MITCHELL WAIFE ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY:This is Christa Whitney, and today is March 13th, 2013.  I'm here in -- what city are we in?

MITCHELL WAIFE: (laughs) Lantana, Florida.

CW:  Lantana, Florida.  (laughs) With Mitchell Waife.  And we're going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project.  Do I have your permission to record this interview?

MW:  You certainly do.

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

MW:  Ooh, you're doing good!

CW:  (laughs) So I hear you have a famous grandfather?

MW:  They tell me, yes.

CW:  Who is that?

MW:  His pen name was Sholem Aleichem.  And he was probably the foremost 1:00Yiddish writer of all time -- and was considered that even when he was alive, which is unusual for writers.  But he died quite young, at fifty-seven.  And he was a pretty sick man most of his life.  But he developed a very big following, in this country and other countries.  And the family was always on the move, because there was, number one, the change in the Russian government's attitude towards Jews at that time -- it depended on who was the tsar and who was the commissioners and so on.  So they lived in different cities in 2:00Russia.  And then, as the war began -- World War I began --

CW:  Oh.  I have to interrupt you for one minute.  Sorry.  Looks like --

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CW:  So you were telling me that Sholem Aleichem was famous, even in his lifetime.

MW:  More famous in his lifetime than afterward, because he was one of the few recognized writers of the time.  And his specialty was folk literature, meaning that he represented the people.  And he had a very soft heart for what they used to call the proletariat -- in other words, people who were not successful, were not rich, and so on.  And he spent a great deal of his time following them.  And there are a lot of people who came up into his life that we didn't 3:00even know about until many years later.  For example, the young Marc Chagall -- right, Marc Chagall?

CW:  The artist.

MW:  The artist -- was very active in his local community, and he really wanted Sholem Aleichem's approval.  So I mean, that was the sort of life they had.

CW:  And they traveled a lot, right?

MW:  And they were incessant travelers.  First of all, he also had to make money.  And like all authors, even publishing was -- was not even an industry at that time, so they couldn't make money that way.  But the source of funds were meetings and lectures.  And he would talk, and would read his stories, and people would feel very good about it.  And that was the way they lived.  And 4:00they traveled with a large group of people.  There were six children and a mother-in-law and a few other people.

CW:  And they all went on the book tours?

MW:  And they all went on the tours.  And the reason for that was that they had to get out of the country, because it was too dangerous for them to stay.  Because anybody who became famous or had some foreign recognition was a source of funds for the dynasty -- the czar.  And also, they couldn't show their own abilities, because they were always on the defensive.  So they traveled intensely.  So the interesting part of his life, to me, was at the very end -- 5:00because part of it was in America, part of it was in Russia and in Europe -- and he just became famous at that time, so -- before World War I began, there was a lot of movement with people going from community to community, and they were in Copenhagen -- which was a neutral country -- and then they went -- because he had TB on and off in his mature life, and they always -- always gave him the wrong treatment.  If it had to be warm climate, they gave him cold climate.  If it was supposed to be cold, they gave him warm climate.  So he was always 6:00sick.  No one knew what to do.  And so they got -- finally got to -- they found a place in Germany where there was a sanitarium that specialized in that group, and other authors had lived there -- Thomas Mann, a few others.  And he enjoyed that kind of life.  And he thought he was being helped -- which he wasn't, but that was true of everybody, practically, at that time.  So they were in Germany, at Baden-Baden, which is famous as a spa.  And Russia declared war on Germany -- or Germany declared war on Russia, I don't know.  I think 7:00they declared war on each other.  So they had to get out.  They had to get out in a hurry.  So they found people who had connections in America who would provide funds for him.  And they included some bankers like Jacob Schiff, who was a very famous Jewish banker at that time, and others who didn't even know him or didn't even understand what he was doing, but they told him it was very important for literature and for the Jewish people.  So they worked very hard to get the community to support him, and they did that.  So they first went to Copenhagen, where part of the family had settled, and then from there, they were put on a boat to the United States.  And then they arrived -- I don't know if 8:00-- I forget the exact date, but it was -- well, the war started in 1914, so it was probably just about that time.  And they got to the United States, where they were very well treated and greeted and so forth, because they represented something that was not run by a government and was not political, but it was humanity and it was for the people's own benefit.  And so they had a very nice time coming to the United States.  But of course, he was a sick man.  And they finally were settled in Upper Manhattan in a hotel -- that still exists, I think 9:00-- it was the only hotel in Upper Manhattan.  And he was called out for lectures and so forth.  And people came to meet him and greet him and so on.  But that life was very short, because in two years, he died.  And when he died, that was it -- there was no more author. (laughs) And they only had his own writings, which were all in Yiddish.  And there was very few translations at that time.

CW:  And he had been there before already.  He didn't have a great time the first time in America, I guess.

MW:  Well, he came -- that was in --

CW:  Oh-four, I think, right?

MW:  Twenty-four -- I mean, four -- '04.  And he actually was told that he could come to America and he could put plays on.  He loved the theater, and the 10:00theater was really the quickest way to make money then.  I don't know about today, but then, it made money.  And so he came to the United States and had lectures, and he would have audiences pay admissions and so on.  And the period was very short.  And I think it was within fifteen months or so, he died.  And his funeral was written up in the New York papers as the largest funeral --

CW:  Over a hundred thousand --

MW:  Yes.

CW:  -- came to his funeral.

MW:  About a hundred thousand people came to his funeral.  And we have a lot of photos and books showing the crowds that came.  And not only that -- the hearse stopped at different places in his life or in a Jewish life -- a large 11:00synagogue where a cantor -- famous cantor Rosenblatt, who was probably the world's most famous cantor at that time -- presided.  And then he went -- the body was moved around until they came to the burial place in Queens, where he remained.

CW:  So how do you know all this stuff about him?

MW:  Well, if you're brought up in a household where my mother was a daughter -- and was his youngest daughter and became the caretaker.  She was like the manager, like the nurse.  Then, she took over a lot of the things.  The other children were older, had married -- some had stayed abroad, some became other things -- teachers or whatever -- married doctors, of course. (laughs) And that 12:00was their life.  So if he had lived a little longer, he would probably have gone to Sweden, which had an open port for people like him, and they would want him.  But he didn't have the time for that.  He could only get on the boat to get to America.  And he got to America, had a very nice greeting, a lot of -- it was a different world at that time.  People were really sincerely involved in literature or -- writers and artists and so on, and they wanted to have as much recognition as possible.  And he would get it.  So that went on.  And then my mother came over with him.  And then when he died, she remained, and 13:00married my father, who was a graduate student at Columbia University working on his Ph.D. in psychology, which was a very new subject at that time.  And they -- she taught him -- I guess she taught him Russian, he taught her English, and -- anyway, they began to talk to each other in different languages.  And of course, they married very soon afterwards.

CW:  So where was your mother born?

MW:  My mother was born in Russia, in the last city that they lived in -- I don't remember exactly the name, but it was one of the major cities that allowed people to be writers and live there.  You see, one of the problems they had in Russia was, you could be a writer, but it wasn't considered a profession.  But 14:00if you were a professional -- a doctor or a lawyer or something like that -- you could live in those communities that were not restricted.  So this was a very good thing to be.  So my mother went to school in Switzerland, because they were always traveling, and she learned French -- and she was like a French interpreter, too.  And she came to this country and married my f-- what happened was that when Sholem Aleichem came to America, he stayed, as I said, at this hotel, and people came to him all the time, and he had problems knowing where he was going to live -- he didn't understand English, and so on.  So -- and my father was a student at Columbia, and very interested in Yiddish and very interested in literature.  So he came over to him to introduce himself, and 15:00said he would help him.  So Sholem Aleichem said, "Good!  You can take my daughter and find a place for me to live."  So they went up, and of course they found the most beautiful place in the middle of the Bronx with no air and a lot of traffic and so on -- and that was considered marvelous for people who came from Russia.  And that's how they got together.  And they got married.

CW:  Just one second.  Let me grab my notes here.  (pause) And do you know what language your mother spoke with your grandfather?

MW:  Well, they all spoke Russian, but they also spoke Yiddish.  So you never knew what they were talking about.  But mostly Russian.  So Russian was really their major language.  And my mother and her sisters spoke Russian to each other.  So it was obviously a very mixed world.

CW:  Did you know your grandmother at all?

MW:  Yes.  She lived with us for a while.  She was very independent, a very strong woman.  And she came from a rich -- for Russia, at that time -- a rich family, still being Jewish, and had enough background so that she could handle all of the things in different languages.

CW:  There's a bit of a story about how your grandparents met.

MW:  Well, the story how they met was -- as I told you -- I think I said already -- that he came to help Sholem Aleichem because he wanted to see him and he wanted to help him.  And he impressed Sholem Aleichem because he knew English and he was going to Columbia and he had an Amer--

CW:  Well, no, I mean how your grandparents met.

MW:  My grandparents?  Oh, the grand-- well, that's another story.  Okay.

CW:  That's a good story.

MW:  Yeah, that's a good story.  The grandparents.  Sholem Aleichem wanted to go to the gymnasium, and his father -- who was a tradesman, as they were, and wanted him to go to the -- not seminary, to the parochial school, as they called it -- and the only trouble was that they wouldn't take him in, I guess because of language or something.  So he had to go on his own to learn Russian.  So he learned Russian, too -- grandfather learned Russian.  That was not their native tongue.  And then, when they were prepared to come to America, they began to speak other languages.

CW:  But I think that your grandfather, Sholem Aleichem -- or Mr. Rabinovitz -- was actually teaching your grandmother.  Isn't that right?  He was a tutor, 18:00and that's how he met --

MW:  Well, yeah.  He was hired as a tutor.  And at that time, I think she was, like, fourteen, and he wasn't much older.  And of course, in romance -- romantic literature -- they fell in love, et cetera, et cetera.  The only problem was that the father, who was the source of all the money -- the rich man -- also, of course, Jewish -- was very insulted that they got together, even though they lived together, and she was taking lessons from him twice a day in Eng-- in whatever languages they were speaking.  So he more or less kicked him out.  So they went out, and she remained -- the grandmother stayed.  And 19:00Sholem Aleichem had to go out and try to make his own living.  And as he did that, he had his money stolen -- it's always these stories, you know?  The one thing they'd do in Russia in those days was steal travelers' money.  So if you were traveling and you took a nap on a railroad station, you were certainly going to be knocked off and stripped of your possessions.  So he spent his time doing that.  So he became the tutor -- actually, he was the tutor, that's why he got into this thing -- because he knew Russian and he knew Yiddish and he knew whatever languages they could speak.

CW:  Have you read any of his works?  Do you know how --

MW:  In English.  In English --

CW:  In English?

MW:  Yeah.  I'm not -- I'm not language prone. (laughs)

CW:  And so you grew up just speaking English --

MW:  English.

CW:  -- in your home?

MW:  Yes, of course.  Yes.  Well, my father was a journalist, and he would get a job sometimes with a Yiddish paper, and he'd use his Yiddish, because he was very good in that.  Or he worked for English papers -- like, there was the "Brooklyn Daily Eagle," which was a big paper in those days, and he would get English assignments.  So he knew English very well.  So he taught her English.  But they always spoke Russian to each other when they didn't want the children to hear -- which was most of the time.

CW:  (laughs) Right.

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CW:  So, I have a couple other questions for you, if you don't mind.

MW:  Oh, go right ahead.

CW:  So, can you tell me a little about the house that you grew up in?  So you grew up with your mother and father and also your grandmother.

MW:  And my older brother -- I had a brother who was four years older than I was.

CW:  So what -- you said your parents would speak sometimes Russian when they wouldn't want you to understand?

MW:  Right. 

CW:  And was there any Yiddish around?

MW:  And there was Yiddish around.  They did speak Yiddish.  And --

CW:  Did you learn any phrases?

MW:  I -- (laughs) --

CW:  (laughs)

MW:  I suffered from a case of resistance, as kids do sometimes, you know?  It was very political times, too, you know?CW:  Yeah?  What was going on?

MW:  The thirties.  Well, you know.  A lot of political stuff.  But --

CW:  What politics were you involved in?

MW:  I wasn't really in politics as such.  I went to college in New York, and 22:00then I went out to Oklahoma, because it was a very cheap school, where you could stay there and it cost practically nothing.  And it wasn't good financially for our family, so I went to the cheapest school I could find.  Anyway.  Then, America went into war.  And then I waited, and there was a draft then.  I wasn't drafted; I volunteered.  You know.  And I was in the Army for over three years.  And then when I got out, I finished up again at New York University.

CW:  Where were you in the service?

MW:  I was in England and France.  But mostly in England.

CW:  Wow.

MW:  I was in the United States Air Force, which was the beginnings of the Air Force -- it wasn't called the Air For-- you know, it was the Air Force, but it 23:00was part of the Army.

CW:  What was your position in the plane?

MW:  Oh.  I wasn't on the plane.  I had a terrific job. (laughs) I didn't look for it, but I got it.  I was a clerk in the registry for certifying secrets and non-sec-- and top secret and so on.  And as an enlisted man, I couldn't look at the top secrets at all -- wouldn't let me look at it, even though it was right in the desk.  But then -- and I did that for most of the war -- mostly in England, but had a lot of time I could go away.

CW:  Nice.  So going back to your family, I mean, how often did you talk about your grandfather?

MW:  Well, I would say that my mother talked constantly.

CW:  What kind of things would she say?

MW:  Well, she was saying how they lived.  And funny things that he said or he did.  And how he took the children around and showed the children the sights and tried to explain it to them in children's language, so that a lot of that came out.  So --

CW:  Do you remember any stories in particular?

MW:  Well, I remember some stories, but I don't think I was listening too much. (laughs) You know.  But it was a bilingual experience.

CW:  For you or for your mother?

MW:  For everybody.  Because my father made a living most of the time being an editor at the Yiddish papers.

CW:  Do you know which papers?

MW:  Well, he started off with "The Day."  He went back to "The Day" -- called "Der Tog" -- and he very quickly became the managing editor, because he was the only American college graduate there. (laughs) They were all off the boat, you know?  And he knew journalism from -- he had studied journalism in Iowa, where they were living for a while.  So anyway, he spent a great deal of his time traveling.  And he was all over Europe and Asia and so forth.  And my mother got very weary of his absence, but we managed.  We lived in nice apartments -- 26:00mostly in Brighton Beach, which is on the ocean.  We lived in a big apartment that was right on the ocean -- still there.  And -- because he was a believer in breathing and fresh air and water -- swimming, and so on -- not a good swimmer, but he would splash around.  So that's exactly how he lived.  But it was also a pretty Russian Jewish community.  And the thing that really impressed me very much, that from our windows -- we lived on the fifth floor of this six-story apartment house -- very good apartment house -- and we had five rooms, which was a big apartment -- and you could look from the window, you'd look down on the boardwalk, and you'd always see -- on the weekends -- crowds in circles, all arguing -- the socialists here, the -- neoconservatives -- whoever 27:00they were --

CW:  The Stalinists and the Leninists --

MW:  -- all -- the Stalinists, the Leninists -- they were all arguing and fighting over whatever things were happening in the world.  So it didn't bother me.  I mean, that's not the way (UNCLEAR) lived.

CW:  Do you remember your father -- would he write articles while he was at home?

MW:  Oh, yeah.  Yeah.  He had a very thin pen and wrote on small pages -- you know, these small, little pages -- and -- since he wrote in Yiddish mostly -- not mostly, but a lot of it -- it looked very, you know, graphic.  So, oh, yeah.  He was writing all the time.

CW:  And did you get a sense of what it was like for your grandmother to be the 28:00wife of this famous Yiddish writer?

MW:  Well, you know, she was a program in herself -- very strong woman.  Her father had -- was considered wealthy.  He was a rich man for Jewish middle-class people.  And so my grandmother was brought up as a rich girl who was going to be marrying to a rich Jewish real estate man or whoever was available.  And that's when she became the student of Sholem Aleichem.  And she was teaching him how to pass the exams to get into the gymnasium.

CW:  She was teaching him or he was teaching her?

MW:  (laughs) You got me there.  I think -- wait a minute --

CW:  He was the tutor teaching her --

MW:  He was the tutor.  He was the tutor.  He was teaching her.

CW:  Yeah.  And then -- and then -- but they fell in love.

MW:  Well, they must have, because they were living in the same house -- (laughs) -- for a couple of years.  And they finally decided that they would marry.  And they wanted to elope.  And that, of course, was a scandal -- a big scandal.  But they did.  They eloped.  And then, of course, they were brought back together again.

CW:  Eventually, the father, Elimelech, finally accepted the marriage.

MW:  They finally accepted the marriage, because at that time, Sholem Aleichem was just being recognized as a good writer, and therefore he had some status, 30:00which was important for them.

CW:  But it must have been hard for her, coming from this comfortable life, to sometimes be not very well-off, because --

MW:  Well, they -- you know, I've always questioned that.  Because they were always, well, complaining that -- you know, it's poverty here, poverty there -- but they always had at least two in help all the time -- always had Russian women cooking for them, cleaning the house, and so on.  So it wasn't -- they weren't poverty-stricken, let's put it that way.  And they also had her mother's --

CW:  Inheritance?

MW:  -- inheritance, so that they could live fairly well.  But when Sholem Aleichem himself was brought into the family, he was not the greatest broker.  31:00'Cause that's the only jobs they could get, was being brokers for either food or clothing or whatever, and they would travel and they would be brokers, selling stuff and so on.  So -- and she -- my grandmother was very devoted to his memory -- Sholem Aleichem's memory.  And she had an apartment -- she lived with us, but she was very independent.  And every once in a while, she'd get into a big argument with my mother -- you know, mothers and mothers -- and she would move out and go to another sister or another somebody else, and then come back, because it still was better at our house than theirs.  And so she -- so the grandmother was -- had a good sense of humor, too.  But she didn't know English 32:00at all.  And yet, she took the subway every day from Brighton Beach, which is -- if you know New York -- is at the end of the world.  And to go to Union Square, where they had an office -- Sholom Aleichem Publications had an office in an office building, 31 Union Square.  And there, she stayed in the office running the business.  She didn't know anything, but she --

CW:  But they published a lot of the works after --

MW:  They published a lot of books.  There was a large audience who knew Yiddish and who want-- bought the works.

CW:  And she was basically in charge of that, right, after he passed away?

MW:  Well, she --

CW:  Even the books sometimes have her name in it.

MW:  Yeah.  She was a very active -- she did run the business, so to speak, even when she was very old -- actually, before she died.

CW:  What language -- did you -- how did you communicate with her?

MW:  I don't know. (laughs) You know, how do kids talk to their grandparents?  You know.  She was doing all the talking anyway, so what could I do?  You know.  So -- they were very nice about it.

CW:  And were -- what was the political atmosphere -- you mentioned at least your parents were political, if you weren't.  Growing up, what was the political atmosphere?  Zionist?  Socialist?

MW:  Well, they were basically Zionists, but not the -- what I'd call the corporate Zionists.  They were not people who came and had mixture groups.  They were sort of a social -- they were social-- basically, socialists.  Socialist at that time meant somebody who believed in -- everything that's in the New Deal, you know, today -- then, was considered socialism.  They were 34:00liberal, but they weren't -- you know -- they weren't --

CW:  They didn't -- your father didn't work for the "Freiheit," which, you know --

MW:  No, no.  (laughs) No, he didn't.  He read it, but he didn't.  But he was the editor --

CW:  At the "Tog."

MW:  Of the "Tog," for many years.  And -- including in periods when the paper went out of business.

CW:  Did you have any sense if your grandfather was competing or jealous or had any tension with other Yiddish writers?

MW:  I never heard of that.  I do know that if somebody was a nuisance or was stealing or whatever it was, they would really give them the business.  But other than that, they were not -- in fact, every writer had a following -- a 35:00good writer.  And each following was jealously protected by the author.  So you couldn't steal their people away.  But they would come over on their own.  So that was the thing.  But it wasn't like today, you know.

CW:  Yeah.  So, you said that you've read some -- a lot of his work in translation.  Do you have any favorite stories or plays or books of his?

MW:  Well, I have his English books.  He wrote several English books.  But they were not really political.  He was -- not pro-Russian, but he was open-minded with Russia, because if you were pro-Russian, you were a communist -- and that was not good for the family -- or for your income.  So he knew a 36:00lot of them.  And they were very -- they thought he -- they liked him, were sympathetic, but he was -- probably had a better education and was much, you know, up-to-date than a lot of the other people.  So he became the managing editor very quickly.  And they all depended upon him.  But they had another thing going -- they had enemies.  They were always fighting within the group.  And they wouldn't talk to each other -- that's the way they would fight.

CW:  Your father and the other editors?

MW:  Yeah.  Yeah.  And they usually were fighting over political matters.  Were you socialist or social labor or whatever -- I couldn't keep track of them.  But it was a very, very provocative period.

CW:  So back to Sholem Aleichem.  Did everyone in your family call him "Sholem Aleichem"?  Did anyone ever use "Rabinovitz" as the name?  Or was everyone just, "Sholem Aleichem"?

MW:  Well, they used "Rabinovitz" because that was the official name.  So they had to have -- Olga Rabinovitz was the grandmother, and that related to rights --

CW:  Copyright?

MW:  -- and income and copyrights and so on.  So I think basically it was a matter of pref-- of fighting over a small world.

CW:  Um-hm.  You said you read some of his books in the English translation.  Did you have any favorite characters?  Menakhem-Mendl or Tevye the Dairyman -- 38:00did you read any of those stories?

MW:  Of course.  Tevye was very big.  And early on, Maurice Schwartz, who was the great ham actor -- (laughs) -- and my grandmother was famous for collecting royalties.  She would come up with an umbrella, and -- more or less -- not only verbally attack them in their offices, because they didn't pay royalties.  And it was a scandal on Second Avenue.

CW:  She had an umbrella and she --

MW:  She kept an umbrella there that she would, like, raise, as if she's gonna hit 'em over the head. (laughs)

CW:  Wow.  (laughs) So do you -- I don't know, do you think Sholem Aleichem 39:00has any readers today?

MW:  Well, they publish in English occasionally.  And I think there are readers, but there's nothing like what it was.

CW:  What do you think -- what do you feel as sort of the yikhes, or the legacy, of Sholem Aleichem for you?

MW:  Well, it's a very big thing, you know?  But I've never really exploited it.  I have cousins who have the same family rank as I have, here and abroad, and they made a big industry out of it, you know?  Oh, come to my house, I'll show you Sholem Aleichem's stuff, and so on.  But I was not -- I wasn't cashing in on it.

CW:  Well, is there anything else -- any other stories that you can think of that you want to share with us?  About your grandmother or something --

MW:  Well, my grandmother had the business.  She was collecting royalties.  Publications were in Yiddish.  There were some translations.  And she, of course, had copyrights at that time.

CW:  They would print the Yiddish almost every year -- a different edition of the --

MW:  That's right.

CW:  -- of the complete works.

MW:  And families would buy it.  And it was a business.  And she ran the business, mainly for her children.  She had one son -- surviving son, Norman -- called Nume -- who was a comedian, actually -- a very funny man.  He was an 41:00artist, a very good artist, and he had a studio in Carnegie Hall for thirty-five years -- you know, the studios were in Carnegie Hall, they're not there anymore.  And he -- so -- where was I?  Oh, so Sholem Aleichem's works had value.  And the value would go through the hands of the producers and the major artists.  And they never paid their bills.  It was considered vulgar to pay somebody for writing --- 'cause what is writing?  "That's nothing!  He sits down and he writes.  But I sell and I go this and I do that."  So they were always fighting over royalties.  And that's all we'd hear in the house -- they don't pay, they don't pay, and this and that.  So that was really the focal point.  And my grandmother was very famous for that.  And she would take the 42:00subway -- which was a L -- in Brighton Beach -- I don't know if you know Brighton Beach.  You do?

CW:  Yeah.

MW:  You live there?

CW:  No.  I've visited.

MW:  Oh, you've visited.  She would go up the stairs -- big stairs -- she had terrible legs -- could hardly walk -- and she'd walk up to go to her office, whether she had business or not.  And she had an office in Union Square.  And she would be writing letters to people, collecting money for not paying, and for other reasons that she could, right up to her end.  And she would go to Europe, too, to collect.  She was a very strong -- strong businesswoman.  Her father was a businessman, so I guess she inherited it.

CW:  Right.  Did you -- all these books that were printed, were they in your house growing up?

MW:  I guess they were, yeah. (laughs)

CW:  You don't really remember.  That's okay. (laughs) Well, what do you think is the future of Yiddish literature?

MW:  I'm not the one to say anything about it, really, because if you ask anybody -- including the people who know Yiddish -- they're sort of, you know, well, (UNCLEAR).  But I don't know.  I -- look, it's lasted as long as I have.  And I'm gonna be ninety next week, so that's a long time.

CW:  Yeah.  Well, since we're talking, is there anything you'd like your children or grandchildren to know?

MW:  Well, I would like them to know how their great-grandparents were brought up, and their life.  Because it was a very interesting life -- not interesting, 44:00but very difficult.  And they weren't peasants and they weren't poor.  And they weren't rich.  And they were always striving -- they were striving for culture, they were striving for recognition, they were striving for education for themselves and their children and grandchildren.  So that's the picture you have of that family.  And so all the grandchildren -- I could say about the grandchildren, my cousins -- you know, they were -- they did well.  I mean, nobody suffered from unemployment that I know of.  So they all got jobs and they all worked.

CW:  So you want them to know about this difficulty that they had and how -- for your grandchildren to know a little bit about their -- about Sholem Aleichem and Olga -- Olga's story?

MW:  Yes, yes.  I think it's a very good story.  And it's hard to tell those stories if they don't have a background in world affairs, because what's this business of putting people in jail because they're Jewish or whatever, you know?  All those things.  You know, you wouldn't expect it.

CW:  Right.  Well, a sheynem dank.  (laughter) Thank you so much for talking with me and taking the time and interrupting your --

MW:  No, this is fine.

CW:  -- pre-birthday festivities.  So, thanks for speaking with me and also the Yiddish Book Center.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

MW:  The picture -- no -- I think, was from Germany.  The family was together while he was being treated medically.  And so all -- this is the only picture with all the children.  See, that's my mother --

CW:  Can you hold it up for the camera?  Do you mind?

MW:  Sure.

F1:  And then you can show us who everybody is.

CW:  Okay.  So --

MW:  Yeah.  This is the family as it existed then.  Very middle-class, you know?CW:  Yeah.  They look pretty nice.

MW:  Yes.  Vests and everything.  So the children -- just going through the children.  This was my mother.  This was their older brother, who died just as they were ready to leave Europe for the United States -- he had tuberculosis.  This was their daughter, Ernestine, who was the mother Bel Kaufman.  And this is the daughter of -- who is that again?  Oh, that would be over here, from -- 47:00yeah.  Anyway, this is the oldest sister, Tisa.  This is her husband, who was a writer.  This boy was the youngest son of Sholem Aleichem, and he beca-- he was always drawing, and they kept him quiet during the photographs by giving him paper so he could draw.  He was the youngest.  And this was a sister -- older -- than -- my mother was the youngest girl.  This is Olga, in her most imperial Russian look.  And this, of course, is her daughter.  This is Sholem Aleichem, who always dressed very well, and always very refined look.  And then -- actually, this is the oldest --

CW:  That's maybe a grandkid there.

MW:  That's a grandchild -- the first grandchild.  What's her name again?

ADELE:  Is that Tamar?

MW:  I guess it was Tamar, yeah.  And this is Berkowitz.  He was married to --

CW:  What's her name?

MW:  This is Lyalya Kaufman, whose daughter is Bel Kaufman.  And she has a son, Sherwin, who's also a doctor, naturally.  And this is the father -- they were married.  And he was a physician who settled in New Jersey after the First World War.  And that was the only children they had then.

CW:  Nice.  (pause) Well, can you hold that up for me, and I'll take a picture of you with it?

MW:  Sure.

CW:  That's your yikhes. (laughs)

MW:  That's the yikhes picture.  It's really a good photograph, you know?CW:  It is great.

MW:  I mean, these people really look human.

CW:  Yeah.  They were.  Believe it or not. 

F1:  And Sandy pulled some of these pictures.

MW:  Oh.

CW:  Can you just tell us who's in those?

MW:  Well this -- this is my first picture that they took of me.  We were living in the Bronx -- if you know the Bronx.  So they would send me downstairs to play, but since it was cold -- and she was a Jewish mother -- so I had long 50:00stockings, high shoes, gloves, earmuffs, and a hat.  And it was probably fifty degrees. (laughs) They were always afraid you were going to catch pneumonia. (laughs)

F1:  Do you want to show that one to the camera?

CW:  Okay.  So that's this picture.  Okay, next one.

MW:  And these are not in any order?

F1:  No.

MW:  This is my brother and myself -- it's the last picture we had.  He was a physician.  He worked for Eli Lilly for many years.  And he came -- this was in -- right down here in Florida.  And that's me, and that's him.  He was older.  And he died about, I don't know, five years ago, Adele?

ADELE:What, when he died?

MW:  Yeah.

ADELE:It was about three years.

MW:  Three or four years ago.  Right.

F1:  So when was the picture from?

MW:  I don't have a --

F1:  That's okay.

MW:  It's a local -- you know, a local picture.

CW:  What's that one?

MW:  That's me in my first executive clothes.  I was the assistant director at a hospital.  And these are my parents on Shelter Island, which is the home of the --

CW:  That's where one of your -- that's where your son lives, isn't it?

MW:  Yeah.  My son lives in the same house.  This house was built in 1840.  It was a schoolhouse and stores and everything.  And my father bought it --- 52:00long, you know -- about fifty or sixty years ago, somewhere around there.  And they used to spend the summer there.  And they would invite different writers, and so on, to come over and get a free vacation, which was very nice.  They were generous that way -- my mother and father.  This is the Berkowitzes' first picture -- their wedding photo from 1883.

CW:  Who's that?

MW:  Olga and Sholem Aleichem.

F1:  Oh.  The Rabinovitzes, you said?

MW:  Yeah.

CW:  Wow.  Nice one.

F1:  Beautiful photo.

MW:  And this is my brother and myself in our apartment in Brighton Beach, which was mainly occupied by books.  'Cause that was my father's -- we had the 53:00Sholem Aleichem books here, and then the bust of Sholem Aleichem -- live bust.  And my brother is four years older.  And that's me.  I was a little kid.  And this is two sisters or cou-- who the heck were these?  This is 1889.  Anyway, they --

CW:  Who's that one?

MW:  I don't know who this is.  This could've been Olga -- I don't think so.  I think these are cousins of her -- 1889.  All I know is that --

CW:  And do you know roughly when this one was -- the one in your office?

MW:  Oh, that has to be in -- in nineteen thirty-- no, it was after the war, it was '45, '46 -- probably around '46, '47.

CW:  Ah ha.  And the one with the bust, with you and your brother?

MW:  Well, I think I was -- I don't think I was more than five, maybe.  My brother was, like, nine or ten.

F1:  Wonderful.  Thank you so much.

CW:  Thanks.  We're going to take one more with the picture, because you blinked during the picture.

MW:  I blinked?

CW:  (laughs) So we're going to take one more. (laughs)

F1:  Okay, now, hold that.  You can look at Christa, please.

CW:  All righty.  Let's see.  That's great.

MW:  Okay?

F1:  And do you want me to hold the picture and then you can take it that way?

CW:  Sure.  Well, I'll just take a couple more like this.

F1:  'Cause we're trying to get a copy of the picture, but because of the glass, it reflects a lot.

CW:  Yeah.  I'm sure we can find this picture, too.  I can hold it like this.

F1:  Yeah, it's just a little reflection.  Okay.  I'll take this one.

CW:  I don't know.  We'll see if I can put it on the floor.

F1:  Should I turn off the lights and stuff?

CW:  Sure.  We're all done.  That should be fine, actually.  This looks good.  Yeah.

F1:  Great.  So I will give these back to you.

CW:  Thanks so much.

MW:  Well --

ADELE:Well, this was an experience.

F1:  I'm sure.  (laughs) We're so honored you would take this time with us, considering, you know, you're gonna have special time with your family now.

CW:  Great.  Well, I have a release form for you.

MW:  Sure.

CW:  And also, if you could just put an address where we can mail you something, that would be helpful.

F1:  Because we're going to make a DVD of your interview, so that you can share it with people.

[END OF INTERVIEW]