DAVID SCHORR ORAL HISTORY

BINA ADDES:This is Bina Addes, and today is May 30th, 2013. I am here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, with David Schorr, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center Wexler's Oral History Project. David Schorr, do I have your permission to record this interview?

DAVID SCHORR:You certainly do.

BA:Thank you. We're gonna start with a brief history, or talking about your family background. So if you could tell me a little bit about your family of origin, the background.

DS:Okay. I am first-generation American. My father came from Austria. His father 1:00never lived to leave Austria. He came -- after his brothers and sisters and his mother left, actually he walked from Austria to Danzig, a free city where his mother left him a passport, a ticket on a fishing boat, and two American dollars to get to the United States. My mother's family, on the other hand, is from Riga, Latvia. Her parents came at an earlier time. My grandfather actually left Riga in order to avoid being sent by the Russians to fight in the Russo-Japanese War in -- I believe it was 1908. My father arrived here in 1921, mostly because of the anti-Semitic actions that were going on in Austria and Hungary at the 2:00time. My wife's parents, her father came from Berdichev in the Ukraine, which was then part of Russia. He came here also as a young man, age six or eight years old at the time. His father was a Talmudic scholar. His grandfather, I was told, was a rabbi. He was the rabbi of Berdichev. And they came as a result of the pogroms that were going on at that time in Berdichev. As far as the rest of the family is concerned, we don't know of anyone else who survived from Berdichev, from my wife's family. From my father's family, there may have been a 3:00few cousins, distant cousins, that survived the First World War, but no one from the Second World War. My wife's mother's family also came from Latvia. Just where in Latvia, I'm uncertain. We're trying to research some of it now to try and determine that. And my mother's family that came from Riga, some of them did survive, but they left Riga in 1937, 1938. And I know that only because I lived on the third floor of my grandparents' house, and there were relatives coming in and out with stories of how they got out of Europe under the Nazi regime.

BA:Do you know how your parents met and where they settled before they started a family?

DS:I don't know how they met. I do know that they settled in Philadelphia. The meeting probably took place in Philadelphia, because my father was working there, and my grandfather was -- that is, my mother's father -- when I speak of my grandfather it's always him, because I didn't know my father's parents at all -- was in business there. He became a plumber and roofer, and had his own business in Philadelphia. So the meeting took place in Philadelphia. When I was born, we were living on the third floor of my grandparents' home. They had a three-story home. They had six daughters. They lived there, raised their daughters there. Two of the daughters were born, as I understand it, in Riga, my 5:00mother being the second, and her older sister. The rest were born in the United States, and lived there. As the daughters married and moved away, they took the third floor and made an apartment out of it. You still had to go through my grandparents' home to get to the third floor, but it was okay. And we lived there for quite a while.

BA:So what was it like in the apartment that you grew up? What was your family life like?

DS:My family life was pretty good. We lived there until I went to first grade, and I loved it there, because my grandmother and grandfather were on the first floor. I had a fantastic relationship with my grandfather, and even with my grandmother. In fact, I'm probably sitting here today because of my grandmother. She spoke very little English, and I spoke to her in Yiddish when I was a child, 6:00and everything went fine until I was about eight years old. Then I came in one day, and she said to me, "[Dovidl, kum aher. Helf mir. [David, come here. Help me.]" And I started to respond to her in Yiddish, and she said, "No, no, no, no. No more Yiddish. English, English." She had started to go to night school, and it was my job then to help her with her homework. And although I loved her dearly, I blame her for losing my Yiddish, because after that everyone spoke English, and I lost most of my Yiddish over the years. As she came to her last years, when she was about ninety-- she said she was about ninety-five at the time -- she reverted back into speaking Yiddish. And my grandfather was there. My grandfather was a man -- I don't know if you know the term "zandik." The 7:00zandik is, as I understand it, the very special man in Yiddish, in Judaism. And when it comes to a brit, he holds the baby. My grandfather was a zandik, and he was very special. I only knew two men in my life that I could put in that special category, and he was one, and Yaacov Liberman, who was a rabbi with Beth Sholom Synagogue, and recently passed away, was the other. But my grandfather was just that wonderful, and I used to sit on his lap when he read the Forwards in Yiddish. And he taught me the alphabet. He taught me to read some of the words, and I would read with him, and I had a very good relationship with him. And in later life, I would go to him more to discuss things than I did with my father.

BA:Is there a particular story that you remember about him that you'd like to share?

DS:Oh, there are a number of stories, but the one I remember very clearly and I love to tell is when my wife was pregnant with our third son, and I went to my grandfather -- and, by the way, I have a picture that I'll show you later. And I said to him, "Grandpa, Beverly and I know that this is going to be another boy. We want to name him for you. We've discussed it. We've considered it." And remember, my grandfather was a very Orthodox man. And his eyes lit up, and he smiled, and he said he would love it. And I said, "Then it's settled." He says, "No, no, no, no. It's not settled." I said, "What do you mean? You want it. We want it. Why not?" He says, "Because I have a wife, your grandmother, and I have 9:00six daughters, and when I die -- and one day I surely must die," he says, "they will blame your death on me -- on you." I said, "I don't care." "No, I won't permit it." So what we did was we went back in the past, and I found -- my father found the -- I didn't tell him why -- he didn't know -- to the day he died he didn't know -- found a relative of his who had the same name as my grandfather, and we named our third son on the surface for that relative, but for our purposes, he's named for my grandfather.

BA:And that was acceptable to your grandfather that he --

DS:We didn't tell him. (laughter) We just did it. We just did it. And that was it. My grandfather was a very wise man. When we said to him, "Friends of ours in 10:00the neighborhood want to take us to a Reform congregation," what did he think about us joining, or the possibility of us joining a Reform congregation? He said to me, "If I were starting over again, I would." And four or five years we belonged to a Reform congregation. I loved the rabbi, because he was very conscious of everybody in the congregation, and he was very conscious of the fact that people were not comfortable without a kippah or a tallit, and I was one of them. So if you wanted to wear a kippah or the tallit, that was okay by him. But as a result, when we moved we joined the Conservative congregation.

BA:So when you were growing up, did you feel you were growing up in a Jewish home? And what about it made it feel that way?

DS:Well, first off, my grandparents were there, and they were about as Jewish as a Jewish home could be. My grandmother was strictly kosher, kept all the rules, as she knew them anyway. In later years, I used to say there were four different categories of Judaism: there was Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Molly Kramer. (laughter) And I've said that I don't know how many times in my life, but my grandmother was very strict. My grandfather, on the other hand, started to relax as time went on. I was bar mitzvahed in his synagogue, because my father never wanted to go to synagogue. I don't know why, and I'm sorry to this 12:00day that I never really forced him to give me an answer, because he never answered me why he didn't. He did not like rabbis, and he didn't go to synagogue, but he never wanted to be anything but Jewish. And --

BA:Not in a religious sense? He didn't want to partake in the --

DS:He didn't want to partake in any of the rituals from the synagogue. But his profession was a kosher butcher, and all my life I remember him as being a butcher, and having a kosher butcher shop, and selling kosher meats.

BA:Were there certain traditions or holidays that you remember being special in your family, as you were growing up?

DS:Yes. Passover was always very special to me. It was very special, because I would walk sometimes seven miles from my house to my grandmother's house to help 13:00her take the peysedike [kosher for Passover] dishes and pots and pans up from the cellar to the kitchen, wash them, put the non-peysedike stuff back down in the cellar. She had a huge crystal chandelier. It was huge, hung from a very high ceiling in her dining room, and it was my job to take that down piece by piece and wash it and then put it back. And so Passover was very special. Hanukkah was special, because we would -- when I say "we," I mean all the grandchildren -- would line up by age, and my cousin Sherwin was the oldest, I was second. And we'd line up, and my grandfather would hand out silver dollars, and that was Hanukkah gelt, and he believed in the stories about giving Hanukkah 14:00gelt, and he gave Hanukkah gelt, and I got a silver dollar on Passover -- on Hanukkah. I did say to him one day, "Grandpa, I noticed that Sherwin got two silver dollars and everybody else only got one. Why?" And he said to me, "Look, he's the oldest. It has to be recognized. So he got two, and everybody else got one." And there were thirteen of us, so it was not inexpensive for him to give out silver dollars. (laughs)

BA:You haven't spoken about your siblings at all. Who else was part of your family?

DS:I have two brothers. I'm the oldest. Two brothers. There's not -- well, there are stories. My youngest brother had some problems in school. But there's nine 15:00years difference between myself and my youngest brother. And he was in fourth grade, and I was getting ready to go to college, and all of a sudden turns out he didn't know how to read. He was going into fourth grade. They were just pushing him along, and he did not know how to read. My parents were -- what more could I say? They were useless when it came to dealing with the public school system. So I went to find out, and what I found out was that they had started a new system in the public schools at that time. When my brother was in first grade, they started this system where they didn't teach the alphabet and then teach reading, but they tried to teach words, and my brother didn't make it, and he couldn't read. We lived in West Philadelphia at the time. And I've researched 16:00and found a program at the University of Pennsylvania to help children who couldn't read and were having a difficult time in school. So we got my brother enrolled in the program. I saw to it that he got down there several times a week. Results are that my brother not only graduated high school. He had a master's degree, and taught special ed., (laughs) so he did all right. He did fine. My other brother was not that academically inclined and went into business. He did okay and is doing okay for himself. But that was the story of my younger brother.

BA:Were there any special foods that you remember as being part of your family tradition, or that held a special place in your memory?

DS:Not foods. I think the lack of foods probably holds more of a special place, 17:00because my grandparents were kosher. My father was a kosher butcher. We had kosher things in the house. I used to like meat very much. I still do, but don't eat it like I used to. And I used to come home Sunday afternoons from Boy Scout camp, and when we went away for a weekend for Boy Scout camp I'd come home Sunday afternoon, and my parents weren't there, and my brothers weren't there. They had gone -- it was tradition to go to my grandparents' house Sunday afternoon and that night listen to Eddie Cantor before you came home. (laughter) But I was there alone, down in the store, and I'd cut myself a steak, and I'd make it my way, and I -- (laughs) That was a special treat. When I started going 18:00out with my wife, my wife said one day, "Well, let's go to a Chinese restaurant." I had never been to a Chinese restaurant. My parents taking me to a restaurant was taking me to Horn & Hardart's and allowing me to pick out any three vegetables I wanted. (laughter) Well, that was for two reasons, really -- because of the keeping kosher, and the other was because they didn't have any money. They could not really afford anything. Which brings me to one my one real regret in life, and that was the fact that -- you know, Frank Sinatra has a song, "My Way," which I love. I think it's one of my, if not my very favorite song. And there's one passage in that song that says, "I have regrets, but then too few, and too few to mention." Well, my one regret that I do mention is the 19:00fact that I did not have a good childhood Jewish education, and I lost my Yiddish language skills. And I do regret that. The education, the religious education, I made up partly for as an adult, by my own reading and research and whatnot, but the Yiddishkayt, the Yiddish language is only coming back a little bit now, and I'm working on it.

BA:I was going to ask you a little bit more, so this is a good segue, about your education, both religious education and your secular education, if you could -- I know you said, as you just mentioned now, that you did not have very much of a Jewish education growing up.

DS:No formal education, that's right. My father would not join a synagogue, and if he --- and I think if he would have wanted to, he wouldn't have, because he 20:00just wanted no parts of a synagogue, and I don't know why. I really don't. So where all my friends were going to Hebrew school, my father tried to get me to go to a folkshul, but he didn't have the money to pay for it, and I was embarrassed to carry a quarter every once in a while and give it to the teacher. And besides that, my friends were going to Hebrew school two days a week, and they wanted me to come to folkshul five days a week. And as a result, I really never spent much time at the folkshul to learn and continue my Yiddish. And I sort of regret that, but that was the way it was at the time. As I got older, and I got married, and I got involved in the synagogue myself, I got involved in 21:00the religious school, and I helped to write a curriculum for a synagogue, for their religious school. And I did a lot of research and studying to bring my Jewish education up, but not my language. That didn't involve -- it involved Hebrew, it didn't involve Yiddish. And then, years later, when we moved from West Oak Lane to Bucks County, we joined the neighborhood synagogue, Beth Chaim, and I got involved in a religious school there. And there I actually wrote their program, and started a different phase of their religious school altogether. They were having problems transporting the kids during the week, because the kids came from Levittown, they came from Upper Bucks County, they came from local, they came from Philadelphia. And transportation to get them there in the 22:00afternoons was very, very difficult. So I wrote a two-day program for Saturday and Sunday, and I sold it to the parents. And how I sold it to the parents was when they had a meeting to protest this new program, which would force the kids to come on Saturday, I let them talk, and when they were all talked out I got up and I said, "Okay." I said, "All you mothers who go to the hairdresser on Saturday morning, and all you fathers who take your kids -- who leave your kids and go to the golf course on Saturday morning, instead of doing that, bring them to me here at the synagogue, and we'll babysit for you. And I have a whole program of classes and study which does not involve writing for Saturday, and 23:00all the writing will be done in the classes on Sunday morning." And we sold the program, and we increased the school from about sixty kids to over 450 kids. And I was principal of the school for ten years, until things started to change, and it was time for me to leave. And it was convenient for my wife -- more convenient for myself, because at that time we had kids. We had very high expenses. I couldn't afford to do too much, so this was my form of donation. I did it as my donation to the synagogue.

BA:So, going back a little, even though you didn't have a formal Jewish education growing up, you were able to put together this program on your own.

DS:Yes.

BA:Did that come -- can you talk a little bit how you got to that place?

DS:Well, in the five years previous to this, where we belonged to Beth El, which 24:00was a newly formed synagogue in West Oak Lane -- it's now a magnificent sanctuary -- it's a whole different synagogue than it was then -- they were just putting things together. And in order to pay my dues, I agreed to teach a class. In order to teach the class, I did a lot of research, and I taught Jewish history, so I read Jewish history. I taught Jewish customs, so I read up on Jewish customs. And I put together the curricula, and I helped put together the rest of the curricula for the remainder of the school. And I had help from the rabbi, and from a few better educated people in the congregation than myself. And we put together a curriculum there, and I taught over the five years that we 25:00were members there. And that served as the base for my then doing the research and putting together the curriculum for Beth Chaim. I found it very enlightening to me, because I had to study. I had to go by. And by the way, in the ten years there at Beth Chaim, I also put in -- I wanted the kids to have some fun, too, so we put in a course, which I taught the first year myself, in Yiddish. And it was not a formal course in Yiddish language. It was a course in "Let's find out what your parents are talking about." (laughs) And we used to sit there for about forty-five minutes on a Sunday morning and just talk about words. And I'd ask them to take a notebook and write down the words. "Okay, what did they say?" 26:00"S'iz nisht gut [It's not good]?" What does that mean?" "Oh, it means 'not good.'" Okay. "Oh, is that what they're saying?" And we just had a fun class, and that was the first attempt at introducing Yiddish in my life.

BA:It sounds like this whole part of your life, what you did putting together, is a labor of love, a labor of something that was important and significant to you, and then you were able to transmit it to a whole new generation. And, in a way, that sounds fun. You know, somebody -- and you did not have an education as a teacher, so this was something that almost sounds like it came to you naturally.

DS:Yes, I think you're correct, in, number one, it was a labor of love, because I wanted to learn what I was teaching. And second, I was having fun with the kids with the Yiddish, just the words, and let's just have fun with it. It was 27:00not a formal class. And at the same time, I had my four kids in the Hebrew school, and I made sure that they got an education. So yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was very important to me. It meant a lot. At one point, it almost ruined my marriage, but, (laughs) because I put so much time in there, and my wife felt that I was neglecting her and the kids. But yes, it was an important part of my life.

BA:Just going back to your parents for a minute, and your growing up, I wonder if there were any particular values that you thought your parents were trying to have their children acquire in growing up. What was important to them? What did they try to pass on to you?

DS:I think that the most important thing was that you have to be honest with 28:00yourself and with everybody else. And if you were honest -- and I emphasized this with my children: "Tell me the truth. Even if you did something wrong, tell me the truth. Be honest with me, and I'll be right there to support you." And being honest was the important thing. My father used to say -- and these are his words, not mine, but I've repeated them many, many times -- "A man who will lie will eventually steal, and a man who will steal will kill. Do not deal with a man who will lie."

BA:And you remember this. It made a big impact on you.

DS:A tremendous impact on me, and I believe it. And I've told this to my kids. 29:00And --

BA:So he passed it on to you, and you're passing it on to your children.

DS:Yes. And when the occasion comes up, if something comes up, I'll tell my grandchildren the same thing. And I've watched through life, I've looked at people and I've watched people, and I've seen things happen, and although I don't know anyone who has ever killed anybody, I certainly have seen men and women who will tell a lie who will also steal.

BA:Um-hm. So that was one important value that was passed on.

DS:Yes, very important.

BA:I can hear the importance for you and how it stayed with you all these years. I had asked you about education. We talked a little bit about your Jewish education, and what you did as an adult. Could you just talk a little bit about 30:00your education in general?

DS:Okay. I was always told that education was very important. My father went to the fourth grade. My father-in-law went to the sixth grade. So we don't have much education from those that came from Europe. My oldest cousin, Sherwin Al-Sholom, was the first to go to college, and he became an accountant. I was told that it's important that you go to college, but I didn't have any money, and my father didn't have any money. So how do you go to college? Well, I knew that this was important. It was important to them. It was important to me. And we talked about it when I was a senior in high school, and I remember standing 31:00around the butcher block, and my father was waiting on a customer, Mrs. Green. And we were talking about college, and Mrs. Green turned around to me and said, "How are your grades?" I told her I was in the upper ten per cent of my high school class, and I didn't know exactly where I stood, but I knew it was in the upper ten per cent. She said, "Well, let me talk to my husband." Her husband was an attorney and had an office half a block away. I didn't think about it anymore. I waited, and I went around, told my relatives that I'm gonna go to college, but I didn't know how I was going to do it. And I got a call from Mrs. Green. "Would you come up to my husband's office? He wants to talk to you?" I said, "Fine." I walked up the street, walked into his office. "Sit down. I got good news for you." I said, "Oh?" He says, "I've checked on your studies, and 32:00I've talked to the senator, and I have a senatorial scholarship for you, University of Pennsylvania." (laughs) I could've gone right through the chair. I said, "Oh, that's wonderful." He says, "One catch." "What's the catch?" "The senator wants half." "Well, I don't understand." "Well, he wants half the tuition as a donation." Well, at that time the University of Pennsylvania was six-hundred-and-some dollars a year. And I said, "I don't have six hundred -- I don't have three hundred dollars to give him, and he wants all four years upfront, so that would be twelve hundred dollars, or almost thirteen hundred dollars." I said, "There's no way." I said, "And I might get drafted into the 33:00Korean War." I said, "I'm sorry. Forget it. Thank the senator." And I left. The other school that had some interest in me was Drexel. I went to Drexel. I talked to them. Their tuition was only $325 a year, and they had the co-op program, so I could work. But the schooling was five years, not four, to get a degree. And I figured, well, it's worth the year, because if I'm going to gather any money, I can't get the 650, maybe I can get the 325. So I went around to all my relatives and I said, "Don't buy me a fountain pen. Don't buy me a gift. Give me the money." They did. I put together the first year's tuition, $325, registered at 34:00Drexel, which was wonderful, because I didn't even have to take an entrance exam. My grades were good. I didn't have to take an entrance exam. And all they did was take the money. Then they sat down with me, and they worked out my co-op jobs so that I could pay out my tuition in my second, third, and fourth, fifth years, on a monthly basis, from my co-op jobs. And then they gave me a part-time job in the school. So I worked in the school cafeteria. I worked for the maintenance department as a draftsman during the five years that I went to Drexel, and I paid off my tuition from my co-op job. Otherwise, I'd never gone -- never gotten to school. I finished Drexel with a Bachelor of Science degree 35:00in civil engineering. I then applied to the University of Pennsylvania, who had an opening for a teaching position, and I applied to NYU -- had an opening for a teaching position. The University of Pennsylvania and NYU offered me jobs. I was not too happy with the one in NYU because it meant moving my family. I was married, had a child at the time. And they would not get me a deferment from the draft. So I turned NYU down, accepted the position at University of Pennsylvania, and at the last minute the University of Pennsylvania turned around and said, "We have to cut our budget. We're cutting out the job so that there's no job here." So I said okay. I got a job with the government, working 36:00for the Department of Agriculture. I'm sorry, the first job I worked with the government, I worked for the US Army Corps of Engineers in Philadelphia. And I went to the University of Pennsylvania at night for my master's degree. I later on went to Northwestern University for postgraduate work in highway safety and traffic transportation. I went there because I had gotten some consulting work in that field after I graduated from Penn. And that ultimately led to my building up of a consulting practice and a business in forensic engineering. Highway safety, crash analysis was my expertise, and we hired other consultants 37:00as we needed them in other fields of engineering, science, and medicine. Today, it is probably one of the largest, if not the largest, privately owned forensic firm in the country, and I'm retired, and my son has it. (laughs) And God bless him.

BA:And I read that your grandson is going to be joining the firm soon.

DS:My grandson is at George Washington University, completing his PhD in engineering, and hopefully will be joining the firm within the year.

BA:So, so far we've been talking more about your early life, so I'd like to sort of fast forward a little bit to what your life is like now, if you --

DS:Wonderful. (laughter)

BA:Can you tell me a little bit more about it? Have there been any experiences 38:00that you haven't mentioned yet, or historical events, or social movements, or anything that have influenced your sense of identity?

DS:Oh, there have been a lot of things --

BA:I'm sure.

DS:-- and we can talk for days and days and days. Basically, bringing you up to date, at one point I joined the faculty of Villanova University as a member of the Civil Engineering faculty there. I was there for twenty-four years, five of those years as assistant to the Dean of Engineering. And during that time is when I built up my private consulting firm, and all with the knowledge and approval of the university. And when it became so large, and there was so much work, I left the university in favor of private practice. I raised four 39:00children, three boys and a girl, and the girl was last, by the way. The first two, much to the chagrin of their mother, became doctors. My wife is the only Jewish mother you will find (laughter) who did not want their sons to become doctors. One is an endocrinologist, the other's a general surgeon. Both doing very, very well, but their mother didn't want them to become doctors. The reason for that is that my wife started college at age thirty-six. She got her undergraduate degree from Villanova as the first woman to graduate the day school, and graduated with our oldest son.

BA:How wonderful!

DS:And I have a picture of that, by the way. I'll show it to you. But that -- and then went on to get her master's degree, and graduated with our second son when she got her master's and he got his undergraduate degree. And most of her 40:00clients were wives of doctors and lawyers who were having problems in their marriages, and she didn't want (laughs) them to be doctors. So she didn't approve, but they became doctors anyway. Our third son, who was on a track to become a dentist, because my b-- very best friend was a dentist, had two daughters, no interest in dentistry, and loved our third son, and wanted him to become a dentist. So he was on track, in fact had already been accepted to the pre-dental program when he decided that this was not for him. And he started, I said, "Well, take the first year in engineering, and when you're done the first year let me know what you think." Well, it resulted in him completing his degree in engineering and then going to Northwestern and getting his master's, and now 41:00is the owner of DJS Associates forensic engineering firm. Our daughter is an artist. And I said, "Okay, as much as I don't like it, I will support you if you're gonna go to art school." She came back to me and said, "I don't think I want to go to art school." I said, "Why not? You have the talent." She said, "But I want to be able to make a living." I said, "OK." So she went and took engineering. My daughter has a master's degree in engineering, (laughter) worked with my son and I for a little while, and then decided to go and work with her husband. And so we're very -- my wife is very happy. She at least got two engineers, and didn't have four doctors, which she did not want at all. My life 42:00then changed a little bit because the business started to grow. My son was there. I let him have an open hand, and it did very, very well. I have had a great time. We had a fabulous fiftieth wedding anniversary party, and that was eleven years ago. Why did we have not? Not because my wife wanted it, but because I wanted it. We had a very modest wedding. Our parents couldn't afford very much. And, as a matter of fact, when her father died, we went to clean out the house. We found the bill for our wedding. Everything included, it was $325. And I looked at that and I went, "Oh my God." And I have the bill. We saved it. But -- and I said, "We've done well. We're entitled." We made a fabulous 43:00fiftieth wedding anniversary. Came our sixtieth wedding anniversary, my wife said, "I don't want any more parties. I don't want any more affairs." I said, "Okay." So we took our whole family, children and grandchildren, on a cruise, ten-day cruise. We were all on the ship for ten days. It was probably one of the best ten days of our lives, and it was great.

BA:It sounds wonderful. How -- talking about your family a little bit more, how did you bring your children up in terms of a Jewish education, being -- you know, you spoke about missing it as a child yourself, and I was just wondering a little bit if you could talk about how you passed on what was important to you 44:00to your children?

DS:Well, we kept a Jewish home, and we celebrated all of the holidays, but more important than that, I used the opportunity that I had at Beth Chaim with having the Saturday and Sunday classes to get my kids -- and when I went to the synagogue, all of them went with me, and they attended the classes. They were there for Shabbos services. They were there for Shabbos classes. They were there for Sunday classes. And they all went through the entire program from pre-Aleph classes, right through to Hey, and they all could read and write. They all could understand. And I was there with them to make sure that they came. Every once in a while my wife and I would have to go somewhere, and we'd be away for a weekend 45:00-- and this particularly happened with my daughter because she was the youngest. We'd leave her with my in-laws, and they lived just a few blocks from the synagogue. And we'd say, "Okay, make sure that she gets to class." And my mother-in-law would -- we knew -- would let her not go to class once in a while. (laughter) So she loved going to her grandparents'. But they all had a good -- we saw to it. The fact that we were there, and we did in the home. You say, "What about a little story?" One of my sons received from the rabbi a hanukkiah, Hanukkah menorah, you know, the -- and it was an oil one. And the slots for the oil were just big enough to drop a dime in, and so you could pile up dimes. You 46:00could get as much as twelve dimes in there before you put the cap on. And we used to play a game. We'd take that hannukiot, and each night I'd put different number of dimes in different spots in the hannukiot. And the kids would then say, "Okay." The oldest would choose first the first night. The second night, the second one would choose first. And they would pick, and they would get whatever dimes were in that slot that they picked. And that was their Hanukkah gelt. Well, it accomplished several things, of course: it brought out Hanukkah, and they knew the reason for Hanukkah gelt. They knew why it was Hanukkah gelt and not other presents that they were getting. And it was inexpensive for us to do, which is something we had to do at that time, because we didn't really have 47:00that much. And one day I said to my wife, "We really have a few extra dollars this year. We're going to do this a little bit different." And I wrote out a check for ten dollars apiece, and I put them in my jacket pocket. And then I said, "Okay, the one that gets the grand prize -- that is, picks out the candle with the twelve dimes in it -- will get a bonus." Well, my youngest son was the one who got it that night. He picked out, and there were twelve dimes in it, and I said, "You get the bonus." And I had the checks in my pocket in order, so I knew which one had whose name on it. And I was able to, without looking, pick 48:00out and say, "Here's your bonus, and here's a check written out in your name for ten." Well, ten dollars, this was great, and he was hysterical. He was -- "Great! Look what I got! I got ten dollars! I got ten dollars!" And he never stopped to think, how would I know he was gonna pick it out, and I would have a check with his name on it? (laughter) Well, after all the excitement and everything, everybody got an extra ten dollars, because I had one for every kid in my pocket. But that's how we pretty much educated them and kept them going, and got them to realize that it was important that they understand and that they know that they were Jewish, and it was important that they keep their Judaism. This may lead to something that you probably have never heard, and I really 49:00never intended to tell, but I'm going to tell you.

BA:Okay.

DS:My wife and I sat down one day and said, "What are the most important things to us?" And we made a list, and we shortened the list, and we got it down to four or five things that were most important to us. And one of them was that -- and very high up on the list was that our children marry Jewish and keep a Jewish home. And we talked about it, and I went to see the rabbi, and our rabbi at that time was Aaron Landes. He was the rabbi at Beth Sholom Synagogue. That's the synagogue that's designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Aaron Landes and his wife Sora are two of the most wonderful people you would ever meet in your life. And I talked to him, and I said, "Rabbi, I'm gonna put it in my will, and I need it 50:00worded properly." And I put it in our will -- since our children were already married and they were already married Jewish, and they already had Jewish homes, I put it in my will that there would be a grant to our grandchildren if they married under a chuppah and maintained a Jewish home. And it's there. It's there. It's still in my will.

BA:Does your family know about this?

DS:Oh, absolutely. That's going back to being honest. I never kept anything from them. I always told them honestly how I felt. So did my wife. This is one thing about -- this is probably the one thing that everybody that knows my wife knows about her and can rely on: she'll tell you the truth, and she'll tell you right 51:00up front. And if she says anything to anybody about you, she's already told you how she felt. So yes, the kids all know it. In fact, they make a joke of it. One of my grandchildren dated a non-Jewish girl for a while, and the others would tell him, "It's all right, Justin. Marry her. The money divides better with one less." (laughter) So he has since broken off with her, but -- and we're kind of concerned. Look, we got grandchildren who are twenty-seven years old, and they range from twenty-seven to twenty, and nobody's serious with anybody yet. Come on! We want great-grandchildren. (laughter) But that's -- yeah. And it was very 52:00important, and still is very important to us.

BA:Since you brought up the future, and thinking about passing certain ideals or what was important to your children and your grandchildren, it also brings me up to something else that you talked about in your questionnaire: your endowment that you have given to a college. And I'm not sure if there was something also to the Yiddish Book Center? I know to the college. Maybe you could speak a little bit --

DS:Ever since we found out about the Yiddish Book Center, and I read Aaron's book, we have annually donated to the Center, and that's something that we will continue to do. But when we were planning our fiftieth wedding anniversary we wanted to do something substantial. And we went to the synagogue, and this story 53:00is sad in a way and great in another way. We had just changed rabbis. The synagogue had just changed rabbis, and we were not getting along great with the new rabbi. We didn't agree with a lot of the things that he was actually not doing, rather than the things that he was doing. It was the fact that he was not doing. And we went to the president of the congregation, and we said, "Look, we're having our fiftieth wedding anniversary. We're having it here at the synagogue. We want to do something and leave something to the synagogue." Well, she was not too thrilled. I don't think she was too thrilled with me, because I was on the finance committee, and I was pressing to have other things done at the synagogue. The synagogue was having financial trouble. And she never came 54:00back to us to say, "Okay, what are we going to do? How are we going to do it? Let's talk this out." And during that period of time, we heard that Gratz College was teaching a course in Yiddish, and I was curious, and I went, and I spoke to the president of the college. I attended some of the classes. I became interested in Gratz College. I don't know how much people up here are aware of Gratz College in Philadelphia, but connected to the college is a high school, a Hebrew high school, which has been going for years. In fact, the college is over a hundred years old. But it's a small college. And I was elected to the board of 55:00directors of the college, and we decided then that maybe what we would do is -- do for the college, but do it specifically for the Yiddish program. So we sat down and worked out an arrangement where we would endow the Yiddish program for the college, and that's what we did for our fiftieth wedding anniversary. Now, the sad part about it is that the synagogue lost out on the money. Gratz did not. And so they have an endowment, and they have an annual pledge of an annual contribution, as well.

BA:In talking more about that, how does your connection to Yiddish, Yiddishkayt, Eastern European Jewish heritage, how does it fit into your broader sense of Jewish identity?

DS:Well, it does. It's very -- it is something that has touched us through the 56:00years. It starts with my grandparents, and my relationship with my grandparents. My father spoke Yiddish, my mother did not, but of course my grandparents did, and my Yiddish conversations as a child was with them, and I had a great relationship particularly with my grandfather, and it stays with me. I would hear my father talk to his customers in Yiddish. So it wasn't entirely that he didn't use it. He did. And as the years went on, there was a gap, particularly from about the time I was in middle school until the end of college, where it just wasn't there. The Yiddish language wasn't there, but the Yiddishkayt 57:00remained. The fact that my grandparents were there, and we had the holidays, and there were certain things that you just did, and it was a lot of fun, and we all got together. But the language was not there. Then, as I got older, and I started to travel, and I started to get involved professionally with people, Jewish people, Yiddish words came into the conversation. And I remember having to go to a dictionary one time, because there was an American College Dictionary edition which came out with a supplement in the back of the dictionary which had Yiddish words, Yiddish words in English. And we started -- I started to use them again. And in travel, it started to come back to me. One of my favorite stories is being in Paris. We were coming from the Folies Bergère, and I passed 58:00Goldenberg's store. It is a delicatessen and grocery and whatnot. And we went in to buy something. I don't speak French. My wife knew a couple of words of French, so she tried to speak to Mr. Goldenberg in French, and Mr. Goldenberg responded in English. We got to talking to Mr. Goldenberg. We found that he spoke French, Yiddish, and English, and he had relatives in Israel, and he had relatives in New York. And it was a great time. And I realized, this is the language of communication. We were walking from his store back to the hotel, and there were two young couples standing on the corner, and they were having a discussion, and their hands were moving, and the words -- and one of them turned to me and in French asked me a question. I don't speak French, and I give a look 59:00and he's wearing a kippah. I said, "Okay, redst a bisl yidish [do you speak a little Yiddish]?" "Yes, a little bit." So the little bit that I could recall, and the little bit that he could remember, we got together, and it resulted in a couple from the United States giving two Israeli couples direction to get around Paris in Yiddish. Now, that was the first incident. The second incident, we wanted to get a soup terrine, and we walked into the Grands Magasins, and no one would talk to us, because my few words of French -- they wouldn't acknowledge my wife, and of course I didn't speak at all. I looked at the young lady behind the counter, and she was wearing a mezuzah. I said, "That's Yiddish." "Yes." And she gave us directions where to get and how to get our soup terrine in Yiddish. Now, 60:00that happened in Greece, and traveling around the world is Yiddish, always the common language. And if you go back -- did you see the show "The Rothschilds"?

BA:No.

DS:Okay. Rothschild was French. He had five or six sons; I don't remember how many. But he trained his sons. They all spoke French, but one spoke German, one spoke English, one spoke Italian, one spoke Spanish. And they all spoke Yiddish. So -- could build up the language of communication with Yiddish. It was the common language. He built his empire using Yiddish. It told me it's time that 61:00Yiddish should not be lost to the world.

BA:So what would you say Yiddish means to you today?

DS:It means to me that -- I don't know how to express it. It's just it's a warmth, it's -- the language is Yiddishkayt. The language -- I really don't know how to express it. There are just so many things in Yiddish that you can say, little expressions that are so meaningful, and so wonderful, that you can't translate them directly. My grandmother used to say to me, "Hak mir nisht keyn tshaynik!" (laughter) All right? What does it mean? Literally translated, "Don't bang on the teakettle." What does that mean? But it means a whole lot more, you 62:00know. And expressions like that just cannot or should not be lost.

BA:So there's people now who still talk about Yiddish as being a dying or a dead language.

DS:That's a shame.

BA:And I wonder what would you say?

DS:What would I say to them?

BA:Yes. Well, what do you see the future? Do you see --

DS:No, I'd tell them that Yiddish is not a dying language. There are colleges all over the country and all over the world that are now introducing Yiddish courses. And it's not a dying language. It should not be a dying language. It is a culture that has to be preserved. It is a culture that has so much richness to it. Last time we were here, at the Center, we walked through, we took a tour, 63:00and someone said to us that there's a whole pile of books here, that these will be for sale. These are duplicates many times over. And my wife wandered away from me and then came back with a book. Now, my wife doesn't read Hebrew, and she doesn't read Yiddish, but she knows enough, and she showed me the book, and she said, "Am I right this is the complete works of Sholem Aleichem?" And I looked at it, and I said, "Yeah, you're right. It's the complete works of Sholem Aleichem." Well, I don't remember enough Yiddish to read it in Yiddish, but I knew enough that that's what this book was, and it was for sale. I bought it. And I gave it to one of my daughter-in-law's father, who was a linguist. He 64:00knows nine languages, and several dialects over and above the nine languages, and one of the languages are Yiddish. And I said, "Leib, you'll--" he would appreciate it, and he did, and I gave it to him. There's so much richness in the writings of the Yiddish authors in the theater, and just in the culture. And you can't be directly translated to English. Some of it, you just have to hear in Yiddish.

BA:Are there any favorite or special Yiddish expressions that you have, or that you remember?

DS:Like "hak mir nisht keyn tshaynik [don't bother me, lit. "don't bang me a teakettle"]"? (laughter) Yeah, my grandmother --

BA:She used that one often.

DS:Oh, she used that one often. I mean, when -- look, she had thirteen grandchildren, and when the kids used to get noisy and get fussy, (laughs) she 65:00would use that one. I don't know that any one specific one more than others, but when the occasion comes up the words come up. It's interesting -- I found it fascinating that my grandmother reverted back to Yiddish in her old age. Well, I find, well, maybe I'm getting into my old age, because some of my Yiddish is coming back. The words, anyway. I find that I listen and I can understand a little bit better than I did ten years ago, and I also find that I can say things that I didn't remember even a year ago. So there may be something to this 66:00coming back in old age.

BA:Yes. You also mentioned Yiddish theater, and some books. I wonder if there is anything in particular that you remember seeing or reading that had a special meaning to you, or something that you still remember.

DS:Well, I still remember a number of things. I have some literature on the Holocaust, for example. And my wife says, "But why do you do it?" And I say, "Because I want to remind myself periodically what occurred." I mean, I remember it as a child. I remember being six, seven, eight years old, and my grandparents, relatives coming, escaping, arriving from Europe. And so there are these books. I really got great pleasure reading Aaron's book because of what he 67:00did in getting the Yiddish Book Center together, and how he started, but also in the fact that I knew the places and I'm sure I knew some of the people that he dealt with, and whose books he collected, particularly those out of Atlantic City, because my grandparents used to spend the summer there, and I had a college friend and classmate whose parents lived -- or his in-laws, actually -- lived in one of the buildings that Aaron describes very carefully in his book. I've always regarded Judaism as a way of life, as something to guide you. It has 68:00ethical teachings which you should follow. Do I care whether somebody goes to services on Shabbat or not? No, I don't care, as long as they follow the ethics and the morals that are taught in Judaism, and that's what's important to me. And I think that in Yiddish, a lot of them are there in Yiddish, and a lot of the expressions are there. A lot of the things that you find very meaningful can only be said in some of the Yiddish expressions.

BA:You've had so many wonderful stories and interesting experiences to relate that we never really touched on -- some historical events. I mean, you mentioned the Holocaust, or World War II, or the creation of Israel. We didn't get around to that, and I wonder if -- because we're getting towards the end of our 69:00interview -- I wonder if there's anything you want to say about any historical events that had particular meaning to you, or some kind of significance.

DS:Yeah. I remember very, very clearly the last day of World War II. I was at Boy Scout camp, and it was a warm August 9th, and the announcement made when the Japanese surrendered. And I went out to the parade grounds, and I laid on my back, and I looked up at the stars. And the stars were beautiful there because there were no electric lights. There was nothing to dim them out. And I remember looking up and saying that if there is a higher being, that higher being is up 70:00there somewhere, and thank you. And then I said to myself, No, there has to be someone or something up there that is much more advanced and higher than we are. We -- I cannot foresee us being the greatest thing in the universe. And that was the first time that I thought about that. That was a thought that came to me, and I've thought about that many times, and I've only reinforced that thought. I remember sitting by the radio, waiting for the UN countdown to form the state of Israel. And I remember saying to my wife, "We have got to go to Israel," and 71:00canceling the trip several times because of the fighting there. And then a college classmate of mine, who was then Dean of Engineering at Drexel, calling me up for some help in a problem that he had, and telling me that he just came back from Israel. And I said, "How did you like it?" He says, "Well, I went with my church group. My wife wouldn't go because he was afraid." I said, "That's it, we're going." And right after the Six-Day War, we went off to Israel. And the experience and the time that we had there. And the walls were not rebuilt, because the artillery -- there were holes in the walls around the old city. And I took my wife by the hand and climbed up the stairs in the tower, and walked the walls with the rubble there, and down. And they yelled at me. They yelled, 72:00"Get down!" Oh, did they give me a yelling (laughter) and a browbeating, because we were up there. It was dangerous. "What are you doing?" But I had to go. I had to be there. I needed that feeling of having been there. We arrived the first night in Jerusalem, and they put our luggage on our bed, and my wife looks out the window of the hotel and sees a street, and across the street there's a book fair. Well, she's an avid reader. She doesn't read Hebrew, though, but, "A book fair. I have to go to a book fair." Fine. Leave everything there. Out the front door, around the corner, walk down the street towards the entrance of the book fair. There was no one there, nobody on the street, not in front of us, no one that we could see. And as we walked towards the book fair, we heard bang, bang, 73:00bang. And the next thing we knew, we were shoved into a doorway. And here is this teenager with an Uzi standing guard, protecting us. Well, he said, "Stay here, make sure until everything is clear." And he stayed there to protect us with that Uzi until everything was clear. I never felt unsafe for a minute the rest of my time in Israel, and all the rest of the trips, and we've been there six times or more, and we're going back in July, by the way, 'cause I have a grandson studying in Israel and living there, so we're going back in July. And I have another grandson who is going to skate on the American team in the Maccabi World Jewish Championships -- Ice Hockey Championships. So we'll go up to 74:00Metulla and see the games. But incidents like that always -- and somehow they always made me feel good as a Jew.

BA:You have so many wonderful memories of your life growing up, and the things you've done, and what's important to you, and your experiences. I think we have enough for another interview, but we're nearing the end of this one, and I just want to make sure that if there's anything else you want to speak about, or any other stories -- I think some of what you wrote we did touch on.

DS:Yeah.

BA:But is there anything else that you would like to talk about before we're finished?

DS:Well, I think you're correct -- we have many, many stories that I could tell 75:00that touched my life. But if we were going to end, I would like to say to anyone who watches this interview that it's so important to save the Yiddishkayt, and that includes the language, that it is very important. There's so much good in it. There's so much there to be learned, and so much that people can derive from it, from the language, from the literature, from the ethics, from the morals of it. And don't turn your head. And I would emphasize what my father always said -- just be honest, and only deal with honest people.

BA:Any other stories or anything else you want to share with us?

DS:I don't know quite where to begin, on what subject. I --

BA:Well, I think you've talked about your grandparents, you've talked about -- you have so much richness in your life (laughs) that it's hard to -- we've talked about Yiddish as a language, and your travels.

DS:I --

BA:We've talked about your principalship, starting -- we've talked about, I think, most of what you mentioned as important in the questionnaire that you filled out. I just don't -- I just want to make sure there's nothing else that you want to share with us.

DS:I'll tell you another quick story. I taught as a member of the faculty, 77:00engineering faculty, at Villanova for twenty-four years, and I had some very interesting relationships with some of the priests there, particularly with the father president. But they had a geography department. It was composed of one man, and he taught all the geography courses there at the time. And he came to me one day and said, "How about you coming up and teaching a course on Judaism?" And I thought about it. I'm an engineer. Of course, I had all this experience in the Hebrew school. But I thought, that'd be a good opportunity. So I wrote out an outline for a lecture, and we scheduled the course, and I went up and taught this one period course for about five, six years in a row. And I would go up to 78:00the class, and I would go up to the blackboard, and I would write on the blackboard at the beginning of the lecture, "Dovid Yakov ben Shloyme HaLevi." And I said, "This is who I am, but not just who I am, but who I belong to and where I come from." And then I would explain to them: "Dovid Yakov, that's my name. Actually, it's David J. Ben Shloyme. That tells me a little bit more of who I am: son of Solomon. But it also tells me who my father was: Solomon. HaLevi. Ah, that tells me my whole history. I know my father. I know who my 79:00grandfather was, because he was a Levi, and he was a Levite, because that tells me that. It's passed down from one to the other. It also tells me that I have a relationship there, because I was named for him, so his name was Dovid. But it also tells me that back in the distant past I have an uncle Moses. Problem is, I can't fill in the gap from my grandfather to Moses, but it's there, and it's a whole history. And I am a Jew, and that's who I am and where I came from." And then I would go on to the lecture.

BA:It's a lovely story. Very touching story. I'll remember that. You've already, I think, given advice to future generations, but I would ask you again: is there any other advice that you have for future generations?

DS:Yeah. Am Israel chai, Israel must live, because without Israel, Jews are 80:00gonna die. It will happen. It happened before, and it can happen again, and, unfortunately, it can happen in this country. We just came back from a trip to Europe, and one of our stops was in Budapest, and the Nazi skinheads were rallying. It was a sight that was frightening. And I spoke to two of the Jewish guides in Budapest, and both are trying to get out of the country because of it. And without the existence of Israel, there's not much that we can turn to.

BA:Thank you. Is there anything else that you want to add before we conclude the interview?

DS:I just have a couple of pictures that I will show you that --

BA:Yes.

DS:And we'll talk about them.

BA:We'll do that later. So I want to personally thank you for sharing your stories and your reflections with me, and I also want to thank you on behalf of the Yiddish Book Center, and for participating in the Wexler Oral History Project. For me, it's been an absolute pleasure. I do thank you.

DS:Oh, you're quite welcome, and it was my pleasure to do it.

[END OF INTERVIEW]