RIVA GINSBURG ORAL HISTORY

JESSICA PARKER:  This is Jessica Parker, and today is Monday, March eleventh.  I am here in Boca Raton, Florida, with Riva Ginsburg, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project.  Riva, do I have your permission to record this interview?

RIVA GINSBURG:  You do.

JP:  Thank you.  So I'd like to start with a brief discussion about what you know of your family background.  Could you tell me briefly what you know?

RG:  Well, I came to the United States in 1949, on a boat, from Germany.  I was born in a displaced person's camp -- a DP camp -- with my brother, my mother 1:00and father.  My brother, Howard, was the first Jewish child born in this DP camp.  My parents are survivors.  They survived the war in the underground -- the partizaner [partisans].  They were both in different atrad -- different units.  My mother survived her last years with the Bielski partizaner, and my father was in a Russian underground movement called Iskra.  My mother and father were born in Belarus, in two small towns: my mother was Lida, and my father, Iwye -- Iwye being a smaller town.  The family knew each other before the war, so after the war they were able to connect again.

JP:  Wonderful.  And do you know what either of their lives were like in their 2:00towns in Belarus before the war?

RG:  My mother was born into a very large family.  It was actually sad for her, because her mother died at her birth -- or two days after her birth.  And she was raised by her father, who had remarried, and grandparents.  They owned a bakery in Lida.  And it was a beautiful family.  Actually, I brought a picture of the family to share with you.  My father came from a smaller town.  He was the oldest son of a family.  Lida was, I think, a much more affluent town -- maybe it was considered larger than a shtetl.  It was a city.  My 3:00father's was more considered a shtetl.  My father's brother fought with him in the war.  He had one sister, Dvora, who immigrated to Israel before the war started.  And he had two other sisters, Freyda-gitl -- and Leyke.  One went to Israel, one came to the United States.  And I've brought pictures of the family.  The only survivor -- my father, and -- his brother Tsalke survived the war, but was killed after.  And my grandfather, Shloyme survived, and came to the United States with us.  I think -- my father came from, I would say, a much more observant family than my mom.  When I say that, not that my mother's 4:00family wasn't, but the way I heard stories -- they were much more Sabbath observers.  After the war -- after they survived -- both families went back to their own home towns, and when my mother returned, she realized that no one from her family had survived.  And the Ginsburg family had, and they took my mom in.  And she went and she lived with them, and ended up marrying my -- my father.  And after that, they traveled through Germany to the DP camp, and waited for family in the United States to bring us to the United States.  And that took till September of 1949.

JP:  Just to --

RG:  My -- go ahead.

JP:  Sorry, I just -- you mentioned that both parents were partisans.  Do you know about their involvements and what they did in their respective units?

RG:  Yeah.  My father was part of a group called Iskra, and it was in the Novogrodnik Forest.  My father was responsible, with his brother, Tsalke, for blowing up twenty-two German trains, and stopping all military advancement of the Germans.  My mother began her journey in the underground by escaping -- um, I think I just need to go back a little.  There was different liquidations of the ghetto.  But at the final liquidation of the ghetto, my mother was standing 6:00in line with her sister and two small children -- most of the family had already been taken in the other liquidations -- this was the final one -- and her sister turned to her and said, "Yudiske, du darfst leyfn -- you need to run.  Eymetser fun di mishpokhe -- someone from the family -- has to survive."  And a German soldier allowed her to run away.  He actually took his rifle and shot it, so it would create a little bit of a stir.  My mother was very beautiful.  My mother is very beautiful.  And the German soldier had gone to her and said, you know, "You're too young, and you're too beautiful to die."  And he [sic] said, "Where 7:00are they taking us?"  And he said, "A very bad place."  So she ran, with her friend, Bluma.  The trains went to Majdanek.  And that's where the entire family was murdered.  My mother ran, and, um -- (pause) -- she ran into the woods, and they came upon, um -- a house -- a Polish farmer.  And, um -- they knocked on the door after the trains had left, and the farmer's wife said, "Go away."  She was afraid to take them in.  And the man came to the door and said, "God sent them to us."  And she was taken in, and he connected her to 8:00someone in the underground.  And she went into a Russian underground movement at first, and fought -- was given a rifle.  But as time went on, it was very dangerous for Jewish women in the Russian underground.  And she asked permission to leave.  And they connected her, then, to the Bielski partisans, and as history tells, the Bielskis took in women and children.  And -- my mother survived, and was one of the approximately twelve hundred that marched out of the woods with Tuvia Bielski.  My father fought alongside the Bielski partisans.  It's very important -- you know, the question has been asked to me, why didn't Jews fight?  Or why -- why didn't more fight back?  And, you know, 9:00the more appropriate question is, under those circumstances, how could anyone have fought?  So when I hear someone talk about resistance and that there wasn't resisting, I grew up in a home where I was surrounded by people who fought back.  My early years of coming to the United States would be my parents' friends -- the survivors -- all part of the underground, would come upstate, and that's where I grew up, and talk about -- um, what it was like living in the forest.  I also brought with me a picture, if you want to have 10:00it, of what the actual bunker looked like.  It's really a remarkable story, but each story in itself is remarkable.  And each story needs to be documented.  There are so many stories that have died because those that had them didn't survive to tell the story.

JP:  It sounds like, a bit uncharacteristically, you grew up in a home where these stories were shared.

RG:  It is uncharacteristic.  You know, the profile of children of Holocaust survivors -- and I'm part of a large group in Palm Beach County called Next Generations -- and the profile is not the same, but, you know, so many children 11:00of Holocaust survivors grew up not knowing, because the parents weren't able to -- or chose not to -- share.  If you -- if you study the difference of the children that grew up with parents that were resistance fighters and those that survived the concentration camps, there is a difference in the exposure of their experiences.  I didn't grow up in a silent world, the way Helen Epstein, the author of "Children of the Holocaust," describes -- my world was not silent.  At times, I wish it was, because there were times that the stories were -- and are -- too painful.  Because with the heroism comes horrors of my father 12:00walking in and finding his mother hanging. (pause)  My mother observing children -- babies -- being bashed into walls.  Shootings.  Beatings.  Guns.  So there were times where I wish my world was silent.  And, um, at times I think I have selective memory.  I remember -- I know -- so much, but I protect myself at times.  You know, today, I'm sixty-five years old, and when 13:00my mom starts talking about her sisters -- it's just something I can't -- and I've -- and I know the stories, and I've heard them, so -- so.  So I grew up in a world where I learned and I studied and I heard and I met and I loved.  And there were happy, happy times.  They would get together, and they would love to have their schnapps and vodka and sing and party.  And we as children participated.  We used to go to -- I grew up in upstate New York, and we used to go to New York when they had the yortsayts [anniversaries of death] every year.  And my brother would go to the Iwye yortsayt, and I would go to the Lida 14:00yortsayt, because it was on the same day in Brooklyn.  And those were the happiest times for me.

JP:  And who was running these yortsayts?

RG:  There were always some -- well, there were surviv-- there are survivors, and they would get together, and they would pick a date and a place.  And there wasn't e-mail, but there was a connection.  I brought with me a picture, also, of one of those gatherings -- I think it was in 19-- well, let's see, it must have been, yeah, 1955, '56 -- and there's a picture that I brought.  My life was, and has been -- um -- well, let me go back and try to rephrase what I'm trying to say.  The Holocaust is, for me, like one of my appendages.  It is -- 15:00um -- it's in my soul.  It's in my DNA.  I was born after the darkness.  But it's a part of me.  And sometimes I want to like, let it go -- (laughs) -- just throw it away -- but I can't.  So I really don't want to.  I don't want to throw it away.  But there are times that I want, also, to have some peace in my mind.  So I go through my periods of talking about it.  I lecture on it.  I lecture on the generation after the Holocaust.  I lecture on Jewish survival, on Jewish resistance.  But my real passion is to talk about the beauty of the 16:00culture before Hitler.  And I used to speak a lot on what it was like to be a child of a Holocaust survivor.  And I would go to schools and -- it was after the first World Gathering, and when Helen Epstein wrote her first book, and it became -- it was stories about children of Holocaust survivors, it wasn't empirical data.  And I would go and I would lecture and go into schools, and even public television -- I did a workshop for teachers.  And it was -- it took a lot out of me.  It was draining.  But I did it, because I wanted to, and I 17:00need to, and I must.  But I've been fortunate enough to have a different focus of my passion, and that's teaching the Yiddish language -- and speaking Yiddish.  Ikh hob lib tsu redn yidish.  M'zogt a yid hot lib di geshmak fun mayn yidishe vort in moyl. [I love speaking Yiddish.  They say a Jewish person loves the taste of the Jewish language in their mouth.]  A Jewish person has a wonderful taste, a flavor, for Yiddish in their mouth, in their taste buds.  And I found that that was not only part of my healing, but part of my mission -- to embrace Yiddish as a cultural language, to embrace Yiddish as a culture -- 18:00the beauty -- and to instill that in students.  And by doing that, I'm defying everything that Hitler tried to do.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

RG:  When I'm able to speak Yiddish -- and I speak it all the time -- and when I am able to teach my grandchildren a little Yiddish song, and when I'm able to -- just this past week, I gave a presentation on the celebration of the Yiddish language and culture -- it does so many things.  There's so many layers for me.  One, it brings me closer -- closer and closer to my ancestors, those that I didn't know -- my aunts, my uncles that spoke Yiddish.  It also gives me a 19:00comfort of home.  I love the sound of the language.  It's music to my ears.  And it's -- um -- one of my ways to defeat Hitler's Final Solution.  So when a student forms a Yiddish sentence, I just know, Yiddish is alive.  And it needs to be alive, and will be.  I'm reminded of something Golda Meir said.  "The six million" -- how does it go?  "The six million" -- "Yiddish lies in the six million, and therefore we need to keep Yiddish alive to honor them."  There are 20:00so many, so many reasons that it's become a passion for me.  There's just so many layers.  And maybe those will come out as we continue to talk.

JP:  Wonderful.  Well, maybe we can sort of circle back a little bit, and you can tell me about the home you grew up in.  Would you say you grew up in a Jewish home?  What felt Jewish to you, perhaps, about that?

RG:  I grew up in a very traditional Jewish home, where every holiday was observed.  And the Sabbath was observed on certain levels.  My father was a cattle dealer.  We came to the United States, and we traveled to upstate New 21:00York.  And my father became a cattle dealer.  And animals need to be fed on the Sabbath, and things need to be done on the Sabbath, but there are certain things that you don't do on the Sabbath.  So you don't sew on the Sabbath, you don't do certain things, but certain things we were allowed to do.  It was a home where every holiday was observed.  The synagogue -- it was an Orthodox synagogue -- the synagogue was an important part of our life.  Because it was Orthodox, I didn't have a bat mitzvah.  But I studied -- I went to kheyder [traditional religious school] -- and I felt I knew as much as my brother did at the time, and was probably not too happy that I was not given that opportunity.  Certainly, I've had the opportunity since to study, and I have.  22:00I grew up in a home that had a passion for life.  But there was always this underlying sadness.  All of us are named after those that died -- were killed.  All my children are, and my grandchildren.  Life was a constant reminder that we are Jews, we are here.  So it wasn't something that I ever stopped to think about much -- Am I growing up in a Jewish home?  My home was Jewish, and my home today is.  It was a home that was open to strangers.  It 23:00was a home that was open to friends.  Yiddish was spoken all of the time -- a little Polish, a little Russian, but a lot of Yiddish.  My friends that were not Yiddish speakers -- American -- used to love to come to my home and speak to my parents.  Sometimes, children are a little embarrassed by parents with accents -- so-called "aktsents."  I was unique.  My family was unique.

JP:  Were you embarrassed?

RG:  Hm?

JP:  Were you embarrassed?

RG:  No.  No.  I was unique.  I was never embarrassed.  Actually, most of the time, I speak with an accent myself, because I speak so much English and so much Yiddish, I mix it together and speak with a little accent.  No, never embarrassed.  Because it was a home of love.  There was always food and baking and happiness.  But there was an underlying sadness, and every day there was a reminder of those that we lost.  It was never -- there was never, ever a time 24:00where we did not know or learn or hear.  And as I said, it wasn't always easy.

JP:  Right.

RG:  It wasn't always easy.

JP:  I know your niece Shira put together this incredible piece called "My Bubbe's Kitchen," which is about your mother's kitchen.

RG:  Yes.

JP:  Was the kitchen a hub of your family?  Was it a special place?

RG:  Yes.  My niece Shira -- Shira Ginsburg -- she's a cantor, and for her final piece -- graduating from HUC -- cantorial school -- she put together a one-woman show called "Bubbe's Kitchen."  And she as one woman plays five 25:00women.  And I'm one of the five women.  The center of the house was the kitchen.  And the center of the kitchen was a kitchen table.  And around this kitchen table sat the women.  And at this kitchen table, you always got a little bit of wisdom and a little bit of mandel bread.  And everything was talked about at this table -- the good things and the bad things.  And my mother, Yudis -- Judith -- being the center.  And my father, too.  But this was the bobe's kitchen.  So Shira actually plays the role of my mom, in the woods, with a gun.  Shira plays the role of me, and the wisdom that I've given 26:00her as one of her aunts.  She plays the role of my other two sisters.  And she plays the role of her own mom.  And around this kitchen table, you learned an entire story -- of not only the Jewish immigrant experience, not only a Holocaust grandchild's experience, but really, an experience of an ent-- any immigrant family.  And this show has been traveling all over.  It's going to be in Miami in April -- it was once in Miami, it's coming back.  It's going to be in Seattle.  It's been to Allentown, Rochester -- oh, many places I don't know -- in New York -- it was at the Yiddish -- the Jewish -- what is -- the historical museum -- what is the -- what's the one --

JP:  On the Upper East Side?

RG:  The Museum of Jewish History.  Museum of Jewish History.  That's where, actually, it started.  So.

JP:  Wow.  Incredible.  So sort of zooming out from your house a little bit, what did your neighborhood look like in the community surrounding you growing up?

RG:  I would have been happy to bring a picture of my little house.  Well, as Molly Goldberg said, "upward mobility."  When I came to the United States, this is my memory.  We came to a street called First Street.  Well, first we lived with family for a bit.  We came to a street called First Street.  It would be described as tenements or brownstones, if they were in New York. (laughs)  But it was a street where other immigrants lived.  And it was the fourth floor.  I 28:00remember rain -- and the rain would come in.  I remember I was little -- my father went to work, my mom went to night school to learn a little English -- and she went to a rummage sale, and she bought a big red book of nursery rhymes.  And I remember lying in bed, and I don't -- you know, we had one bed -- and my mom trying to read some of the nursery rhymes.  We moved to, then, a second flat on Washington Street.  And then, a little bit more upward mobility, and in -- then we moved to another, little bit larger flat.  And then, when I was in, I think, fifth grade, we moved to an area called Sycaway -- it was up 29:00the hill -- where more Jews lived.  And it was still a flat -- it was a rented place.  And then, my parents were able to buy a little house on a street called Nyroy Drive -- a little Cape Cod -- a little brick house.

JP:  Is this in Troy, New York?

RG:  Yes, in Troy, New York.  And, um -- it was a wonderful life.  There weren't -- you know, hundreds of Jewish children in the schools, but we were represented.  And we had a great life.  Belonged to a synagogue.  There was a Jewish community center.  But we were one of the very few griner -- Greenhorns.  Very few.  And it was quite interesting that even though we were a bisl grin [a little green], everybody wanted to congregate in my home, because 30:00my mom was a great baker, and there was always mandlbroyt [almond bread] coming out of the oven, and it smelled good, and my father would come home, and people would come, and weekends were always full of people.  And on Friday night, you always had people, and they'd have the glezele tey [cups of tea] out, and the -- it was a home that was open, very much like the home that I raised my children in -- always open.

JP:  And it sounds like always homey, as well --

RG:  Very homey.

JP:  Very heymish.

RG:  Very homey -- heymish.  Actually, it was so homey -- or heymish -- I didn't always know where I was sleeping on the weekends, because there was always so many guests.  (laughs) So guests always got the beds.  And it was a small house, so -- but it never seemed to be an issue.  It never seemed to be an issue.  We had -- upstairs was a dormer, and I shared a room with my sister, but sometimes we didn't know where we were sleeping.

JP:  Did that mean you would sleep on the floor, or you'd sleep at the neighbor's house or a friend's house?

RG:  No, on the floor!  On the floor.  There was never a problem.  On a couch, you know?  It just -- it was never an issue.  There was always enough food and always enough place to sleep.  Always.  And everyone was always welcome.

JP:  Wow.  That sounds wonderful.  Were there specific aspects of Jewish culture that were particularly important to you as a child or a young person?

RG:  Particular aspect of Jewish culture?

JP:  Um-hm -- with which you had a connection.

RG:  Um -- a ritual -- you know, it's a great question.  It's great because I'm having a hard time coming up with the answer.  Um -- no, I would say that I could not single out -- Jewish trad-- we -- it was -- Shabbos was Shabbos.  We lit candles.  Holidays -- I remember -- as children, I would love when my 32:00father actually took a chicken and shlog kapores [atonement ceremony performed the day before Yom Kippur, in which a chicken is spun around above one's head].  I mean, there were certain rituals, but not one particular thing that jumped out as different than anything else.  Not one thing.  Just everything.  Baking homent-- everything was part of who we were and what our life was like.

JP:  And it sounds like all had meaning to you.

RG:  And yet -- and yet, within that, we still -- being in upstate New York, we were still American kids growing up.  We went to football games.  I was on the cheerleading team.  I went to proms.  I mean, everything was very balanced.  33:00The American dream and never forgetting who you are.  My father always used to say to me, "Gedenk, mayn kind [Remember, my child] -- remember.  Farges nit -- don't forget."  And those words are always jumping out at me.  So I don't think there was ever a question that I would forget, or that I needed to be reminded.  It just seems to be who I am.  And I have to say, my entire extended family -- I have to say, my children, grandchildren, sisters, brother, nieces, and nephews.  My mother and father, in their wisdom, created a 34:00remarkable Jewish experience -- a remarkable, remarkable Jewish experience -- where each one of us not only feels that we must carry on this legacy, but we do it with passion and joy -- not an obligation.  And not that obligations are a bad thing, but it doesn't seem to be what I've seen in any of my family -- extended --

JP:  It's a level of personal passion and commitment.

RG:  And it's a level of -- I think that we were instilled with a very 35:00interesting spirit of survival, and what's important in who we are.  Grounded.  It was never a question.  That's why when you asked me that question, it's like, I can't come up with an answer.  I can tell you the first time in my life that I felt different than the little girl across the street who was an American.  It's not a pretty story.  I think I was four years old.  And remember I had mentioned we lived on First Street and then Washington Street -- well, this was Washington Street.  And I had a -- I didn't have a bicycle.  We waited for my mom to be able to collect some Green Stamps.  And then my 36:00brother and I got roller skates and we shared them, because they were the roller skates that you could make larger and smaller with a key.  And this little girl across the street, who happened to be Jewish -- who happened to be Jewish -- had a bicycle -- a tricycle.  And I went across the street and was playing with her.  And she got angry at me.  And she started to cry and went to get her mother.  And her mother came out, and her mother slapped me.  And I ran home crying to my mother.  And my mom went across the street and she said to this woman, "Don't ever slap my child.  If she needs to be disciplined, you tell me, 37:00and I will --"  And this very stupid woman -- who was Jewish -- said, "Hitler should have killed you like he killed the others."  And -- I remember my mom being in bed with headaches and cold compresses on her head.  And that was my first realization that I wasn't like everybody else, and that I was a child of Holocaust survivors.  Because I really didn't know what that meant, you know?  38:00So -- maybe that strengthened me.  It turned out that this little girl became a friend of mine, and we went to school, but my mom never talked to her mother -- 'cause we were in the same school, and there weren't many Jewish children.  But I have always felt -- and maybe the word is disconnect -- I've always felt a bit different -- not odd, but different -- than my American counterparts.  But it's not a bad different or a good different.  It's just different.

JP:  Right.

RG:  It's just different.

JP:  We've talked about different types of education that you got from family and community.  Are you able to also briefly tell me about the general 39:00education and the Jewish education you had in other settings?

RG:  My Jewish education was actually quite limited as far as the academic.  We didn't have day schools at that time.  My father was very knowledgeable and was able to daven really well.  My mother really wasn't as much of a believer as my father, but she went -- she wasn't quite the believer, but our home was kosher, and -- so, went to shul, and my father davened, and -- and I went to kheyder.  Not everybody can say it that way, "kheyder." (laughs)  And I didn't like it at all.  At all.  It was boring.  It was senseless to me.  And there 40:00wasn't anything that I found interesting.  I translated khumesh [Pentateuch].  I certainly knew how to read and write in Hebrew.  But it was boring.  And --

JP:  So it was in English and it was in Hebrew?

RG:  Yeah.  Well -- say that again?

JP:  It was in English and or Hebrew -- it wasn't in Yiddish at all --

RG:  No --

JP:  -- in your kheyder --

RG:  -- there was no Yiddish.  Oh no, no, no.  This was just an afternoon school -- no, no -- I had no formal Yiddish education until later.  Much later.  And so whatever I learned, I kind of learned.  I learned.  I would go to synagogue.  I learned how to daven a bit -- I didn't know what anything 41:00meant, but I certainly knew all the prayers, the liturgy.  And I liked it -- I liked that feeling.  I like chazonot [Hebrew: Jewish liturgical music].  I have a -- it brings -- it warms me.  It warms my heart.  So I really -- I really -- but as far as really a serious formal education, absolutely not.  It was more of a cultural -- I certainly knew how to keep kosher, I knew what to do on holidays, I knew -- I absorbed a lot in my life.  I went to college in 1966 and I went to the State University of New York at Stony Brook.  It was a small school.  Going to college was very, very important to my parents.  We really 42:00didn't have a lot of money, so all of us -- I'm one of four -- we went to state schools.  And my brother had already gone to Buffalo, and I didn't want to go to Buffalo, and I didn't want to go to Albany, and I didn't want to go to Binghamton, 'cause they didn't have the program, so Stony Brook was the school.  And it was actually the first time that I had been amongst so many Jewish students.  What did I have, like six, eight in my graduating class?  But I just felt Jewish being with them -- I didn't have to do a thing.  It was kind of, really, a neat -- you know. 

In 1968, I had an opportunity to go to Israel and take courses at Hebrew University.  And my Hebrew wasn't very good -- and it still is not very good.  43:00And my family in Israel couldn't really speak much English at that time.  So Yiddish became the language of communication.  And even though I had spoken Yiddish my whole life growing up, I didn't speak as much as I did listen, because I was teaching my parents English.  So they would speak to me in Yiddish, and I would answer in English.  Well, there was no way around it, so for a period of time in Israel, that's all I did, was speak Yiddish.  It was wonderful.  It was wonderful.  I'll tell you an experience.  It was the -- it was very exciting.  And they say, if you speak Yiddish, you can get along wherever you are.  And I've had great success in different countries speaking 44:00Yiddish.  So the first weekend I was in Israel, I was in Jerusalem, and my family lived -- the family I was going to visit the first weekend -- lived in Tel Aviv.  Well, I wanted to do just what all the other students, and get on a bus or hitchhike or whatever.  No, no, no, no, no.  I was coming to -- from America -- amerike -- and I had to -- I had to be picked up.  So they sent a sherut [Hebrew: shared taxi] to pick me up.  I get in this car -- sherut -- and the man starts speaking to me in Hebrew.  And I said, "Ani lo medaberet ivrit -- I don't speak, really, Hebrew."  He says, "Lo [Hebrew: No]?"  And I said, "Ikh red yidish [I speak Yiddish]."  And he turns around -- and I'm nineteen years old at this time -- nineteen, maybe twenty -- he turns around, and he 45:00said, "How does a young woman" -- and he speaks to me back in Yiddish -- "How does a young woman like you speak Yiddish?"  So I said, "Her zikh ayn [Listen to this].  Mayn tate iz motke, mayn mame iz yudis, un ikh hob gebor gevoyrn in daytshland nokh di milkhome [My father is Marvin, my mother is Judith, and I was born in Germany after the war].  My father is Marvin, and I was born after the war in Germany.  So, ikh red a sakh yidish -- mit mayne eltern, mayn mishpokhe [I speak a lot of Yiddish -- with my parents, my family], I speak."  So he said, "Dayn tate iz motke [Your father is Motke]?"  So I said, "Yes."  He said, "Vos iz dayn mishpokhe-nomen [What is your family name]?"  So I said, "Ginsburg."  He says, "Dayn tate iz motke ginzberg [Your father is Marvin 46:00Ginsburg]?"  "Yes, mayn tate iz motke [my father is Marvin]."  "Un dayn mame iz yudis [And your mother is Judith]?"  He survived the war with my father.  And he didn't know my father was alive.  I mean, they -- afterwards, they couldn't find each other.  And it was through me speaking Yiddish that I was able to connect them.  Had I not spoken Yiddish, the conversation would not have gone in that direction.  So it was a very joyous -- and then, of course, we continued to speak Yiddish. 

During the years when I was in college, I would go to the Lower East Side with my friends to shop.  For me, it was a great experience -- growing up in upstate New York, I didn't have, you know, Manhattan, or -- so I'd go to the Lower East 47:00Side, and -- people generally don't look at me and think I speak Yiddish.  And I would have a wonderful time handling a bisl in yidish [doing a little business in Yiddish].  And my friends would come with me.  And I'd say, let me take care of it.  And so Yiddish has always kind of been with me my whole life. 

I have a cousin in Israel, Rivka Basman Ben-Hayim, who is a Yiddish poet.  And in something she wrote, she said, "Yiddish is the mirror of my soul."  And I wrote that down.  It was actually -- she had been interviewed by "Hadassah Magazine," and I wrote that down on a piece of paper.  And I went, wow.  48:00That's really powerful.  I said, "That really tells it -- that -- those are the perfect words."  And that's how I kind of feel -- that it really is -- it's -- for me, not just a means of communication, but it's a way that I can truly, truly express how I feel.

I have to tell you a cute story.  I have five grandchildren, and -- almost six -- my son, David is going to be a dad.  One of my grandsons, Gabie -- he's going to be ten tomorrow.  I speak to them in Yiddish endearments.  So he must 49:00have been five or six years old -- four years old -- I would say, "Oy, Gabie, du binst a ziskayt -- you are such a sweet thing.  Oy, du binst a sheynkayt.  Oy, du binst a kulgkayt. [Oh, you are such a beautiful thing.  Oh, you are such a clever thing.]"  And I would say that to my grandchildren -- "Oy, sheynkayt, you know, oy, ziskayt, you know.  Mamele, vos makhtsu [Little one, how are you]?"  So one day -- and he was just little -- he turned around with his little finger, and he says, "No, bobe!  You a sheynkayt, and you a ziskayt, and you a klugkayt."  So the children started calling me "bobe sheynkayt," because I would always say that to them.  So the little bit of Yiddish that I can impart on my grandchildren and children I do, but --

JP:  What a lovely bobe name.

RG:  (laughs) It is, isn't it?  "Bobe sheynkayt." (laughs)  One of my grandchildren called me one morning.  "Bobe, how do you sing 'God Bless America' in Yiddish?"  And I'm singing it over the telephone to her on my way to the tennis courts.  And then I was driving in the car not too long ago.  "Bobe, teach us the 'Macarena' in Yiddish."  So it's for me a wonderful way to teach them certain numbers, verbs -- I mean, I teach them a lot of verbs through song, and whatever.  They're going to have to study it later on if they really want to learn it, because they're all learning Hebrew, also, and it's sometimes a lot.  But they're always interested in some of my antics -- my Yiddish antics.

JP:  We discussed before how you grew up speaking some Yiddish and -- you know, 51:00with fluent comprehension, but not with the reading and the writing.  How did you learn to read and write, and then to become a teacher in -- at Binghamton University, at Florida Atlantic University, I mean --

RG:  It's a great story.  So let's fast-forward a little bit.  I graduated college.  I got married.  I --

JP:  And you graduated with education degrees?

RG:  Education degree.  Sociology, and I did graduate work in education.  There was nothing Yiddish about my education.  But I had my -- and I was teaching -- permanent certification, and teaching, and my husband was going to law school at night.  And we were both teaching during the day.  And then the family -- I had one child, and I was living in Queens -- my daughter Tema was 52:00born, and then my daughter Rachel was born.  And in 1975, I went to -- I moved to Binghamton, New York, because that's where my husband got a law job.  He had finished law school and very grateful to find a job at that time.  But we were both -- you know, we weren't terribly worried.  We were both educators, and he was teaching in a high school -- he was teaching math.  But we were always going to school.  I was going -- always going to school -- weekends, nights -- to get our degrees, while having children.  When I arrived in Binghamton in 1975, I guess my reputation kind of followed me, and they knew that I was -- let's say, knowledgeable in Jewish Studies, and a teacher.  And I was asked to 53:00take over the Hebrew school of a Reform synagogue.  I said, "Well, I'm a teacher, but I've never been a principal, and I don't even really know Hebrew that well, and I don't think I've ever been in a Reform synagogue."  But I said I would try it.  And I did that for a number of years and ran their school.  During that time, I was approached to come on campus and start studying Yiddish -- there were courses at the university.  And my children were young, my husband was starting a career, and I just didn't want to go back into the classroom.  I needed to -- I was working a bit, and I just didn't want to -- and maybe I was a bit frightened to go back into the classroom.

JP:  Someone approached you to be a --

RG:  Yes.

JP:  -- student in these classes?

RG:  Well, someone approached me to study with them to maybe take over this 54:00program that they -- I said, "It's not my time."  It just wasn't my time.  I was too young, and children, and as I said, I was running a school, and -- my fam-- and I wanted to have more children, the family was growing, and I was overwhelmed by the offer, and I said, "It's just not my time."  And when they say that timing is everything is life, I don't know, maybe now I think back, maybe it was my time, but I chose not to.  But I did some very interesting things through the years.  I studied to be a mediator.  I taught a course at the university, of Jewish history through food.  I was a Hillel director.  I did a lot.  So fast-forward, I was approached again.  And the head of the Jewish Studies department at the university approached me -- and I had been 55:00teaching already, a Jewish history course through food -- I was teaching students how to prepare foods of different regions of the world -- it was a great course.  And the head of the department asked me if in two years, would I be ready to take over and -- take over the Yiddish program.  It was a healthy Yiddish program at the university.  There were maybe a hundred students, maybe eighty students.  There was a wonderful professor, may he rest in peace, Joseph Weinstein.  And I said, "Sure.  Sure."  And then I realized, what did I say sure to?  I can speak this language, but I don't really, really know an 56:00academic version of this language.  So I began a mentor and studies program for two years -- because I couldn't leave Binghamton, I had young children -- and Columbia had a program, of course Vilnius had a program -- I mean, there were programs, but I just couldn't leave -- I was a mom.  And for two years, I studied -- every day, for six, eight hours -- and sat in on every Yiddish class.  And it was less than two years, because Professor Weinstein, who was going to retire, became ill, and passed away.  And I needed to jump in.  But I was ready.  The interesting thing is the experience of my childhood was reversed.  When I was young, I was trying to teach my parents how to speak 57:00English and read English -- although my father never did so well with that -- my mother did much, much better, because my father was in a business where he was always speaking Polish or Russian -- a cattle dealer out -- and then the experience shifted.  And my mother and father started teaching me.  And they were not scholarly, but they wrote and they read Yiddish.  And I would sit with my father, and I would read the "Forverts," the Yiddish newspaper, which I used to only listen to -- he used to read it to me -- but now, I'm studying it and I'm reading it to him.  And I'm reading poetry, and Sholem Aleichem.  And for two years.  So on some levels, I'm completely self-taught.  And I became proficient enough -- and more so -- to take over a Yiddish program.  And I grew 58:00the Yiddish program to well over a hundred students, teaching five different levels of Yiddish.

JP:  Wow.  And I read that it became one of the bigger programs?

RG:  Actually, it was the largest Yiddish program at the time.

JP:  Wow.  And what time is that?

RG:  We're talking about the -- up to -- I left Binghamton in '04, so it was -- '98, '99, into '04.  And I grew it into the largest Yiddish program, really, in the world.

JP:  And you were teaching yourself five letters (sic) --

RG:  I was the only one.

JP:  -- levels.

RG:  I was teaching -- well, yeah.  I had 101 -- I'm just giving you numbers -- 102, 301, and I was teaching independent study, and there were some graduate 59:00students that were History -- Eastern European History -- and they would work with me for translations and whatever.  And I did that.  And then I came here and taught here.  So -- but -- those years gave me so much happiness and joy.  Because I embraced Yiddish -- teaching Yiddish -- not only as an academic language, but a language of love and culture.  And there wasn't a da-- a class that I didn't teach a song that went with the grammar, or a recipe -- there was always something of real life brought into the classroom.  It was not straight -- and my students rewarded me with so much love for the language.  And that 60:00was my reward.  I wasn't quite as interested whether they got 100 on every test -- although they did, because I was a good teacher.  I was a fair, good teacher.

JP:  So what was important to you that they took from it?

RG:  A love of the culture.  A love of Yiddishkayt.  I still get e-mails from my students on certain recipes that I taught them, songs they sing.  It was -- it was pure love that they -- and just a love of language and culture.  That's what they took from me.  I really made it a mame-loshn -- a mother tongue.  And on some levels, maybe I was their mama away from home.  I have hundreds of 61:00letters and -- from parents thanking me -- thanking me for what I gave their children.  And I have to tell you, they weren't all Jewish children.  They were, mostly.  But I had students that were Irish, students that were German, and -- students that were considering converting.

JP:  Was that experience different -- teaching non-Jews who were interested in Yiddish, or Jewish culture?

RG:  Was it different?  Um -- it was actually fabulous.  It kept me on my toes.  I made no assumptions.  Sometimes, when you teach Jewish students, you make an assumption that they're gonna get it, because you think they should.  I 62:00made no assumptions.  I learned very quickly that whether you came from a yeshiva background or you came from an Irish home, you had to learn the alef-beys [Hebrew alphabet] and the Yiddish alphabet exactly the same, even though if you came from the yeshiva you knew the alphabet already.  There was -- some of my finest students were non-Jewish students.  And I never took anything for granted -- that a student understood.  And my approach was completely -- when I say completely, being at a university, you need to work very hard that it becomes an academic, cultural approach.  Many of my students would go to the Chabad House afterwards and practice their Yiddish, but that was not my goal.  One student -- I asked him why -- I always ask the students, I 63:00have them fill out a questionnaire -- why do you want to study Yiddish?  Sometimes, it would be, my grandparents.  Sometimes it would be, I heard it's a sexy language on campus.  That was -- sexy, meaning the in thing to study.  One student said, I want to go on to medical school and I want to work with people that are Yiddish speakers and I want to understand them.  There were all different reasons why students studied.  So I got a little information on who they were, and it really wasn't all about the bobe-zeyde [grandparents] -- it was being in touch with the culture, learning more about the culture, and it really came through that that's really -- I'm not a scholar of religion, so 64:00there was no -- but you can't -- I mean, you can't teach Yiddish completely -- I mean, the basis of Yiddish is some Hebrew, so you can't eliminate it, but -- when it was St. Patrick's Day, I taught them to sing "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" -- that song, in Yiddish.  Now, here's an assumption I made.  So I have Irish students in the class, and I think, Oh, you know?  It's St. Patrick's Day, so this is what we're going to do today.  We're going to learn that song.  They had never heard "When Irish Eyes --" (laughs) -- so that was an assumption.  And then -- (laughs) -- and then once I brought in the -- I think these are funny stories -- once I brought in -- somebody sent me the -- "Yiddish with Dick and Jane."  Have you ever seen that?

JP:  Yes.

RG:  It's a silly little book, but it's very cute.  So I brought it in -- one of my students had given it to me as a gift -- I brought it in, and I'm showing 65:00them Yiddish is alive and well, and look at the -- and I'm reading it to them, and they're looking at me -- I'm assuming they know who Dick and Jane are, but they never heard of Dick and Jane.  So sometimes you do make assumptions when you teach.  But actually, as an academic, I never made assumptions, because there were Jewish students that never celebrated, never knew any type of Jewish ritual.

JP:  And where did you get your materials from?  Were there resources, or did you have to make them for yourself?

RG:  The actual --

JP:  The teaching materials.

RG:  That I -- what I used to teach?

JP:  Yes.

RG:  I enjoyed using Sheva Zucker's book.  The Weinreich book, to me, was just a little dry, even though I studied out of it.  I didn't have that many resources, but I never used a book as my only way of teaching.  I used many 66:00different sources.  But I felt that Sheva Zucker's book -- "Yiddish Language and Culture," I think, or what was it ca-- was student-friendly.  I didn't always enjoy the sequence of the chapters, but that's irrelevant.  I was able to -- and I would pull sources out of other books.  So -- but that was the text that my students actually used.  But we would jump, and I would always have additional music, or whatever.

JP:  Right.  And I also know that you've given presentations for different groups, like Hadassah or the Jewish Women's Council.  And the rough title of 67:00your talk is usually "The Joys of Yiddish Language and Culture."

RG:  That's just one topic that -- that's one.  And that's my favorite. (laughs)

JP:  And I mean -- it's been described as lively, informative, humorous, interactive.  What do you include in your presentation?  What's important to communicate to your audience?

RG:  Well, I just did one on -- I think that one of the things that's important, really, a little bit of the history of the language -- there are so many people that really are not informed or educated on how this language formed.  And if you study the history of the language, you're actually studying the history of a Jewish people in a part of the world -- in Eastern Europe.  They have really only been exposed to transliterated Yiddish, and some don't 68:00even realize that Yiddish is the Hebrew letters -- it's a different vowel structure.  So part of my presentation -- and it's just a small part, because they're not there to -- I mean, I'm not presenting to a university at this point -- and I've presented to universities, where I want to be more academic and technical.  So I just give them a very interesting overview of the history of the language.  I give them one little sentence -- it's a really great sentence -- "Di bobe est tsholnt af shabes -- the grandmother eats tsholnt [cholent] -- the food tsholnt -- on the Sabbath."  And I dissect this little sentence.  And in that, they learn the word "bobe," because they hadn't -- they know that word.  Bubbie, bobe, comes from the "Bove-bukh" -- it's thirteenth-century 69:00Slavic.  "Est" -- most people know that -- that's German.  "Tsholnt" -- they know what it is, but what does the word mean?  It's a French word.  And, of course, "af shabes" is the Sabbath.  And there's -- you've got your Hebrew.  I give them some examples of just simple sentences, and you see the influence of the languages.  So that's kind of -- you know.  And I talk a little bit about me -- a very little bit.  They're very interested in, why is this woman so passionate about what she does?  And then, I kind of switch -- there's this serious -- there's a seriousness to my beginning.  And then, I talk about the culture, the beauty -- everything sounds better in Yiddish -- the humor -- and 70:00I'll even tell a lovely joke -- all in Yiddish, but translated, because not everybody that I speak to speaks Yiddish.  And it's very humorous.  I talk about Yiddish and American culture.  How -- and is this good?  And what different professors -- Ruth Wisse, how she feels about it, and Dovid Katz -- the future of Yi-- so I bring in music, I bring in proverbs, I bring in what we call "kloles" -- the "kloles" are the "swear," you know?  And the character types -- how Isaac Bashevis Singer used to write -- not write in Yiddish, and now he writes in Yiddish, becau-- or did write -- started to write in Yiddish, because Yiddish is so much more flavorful.  You can say "crazy" in twenty-two different ways.  And I give examples.  And also, the phonetic ability that the 71:00Yiddish language has -- the words that evoke a feeling and humor -- you know, the shmagegis -- with the sounds of the words, so I spend a little time on the sounds, and even talk about, like, "Laverne & Shirley," shlemiel, shlimazl -- they used to sing going to the brewery.  And I bring them -- usually, my audience -- and my audience are very -- it's always different -- but I bring them back into time.  They realize they know more than they thought they did.  And they now see how much and how many words that we read every day are part of the English lang-- or how much Yiddish is in English.  There are so many areas I touch on.  And it depends on my audience -- sometimes, if they want to know 72:00about what's going on in Israel with the Yiddish language, what I think the future of the language.  I will talk about the universities, the Yiddish Book Center.  I always talk about that.  And I always talk about, you know, that they should read "Outwitting History."  I talk about Florida Atlantic, where we have all the music.  I mean, I bring in, in my presentation, many aspects.  And I end always, why should we study Yiddish?  And I give them all the most wonderful reasons.

JP:  And are there any reasons you wanted to add to what you shared before?

RG:  Well, it's the window of a magnificent culture.  It makes me laugh louder and cry with more tears.  It's -- I've mentioned a few times -- it's one of the 73:00best ways to defy Hitler's Final Solution.  It brings sacred texts to real life.  We bentsh likht [bless the candles] -- things that we can touch.  You pray to God in Yiddish, God becomes your partner.  And I give them examples of "Fiddler on the Roof," Tevye -- he speaks to God in Yiddish.  God is his partner.  "Oy, God, you're always talking."  I speak a little bit about, also, the -- the Yiddish language was formed on not only the Jewish experience, but also what Jews value.  And I use certain words like "nakhes [joy]," "alevay [if only]" -- you know, certain words -- "khas-vekholile [God forbid]" -- how we 74:00feel about "olev-asholem [rest in peace]" -- even though it's Hebrew, but how we feel about honoring the dead, how we feel about honoring our children, or loving, and shepn nakhes [feeling pride].  So there's a lot of different, kind of, things that touch upon.  But that's just one subject I talk about.  But that's my -- speak on, you know, Jewish resistance.  I have a wonderful presentation on the history of Jewish food.  And I taught a course at the university, and I consolidated it into a presentation.  I do music -- even though I cannot sing, but I know a tremendous amount of Jewish music -- and come with music and song books for -- whatever I can do to make them love Yiddish, I do.  I'll even dance. (laughs)

JP:  The full gamut.

RG:  (laughs) Yeah.  Sometimes, they call me a comedienne, and I'm not really 75:00that funny, but I make it -- my goal is wanting them to love it.  And I try to give them some tools on how to carry it on with their children and grandchildren.  Simple things.

JP:  And what are some of those tools?

RG:  Well, one of them is -- when they interact, to use Yiddish words.  It's very simple.  For me, music is a very big -- big tool.  There are wonderful children's CDs.  Actually, some of them I use that come from Montreal, from some of the day schools.  (singing) "A yingele, meydele, meydele [A little boy, little girl, little girl] --"  I teach them some songs.  And I think that for young children, that's a great way.  I believe that part of Yiddishkayt is the 76:00language, but to make it real sometimes, it's even bringing in smells and -- of foods, and food preparation, and recipes, and to do it in Yiddish.  There's so many different ways to do that.  And I encourage them to go online and -- there's so much Yiddish, you know?  They can download a dictionary so easily online -- they don't have to go to the store and buy one.  And I encourage them to be members of the Yiddish Book Center, and they can get "PaknTreger" and they can read all about what's going on in the world of Yiddish.  I think that that's what I try to do -- encourage them in different ways.  And I think I do, somewhat.  I think I make a difference.

JP:  It sounds like it.

RG:  I know I do.

JP:  And you mentioned before, you talk about what you see as the future of Yiddish.  What do you see as the future of Yiddish?

RG:  I've been asked that by my audience -- people in my audience.  And sometimes I answer it with -- I start with a song, and the song is "Vos geven iz geven, un nito," and it means, "What once was, is not."  But I said, the future of Yiddish is, Yiddish is alive and well.  It's one of the -- it's so academically respected at universities.  It's the real window to the history and the culture of the Jewish people.  And it's only through Yiddish that you're going to know exactly what the Jews felt like, how they interacted with 78:00their children, how they interacted with their neighbors, how they earned a living -- it's through the -- it's through understanding and knowing the language.  I said, do I expect that all the children in Boca Raton are going to run around and speak Yiddish?  No, I really don't expect that's going to happen.  But I do believe that the language will outwit history, and that it will just be different.  There is a difference.  And different is okay.  I think if Yiddish has survived thus far -- it tells a story of a survival of a people, I mean -- Hitler, you know, certainly killed six million.  Russia wasn't too kind to Yiddish -- all the Yiddish books were burned in Russia.  79:00Israel wasn't kind to Yiddish, when the survivors came to Israel.  And assimilation hasn't been so kind, either.  But yet, Yiddish has survived.  It just sometimes goes through some growing pains.  So I think the future of Yiddish is wonderful.  But we need to accept that it is wonderful and different, and if we don't, then we won't be happy.

JP:  Wow.  How beautifully said.  You mentioned that you still actively speak Yiddish.  With whom do you speak Yiddish now?

RG:  Ikh red yidish yedn tog tsu mayne khaveyrim, tsu mayn mishpokhe.  Ven ikh shpil tenis, ikh shpil tenis in yidish. [I speak Yiddish every day to my 80:00friends, to my family.  When I play tennis, I play tennis in Yiddish.] (laughs)

JP:  Wow.

RG:  My friends -- I'm a tennis player, and my friends say, "Oh, you're speaking Yiddish again."  There's a wonderful little Yiddish story about an immigrant who comes to the United States, and his son takes him to watch a tennis game, and he describes the whole thing in Yiddish.  So I can be a little bit Yiddish silly.  So I'm always sought out by people to speak Yiddish to them.  I speak a clear Yiddish, because I taught Yiddish, and I speak a stand-- a Litvak Yiddish -- and it's standard, and it's clear, so those that are not wonderful Yiddish speakers can understand me, usually, because I speak slow.  So wherever I am, I speak Yiddish.  Ikh red yidish yedn tog.  Un eyb eymetser 81:00iz nit do tsu hern mir ikh red tsu zikh aleyn. [I speak Yiddish every day.  And if someone isn't around to listen to me, I speak to myself.]  You understand that? (laughs)

JP:  Far vos nisht [Why not]? (laughter) I feel like you're bringing, sort of, the color commentary of tennis to an additional colorful commentary level with Yiddish.

RG:  (laughs) Yeah.  Yeah.  Listen, if Laverne and Shirley went to the brewery to work and could sing "Schlemiel and Schlimazl," I can use it on the tennis courts.

JP:  Avade [Of course]. (laughs)

RG:  Avade.  "Take [Really]" and "avade."  I used to tell my students, If you know a few Yiddish words, then you can speak Yiddish -- "avade" being one of them, "take" another one of them.  I am always sought out to speak Yiddish, so I do at any opportunity I have.  And I don't lecture in Yiddish, but when I do, I bring as much Yiddish into it as my audience can handle -- and then, of 82:00course, always translate.

JP:  On that note, do you have a favorite Yiddish word or phrase or song that you want to share?

RG:  (laughs) I know you ask students that.  I was once online -- (laughs) -- at the Yiddish Book Center and you asked students that, and they -- it was very adorable, because they were just studying Yiddish.  So I anticipated you might be asking me this question.  (laughs) I was like, what am I going to say?  I love everything.  (pause) I don't.  I don't.  I don't have a favorite.  I just hob lib yidish [love Yiddish].

JP:  Di gantse shprakh [The whole language].

RG:  Di gantse shprakh.

JP:  Yo, ikh veys [Yes, I know].

RG:  S'iz a gefil far mir [It's a feeling for me], so I don't have one -- I mean, I love the sound of certain words like "paskudnyak [scoundrel]" -- I think 83:00that sounds great. (laughs)

JP:  Un vos iz dos [And what is that]?

RG:  (laughs) You don't know what a "paskudnyak" is?

JP:  No, I don't.

RG:  Actually, I think it's Russian.  It means a "scoundrel."  If you call somebody a "paskudnyak," it comes from inside of you.  It's -- it's really describing a very bad person.  And I just like the sound of it, because when you're -- call someone that, it really, really, really means a lot.  And it makes you feel better.  But it's not my favorite word. (laughs)  It's just a word that just sounds good. (laughs)  And people love the sound of it.

JP:  It definitely has a --

RG:  And they love the sound --

JP:  It does have a good ring to it.

RG:  They love the sound of Yiddish words.  All these comedians, they love the sound of Yiddish words.  They don't even know what they're saying, they love the sounds of Yiddish words.

JP:  Well, I also just want to ask, what advice do you have for future 84:00generations, whether it's about identity or language or transmission?

RG:  I don't think -- I think -- I don't think, I think -- I don't think that we should ever let something wonderful go away.  (pause) I don't think we need to reinvent wheels.  I think we just need to fix them a little bit.  And something as wonderful as a language that tells a history of a peoplehood -- a peoplehood of survival -- that grew -- the oyses [letters] in each one, and that song, "Oyfn pripetshik [By the hearth]" -- the song talks about the tears -- 85:00that the letters were formed with tears and hard work.  I think my advice is to hold onto that and to value it -- and to bring it into their lives in any way they can.  I think that if you know the language, you can become a master of words, because there are so many ways to talk about feelings, and so many different ways to express the love you have -- just by the diminutives and the 86:00imminutives of the language, you know?  You talk about a "glezele tey" or a "mamele [dear one, lit. "mommy"]" or a "kepele [little head]" and -- it just is so endearing.  And when I hear it -- when I hear someone call me "mamele" or "mayn kind [my child]," it just warms my heart.  It warms my heart.  So I would hope that the next generation will continue to have their hearts warmed the way mine has been by it.  You know, I have three children.  And I've gotten smarter as I've gotten older.  My husband was not a Yiddish speaker, although his family did speak Yiddish -- his parents did.  And I didn't really 87:00understand the value of having a bilingual household at that time -- I was too busy studying and raising children and maybe struggling a little bit, you know?  So even though I always sang to my children in Yiddish -- and when all my grandchildren were born, they went to sleep with all the Yiddish lullabies -- I didn't teach them.  But somehow, even though I didn't teach them how to speak Yiddish, they've absorbed the beauty of the culture and the beauty of the language also -- just -- I call it the osmosis.  And I think they are raising 88:00their children to appreciate that beauty.  So my recommendation is to hold on -- hold on to what's good, and just make it better.

JP:  What beautiful words to end with.

RG:  Thank you.

JP:  So, Riva, I want to thank you personally for sharing your stories and reflections with me.  I also want to thank you on behalf of the Yiddish Book Center for participating in the Wexler Oral History Project.

RG:  It's actually a gift to me, so thank you.

JP:  A sheynem dank [Thank you very much].

RG:  Nishto farvos [You're welcome]. 

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

RG:  During our interview, I spoke a bit about my parents both being in the underground -- my mother in a Jewish resistance group, Bielski, my father in a Russian.  And someone went back to the forest -- the Novogrodnik Forest -- 89:00and actually found pictures of the bunkers.  And, you know, it's hard to really imagine what underground really means, but if you look at this picture, you can see that it was truly underground. (pause) 

And I spent a lot of time talking about my family -- my mother and my father.  My father passed away seven years ago.  But here are three pictures of him at various stages in his life.  This is my father as a young man.  And then, a bit older.  And this is one -- I think was taken when we were in the DP camp.  And this picture -- I'm almost positive -- was on his passport, citizenship papers coming to America in 1949.  He was quite adorable -- really, with 90:00beautiful, sparkling, blue eyes.  And I miss him.

So I also mentioned that I was born in Fernwald, and Fernwald was very close to Munich -- I don't know if I mentioned that.  And my family came to the United States in 1949, September.  And the family that came was an aunt and an uncle -- and -- my tante Leyke and my uncle Sholem -- and both of them are deceased.  My cousin Yudl -- he became Jack.  "Leyke" became "Leah."  And Sholem became -- I think stayed Sholem.

JP:  (laughs)

RG:  My zeyde [grandfather], Shloyme, who passed away about five years after we 91:00were in the United States.  My father, Motke, looking quite handsome and dapper in his suit.  And my father "Motke" became "Marvin."  My mother "Yudis" -- Yudiske -- became "Judith."  My brother "Chaim" became "Howard."  And that's me.  And I kind of stayed the same.  It was Rivke Riva when I came to the United States -- they kind of kept the name.

JP:  And what's on the back?

RG:  You know, it's nothing.  It's just -- actually, the picture was glued onto something.  I don't know if you -- if you took a picture of this one -- on the back of this one with my father.  But remember I mentioned that they used to have the yortsayts every year -- of the -- and -- so this is a picture, 92:00actually, of that.

JP:  Of a yortsayt celebr--

RG:  Yeah, one of the yortsayts.

JP:  -- celebra-- or a commemoration in Brooklyn.

RG:  Yes.  Yes.  I also think I mentioned that my mother was the only survivor of her family.  And um -- this is a picture of her family.  And my mother is the baby.  And sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles.  And she's the only survivor of this family.  And it was a large, beautiful, beautiful family.  All of these pictures are -- in I think it's -- in Yad Vashem -- and we've also -- in the Holocaust Museum in Washington.  All these pictures have been sent and identified.  And just recently, the Jewish Museum in Miami took most of my 93:00pictures and scanned them for their archives.

JP:  And how did you get so many pictures of family?

RG:  Different families, different people who emigrated to Chile -- we had family in Chile, we had family in Argentina, family in Puerto Rico, in Israel.  And pictures started just coming from different places.

JP:  Because you requested them?

RG:  Because people found each other, and we were able to get pictures.

JP:  After the war?

RG:  After the war.  After the war.

JP:  Reconnected?

RG:  Yes.  Yes.

JP:  Wow.

RG:  This is a picture of my father's family -- of course, before the war.  So this is my bobe, and I am named after her -- Rivke.  That's my zeyde, Shloyme 94:00-- he survived, and he came to the United States, as I mentioned, and passed away.  This is my tante Freydke -- we used to call her "Freyde-gitl."  She actually immigrated first to Israel and then came to the United States, and then went back to Israel and came back.  And she passed away a couple of years ago.  Actually, there's no one in this picture that's alive anymore.  This is my tante Dvore -- or Dverke.  She emigrated to Israel before Hitler.  This was the oldest sister.  The handsome one in the middle is my father.  My Tante Leyke.  And this is my uncle Tshalke.  And he and my father were together in the underground, and both of them together blew up twenty-two German trains.  And they were heroes.  And they were awarded hero medals.

JP:  Who awarded them hero medals?

RG:  The Russians.  (pause) And this is one of my favorite pictures.  This is my brother Chaim, Howard, and myself, in Fernwald.  And this is right before we came to America.

JP:  And who would have taken that photo of you?

RG:  You know what, I don't know.  I really don't know.  I should ask my mother that.  I don't know.  I just think it's a great picture.

JP:  It's beautiful.  Were you always that well dressed in the --

RG:  Well, no. (laughs)  I don't know, maybe they -- maybe they rented the clothes for the pictures.  You know, life in the DP camps were not -- you know, was not good.  It was -- you know.  But maybe that was the one thing they were 96:00able to buy before I came to America.

JP:  And do you know how old you were there, or what year that might have been?

RG:  Um, about eighteen months.  Eighteen, nineteen months.  But yes, we do look like two well-to-do children.  Actually, if you look at the pictures of survivors in the DP camps, they were able to start building their lives, and they started gaining some weight and were able to get some clothes.  And by the time they came to the United States, they actually were able to, let's say, rehabilitate their bodies and some of their spirits, and get their bodies working again.  And that's why so many children were born in the DP camps, because people needed to begin to feel like life would go on.  And I think I 97:00did mention my -- Fernwald was a very large DP camp, and my brother was the first Jewish child born there.

JP:  Wow.  And did you want to show either of your two tribute books on camera?

RG:  My students' tribute books?

JP:  Yeah.  The ones that are just hiding over there.  Careful of the microphone. (laughs)

RG:  Uh-oh.

JP:  Sorry.  I didn't know if you could reach under.  Okay.

RG:  Okay. (pause)

JP:  If you wanted to.

RG:  Yeah, I'd love to.  I'm very proud of them, actually.

JP:  Yeah, I know.  As you should be.

RG:  I'm very proud.  I'm very proud of my students.

JP:  There we go.  Perfect.

RG:  You know, Jessica was kind enough to let me talk a little bit about my teaching, which was my passion -- and it gave me more pleasure, I'm sure, than I gave my students.  But I tried to make every single day a happy day in the 98:00classroom.  And my goal was to have my students love the language.  And I knew that they would leave me at one point, and I was hopeful that they would go on and even study further.  I actually wrote a number of recommendations for students to come to the Center.  And one of my students did go further and go to Germany to study Yiddish.  But -- so one of the things that my students did is, they took all the children's songs that they grew up with -- like "The Hokey Pokey" and "The Wheels on the Bus" and "The Eensy Beensy Spider" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb" -- and they made me this book.  "Yidishe lider far kinder [Yiddish 99:00songs for children]."  And actually, if you look at the pictures, these are my grandchildren.  So the songs that they -- and dedicated to me.  Some of the songs --

JP:  Do you want to read the dedication?

RG:  Well -- (laughs) -- well I'll just say, "Tsu mayn tayere lererin, a sheynem dank far derhaltn fun di yidishe loshn un muzik in bingamton un far alts du tust far dayne studenten][To my dear teacher, thank you very for keeping Yiddish language and music alive in Binghamton and for all you do for your students]."  So that was the best gift they could have given me.  But some of the songs -- "The Hokey Pokey," "Where Is Thumbkin?" -- "A vu iz grober?" -- you know, there's no word for thumb in Yiddish.  (singing) "[A vu iz grober, a vu iz grober?  Ikh bin do, ikh bin do.  Vos makhst a haynt?  Zeyer fayn, a 100:00dank.  Loyf avek. [Where is thumbkin, where is thumbkin?  I am here, I am here.  How is the hand?  Very well, thanks.  Run away.]" So they did that.  It was kind of cute.  (laughs) I love this one.  "Are You Happy And You Know It?  Clap Your Hands!"  "Bistu freylekh un du kenst es?" -- if you're happy.  And the interesting thing, to transpose a song into Yiddish from English, it's not just finding the right word, but it has to kind of go along with the beat and the rhyming and the rhythm and whatever.  I'm not a musician, but I know it's not that easy.

JP:  So did you transpose these yourself?

RG:  The students did.

JP:  The students did.

RG:  With me -- well, I mean, with me working with them at times, but most -- um -- remember that song, (singing) "How much is that doggy in the window? -- Vifl iz dos hintl?"  That was one.  Oh.  "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and 101:00Toes."  So it's, "Kop, akslen, kni, un fis."  So that was one of them.  "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round."  And this is, "Di reder oyfn bus" and if you notice, everything is in Yiddish -- there's no transliteration here.

JP:  And they're typing in Yiddish.

RG:  And they're typing in Yiddish.  They're typing in Yiddish.  "Mashe hot a kleyne lam."  Do you know what that is?  "Mashe hot a kleyne lam"?

JP:  "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

RG:  Yeah.  Do you know this one?  "Di kleyne, kleyne shpinele."

JP:  "The Itsy Bitsy Spider"?

RG:  You got it.  (laughs) (singing) "Di kleyne, kleyne shpinele."  Let me tell you, it's not so easy to do this.  And of course, the "Bulbes [Potatoes]" song.  I mean, we had to put that in.  Because my students loved the "Bulbes" song -- even though that's in Yiddish, and I -- and we decided that we needed to 102:00add just a couple of the favorite Yiddish songs.  And then another thing the students did -- and bound it -- and these pictures are all of my students -- they actually wrote a magazine.  A magazine -- a journal?  A magazine.  And every single student had to -- whether they had to critique a movie or write an article or go to a basketball game and describe the game -- so -- this is actually -- the first one is "Televizhye mamesh [Reality TV]," and "Lomir geyn 103:00forn [Let's go on a trip]" -- so this Ariella Duker, who was a TA of mine, she actually talked about going and shopping for shoes in the outlets.  I mean, it had to be something -- here is a -- "Di mizerab" -- so it was the "Les Mis."  So there was another gift that they did for me together.  And of course, they'd start the article, and I would help them with some corrections, and they'd go back and -- you know, and we wanted it to be somewhat grammatically correct, but there's a very interesting creative approach to doing this.  And they were able to express themselves about modern-day life.  You know, one went to the Bearcat -- I think Binghamton had a -- the basketball team was called the Bearcats, so 104:00they went and they actually did a sports thing.  And that's just a little bit.

JP:  Beautiful.  What a tribute.

RG:  Well, thank you.

JP:  Thank you for sharing.

[END OF INTERVIEW]