.  And so, finally, they said, Well, they'll let -- my parents said, Well, now they'll transfer me to Abraham Lincoln High School, which was the local high school.  And I didn't last there very long, 'cause now I was not happy because now I'm sort of behind and whatever.  And I 19:00decided at sixteen years old to quit school, which is what I did.  But it was World War II.  All the young men -- and men were going to the service.  I was too young to go into the service, so what did I do?  Since I'm smart in taking tests, I took a civil service test, at sixteen.  I passed.  I went to work for the Railway Mail Service in New York, in the big -- they had a big building there, and now I begin -- educate, because now I'm meeting people who came to the -- public service during the Depression.  Was just -- turn around the corner.  Doctors, lawyers.  And I'm looking, I'm saying, "Yeah, I'm here as a sixteen-year-old kid working" -- maybe it's close to seventeen, whatever.  And 20:00these guys -- and I talked to them.  They said, well, they'd been here so long, they're going to get a pension, that -- where are they going to go now that things are changing?  And I understood that.  But I started to think that's what happens in your life.  And here I'm making -- I think it was like -- I think a number like sixty dollars a week.  But naturally, on Saturday nights, now I had a girlfriend, I was -- she'd call up and tell 'em I was sick.  We'd be on a date or something.  So, I was now beginning to see the world, and --

JP:  And what year was this, approximately?

PR:  Well, okay, I was born in '27, and so I'm say, seventeen.  Okay, so it's nineteen -- early 1940, '42 -- seven -- sixteen -- yeah, it's '43, somewhere around '43, '44.  So, now I get a job and I'm working, making money -- and have a girlfriend, and we can -- and I can live on my own without asking any -- then 21:00a penny was money.  I remember getting a penny from my father.  Wow.  (laughs) Was something.  So, here I was now taking -- I took a civil service test, I got a job.  I'm working, I have a girlfriend.  Very nice, pretty young woman.  And there's where Jewish became even more prominent in my life, because her parents were -- spoke Yiddish.  And now -- so, now I'm using the Yiddish and I -- and stuff like that.  So --

JP:  To communicate with them?

PR:  Yeah.  They could -- spoke English, but they -- if they were talking to each other, they would speak Yiddish.  But I did have a little bit, because my bobe [grandmother], when she was living with us and staying with us, she'd stay with a son of hers who lived in Brighton, and then she'd come with us and stay.  And what's interesting, if I tell you where I lived when I was that young, yeah, I lived in a two bungalow -- when I was born, in a two-bungalow 22:00apartment, okay?  Two families lived in this building.  Three rooms: a kitchen, a living room, and a bedroom.  The toilet was in the kitchen in my apartment, okay?  And I had a brother and a sister and myself, and occasionally my grandmother.  And somehow, we managed -- I don't know how, if you ask me -- to live in this little three-room place when I was a kid.  And so, you look back --

JP:  How many people slept in the bedroom?

PR:  I -- I guess my mother and father -- I don't know, I really don't -- but, I mean, I know we had what we called a daybed, where thing opened up -- my brother and I could sleep side -- I don't know, my sister slept somewhere, you know, I didn't -- somewhere.  I don't -- it's -- we did move a few years -- when I got a little older, we had a -- got a better home with two doors, two little alleys away in -- and stuff like that.  But it was a great place to grow 23:00up, or -- mostly I would -- I used to say this.  It was like a ghetto, (laughs) but my neighbors, you -- interestingly enough, beside being Jews, we had several Italians living right in between us.  In fact, when I got married, at least three -- I can't remember.  I thought it was four.  I don't want to go through names, but I could name you the three of the ushers in my -- I had twelve ushers.  We didn't have any bridesmaids.  Three of them were -- at least three of them were Italian.  So, that --

JP:  And would -- your neighborhood was very Jewish?

PR:  Oh, yeah.  That -- Brighton Beach, I would -- if you asked me now -- I used to say ninety percent of Brighton Beach was -- a hundred thousand people were Jews.  But maybe it wasn't that many.  But when you're a kid, you don't know.  But everybody seemed to be Jewish, except -- (laughs)

JP:  And what was the neighborhood like?

PR:  Well, it was an interesting neighborhood, because they were very wealthy people who owned one side of the street that I lived on.  They -- and I'll -- 24:00know who they were?  The Streit's family.  You know Streit's Matzos?  They owned that whole street.  Brick homes, two-story family houses.  They lived on the corner of the street.  Another family who was most likely, I think, related to the Streits was the Pechters, another Jewish business -- I don't know if you know the name -- who lived there.  So, here we have very wealthy people living -- at that time, you don't know about wealth, you know what I mean?  But you know who they are, and they owned the house, and they -- one of their homes we called the haunted house.  It was empty for years when I was a child.  We used to play stoop ball, we get -- and this is -- the old woman, Streit's -- she used to come and chase us.  I mean, I -- it was -- so, you think back as a child, the things that have happened, and here are these people who are wealthy, living on that street, and they owned the whole block of houses.  I don't know how many, they were on -- from one end of the street to the other end.  And so -- and friends of mine lived in those apartments.  I'm sure the rents weren't 25:00outlandish or whatever.  But it was an interesting place to grow up.  And Brighton Beach, I tell -- the luckiest place.  My parents moved there just before I was born from the East Side of New York, okay?  They lived on the East Side, they had a girl, my older sister.  And when they moved there, she must have been two year-- not -- maybe not two yet, or two years old.  And so, they said we had to -- they felt they had to move to a better community than the Lower East Side of New York, where there were a lot of Jewish people, also.  So, I was born there.  I was born at Coney Island Hospital, the -- and that's where I grew up.  And it was a great place to grow up, because we had -- in the summer, we had the beach -- to walk to the beach, and everything, so -- and friends -- and we stayed friends -- many of them for most of my life.

JP:  And who were your friends?  How did you make those friends?

PR:  Just being in the neighborhood, (laughs) out in the street.  In those days, you paired off.  You have boys and girls and you end up with a girlfriend or something like that.  And I met my wife -- we had a community house where you -- social place for kids to go in Brighton.  And I met her there.  I was about sixteen years old, and now, I had this very nice-looking young woman as a girlfriend, I felt very proud, whatever.  And we had the friends, and each of us paired off and most -- a lot of us married the women that we were -- had as girlfriends when we were kids.  And for a while, we had friend circle, we stayed friends and stuff like that.  And so, you look back on your life and you say, wow.  But it was a great place to grow -- to grow up.  And so -- and I say that to this day.  And now it's -- the Russians live there.  And I used to go there, because I get -- that's part of my life, too.  I know Russians who 27:00came to the United States -- I did visit the Soviet Union in my life, twice.

JP:  Before we get there, did your parents ever tell you what life was like on the Lower East Side and why they moved out?

PR:  No.  No, they just said, "This is better."  It was a better place to live.  That's why they did it.  But they never talked much about any of the things, even about our backgrounds, about my uncles, my father's -- they were his brothers, but we realized that they came from three different -- possibly three different women.  (laughs) So, you find things out, but not when you're a child.  I had an aunt that I didn't ever really hear of when I was a child.  She was my mother's younger sister.  She was in a mental institution since she was a young girl, and nobody ever talked about those things in those days.  If you had cancer or mental diseases, they hid them in the closet.  And so, I 28:00never saw this woman until I was an adult, when -- and she had to have -- they had to put her in a place, right, not -- where I lived on Long Island.  So, when I found out, I went to see her.  I think I saw her maybe once or twice in my whole life, and -- but the kids, my nieces and nephews, when they found out, they were concerned with knowing the background of the family, who's who and -- so, they're still doing it.  My daughter is part of it.  They -- now with the internet, you find people that -- family that you -- they're on -- all the places they go looking for, so it's interesting, life.  And like I said, I'm part of it.  And, as I said before and I'll always repeat, being a Jew was part of who I -- all of who I am today.  Way I think, I always blame it on being 29:00Jewish.  The brains, I -- we have that connotation or we have doctors, lawyers, and the arts and all the things that are positive in life.  And, in a sense -- I mean, I was never really part of it, but I am part of it.  And so --

JP:  And where did that learning come from?  I mean, was there Jewish culture like music or radio or newspapers in your house or --

PR:  Well, here's the part of me that you're asking now.  For whatever reason, inside this brain -- I was able to use that brain, and I teach that to my grandchildren.  I says, "You're born with the best tool there is.  It's in your head.  Learn how to use it."  And that's what I preach in general, because we don't know how to use it.  And the proof is that if you ask people who do research on brains -- that we use maybe this mu-- a minimal of our 30:00brain.  And that's why I think half the country is braindead.  And so -- and I've met and I'm -- I've met -- nobody -- okay, if you would ask anybody who knew me to this day, they would think I'm a college graduate, even though I ended up -- and I got very fortunate.  I could tell part of my history as I went on in life, that things worked for me, the things that I -- when I came out of the Navy, there's another thing that I said -- 'cause then I remember that when I said when I was a kid, about forty-five, "You got to retire."  When I came out of the Navy and I got a first job, I said when I'm fifty-five -- money has changed now, beginning to change, and the -- incomes and stuff.  When I'm fifty-five, no matter what I have -- I'll be a bum, but I'm not gonna die working.  So, I hope -- I did -- I was still young and I never dreamed of how 31:00you can -- how do you do that?  Retire at fifty-five?  But that was my goal.  I'll be a bum, but I'm not going to die working.  And I have to say that I accomplished all the things that, as a young person, came true for me.  And so, I consider myself -- and if you ask me this -- and to this day, if you ask me, I'm one of the luckiest people in this whole world, not only in the United States, because I have my children, my grandchildren, my broth-- my brother was the first one to die out of pecking order by age.  My parents died at the right age, and my brother was not supposed to die before me, 'cause he was two years younger than me.  So, I felt -- that's an interesting story.  But anyhow, so that was the only time, but -- so, all -- otherwise -- and I have my five grandchildren, I have my three children.  And even though I've been divorced all these years, we've been close with them, my -- I treat all my five 32:00grandchildren equally.  I -- what -- if I do for one, I do for the other four and I treat my children the same way.  And I -- and if I go on to history of who I am, if you go further, you'll find out that I behaved that way to this day, with everything I've ever done, even though --

JP:  Right.

PR:  -- they call me terrible names, I'm the best person around.  I've treated everybody -- even the people that -- I ended up in business, eventually.  I treated those employees the way I want to be treated.  That was one of the prerequisites, when --

JP:  And you said you had an interesting story.

PR:  About which?

JP:  Perhaps about your brother or your brother's passing?

PR:  Oh, yeah.  Well, yeah.  I was called to the hospital when he was -- by the time I got there, he was dead.  And he's lying there -- just his head, open 33:00and I'm looking at my -- this is my brother, that -- we were very -- we're two years apart.  Even though we had different friends as children, because you'd hang out with a group that's your age, and he was two years -- different group of kids in school.  And I was looking at him and looking at him.  And I'm -- I can -- if you tell me -- if I see something very warm and good on television, I'm very emotional.  I'll keep -- my eyes'll tear to good things.  Occasionally bad.  But I did not cry when my brother died.  And I went home and I said what the heck is wrong with me?  I cry at the easiest -- well, couple of days later, I get up on the side of -- I wake up, I get out of the -- get -- I don't get out of -- I pull over to the edge of the bed and I just sit there like I'm sitting here now.  And I got hysterical about my brother dying.  I was all alone and I went, it went (whooshing sound) -- you wouldn't believe how I cried, all -- and I just let it all -- just -- I didn't wipe my 34:00eyes, I just let it all come out.  And that was -- I said -- I knew -- and I'm starting to feel it now, because that's who I am.  I mean, if you talk to me about good things, even, and somebody does something really good, I'll tear -- if I watch a movie where people are caring about each other.  I'm very sensitive to those things.

JP:  So, to wrap up a bit about your home life and your childhood, and then we can fast-forward and you can talk me through the next years.  Did you have a political atmosphere in your home growing up?

PR:  Oh, my father was a member of the Democratic Club.  He used to play cards there, and he was an interesting person, now that I -- if you want to -- I'll tell you about my father, now that I look back on him.  He was very gruff.  He was a cab driver most of the time in New York, okay?  So, he was streetwise as far as that.  And when people needed somebody or somebody died, they would call 35:00Dave, my father.  And he was always around when people needed him and they saw him as somebody to rely on.  But I was a kid, so you don't see those things until later.  So, as now, when I look back on the four of -- my sisters and brothers and myself and the family, we didn't have -- like in homes, people have their -- they are educated, and so their children, they get taught right away when they're this big you gotta be a doctor, a lawyer, this -- whatever it is you're gonna be -- have to be something, do some -- I never had that.  Only once in my life, a woman who was married to an uncle was talking to me and told me -- being a civil engineer -- (laughs) I should go to school.  Her brother was a civil engineer.  So, that was the only time anybody ever mentioned college to me.  But my parents, they wanted me to be educated.  But it didn't work in that house. 

JP:  What didn't work?

PR:  Being educated, because we didn't have that sort of background, history, or pushing.  It just -- I was lucky.  We had -- we were graded in public school for -- one to four, one being the best, the smartest kids were in the one class.  So, you looked down on the other kids who were in the four class.  And I was always, through public school, in the one class.  I didn't know why.  I tested good.  I didn't -- and stuff.  I never really studied.  I never took an interest in it, but I was good in school.  And I'd -- like I said, I'm -- up until I was close to age seventeen, I could take tests and pass tests that you wouldn't think of without being educated -- that you could do. 

JP:  And did your mom work?

PR:  No, she was a housewife all her life, so -- and --

JP:  So, why don't you take me through the rest of the education you had, 37:00'cause I know --

PR:  Oh, okay.

JP:  -- you did some --

PR:  That's the most interesting --

JP:  Yeah.

PR:  -- part of my life, the beginning of who I became.

JP:  Right, please.

PR:  Okay.  I joined the Navy before I was eighteen, and I had the -- interesting -- I was in only -- for thirteen months, I was in the service, 'cause I -- by point system that came about in World War II.  So, I was a veteran of World War II based on the fact that I enlisted before the war ended, just before.  And so, I had all the benefits of the G.I. Bill, the 5220 Club and all these things there.  And now --

JP:  And what did you do in the Navy?

PR:  I was a seaman.  I -- oh, I mean, if I could talk about -- the time I was in the Navy, the experiences I had, I mean, I could -- you want me to talk about those?

JP:  Do you have one or two interesting examples or moments from your time there?  I know it's hard to distill all of it into a little --

PR:  Yeah.

JP:  -- snapshot.

PR:  Right, I mean, okay, the -- well, as I said, the ship was gonna go to -- I don't know, these are funny stories to me.  They're not even worthwhile -- I only had one incident in the Navy of somebody being anti-Semitic, and he has a big stitch over his eye.  And --

JP:  Because?

PR:  Because I hit him.  (laughs) But I was -- I don't know why I -- you do things.  I just react for whatever.  And I think an interesting -- just a funny story: I was in the Navy.  I was in a thing there -- what happened was, when we -- we were -- we didn't know what -- they asked people to sign up to spend three months more in the Navy because the ship was doing some things and they were gonna go do something, we didn't know what.  And we were working at -- nights, hauling cables from the stern -- to the -- ship onto that -- and 39:00then, they brought on regular Navy men on the ship to go with the ship or whatever they were going to do.  And they were giving leaves, thirty-day leave.  If you signed up for three months, you would go home for thirty days.  And my brother-in-law had told me, "Never" -- what's the word?  Okay.  Never -- what's -- never -- what's the word? 

JP:  Volunteer?

PR:  Volunteer.  Okay, that's -- and he said, "Never volunteer."  So, I wasn't volunteering.  But now everybody's going home, and so it got down to twenty-four days instead of thirty, and I finally signed my name to stay three months longer.  So, I could go home for twenty -- but when I came back, there wasn't enough time.  They wanted me to sign up for six months instead of three.  So, I said -- I -- now, I was home.  I said nope, I wouldn't do it.  And I had a problem -- so, now they had these regular Navy men.  And the guy that was a coxswain in my division there was not a nice guy, and I felt -- so, I 40:00asked to be transferred out to work over on the ship, painting and cleaning and doing -- course, we had liberty every night.  So, they said okay.

JP:  What's liberty every night?

PR:  Going -- well, going ashore.

JP:  Oh.

PR:  That's the word -- freedom from the -- okay, so you -- so, I joined that.  And anyhow, so what happens is that same coxswain gets transferred to the same thing that I'm doing.  Anyhow -- and one day, I'm working over the side of a battleship, now.  I'm on a battleship.  And there's turret with -- a gun turret -- and I was painting the ship, and so I pull myself close to the ship.  And I fall overboard.  (laughs) Off the battleship.  So, I can swim, and I swim ashore.  And now it's toward the end of the day, and I said, Okay, get dressed, get -- put on your blues, that -- your uniform to go ashore, and -- 41:00which I did.  And now the coxswain comes over and he says, "What are you doing?"  I said, "Well, it's almost to the end of the day," and I tell him the story about falling over.  And I said I felt -- so, he says to me, "Get back over the side."  Now, I'm this kid from Brooklyn.  (laughs) I said, "What?"  And I said to him, "Go eff yourself."  Well, he says, "Don't go away.  You stay right here."  And he brings another petty officer over.  He said, "Now, say that again."  And I said, "You and your friend, do that same F-word."  And they brought me up on charges and blah-blah-blah-blah.  And so, I went with -- I was -- and the pet-- the officer that was going to be my lawyer in front of the captain's mast and whatever -- and so, they -- I got convicted of whatever -- charges were, so that I was kept on the ship for ten days.  I couldn't go ashore.  But my --

JP:  Because you had initially fallen overboard, they didn't want you to go ashore on that day.

PR:  Yeah, and I told him -- I said those bad things to him --

JP:  Right.

PR:  -- and he's a petty officer, so he brought me up -- and my officer said he 42:00was gonna defend me.  I could have defended myself better than he did, okay, 'cause he didn't defend me, so I was convicted, so -- but now my transfer came over, 'cause the -- to be discharged.  So, where -- were they going to do with me?  And they -- so, we were near the San Diego repair base.  So, they put me ashore at the San Diego -- where they had a prison in the center of the base there, with a fence and stuff in the mid-- so, that's where I spent ten days, and I -- and that -- it was just an unusual -- it was an experience, have an exp-- you know, everything went on.  These are all learning things about what goes on in the world.  So, you -- these things get embedded in your head.  So, I'll -- here, I didn't -- whatever I thought, and I said things -- and I don't know why -- you do it.  And I spend my whole life that way.  I am very spontaneous, and I bought homes that way, in seconds, minutes.  I do things, 43:00and seems everything that I have ever done -- I went into business overnight.  Somebody told me, "Why you" -- this, a part of my life story.  Okay, let's start -- let's go back.

JP:  Okay.  So, the -- so, you were going to talk about education.

PR:  Okay, let's go to education.  So, now I'm educated.  Now I'm in the world -- the real world.  Navy, meeting people, being on a ship, bringing home G.I.s from overseas and stuff like that.  And I was still this Brooklyn kid.  (laughs) And I get discharged from the Navy, and now I need a job.  So, somebody in my father-in-law's home was a union organizer.  He had a four-family house in Brooklyn, my father-in-law.  And this guy got me my first job working in -- this was a union shop in -- and I got involved with the union.  And now, I'm nineteen years old, and I'm getting -- meeting people, 44:00doing things, and I'm active -- become active in this union.  And then, this small union that I was in merges with a larger union, retail and wholesale department store workers' union in New York, which is a large union of all -- lot of the department -- big department stores and chain stores and stuff like that.  And now, I begin to meet people that -- my heroes.  I meet people that nobody knows -- I don't know if you know.  Do you ever hear of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade?  No.  It's amazing.  American history.  You're gonna learn from this, this is what I teach.  Abraham Lincoln Brigade was a group of young men, most likely communists or people who knew what was going on in Europe, and went to fight in the civil war against Franco in Spain.  They lost their citizenship because Americans can't fight for other countries.  And they lost their citizenship.  But they were pre-anti-fascists, okay, these young -- I met 45:00them, now, at home, in the union.  They were working in the union, the organizers, and that's what I wanted to be, just like them, that they as -- here, they went to do what we should have done beforehand, but for whatever political reasons the world was doing -- these young men were willing to give their lives, and I'm sure some -- many of them did.  But now, I'm working with them and I'm friends with them.  And two of them that I know -- that I can remember their names and stuff -- so, I'm getting an education that these guys did it -- when they were kids.  They went to fight a war.  And now, politically, I'm looking at them and finding out these are -- most of them were left-wing people.  And now, the union, I understand from what I learned, is a left-wing union, is one of those unions that have communists or whatever, and 46:00they did, okay?  And most likely in the leadership -- but now I'm looking to -- here are people who I admire who are doing good things.  And so, I want to be one of them.  So, that's what I wanted to be when I was nineteen, twenty years old.  But I didn't know who I was yet.  But I was just learning about who I was, because that's what I wanted.  So, that was my goal, to be a union organizer.  And now, I change -- several jobs within the union, and now I'm -- in 1948, I'm working for a company called V.I.M. stores in New York.  It was a -- chain stores, and I'm in charge of their small appliance department in the warehouse.  And they -- we have a strike.  And the warehouse people elect me -- I'm twenty-one years old -- to be on the negotiating committee and one of the leaders of their strike.  Now, I don't know who the heck I really am, but they see things in me that I don't know about.  And so, I now was on this 47:00negotiating committee and this, that, then, and things went on in the strike.  I was arrested during the strike for doing something, also.  It's most of -- my fingerprints are still there in the files because the lawyer that I had -- remember where -- the period of history -- was lawyers for the Communist Party.  And they were defending the Communist Party at the time.  So, my -- it was supposed to be expunged from the list, my fingerprints, and supposed to have been take-- never was.  It's still there to this day, because he was too busy to do it.  So, it was never done.  So, it never bothered me, because I know I didn't do terrible -- so, now I'm getting educated.  So, I'm meeting people who are educated, and --

JP:  Any other mentors you want to mention?

PR:  Yes.  Two had -- became -- two professors from Brooklyn College.  I didn't know at the time, they were thrown out of Brooklyn College under -- 48:00there's a committee that you most likely never heard of, 'cause -- the Rapp-Coudert Committee.  I used to think they were -- they told me the name of the committee and I thought they were before the Un-American Activities Committee.  But they were New York people in New York that were -- Rapp-Coudert were in the House and Senate, whatever, of New York, in New York State.  And they had anti-communist people.  And so, these two professors were thrown out of Brooklyn College.  Now, I'm -- become friends with them.  I remember their names because they were my -- they were the -- one of them ran classes in a left-wing school, the Jefferson School in New York.  Both of them did.  So, I started taking courses on Marx, on all the things that were there.  The Marxist course was a two-year course, once a week.  And --

JP:  Where were you taking these courses?

PR:  It -- huh?

JP:  Where were you taking these courses?

PR:  In this Jefferson School --

JP:  Oh, okay.

PR:  -- in New York.  So, I became involved now.  Now I'm -- here are people who see me differently.  Here I'm a part of the union.  The union, in nineteen-fo-- asked me to speak at their convention, and I'm twenty-one years old and I didn't even know who I really am at that point.  But now I -- when I'm looking back, I saw what -- they saw something in me that I never knew existed so that they -- and I spoke -- and I remember that the basics of that speech, to this day -- how wrong I was, because the basis of that speech, how better the world will be in twenty years -- because I was in it.  That was, like, I'm going to change the world, at -- I'm twenty-one years old now.  And so, they asked me to speak, and that was the basis of that -- the world will be a better place to live in twenty years from then.  I was elected to go to the Progressive Party convention at that time.  In 1948, they tried -- Wallace and 50:00Taylor was the out-- sort of liberal people running for president.  They didn't even get five hundred -- five million votes in the country at the -- in the -- but I went to the convention.  So, I was now becoming involved politically and meeting people who, in the society, are the enemies of our society -- they're the most brilliant people I ever met, and they all were doing good things.  And I now -- and now, I'm beginning to talk from the left, because now I'm learning from the left, and I'm the bad guy.  And I never did anything bad in my life, and yet people were seeing me differently.  And the greatest thing that happened to me -- and his name was Harold Collins, and he's the godfather of my daughter, my first child.  My wife was in the hospital at the time, having my bab-- I got married very young.  I was married before I was twenty-one years old.  When I came out of -- we had dated, I was sixteen, now I'm -- just before 51:00was twenty-one, we -- both our birthdays were in October, so we decided October 4th, we would be married.  She -- I was born on the 11th, she was born on the thirty-f-- Halloween.  So, we -- that -- we got married -- so, we -- and now, she's in the hospital, having our child.  And so, Harold Collins was this professor, okay?  And he took an interest in me, and he felt there were things that I could do better than what I wanted to do with my life.  He said -- and so, he would come to my home at night and talk with me and tell me, "You have the ability to go to school under the G.I. Bill.  Why don't you go back to school?"  Well, in the interim, I did finish high school while I was home after the Navy.  I got my diploma, high school -- so, he convinced me to go back to school.  Now I'm going to be a father.  I have a child.  How am I gonna support this child if I'm going to school for four, five years?  I said, 52:00"That's not what I can do."  So, now I think back to my younger child.  I went to Brooklyn Tech.  They were a technical school.  So, I did have something in back -- in my background.  So, I said, Who's the most skilled person in a factory?  Tool and die maker.  I said I'm going to be a tool and die maker.  And he -- through him -- we talked.  He said, "Pick something, find something that you -- go to school."  I mean, he meant college or whatever.  So, I decided that if I had a skill, I could do something.  And if I wanted to be an organizer, you could be the best person -- the skilled person in a factory.  So, I did -- so, I went to register in the school, and for whatever the reason, the guy -- head of the department didn't want to take me into the school.  And he always used excuses.  The first excuse was, "Well, you don't have the papers, the G.I. Bill.  You need it."  Takes six weeks to get the papers, and I wanted to go to school tomorrow.  So, he wouldn't take me.  Well, I don't 53:00give up.  There was a liberal veteran -- American veterans committee, a liberal guy at the Veterans Building in Brooklyn.  So, I went to see him and I told him the story, that I don't have papers.  "I need papers, today."  "Well," he said, "okay," and we went to the top of the building, and by the time we got to the bottom, I had those papers.  And even though I offered to pay cash, he just -- for whatever reason, I don't know -- I can use the -- if you were Jewish, you could say, yeah, he's anti-Semitic.  But I just said he doesn't want me, but I'm going to that school.  So, I had the papers, I went back, and I said, "Here are the papers.  Now, take me."  And he took me in, and we became friendly.  I wasn't -- out of twenty-odd people that took -- started in that course, only seven of us finished that course.  Two years of schooling.  And he became 54:00friendly with me, and I -- at that point, already, I was very -- becoming very left -- yeah.

JP:  And what does being a tool and die maker mean?

PR:  You have -- it's interesting (laughs) about -- tool and die maker is the guy who begins the means of production.  Everything you -- around here, if it's in metals, the die maker was the first -- after the engineers designed what they wanted, the tool and die maker is the guy who starts the means of production.  I ask people -- Americans have -- are so illiterate about anything that they do or see or feel.  They walk around with phones in their hands, it does everything -- I ask 'em, "Do you have any idea what you're doing with that?  How it's made, the case -- just the case."  "Yeah, it's made in the factory."  And I said, "You know, there's a mold maker."  And I worked out -- I can do both.  I used to joke, it's this hand, I'm a tool and die maker, this hand I'm a mold maker.  So, I -- this happened during my experiences in jobs and 55:00learning, so -- and I thought I'd try to teach people.  I asked them, "Don't you even get" -- I'm very inquisitive -- what you teach or what you want to do, I'm -- want to know about you just as much as you want to know about me.  And people don't care to know.  They buy toys for their children.  You ever know how a doll makes -- you buy -- have millions of dolls.  Do you ever think of who makes that doll, how it's done?  I could tell you how it's done, 'cause I did it.  And all these things that -- building things, I'd end up doing later in my life, so -- but Americans don't care.  They're not inquisitive.  And that, to me, shows a lack -- for me, that's from my point of view -- of intelligence.  Because I'm very inquisitive.  That's why I do everything.  I do everything.  I don't call people to fix for me if I can do it myself.  So --

JP:  So --

PR:  -- anyhow, so now I'm educated.  I' m getting educated.  So, this professor takes me on, I go to school, I become a tool and die maker.  I get a 56:00job after the first year in school, 'cause now I'm a daddy and I have to have money and -- you know, you can't live on twenty dollars a week or whatever they gave us.  So, I get a job in a machine shop, and the guy, what -- he gave me a job to do on a lathe.  It's an old, old clunker lathe, and he's doing work for the military things, okay?  And it's very close tolerances.  You have to -- the machine has to be good to be able to work, say, with -- even a thousandth of an inch, let alone ten thousandth of an inch.  So, I'm standing there and he gave -- gives me this job to do, and it was for the Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey at the time.  So, I say, well, now, how do you do this?  So, I figured out a way to set the machine up so I can make this the way he -- the way the tolerances call for.  Well, he was very impressed, and he said to me, "Well, if there are any more kids like you in school, you're -- you can bring them 57:00here."  And so, I stayed there till I finished school.  When I finished school, I asked to be paid a certain level.  He said, "You see those guys?  They've been here for twenty years.  They don't get that."  I said, "I don't care what they don't get."  I said, "Give 'em a raise.  But that's what I think it's worth."  So, I ended up having to leave, even though one of the guys from school was still there, but -- so, I left, and I mean, that's who I am.  I do -- I make a decision, I do it.  And so, I knocked around, getting jobs, working, doing -- making a living and getting educated, and --

JP:  Were you part of a union yourself at this time?

PR:  Well, at that point, I wasn't part of a union.  I mean, I was in the union, 1948 -- just by 1950, I was in school.  From 1950 to 1952, I was in school.  But now, I have joined the Communist Party of the United States, 58:00okay?  Now, I see the world differently.  I don't know the world, but I've begun to see the world -- the people that I have met who are communists and I said, "These people are just phenomenal.  They're willing to give their lives, they're willing to teach me, they're willing to do things for me, and the ideology" -- once you read Marx and study, is -- I said, "Hey, that can -- the world could be a better place."  And to this day, I honestly believe -- and I think I brought the letter of -- the world can be a better place.  And I wrote this -- and what I'm proud of, as a person, that I'm ahead of the game.  Michael Moore is a hero of mine.  Michael M-- I'm sure you know Michael Moore.

JP:  The filmmaker?

PR:  Yes, okay?  He's a hero of mine, because he is willing to get out there -- okay, he's a millionaire now because of -- he's brilliant.  I think he's 59:00brilliant, okay?  And he gets out there and he does things that aren't -- the -- you look at him and you say they're ridiculous.  Why is this guy having to go out there -- and harassing senators and people -- to make the world a better place.  So, I wrote a letter.  It's in -- I have it in my thing now.  I used -- I make -- I used to write lots of letters, but I threw them away because I was left of everybody.  And I started to save them after -- I said, "This is crazy," 'cause -- then I thought about my memoirs, about four years ago.  So, I started to save them.  And I wrote a letter before Michael Moore's last -- the movie that I saw last, "Capitalism: A Love Story."  And all the things that I wrote in that letter, that was in his movie.  So, I said look at that.  Here's a guy who at least can reach the world, okay?  And I think that way, so it makes me feel good that I have these thoughts.  And I've done this many times, 60:00and I -- that's why I try to impart to young people -- the brains, learn how -- I taught that -- it -- Libby's daddy, when he was about eleven years old, comes into my house.  And I'm sitting on the -- lying on the couch, and this is, again, 1964.  And I'm reading a book by Goldwater.  You know, Barry Goldwater, the guy who ran for president.  And the kids come in, knowing now, here, I'm who I am, because I talk to them, I'm very liberal, at the time.  And the kids -- one kid says to me, "Are you for Goldwater?"  And I look him right in the eye and I say, "Isn't everybody?"  And then we had a discussion about why I'm reading that book.  And I said to them, "You come to me and -- to ask me why I'm reading it.  You better know why you don't like him, what it is about him that you don't like.  You've got to have an answer.   You can't just tell me, 61:00'I don't like him,' okay?  So, that's why I'm reading the book, so if somebody asks me why I don't like him, I can tell them why, 'cause here's -- he wrote it and he says it.  So, you better learn, when you come in this house and you ask -- tell me something, you better have an answer, 'cause I'm not gonna let you off the hook."  And that's what I started -- giving off -- when -- and this was 1964, and I've been doing it ever since.  I'm -- to young people, to -- and to people in general.  And so, now let's go on -- education.  So, now I'm educated, I get a job, and I believe -- and I joined the Communist Party.

JP:  And were you doing active things for the Communist Party?

PR:  Yes.

JP:  Like what?

PR:  Oh, I'm at -- somehow, and don't ask me, 'cause I'm trying to go back in history, now -- the timing.  'Cause, you know, it overlaps.  'Cause I'm in 62:00school -- well, in the -- I'll go -- I'll use it in that period of history.  I'm trying to remember when things got really bad in this country, under McCarthy -- 'cause it was in the '50s.  But I don't know how -- it had to start in -- earlier, because it was going on, but I was just getting educated.  So, I became active, like I said, in the union.  I wanted to do things.  I spoke at their convention.  I went -- now I'm going to school and had to go to work and had to do things.  I was the leader of a strike, I was on the negotiating committee.  So, I'm -- you're meeting presidents of the company.  Fact, I don't know why he picked me, the youngest of the people who are on the negotiating committee and youngest active leader of the strike.  We were on strike for five months, so I did a lot of -- we harassed the owner, and he was -- he would chase me in the -- New York.  He was half drunk when he did.  And I'm looking at him -- I'm a kid, he's -- this head of the company is chasing me 63:00to give me a subpoena to come to court, for whatever -- I don't know.  I never -- he could never catch me and he can never serve me.  But he personally was trying to serve me.  So, you laugh.  You look back and you say, "Why would this idiot be doing this?"  I'm a kid.  I don't -- I believe in something, but -- anyhow, so I can tell -- and I met people.  I could tell stories that nobody knows.

JP:  Like what?

PR:  Okay.  Well, firstly, I met people -- I somehow got involved, in those days, when security for the people that were -- people in the Congress -- we had -- in New York, we had one -- in the House of Representatives, a guy named Vito Marcantonio -- very few people know -- remember the name, okay?  He was a congressman, one out of 435.  Three parties to get rid of him, because he was very liberal.  I would be there working for him in Harlem, and then -- and 64:00also, in the German Bund section of New York -- it took all three parties, the Democratic, the Republican, and Liberal, they got all put together -- one candidate to get rid of Vito Marcantonio, out of Congress, because he was liberal.  I don't believe he was a communist or anything, but he was a guy who would stand on the street corners and rabble-rouse with his hand --  he was a little guy -- about changing things in Harlem and stuff like that.  So, you say here are people who are trying to do good, and (laughs) -- and they -- the other side, they see them as the enemies.  And I became one of them.  And I'm saying I'm not doing anything wrong!  I'm trying to make a world -- better place.  And so, now, you become proud of what you're doing, because the people that you know, that you've met, are really good people.  They're the best of the -- cream of the crop, yet they're the bad guys.  So, you see the world now 65:00differently.  And now, I want to see the world differently.  I -- you know, Annie and I, my wife, talked about -- be a multicultural family, that we would have black children, all -- we talk things -- and luckily, the kids didn't marry -- none of them married anybody who was Jewish.

JP:  Luckily, you're saying.

PR:  Yeah, in a way.  They get -- made us multicultural in a way.  My -- none of my kids married Jewish people.  I thought --

JP:  And --

PR:  -- my youngest would marry one day, and I -- that's an interesting story.  She met an Italian man and I wanted her to have a better life.  He was in construction and she was graduated from college, and now I wanted her to have a better life.  So, one time, she invited me to go with her to Europe.  And now, she was dating this young man.  And so, on the plane, I talked to -- I 66:00said -- and I'm telling her how I felt as a father, that, you know, "I would like you to have a life different than mine or better or whatever, and that you should -- maybe this is not where you should be," blah-blah-blah.  Anyway, and she said she just met him and they're just dating and nothing -- "Yeah," I say, "yeah, but you go and you date a while, and all of a sudden you fall in love and now you want to get married."  So, we talked and we were on the trip.  Well, I was in -- now in Florida.  This is later in my life, and she calls me up and she's saying -- his name is Anthony, but Tony.  She said, "Tony and I want to get engaged.  And I know how you felt and I talked to him in -- when we went to the trip" -- the reason I went on the trip with her -- because her friend, they were afraid -- they were hijacking planes at the time, and she won a trip -- she was in -- working in -- with her mother.  She won a trip.  She was a travel agent, and she won this trip.  So, she called her daddy, she says, "Daddy, I 67:00know you can take off and -- would you like to go with me, spend a week with me in Italy?"  I said, "I would love" -- so, we went.  So, that's where I told -- started.  And then she calls me at the -- she wants to get engaged.  And I'm living now in Florida.  So, I said -- I come up north to meet him, and -- and she invites me.  Now she's living in an apartment.  And they invite me, he cooks dinner, and she -- talk, and we -- I meet him, he's a very nice young man and stuff.  And now, she takes me on the side and she says to me, "I want to tell you what you taught me as a young girl: that I should find somebody that -- money wasn't the issue, that it's loving and caring and giving and sharing."  She says, "That's who he is."  I said, "I can't argue with what I taught you.  Go make a wedding."  And she went -- and he's a great guy, and as a father, I mean, he -- we -- he and I are very close, and --

JP:  Wonderful story.

PR:  -- and is he -- Libby's mom and dad, I mean, they -- they're -- every -- it -- lucked out.  The only one that didn't luck out was my oldest daughter, and that's a story, again -- I am very into reading people.  And she met this young man at school.  She was going to college at the time, and she ends up wanting to marry him.  So, okay, she's my oldest daughter, gonna make a wedding.  Now, we planned a big wedding, expensive.  A week before that wedding, I sat down with her.  I said, "I'm your father.  I can only tell you what I think.  You can do as you please, but I have to tell you, as your father, what you should do.  You should not marry him.  I don't care how much money I lose on the wedding," 'cause we already had -- the wedding was coming up.  So, like, a week before the wedding -- "but I think you're making a big mistake in your life, and you shouldn't marry him."  And naturally, she married 69:00him, and I was right.  It didn't last very long.  But she did have a son, who's my grandson, so -- life has been interesting for me, and educational, besides.  You learn about things, and I -- that's why I feel that I'm good at reading people.

JP:  Do you think there's a connection for you between being Jewish and holding liberal values?

PR:  Yes, absolutely.  No question in my mind.  I think the brain that I have --

JP:  In what way is there that connection between Jewishness and liberal -- liberalism?

PR:  Well, because I think the values that we believe in -- okay, why I'm not a religious man today -- well, I'll -- this happened about four-- when I was fourteen.  When I -- be able -- when you were able to read what -- Hebrew, in English, and you said -- I said to myself, Woo, I don't believe that.  There's so much junk in the Bibles that I said that's not for me.  And I turned it 70:00off.  I mean, at that point, so -- but the culture, the people, all the -- you just look in the -- just the -- be a Jew, okay?  Look at Hollywood, look at people that are out there.  Look at everything that they've accomplished.  You know, scientists -- we've been part of it more percentagewise as a people -- not that we haven't got stupid people, but I watch the vote.  At least seventy percent of Jews voted Democratic as long as I am alive, okay?  So, my my father was a Democrat.  But he didn't really preach anything as far as politics.  And so that you see the world and it -- and one thing that I wanted to be and it worked out, and I have that list -- I didn't give you it -- I've traveled a lot.  I've been to a lot of places in this world.  I tell people to go to -- 71:00okay, the -- you want to know the nicest people in the world?  For me, that -- maybe not only -- Vietnam.  When -- I wanted always to go to Vietnam.  And there are things that you want.  I wanted to go to Africa -- I wanted to go to Africa when I was -- in 1957-8 -- somewhere -- nine, somewhere that -- because the -- first of all, I had a skill.  I figured I could be productive someplace else, teach people.  And two friends of mine -- teachers -- went to Africa with their children.  And I wanted to go.  My wife didn't want to go.  In fact, I wanted to go -- when I learned to have a skill, I wanted to go to Puerto Rico.  I said I have a skill, I could maybe make something of myself at a -- in Puerto Rico.  She didn't want to --

JP:  And was there anything particular you learned from those travels or any ways --

PR:  Oh.

JP:  -- that they were influential to you in --

PR:  Oh!

JP:  -- your life and your identity?

PR:  Oh, absolutely!  I learned -- first of all, different -- I always felt different than most Americ-- I started traveling with -- my wife ended up in the travel business.  She did it part-time.  She didn't have to worry -- she was a very good travel agent.  She'd give you more money than she earned.  She'd buy you a present to go on a trip.  So, this is before -- when she was doing it part-time, when she didn't have to do it.  I was making a decent living, and at that point I was in business and stuff.  But you learn -- my approach to living is learning and doing, and if you ask me, if you want to know what I can do, I -- I'll tell you later, but -- so -- and I wanted -- we -- to be worldly, and as a child, I ate zero food.  I wouldn't eat Italian food, I wouldn't eat Chinese food.  I wouldn't eat anything, 'cause I grew up on lettuce tomato sandwiches and lokshn kugel.  (laughs) I -- whatever.  My mother wasn't a good cook, 73:00okay?  And so -- but the food wasn't important.  I was out in the schoolyard.  So, now I wanted to be that person.  I wanted to know more about this world.  And so, traveling was a part of -- luckily, it all worked out.  I went -- I visited many, many places.  When I go someplace, I bring clothes, I bring books, I bring school supplies.  I bring things to barter, to give, to exchange.  And so, I've met young -- I have pictures -- and I didn't go looking for -- young people in schools, in different countries, standing around me.  They want to speak English.  I mean, I could tell so many stories of my personal life experiences in traveling, okay?  So, I said -- but now I was learning that other people, they're as smart as we are, smarter than we are, and as good or better than -- so there's all kinds of people in this world.  There 74:00are the bad guys, the good guys.  But you have to know who's the good guy and who's the bad guy, because we had it here in this country.  And that's what I learned.  I started to think about the history of the United States, that the cap-- people with money came here, they wanted to build railroads.  But what did they do?  Destroyed Indian nations, who still live on reservations, okay?  Didn't honor their contracts, okay?  We ended up having a Civil War for black people to become free in those days.  They never became free, even into the '60s, which I participated in, okay?  In those things, in the civil rights.  So, you look at the truth objectively, I said, "We're no great -- we did terrible things, like everybody else."  These countries that are just developing, they're having right now -- look at the way the whole world's at war, and we're so close to having wars that it's frightening to me, because you 75:00and your friends and your -- boys and girls, you're gonna fight the wars, not the guys who are gonna create the wars.  And that's the way I think.  And I'm very aware of all these things.  So, I care.  I care about my grandchildren and I care about other people's children.  And so, I've traveled the world.  I've been to Vietnam and Cambodia, Laos and Africa.  I mean, I could -- I have a list of countries that I've been to, and Europe and I go and meet the peoples -- and dancing has helped.  I do international folk dancing.  I've danced in -- don't mind, that's what happens when I'm -- my mind -- my mouth goes faster than the brain.  But in New Zealand and -- the country with -- what's the country next to New Zealand?  Down, but --

JP:  Australia?

PR:  Australia.  I danced in those countries, 'cause I call people -- they get -- they have a -- I have a list of names of folk dancers all over the world.  76:00So, you call people, they take you places.  You get to meet the people, you get to learn about the countries, the things that they do, so far advanced.  They had -- in Australia, areas -- no -- okay, it's get-- slow down.  No atomic things driving through the towns and stuff, non-atomic energy things.  They have things -- go to Scandinavian countries.  They have things and thoughts way ahead of us.  They -- treating men and women who -- or -- people -- couples who live together differently.  They have names for them.  I have a girlfriend at forty-nine -- I mean, she's not a girlfriend or -- my girls are -- my grandchildren are my girls and all that stuff.  But they're women.  And so, I'm a feminist in my heart, in my brain, in my feelings.  So, you learn about the world and what -- going on when you travel, and seeing things so differently.  Countries are so ahead of us that we call socialist, and then -- 77:00people don't even know -- like, they try -- what's a socialist?  They don't even know.  So, the letter that I just wrote recently, I -- when we had the recession, I wrote in that letter all the things that I believe.  And I labeled it.  And if you ever want to read it, it's called "The Obscenity of Capitalism in the United States."

JP:  And who was that letter to?

PR:  To myself, 'cause I was going to send it to the papers.  I said -- but they're not ready for that letter, 'cause how can you call the system that they live under bad, or needs to be changed?  And you know what I said in the letter?  Changing the names.  Let's change the names.  Change the names of welfare.  When you give money to the very rich people, call it welfare so people will see that as bad, because welfare isn't such a good thing 'cause you're giving it to the poor black people or whatever it is that you do in the United States.  So, we have all these words, and the English language has -- each word has so many different uses.  And the one that I use and say -- people hate the word, because a dirty word -- the F-word has so many uses.  It's used 78:00in so many different ways.  In fact, I should have brought that -- a dissertation on the word, how it's used as a noun, an adjective -- it explains everything.  You can use it just -- in any word.  Oh, this a -- you use it -- the F-word.  You could say this is -- this watch, that's a -- that -- I mean, it -- this -- unbelievable.  But people -- the word is a -- the word is the most used word, I think, in the English language.  And so, we have to change words.  And basically, I'm saying, "Why is the word meaning -- connotation bad if you help people?"  But you help the rich, then it's bad.  You want to make it bad, give it to them.  Give them the word, and change the word.  So, change words so people are not afraid.  If you call somebody a name, like they call the president -- first of all, they call him Hitler and they call him communist, socialist.  They have no idea.  They just use names and words based on what they think they mean to frighten people.  So, I try, in my life, to change 79:00those things.  And that's what I -- that -- as an -- as in -- part of it, when you say, "Jew," why I came -- my son said -- because I am so Jewish, in my heart.  I spoke to this rabbi, the letter.  I called her to make sure that I could use her -- she said, "You do whatever you want," 'cause she thinks I'm the most religious person she ever spoke to.  She said, "I know how you raised your children, how you think.  That's what's -- the religion is about.  What you do," okay?  And so, it makes me feel better, because I took my kids -- I have to say this honestly.  I'm not religious.  But they're living in a non-Jewish area up in Tonawanda, New York.  My daughter at one time was the only Jew in the school, and came the Jewish holidays.  And I want them to know they're Jewish, but I don't want 'em to ask me to take them -- Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah -- to the shul and sit there in the shvits [sauna] and feel, so I said the -- I know a good way.  They're young, they're little.  I'm going to take 'em -- Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah, one of those, most likely Rosh Hashanah, 80:00I'll take 'em to shul.  I'll take 'em to shul, let 'em see -- sit there and see what goes on.  Well, how long do you think a kid can sit in shul?  Not long.  That was the last time they ever wanted to go to shul.  And -- and they're not -- my kids are not -- they're religious in their heart, as people.  And that, to me, is more important -- and if I were gonna be a -- a religious person -- have it in a book a friend of mine wrote -- I'd be a Buddhist, possibly.  There are so many other religions.  There's Cao Dai -- is a new religion in Vietnam.  It's a multiple -- religions.  All the religions embodied in one thing.  And they have all the -- whatever.  I mean, so there are so many different religions in the world.

JP:  And from what I understand, you started a Jewish cultural school.

PR:  Oh, left -- yeah, glad you -- I -- that's part of my -- I made notes, so --

JP:  Yeah, 'cause just to let you know, we have less than half an hour left.

PR:  Okay, that's why I said I have so much.  I could sit for a whole day.  Okay, yes, when I moved to Long Island with my wife -- now, in -- we moved there 81:00in 1958.  I had been out of New York for several years, as -- doing things in the lay movement, where that -- got that diploma, got --

JP:  And did you move for work or what did you -- why did you move?

PR:  Because -- Communist Party.  I moved from New York -- away from New York.

JP:  To do more work with the Communist Party?

PR:  No, just to be a Jew in a -- or a person of liberal thinking outside of New York City, 'cause New York City was basically very lib-- they even elected a communist at one point in the city council, stuff like that.  But I had met a lot of these people personally, or I was a bodyguard for the head of the Communist Party at one point, in Madison Square Garden.  I took -- my hero in life -- okay, let me think for one second, but -- oh, God, somebody that -- I 82:00have his books.  Let me talk -- let -- it's amazing how when you get to be eighty-five, the words -- the -- 'cause of my brain -- go --

JP:  That's okay, we can talk a bit about the school and come back to this.

PR:  Yeah, okay.  But I have a hero that I think is one of the great Americans of the past hundred years, and people -- he was blacklisted during the McCarthy period.  And he sang "The Ballad for Americans" during World War II.  It was his song.  He was -- let me just tell you.  He was -- the name'll come, without -- I know his whole life history.  He was all-American football at Rutgers University, the first black man there.  He graduated Phi Beta Kappa.  He was in the movies.  He was a world-renowned singer and orator.  He was on Broadway, the first Othello, bla-- on Broadway.  And would you believe the name --

JP:  This isn't Paul Robeson, is it?

PR:  Paul Robeson.  Paul Robe-- he is my hero in life.  If ever -- person -- if I said -- if I could be somebody, it would be Paul Robeson.  I've -- re-- so, I'm glad you remembered, 'cause I tell people, "Give me a second."  But he's my hero and I feel that what they did to -- and I have to say this: I and my brother-in-law -- to protect him.  There was a concert on Randall (sic) Island in New York, where he was to perform.  And he -- my brother-in-law and I in an old Plymouth drove him to that concert, to protect him from the mobs and the people who hated him.  And so, he was practically -- we're sitting, the three of us in the front seat.  He was practically sitting on my lap.  And the -- if I can say it, it made me feel like -- here's a guy that I envy.  And I'll tell you another historical story that people don't know.  The name -- everybody knows the name Harry Belafonte.  You know that name?  Everybody 84:00knows -- okay, I'm gonna tell you a story about Paul Robeson and Harry Belafonte.  When Paul Robe-- when -- there was a -- they were going to start a newspaper in Harlem called "Freedom," way back when.  Okay, I'm not gonna go through -- look for dates, okay, and Paul Robeson was the keynote person at this rally.  And who was to perform on that stage?  Harry Belafonte.  Now, this is during that McCarthy period of our history.  When it came time for him to perform, Paul Robeson got up to the microphone and he said, "Harry, do not come up on this stage with me.  They will destroy you before you ever get off the ground."  That was a true story.  I was there.  And Harry Belafonte did not perform that day, because Paul Robeson said they would destroy him.  And the 85:00thing -- if you ever see stuff about Paul Robeson on television -- I'm sure Harry Belafonte or people who know -- 'cause the movies -- he was in the movies.  He -- Robeson.  He was in the thea-- I mean, he's such a talented individual but hated in this country.  You know the -- I'm not gonna go into his history during the McCarthy period.  So, these are the things you learn if you think about who are the enemies -- and I'm one of them, in a sense.  I'm not the guy -- I'm not the bad guy.  I'll tell you -- okay, so let's go -- where we -- where did you go?  Let's go back.

JP:  We were going to talk briefly --

PR:  About the Jewish -- yeah.

JP:  -- about the Jewish cultural school.

PR:  Okay.  I wanted my children to be Jewish, okay?  To learn or know about the background, who we are, about the culture, about the holidays, about that.  So, we came to Long Island.  Now, I'm not religious, so I'm not gonna join a synagogue, because that's not the education -- but there was left-wing schools around at the time, and there were people who were socialist, communist who 86:00split off and separated, and there was -- when I came out of the Navy, that's where I went.  I spent six weeks in a left-wing camp, and people like Robeson and -- folksinger.  Okay, I'm not -- name's not coming quickly.  Famous, top -- one of the top -- everybody loves him.  Musicians -- well --

JP:  Seeger?

PR:  Pete Seeger used to come there.  I mean, so I --

JP:  Which camp was this?

PR:  Camp Lakeland.  There was two camps.  A boy -- the adult camp was Camp Lakeland and the children's camp was -- the children's camp was Lakeland and -- no, the adult camp -- oh, see, now I'm -- you see where I'm fading the names.

JP:  That's okay, we'll go back to the school.

PR:  Yeah, okay.  So what happened, we brought the kids to Long Island now, and we wanted them to have a Yiddish education, know the holidays and know the traditions and not be left out of all the stuff.  So, we had a couple that we knew -- in fact, I had met them up at -- Camp Kinderland was the children's camp, 87:00Lakeland was the adult camp.  So, I -- my wife was working at the time at Lakeland.  And so, after the service, I went up there and spent six weeks at the camp, what they call mooching, working if I had to in the kitchen or in the dining room.  Then I met this other couple who now lived on Long Island there where I lived.  And so, we got together and we decided that we would start a cultural -- a Jewish cultural school, and it was called the Jewish Cultural School of Nassau.  And we started this Jewish school, and we went through the rituals -- I have the hagode [the book of readings for the Passover seder] here, which we use -- which I used later on and made it shorter and this and that.  And the children had -- at thirteen, we had the graduation.  We -- you can call it a bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah, whatever you want, and we celebrated and we had -- and what we did was each child, we had a -- we made a pamphlet, a booklet, and they -- each child that graduated had to write an essay, something about 88:00their Jewish backgrounds or what they learned or whatever.  And I was looking for one.  I know I have one somewhere, but could be hidden, so I didn't bring that.  So, the kids had to do -- so, the kids went through -- we had seders and we had graduation and we had the whole thing as families, as groups, and that went on for seventeen years or something like that.  We had seventy kids at one point in the school.  They -- then what happens, you get people who are non-left in a sense who brought the -- they want to pay a lot of money to go and -- their kids and they wanted to change some of the things in the school.  So, we sort of became inactive at a point with the school, later on.  My kids were finished, they had all gone to school and had the background and stuff.  And there were a lot still out there, left-wing sort of Yiddish things, and --

JP:  And was there Yiddish involved in the school when you --

PR:  Not --

JP:  -- started it?

PR:  I'm trying to remem-- not -- I don't think that was really a part of it.  89:00I think more of the culture, the background, the history, the -- just knowing to be Jew-- to be -- what it is to be a Jew, because, yeah, we -- I mean, it was once a week, basically.  It wasn't an everyday -- where you can spend time and sort of -- we had two teachers, you -- generally teaching the different parts and coming on weekends and -- it was part of sort of the left movement in -- at the time, in New York.  And so, they -- the -- all of them went through -- no Yiddish backgrounds, and --

JP:  Is the school still active now?

PR:  No, it dissolved somewhere, but -- later on.  I don't know, I never kept track.  It's like other things in your life, you lose -- I can tell -- I have so much to talk in my life, and that's what I -- why I want to write it and leave it -- that it's hard.  So, my life has been interesting for me, and especially -- and when you say -- I keep reiterating -- I think all of me, okay, 90:00is Jewish.  And I'm very proud, to this day -- I get angry at those Jews today who are stupid and it's -- but I know this is what the world is.  This is -- the country is, and I just see it differently.  And I'm proud of what I -- my kids are more like me and more like -- independent and have done things.  My daughter, my youngest daughter -- they told me when I retired, I should get involved in politics.  And I said to them, "Nobody would vote for me."  That's the way I believe.  I don't think they would.  Today, it's -- this is the history of this country.  All they have to -- I -- be known as something and you don't win, you can't win.  And so -- but my daughter became active when her kids went to school.  In the school, she became head of the school board in her community.  And she got involved with the kids and stuff like that.  And so, 91:00I'm very lucky with my grandchildren.  And I'm lucky in my life, and most of it is because I'm Jewish and the way I think, and I'm proud of who I am.  And in business, I treated them better than anybody in this whole United States.

JP:  Did you have a -- I read that you had a trade shop.  Was it a union or a non-union trade shop?

PR:  Well, for one year it was union.  I wrote -- and this is a fact of history.  Nobody knows it except me and those people who might have been alive.  When they wanted a union, there was no unions in little -- the big unions didn't organize -- most of the tool and die makers in this country are small companies, like twenty people.  So, the unions don't spend the money organizing them, so they -- this group wanted to -- and where I worked, there's about sixty people or so -- wanted a union, okay?  And so, they went, they did 92:00-- there was a gangster union around at the time, and they went to that.  I said go to the machinists' union.  It's a national union.  I don't know if they'll take you, because -- but they wanted this guy 'cause he was local and he had organized another tool and die company.  So, they went to him.  So, I said, well, if they're going to go to a -- I want -- let me go meet the guy.  Now, he and I, boom, banged heads right away.  So, I called the meeting in my home and I told them what I thought of the person, that he only wants union dues.  And I drew a contract up.  That contract, to this -- I'm sure, to this day is the existence of tool and die and mold makers on Long Island -- came out of my head.  I drew up the contract, and they elected me -- they were frightened of me because I did participate in the peace -- in the movement with Martin Luther King.  I took off, I went to Washington, I did all -- so, they saw me as a pinko whatever, but they put me on the negotiating committee in that 93:00shop.  I was never the shop steward, (laughs) because they were -- I was a fighter.  I wanted what was good.  But I drew this contract up and we went to -- and they put me on negotiating committee.  And naturally, I -- I knew what -- the boss is gonna offer them ten cents and sign a paper, which is all somebody -- some of the people just wanted to get a union.  I said, "That's -- you're gonna go fight, fight for these conditions.  You get it all if you listen to me instead of the union, you get it.  Just stand up."  So, when the -- they wanted to solve it for ten cents.  I said, "Go back in there and fight."  And they listened to me and they got that contract, the first -- the second year, the same thing happened.  They offered a quarter.  Ten cents now and fifteen cents later.  So I said to 'em, "You know what you have to do?  Tell the un-- the boss that you want the -- fifteen cents now and ten cents later and tell 'em you'll go on strike if you don't get it."  And the union said, "What are you, crazy?"  Bah-bah-bah.  I said, "Because you have to show 94:00them that you're really -- are a union, that you're gonna stand up."  And I said, "I'll tell you exactly what's going to happen. You're going to be out two days.  You're going to get paid for one of those days.  You'll lose a day, but you're gonna tell the boss that you are union," but -- and they listened to me and not to the union.  I was in shock, again, but they listened and they -- exactly what I said happened and everybody was happy, and the conditions that exist, I feel good -- came out of my head.  But I can't say it.  But I know that the contract became -- everybody wanted to have that.  When I started my business

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

PR:  There were more FBI agents in the Communist Party than there were communists.

JP:  So, we have about ten more minutes.

PR:  Okay.

JP:  So, you were saying that you were working in a shop --

PR:  Do you have your -- will you ask me questions?  'Cause I could go on forever.

JP:  I know, so let me just clarify.  So, you were working in a shop that chose not to -- that kind of formed its own union and successfully fought for a wage increase.

PR:  Wait, I worked -- no, they joined a union, of --

JP:  Oh, they did join a union.

PR:  Yeah, they joined that union with the gangster.

JP:  Oh, but you advised them to do things a bit differently than what the union rep suggested.

PR:  Yeah, but I fought -- in other words --

JP:  Okay.

PR:  -- when I would walk into the room, the guy would meet -- the president of the union would go, "Here comes that troublemaker."  You want to know an interesting story?  This is off the record.  That man -- when they were -- quote, a good guy came around who was organizing people, and they -- he was trying to organize a -- in the neighborhood.  And he organ-- the company that I left when I went into business, he wanted to organize that company, and I think -- I don't know.  And so, the gangster came to me.  He said would I talk to them and tell them to stay with him?  I said, "I'm not gonna do that.  I'll just tell 'em my opinion," because I knew the good guy came to me to sign the people up in the union 'cause he knew I was a union guy.  And I said, "When 96:00they want a union, I will sign a contract when they decide to join a union.  I'm not signing up -- signing them up so you can have dues, just because -- whatever, you think" --

JP:  So, this is when you had your own shop?

PR:  Yeah, just --

JP:  And --

PR:  -- when I was in business.  So -- but --

JP:  And so, did they join the union?

PR:  What happened is a few years later, we had a recession, things went bad.  I kept them.  I didn't lay anybody off.  I mean, I never -- money was never part of my life.  So, what -- we -- I did things that people, to this day -- and I can't even understand -- I could -- I had a big corporation give me -- by -- like I'm talking to you, I was sitting across from the vice-president of this company.  Big -- I can tell you the co-- anyway, and I told 'em that we needed eleven or twelve thousand dollars 'cause we can't stay in business unless we have this money, 'cause we don't have money.  He walked out of the office and came back with a check and he -- and gave me -- said to me, "You stay in business.  You bill us monthly for anything you're doing for us at -- until you 97:00get on your feet, and then you can bill us the normal thirty business" -- you know, the way business work-- so, when I came back with that check, they couldn't believe that I could walk into a big corporation -- and it's one of the biggest electrical corporations, privately owned, to this day in the world, okay?  And the -- but the guy gave me a check just for -- just 'cause of who I was.

JP:  And I heard also that you had been asked to do defense contracts.

PR:  Oh, that -- well, that was one of the things I made clear as far as my partner was concerned.  And only once something did -- I said I'm never going to build anything -- have to do with guns, anything to do with the war, anything.  And my -- if you -- I'll tell you a story about my nieces and nephews, when they were little.  If they -- couldn't -- even a water gun, they knew I oppo-- my kids never had a gun in the house, not even a water gun.  When my nieces and nephews, my sister's kids, when they would see me coming, if they had a water gun, they'd say, Hide the gun!  Uncle Philly is coming!  Okay?  I 98:00didn't believe that children -- 'cause I've seen things, what people do with guns.  When they were children, okay?  So, I was -- that's the way I was and I'm proud of what I did.  And, I don't know, so -- I mean, it -- in business, it -- I did so many -- that's why I said, I -- there's so much I've done that I'm proud of, like the -- even that diploma, the fact that they chose me to -- they're the -- I'm the guy that they were against, that diploma. 

JP:  So, what is that diploma about?

PR:  How to fight.  They teach you "Robert's Rules of Orders" (sic), all the things you should know if you want to fight the communist movement -- they -- it was called the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists that chose me to go to school, and I'm a guy that -- why did they -- 'cause I did something there in the trade union -- I organized the biggest food collection for Westinghouse strikers who went on strike in upper -- in the Buffalo area, in those years, 99:00okay?  I organized the biggest food collection they ever saw in that -- through the union.  I did it.  And so, yeah, I said, "We have to do something," and we did.  And so, now I'm doing things and you get known, and that's --

JP:  So, the training was part of your involvement in the Communist Party?

PR:  No, not --

JP:  With the diploma?

PR:  No, oh, that training was to -- how to know "Robert's Rules of Orders" (sic), how to do this and how to do that.  It was an anti-communist group in the trade union movement.

JP:  And so, why would they choose you as a (UNCLEAR).

PR:  'Cause I did good things.

JP:  You did good things within the union.

PR:  Yeah!

JP:  Yeah.

PR:  I was active in the union.  I -- like, said --

JP:  Yeah.

PR:  -- I organized -- I mean, it's what you do.  So, they saw, here's a good person.  We should have him on our side.  They didn't know who I was or what I was or anything about me.  I don't know, I forget exactly.  Somebody came over, said, "Would you like to go to this thing?"  And I said, "That's a -- that's a great thing to go to."  And then -- and I never put that diploma out 100:00'cause I couldn't explain to people what it was or who it was that chose me.  I just did this a couple of months ago.  I said, "Now I'm -- at this stage of my life, I can say I -- people don't know I'm a communist, or was a communist."  Some people might think it, might say it.  They know I'm very liberal, they know how I think.  I had very strong opinions.  But I never -- how can you go around telling people you're a member of the Communist Party?

JP:  Sure.  Sure, sure.  To wrap up, I mean --

PR:  I was only in for about ten years, and it really broke up when the Soviet Union had a problem in 1957 or somewhere around there, the clash within the -- and so, but even in where I was in Brooklyn and all my -- I was active politically.  I did things that I look back now that were ahead of my time, even.  There was something here that told me what was right and wrong, and I blame it on being Jewish.

JP:  And so, what is it about being Jewish -- I mean, how does your identity 101:00tie into these things?  How do you reflect upon it and --

PR:  Being the person I am, being a person who cares, whose feeling about what happens to the Jewish people -- who cares about what happens to the country and the world, wanting it to be a better place, which supposedly all religions tell you we should be.  I am that guy, more than the people who go to the synagogue.  I've seen them.  They -- I wouldn't give you two cents for some of them.  So, they're hateful, they hate, and I'm not that guy.  I saw -- I've met people all over the world.  I meet people -- even you, or people of the United States, young people, they love talking to -- and I tell my kids that.  I say I get on the phone, they want to spend two hours talking to me because I have so much in here, as I'm trying to put it and leave it for the -- for my future generations.

JP:  And how, if at all, has Yiddish influenced your sense of Jewish identity?

PR:  Yiddish?

JP:  Yes.

PR:  Well, it -- at the time, I never even thought about it because it was just there for -- to -- my grandmother, my in-laws -- it was just part of life.  I don't go -- now, in the community that I live in.  They have a Jewish club.  They teach Yiddish to people.  They want to -- I did know people, left-wing people, who wanted to maintain the language.  We have -- yeah, people that -- they don't know they were communists at one -- professors in colleges who now teach Yiddish, okay?  And so, I -- these people that I know ended up being -- to maintain the Jewish background, which -- Yiddish is the base.  It's not Hebrew.  Wasn't -- it's Yiddish, because all the people, at least -- it's helped me in the travels, when people -- Jews from foreign countries have a problem with -- say, with a camera, which I'm very good at doing thing -- some 103:00-- "Well, I know somebody, he speaks Yiddish, Jewish, okay?  And talk to him, maybe, and he can help you."  And so, I've been able to do it, going -- traveling to the Soviet Union, the language barriers and stuff -- Yiddish became -- of course, the family was Jewish there and -- so, you were able to do things and talk, and there's an interesting story in that.  I met a relative of my wife's.  He was, like, the other side of the world.  Her father's brother had two children, like he had two children here.  And this man that I met, Mendel is his -- call -- his name, okay?  And is his -- her name, it's Langman, the same family name.  And when I met him, I said, "You know, Mendel, if you were born in the United States, you'd be a millionaire."  He is in the United States now and he'll tell you he's poor.  He's a millionaire because he knew what to do when he got here.  He did little things -- his son was offered, for the 104:00business that his father set him up in, he'd -- he has a business in -- he works through -- his sister works here in the State-- but he has business in the Sov-- in Russia now.  Offered him, several years ago, forty million dollars for that business.  (laughs) And it's all Mendel's fault, or not -- and he brought people there, helped him, and he's -- I visit him, talk to him occasionally.  He's older than I -- little -- and I try to keep -- I visit with him, I spend nights with -- he's -- (laughs) he's a guy who brought people here, helped them get organized and unite, Jews, get organized here and get apartments.  But he made money and he knew how to do it and he knew how to use it.  And he did it.  And who his son is today is because Mendel was able to give him money to go into business and -- so, he made -- he -- I said --

JP:  Wow.

PR:  -- "Mendel, you're talking to me.  (laughs) I know what you got," you know?  You know, he's -- they're very close, his daughter and his son and -- know, and him.  So, it -- he's a terrific -- but he did become -- it's interesting that he did -- and I said that.  He would be a millionaire if he was in the United -- and he is! 

JP:  Are there any specific Jewish or -- Jewish rituals that you've adapted for your own family life that have been important for you to pass onto your children or grandchildren?

JP:  Well, we still, to this day -- comes the Jewish holidays, we still have all the Jewish food.  We're preparing for Passover already.  My refrigerator -- my freezer's filled with soup and all those things, and all the kneydlekh [dumplings] and whatever -- we're Jews in here, in here.  We -- every holiday -- my sister next door, her and her husband go to the synagogue for the holidays, okay?  I mean, so it's all -- I'm there.  I don't do it, but it's all part of our lives.  We always, all these years -- comes the Jewish 106:00holidays.  We have the holidays, the dinners, the Passover seders, what -- we use -- for years, we use this -- now, people have other, newer books they're -- I have a hagode that I bought that's a -- artwork.  It's a beautiful -- things that I -- I -- just 'cause I should have it.  It's in the living room, on the -- right out in the open.  So, it's part of me, and I've never divorced it from me, even though I -- like I said, I don't believe in the Bible and I -- look, I've seen other religions.  Like I said, I have a book of (UNCLEAR) about Buddha.  I said if I think -- I read -- I said I -- if I was going to be something, I'd be a Buddhist or some -- there are other thing-- but I -- religion is not it, because religion, if you look at the history of the world, they're -- look at, the people are fighting.  They're religious, they're fighting, killing each other.  Here, the same thing, and right in the United States.  It's all about religion and the concepts and the thing and this whole 107:00thing with the Pope and, oh, they pick a guy and he becomes God on Earth or whatever he is.  I mean, to me, it's idiocy, okay?  That's the way I think, and -- but I understand it's people, and I can't change it.

JP:  Well, along those lines, do you have any specific advice for future generations?

PR:  Yes.  You're born with that tool, it's in your head.  Learn how to use it.  Think with it.  Make sure that you understand what you're talking about.  Just don't talk because somebody told you.  Know who tells you the thing.  You have to know who's telling it to you.  I have a shirt that I wear on -- when I go to people who are educated, and it says, "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"  We wouldn't have anybody on television bullshitting, okay?  But we bring people there to tell you what's going to happen, and maybe this idea or that idea, from right and left, middle, whatever.  Everybody has an opinion, but it's not -- most of it is not based on fact, and that's what I 108:00want my future people to -- and I'm proud of my grandchildren, okay?  Some of them are still growing up.  Whether they'll ever be -- my two youngest -- but I know my son, Izzy, and my daugh-- even my young daughter, her kids, they'll give -- they're gonna be good because of the parents.  And that's what it's about: love, caring, and not hate.  And that's what I want for my family's -- the people to know, that the world is meshuge [crazy] -- Yiddish words, but you don't have to be that.  And you can be good and you can give back, and if you're lucky enough -- and I -- recently, I saw -- I went to a restaurant that -- locally that I never knew was there.  And the person who owns it is a millionaire, but he's -- I said to people -- and somebody said to me, "How can" -- I said, "I love that guy."  I don't even know him -- because what he's doing 109:00as a human being, as a millionaire -- he built a restaurant, he built it up, he invests -- just in his garden.  Millions of dollars, he invested in the garden.  And what he did in the community, they wanted to build a high-rise where poor people in the area, where poor people living -- and separated like this is the black community, that's -- they fixed the east part of Atlantic Avenue and Delray Beach.  The west is still poor and black.  They want to develop it now.  Well, they're gonna build an office building.  This guy bought the property.  He said, "That's where people should be living, not businesses or high-rise whatever."  He's -- and I read his history now, I have something written.  He's bought other places in this country where he's doing good thing-- and he -- I just read his wife's name is Odetta.  And I don't know if -- I don't know if she's dead -- you know Odetta?  She's a folk singer, Odetta.  You ever hear of her?  No.  Okay.  I have -- I know it's 110:00difficult.  I have so much that I've been through.  I've met interesting, fantastic people in my life.

JP:  Well, I mean, you can wrap up that story and then we'll have to end.  Was there anything else you wanted to say with regards to him?

PR:  No, I just want to leave to all offspring of Jewish people, even if your parents could be Republicans or not liberals, think about what they're teaching you.  Learn what it is, right and wrong, good, bad, and do what's good in the world.  Care about the people around you.  Care about the people who don't -- you don't even know, all around the world.  They're just like you.  They're human beings who are looking to live a decent life, whatever that is, and to be able to realize -- and I could give you examples right now.  I'll give you an example -- no, you have no time?  Of doing what's good, and --

JP:  Okay, a two-second example.  (laughs)

PR:  Well, let's take China.  In sixty years, athletes doing things -- they lend us money.  Sixty years ago, sixty-one years or sixty-five years ago, they were poor, downtrodden.  They have a different kind of economic system than we do, we hate them, they're the bad guys, they have people in jail, whatever they -- we've done more than that, done terr-- but I look at the positives.  They've created all -- in sixty years -- and 250 years later, we're not even close to what they're doing.  I know what they're doing in Africa.  They're buying property, buying water, 'cause they know they have to feed a billion, three hundred million people.  We can't feed three hundred and --

JP:  Okay.

PR:  -- odd million.  We got poor people who are starving and hungry in this country.  That bothers me, and as a Jew, I think it's my responsibility to try to make it better.

JP:  Well, on that very important note, I want to thank you personally for sharing your stories and reflections with me.  I also want to thank you on 112:00behalf of the Yiddish Book Center for participating in the Wexler Oral History Project.  Thank you, a sheynem dank, it was a pleasure to speak with you today.

PR:  You're very welcome.  I hope it does some good.

[END OF INTERVIEW]