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Keywords: "Forverts"; "The Forward"; "The Jewish Daily Forward"; "The Yiddish Daily Forward"; brother; childhood; family; Hadassah; honorary doctorate degree; Miami Beach, Florida; mother; politics; socialism; Workmen's Circle; Yiddish newspapers; yidishe shule (secular Yiddish school); YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
ANNA SHELDON ORAL HISTORY
JESSICA PARKER:This is Jessica Parker, and today is Tuesday, March 12th, 2013. I
am here in Boca Raton, Florida, with Anna Sheldon, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Anna, do I have your permission to record this interview?ANNA SHELDON:Yes.
JP:Thank you. So, thank you for taking the time to be with us here today. I'd
like to start with your family background, if I may. Can you tell me briefly what you know about your family background?AS:When you -- when -- you want to talk about what I know about my mother, my
father, my grandparents? How far back do you want me to go?JP:As far back as you can go.
AS:Okay, well, I can't go really -- I can't go back too far, because my mother's
1:00family perished in the Holocaust, almost totally except for my uncle Heschel. My father was the youngest of, oh, seven or eight children. And my grandmother died when I was five, and that's all I ever knew about his background. But I can tell you about my mother's family somewhat. They were a very prominent family in Warsaw, Poland -- rabbis -- they were very religious, very well-known, and a very large family. Her maiden name is Klepfisz, and when I returned a few years ago to do a roots journey, the young man at the Lauder Institute showed me the 1939 phone book and it was filled with Klepfisz family members. So, that's about all -- they all perished in the Holocaust, as I said, except for my one uncle. 2:00So, basically, I was raised without very much family.JP:I read about a Klepfisz who was involved in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
AS:Yes.
JP:Do you know if there's a family connection with him?
AS:Yes, it is. It was -- some reports have him as my uncle, and some reports
have him as my mother's first cousin. And I'm not sure which one is true. But, at any rate, he was someone who was known to my mother. She said it was her brother, but that -- we're not a hundred percent sure about that. It could have been her first cousin. My mother's -- she did have cousins, of course, and sisters and brothers who were the right age, and my mother did have a brother who perished in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Whether that's the one that was in the movie version, we're not sure. It could've been a conglomerate person, as well. But the -- undoubtedly, very close relative.JP:Right. And anything about your father's side that you know?
AS:Very little. Very little. As I said, he was the youngest of many children and
3:00the -- he -- his mother was the second wife. I never knew my grandfather. He died before I was born. What I can tell you is, the reason I was born in Poland was my father went back to Poland on a visit, met my mother, married her, and brought her here as a bride. When she became pregnant with me, she went back to Warsaw to give birth to me, which is the only time I ever saw my grandparents. I was three months old when we returned.JP:And why did she choose to go back?
AS:She wanted to be near her mom. She was a -- she was the oldest of four or
five children. And they were a very close family. And the children were all fairly close in age. There was a year between my mother and the brother that survived and maybe two or three years between. So, I was raised, basically, by my mother and father and one or two aunts and uncles. But the close part of the family was gone. 4:00JP:Right. Do you have any famous or infamous family stories you (laughter) might
like to share? (laughs)AS:Infamous. Well, the most interesting person in my family was my uncle. My
uncle Heschel was my mother's brother. He was younger by a year, and when the war broke out, he was studying in Palestine -- at that time. And he tried to get back to Warsaw. And he missed the train that left Paris -- there's a famous film clip where the Luftwaffe are strafing this train on September 1st, 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland. He missed that train by five minutes. As a result, he remained in Paris and joined the Polish liberation army in exile. My uncle was a rabbi, so they made him a chaplain. There really was no Polish liberation army. 5:00There was some kind of ragtag army. At any rate, he spent the war in Europe, and at the end of the war, his family was gone. He moved to Scotland. They awarded him British citizenship for his efforts. He lived in a castle, he told me, and he married again, had twin daughters. My uncle is a very educated man, and he was a writer, a poet, a lecturer, a rabbi. And eventually, he made his way to Panama, where he became principal of very large Jewish-funded school. All the Panamanian officials sent their children there.JP:Do you know what that school was --
AS:Yeah.
JP:-- called or --
AS:It -- yes. It's in that book that I gave you. (laughs) It's written in
Spanish. I don't remember the name, but it is in that book. And I didn't realize how famous he was until he passed away, and then I started reading all the 6:00obits. Turned out, at the end of his life, he was an internet rabbi. And he had this cult following that I knew nothing about, because he was this little, unassuming, very wonderful, polite, soft-spoken man, and we never realized, actually, that he was this -- oh, I have to say one other thing. When he lived in Panama, he became minister of education. Torrijos was the president of Panama. He sent his children to my uncle's school and he gave him this wonderful job. Paid nothing, but he was called the Henry Kissinger of Panama. He spoke with an accent, a slight accent, and he was Jewish in this Catholic country. And when Torrijos went to sign the Panama Canal Treaty, he brought my uncle with him to Washington. And somebody asked him, "Why are you bringing Dr. Klepfisz with you?" And he answered, "Well, I don't go anywhere without my rabbi." "But -- 7:00you're Jewish, what kind of -- you're not Jewish. Dr. Klepfisz is Jewish." And he said, "Yes, he is my spiritual advisor and I don't do anything of note without him." So, that was my uncle. He was a little bit more famous than we knew!JP:Wow, that's quite a story.
AS:Yeah.
JP:You also listed a number of your mother's accomplishments in your
pre-interview questionnaire. Can you tell us a little bit about her --AS:I will.
JP:-- work and her acknowledgements?
AS:My mother was, unfortunately, born at the wrong time. She was not as
well-educated as my uncle, but she was his study partner. They were a year apart, as I said, and she studied with my uncle. So, she became very well-educated. When she came to this country, she got a job as a Hebrew teacher first. She came without any knowledge of English at all. Learned the language. My mom spoke eight languages, which is not terribly unusual for European men of 8:00the time, but for a woman it was very unusual.JP:Do you know how she became fluent in so many languages?
AS:Because she studied with my uncle.
JP:Wow, and do you know --
AS:Well, first of all, you speak the language of the country, which was Polish.
She spoke Yiddish, at home. She learned English when she came here. She studied French with my uncle when he studied French. Did Hebrew. Spanish, she learned when we moved to Panama for a short time. So, they -- and German came sort of naturally to her. So, when she got here -- when she came to this country, eventually she became a Hebrew school teacher. In addition, my mom went back to school and learned to become a histologist. A histologist is the person that prepares slides for the pathologist. She learned -- she did this in a language not her own, in English.JP:Wow.
AS:I can remember her studying at night, well, well into the wee hours. She
wanted to do that. She was very interested in medicine. In addition, she was president of YIVO and several Hadassah groups, but YIVO was her passion. 9:00JP:And which YIVO?
AS:The one in Miami. We did have a -- I don't know if we still do, but there was
a chapter here.JP:And what was -- what were some of the works or activities she was part of as
part of YIVO?AS:I don't really know. She was -- she went to a lot of meetings. (laughs) But
Yiddish was very important to her, always. So --JP:And so, was the language of the home Yiddish --
AS:Yes.
JP:-- or --
AS:When -- as I said, I was born in Poland, and when I was three months old, we
came here. I came here. My dad stayed here. And we spoke Yiddish in the house and I spoke Yiddish first. That was my first language, and my grandmother spoke no English, the one grandmother that I had, so we spoke Yiddish only. And my mother tells me that when I was about three years old or four years old, I came into the house crying that she -- if I can repeat this, she said I told her, "Di 10:00kinder viln nisht shpiln mit mir, kh'ken nisht redn english [The children don't want to play with me, I can't speak English]." So, that meant we had to speak English only, and Yiddish was my first language. And it was spoken in my home, not to the exclusion of English, but this was -- the dinner table conversation was in Yiddish.JP:So, did you continue responding to your parents in Yiddish --
AS:Yes.
JP:-- even after that --
AS:Yes.
JP:-- point?
AS:Yes, but they made a concerted effort to speak English where before they
didn't. So, it segued into I spoke Yiddish to my grandmother and to my parents somewhat. But once I started school, my mom said, "We have to speak English at home." I mean, we could speak it casual-- Yiddish casually, but -- and my brother was born when I was about five, and I don't think he has any working knowledge of Yiddish, as such. He can understand a little bit, but he never 11:00actually spoke it.[BREAK IN RECORDING]
JP:So, I mean, we're talking about your home. So, let's chat a bit more about that.
AS:Okay.
JP:Would you say you grew up in a Jewish home?
AS:Absolutely.
JP:What about your home felt Jewish to --
AS:Everything. Everything. There wasn't anything that was not Jewish about my
home, from the food we ate to the language we spoke to the holidays we observed to the tragedy of the Holocaust, we were very focused Jewishly. I mean, because of my mother.JP:Were there specific ways you celebrated holidays?
AS:No, I think we celebrated them pretty much in a traditional manner. I have to
laugh, because when I got married, my husband -- we had seder at my house. By then, we were living on Miami Beach. I moved here when I was eight or nine, and 12:00my -- our seder table always had a lot of strangers in it -- at it. And my husband used to say, "Your dad stood on the corner of Pennsylvania and Lincoln Road and rang that bell again, and here are all these people I don't know." Well, we don't have a very large family. Last year, there were fifty-nine people at my seder. So, he got used to the idea of when you don't have someplace to go, you come to us. Fortunately, we have children, grandchildren, and sisters-in-law, ex-sisters-in-law, whatever. They all come. This year, I'm down to forty-five. Some of them went up north, so --JP:Down to forty-five.
AS:-- about forty-five -- I don't cook it. I have it at my club, my country
club, and they are gracious enough to provide me with a large room, and I don't cook it anymore. I used to. I used to do thirty-five in my house. So, holidays were always very important, and it wasn't necessarily that we went to shul. We 13:00did, but more important was that we gather.JP:What did you do for some of the other holidays?
AS:Well, other holiday, we fasted. That was good. And my ma -- we always had two
nights of Rosh Hashanah. And we usually went to my mother's house. My mom died at ninety-six, so she hasn't been gone all that long. But after the -- after she was no longer -- she moved to the Jewish Home for the last ten years. So, sometimes we go to the -- at the home if we wanted to be where everybody else was. Or we'd come to my house. I inherited that.JP:And did you do anything special for Shabbos? Was that a special time for your family?
AS:When my grandmother was alive, we were -- we kept a kosher home and we
observed Shabbat. When my grandmother passed away, we moved to Florida and my mom -- we could never have meat and milk at the same table. We never ate -- had anything but kosher meat at my mother's home. When my dad came to visit me after 14:00I was married and we were in the army, stationed in Washington, we brought some little steaks and put them on a grill. My father said to me, "What is that?" I said, "Daddy that's steak." He said, "That's not steak." I said, "Yeah, it's steak." He said, "Steak is in a frying pan with onions." I said, "That's Jewish steak. This is gentile steak. We're having real steak." So, we always had to have -- my mother was a very good Jewish cook. She made the best matzo balls and gefilte fish. And we ate, I guess, Jewishly. Treyf [Not kosher] did not come into our house.JP:Were there any foods you especially loved or --
AS:Oh, I liked it all. My mom made wonderful brisket. She made wonderful matzo
ball soup, wonderful mushroom barley soup. She was a Jewish cook. I don't remember eating anything that wasn't -- we had a lot of chicken, and my father's favorite dinner was broad noodles with farmer cheese. I don't even know if they make farmer's cheese now. It's some kind of white cheese -- and cinnamon. That 15:00was dairy night.JP:Noodles and cheese and cinnamon.
AS:Yep. Some kind of delicious dish. You kind of chop up the, farmer's cheese
came in a hunk, and you kind of chopped it up and -- and, let's see, during the war we had meatless Tuesdays. And so, I think that was one of the dishes that she served, was -- I mean, I don't -- I guess there was a program on that -- I was kind of young, I don't remember very much, but I know that we were saving meat for some reason, and meatless Tuesdays in my house, that was it. Borscht, sour cream, blueberries, farmer's chop suey. You know what that is? Farmer's chop suey is cottage cheese, sour cream, chopped up radishes, cucumbers, scallions. Green pepper, maybe.JP:So, it's a dairy salad?
AS:Yeah, called farmer's chop suey. Oh, I think it's called [broks?] in Yiddish,
maybe. My mother could have made that up, too. (laughs) 16:00JP:Interesting.
AS:But [broks?].
JP:In many Jewish homes, you know, tongue or petsha [dish made from jellied
calves' feet] was once served, and --AS:Well, we didn't like tongue, and petsha -- we did borscht instead of -- well,
shtshav is green borscht, and petsha is like a jellied --JP:Chicken's foot, from what --
AS:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But we did eat the eggies from the chicken. You know,
when you got a chicken that had -- had been impregnated, sometimes you could open it up and there would be little unfertilized eggs in the chicken, and that was a big delicacy. Little round -- I don't think they had the white on 'em. I think they just had the yolk. And that was a big thing. We didn't do the feet too much.JP:How would you eat those eggs?
AS:They -- because they got cooked in -- with the chicken, and they got hard
boiled. If you bought a whole chicken, there would be eggs in the cavity. And if my mom put the chicken in the pot, she usually put it in whole. And then, when 17:00she took it out, there -- the eggs would be hard boiled. Little brown balls.JP:Wow.
AS:Never heard that before?
JP:No.
AS:Yeah. And that was a big thing to fight over: who's gonna get the eggy? I
guess they were hen -- big hens, stewing hens. And she put that in the soup. So, I haven't seen that in a long time.JP:Was there anything you did together as a family, whether meals or family
outings or observances of any sort?AS:You mean, like go to the beach? I mean, are we looking for something like that?
JP:Sure.
AS:Well, I lived on Miami Beach, so we did go to the beach a lot. We didn't have
a car. We lived right off Lincoln Road. So, the -- we didn't venture very far, unless we could take a bus or do something on Lincoln Road. We always went to -- 18:00we did a lot of movies, we did a lot of concerts when they built those -- the concert hall on Lincoln Road, that was a big thing for us, because we had -- we were like a cultural wasteland for such a long time. My mom was very into opera and symphonies, and so we would go there. And when I was growing up in high school, they had service club where you could usher and so that you could see the concerts for free. Mainly, we just -- we didn't have TV, even, I don't think until much later. So, there was just my brother. There were the four of us: my mother, my father, my brother, and me. And I don't remember that we did anything special other than just -- my father worked, my mother worked, I worked, we all worked. So, we didn't have a great deal of leisure time, but we had a lot of family time, just us.JP:Just spending what time together you could.
19:00AS:Yeah, yeah, and, as I said, there wasn't a huge amount of free time. I don't
even think we got a television set till way late.JP:Were your parents or was your family politically involved at all?
AS:Yes. (laughs) My mother -- when I was a little girl, I went to a -- I went to
a yidishe shule [secular Yiddish school] that was run by the Workmen's Circle. That was before we moved down here. And when we moved here, there was nothing like that. My family were both very left-of-center, especially my father. I don't think he -- maybe he was a socialist. He wasn't a communist. He did-- they didn't like communists, but he was definitely a socialist, and big in the Farband, Labor Zionist movement, and -- but we lived in Florida, and there weren't a great many avenues for that here. Not as many as when I was a little girl. So, when he came here, I think -- I don't remember him being anything but 20:00a staunch Democrat.JP:What prompted that move from New York to Florida?
AS:My brother developed rheumatic fever and they said, "You have to move to
Florida." That was it. We moved to Florida. He needed a warm climate. So, that's why we moved.JP:To sort of support the political life that your parents wanted to engage in,
did they subscribe to any publications or listen to the radio?AS:Yes, I -- I'm -- I know my mother always got the Jewish newspa-- the
"Forverts," that was in my house always. Other than that, I probably don't recall. But we did have the "Forverts." To this day, I pick it up once in a while and try to read it. And my -- they were very -- they were progressive. My mom was -- they were both liberal thinkers, so the conversation at our dinner table was all -- always had a liberal bent. They loved Roosevelt till they found 21:00out that he wasn't so lovable, and that was a great disappointment to them both.JP:And it sounds like there were also a lot of visitors to your house.
AS:Yeah, we did have a lot of -- as I said, we had very little family, so we had
a lot of friends. My mom and dad had a lot of friends. It wasn't that they were so social, it was that they were more organization-minded. And, as I said, my mother was president of almost everything that she ever belonged to. So, there were always those people in the house. My mom, when she was older, got the keys to the City of Miami Beach. The mayor gave her the keys. And she also received an honorary doctorate from Bar-Ilan University. As I said, she was way ahead of her time. Really, quite a lady.JP:And what did she receive keys to the city for, and what did that mean?
AS:For -- I guess for her work in the community. As I said, she was president of
Hadassah, she was president of YIVO, she was -- whatever. And she was always -- 22:00even though she had to work, she volunteered a great deal. I assume that's what that was for, for her volunteerism.JP:Great. Can you describe your neighborhood growing up a bit? I know you did
some moving around, but --[BREAK IN RECORDING]
AS:No, that's okay. My neighborhood going up is -- the one I -- I'm going to
tell you about I grew up from when I was nine years old until I went to college. Actually, beyond that. I lived Sixteenth and Pennsylvania, which is right off Lincoln Road on Miami Beach. We lived in an apartment. I never lived in a house until I was married. My neighborhood was almost entirely Jewish. My high school was 99.9 percent Jewish. I went to Miami Beach High School. I think there were maybe one or two children of -- kids in my class that were not Jewish. It was right off Lincoln Road, which is a commercial avenue. So, while I lived in a -- 23:00on a residential street, I had access to everything that was commercial -- movies, stores, whatever. It was not a pedestrian village when I grew up. It didn't become that until later. And we did not have a car. My dad had had a heart attack when -- oh, I was maybe -- ten or eleven. He had a major heart attack and they told him he couldn't drive anymore. So, we didn't have a car. They didn't tell him to stop smoking. They just told him he couldn't have a car. (laughs) So, we relied on public transportation. But it was very good. I mean, there was a streetcar on every corner. Not a streetcar, a bus, actually. So, my high school was -- I walked to my high school, I walked to my elementary school, I walked to my junior high. They were all in the neigh-- my grocery was -- my mom went to the grocery store, she dragged the bundles home. It was a neighborhood with a lot of young people, but it was also quite mixed, because after a while, Miami Beach became this -- I don't want to say wasteland. I want 24:00to say this community of older people, but not until I left. But it started to happen gra-- and then, somewhere along the line, we got Cuban refugees. The Marielitos came. By then, I was no longer living there, but my mother was. So, it became a mixed bag. But for me growing up, I had children down the street, across the street, all of them Jewish. Most of them didn't speak Yiddish, but they were all Jewish and we all went to pretty much the same Hebrew school, temple. There were several temples, but it was a very not mixed neighborhood, Yiddish-wise, Jewish-wise.JP:Did you -- did your family belong to a temple?
AS:Yes, we belong to Temple Emanu-El, which was a very large temple with a very
prominent rabbi. Rabbi Lehrman was probably the premier rabbi in Miami at the 25:00time. And he passed away maybe ten years ago, but he was a very imposing figure, and -- with a huge booming voice. And when -- we used to laugh. When he fell on the bima, you heard it ten blocks away. I mean, he wasn't just gonna kneel. He fell. And --JP:Why was he falling?
AS:Why -- when for Yom Kippur, when he prostrated himself on the bima during the
High Holy Days you heard it. I mean, it was dramatic. He was dramatic. But -- so, I grew up with a rabbi who was a major force. Kind of everybody after that kind of -- sort of paled.JP:Did you have a personal relationship with him?
AS:No. He was way up here and we were down here. I mean, we knew he was, but he
was -- I don't think he probably even knew my name. Maybe he did. He knew my parents. But he was kind of a -- he wasn't the kind of person you go to when you say, "I have a problem." Or we didn't. Maybe if I had been older and had a 26:00different relationship with him I would have. But he was sort of godlike.JP:Was the synagogue affiliated with a movement?
AS:Yeah, it was Conservative.
JP:'Cause I also noticed on your questionnaire that you listed a number of
synagogues --AS:That I --
JP:-- of different --
AS:-- belong to now.
JP:Yeah, are these current affiliations?
AS:Well, I don't remember what I listed, but I belong to a Reform synagogue
here. Because I live in Colorado part of the time, I belong to B'nai Vail, which used to be Reconstructionist, but they -- I think they disaffiliated and were just nothing. You know, were just something but not -- but here, I belong to a Reform synagogue.JP:So, has your own affiliation shift-- or comfort with synagogues shifted over time?
AS:Well, when my children were growing up, I belonged to a Conservative
synagogue. I belonged to Beth David. That was the synagogue my husband, who was born here, belonged to when he was a little boy. And when we moved to suburbia, 27:00the synagogue opened a branch and my son was bar mitzvahed at Beth David, which is Conservative. And when we left -- when we got married and we went into the Army, we came back, we stayed with that synagogue for a long time, until -- I'm trying to remember why we actually left. I do remember why we actually left. They had a little upheaval in the synagogue, and by then, many of our friends had gone to Beth Am, which is a Reform synagogue. And when my daughter got married, her -- they were more comfortable there. So, that's where we are now. It's still in the same basic neighborhood, but it's Reform.JP:Right. Sorry, I sort of jumped ahead. Now, to circle back, you said most of
your neighborhood growing up was Jewish, but not many Yiddish-speaking kids.AS:Right.
JP:Were you unique --
AS:Yes.
JP:-- amongst your peer group?
AS:Yes, because my parents were European, mostly. Most of my peers had
28:00American-born parents, and so they really knew -- to this day, I'm probably an anomaly. I'm the only one of my friends who understands Yiddish at all, who ever spoke it, and I find there's not much Yiddishkayt amongst them. I mean, I could be talking about something that they would have no idea what I was even speaking about. They're Jewish, they raise their children Jewish, and they go to synagogue and they observe the holidays. But there weren't -- it's not like growing up in New York. And the few friends I have that come from New York and know -- they understand the difference.JP:Is there a different sort of vibe with certain friends versus other friends
as a result of --AS:You mean, a different relationship?
JP:Yeah.
AS:No, not at all. Not at all. I just -- sometimes I'm a resource person and
29:00sometimes I say, "You mean, you don't know what that is?" But that -- no, that's --JP:Different frames of reference --
AS:Right, right.
JP:-- based on upbringing.
AS:Absolutely.
JP:You mentioned a story where you ran home and told your parents in Yiddish --
AS:Right, right.
JP:-- they don't want to play with me beca--
AS:Right, right.
JP:Were there other moments as a child where you realized you were different or
unique from your peers?AS:Probably not. Probably not. I -- as I said, I grew up on the beach and I grew
up in a rather -- sometimes affluent neighborhood. And I do remember my friends had a lot of pairs of Capezio shoes and I only had one pair. And my husband always -- his claim to fame was that he took me out of Lerner's, which was on Lincoln Road, this -- Lerner's was a low-end dress shop. He took me out of Lerner's and put me into Saks. That's what his claim was. But other than that, really not. Really not. I mean, it wasn't a classless society, but my friends 30:00and I were just somewhere in the middle, I guess. But none of 'em -- none of 'em had my background at all. And my mom was a big resource person, always. And whenever we had questions, we never go to the rabbi. We'd always ask my mom, and she always had the answer.JP:'Cause she was learned in Jewish culture and --
AS:Yes.
JP:-- history and --
AS:And she was also a very smart woman. But she knew all that. I mean, to this
day, when I have a question, I'll -- who am I going to ask? Even the rabbi probably wouldn't know the answer, so --JP:It must be hard not to be able to ask your mom those questions in those
moments now.AS:Yes.
JP:Yeah, yeah, sure. Are you able to briefly tell me about your education,
general education and Jewish -- 31:00AS:Sure.
JP:-- education?
AS:I went to yidishe shule in New York. When I moved, I was nine, and that was
the end of that, because we didn't have anything here. I attended -- I went to Hebrew school some. It -- they didn't have a really structured Hebrew school for children like me who didn't want -- we didn't have bat mitzvahs when I was growing up, so there was none of that. When -- most of my education, Jewishly, came in my house. I could -- my mom would read books to us and, as I said, when I got older, she would revert back to Yiddish, because now she was secure in the fact that I could speak English. So, we carry on -- most of my conversations with my mom -- when she got older, she would speak Yiddish and I would speak English. Not that she couldn't speak English or didn't. She was totally bilingual. But I don't know, she kind of reverted back to that. So, my ear got used to that a little bit more in -- later in life, there was that middle period 32:00where I didn't hear very much of it. I went to the University of Florida, I graduated. I taught school. I got married, had children, and my education kind of just continued through whatever means I could. I can -- ascertain. I did start my Master's, but I quit that when I got pregnant. So, that's as far as I got.JP:And you were at yidishe shule in New York --
AS:Yeah.
JP:-- from 1940 to --
AS:Yeah, Workmen's -- it was an Arbeter Ring yidishe shule.
JP:And did you enjoy yidishe shule?
AS:I didn't know -- I was -- it was just a way of life. I -- either -- was not a
question of enjoying or not enjoying it. It's -- I went every day after school. Every day and on Sundays. I'm not -- we didn't do Friday afternoons or Saturdays, of course, but it was just a way of life. I didn't know other children didn't do that. That -- I got home from school, we went down and -- my 33:00mom took me and I got home at five or six in the afternoon every day.JP:And what sorts of things did they cover as part of yidishe shule?
AS:I think mostly it was reading, writing. I did know how to write at one time,
cursive -- whatever that's called now. Cursive. And I could read and I could speak fluently. And the language, I could have done today in Yiddish what we're doing here. It was just -- They talked about -- I remember we had geshikhte, which was history. So, it -- sometimes, we'd have music. You know, maybe one day would be music, another day would be history, the next day would be literature. And on Sundays, I think we did something different, as I recall. Maybe we had a little fun. (laughs)JP:Great. And you -- can you still read Yiddish? Did that stick with you from
that time?AS:I can follow Hebrew in a prayer book. I -- it's hard for me to understand
34:00what I'm reading, because I don't really speak Hebrew. But I can follow in a prayer book, and every once in a while, I can pick up a newspaper and read the headlines. But because I can understand what I'm reading, it's easier for me than Hebrew. I can't understand what I'm reading in Hebrew at all.JP:Right.
AS:But I can follow the prayer book.
JP:And you can pick up and follow a Yiddish newspaper --
AS:Yes.
JP:-- a bit here and there.
AS:And if somebody were to read it to me, I could follow along, and I can
understand it. But most of it is, unfortunately, gone.JP:You also listed that you went to a number of camps as a child.
AS:Yes. Well, I went to one -- I went to Camp Boiberik, which was, I think, a
Workmen's Circle camp, as well. And that was in the -- in Upstate New York. And it was great, I loved it.JP:Do you have any special memories of it?
35:00AS:Well, (laughs) I remember Friday night Shabbat. We dressed in white. The
Friday nights were Shabbat, and Saturday we always had a service. The food was edible. I don't guess camp food is so wonderful, but there was a great -- always a great focus on things Yiddish. Our programming was Yiddish. We'd sing Yiddish songs. Some of the plays that they performed were Yiddish, and I know -- I remember, at the top of the chapel was a little statue of a child, and under it was -- and a little -- said "A little child shall lead them," which somebody always defaced and put other words into what a child was. That was daily. I mean, somebody would always -- but it was really a wonderful camp. I -- it's the only camp I ever went to, so I don't really know much about how it compares to others. But all the kids were Jewish and all of them came from up North. They were all from up North. 36:00JP:And you still went, even once you had moved to Florida.
AS:Yeah. I used to take the train. My mom would put me on the train and somebody
would meet me at the other end and get me to camp.JP:Was it nice to be back up North, or was --
AS:Oh, I -- no, I loved living here. I had -- I didn't -- really didn't have any
connection -- you know when you're nine years old and you move -- I didn't have any pen pals or anything like that. There was no social networking or anything. So, I was pretty much -- those were the days when you talk long distance, you talked, "Hello," you know? Loud. So, I really didn't say -- I didn't have any connections in New York.JP:And you also mentioned that you were involved in Young Judea and --
AS:Yes.
JP:Habonim.
AS:Habonim, right. Yeah. My mother made sure that I joined youth groups that
were Jewish-focused. Israel-focused, as well. And, of course, I remember when Israel was -- became a state. I remember that. My mom was so beside herself with joy. 37:00JP:What happened in that moment?
AS:Well, I -- we -- I remember sitting huddled around the radio, waiting for the
U.N. vote. My mom had some friends over and they were all with a pencil and paper, checking off the votes. And it's just that I was kind of young. I don't remember all of it, but I rem-- I can still feel the sensation, the joy.[BREAK IN RECORDING]
AS:One area where my Yiddish came in handy -- my mom, as I said, she -- one of
her jobs was a his-- as a histologist in Mount Sinai Hospital, which was not too far from our house. It was on Miami Beach. And I had a part-time job and I worked there in the afternoons and on weekends. And one of the -- one of my jobs that was not related to my actual work was as a translator. We had -- by then, I think I told you, we were getting an influx of elderly Jewish people coming to 38:00the beach, and many of them did not speak English. And so, I got called quite frequently to translate for them, to them, asking them what -- telling them what to do or what was going to be done or whatever, because by then I was still pretty fluent in Yiddish. And it was, like, every place that -- every place I went, they -- I was a kid, so they could call me from whatever menial task I was doing -- and saying, "Take this patient through and explain to 'em what's happening." So, that was kind of an interesting use of Yiddish at that time.JP:Yeah.
AS:I don't think I could do it today.
JP:And, sorry, I interrupted your telling of -- listening to the news about the --
AS:Oh, so I -- we sat in my mom's living room and listened to the news about --
yeah, about the vote, the U.N. vote.JP:With friends --
AS:Yes.
JP:-- who were --
AS:Yeah, yeah.
JP:-- ticking countries off --
AS:Yes, yeah, absolutely.
39:00JP:And were there particular celebrations after?
AS:Well, I don't really remember that. I'm sure we ate. (laughs) We always ate.
But my mother's feeling was, and I'm sure shared by many others -- that had there been the State of Israel, she would not have lost her parents or six million Jews. So, that was very important to her. That was something we were raised on. "If we'd had the state, my mother and father would still be alive."JP:Looking back on your childhood, are there any other values or practices you
think your parents were really wanting and trying to pass on to you?AS:Anything they tried to -- well, (laughs) my mother and father always told me
that I had to marry somebody Jewish. That was a given. I had a gentile boyfriend 40:00in high school. My father told me he'd sit shivah [seven-day mourning period] if I married him. It wasn't that serious, I wasn't going to marry him. But that -- they felt very strongly about my marrying someone Jewish and raising Jewish children. My mother had an unabiding hatred of all things German. She kind of mistrusted people who were not Jewish because of her experience in the Holocaust, with the Holocaust. She didn't dislike them, she just was more comfortable being around Jewish people. And she sort of shared a lot of that. But I didn't have that problem. First of all, I was raised in a totally Jewish neighborhood. And when I went to college, I joined a Jewish sorority. I did have my -- go out with boys that weren't Jewish, but I knew they were not going to lead to anything. My mother and father always taught me that I had to be honest above all and that I always had to share what I had. That was really paramount. 41:00They were -- I think my father, as I said, might have been a socialist. Didn't matter. If he had something and you didn't, he was gonna share it with you. My mom, the same way. I think that's why we always had these people at seder or holidays. They were very focused on, you know, if you're blessed, then you have to make sure that other people are taken care of. It's way before I knew what tsedakah was. I didn't even know what that was. I hadn't -- that wasn't a word that we used in our house, but -- so, that's --JP:Were there aspects of Jewish culture that were particularly important to you
as a child or young person?AS:Well, I didn't grow up where I was exposed to Yiddish theater. But every once
in a while, we would have some kind of Yiddish performance somewhere. And my ma -- I always went. And my mother -- we did a lot of Yiddish songs. So, we -- 42:00there was a lot of music in my house. As a matter of fact, this past April, I went to Israel on this mega-mission out of Miami. Eight hundred people out of Miami. And (laughs) it's kind of bizarre. We did the usual -- all the -- and this is about my sixth trip to Israel. But this mission was particularly hectic. It was eight hundred people, as I said, and because it was a Federation -- we went from six a.m. 'til midnight. So, when we visited Yad Vashem, we had a different take on it. A guide took us through some of the outlying areas of Yad Vashem, and at one of the waiting spots, we had a lecturer and some musicians (laughs) that played not just klezmer music but Yiddish -- when we got to Warsaw, they had -- Poland -- they had all these little villages that were engraved on the wall. And we kind of looked to see what villages we were 43:00familiar with. And they had two or three musicians that played music of the shtetl. So, I -- so, one of the questions they asked was, "Anybody have any requests?" I said, "You know, in my mother's house, I -- we sang this little song that she taught me when I was a little girl. Do you know it?" And they knew the song.JP:And what was that?
AS:Oh, God, you want me to -- you don't want me to sing.
JP:If you would like to, you're welcome to.
AS:(laughs) It was -- I remember the song. It was called "[Geven a mol oyfn
velt]," it goes like this: "Geven a mol oyfn velt, a yingl hot gefinen gelt./Geven a mol oyf velt, a yingl got gefinen gelt./Geven a mol, vet mer nit zayn. [There was once in the world, a boy who found money./There was once in the world, a boy who found money./There was once, but there won't be again.]" Do you know that song? (sings) "Er hot dos gelt geton a khap, un zikh gekoyft a lolipop./Er hot dos gelt geton a khap, un zikh gekoyft a lolipop./Geven a mol, vet mer nit zayn./Un plutsling kumt a meydl on, un bet bay im a lek geton./Un 44:00plutsling kumt a meydl on, un bet bay im a lek geton./Geven a mol, vet mer nit zayn./Un git er ir a tsu ton a lek, farshemt zi zikh un loyft avek./Un git er ir a tsu ton a lek, farshemt zi zikh un loyft avek./Geven a mol, vet mer nit zayn. [He grabbed the money, and bought himself a lollipop./He grabbed the money, and bought himself a lollipop./It happened once, but it won't again./And all of a sudden a girl shows up, and asks to have a lick./And all of a sudden a girl shows up, and asks to have a lick./It happened once, but it won't again./He gives it to her to take a lick, she gets embarrassed and runs away./He gives it to her to take a lick, she gets embarrassed and runs away./It happened once, but it won't again.]" I learned the song when I was about six or seven years old. I don't know why it stayed with me. And these two or three musicians knew that song, which of course I had to sing in front of thirty or forty people. So, that was kind of neat. I mean, most of the people on my mission were my -- or younger than I am. And they weren't raised like I was. So, it's like, "Where do you know that song?" I said, "My mother taught it to me. That's it." But the fact that they knew it was really kind of interesting.JP:And there was a lot of music in your home --
AS:Yes.
JP:-- growing up? Did your parents play instruments --
AS:No.
JP:-- no.
AS:But I took piano. I -- my -- I took piano. I can't play anymore, but I did
45:00take piano lessons.JP:But they would sing with you --
AS:Yes.
JP:-- and teach you songs?
AS:Yes, and I -- yeah. Well, we did a lot of singing, and I was always in a
choir. I was always in a chorus. And my grandchildren sing. It kind of skipped generation, but I have two granddaughters who sing really well and are very fond of music.JP:Have you taught them any of the Yiddish songs you were taught by your parents?
AS:I taught 'em "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." (laughs)
JP:Did your parents teach you mostly Yiddish songs?
AS:Yeah, yeah.
JP:Any other examples? You can just give the titles. You don't have to --
AS:I -- well, I knew -- my father's favorite song was "Belz, mayn shteytele
belz." And then, he used to sing a song that began with something about a roof. And I kind of don't remember the words to that, but he did like that a great 46:00deal. My father, more than my mom, liked those songs. We had Yiddish records in our house. Now, don't ask me who. [Lech Mazuk's?] father, you know? Hello. I -- name escapes me, but Joel Gray's father, we had his records, and I don't remember his name. And I remember Menasha Skulnik. And I'd have to really search for the other records.JP:Sure, but that's great, thank you. So, I know the next question's kind of a
big one, so we can take it piece by piece --AS:Okay.
JP:-- or we can just reflect on whatever part is meaningful to you. Have there
been any experiences or historical events or social movements that have been particularly formative to your sense of identity?AS:Okay, so, events.
47:00JP:Events or experiences or movements.
AS:To my sense of Jewish identity?
JP:Yes -- or Yiddish identity.
AS:I really -- I -- you know what? My whole life was -- revolved around my
Jewish identity. I don't think I could even -- I don't know that I could even search out one particular event. I was not -- as I said, I was not bat mitzvahed. I was married by a rabbi, of course. But my whole world was Jewish, period, and the focus in my home was always on being Jewish and what my responsibility was as a Jew. I don't remember that there was ever anything -- other than the Holocaust, which was paramount in my mother's life, I don't think 48:00so. I mean, my brother was bar mitzvahed and -- but I can't really say that there was any big event that shaped my life, no.JP:So, what does -- I mean, you mentioned responsibility as a Jew. What does
that mean to you? What is that responsibility?AS:Well, for me, personally, one of the things I do is I do Holocaust -- I
served as a -- I did oral histories. I told Christa -- I did oral histories for survivors. When we opened our documentation center here, they offered a course on the Holocaust with the idea that we would be trained to do oral history. So, we did that. I did that, and I interviewed survivors. And then, as the program 49:00progressed and then I deteriorated, because doing interviews was really, really difficult for me after a while. I mean, they were all going to be my grandparents, you know? We do student awareness days here where we're mandated to teach the Holocaust in the State of Florida. How we teach it is we bring students in by the busload for four days -- different days, and we teach the Holocaust. Sit at a round table with twelve kids and a survivor and we program the entire day. And we just did one of those last week. We had 550 children at Barry University. I've -- I'm past president of National Council of Jewish Women. I -- very active in Federation Women's Division. I go to Israel. I make sure my grandchildren are Jewish, even though one of my -- my son married a girl that wasn't Jewish. I said, "Hey, you have to have -- you have to be Jewish." And he said, "Why?" I said, "Because" -- my daughter-in-law is the DAR 50:00debutante. So, she comes with -- as I say, she comes with papers. I said, "Listen, it's not that we're better or you're worse. It's that we are few, you are many. I need for you to raise Jewish children," and she agreed. So, I have five children, grandchildren from that marriage. All of them are -- had the b'nei mitzvah.JP:What's a DAR debutante?
AS:Daughters of the American Revolution. You have to have come over on the
"Mayflower." So, (laughs) my mother kind of laughed. She said, "Listen, we came over on a boat, too. It was just a little bit later." (laughs) Yeah, it's -- we joke about that. She -- her lineage goes way back to the Revolution. And so, she married this nice Jewish boy.JP:So, your mother saw the similarity?
AS:No, we -- she joked about it. (laughter) It was kind of funny. She says,
51:00"What's the big deal? I came over on a boat, too." (laughs) It wasn't the "Mayflower," that's all.JP:Was it as important to her that she have Jewish grandchildren and great-grandchildren?
AS:More important than for me. Maybe not more, but certainly a paramount -- a --
she was focused on replacing six million, which we're, of course, never going to do. But -- so, that's how -- we were raised with that idea, that it was important that we have Jewish children and Jewish grandchildren. I forgot the rest of the question.JP:Oh, just experiences or historical events or social movements in --
AS:Well --
JP:-- formative to your sense of identity.
AS:I -- I've always had a huge Jewish identity. That's -- so -- I never had --
even when I encountered anti-Semitism, I would always open my mouth.JP:Can you give me an example of a situation?
AS:I was president of National Council of Jewish Women one -- several years. And
52:00we had a grocery store, Grand Union. And one day, I was waiting to get some meat cut up, and I handed it to the butcher and I said, "Can you cut this in one-inch strips" and da-da. As I'm standing there, the man from the deli came over and he said to the butcher, "Oh, I'm so angry." He says, "Why are you angry?" I have to preface it by saying I had long, straight blonde hair. And I probably didn't look particularly Jewish, whatever that means. He says, "Why are you angry?" He says, "Well, I just did these six platters for a lady and she picked them up and didn't give me a tip." And the butcher says -- I'm standing there holding this slab of meat -- he says, "What was she, Jewish or something?" I'd been in that store -- it was my store. It was my store. I guess he never thought I was 53:00Jewish, and here I am, buying not a kosher piece of meat either. So, I looked at him and I said, "Listen, this Jewish lady wants these steaks cut up an inch thick, and you're not getting a tip from her either." And I threw the slab of meat at him and I went to find the manager of the store who's named Mr. Chin. Chinese. Nice Chinese man. I said, "Mr. Chin," I related to him what had happened. I said, "Mr. Chin, you know me very well." I said, "I have five hundred ladies in this neighborhood that belong to National Council of Jewish Women. I'm the president. If that man's not out of here by tomorrow, we're gonna be outside, all of us." I said, "I'm not kidding." They were -- he was gone the next day, I never saw him again. But I did -- because I didn't look particularly Jewish, I had quite a few experiences growing up where people felt free to say something in front of me. And I never let them get away with it, ever. 54:00JP:Non-Jews or sometimes Jews, also, who didn't think you were --
AS:Well --
JP:-- Jewish?
AS:-- Jews who've said it in front of me knew I was Jewish, and they never
really said it without kind of making a joke about it. So, I let that slide. But part of what we teach on this Holocaust documentation day is -- the first part is the Holocaust and the afternoon is about prejudice and discrimination. So, it's a package deal. And we're very focused on it.JP:That's wonderful.
AS:And these children that sit with us are usually inner-city children. Many of
them do not know what the Holocaust is. We have many blacks, Hispanics and a few Jewish kids that come, because they're -- I asked this last group, I said, "How did you come to do this?" And they said, "We were chosen by our teacher" or "we 55:00had to write an essay saying why we wanted to come to this day." I said, "Then you should be flattered that you're here. You should accept it as an honor that you have been chosen. So, it's your obligation to bring back to your class what you learn here," I said, "because you're not just ordinary kids. You're the ones that were hand-picked to come." So, that's part of it.JP:That's interesting that they're choosing a few and not bringing whole
classes, too.AS:I guess they don't have the funding to bring every single kid that wants to
come. They bring 'em in by bus and they -- we give them lunch and I guess that it just -- logistically, they can't -- they touch on the Holocaust in the schools. They know what it is, and then they say, "Okay, we have this program for you if you want to come or you -- or we'll choose you to come." It's a perk, so --JP:Just to sort of turn back a bit to Yiddish a bit --
AS:Okay.
JP:-- how does Yiddish language and Yiddish culture fit into your Jewish identity?
56:00AS:How does it fit -- you mean, today?
JP:Or --
AS:Or as in the past?
JP:Or as times have changed. Have you seen that shift?
AS:Well, (laughs) let's see. When -- I've -- I found it interesting, when I
travel, there's always a segment of my trip where I will either seek out or run into a Yiddish experience. Sometimes, it's in St. Peter's Square and the man selling the crosses will be speaking Yiddish. And sometimes, it's just serendipitously that I will run into many more Yiddish encounters in foreign countries than I do here. We don't have Jewish theater here. The best you could hope for is to get, like, "Milk and Honey" on the touring program. So, we do have some klezmer concerts. I belong to the Jewish Museum. We have a Jewish 57:00museum in -- on South Beach, and it's a museum of Florida Judaism. We have synagogues. We have Holocaust awareness days, we have -- we program for major events. But as far as sitting around the table and listening to someone -- I chair the JCC - the Jewish Community Center's Jewish Book Festival. We program Jewish books every fall. I go to New York in the spring, we choose Jewish authors and they come -- probably twelve, fourteen, sixteen. Now, they have to be Jewish authors or Jewish content. And we'll have this festival, we'll bring them in, and -- but none of them are in Yiddish. And most of them don't speak Yiddish. 58:00JP:Right. But does your relationship to Yiddish form a part of your identity --
AS:With --
JP:-- as a Jew?
AS:Of course, of course. It is probably more my identity than the actual prayer
book is, for me, personally. Now, I can't say that for most everybody I know, but for me, it is. My Judaism was learned through Yiddish. But for most of my contemporaries, they learned it by going to Sunday school or Hebrew school, and there was not Yiddish there.JP:Can you tell me a bit more about these travel experiences and encounters with Yiddish?
AS:Well, I was in Japan once and we did home hospitality. And we visited this
59:00family and they were Japanese and they were Jewish. I don't know how that happened. They didn't -- couldn't communicate it well enough to me. I saw the mezuzah on the door and I asked them if they were Jewish and they said, "Yes." And I said, "How did that come to be?" And they said, "We like the religion." And that was about all the explanation I got. I don't know how they segued into whatever they were, into Judaism, but they were Jewish and there was a mezuzah on the door. And how they practiced, I never could ascertain. They weren't fluent enough in English to tell me. I thought that was kind of interesting.JP:And you also mentioned a man who was selling crosses and speaking Yiddish?
AS:Yes, yeah.
JP:How did that encounter happen?
AS:Yeah, I heard him say to another man standing there -- say something in
Yiddish. And whatever it was he said, I asked him about. I said, "You're Jewish." He said, "Yes." He -- I said, "You're selling crosses." He says, "Men makht a leybn [You gotta make a living]." That was it. That was the -- we had a 60:00little conversation about it and he said there were quite a few.JP:And when was this?
AS:Oh, gosh, this has got to be twenty years ago, fifteen or twenty years ago.
But I never quite forgot that.JP:So, inadvertent Jewish tourism is part of your travel experiences.
AS:Yes. I had another interesting experience that had nothing really to -- maybe
a little bit something to do with Yiddish. I was in Germany, we were waiting for a bus, it was raining, and we got on the bus and I didn't know how -- I can't speak German, but I can understand enough. And I didn't -- we didn't know where to get off. There were ten of us, and then a nice man sitting next to me spoke to me in German and he asked me where I needed to get off. And I spoke to him in German, trying not to make it sound too Yiddish, and I told him where we needed to go and what we needed and da-da-da-da. And we had this rather nice 61:00conversation. And when I got off, I said, in Yiddish, as a -- at the time, I could still speak enough, I asked him where he learned to speak the little bit of English he did. He -- we -- part Yiddish, part English, part German. And he looked at me, said, "I was in a POW camp in Chicago." My husband said, "Your best friend was in a POW camp in Chicago?" I said, "Well, he got us to where we were going." So, that wasn't really Yiddish, but it was partly because I spoke a little German. And, of course, in Germany, everybody spoke German to me, 'cause they thought I was German.JP:Because you were blonde?
AS:Yeah, and because I could say "Bitte [German: please]" and "Danke [German:
thank you]." I could say please and thank you or whatever few words I needed to say, but, as I said, I -- through the years, I have had interesting little things come up in various countries. Ah, I do have one funny story. We were 62:00traveling in -- I don't remember where. I don't remember where. We were someplace in Europe, maybe France, and we go to this restaurant, and we're approaching the restaurant and there's a blind little fiddler standing outside the restaurant, and he's singing songs. And my husband and I are with another couple, and the man looked particularly Jewish. And this is the blind fiddler playing. And as we approached, he started to sing "My yidishe mame [My Jewish mother]." (laughs) I said, "I guess he's not so blind after all." He looked at -- looked at my friend who is very Jewish looking and switched songs to "My yidishe mame." So, we laughed about that, 'cause there was no reason -- the man looked very Jewish.JP:And where was this again?
AS:This -- I think this was in Scotland. I'm not sure. It was -- it -- I can see
the corner restaurant we were standing on, and the little violinist playing -- whatever he was playing, switched to "My yidishe mame," which I sang at my -- 63:00had sung at my mother's funeral, by the way.JP:Oh, wow. And that was part of the --
AS:Well, I had --
JP:-- the services?
AS:Yeah, part of the services, "My yidishe mame," and my granddaughter sang
"Oseh shalom bimromav [Hebrew: He who makes peace in high places]." My mother loved to hear my granddaughter sing. It's hard talking about my mom.JP:I'm sure.
AS:People say -- tend to say, "Well, you know, you're lucky you had her for
almost all your life. She was ninety-six." I said, "It makes it harder. I've never known life without her." So, it's like I say, mother's a mother no matter what age. My mother said something to me once that I never forgot. We were 64:00walking down the street one day. I was about five or six. I remember it so clearly. And she called me Khanele, that's my Hebrew name. She said to me -- it was after -- it -- must -- sometime after the war when she found out what had happened to her parents, and she said to -- "You know, I never envied my friends their cars, bigger houses, or their furs. I only envy them if they had a mother." So, that's what I grew up with.JP:That closeness with your own mother --
AS:Yeah.
JP:-- and then her own longing --
AS:Loss --
JP:-- to have --
AS:Yeah.
JP:-- the same.
AS:Yeah. Well, she used to tell me about her -- she said the story and lore in
her family was about her grandmother who was -- I don't know, seventy-five years 65:00old, and there was a storm one night. And she woke up and there was a hand on her shoulder, and she was startled. And she looked up, and there was her own mother, who was ninety-something, covering her because there was a storm, and saying, "Shlof, shlof, mayn kind [Sleep, sleep, my child]." So, we grew up in a very matriarchal society. And my family were -- all the oldest children were girls, so -- mine, too. My daughter's oldest child is a girl.JP:And smart --
AS:I think so.
JP:-- and active women.
AS:Yeah. Yeah. My mother was a very, very good role model for all of us. My
daughter, my granddaughters. She was great. As I said, way, way ahead of her time, in spite of the fact that she was in a country that was not one where she was born and a society that was definitely not one that she was raised in. She 66:00didn't let it stop her.JP:Wow. I mean, as a parent and now a grandparent yourself, what decisions did
you make about the type of Jewish environment you wanted to create for your family (UNCLEAR)?AS:Other than having fifty-nine at seder?
JP:Yes, wow.
AS:Well, it -- my kids grew up in a Jewish home. Not like my -- not like the
Jewish home I grew up in. But they can understand some Yiddish, casual Yiddish. My son was bar mitzvahed, my daughter was confirmed, my children were all b'nei mitzvahed, and we -- and we were very focused on being Jewish. They always knew that I -- if I was gonna work for an organization, it was not gonna be the Red Cross. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld would say. But I was going to spend my time and money in things that were Jewish. And my 67:00granddaughter graduated college, she worked for Hillel for two years, which was kind of nice. I mean, I think -- I think they got the message. That's plain and simple. I give to a lot of charities, but when I have major money that I'm going to give, it's always going to be to a Jewish organization. That's -- Elie Wiesel put it very succinctly. He said, "While not all those who are targeted for extermination were Jews, all Jews were targeted for extermination." And something I -- I've never forgotten. It's something I -- so, while I'm happy to give to organizations in my community, gentiles don't give to Jewish organizations, by and large. We have to do it ourselves. And I'm not soliciting you. (laughter) 68:00JP:I hope I can give as generously one day as I've seen other people --
AS:Yeah.
JP:-- give.
AS:It's nice to be able to do that.
JP:Yeah.
AS:It is, it's -- and there was something, again, my -- we had a little pushke
[alms box] in my mother's house, with that little blue box that we put money in.JP:And were there specific times or rituals for --
AS:No.
JP:-- putting money in?
AS:It just -- when you had change, you put it in that little JNF and -- box and
that was it.JP:And when --
AS:It sat in my mother's kitchen. I can still see it.
JP:And it went to the Jewish National Fund?
AS:Right, JNF box.
JP:Are there any rituals, like the pushke that you've adapted for your own
children or grandchildren?AS:Rituals. Well, you mean like Hanukkah gelt? They all get Hanukkah --
JP:Sure.
AS:-- of course they get Hanukkah gelt. They all get their regular bar mitzvah
presents. I don't know that we have Jewish rituals -- we do all the holidays, 69:00but I don't think -- other than -- I don't think so, other than monetarily.JP:What has been the most important for you to transmit to the generations after
you about Jewish identity? Are there things that you now tell your children and grandchildren like your mother told you?AS:Oh, what am I gonna tell? What do I tell them? Well, I always try to tell
them, even when my kids were young, even though we lived in a predominantly Jew-- it wasn't as Jewish as I was -- that you need to be proud of who and what you are. And while we don't like to think one is better than the other, surely one is not worse than the other. So, you need to bear that in mind as you grow older. Some of my grandchildren live in Colorado, and they don't live in a very Jewish environment. And there have been instances of anti-Semitism. My 70:00granddaughter was valedictorian of her high school, and she made it quite well known that she's Jewish. That's not why she's valedictorian, but she is Jewish. And I don't think there was any resentment about being valedictorian and being Jewish. On the other hand, it was something that she was proud of. She was bat mitzvahed in a small town environment in Colorado, and she's pre-med -- she's on the right track. But even in those little towns, we have to be Jewish. And fortunate-- there is a synagogue. We do have a synagogue, a small synagogue in Vail. And Vail itself, it's a little bit better, because we get a lot of tourists, and many of 'em are Jewish. But in little towns, it's still tough. But they know they're -- these kids know they're Jewish and they have had -- my 71:00grandson has had a few struggles with it. People -- kids can be cruel. They say things -- and my son said to him, "Listen, Joseph. Somebody says something nasty to you, forget this turn the other cheek. You haul up and slug him. See how many times he does that to you." So, we're not pacifists when it comes to that.JP:And has it made a difference to anti-Semitic --
AS:I don't know if it made a difference, but it made Joseph feel better. I don't
know that this kid is not gonna feel the same way. I mean, we're not gonna try and change his mindset. His parents probably put that there, long before we were able to. But, on the other hand, you need to know that there's a force to be reckoned with and there's a price to pay. So, if you're gonna be nasty to me, I'm gonna take care of you. It's we shall not go peacefully, quietly into the 72:00night again. I think it's that mentality, that -- we're not going to go quietly again.JP:Right. To return a bit to Yiddish --
AS:Okay.
JP:-- before we wrap up. What does Yiddish mean to you today?
AS:Yiddish language, you mean? Or being Yid-- what --
JP:Yiddish language or Yiddish culture.
AS:Well, I -- to me, it means -- I think we're kind of -- we have kind of an
uphill battle here. I -- unfortunately, I don't know that I can foresee a very rosy future for Yiddish unless we have a huge resurgence, which I credit you all for promoting, truly. Other than that, I mean, how many colleges speak -- teach Yiddish today?JP:I don't know the numbers offhand.
AS:Are there -- I mean, I don't either. Are there a few? Many?
73:00JP:Yeah, some -- there are colleges that do, yeah.
AS:So, I should ask you. Do you see a resurgence in Yiddish?
JP:Hey! (laughter)
AS:I told you, I know how to do this --
JP:Who's conducting the interview, here?
AS:I know how to do this! I told you -- (laughs)
JP:Well, I'm curious whether you think that there's a resurgence or a revival.
AS:I don't really -- you know what? I'm probably not the right person to ask,
because I live in a rather -- I -- I'm in a secluded area as far as Yiddish is concerned. I don't live in a big urban city where there's a lot of Yiddish going on. So, for me, I don't see very much of it at all. I have no friends -- I told you, no friends who speak Yiddish. No friends who even understand it except -- if you said a bisl [a little bit], they would know what that is. My children and grandchildren understand very little. I don't live in a Yiddish world. And so, I'm probably not the right one to answer that question. 74:00JP:So, the future of Yiddish in your world, unfortunately, doesn't look too rosy.
AS:It does not, at all. As I said, I went to yidishe shul when I was a kid. I
don't even know if there's such a thing in Miami. Probably not. There wasn't one when I was growing up. I think when you go to Hebrew school, you learn Hebrew. I don't think there's anybody to converse with except people who are much older, and if you wanted to have that conversation, I -- they're not readily available.JP:Is the preservation of Yiddish important to you?
AS:It is to me personally, yes. Well, because I associate being Jewish with
Yiddish. That's my association. I don't really associate it with Hebrew, because I wasn't -- my mother, I told you, was a Hebrew teacher in addition to everything else. I don't associate being Jewish with Hebrew, per se. Am I 75:00thrilled to have a state? Of course. But even in Israel, we don't hear a lot of Yiddish being spoken. It -- it's -- I find that when I go to Israel, I can speak Yiddish to people, lots of them, but most of them are speaking -- especially the younger ones are speaking Hebrew, as they should, you know? I mean, I think it would be nice if they learned Yiddish as a second language or a third language. But we're not gonna take Hebrew away from them. So, I don't have an answer for that question. I would, of course, hate to see it not be here for the next hundred years. But then again, who's going to -- who are we going to speak it to? Do you speak Yiddish?JP:Yes, I'm working on it.
AS:But you went -- you learned it. I mean, it's a learned response for you.
JP:Yes.
AS:Whereas for me, it wasn't -- but even my generation -- I'm, as I said,
76:00unusual for my generation.JP:As someone who was raised in --
AS:Right.
JP:-- Florida, yeah.
AS:As someone who -- yes. Interestingly enough, when I went to Canada many years
ago, I led a women's division to Canada. And we did the home hospitality. I took my mom with me, because she's a great resource person. And when we got there, I was astounded, because people were speaking Yiddish. People my age were speaking Yiddish. But I quickly learned that in Canada, that wave of immigration came later than the wave here. So, they were -- even though they were my age, they were more my mother's generation, language-wise.JP:And where were you encountering these --
AS:Yeah --
JP:-- Yiddish speakers?
AS:-- I -- in Toronto.
JP:Through a specific organization?
AS:It was a Federation Women's Division field trip. A -- that I took my mother
on. Think it was her seventy-fifth birthday, and we went to a -- we went -- and I led this mission, so I said, "Mom, you want to come?" Of course she was going to come. So, yeah, it was mostly Toronto where they had -- spoke Yiddish. 77:00JP:And the Toronto -- the Torontonians, were they from a similar Federation
division that was meeting up with you?AS:Yeah, yes, yeah. I guess there was -- we had home hospitality sponsored by
the Federation there, I'm sure. Yeah, that was -- it was the part and parcel of the mission. But we did have quite a bit of home hospitality, and these young women -- many of them sounded like my mom, who spoke with an accent. And they were my age.JP:And how did your mom feel in that environment?
AS:Oh, my mom -- well, first of all, she was the best resource person they could
have had. I mean, by the end of the trip, if they could've carried her on their hands they would've, because she was just a wonderful person -- first of all, she could relate to all these people much better than the rest of us could. And second of all, she was so knowledgeable about anything that had to do with anything Jewish, whether it be religion, language, or whatever, she was a whole textbook unto herself.JP:And if I remember correctly from our prior conversation, she felt at home
78:00being able to converse with these younger women --AS:Yes.
JP:-- because, like you said, they were more kind of at a similar level of --
AS:Right.
JP:-- immigration history.
AS:That's exactly right. It's exactly right. So, that's the only time I ever
encountered people my age who could -- who were in a Yiddish world.JP:And when would that have been?
AS:Well, let's see. That -- my mom was -- it was my mom's seventy-fifth
birthday, and she probably would have been a hundred. So, we're looking at twenty-five years ago. I remember taking her for -- I said, "Mom, this is going to be your present for your seventy-fifth birthday." So, she was great. Was a really memorable trip.JP:What a wonderful gift.
AS:Yeah, for both of us. I took my daughter and I went to Israel on this mission
last year. We were eight hundred people, but the two of us went together, and that was wonderful, too. It was really nice. She was about the same age my mom was, actually, so it was kind of a nice bond. Not that we need to bond. She was half a mile from me. 79:00JP:But it's a continued tradition --
AS:It was --
JP:-- of --
AS:-- it is. I didn't even mean it to be that. It just sort of worked out that
age-wise, we were in the right spot. Of course, she said, "Mom, (laughs)" -- I broke my wrist the second day. But that was okay. I mean, we put it in a cast and that was fine. I did the March of the Living, and I broke it in Auschwitz, fittingly enough.JP:How did you -- how did that happen?
AS:I did the march and I had to go to the bathroom. I was wearing sneakers. My
sneaker caught on a crack of a step, and I went to put my hand out and I broke it. But it did not keep me from doing one thing, including climbing Masada or anything else. I just had to do it with arm -- one arm in a sling, in a cast. And then, of course, I lost about eight pounds on the trip because it's hard to be in a buffet line when what -- with one hand, and most of our meals were served buffet style. So, Barbara said -- my daughter said, "Mom, remember, I was the one that fed you." I said, "Yeah, not so good. I lost eight pounds on the mission." But it was a very memorable one. 80:00JP:Is there --
AS:And we went to Poland, as well.
JP:And how was that, to be --
AS:I'd -- I'd been to Poland before we did the March of the Living. And, of
course, we went to the Warsaw Ghetto and we went to the street where I was born. It's -- you know, the streets there, it doesn't look like it did, of course, in -- it was quite an experience. We went to synagogue, the synagogue where I knew my family had worshipped, it's still there. I did have some bits of information that I had gleaned through the years. And that was really rather moving, as it always is.JP:And you had been there --
AS:I'd been --
JP:-- in a different context?
AS:Yes, I went there with my husband years ago. I did a roots trip. You know,
it's a plain and simple roots trip. And I had been to those places before.JP:Was it different --
AS:Oh, yeah.
JP:-- those experiences between two times?
AS:Yes, totally. Yeah, totally different. When I did it before, I had a Polish
81:00guide and she was very nice, and she knew I was focused on Jewish things, and she took me to the Jewish cemetery, and we read all the headstones, and the guy came -- man came out and showed me where my relatives were buried and stuff. And, of course, I'm steeped in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Anyway, it was very, very interesting, from a different -- it wasn't as Jewishly involved as the Federation mission is, because when you do the March of the Liv-- are you familiar with the March -- when you do that, and you get this whole background -- and then, to see eight hundred people crammed into a little synagogue at night, with the walls overflowing with Jewish people that they tried to kill, (laughs) just says, listen, we're still here. So, yeah, it was quite an experience.JP:And you said you were steeped in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in terms of
family --AS:Yeah, well --
82:00JP:-- connection?
AS:Yeah, my mother's family, they all perished in the Warsaw Ghetto, and I did
find out subsequently -- she found out most of 'em were killed -- one was a leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. That was her brother. Her mother was shot in the kitchen. They came and they -- well, she had a chicken and they shot her. Somehow, she'd gotten the chicken, to feed her family. And my un-- my grandfather was killed in Auschwitz. They -- he was shipped to Auschwitz, and there were records. You know, the Germans kept records. My mother's younger sister was a schoolteacher. And they took these young women for the pleasure of the German officers, and they got poison smuggled into them and they committed suicide. So, we knew how the immediate family was killed. But my mother, as I said, came from a huge family.JP:Do you want to mention any of their names?
83:00AS:I only know -- my uncle's name was Yitzhak, my aunt's name was Brayndl. My
grandfather's name was Shlomo Zalman, and my grandmother's name was Barukha, and my daughter's named after her.JP:What a testament to that memory.
AS:My mother told me Barukha meant blessed. So, my daughter is a blessing, too.
JP:Another generation --
AS:Yeah.
JP:-- is here.
AS:Yeah.
JP:Well, before we end, I'd like to ask if you have anything else you'd like to add.
AS:No, I don't think so. I'm so impressed with the work you do. I was so pleased
to be able to visit when I did. As I said, Michael's an author, and he wrote in 84:00Yiddish as well as the Spanish book I gave Christa, and he would -- both of them would be happy to know that you're doing this work.JP:Well, thank you. I -- my last question would be what advice do you have for
future generations?AS:Of Jewish children?
JP:Sure.
AS:Or just future generations, period?
JP:Either. Whatever -- (laugher)
AS:I don't know that I can give anybody advice. I certainly -- I don't know that
the advice that I would give would be anything but generic.JP:Advice to anyone who wants to maybe learn Yiddish or connect with Yiddish?
AS: I think that would be wonderful. I think you need to see if you can expand
this program beyond Amherst. I don't know that you can, or have the resources to 85:00do this, if it's even feasible. I -- as I said, I -- I've read the book. The book's about rescuing books and stuff like that. I don't know much about the day-to-day -- how you work day-to-day. I don't even know what programs you have other than what I read in the newsletter. Do you have an outreach program? Does it go beyond your campus?JP:Outreach of --
AS:Yiddish stuff?
JP:Well, we can talk more once we wrap up the interview about that. But a lot of
the programming happens at the Yiddish Book Center. But we also try --AS:Right.
JP:-- and make Yiddish learning accessible to people. We -- like, we're doing
the interview here in Florida now.AS:Yeah.
JP:We try and take our project elsewhere with full knowledge that not everyone
86:00can make it to Amherst and --AS:Right, right.
JP:-- yeah.
AS:Well, I think that's a great thing. I mean, of course, they never -- I never
even knew this interview existed or I could have done it when I was in the Berkshires. It might not have -- three and -- or four and a half years ago. I'm not sure how long ago I was there.JP:Yeah, it started in 2010, so --
AS:So, it was -- I was there prior to that.
JP:Yeah, exactly.
AS:Other than -- I -- I'm not sure that you could program Yiddish in
universities if there was no interest in it. I don't even know how many universities do program that.JP:Yeah, I don't have exact numbers but, I mean, it's taught in Israel, it's
taught in Canada, it's taught --AS:Yeah.
JP:-- in the US, it's taught in Europe. There are a number of centers for
Yiddish learning in England, in Vilnius, and so --AS:And are there people other than Jewish people -- take Yiddish?
JP:Definitely. Definitely.
AS:Proportionately?
87:00JP:I don't know what the proportions are, but --
AS:And why would someone take Yiddish who's not Jewish?
JP:I think --
AS:I mean --
JP:I think there's cultural interest in many different -- there are plenty of
non-Chinese people who are passionate about --AS:Right, I --
JP:-- Chinese (UNCLEAR).
AS:-- understand that, but China is -- has a language base. Yiddish doesn't
really have a language base, because they speak Hebrew in Israel. So, my question is, if I were gonna take Yiddish as a language, where would I find the resources, other than some books to read? I'm not going to --JP:Yeah.
AS:-- a country to speak Yiddish.
JP:Yeah. In people, I mean --
AS:Yeah, well, that's --
JP:-- there are still --
AS:-- so, that's my question.
JP:-- communities of people speaking Yiddish. There are younger people committed
to speaking Yiddish fluently and with their peers. There are young parents raising their children in Yiddish. There are still Workmen shule, Yiddish camps. 88:00There's Yidish Vokh in the summer, which is a purely in Yiddish camping experience for people of all ages.AS:Is there still a Camp Boiberik, do you know?
JP:No, I believe Boiberik closed.
AS:Did it? It was in Upstate New York.
JP:In the '70s, I think.
AS:Yeah. Did it?
JP:Yeah.
AS:I sort of lost track of it.
JP:The research that --
AS:Yeah.
JP:-- I did indicate that it closed in the '70s.
AS:Oh.
JP:Yeah. But I want to thank you personally --
AS:Oh!
JP:-- for sharing your stories and reflections with me. I also want to thank you --
AS:It was my pleasure.
JP:-- on behalf of the Yiddish Book Center for participating in the Wexler Oral
History Project.AS:My pleasure.
JP:Thank you.
AS:Certainly my pleasure, and I commend you for all the work that you do, all of you.
JP:Thank you. Well, this work wouldn't be possible without people like you
supporting it and wanting to be part of it. So, thank you. A sheynem dank [Thank you very much].[BREAK IN RECORDING]
AS:One I know a little bit more about.
JP:Okay, so, Anna, you're going to take us through some --
89:00AS:Okay, so --
JP:-- family artifacts and photos now --
AS:-- we here?
JP:-- yes.
AS:Okay, so this is my mother's family, all of whom perished in the Holocaust
with the exception of my uncle Heschel, who survived because he was studying in Palestine for his fourth doctorate. His last -- one of them was in the rabbinate, so he became a rabbi. And he survived the war because he missed the plane that -- he missed the train that was going to take him into Poland on the day that Hitler invaded Poland. So, he survived.JP:How many doctorates does one need?
AS:If you're a professional scholar, which he was -- he planned to study for the
rest of his life. Unfortunately, his life changed a great deal and he became a rabbi and went on to become this illustrious author and lecturer and et cetera. But (UNCLEAR).JP:And do you know what his doctorates were in?
AS:Well, I know one was in the rabbinate, one was in philosophy, one was in
literature. I don't know what the fourth one was. I think he was in the midst of 90:00the fourth one when the -- his studies were interrupted. But he was what my mom said -- he was a professional scholar. He was never going to do anything but study and teach and write and da-da-da-da. And he followed that somewhat, but not as much as he would have otherwise. Very learned man. This is -- I can't see upside-down. That's my grandfather, Zalman, who perished in Auschwitz. My grandmother, Barukha, who was shot in the Warsaw Ghetto in her kitchen because she -- they found a chicken or some sort of food and they shot her on the spot. This was my uncle's wife, who perished. My aunt Brayndl, who was a schoolteacher. She was taken for the pleasure of German officers and they were able to get poison smuggled into these young women and they committed suicide 91:00before they could be raped. My uncle Yitzhak, who was one of the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and my grandmother Brayndl. This, too, is my -- this -- my grandmother, Barukha. I'm sorry. And this, too, is my aunt. And I thought I would show you my mother and father's wedding picture, which I thought was so beautiful, we can find it -- my mother and father's wedding picture. And this is my mother's passport picture. She was very, very beautiful in this European -- exotic-looking manner. And I think that's good. My -- since this is -- my 92:00father-in-law has stories, too, but -- and they're -- the -- these are better. (laughs) I don't know -- didn't know as much -- okay, books? I --JP:Sure.
AS:-- I mean, did you want --
JP:Sure, that would be great, thank you. And also, we would love to hear about
your birth certificate.AS:Okay, my uncle Heschel is a -- has written many books. And, as a matter of
fact, I donated some books -- I saw them in the library when I went, by the way. I think I donated the books that were in Yiddish. But, as I said --JP:To the book -- to the Yiddish Book Center.
AS:Yes, yeah, I did send them up there, and I did find them there. The -- he was
the principal of a very large school in Panama, and this is one of the books in 93:00Spanish, obviously, and this is -- this book was translated from the Yiddish. I don't have the original Yiddish, but it's the story of his hometown and the Holocaust. And, as I said, he and my mother died three weeks apart. He died in Israel, and they were extremely close. They were the only survivors. And my birth certificate that says, "Child born abroad of an American father" -- crossed-out -- "parents," because the -- I don't believe they even had a form that would qualify. So, this was issued by the American consulate in Warsaw. Three months after I was born -- I returned to the States three months after I was born.JP:And so, did that mean you were an American?
AS:Yes, it means I am a native-born American. Don't have to have naturalization
94:00papers. Can become president. And somewhat (laughs) of an anomaly, because I don't think we had too many of these. I think I explained before that this was really enacted for the ambassadors and their wives who had children abroad, and if you weren't born in the embassy, if you were born in a hospital that was in the city itself, then you were not a native born American. Actually, when I went to Poland, they told me I could go through the nationals line, because Poland recognizes dual citizenship should one want it. So, I kind of jokingly said, "I'm going to go through that line, it's shorter." My husband said, "Don't be silly, they'll keep you." I said, "What for? (laughs) They don't want me," but --JP:So, you don't have Polish citizenship?
AS:I could if I wanted.
JP:You could.
AS:I could. It recognizes dual citizenship, Poland does. So, if I presented
this, it says I was born in Warsaw, yippee. 95:00JP:But because both your parents were American, you --
AS:Yes, because --
JP:-- you were conferred --
AS:-- both -- yes, because both -- my mother made sure that she had her
citizenship papers -- when she came to this country as a bride, I think it took several years -- much shorter time than it would ordinarily take. So, because she became a citizen on what they call, quote, my father's papers, it took her less time. And when she became pregnant with me, she was assured that if I was born in Poland, I would still be a native-born American citizen, which -- turns out I am. So, that's -- under those conditions, she went home, and it was the last time she saw her parents alive, or her family. So, maybe she had a premonition that she should go. Yeah.JP:Thank you for sharing that with us.
AS:Yeah, was this very -- an interesting phenom-- my mother, at the time -- you
had to take ships. There were no planes. (laughs) So, she took ships and -- and 96:00she flew -- she came across on the "Normandy," which is a big liner, out of Le Havre. So, she had to take a train up from Poland to France, get on a ship.JP:And when -- do you know how long that whole journey took?
AS:No, I don't really know. It -- probably a week, I think, in those days. Maybe
longer. My -- she tells me my uncle went to the boat train with her. He took her from -- escorted her from Warsaw to France. And then that was the last time she saw him again for a very, very long time. Not till after the war. Many years after the war.JP:And --
AS:That's the uncle that survived.
JP:Wow. And they couldn't find each other, or they were --
AS:Well, there was a war on. There was no communication. She didn't even know
where he was. She had left him studying in Palestine. And then when the war broke out -- you forget, we -- you don't forget -- I don't even know that, as 97:00well -- you got news when you went to the weekly movies on Movietone newsreel or something like that. It was very slow happening -- she didn't find out what happened to her parents for many, many years, through the Red Cross and through various other -- she's -- I do remember sending packages, by the way. My mom knew there was -- they were, of course, in trouble. So, she sent packages. Clothing they said she could send, but it had to be used clothing. I do remember my mom buying clothes and washing them and tearing all the little tags off so that they would look used, and putting them in the box and sending them through the Red Cross to wherever her family was. And I'm sure they never reached them. We never got any acknowledge-- she never did. I was too young to even realize, but that was one of the things I remember. There were no letters. And she didn't have any knowledge of what had occurred till many years later.JP:How did she and her brother find each other?
AS:Well, I think my uncle eventually joined the Polish liberation army in exile,
98:00and he -- then, he became a rabbi. I don't know why they needed a rabbi. There were very few people around. But he -- what -- became a chaplain. And he joined -- they joined forces with another group of military people, and he wound up spending the war in Great Britain. And after the war, he -- they bestowed British citizenship on him and he wound up living in Scotland and became the chief rabbi of Scotland at one point. Remarried. His wife had been killed. And had two twin daughters. So, somewhere along the line, when he -- I remember her getting a letter, because she was shrieking that she -- my uncle was alive. I don't remember where the letter came from, but he did -- he eventually emigrated to Panama, where he became a principal of the school, and then retired to Israel, many years later. 99:00JP:And you were in Panama for a year --
AS:Yes. My parents moved to Panama for some period of time. My dad found -- work
there, and I was already -- I went off to college. They took my brother and they lived in Panama.JP:To join your uncle.
AS:He wasn't there yet. He got there later.
JP:Oh!
AS:And then went to Costa Rica. This -- he was still in Israel at the time.
JP:Oh.
AS:He was still -- he sort of went -- they offered him this fabulous position
that he couldn't refuse, and so that -- he went there. I mean, he was such a learned, scholarly man that all the government officials sent their children to him and he became minister of education in Panama. So, yeah, he's -- my mom came from a very interesting family. Unfortunately, we only had one survivor. Two, my mom who wasn't there, my uncle who survived. But they were -- as my mom used to say, the intelligentsia. And that's what we all lost, not just me. So -- 100:00JP:Thank you.
[END OF INTERVIEW]