REBECCA LEVINE ORAL HISTORY

JORDAN KUTZIK: This is Jordan Kutzik, and today is April 19th, 2013.  I am here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts with Rebecca Levine, and we are about to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project.  Mrs. Levine, do I have your permission to record the interview?

REBECCA LEVINE: Yes.

JK:  Thank you.  Okay, can you tell me a bit about your family history?  Did you know your grandparents?

RL:  I -- I did know my maternal grandparents, although my grandfather -- the zeyde -- died when I was five or six, so I just remember that I wanted to sit shivah [seven-day mourning period] for him, too, and my mother said, "Eyniklekh 1:00zitsn nit shive [Grandchildren don't sit shivah]."

JK:  Yeah.

RL:  My grandmother was with us from the time she came to America.  So, my mother brought them both over, and they lived with us until my -- my grandfather died.  And my grandmother lived with us until my aunt had a child late in life, after a late marriage, and then my grandmother went to help her.  So, they went to New Jersey.  And then they came back.  But basically, my family was in Brooklyn, New York, and we -- we ha-- my -- we had a grocery store.  And I say we, because we all worked in the store.  My father sent for my mother as a betrothed, and the people in the town of Shereshov told her, S'iz falshe papirn [They're false documents].  You know, you'll get to Warsaw and -- and you'll come back.  So, she really was doubtful that she was going -- didn't -- didn't 2:00have too many goodbyes, et cetera.  But she came here and -- and they married.  And they saved every penny to send for relatives.  Now, my mother had unmarried siblings younger than she, so they came first.  And then, when all those unmarried siblings came -- and they came all over.  Two went to Mon-- two went to Argentina.  Two to Montreal and one to New York.  Then, the parents, 'cause you can't bring the parents if you have young children there.  So, that's when that part of the family came.  And then, my parents started on nephews of their married siblings.  And unfortunately, time ran out.  So, one came in '38 and lived with us.  That was my father's nephew.  And my mother's 3:00nephew came after Auschwitz.  He survived Auschwitz and came here.  So, the -- the older sisters remained in -- in Poland and were annihilated, with their children, husbands.  So, a big chunk of the family was lost.  So, I feel I'm very lucky.  I could have been a Holocaust number.  But because my father sent for my mother, we're here.  But the Holocaust weighs heavily on me, and I attend Holocaust activities in my community.  And I'm part of the Holocaust Council that is in my area.  And that's basically the make-up.  When my father had a heart attack, he could no longer maintain the grocery store.  So, they sold that business.  And we had been going to Rockaway Beach, New York, in the 4:00summer.  In the summers, my parents would rent a place.  They would take turns.  My bobe [grandmother] stayed there.  My unmarried aunt stayed there.  And the children would -- would go back and forth after helping in the store.  So, Rockaway Beach seemed like a -- an ideal place for something, and they became owners of a multiple dwelling summer house.  And people came and rented rooms for the summer and then left after Labor Day.  And that's where we were, in Rockaway.  So, I moved from Rockaway, New York to Rockaway, New Jersey.

JK:  (laughs) What was it like growing up with all these relatives from Europe?  What -- is --

RL:  My mother used to joke that we had rubber walls, that they stretched.  It -- we used to joke it was Grand Central and then our house.  So, we -- I don't 5:00-- I don't know where everyone slept even before the -- the rel-- the cousin came from Europe, because I -- my mother, father, grandmother, and grandfather -- and we were three, and we only had two bedrooms and a living room that had beds, day beds.  So, a lot of sleeping space and not much else, 'cause we were in the store.  We didn't really utilize a living room.  The store was open seven days a week, from morning 'til night.  So, the store was our center. 

JK:  How far away was the store from your apartment?

RL:  We lived behind the store.  No such thing as an apartment.  It was one -- one unit.

JK:  One unit.  Wow.  And what were the -- what were the customers like?  Were they --

RL:  Interesting.  We had -- a lot of Jewish -- Jewish customers.  We had a Polish family living -- our backyard went to their backyard, and when they 6:00shopped, we called her panna [Polish: miss].  We had a couple Italian families.  It was a small community.  We had the corner grocery store.  Now there was another corner grocery store a block away, and they had totally different clientele.  So, there were enough people living on four sides of -- of the store, north and south, east and west, that we -- we -- the customers didn't come from further than one block.

JK:  Wow.

RL:  And -- and we had the only public telephone in the community.  People did not have private telephones.  So, I called young women to the phone for dates.  Next door, we had an Italian family when this -- when the son called from -- he was in the army -- so, I'm going into the '40s -- she was very, very 7:00frightened of the telephone.  She was an immigrant, Italian woman.  And she didn't know what to do with the phone.  We had messages.  One of the Italian women was -- would tell us in broken English, "Mrs. Schiff, if my daughter comes, tell her I went to the butch."  (laughs) So, it -- and we had men who would come and sit on milk boxes, and it was a gathering place.  They didn't interfere with -- with business.  The store was open late.  And it was interesting.  The people who hung out were -- were mostly Jewish men.  There was a Mr. Klein who worked in coal, 'cause he had very dirty clothes.  But he came cleansed after dinner.  And we called him "Kamenetsky," because he came from Kamenets.  So, you know, you learn different things from how your parents 8:00dealt with people.

JK:  Yeah, what type of things did the store sell?

RL:  Everything you can imagine.  We got fresh eggs from a farmer in New Jersey every Saturday morning.  We had all kinds of breads.  We had a cake stand where we had seven-layer cake, checkerboard cake, Boston cream pie.  And people would come and ask for a piece of it, for dinner.  People would come -- we had all kinds of cheeses, dairy products.  So, they would ask for a halb-fertl [half of a quarter pound] cream cheese.  And if you cut a little more -- 'cause you cut it by hand -- they wanted just a halb-fertl, you know?  You had to take it away.  The non-- we had non-Jewish customers, and they used to order American cheese.  We never ate American cheese.  They called it store cheese.  We had white and yellow, and we had a slicer.  We also had lox, 9:00whitefish, et cetera.  We sold frankfurters, kosher frankfurters that -- herring.  (laughs) That was an icebox that I remember.  My father had to carry cakes of ice up on the most ridiculous steps, which were ha-- you know, homemade steps.  It was -- wasn't a little stepstool -- to put these big cakes of ice on top for the refrigerator -- it wasn't a refrigerator -- for the icebox to be cold.  And -- and that's how it was.  And you worked in the store when you came home from school.  My grandmother worked -- we put fruits and vegetables outside in the summer, and she would say, "What you want, darling?"  (laughs) And she'd give change -- she had change in her apron pocket, and she could tell them what they had to pay and what -- she would give them change.

JK:  Wow.

RL:  So, it was -- when I say we, it was a family -- a family business.

JK:  Wow.  What -- what was Jewish life like in your family?

RL:  Well, we -- my first language was Yiddish.  My bobe lived with us.  I mean, I really don't remember my grandfather, except that I remember his tutoring my brother to learn to read the prayers.  I slept with my bobe.  So, she taught me how to say -- how to leyen [read].  And I'll say it how she said it: "leyen kri-shme [recite the Shema]."  And when I grew up, I learned that that was "kriyat sh'mo [Hebrew in Sephardic pronunciation: recite the Shema]."  (laughs) And I did it by rote.  If you stopped me in the middle, I couldn't -- couldn't continue.  She used to show off with me in the store when somebody came.  She'd say, "Her zikh tsu, rivke ken leyenen kri-shme [Listen, Rebecca 11:00can recite the Shema]."  But she had taught me to say it and then say, "A gute nakht [Good night]," because that was the last thing I was supposed to say and not talk.  So, in the middle of the day, that's what I did.  I'd say -- go through the whole thing and I'd say, "A gute nakht."  Course, people laughed.  Yiddishkayt, we kept kosher.  We ate meat very rarely, because dairy was available.  My mother never went food shopping for fish or for meat.  My bobe did that.  And bobe did a lot of cooking.  There was no temple affiliation except that there was a landsleit [fellow countrypeople] shul.  So, there was a Shereshove shul nearby, and my father went there on High Holidays and Passover, and sometimes he'd bring his uncle home for dinner.  People could stop by.  12:00Family -- family came to visit us while the store was open, 'cause it was never closed.  So, there was no such thing as making an appointment.  Whenever you came, you could visit.  But you couldn't really go out of the store, upstairs to the apartment, because somebody had to be at the store.  When I was about eight or nine, there was a shule [secular Yiddish school] that opened up nearby.  A storefront.  And somebody told my mother about it, and so I went to the shule.  I was Yiddish-speaking.  All I had to learn was the alef-beys [Hebrew alphabet] and I could read and write.  So, small classes.  I had a wonderful teacher.  Poor, came from New York, Lower -- lived on the Lower East Side, and that was his livelihood.  He had two shules that he was the teacher 13:00of.  And sometimes, I would be the only -- of four, I was the only student -- like, if it rained, the others didn't come.  And he would go and buy me a penny candy to reward me for coming.  But my shule was on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons.  And in the winter, it was already Shabbos when I was going.  So, we played this little cat-and-mouse game with my bobe.  She'd say, "Vu geystu [Where are you going]?" and I'd say, "Ikh ken dir nisht zogn, vayl a lign ken ikh nisht zogn un der emes du vilst nisht hern [I can't tell you, because I cannot tell a lie and you don't want to hear the truth]."  (laughs) Because we did write in shule.  But we had music on a -- on another day, and we learned Yiddish songs.  And then, I went to mitlshul [high school], which was a larger complex that covered more territory than a neighborhood.  So, I went first by bus, and that was actually the first time I traveled alone, at 14:00twelve.  And then, it moved to downtown Brooklyn, and so I had to take a subway.  So, I went to mitlshul for four years and we had departmental classes.  It was a linke shule [leftist school], by accident.  That's the only folkshul [Yiddish secular school] that was in the -- in the neighborhood.  In other neighborhoods, they had -- sponsored by Arbeter Ring.  But this was -- was IWO, and then they changed their name to JPFO, Jewish People's Fraternal Order, but you didn't escape McCarthy, no matter what your name.  My father said -- I wanted to go on after mitlshul, and he was -- that was in 1948.  And he said, "Your sister wants to be a teacher.  Your brother wants to be a 15:00lawyer.  You can't go any further."  There was -- there was real fear at that time of being marked -- so, even today, when people ask me what's shule, I go -- when they say Workmen's Circle, I say like Workmen's Circle.  That it's very hard to -- to escape that smear of -- of a communist school.

JK:  Were you aware at the time, when you were twelve, thirteen, fourteen, of the politics and --

RL:  No, but I was by fifteen, sixteen.

JK:  Were the lessons very political?  Or --

RL:  Well, we had a class in politishe-ekonomye [political economy].  What did I know from political economics?  But the teachers were -- were very, very left wing, and that was their orientation.  But it didn't -- it -- it didn't affect our teaching.  The literature we read was regular literature from Sholem 16:00Aleichem and Peretz and Mendele.  But they did have that class, and it's on my report card: "politishe-ekonomye."  So, I know -- but I didn't -- I didn't get anything out of it, out of that particular class.  But it was -- I went on Saturday and Sunday.  That was my -- my weekend activity.  I don't know if you're from New York, but my friends went to the Roxy or the Paramount on Saturdays, and they saw people like Frank Sinatra, et cetera.  I missed out on that.  So, I say I'm American culturally deprived, but not in Yiddish.

JK:  So, how many students were there?  And what were the other kids who came, like, to the shule?

RL:  In the shule, it was -- we -- we were just a class of four, and I don't 17:00think -- I think the parents were very active in supporting the shule.  They used to have a banket [banquet].  They used to have a kontsert [concert], and they would sell tickets to raise funds, because it was -- had to be a self-supporting school.  But you didn't hear any politics.  I don't know what their politics were, the parents of these four students with whom I graduated.  In mitlshul, I would say there were parents who were maybe more politically savvy than my -- than my parents.  My father and mother read the "Tog," and then when I went to mitlshul, they switched to the "Morgen Freiheit."  But we went to Madison Square Garden to support Israel bonds.  So, my parents were very Jewish, but how did they participate in it?  I -- you know, being very 18:00Jewish was in their bones and in their soul, but they really didn't have time to do anything to explore.  We did go to the Yiddish theater, because there were -- there was always a fundraiser.  And I went to the Yiddish theater with my mother and my bobe, but my father stayed in the store.  There were two Yiddish theaters in Brooklyn, the Parkway and the Hopkinson.  So, we didn't go to 2nd Avenue, 'cause we had two theaters in Brooklyn.  Brooklyn was a city.  A -- so --

JK:  Do you remember what kind of shows you saw at the theater?

RL:  Oh, yes.  They were always tragedies, that girl loses boy and -- and then they come together.  Or somebody is about to get married and they discover it's a brother and a sister and they can't get married.  But there was always a wedding at the end.  And -- and the Folksbiene still has shows like that.  I'm 19:00very active in the Folksbiene.  I support it actively, and I run theater parties.  I used to sell forty tickets for the -- to the Folksbiene for the Suburban Jewish School, which is where I taught Yiddish and where my children got their Jewish education.  That's the alternative route, not Hebrew school.

JK:  Were you or your family aware of the Holocaust as it was happening, or --

RL:  Yes, because the family was there.  Communications ended.  There were no more letters.  My -- my par-- my parents and my bobe were in Europe during World War I.  So, my bobe used to say, "Az di daytshn veln araynkumen, vet men 20:00zey gebn esn un trinkn, zey veln geyn shlofn, un dan morgn avekgeyn [If the Germans come, we'll give them food and drink, they'll go to sleep, and then they'll leave in the morning]."  That was the experience in World War I.  There was no conception of what the Nazis could do.  So -- so, my grandmother expected to see her three married daughters after the war because of her -- her idea of how it would work based upon World War I.  And not until the s-- one cousin, my grandmother's only grandson, who survived, came and really told about how everybody was -- was -- was murdered, right there in the town -- and the cousin who came in '38, my father's nephew -- except for my parents had -- and my -- and another uncle -- had nobody.  So, my parents hobn im gefirt tsu 21:00d'khupe [lead him to the wedding canopy].

JK:  Did he marry someone he met in the States or --

RL:  No.  The one who came from the Holocaust, his name was Shepsl.  He married the woman that he met in Auschwitz.  And she came with a friend.  And my cousin from 1938, Yankl, he married her friend.  So, I don't know whether they were close friends or distant cousins, but they were close.  So, that was -- that was kept together.  They had gone to Chicago, 'cause that's where their family was from, the people who sent for them.  And they came -- they came to New York, to Brooklyn.  And there was also a survivor -- Shepsel had an older sister who was married and had a child.  And she and her child were killed, but 22:00her husband survived.  And he had nobody.  So, we were his family, even though we're removed by death, he was my cousin's husband.  But my cousin was killed.  And it was very interesting, 'cause he got papers to go to Israel, and he wanted to -- he only knew his brother-in-law, who survived, so he wanted to come to the States.  So, he switched papers with somebody who wanted to go Israel and got papers.  So, his name was Berl, but he came with somebody else's papers, so he became Velvel.  (laughter) Didn't matter.  It was where he wanted to be.  And he visited us.

JK:  What was it like being a -- a teenager, interacting with these people and hearing what had happened?

RL:  Shepsel also came and lived with us, and he wanted to learn English.  So, 23:00I would speak to him -- he would speak to me in Yiddish, I would -- I would answer him in Yiddish, but then I would say it in English so he -- he could learn.  But he didn't really tell us many details.  He -- and how, when he came by ship, my mother and my aunt recognized him or how they found each other when they came is incredible to me, because when my mother left, he was a -- a child.  And here he is, emaciated and grown up, and they found each other.  And, yeah, they brought him to -- after he went to somebody else's house, it didn't work out -- bottom line was our home, our house, was the open house.  And he lived with us until he got married.

JK:  Yeah.  Did your parents know he was coming?

RL:  No, but we -- we had one address for -- I guess at that time thirty years.  And somehow or other -- I don't know where he stuck a piece of paper or whether he memorized it, but when an American soldier came into the camp, he gave him this address.  He gave him our address and we found out that he was alive.  He had a brother who also was in the camp and they tried to prop him up and share more bread with him, but he had TB and he died, like, three days before the Allies came in.  So -- so, Shepsel was really the only one who survived.  Close relative.  There was a cousin of my mother's, also, who survived.  And that's it, from a very large family.

JK:  You graduated from mitlshul the same year that Israel was founded.

RL:  Right.

JK:  What was the discussion of Israel like at your mitlshul?

RL:  Not much.  Not much at all.  But at home, I remember sitting at the radio and listening in '47 for the -- the U.N. vote until we got to a majority.  But we -- we had only radio then.  And that was very exciting.  And then, you know, Ben-Gurion declares a state, and then there was a war.  So -- so, we were busy listening to the results of the war. 

JK:  The --

RL:  Of the -- the War of Independence, I'm talking about.

JK:  Yeah.

RL:  Yes.

JK:  Then -- was this on the Yiddish radio or -- or --

RL:  Oh, sure.  I -- no, I listened on the English radio.  The Yiddish radio 26:00was WEVD, and I remind my students what the letters stand for.  So, the "Forverts," which owned WEVD, was a socialist organ, because WEVD stands for Eugene V. Debs.  Bobe listened to the Yiddish station continuously, because she was unemployed, so to speak, she could listen to the radio.  When I came home from school, she was listening to either "Tsores b'laytn [People's problems]" or "A yidishe filosof [The Jewish philosopher]."  And the "Yidishe filosof" was like Ann Landers.  People called in with problems and he gave advice.  And "Tsores b'laytn" was also that sort of program, you know?  People's problems and seeking answers.  Bobe couldn't read.  My mother and -- and father read the Yiddish newspaper and -- and then it turned around when there was no more 27:00"Morning Freiheit," they read the -- my mother read the "Forverts" again.

JK:  You went to Brooklyn College.

RL:  Um-hm.

JK:  What was Brooklyn College like in the 1950s?

RL:  Well, it was -- it was -- I wouldn't say a hotbed of radicalism, but it was very liberal.  And they introduced ROTC while I was there, and we had big pickets because we didn't want the military on the campus.  So, that was a big issue.  There were sit-ins at the president's office.  The president of Brooklyn College was a very reactionary person.  So, he put down things.  Like 28:00Howard Fast was supposed to speak on campus.  He wasn't permitted to.  So, students set up a soapbox right outside the fence of Brooklyn College and Howard Fast stood on the box and -- and did his presentation out -- off-campus.  And believe me, there were hundreds of students out there, listening to him.  So, I mean, I was not politically active, but I was a leftist.  Maybe it was based on the mitlshul experience.  But, you know, the -- civil rights was in its infancy.  When I got married in '52, my husband was a graduate student in Buffalo.  But in April, he got drafted.  And we were in Virginia.  He was stationed there.  And I had a theory that when somebody was anti-Black, which 29:00-- at that time, it was anti-Negro -- if you scratched a little further, they were anti-Jewish.  So, I -- I experienced anti-Semitism firsthand, when I didn't in Brooklyn.  You -- I was surrounded by a -- a polyglot community, but -- but very Jew-- but mostly Jewish.  Mostly Jewish.  The Italians -- there were several Italians on one street, and I remember VE Day.  They brought out wine and they invited my father, you know, to come and have a l'chaim [toast].  It just was a -- it was a good, safe community.  It wasn't that twenty years later.  I went back to the neighborhood many years later.  The buildings were 30:00all torn down.  The only thing that still stood was a yeshiva, which was a block away, and an elementary school, three blocks away, which is where I went to school.   My father often had to close the store because they needed a minyan at the yeshiva.  And so, he would do that.  That's early in the morning.

JK:  Yeah.

RL:  Yes.

JK:  What was it like moving to Virginia after growing up in Brooklyn?

RL:  It's a culture shock.  I -- I majored in math and went for a job to Newport News Shipbuilding Company.  And they -- they had ads for people, but -- and they asked me to fill out an application.  I went with another woman from Brooklyn who was applying for a secretarial job, and both of us were told, "There's no opening now, but we'll call you."  And I said, "I wish I had the 31:00courage to go back tomorrow with another name and see if they still don't have any openings."  But I -- but I didn't.  I was --

JK:  With a man's name, or with just --

RL:  No, no, not a man.

JK:  -- just a --

RL:  It can't be a man's name, but -- (laughter) with a -- not -- not Levine.

JK:  Yeah.  Oh, not Levine.

RL:  Not Levine.

JK:  I understand, I understand, sorry.

RL:  I was folk-dancing at the time, and -- which, when I was at Brooklyn College, was mostly a -- a leftist organization.  People who went to hootenannies and folk-dancing -- I don't know if you're a New Yorker, but they were liberals.  And so, in Virginia, we danced twice a -- twice a week.  On Friday night, we danced at Fort Monroe, which was government property.  So, it was integrated.  On Sunday night, we danced at the Jewish Community Center, which was the white USO.  That was white.  The -- the people who were Black in 32:00our folk-dance group couldn't come there.  So, it's -- it's all around.  I taught in a high school.  The Eng-- the white high school.  And I taught math, so I did a lot of writing on the blackboard.  When the chalk was so small that my nails scratched the board, I would toss that piece of chalk in the wastebasket, and students would call out and say, "Save it for the Negro school," or "Save it for the colored school."  And so, I would have to stop teaching math and say, "If I can't write with this piece of chalk, what makes you think a colored teacher could?"  And I was teaching during the Supreme Court ruling that separate but equal is not equal.  And the white teachers were very concerned about what they would do.  So, it was a -- a -- a good -- a good learning experience.

JK:  And how did people react to you being Jewish in Virginia?

RL:  I was the only Jewish teacher in the school.  We had -- here you get snow days.  At that time, there were hurricane days, when schools were closed, and you had to make up the time.  And so, I sit at a faculty meeting and they're debating whether the Easter vacation should start on the weekend and then end on Friday or should start on Monday and end on a weekend.  And it was like how many angels fit on the pinhead.  They could go back and forth whether it's better to start with the weekend or end with the weekend.  So, I raised my hand and I said, "If it doesn't matter too much -- if you do it on this weekend, it would coincide with Passover."  And they said -- and -- "the Jewish holiday of Passover."  And somebody said, "Since when do the Jews have a holiday at Easter-time?"  And so, you shrugged your shoulders and you say, you know, they 34:00don't know history.  What was the Last Supper?  So, it's a lot of ignorance and -- and you just have to keep -- keep at it.  Like the piece of chalk, like a math problem that -- profit or loss, and they come up with a profit, "Must have been a Jew."  And they say it out loud.  It -- it's what they think.  Vos afn lung iz afn tsung [Say what's inside, lit. "What's in your lung is on your tongue"]. 

JK:  And your students would say this even though they knew you were Jewish?

RL:  I don't know how they knew I was Jewish -- if they recognized the name.  I mean, I didn't come in and say, "I -- I come from New York and I'm Jewish."  They -- they said I had a New York accent and they would make fun of my speech.  I'd say, "Boys and girls," and they didn't like -- they say more 35:00"bohys," and so they would laugh about my speech.  I'd go home on a vacation and they'd say to me, "You sound like a Southerner."  So, I'd pick up sounds easily.  So, I -- I don't know how much they knew, but -- but the sounds came -- the words came out very readily.  And yet, white teachers -- the teachers I taught with knew, and if they didn't know anything, they knew after my father died, because I wore the black ribbon, I stayed home.  I didn't teach.  I -- I lost my train of thought about the teachers.  But anti-Semitism was just -- was very prevalent.

JK:  And going back to the -- the folk-dancing, it's just interesting for me, 36:00as someone who grew up in the late twentieth, twenty-first century to hear that specifically -- dancing was a political activity.  Was it just the type of thing that attracted people or --

RL:  It -- it was the kind of people that were attracted to folk-dancing, because it was international folk-dancing.  It attracted people who thought beyond their community or the United States.  It -- it was bigger.  And we do dances -- I still folk-dance, and we do dances from all over.  Italy, Greece, Israel.  Norwegian.  Very few American folk dances.  The only thing is a square-dance.  And ethnically, the groups that have backgrounds, they maintain their culture.  So, the Greek children learn Greek dancing in my community, in 37:00the greater New Jersey area, and they have festivals and they wear their native costumes.  Israelis have that.  The Irish have that.  The Norwegians -- we have a Norwegian community where I live now, and they're very ethnically-oriented.  And -- and also live in a very close community.  And I was in charge of a PTA program many years ago.  A folk-dancing -- and we -- the group that we danced with was just in White Meadow Lake, which at that time was ninety percent Jewish.  And we purposely did only one Israeli dance, one Greek dance, one English dance -- purposely, to have that mix.  And we were put on the program by the principal of the school as the Israelian folk-dance group, 38:00because we came from White Meadow.  And the Norwegian group came and they danced in costume, and we asked them if we could come to their dance program, to their dance class, and they said, "It's -- it's just for Norwegians."  And we said, "Could we come and watch?"  And they said, "No."  So -- so White -- if you want to talk about anti-Semitism, it existed in the '60s where I live now, because White Meadow Lake was known as a Jewish enclave.  When we moved there, my husband ran for the school board of ed-- the board of education -- it's an elected position.  He and another man from White Meadow, both Jewish, ran for the board of ed. as a team, and the people from the upper district put out a flyer with a rocket pointing up and two men sitting on the rocket.  And they 39:00said, "If you want to vote for Levine and -- and Michael, your -- your taxes will go up."  So --

JK:  Wow.  So, you -- you worked with computers in 1955, for NASA.

RL:  Right.

JK:  What was that like, and what was it like being a woman in the sciences in the 1950s?

RL:  It was -- it was okay.  Actually, I worked -- my husband lived in Buffalo.  We lived in Buffalo when we got married, 'cause he was still in graduate school.  And I worked for Cornell Aeronautical Lab there.  And if you had the credentials -- you know, you had a degree in -- in math, you -- you worked.  I -- we always worked under an engineer.  The engineer always was a male at the time.  I think that would have changed twenty years later.  And 40:00the same thing in -- in NASA, although it was NACA when I worked there.  And there weren't -- there weren't too many Jewish people there, even though it was a -- a government position.  But there was no problem.  I -- I didn't encounter any -- any anti-Semitism among the workers there.  They spoke free -- there was a Catholic who didn't like fish and he told us he would not eat dinner on Friday night until midnight so that he could have his meat.  They all -- they -- they weren't religious in terms of their practice, that it carried over to -- to -- to work.

JK:  What was it like working with computers?  What kind of work did you do?

RL:  We put problems into a computer.  It -- it was -- it's archaic by today's standards.  First of all, the computer was in a room much larger than this.  It was the only air-conditioned room in the -- in the whole building.  You worked and worked on a problem.  It was -- it was a -- a drum that rotated.  And so, there was -- like, you had a -- ideal places to put your numbers so that they wouldn't -- the drum wouldn't be going around constantly.  And you'd work on this for a long time, and then you'd get -- and then you -- it was with punch cards.  They -- you wrote it out in -- in pencil and they punched cards with holes.  And then, when you got your time on the computer, those cards went in, and in two seconds, the answer came out.  (laughs) So, it -- but the -- the whole system is -- is archaic by today's standards.  So, it was done -- we did 42:00the computing by hand and -- and set up the problem to go into a machine, into the computer, to see whether the computer picked up all the information.  So, it was a -- it was an IBM machine that was huge.  Huge.

JK:  What kind of problems were you setting it up to solve?

RL:  Well, we really didn't know what the bigger picture was.  They were usually [equatic?] equations that we solved.  We saw films on -- on the wind tunnel experiments.  Weightlessness, speed, et cetera.  So, it was interesting.  I mean, if I went back there today, I -- I would -- wouldn't recognize anything.  When you see the -- the screens at the -- when they go 43:00send a rocket up and you see the engineer sitting in front of those screens -- was nothing like that.

JK:  How -- how did you meet your husband?

RL:  At a JCC.  He was a youth worker and I was a youth worker.  And then they had a young adult group that met on Sundays.  And there was -- there was no place other than there for young adults to congregate.  So, we had this club, this group, and boys and girls.  And we'd have a dance every now and then.  And there were a couple of -- there were a couple of marriages from that group.

JK:  Was your husband from a similar background?

RL:  No.  (laughs) His parents were born in America.  His mother never alluded to Yiddish until she was much older, when I discovered that she did know 44:00some Yiddish.  They were -- they would have liked to be social climbers, but they were not in that category.  So, they -- she had a -- my -- my mother-in-law had two brothers who were successful in business.  And it didn't help her any, but she was very proud of them.  She wanted her son to be a doctor.  And so, he -- he went to -- he went as a pre-med student in high -- in college.  Then he realized he didn't like that, so he made it pre-dental.  And then he didn't like that, so he decided pre-- he would be a psychologist.  And as long as she would have a doctor in front of his name, she would be happy.  But he was politically active, much more so than I.  And that did not sit well 45:00with her.  So, basically, she would disown him anytime she found out that he was doing something that was not up to snuff.

JK:  What type of things was he doing that weren't up to snuff?

RL:  Oh, he sold -- now, I -- the name of the newspaper just went out of my head.  He sold "The Daily Worker."

JK:  The --

RL:  On Sunday, he did this -- I don't know whether he was doing it more to spite her or more to explore his political leanings.  But -- because he sold it -- he sold them on a corner where there was a poor Black community.  So, I don't know whether they bought them or he gave them away.  I don't -- I don't really know.  He was -- I was not connected with him at that -- at that point.  But he was very involved with civil rights and -- and ended up working 46:00for the government.  So, he made a -- a big turnaround.

JK:  You have three children.

RL:  Yes.

JK:  What values did you try to pass on to them?

RL:  Well, I -- I tried, first of all, to pass on a love of Yiddish.  They don't speak Yiddish.  They -- I went to a -- a German movie last night from the Pioneer Valley Film Fest -- Jewish Film Festival -- and it was in German, and Karen said she could understand a lot of the dialogue in German, because there was so much Yiddish.  So, she understands more than she can speak.  But we have a -- a standing joke:  what did you learn in shule?  Zay azey gut un gib mir di zalts [Please pass me the salt].  (laughter) That was her big thing.  47:00So, I -- it rubbed off because my mother lived to a ripe old age.  They didn't know my grandmother.  And so, when -- when my mother would visit or when we would visit her -- we used -- she and I spoke in Yiddish.  So, they heard it.  I don't think e-- any of them will be a Yiddishist, but who knows?  Maybe.  It came in handy when my second daughter was a nurse at Columbia Presbyterian, and she was told to explain the meds to one of the -- a Russian patient.  There was a Ukrainian nurse who helped him, but she was going off duty.  So, Cindy saw what he was giving and she -- one thing, she said, "Es iz far di kishkes [It's for the gut]," 'cause it was to help with elimination, digestion.  And the other one she said, "Es makht di blut tsu geyn [It makes the blood flow]."  So, it was heart medicine, and that was -- she managed to --

JK:  Yeah, yeah.

RL:  -- to do that.  My youngest had -- remembers a little more, 'cause I sang the same lullabies to all three of them.  But he got hung up on saying goodnight.  And so, he had this little litany.  "A gute nakht, ikh hob dikh zeyer lib, ikh vel dikh zen in morgn, shlof gezunt [Good night, I love you very much, I will see you in the morning, sleep well]."  And he was in college, a -- Year Course -- first he was on Year Course, from Young Judaea.  And even from Israel, when he would -- we'd talk on the telephone, he'd say, "A gute nakht, shlof gezunt," et cetera.  When he was in college, he was a -- he had a year in -- in England, or a semester abroad, and he did the same thing.  But now that he's a father, he's taught the children that.  So, the older one can say "a gute nakht" very well.  The younger one would say "a gute nat" and her brother would say, "It's 'gute nakht'!"  (laughs) Helping her.  But what did I imbue 49:00with them?  My -- my mother spent winters in Florida.  And so, I would call her on Friday evening.  And what does one say?  One says, "Good Shabbos."  And she'd say, "Oh, it's so -- s'iz azey gut tsu redn mit dir [it's so good to talk to you]."  I said, "Ma, call more than Friday."  So, I call her a couple times.  She didn't have a private phone.  She had to go stand near the payphone in this little rooming house.  So, we got into the habit that Shabbos zog-- Friday nights, zogn mir, "gut-shabes" [we say, "good Shabbos"].  So, my children all call, and last week they -- my son and his children didn't call.  They always get on the phone and say, "Good Shabbos, bobe."  So, last Saturday, they called and my grandson says, "Bobe, this is for yesterday.  Good Shabbos!"  (laughter) So, they -- and they go to a folkshul.  So, I'm very happy.  There is a very active folkshul in Philadelphia.

JK:  I'm an alum.

RL:  Pardon?

JK:  I'm an alum, actually.

RL:  You are?

JK:  Yeah, of that folkshul.

RL:  Really?

JK:  Yeah.

RL:  Did you know Max Rosenfeld when you went there?  He w--

JK:  No, he was --

RL:  -- he --

JK:  -- before my time.

RL:  Okay.

JK:  But my dad was friendly with him.

RL:  Because the two names from the folkshul movement were Itche Goldberg in New York and Max Rosenfeld in Philadelphia, right?  And you want me to tell you an Itche Goldberg story?

JK:  Sure, sure.

RL:  Itche Goldberg ha-- Yiddish is flowery.  It's expressive.  And he had a way of using it beautifully.  So, I used to call his office for a Yiddish heft [notebook], materials that I would need in -- when I was teaching at the folkshul.  So, I would call and I always identified myself so he wouldn't have to guess.  I'd say, "Itshe, dos iz rivke levin fun nyu dzhoyzi [Itche, this is Rebecca Levine from New Jersey]."  And he'd say, "Rivke, mayn kroyn, mayn oytser [Rebecca, my crown, my treasure]!"  In the story that was printed in "The Jewish News" -- so, it's very flattering, you know?  So, my crown, my 51:00treasure.  So, I was looking for the name of somebody who was a graduate of -- of the mitlshul and her mother was my mother's friend.  And I was looking for them for my mother's eightieth birthday party.  And I knew he would have her address, even though they had an ad in one of the journals for the National Yiddish Book Center and I knew it said Ruthie and Dov Barliss, someplace in Connecticut.  And I would report to my sister on my progress in finding these long-lost friends.  And so, I call -- and I was at a meeting and I saw Itche, and he says, "Call me tomorrow."  And I call and I say, "Hello, Itche?"  "Mayn kroyn, mayn oytser!"  I said, "Do you have Ruthie Rezetsky's address?"  And he said, "I can't find it.  Ruf mir on morgn [Call me in the morning]."  So, I 52:00report to my sister that he didn't have it.  And she said, "Well, why don't you call Connecticut information?"  And I said, "'Cause Connecticut information won't say, 'Mayn kroyn, mayn oytser!'"  (laughter) So, I went back to Itche.  So, I was at Itche's hundredth birthday party, and he was with it and still going to his office to write every day.  But -- but age caught up with him.

JK:  Hm.

RL:  I didn't know Max Rosenfeld personally.  I had seen him at conferences.  So -- so, maybe by osmosis, the kids get my connection.  They know I'm very involved with Yiddish, as much as I can be.

JK:  Hm.  What was it like being a principal at a JCSS school?

RL:  It was called Suburban Jewish School at the time.  When the Suburban 53:00Jewish School started, that was before my time, it was founded by leftists who wanted a cooperative school, and who also were looking for an alternative to Hebrew school, which meant a temple affiliation.  By the time I got to the school, it -- it was still cooperative, but I -- I started out as the Yiddish teacher, shortly after my daughter started school, because the Yiddish teacher had moved to California.  So, the principal, who knew me from Brooklyn -- he was my mitlshul principal -- he asked me to take over the Yiddish, and then I became -- he retired and somebody else took over, and then that person left and I took over.  By that time, the people were not interested in Yiddishkayt.  54:00The people who were sending their children there, in my era, were primarily mixed marriages, where one of the parents wanted the kids to have some Yiddishkayt.  They were not -- they were not coming to -- there were a handful who were the board of the directors, who were still very active in supporting the school, doing whatever the school needed.  But, by and large, except for, say, ten parents on the board, the other parents didn't show up.  If a child came to school without a pencil, without a notebook, you know, I would call them and urge them to please give them the basic things that the children needed to go to school.  There were some others that I never met until the child graduated.  They stood -- they parked their car down below and the kids ran down from the class.  And so, it wasn't that kind of cooperative.  It had no 55:00political leaning, except for individuals.  There were individuals there who -- there was an attorney who took on civil rights cases.  There was somebody who represented labor unions.  Basically, college -- I think college teachers.  So, he's very into labor and wages and equality in that sense.  But -- but others are very indifferent.  The parents.  And if the parents are, the children are, as well.  Even though it's a one day a week school, lots of things interfere.  Now, I have that where my son lives in Philadelphia, and unless it's a holiday weekend, I don't want him to come and have the children 56:00miss folkshul.  And he's very -- now, he's -- he's very interested in the folkshul, because it represents our background.  His wife comes from a totally different background.  So, my daughter-in-law is learning Yiddish, a little, because when -- before they got married, she called me Rebecca -- at the point where they were getting married, she asked me what did I want her to call me?  So, I said, "Well, you could still call me Rebecca."  I said, "I'm not your mother, so I don't like you to call me mom."  I said, "But there is a word in Yiddish called "shviger [mother-in-law]," and that's what I am.  Your mother-in-law.  So, you can call me "shviger."  Well, she jumped at it.  It was something new for her.  And Jeffrey says, "You want to be called 'shviger'?"  I said, "Jeffrey, it's a good word, because my bobe was called "shviger" by my father, and it was a name -- a title of respect.  And the 57:00customers who came into the store used to call her Mrs. Shviger, because they thought that was her name."  So, "shviger" has positive connotations for me, even though there are many jokes about mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law.  So, I have a good daughter-in-law, and she calls me "shviger."  And she made me a Mother's Day apron.  She's very good on the computer.  And it was for shviger.  And they were looking for an expression that would represent eating.  And I have a little -- little book called "Yiddish Wisdom," and one of the -- it's all about -- little shprikhverter [proverbs].  So, one of them says, "Az der boykh iz leydik iz der moyekh oykh leydik [If your belly is empty, so is your brain]."  So, that's on the apron.  (laughter) And when I do a Yiddish program for seniors, you know, I show them this at -- you can't -- you can pass on something.  They won't be Yiddishists.  They won't be Yiddish 58:00speakers.  But there's a -- a tam [flavor] that -- that hopefully they get.  And that -- at -- we have a -- we have our own Haggadah that's -- was pieced together by my husband, a little bit from here and a little bit from there.  But the fir kashes [the Four Questions at the Passover seder] are always done in Hebrew, Yiddish, and English.  The songs are all Yiddish.  So, I think some of it is reaching the next generation.

JK:  You were involved with Hadassah and eventually a vice-president.  What was Hadassah like in the '60s, '70s, and '80s?  What type of activities did you do?

RL:  Hadassah was very interesting, because it had a Hebrew -- Hebrew being the 59:00only language for the Yiddish people, for the Jewish people.  Religion, yes.  You -- if you had to have a luncheon, it had to be at a kosher restaurant or you had to serve fish or fruit.  You could never serve meat.  And you are respectful of the -- most needs, because the others will be okay.  When I spoke of Yiddish, the women who were active with me in the northern New Jersey -- they were adamantly opposed.  "Yiddish," one woman would say to me.  "What's Yiddish?"  And -- and then, I was a secular Jew.  They only knew of Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform.  There was no other thing.  And it's interesting, 60:00because Yiddish crept into Hadassah.  And they -- they had programs -- you know, readymade educational programs coming from the national office on Yiddish.  And -- and even "The Jewish News" will list synagogues as Orthodox, Conservative, Reform -- and they list the suburban -- they list the shule as a secular institution.  So, the Jewish people who are in organized Jewish organizations, the basic organizations, they've come around.  When Aaron Lansky wanted to start the National Yiddish Book Center, they -- he went to the leaders and they told him, "Why do you want to bother with Yiddish books?"  So, he got no support from organized Jewish religion.  So, it was a learning process in 61:00dealing with women who were all very affiliated with synagogues, who all talked about their rabbi, their services, et cetera.  My children were not bar mitzvahed in the traditional way.  Now, the folkshules call the graduation or the thirteenth birthday celebration as bar mitzvah or b'nei mitzvah for the graduating class, because they use the word "mitzvah" as doing good work.  And so, the students have to have a project.  And that -- and religious bar mitzvahs are doing the same thing.  They seek out a project that they want to support and they ask people to send -- to do something, if it's environmental or to send canned goods that will go to a soup kitchen, et cetera.  So, they're using the word "mitzvah" for good deeds.  And the shule graduation is 62:00significant.  Usually, the students do a study -- you know, study a subject and write a paper.  Least that's how it was when I was principal. 

JK:  And what attracted you to Hadassah originally?

RL:  I found it very educational.  It -- it broadened my Jewish -- my Jewish history background.  What I got from mitlshul was there, but not in any chronological order, like Jews in the Middle Ages and Jews in the twentieth century.  And Hadassah was very educational, and I also like the idea of doing 63:00something that supported the projects in Israel.  Hadassah is a very vital organization, and I was very impressed.  It was all volunteer, and I put in a lot of time.  You start out, you know, on a committee, and then you become a chapter president, then you get involved with the region and you -- I was region vice-president for about twelve years, taking different chairs.  But I never went to the next step because it really was a full-time job, and I thought it would require more of a financial investment on my part.  And that situation -- my funds were limited.  I wasn't really working, except for teaching at the shule.  So, that was a very limited income.  And in order -- I felt you had to have more money than I could spare for that activity.  Going into New York once 64:00a week, at least, it was a commitment of finances as well as time and energy.  So, I did a lot of energy and time.  I used to do leadership courses in Staten Island, because Staten Island was part of the New Jersey region, 'cause Brooklyn didn't want it.  (laughs) So -- so, Hadassah was a big chunk of my life.  I went -- I went -- well, the children all spent a year in Israel between high school and college, and that I got from Hadassah.  They went to -- Karen went to a leftist camp one summer.  She went to Camp Kinderland.  And she also went to Camp Tel Yehudah from Hadassah.  And the three children all went through the Hadassah camps, and then a year in Israel.  And I think it was maturing and learning, and I think they have an attachment to Israel that they might not 65:00otherwise have.  So, I'm grateful to Hadassah for that.

JK:  Did you ever go to Israel?

RL:  Yes.  I went to Israel first with a Hadassah tour.  I had the opportunity and I said to -- I mentioned it to my husband.  He was indifferent.  And I talked about it a lot, and finally he said, "If you can get a babysitter" -- 'cause Jeffrey was a little boy -- "if you can get a babysitter for the children" -- not to sleep over.  He didn't want, you know, a stranger in the house, but just to come in the morning and take care -- he would -- then he would agree to my going.  And that was in 1971.  That was wonderful.  And then, Karen went in '73.  Cindy went eight years later, and Jeffrey went.  All three of them went.  And so, I've been to Israel five times.

JK:  Yeah.

RL:  But I haven't been in a long time.  And I'm -- I'm sort of willing to go.  I don't -- I don't know how it would work out.  I had friends in Israel whom I adored, and they're -- they're gone.  So, the impetus to see them is no longer there.  The man, Moshe, had been here.  He got his Ph.D. at UMass, sponsored by National Council of Jewish Women.  And he has friends in this area.  And so, whenever he visited, he would visit us.  And so, it was a very close connection, and I stayed with -- with his wife, actually, when he was out of town -- out of the country, when I was in Israel.  So, would I like to go?  Yes.  When will I go?  I don't know. 

JK:  You've run a yidish vinkl [Yiddish group, lit. "Yiddish corner"] for many 67:00years now.  What has that been like?

RL:  That was very gratifying.  I had a little committee, but mainly I did the work myself.  I had a wonderful colleague named Norman Salfitz, who was a survivor.  Think you have the paper.  No, it's here.  And he used to -- he used to do programs for me.  The programs were all free, unless I had -- I had a professional singer.  And I did -- I had Ruth Rubin one year.  Aaron Lansky was the first program, be-- was founded by a couple called Mel and Shifra Gold.  And they were big benefactors of the -- in the early years.  So, they got Aaron Lansky to come down for the first meeting.  But this Norman Salfitz 68:00was a Galitsyaner [Galician Jew].  And we would make -- we would make jokes.  But he told -- prog-- told -- gave us programs of growing up in his village.  His family was wealthy, and he would describe how his mother sent him to go pick out a goose to have -- a healthy goose, so they'd have good fat for -- I don't know which yontev [holiday].  And he would explain how -- how you discovered how a goose was -- was going to be healthy.  Sometimes, a bisl prost [a bit ordinary], but lived a very interesting life.  He and his wife were both survivors, Polish Jews.  She was blonde, passed as a -- as a Christian.  And, you know, we had meetings, like, every five or six weeks.  People came from all over.  We had five hundred names on the mailing list.  It was sponsored -- it 69:00was under the aegis of the Jewish Education Association and it was very, very simple and direct for me to get the information out.  Postcards were sent and publicity was put in The Jewish News.  Somehow or other, it was taken over by the JCC, and it became an administrative nightmare.  People were used to seeing it in The Jewish News and getting a postcard.  So, first it w-- no postcards, too expensive.  Just in The Jewish News.  Sometimes, there was no room in The Jewish News, so it didn't get in The Jewish News.  And I was fighting an uphill battle with administrative minutiae.  So, it went by the -- by the boards, 70:00because the higher up the person who was my supervisor, the less cooperation there was.  But it ran for about twenty-five years.  It was conducted totally in Yiddish.  And, you know, I found friends.  This man came up to me and he said, "Du bist mayn landsfroy [You are my fellow countrywoman]."  And I said, "No, ikh bin hige geboyrn [I was born here]."  "Fun vanen kumt di mame [Where is your mother from]?"  So, you know, it's such a small shtetl [town in Eastern Europe with a Jewish population] I said, "Fun a shtetl [From a shtetl]."  "Velkhe shtetl [Which shtetl]?"  I says, "Well, it's Grodno Gubernia."  "Velkhe shtetl?"  I said, "Shereshov."  He says, "Ikh bin a kubriner [I'm from Kobryn]."  Now, I only knew Shereshov and Pruzhany.  I didn't know any other towns away -- so he said, "Kobryn's like from West Orange to Newark.  It's not that far."  And he tells me that his sister had a friend from Shereshov.  So, the next time there's a meeting, I bring my mother to the meeting.  And I said, "Ma, dos iz mortkhe seletsky, er iz a kubriner [this is Mordechai Seletzky, he 71:00is from Kobryn]."  And they hug each other.  They don't know each other from Adam.  My mother is his senior.  Like, my mother left for America before he was born.  He's my lifetime friend.  So, I go to a meeting of the International Association of Yiddish Clubs, vu men redt yidish [where people speak Yiddish], and I hear a woman say, "Ikh bin a kubriner."  So, I run over to her and I say, "Ikh hob a khaver a kubriner [I have a friend from Kobryn]."  She's from Chicago.  I said, "Fun [From] New Jersey."  She says, "Vi heyst er [What's his name]?"  I say, "Mortkhe Seletsky."  She says, "Mortkhe Seletsky!  You have to give him my new phone number, you have to tell him" this, that, and the other thing.  So, I said, "Vi kumt ir [How did you get] from Chicago to West Orange?"  She said when she came to America, all the kubriner came to somebody's house in New York to see her.  So, now I go home and I call.  And he answers the phone.  I say, "Mortkhe."  He says, "Rivke."  I said, "How do you know it's me?"  He says, "Nobody calls me 72:00'Mortkhe.'"  I'm the only one who still calls him 'Mortkhe.'"  His wife, with her heavy accent, says "Mory."  So, I discovered that there's a world, a little world outside of Shereshov called Kobryn."  And -- and those are the rewards of having done -- that was my community service.  I gave it to -- to New Y-- to New Jersey.  And the funny thing is, the rabbi who -- this female rabbi was in charge, and sh-- they made it a big thing.  They called it -- ah, forgot the word.  The word for pomegranate.

JK:  Milgroym.

RL:  Milgroym.  But what's the top of the Torah?

JK:  The --

RL:  Ah, I can't think of it.  Anyhow, they gave this name and they were going to do lots of classes, and they did.  They had a big education program.  But, 73:00again, I didn't get the cooperation of the publicity.  And so, my last meeting, she said she wasn't gonna be there.  Ikh gib a kuk [I take a look], she's there.  She comes with a certificate of appreciation, she comes with flowers, you know?  But what I needed was the cooperation in terms of publicizing the meetings.  I didn't need any personal gifts.  And so, maybe it was a little misunderstanding, but it went -- and people ask me now, "Why don't you start the yidish vinkl again?"  But you can't go home, you know?  Thomas Wolfe's book?  "You Can't Go Home Again."  You -- you can't pick up pieces after a long period of time.  So, that's in the past.  But it's in my memory.

JK:  Yeah.  You've lived in New Jersey for almost fifty years now. 

RL:  More.

JK:  More?

RL:  More.

JK:  How -- how has life changed in general and how has Jewish life changed in particular?

RL:  Where I live is a sub-community.  The township is called Rockaway Township.  But this little community's called White Meadow Lake.  It's around a lake.  When I moved there, it was mostly a summer community.  And they were mostly teachers from Brooklyn, and they were there for vacation.  So, the children went to day camp.  The women played cards.  The men still -- if the men were not teachers, they commuted to New York and then they came home.  They had a dance every weekend.  There was a clubhouse.  The original -- the original home on the property, which was a mansion, became the clubhouse.  And it was a -- a planned community.  You had to belong.  There was a membership.  And then, you had passes to swim at the lake.  And there were, 75:00like, three beaches or -- on the lake.  They had tennis courts and -- athletic field and various things that your dues paid for.  It's now a very diverse community.  So, it went from about ninety percent Jewish, and mostly -- and more than half summer residents.  So, it was quiet and empty in -- from September to May.  Now, we have -- and you didn't see any Blacks at all.  And people used to joke that it was White Meadow Lake because it was white.  And -- and I think the original deeds said something to that effect.  But it's not a restrictive community at all.  And there are Blacks and Indians and many -- and it's very -- maybe it's ten percent Jewish now.  It's a very integrated, mixed 76:00community.  And I even have a Muslim living up the street.  It's -- it's a very special community, because at one time, you knew everybody.  And just recently, as a point, there's a barber shop in White Meadow Lake, and he's been there forty years.  And he sent a letter to the property owners' association and to White Meadow Temple and to Chabad, which is in White Meadow, also, and to a church in Rockaway, thanking everybody for their support, that he's so happy that he settled his -- started his professional career in White Meadow Lake.  And unbeknownst to me, the mayor was one of his clients.  But the mayor declared a proclamation for him, that he was an outstanding business in the 77:00township.  And about fifty people came to the town hall meeting when he was given this honor.  And he was as proud as could be, and he hoped to continue to have the next decade in the business.  Where would a barbershop be honored in any town?  You're more -- it's more anonymous.  But in White Meadow Lake, it was Ronny the barber.  And -- and there was a general store for -- for many, many years, and now it's a pizza place.  A liquor store didn't survive, twenty years ago.  Now the liquor store is doing a good business.  So, if that's any indication of the change in population, that's one of them.  But -- but it's a -- I still love it.  I can walk to the lake in the summer.  So, I take my 78:00chair and a bag, and there are children playing, and it's -- they're very, very friendly.  And I can swim and I can swim and I can fall asleep and I can sit -- stay there longer, 'cause I don't have to feed anybody but myself.  So, I enjoy it.  And now that I'm older, I have a family that moved in across the street that apparently like me and adopted me as grandma.  And when Jeffrey came to visit and I introduced him, the head of the household said, "You don't have to worry about your mother.  She'll never have to shovel snow.  I will do it."  And he -- when there's a snowstorm, he opens the garage, brings the snow blower across the street and he does my driveway and my steps before he does his own.  They happen to be Black, and when the kids were little and the mother was 79:00shopping in the store, and I would be there, too, you'd see the little boy say, "Grandma!"  And people look at him and they look at me and they -- they're questioning this.  But they were -- they're very close.  Now that they're older, I don't see them as much.  But I taught the little boy how to sing "Hanukkah, O Hanukkah" because I was once alone and she called me and she said, "What are you doing for Hanukkah?"  And I said, "Nothing."  She said, "Well, you come here."  So, I brought the menorah and the candles and the words to "Hanukkah, O Hanukkah," and that little one loved it.  He's, "Grandma, let's sing 'Hanukkah, O Hanukkah.'"  (laughter) And I go to their concerts at school when they play.  And when he was in an after school program -- 'cause both parents work -- she asked me if I would be there for Grandmother Day, to read.  So, I did.  And she said to the kids who run the school, who happen to be my sons' friends, "Wait 'til you see his grandmother!"  (laughter) And -- and I 80:00came.  So, it's -- it's very nice.  It's -- my friends are all gone, either by death or by relocation.  But as long as I can manage alone, I do, and I'm very happy in the house.  And especially when the children come to visit, it's very freylekh [joyful].  So, that's -- that's about it.  I still teach.  I still t-- I have three classes.  They're small, but very devoted students.  My -- we're like a little family, each group.  The advanced class has been together -- nobody has -- they used to be -- they used to graduate up, but nobody's graduated up.  I only let some from the beginners graduate to the intermediate.  And believe me, they have a hard time.  But -- but it's -- it's 81:00a very cohesive group.  And, you know, if somebody isn't there, they want to know why.  And we do have reunions in the summer, at least once.  And I always say so that we -- mir redn yidish [we speak Yiddish], but somehow or other, we just schmooze.  And sometimes I feel tired.  And I -- I had set myself a goal years ago that, oh, when I'm eighty, I should stop teaching.  But suddenly, I became eighty and everybody said to me, "Why would you stop just because of a number?"  So, I still do it, and I go home on a high.  I do have to work.  I have to prepare, and as the advanced class gets more advanced, I have to give them more -- more selections.  So, the last two books that we're working on, 82:00it's very interesting, because they're children's books.  But I saw a -- it was on the cover of the "Pakn Treger" many years ago, when books were being sent to the Soviet Union when it was open and they could have a Yiddish -- Jewish education.  And it was "Dos kluge shnayderl [The clever little tailor]."  And I said if that book goes to the Soviet Union, I can have it, too.  And I bought it for myself.  And it's not easy reading for my students.  They have to look up a lot of words.  There are even words I don't know.  Written a long time ago, as children's books.  Very interesting little anecdotes -- anecdotal stories of how this poor shnayderl outsmarts ganovim [thieves] and everything else.  And so, we finished that book last year, and I said, "Do you want to go onto literary work or do you want something light?"  Well, they liked "Dos 83:00kluge shnayderl," and this author had several books, and one of them is "Shmerl nar [Shmerl the fool]," and they had them.  I get them here.  So, they sent me "Shmerl nar" and now both classes are reading it, both intermediate and advanced.  And -- and they work hard.  They work hard.  My students are good.

JK:  What do you think the future of Yiddish will be?

RL:  That's a good question.  Isaac Bashevis Singer, when he got the Nobel Prize, said it wasn't dead.  It was sick, but it wasn't dying.  I -- I think the largest group of Jewish people who will retain Yiddish are the Hassidim.  It doesn't make me very happy, but I'm happy that somebody is going to 84:00perpetuate it.  I'm friendly with the Chabad rabbi in White Meadow Lake, and I asked him does he -- 'cause all the kids have Jewish names.  Some of them are Hebrew and some are Yiddish.  I said to him, "Do you speak Yiddish to the children?"  'Cause he speaks Yiddish to me.  He said yes, he does.  And there is something very engrossing about the Chabad movement.  It's -- it's very inviting.  It's very inclusive.  So, the rabbi knows -- the Chabad rabbi knows, basically -- I think he probably knows -- I -- I -- I rejoined White Meadow Temple because my husband died very suddenly and there was a Jewish medic 85:00in the ambulance, and she told the -- 'cause she didn't know who's a member, who's not.  She just called the temple and said, "A Jewish person just died."  And the rabbi came within five minutes, and he helped me in terms of making certain decisions.  So, I re-- I hadn't joined since Karen was in -- in pre-- in nursery -- not nursery.  Sun-- just the Sunday school.  Kindergarten.  Because when she went, they -- snakes could talk and God could blow on stones and make humans.  There was all bobe-mayses [tales] that were holy because it was from the Bible.  And I wanted them to be stories that were in the Bible.  So, we didn't stay in White Meadow Temple.  But then, when this happened, I rejoined the temple, because for people who need it, it has to be supported.  So, I don't go there, but I support it.  The Chabad rabbi sees me on the Chol 86:00Hamoed [In-between] days of sikes [Sukkos].  He says, "Rivke, you blessed the lulev [palm branch with the leaves still closed, blessed during Sukkos] and the esreg [citron, blessed during Sukkos]?"  Right there in the street.  I'm walking the dog.  I have the dog on a leash.  The rabbi puts down his papers on the ground, has the lulev, gives me the esreg in one hand and then he had a lulev like this.  And he tells me what to say and I shook it this way, that way, everything.  And it's a blessing.  He has an assistant rabbi.  He came along in the -- toward evening and I said -- and they're very friendly to me.  Rabbi said, "I did it today (UNCLEAR) and I'll get you tomorrow."  Now, I saw the first rabbi the next day, 'cause I walk the dog in that re-- area.  He said, "Rifka!  Two on two?"  I say, "Two on two."  So, I blessed it a second day.  I would never say no to him, because he is so enthusiastic about it.  So, the second day, second rabbi sent the -- his son to me.  I said, "I did it 87:00already."  He said, "Okay!"  So, that's' where Yiddish is today.  The folkshule doesn't even stress Yiddish at all.  So, maybe they'll learn a Yiddish song, I don't know.  But it's my responsibility to give some of it to -- to the children.  So, I hope that -- that -- that I'm doing my little thing.  I don't know.  Even the National Book Center is -- is doing a lot in translating Yiddish, because there aren't that many Yiddish readers.  So -- so maybe the hope is with the Hassidim.  I don't want to see it die, that's for sure.

JK:  Do you have any advice for future generations about --

RL:  Well, there are -- there are enclaves.  There's the group that publishes "Yugntruf" that has Yidish-Vokh.  They have made an agreement -- a young couple gets married, at least one of them speaks Yiddish to the children at all times.  Sometimes, when I listen -- their Yiddish is different from my Yiddish, because it's been learned as an adult.  It's good Yiddish.  It's literary Yiddish.  It's dictionary Yiddish.  It's -- it's a very intellectual Yiddish.  I'm happy that it's going to be perpetuated that way.  I don't know whether those children speak Yiddish.  I had an experience where a little boy was at a conference, and I -- I'm not going to remember his father's name.  89:00Brier, Corey Brier, who's very active in the Folksbiene.  So, his father was at this meeting, as I was, and I was chewing gum at the time, and the kid comes over and he says, "Ikh vil a shtikl gum [I want a piece of gum]."  I said, "Darfst fregn dem tatn [You have to ask your father]."  And he comes, he -- so, I gave him a piece of gum.  And then, he comes back, he finished chewing it, he gives me the wad of gum.  He says, "Itst ikh vil [Now I want] chocolates."  I says, "Ikh hob nit [I don't have any]."  Er zogt [He says], "Gib a kuk, efsher vesti gefinen [Look around, maybe you'll find some]."  So, I said to the father, "Is this a midget?"  He spoke perfect Yiddish!  So, obviously, it can be passed on, but it -- you have to make a concerted effort.  My husband was not Yiddish-speaking, so our secret language was French, because that was the only language that we shared.  My bobe used to bless him from head to toe in Yiddish, and he would say, "What is she saying?"  But some of it rubbed off, 90:00and I -- I hope that those of us who speak Yiddish will share with our children, and some of it will -- rubbed off.  And I remember Elie Wiesel told a -- a -- a midrash [exegetical story] about -- rabbi went into the woods and lit a fire and had some sort of a service, and the next generation went into the woods and lit a fire but they didn't know what else to do.  And then the next generation went into the woods but they didn't make a fire, 'cause they didn't know what the fire was for, et cetera.  So, whatever minute portion of Yiddish will live will be better than nothing.

JK:  Hm.  Is there anything else you'd like to add or mention?

RL:  No, I -- I think we've -- we've covered the territory.  I -- there was an article written in The Jewish News -- 'cause I gave an assignment to one of my 91:00Yiddish classes, who -- the class finished reading "Dos kluge shnayderl."  Before we got to the last chapter, I said, "Write an ending to the -- to the story."  And each one wrote a different ending.  And I was so impressed with their imaginations.  I mean, there were certain choices that were obvious that -- I went to one of the reporters of The Jewish News and I said, "This has to be documented."  So, she came and she interviewed the students, and there was a nice article in The Jewish News.  And only minorly did she indicate that they each wrote -- that the reason this was interesting is that they each wrote a different ending.  But she didn't cover the different endings.  She just mentioned it.  But I was -- my students really make me proud.  Genug [Enough]?

JK:  Yo, ikh meyn [Yes, I think so].

 [END OF INTERVIEW]