ETHEL TAFT ORAL HISTORY

MARK GERSTEIN:This is Mark Gerstein, and today is October 2nd, 2013. I'm here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts with Ethel Taft, and we're going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Ethel, do I have your permission to record this interview?

ETHEL TAFT:Yes, you do.

MG:Thank you. Well, why don't we jump right in? Today, we're going to be talking partly about your father, who was a noted Yiddish writer, an educator. So, to start off, can you just tell me his name and where he was born and when he was born?

ET:Okay. My father's name was Israel Gubkin, or Yisroel Gubkin. He was born, according to him, about 1899 in Brest-Litovsk, Brisk, which is now Belorussia, 1:00when he was -- according to him, before World War I. It was either Poland or Russia, depending on whose flag was flying on the city hall. And he lived there, with a break for World War I, where he was in a German labor battalion, a forced labor battalion, and where he returned to Brest-Litovsk after the war. Was very -- he was very involved at that point in the founding of a school called the Hatchiah. It was a Yiddish, Hebrew, Zionist school where he taught for a number of years. In spite of his youth -- he was very self-taught at any -- and then, in the early twenties, during the war period, his parents perished as a result 2:00of illness and flu at that point. And he came to America in the early twenties, before 1924, when there was a cutoff period in terms of immigration policy and brought with him -- he was the eldest in the group and brought with him a brother, a sister, and several cousins, and he was on his own in America with family that was already here, who took over the care of the younger children. And he went on to become a teacher, a Yiddish teacher, a Hebrew teacher. And all this time, he was always writing. And that's the early years. I don't know how much detail you would like me to go into --

MG:Sure, sure.

ET:-- at this point. I can --

MG:Could we back up just for a moment?

ET:Sure.

MG:And are there any more details you can tell us about his life in Europe in terms of his education, his living?

ET:They lived in Brest-Litovsk from what I remember him telling me, and I will add that he was not always very forthcoming with details. But that's probably a generational issue. But be that as it may, his father was a bricklayer. His mother ran a milchig store, for -- again, what I'm told. There were a number of siblings. The family was, from what I gather from photos and from what he said, comfortable. Not rich, not poor, but comfortable. And he went to Hebrew school. He talked a lot about his -- a teacher in Brisk who was a very well-known rabbi, whose name escapes me at the moment. But he got a very, very strong grounding in Bible, in history, and I don't know how much Talmud. But I know he was very much 4:00into biblical studies and I think was very much self-taught in many of the areas. He was a constant reader. Witness the fact that our house was always full of books. And, as a matter of fact, the Yiddish Book Center has many of his -- has -- I don't know, has many of his Yiddish books now in its library, because he accumulated a tremendous amount. And he was, as I say, caught up in the turmoil of World War I. He had ambitions of going to Palestine. I'm not sure why it was thwarted. An older brother did go, but he was sort of left with having to shepherd the younger children who remained to the United States. And from there 5:00on, it was a question of making a living, and teaching was a natural for him. He was a wonderful, wonderful teacher. And I say this not only as his daughter, but having heard -- there are still people around who will tell me -- my age -- who remember him as a -- their teacher when they were young adults and youngsters. And he taught -- he was -- had a wonderful reputation as a teacher.

MG:What -- was he a teacher back in the Old Country?

ET:He was a teacher in the Hatchiah schools. As I mentioned, right after World War I, he was involved in these schools, which were Zionist-oriented. Very strongly Labor Zionist-oriented. And he taught there. And so, when he came to America, the first thing that was made available to him, for him to make a living while he went back to school to learn English and to expand himself socially and whatever was to become a Hebrew teacher. And he taught in -- seems 6:00to me, he said he taught in Williamsburg. But I -- at an afternoon school of some kind. Not in a yeshiva, but some sort of afternoon school, in a Talmud Torah and so on. And he went on for -- but it was always like -- he was always very active in the Labor Zionist movement. So, he got involved in teaching in the Farband schools, the Jewish National Workers Alliance at -- English. In Yiddish, it was the Farband -- Natsyonale Arbeter Farband -- had a network of schools, Yiddish schools that also taught Hebrew, all over the country in the twenties and thirties, into the forties and even early fifties. And so, he became involved in teaching in those schools, especially in the -- what they called the hekhere korsn, (laughs) the high school and -- also with the Jewish -- there was a Jewish teacher's seminary at that time that was connected with 7:00the Zionist enterprise, Labor-Zionist enterprise in New York City. And so, he always taught -- and he taught -- his great forte was teaching young adults, teen -- older teenagers and young adults, and adults. He also began to do a lot of lecturing. Later on in life, he lectured a lot at -- particularly in Los Angeles, at the Yidishe Kultur Klub, which existed up until recently. And so, he was always involved in the teaching and the world of teaching, and so on.

MG:What subjects did he teach?

ET:He taught -- oh, gosh, geshikhte, history. He taught Bible. He taught yidishe literatur [Jewish literature]. He taught Hebrew as language, but more literatur than language, as I recall his teaching. But his greatest strength was geshikhte 8:00-- history -- and Bible studies. He was very involved in that kind of thing. Now, while this was all going on, and raising a family and mayses, geshikhtes [so on, lit. "tales, stories"], he was also writing all the time. He wrote both essays in Yiddish -- he wrote mainly in Yiddish, although he wrote some Hebrew, too. But he wrote Yiddish essays, he wrote Yiddish poetry. He was published in "Der Yidishe Tog." I have clippings at home from when he published in the -- what was called "Der Tog" at that time, in the "Yidishe Kempfer," in the "Khezhbn" magazine -- whoever would publish his stuff. He had great ambitions to have his stuff published, his material published, in book form. But life has a 9:00way of not working out exactly the way you want it to because of other things. And he never was able to get himself in that arena. He thought about self-publishing, as many Yiddish writers did. A lot of self-publishing went on. But he never -- it was always -- he was always consumed with either making a living, supporting me and my mother -- although my mother was a Yiddish teacher, too, but that's a whole other geshikhte. But -- and then, he suffered with some physical ailments that limited him. So, given that, there's a lot of manuscripts that have remained behind that were never published.

MG:What were the main subjects of your father's writing?

ET:Oh, ah --

MG:I mean, were there some things that came through?

ET:Well, he did some major writing about his experiences during World War I. A 10:00whole series -- he called it "tsikl," a cycle of poetry related to his experiences working in a forced labor battalion, and thereby had many interesting stories, not the least of which -- that he used to talk about how the German soldiers, at that time, were nothing like what the world experienced in World War II, and -- but nevertheless, it was forced labor and it was not cushy living, but they survived. But they had to work very hard and he was very young. He wrote about that. He wrote poems about -- that were good for children. He wrote poems about life in general. As he got older, poems about facing death, dealing with illness. Poems with a theme of just observing the world around him. 11:00He, incidentally, wrote some beautiful short stories, very short stories, that reflected -- what we'd call today blogging. He blogged in Yiddish on paper, if there is such a thing. There is. I mean, blogs -- the Internet didn't discover everything. Blogging existed before.

MG:Is there a particular work that is -- that you've made that's meaningful to you that your father wrote?

ET:I think that the thing that's most meaningful is -- it's a good question. I think everything -- it's very hard for me to distinguish, I'll be honest with you. It was all -- much of it I discovered -- I'll be honest with you, much I discovered after he passed away, in 1993, because in some ways, my father was -- 12:00in some ways, very protective of me. I'm an only child. And whether it was protectiveness or generational difference -- but one didn't talk very much about yourself. But he -- I think this piece that I recently discovered, which is this -- these poems about his experiences in World War I, they're very meaningful to me because it was a side of him I didn't really know, and it suddenly has hit me what he had to deal with.

MG:You've read this in the original Yiddish --

ET:I've read good pieces of it in the original Yiddish, but it -- although my Yiddish was very fluent at one time, it is not what it was in my late teens and early twenties. And, as a result, some of his language is, for me, difficult to 13:00wade through. And it's also a question of being able to read his handwriting, although he has a very good, clear Yiddish handwriting. But some things are words that I just -- go right by me. He uses a lot of Hebraisms, by the way, in his work, in his Yiddish. Tremendous number of Hebraisms, and so it's very meaningful now.

MG:Can you recall some of the details of these poems that he wrote, about -- this about the --

ET:Yeah.

MG:-- about the labor brigades, right?

ET:Yeah, the --

MG:Yeah.

ET:-- forced labor battalion. Stories about people he ran into, the villagers who were forced to take care of them -- I can't really give you the details of that. But it's the impressions of what went on around him and so on.

MG:Does he -- did he have a particular style at all, or was it --

ET:Interesting. I really can't -- I really don't know. I really -- he didn't do 14:00rhymes, easy rhymes. It was more -- a more contemporary kind of writing. It wasn't the kind of poetry that -- where everything has to rhyme and is in order. It had a more modern flair to it as far as style goes. I'm not a maven (laughter) on style in Yiddish poetry.

MG:When you were growing up, he was writing.

ET:I remember my --

MG:Or not?

ET:-- father doing two things.

MG:Yeah.

ET:Reading, writing, and leaving the house to go to teach. (laughs)

MG:Did you ever observe him as a writer in terms of his --

ET:No.

MG:-- you know, his --

ET:No, not really. No, I -- and if I did, it -- as a kid, these things go by. You're so involved on being a kid in your own little world.

MG:Yeah. Did he ever talk to you about the importance of poetry and literature? 15:00Convey that to you?

ET:Not directly.

MG:Yeah.

ET:But I was in the -- yeah, he was my teacher in a number of classes, at both the mitlshul [high school], the Farband mitlshul, and also later at the Jewish Teacher Seminary. We had a program that was sort of a pre-lerer seminar [teachers' seminary] for graduates of the mitlshul. There's a whole story to that, which I won't tell you about. It's not -- at any rate. And so, he was my teacher, and from his passion about literature and about poetry and about Bible and about understanding the Bible, and about Zionism and the reason for the State of Israel and what -- how important it all was for us to come together and have a state and yet keep the languages going, both Hebrew and Yiddish -- he 16:00never caught up in the Yiddishist-Hebraist battle. He never allowed himself to get caught up in that. If he did, I didn't know about it, cause he gave equal weight to both. And he would talk about how important that was, that we not let Yiddish go for the sake of Hebrew, but that Hebrew needed to be developed because of a Zionist state and so on and so forth. So, that was his approach. But from his teaching, you couldn't help but absorb the passion for literature, for poetry, for reading, and from being around him. So, as a result, it's very contagious.

MG:Can you describe him for us?

ET:Oh, physically he was about -- was relatively short. We're a short family. Was about five foot seven, maybe five foot six, five foot seven. Sort of on the 17:00-- as I recall him, sort of on the -- not heavy but ample size. Wore glasses, had a wonderful smile. Was a very kind individual. People perceived him as kind. And I always thought -- and we had a very warm relationship. I never fulfilled his greatest ambition, which was to be a medical doctor, 'cause he'd wanted to do that in the worst way, and -- when he came to America. But because of money and circumstances and having to make a living, et cetera, he never was able to go to medical school or go to -- graduate from college, although he took courses at Columbia Teacher's College. That I know. But he was a kindly, generous -- 18:00generous in personality. I'm not talking money. I'm talking generous in terms of personality and caring, and was -- lived with me and my husband and our two kids for about twenty years before he passed away. Had a tremendous influence on my kids, particularly on our son, who to this day talks about him in -- with -- in awe, but in a kind -- because he was kind and caring and gave them both a sense of Yiddishkayt that -- though my husband and I tried to give it to them, I think his presence augmented it tremendously. It was a -- an interesting household.

MG:As a writer, did he have relationships -- (clears throat) excuse me, with other Yiddish writers and poets?

ET:You know what? I'm sure he did. I just don't know them. I know he would periodically get books in the mail from emetsn [someone]. Oy, kh'hob gekrign [Wow, did I receive] -- shall I speak in Yiddish? Is it okay if I say --MG:It'd be fine if you could just translate it --

ET:Yeah, all right.

MG:-- for us, too.

ET:Kh'hob --- s'iz ongekumen a bukh haynt fun emetsn -- a book arrived in the mail today from so-and-so. Apparently, it was a self-published book, "m'darf im epes shikn [we've got to send him something]," because the book was already inscribed, "Tsu mayn liber khaver gupkin," "to my dear friend, Gubkin, from" whoever the author was. And so, there were constant books coming into the house of this sort. Who these writers were, I'll be honest, I don't know, so -- and I 20:00know some of the teachers in our mitlshul were writers, but I honestly don't recall all the names. But I know he moved in those circles, and he would talk about it. But the names, I don't know. I mean, he wasn't buddy-buddy with Sholem Asch or anyone, no. (laughter)

MG:Did you ever have a chance to read his literature, read his writing in public or certain events or -- like that?

ET:I read one of his poems at his funeral, but I don't have it with me. But not really, no. No, it just has never come up that way.

MG:And did his poetry or essays get published? And what kind of journals or books --

ET:Well, as I think I s-- some of them were published, for example, in the "Khezhbn" magazine. Some were published in --

MG:Which is what kind of magazine?

ET:"Khezhbn" was a magazine that was published in Los Angeles for many, many 21:00years and went out of print -- stopped publishing only a few years ago, when the final editor just passed away.

MG:Was this a Yiddish magazine?

ET:Yiddish. Yiddish, yeah. And he was one of the -- later on, in the late -- mid-to -- mid-eighties to right before he died, he was one of the editors of that journal. So, there was stuff of his published there. He published poems, I recall, in "Der Tog," the -- which was the newspaper, news-- I don't know when it went out of print, "Der Tog," but -- the only one that ever survived was the "Forverts" and that -- but "Der Tog" didn't survive. But it -- there. The "Yidishe Kempfer," I believe, had -- early on, in Yiddish. It was published in Yiddish. It's now -- then it was called -- in English, it was called "The Jewish 22:00Frontier." It no longer is being published. But he never had -- and in -- I'm trying to think. Oh, there is a book, a Yizkor book that was published by -- for Brisk, for Brest-Litovsk, and he has something in there about his teacher, the rabbi who was his teacher in Talmud Torah when he was a kid. So, he had stuff there, and I --

MG:And this was written in Yiddish? Or Hebrew?

ET:I believe it's written in Yiddish, or it may be both in Hebrew and Yiddish, I'm not positive. But I know it's in Yiddish, cause I've seen it in Yiddish. So, it was published there. Other than that, I just don't know. I really don't know.

MG:Do you remember that story about his teacher at all, or any --

ET:No.

MG:-- yeah.

ET:No, no, no. I just know he loved him very much, and I wish I could remember the name. But I know he loved this teacher very much.

MG:Did he ever explain to you how he came to his Zionist beliefs? I mean, how -- 23:00what -- the --

ET:Oh, I think it was in mother's milk. I have to tell you, there was that impulse in that family. And his older brother, as I say, went to Palestine. He was very involved in either the Po'ale Tsiyon or the Tsire Tsiyon, and I can't remember at this point which of the Tsiyons -- but it was of the left -- he was involved with. And it was just there. My growing up, it was just there all the time, and the Zion-- I still have today, hanging in our house, that I took from my parents' house, a wonderful portrait of Theodor Herzl, on linen. And it's the first thing I remember, is growing up -- was that picture of Theodor Herzl with "Im tirtzu, eyn zo agada." You know, it's -- if it's -- "If you will it, it is no dream." It's a famous picture of him. It was constant, it was all around us: 24:00devotion to Yiddish, devotion to Yiddish literature, the language and so on. But at the same time, this impulse towards Jewish independence and a national homeland.

MG:Before we move on, any other memorable stories about your father you'd like to convey at all, before we move into a --

ET:Oy, oh, my father. God, I could go on and on. Just that -- when you're asked to describe him, one can't let go the sense of frustration he experienced when he saw the Yiddish school system declining, and Yiddish camping declining. The Jewish camping -- there's Jewish camping. That's no issue. Jewish-centered 25:00camping. But he was very involved in what was called Camp Kinderwelt, which was the camp of the Farband, which was the fraternal organization of the Labor Zionist Movement. And he was the kultur direktor -- the culture director -- there for a number of years, and brought Yiddish studies and Yiddish language. And camping was not just going to camp to have a good time, go swimming, and work out on the basketball court or whatever you did, and -- or arts and crafts and that -- all that wonderful stuff. But it was also an educational opportunity. And, as he grew older -- don't forget, he passed away -- he was almost ninety-four. Ninety-three, ninety-four. He experienced this -- there was a sense of frustration on his part that a lot of this was ending, and he was aware of it. And I wouldn't say anger, but a sense of sadness, that was 26:00something that I was aware of. And I think that that may have also been something that appeared in his writing later on and his poetry, a sense of sadness at the passing of a generation -- of generations, and of an emphasis on language and so on. So, that's my sense of him, and he was a very -- he was a good father. He sometimes gave me a hell of a time, but he was a good father.

MG:Before we go on, (laughter) I'd love to ask about your mother a little bit, okay? Can you describe her, her family background?

ET:Oh! (laughs)

MG:How'd your parents meet, et cetera?

ET:I have -- oh, my parents met -- I'll tell you, they met in America. She was a graduate of Herzliya Teachers Seminary. She was a teacher, also. She taught in the afternoon -- she was also from Brest-Litovsk, and they knew each other briefly before they left for America. But it was not -- there was no romance or 27:00anything that I was aware of. But they met again in America. I'm not sure how: through friends or something. And she was a graduate of Herzliya.

MG:Herzliya is what, exactly?

ET:It was a Hebrew teachers' seminary in New York City. (laughs) It's interesting, when you say "tell me about it" -- it was second nature to me. It's like when you say to your kids, you use a name like -- well, kids know Frank Sinatra. But you use a movie actor that was very common -- popular in my day, and when you say it to my kids, they'll look at me with -- say, "Oh, who is that?"

MG:Right.

ET:Yeah, when you say who was Herzliya, what was Herzliya? Herzliya Teachers Seminary. At any rate, she taught in the afternoon schools of the Farband, and taught in a shul in the Bronx called the Dovid Pinski. Dovid Pinski was a very well-known Yiddish writer and poet. And she was -- she died very young, 28:00unfortunately. She wasn't quite fifty when she passed away, and she was -- she had to deal a lot with my father's illness. During the Depression, my father was not well. She was a very calm, even-tempered individual. Kids loved her. Her children, the kids in the school -- she was also a counselor at Camp Kinderwelt, so that's how I got to go as a camper, because I got to go at a reduced rate while she was a counselor of -- and so on. And a very caring -- also loved literature, loved opera. Very much -- very musical. My father was not musical, but she was very musical and devoted to concerts and opera. And she sort of went her own way when it came to music with other family members. And that was fine. 29:00They had a very rich life from what I can tell. They had a very rich life together.

MG:I'd like to move on from that --

ET:Okay.

MG:-- and talk about your life a little bit, and your parents, I guess, in the same, what, vein --

ET:Yeah.

MG:-- growing up. And can you tell us about at least your growing up in New York City in the 1930s and --

ET:Ah, let's see --

MG:-- forties? Little bit -- your house, neighborhood --

ET:Okay, quickly, let's see. I grew up on -- in the Bronx. Well, I was born in Harlem, but I grew up in the Bronx -- in the East Bronx, near Bronx Zoo, in a very Jewish neighborhood. I think our public school probably was all but emptied on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur if it was during the week. I started -- at age six, 30:00my parents enrolled me in the only shule [secular Yiddish school] that would take me and that I could go to, cause it was just across the street. And that was a Workmen's Circle afternoon school -- it was all in Yiddish. By the way, I spoke -- they spoke only Yiddish to me at home. So, until I went to public school, kindergarten, whatever English I knew, I picked up from the kids in the neighborhood when you would go out to play. But I spoke -- they spoke only Yiddish to me, and --

MG:Your parents spoke Yiddish to you, and with your friends, I -- your friends were Jewish, most of your friends.

ET:Yeah, yeah.

MG:And they spoke Yiddish, as well?

ET:No, no. Most of them did not grow up in Yiddish-speaking homes. But my parents were very intent that I speak Yiddish. And so, I was really bilingual at a very early age.

MG:Your parents were, though, at this time English speakers, now, as well, yeah? Yeah.

ET:Oh, yeah, and very -- with accents, but English speakers, and very -- and 31:00could write well in English, read English well. I mean, my father read English newspapers, my mother did, too. The radio was English. There was no television. At any rate, they enrolled me in the -- in a Workmen's Circle shule, and I went there for four years. I could -- about age seven, I could tell you all about Eugene Debs and the Pullman strike of, I think, 1907. Don't ask me to tell you anything more, but I know at that age, I could really give you the whole story. (laughs) And I graduated from --

MG:All Yiddish.

ET:All --

MG:Yeah.

ET:-- Alts yidish, all in Yiddish.

MG:Yeah.

ET:It was an experience, and we had wonderful teachers. Wonderful teachers. But it was a very -- it was a traditional afternoon Yiddish school in an apartment building, I remember, upstairs. And somebody -- what was an apartment was turned into a Yiddish folkshule [Yiddish secular school]. Well, at any rate -- but 32:00meanwhile, I was going to public school and I enjoyed that. I had a double life. And I went to shule in the afternoon and -- after school, four days a week. When I graduated from there, I was ten, and I was -- the question was, what are they gonna do with my Jewish education? Because going to school was very important to them. I was gonna be as educated as they could possibly make me. So, they got me to Leibush Lehrer, who was the principle then of the Sholem Aleichem mitlshul, which is middle -- yeah, middle -- high school, really, and I was ten or eleven, just about turning eleven. And we lived in the Bronx, and this meant having to go by subway to -- we were now on Seventeenth Street. The shule, I think, was on Seventeenth Street. Anyway, Manhattan. Doesn't matter. And he took one look at me -- my father brought him in and, "Gubkin, bist meshuge gevorn? Gubkin, are 33:00you crazy?"

MG:She's --

ET:"She's a little girl! How is she gonna go to mitlshul?" And my father said, "Don't worry, try it." So, they put me into mitlshul and I was ten, and most of the kids in the class were at least two to three years older than me, which is a huge age difference at that point. I had a friend of mine who also was quite young, and she went with me. But she dropped out very quickly. I -- and this was weekends. We went to school shabes and zuntik, Saturday and Sunday. So, I had no weekends.

MG:School on Shabbos?

ET:School -- oh, yeah, mitlshul was from nine or ten in the morning till three in the afternoon, and the same thing on Sunday. It was -- yeah, there was no playing. (laughs) But I didn't have afternoon school, after public school then high school. It was all for the weekend, okay? So, I went to the mitlshul there. I graduated from the mitlshul, and then they said, "Okay, what are we going to 34:00do with her now?" And I -- they didn't say that to me, but I knew it was --

MG:And you were how old at this point?

ET:Let's see, I'm fourteen. I'm fourteen. So, there was a Farband mitlshul that -- the Jewish National Workers Alliance. And meanwhile, my father would tutor me in Hebrew a little bit at home. So, I would stay -- and they had a little Hebrew in the Sholem Aleichem shuln, as I recall. So, they took me into the Farband mitlshul, the Farband high school. There I was already with kids my age, at that point, and I went there for about two more years, on weekends, and we'd -- I graduated at -- or three years, I think. I graduated just about the time when I graduated high school. And then, we went on to the yidishe lerer seminar, but there's -- I mean, it was constant.

MG:Yeah.

ET:It was just constant.

MG:And you enjoyed all this, no? Yes? Or not, yeah.

ET:Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, because -- look, studying was so rewarded, emotionally 35:00and psychologically, in the house that -- and I was an only child. And I was an overachiever. I look back at it, I was an overachiever. And it was encouraged and rewarded. Not financially, but rewarded emotionally. So, it was fine, and then I became very involved in Labor Zionist Youth Movement and Habonim. That became my social life.

MG:Could you tell us about that?

ET:Oy! (laughs) Let's see, Habonim I started at about twelve or thirteen.

MG:This is Labor Social -- this is --

ET:This is --

MG:-- or Zionist Socialist --

ET:-- the Labor Zionist --

MG:Yes.

ET:-- youth organization.

MG:Right.

ET:Still exists today. Today it's called Habonim Dror. Has a series of camps all over the country and so on and so forth. I was going summers to Kinderwelt and Habonim, I had -- we had afternoon -- and on weekends, when I wasn't going to 36:00school, we would have activities together, all of us, and it was social life. It was wonderful. Good friends. Also good friends that were rewarded -- were rewarding for me, because they were also very much approved of in my home. So, it all came together. And then, I started -- I was at Kinderwelt for many years, during the summer, at the Kinderwelt, and then started going to Habonim camps. And I went to Habonim camps for three summers, through my second year in college. And then, I spent a year in Israel, studying. This was in 1950 -- 1950, '51. I went on -- the Jewish Agency then had a p-- they still have some sort of program like it. I'm not sure whether it still exists in the same form, but it was called machon l'madrichei chutz la'aretz, the Institute for Jewish Leaders 37:00from Abroad. And we were kids from all over the world. And spent a year in Israel, studying six months, six months on kibbutz. I was part of a group that was supposed to settle in -- that did settle in a kibbutz in the Negev, but I came back to the United States to finish college. Finished college and started graduate school in social work, met my husband. Got married, never went back to Israel, except to visit.

MG:Could we talk --

ET:(laughs) I've --

MG:There's a lot there. Who --

ET:There's a lot there. I could go on and on.

MG:Can we talk more about the -- tell us more about that -- your camping experiences? I'm just fascinated by that. The -- you know, the two different camps. Kinderwelt --

ET:Well --

MG:-- and the Habonim camps.

ET:Okay. Kinderwelt was your traditional -- more traditional kind of camping experience that you see today, except that there was a -- emphasis on classes, 38:00and part of the day was -- you'd have arts and crafts, you'd have nature studies, you'd have swimming, and so on, but you also had a period during the day called "klasn," "classes." And you picked a class -- whether it was Yiddish language or Yiddish literature or something appropriate for whatever your level of knowledge was and your age group. And they -- it was very well organized. And my father was one of those who put together those programs, at camp. And so on. I was there for about -- I started when I -- in -- about 1940. I went to camp there through 1945, '46. Then I spent a year in Habonim camp. Habonim camp was a whole other thing. Habonim camp was very -- rustic is not quite the word. Very primitive by comparison. When my kids were my age, I would not have sent them to 39:00that kind of a camp. We lived in tents, we didn't have running -- we didn't -- we had running water for showers, but you did not have flush toilets. There were outhouses. A kitchen that would -- today would not pass anybody's inspection.

MG:And was there a reason for this kind of a --

ET:No, it was just -- it was okay. It was poor, was rustic. It was supposed to -- it was to give you the experience of living on a kibbutz. It was very collectively focused. Many of the act-- the kids ran the camp. The oldest person in camp would have been someone who was maybe twenty-one or twenty-two -- that ran the camp, and we ran the camp. We were -- we had a -- general meetings and would decide policy. I mean, under direction and very, very well-organized. But it was fostering independence, self-direction, and a love of Israel and, 40:00hopefully, aliyah and hopefully aliyah to kibbutz in those days. This is in the -- '48, '49, '50.

MG:Now, at these camps, these were --

ET:So, they were different in terms of their whole -- they were the same in that they were very -- they were there to enhance identity, Jewish identity.

MG:Zionist identity?

ET:And Zionist identity. But with the Habonim camps, it was to enhance a Labor Zionist identity and an identity that would lead you to go settle in kibbutz. That was the --

MG:And were the people there speaking in English or Yiddish or Hebrew?

ET:Oh, interesting. At Kinderwelt, we spoke English. A lot of Yiddish was spoken, though, in terms of general announcements and -- with translation for kids who didn't understand Yiddish. But a lot of Yiddish was in the environment, singing -- songs were in Yiddish. There were Yiddish plays and so on and so 41:00forth, where we'd put plays on in Yiddish and so on. Habonim camp was in English with a lot of Hebrew and a lot of Hebraisms, so that you had a -- instead of a general meeting, you had an asefah. And when you had -- everybody pooled whatever money they had with them -- howev-- we didn't have much, but what you had, it was called "kupah [Hebrew: sharing, lit. "cash register"]," and everybody took what they needed or whatever. You had -- we'd -- called -- what we called "shmira [guard]." Shmira was -- at night, older kids would sort of be the security -- guard the security of the camp, the perimeter of the camp -- it was called "shmira." Games were in Hebrew. A lot of Hebraisms, a lot of words in the -- and the kitchen was called the "mitbach," the dining room was the "chadar ochel." I mean, so there was that emphasis on Hebrew.

MG:But both camps shared a similar political ideology. Left-wing Zionism?

ET:Yes.

MG:Yeah.

ET:Yes, close to that. Habonim was far more left wing, was far more active -- activist left wing. The Kinderwelt was leftist, but with -- in a more Tel Aviv fashion, I would call it. More mentshlekh, baym veg [gentile, on the side], it wasn't so intense.

MG:I assumed there was a particular political atmosphere in your home as you were growing up, given these schools you went to and the camps --

ET:Oh, yeah.

MG:-- you went to.

ET:Oh, yeah, very -- was -- we -- was a -- it was a left-wing orientation. It was progressive --

MG:Did your parents talk about politics a lot when you were growing up?

ET:Oh, yeah, especially Jewish politics and --

MG:What kind of things do you remember?

ET:Well, in terms of -- when it came to elections, it was very clear that you just voted Democratic. I mean, there was just no other way, because they're the 43:00only ones who care about what happens to people, and that was the emphasis. And what happens to poor people and so on. There was that emphasis on compassion and caring and government as a supportive entity rather than as a punitive entity. And when it came to Israeli politics, clearly left-wing. Not as left-wing as -- well, the parties in those days, there was the Mapai, which was the sort of centrist left, and then there was the far left, the Mapam and so on. There was none of -- they were more towards the centrists, but left of center. I don't know how else to describe it. But I know that -- I remember very clearly, in the late thirties, huge disagreements in -- between my parents and some of their 44:00friends, who were much further left, on -- when it came to the whole issue of the Stalin-Hitler pact. And there, my parents came down very strong anti-communist, and very, very conscious of the danger Hitler -- I remember hearing it, how -- the danger that Hitler presented for the world and for Jews -- and for the world. There was that sense of foreboding, and that this was not the way to go, and so on. But -- cause they had friends who were quite left-wing. But they never -- they were friends, but they never subscribed to that philosophy. They were clearly interested in Jewish nationalism in their own home.

MG:Yeah.

ET:And --

MG:Staying on that theme just for a --

ET:Yeah.

MG:-- just for a moment, and I want to get back to your home --

ET:Yeah.

MG:-- in a second. During World War II, were -- you were already becoming a 45:00teenager, right?

ET:Teenager, yeah.

MG:Were you aware, were your parents aware of what was happening to European Jews?

ET:Oh, yeah.

MG:Did they talk about it?

ET:My father was very aware. My father was very aware. To the extent that Jews in general were aware, he, even more -- I think more so than others was very, very aware what was going on. And I remember hearing things. But, again, there was a tendency to protect kids from some of the realities. And if you have time for a short story, I had a cousin who was in the -- was a physician in the army, and he was one of the first into Germany, at the Liberation. And he used to send letters, we -- through -- I would correspond with my cousins and so on on V-mail. At any rate -- you're reminding me of things I've forgotten about. And I 46:00remember a letter coming to our home, with pictures. There were clearly pictures, and I remember my father opening the letter and turning white. This must have been -- let's see, they got to the camps late '44, early '45. It was about that period. And he put the letter away. And I said, "Papa, what's in the letter?" "Oh, it's nothing, it's from your cousin, it's -- everything's fine." Okay, well, my father leaves for shul and I'm about -- 1944, so I'm about twelve -- I'm thirteen at that point. Well, you know what thirteen-year-olds do when they -- nobody was home, cause my mother taught afternoon school, and my father would go to teach. So, I was a latchkey kid. I'd let myself into the house and -- okay, and I went to the desk, cause they didn't lock desks in those days, and I took out the letter. And I opened the letter, and in it were photographs that my cousin took at one of the camps, one of the crematorium camps. And it was a 47:00horrible set of photos. I -- to this -- I think about -- I remember putting them back in the envelope and putting the envelope away and trying not to think about it, cause it was so horrific for me to contemplate what it was that he had seen and what had gone on. And then, of course, we began to hear more and more and more, and then, as a result, the whole question of the importance of the State of Israel was even sharpened further for me, based on -- not only these photos, but everything I heard at home, and then some of the stories of the Holocaust began to come through, slowly but surely as the survivors came, and so on. And it was a very, very -- a lot of trauma. I mean, not the kind of trauma they 48:00experienced, but trauma in terms of disturbing a sense of equilibrium and that sort of youthful -- not innocence, but youthful joie de vivre that somehow got a little distressed.

MG:You had mentioned to me earlier about an essay you had written --

ET:Oh.

MG:-- graduating, about -- or it leads to this, I think.

ET:Yeah.

MG:Yeah.

ET:Yeah, when I graduated from the mitlshul, the Farband mitlshul, we had a journal. And I have the -- oh, anyway, we -- and we all had to write something about one of our classes and so on. An essay or a poem or whatever. Okay, I'm my father's daughter, so I got saddled with writing an essay about the emancipation of the Jews in Europe in the nineteenth century. And I recently came across the 49:00essay again. To be honest with you, is a -- as everything that you write when you're a youngster and you come to it much later in life, it's almost difficult for me to contemplate that I sat down and wrote this. But what it was was an essay about how the attempt for Jews to become emancipated during the nineteenth century was often thwarted and destructive and lead to a lot of assimilation, and not -- and did not lead to the kind of acceptance that they hoped being emancipated into the general culture would lead to, and that the only hope for the future for the Jews was a state of their own. As I read it now, I said -- this is what I'd been taught all my life. It's no wonder I wrote it. And it sort of informed a lot of the rest of my life at that point, and even until today, 50:00probably, one way or the other. (laughs)

MG:Before we move onto that, I'd love to go back to your household --

ET:Yeah.

MG:-- and in -- growing up. Was it a religious household? Did you celebrate holidays, et cetera?

ET:Yes. No. Yes, well, no and yes, okay. We were not -- well, my -- oh, I'll -- until I was around seven years old, my grandmother lived with us. And, as a result, the house was a -- my mother kept, I don't know, four sets of dishes. Blue and red dish towels. It was kept -- the kitchen was totally kosher and so on and so forth. But it was -- after my grandmother died, some of that began to loosen up a little. But it was a very traditional house. Holidays were celebrated, holidays were observed, but -- and my father used to go to shul, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, that I remember, in what we called a shtibl [small Hasidic house of prayer]. It was a small synagogue attached to an Orthodox rabbi 51:00who lived up the street, although my father was not Orthodox. But he -- when it came to going to shul, that's where he went, cause that's what he knew and that's what -- the way he grew up. And I remember coming to visit him in shul and so on. We would observe -- Pesach was -- Pesach. The major holidays were all there, whether by observance in terms of synagogue-going for my father or -- Pesach was changing dishes, and the whole thing. But it was really -- very traditional home. It was not a -- I wouldn't call it a religious observance home. In some ways, it was a very secular home. It was a mixture. It was really a mixture. It's hard for me to put it any other way, and -- with the respect for tradition, a respect for holidays -- I'll tell you an interesting story, if I 52:00may, 'cause it relates to this. When I met my -- when my husband and I became engaged, he had a grandfather who was living then. And -- I was brought to meet his grandfather. And Grandpa Noyekh said -- came to me, and he spoke Yiddish. And he said, "Ikh her az di bist zeyer a gelernter." "I understand that you're very learned" -- I was in my twenties. "Di kenst leyen in ivre?" "Can you read Hebrew?" So, I said, "Of course." I read modern Hebrew. So, he says, "Okay." He brought out a siddur and he sat me down to the kitchen table, he opened the book, and he says, "Zetst zikh avek," sit down, "un leyen [and read]." Now, I had never read a siddur. I read Hebrew. Thank God it had nekudot [Hebrew: pointing]. And I opened it up and I read it, and I understood it because Hebrew's Hebrew. You understand. But when we -- later on, we got married and we 53:00lived in -- we moved to -- somewhere out in -- near Los Angeles. Place called West Covina. And we joined this -- a Conservative shul because you had to be with Jews. So, we -- that was the only way to be with Jews and so on. And I came to the first set of services and I did not know the order of service. Was all Greek to me. I could read. I could understand what I was reading. But the whole scene was foreign to me. And so -- and I still don't understand why you have to do Amidah three times sometimes, but that's another story. (laughter)

MG:In term-- and you talk about the secular life of your family -- did you go to Yiddish -- when you were growing up in New York -- Yiddish theater, film?

ET:Oh, yeah, they --

MG:Can you tell us about your memories of that?

ET:Yes, sure. I mean, yeah, they would take me at least once or twice a year to 54:00the -- Maurice Schwartz's Second Avenue Theatre. They were not into Menasha Skulnik or all that kind of Yiddish theater, the more vaudeville kind of -- they were into the heavy duty literarishe yidishe teater, the literary Yiddish theater. And I remember as a kid, at least once a year, sometimes twice a year, going to Yiddish theater with them. And --

MG:You --

ET:-- I sat through it. I must have enjoyed it, I --

MG:You don't remember the details? Or were you impressed or --

ET:I remember -- no, I don't remem-- I remember seeing Maurice Schwartz. I can't give you -- I know I saw him. I was young. I was nine, ten, eleven. But it was -- and my mother was a great theatergoer in general. She was a -- in terms of English theater. My father, too, especially musicals. So, once a year, we would go to Broadway. And I -- as an only child, I got exposed to all of this. It was 55:00very -- very nice for me. (laughs)

MG:How about Yiddish radio?

ET:It was going in the house.

MG:Yeah?

ET:It was going in the house. The "Forverts shtunde [Forverts hour]" --

MG:What is that?

ET:The "Forverts" had a Forverts hour, and it was -- with music and with commentary. I mean, it was -- a lot of classical music going in my house --

MG:Right.

ET:-- 'cause of my mother. But the radio was there, yeah.

MG:You had mentioned that you read a lot of Yiddish literature, though, when you were going to all these -- the mitlshuls.

ET:Oh, yeah.

MG:Do you remember any of the --

ET:Oh, my.

MG:-- particular -- that left an impression on you?

ET:At the moment, I can't put my -- there were some of -- one of Singer's books. Oh, "Di mishpokhe karnovski [The Family Karnovsky]" -- don't ask me what it was 56:00about. But a family named Carnovsky, and I remember reading it. But if you ask me to tell you what was in it, I don't remember at this point.

MG:Yeah.

ET:But there was a lot of Yiddish -- short stories and poetry and --

MG:Yeah, you had mentioned earlier, I believe, something called the Jewish -- or Yiddish Teachers Seminary --

ET:Seminary, yeah.

MG:Can you explain what that was?

ET:As far as I know, there was an attempt to develop -- training teachers for teaching in the Yiddish afternoon schools. And I'm not sure who founded it. Yiddish afternoon schools and for the mitlshul and so on and so forth. It wasn't designed for the Hebrew schools or for the yeshivot. It was more of the nationalist, secular training of teachers for that school system.

MG:And your father trained there?

ET:And my -- no, my father was --

MG:Yeah.

ET:-- one of the teachers there.

MG:Oh, I see.

ET:My father was one of the teachers there.

MG:There -- and you went there, though.

ET:And I went there when a -- they had a special program for a while for graduates from mitlshul who did not want to enroll in the teacher training program, but wanted to continue their studies. And so, they designed this program for mitlshul graduates who wanted to stay together, wanted to continue to learn, but didn't want to necessarily train to be teachers. And that was a whole group of us. I don't know how long it lasted after we left. It didn't last very long. But it was a -- and it was an experimental program, and then the -- I don't know how -- when the Yiddish -- when we left New York, I think the Jewish Teacher Seminary still existed. I have no idea when it went out of -- or stopped functioning. I don't know.

MG:Okay, so, so far, we've been talking about your parents and your early life. Let's sort of fast-forward a bit, and can you just give us a -- sort of a snapshot view of your adult life and college and your -- and what you did and --

ET:Snapshot.

MG:-- your career -- well, you know --

ET:Snapshot, yeah (UNCLEAR) --

MG:-- a summary, a summary.

ET:A summary.

MG:Yeah. (laughs)

ET:All right, summary. I graduated from NYU, was a sociology major. Free social work curriculum. Went right on to Columbia School -- then it was called the New York School of Social Work, and it -- affiliated with Columbia University while I was at the school. I got my master's in social work, started to -- I worked in the field, in New York, for one year after graduation. And then, we went -- we -- my husband and I, we got married, and my husband and I moved to California. I 59:00worked -- first year I was in California as a social worker in -- for an agency, Jewish agency, one of the Jewish agencies. And then, we stopped to have family -- I stopped to have a family. Went back to work part-time for Jewish Family Service in Los Angeles, when our youngest was about three years old. Worked -- did that. Worked for them for a few years, and then from there -- my husband, meanwhile, was getting his doctorate in engineering. He was teaching. We moved, for a year, to Milwaukee, where he taught at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and the School of Industrial Engineering. And I, by just serendipity, ended up teaching and doing student supervision at the school of social work there. (sips water) We came back to Los Angeles, I got -- went back to work for 60:00Jewish Family Service, developing volunteer programs. Found my big love was more program development teaching and program management and supervision and so on and so forth, administration. And I never went back to clinical practice, but started to work, then, in the seventies, in the whole area of resettlement of -- that was the period when Soviet Jews started coming to the cities, and I was very involved in Jewish Family Service, in those years, in developing the resettlement program in Los Angeles, and then sort of moved up the ranks at Family Service, program -- in terms of program development, management, administration. Because the -- I was the associate executive director for a number of years, related to our various regional enterprises and programs and so 61:00on. And in 1988, was invited to become the executive director of Jewish Vocational Service in Los Angeles, which I did for eight years. And then I retired!

MG:Good.

ET:And it's been wonderful ever since! (laughs)

MG:Good! (laughter) You were coming of age during a very tumultuous -- periods in American history. The thirties, the forties, the fifties. Are there any personalities or events of that era that had a marked change or impact on you as a person or as a Jew?

ET:Well, certainly this -- the creation of the State of Israel -- a major, major impact in terms of connectedness to the state, the -- my -- what it would -- meant in terms of my future and, subsequently, the future of my husband and 62:00myself and the direction our kids would take or would not take and so on and so forth. That was a major consequence. Oh, God, so much, I don't even know where to start. I mean, certainly the Kennedy period, that whole period of -- with the assassinations and the turmoil of the country and -- in the sixties. And at the same time, I'm trying to raise two young kids and build my professional career. And all this is going on all around -- and trying to keep centered at that point in our lives was not very -- it was complicated. It was --

MG:Yeah.

ET:-- certainly was very interesting. And then, the move in '67 -- we were supposed to go to Israel, to -- Marty had a chance -- my husband, Marty, had a 63:00chance to be a professor at the Haifa Technion. But that did not work out, for all kinds of reasons, and we ended up going to Milwaukee. And so, that was during the real upheaval in terms of the Civil Rights Movement, and we were poised to be empathetic, to be involved. Our lives did not -- lend itself, for whatever the reason was, to become activists in that area. Our activism -- both my husband and I, because of his background -- our activism was directed towards Israel in those years, and involvement with the Zionist enterprise as American Jews. Not that the rest of the world and what was going on around us wasn't important, because we related to it, we supported it, and so on and so forth. 64:00It's been a very interesting ride. (laughs) And we're still riding.

MG:Yeah. What does Yiddish mean to you today? I mean --

ET:Oh.

MG:-- does it play a role in your life still?

ET:Yeah, well, interesting. To -- certain extent, it does. Certainly, in terms of -- and this is not meant to curry favor with the Yiddish Book Center, but certainly in terms of our support of the efforts of something like the Yiddish Book Center and what it's doing -- is very important, 'cause it -- I think it -- I'm -- we're -- I'm happy that there is a place where the language and the culture is being perpetuated, encouraged. It's -- and brought forward to another generation. Hopefully, it will take and it won't just end up in this wonderful 65:00environment here and that'll be the end of it -- that it really will take root and move forward. And certainly, in terms of my husband and I, who's also a Yiddish -- was a Yiddish speaker as a child, there are times when the only expression I have -- the only way I can express myself is in Yiddish. It's the only way that my language won't fail me. And I can't -- I can translate it into English sometimes, but it doesn't have the same impact, often. Don't ask -- and I know you're going to ask me, "Give me an example," and I can't think of one right now. But I know there are times when -- they say "Yidish redt zekh," Yiddish talks by itself. It comes naturally. It has a depth of meaning that -- English will fail me sometimes. And fortunately, Marty understands me and I understand him when that happens. When I'm talking to people who don't speak 66:00Yiddish, I have to do a quick translation in my head. Or I'll say to them, "You know, I can only think of how to respond to you in Yiddish. So, let me respond in Yiddish." And they'll look at me, and I say, "And I'll translate it for you, but I'm telling you it doesn't have the same meaning. It doesn't have the same nuanced meaning that it has in English" [sic] -- and my kids are very upset that we didn't teach them Yiddish, but that's a whole other story.

MG:And the whole other story is -- was that a conscious decision?

ET:Well, in a way it was -- we were not comfortable speaking Yiddish at home, because our fluency in Yiddish -- but when I say our -- my husband and my fluency in Yiddish was slightly -- was not -- was impacted in a major way over the years. We just weren't as fluent and we could not carry on, easily, conservations in Yiddish, because we were used to speaking English, to each 67:00other and to the world around us and so on. When my father lived with us, we asked him to speak Yiddish to the kids, and we would -- and that would encourage us to speak Yiddish to him, or -- we were around him. So, they would pick up the language, 'cause Yiddish wasn't being taught in the schools anymore at that point, so -- but he didn't want to. He wanted them to speak either Hebrew or English, and he wanted to practice his English, cause he was very conscious of his accent, which was not terrible. But he wanted to perfect his English. So, he did not help us with that. And, as a result, our attempts to teach the kids Yiddish fell by the way side.

MG:And you said your children regretted this.

ET:Oh, well, I -- our son, especially, will say to me sometimes, "I'm so sorry you didn't teach me Yiddish." Our daughter will say it, too, but not with the 68:00same intensity.

MG:And did they explain why they regret it?

ET:Because they feel that it was a -- it's an important part of their heritage that they're missing. And part of it is 'cause we talk about it so much, and we talk about the Yiddish books. And I've been involved in L.A., and so has my husband, with the Labor Zionist movement, Ameinu, it's now called. But we're -- that has its home at the Institute of Jewish Education, which is also the home of what was the yidishe kultur klub [Yiddish culture club], and my father used to go to lecture there -- and has a wonderful library, by the way, that nobody wants. But that's a whole other story. Well, we're taking -- it's getting handled. There's a group in L.A. called Yiddishkayt, and they're working on that with UCLA, and we're hoping it'll work. But the kids were -- we were exposed to this Yiddish environment, and they're aware of it. And so, they will say, Why 69:00didn't you ever teach us Yiddish? Hebrew we could have picked up -- and my son did. He lived in Israel for a couple years and could pick it up. "But Yiddish, I'll never learn." And they're right, and I am -- I'm sorry, I can't undo it, but -- so, those are the things that I've had to do over again, I would have done differently. Well, to be very -- at the risk of sounding arrogant, there aren't many things I would've done differently. But that's one of them. (laughs)

MG:What do you think -- maybe you've gotten to this, addressed this already. What's important for you, you think, to transmit to generations after you about Jewish identity, for the future? Are there certain things that you feel are -- you mentioned Yiddish, of course. We talked about that a little bit. But anything else?

ET:Oh, boy. Well, certainly the relationship to a support of -- an understanding 70:00for, support of, and encouragement of a Zionist home in Israel that's both Democratic and Jewish in character. And I stress both the Democratic and the Jewish. And that leads into all kinds of political implications. I don't know if you want to get into two state solutions and that sort of stuff. I don't think so. This is not the place. But that kind of impulse, that Israel really is very important for the continuity of Jewish life, both -- well, certainly in Israel, but certainly in the rest of the world, and it's a very important piece. And without it, I think we'll all be a lot -- God forbid without it. We'd be a lot -- I think in very bad shape. I don't know that it's -- it's just important. 71:00It's part of a whole. It's part of a civilization. Jews are not, from my perspective, are not just a religious group. Religion is a piece of it. Organized religion is a piece of it. There are other parts to being Jewish. There's the cultural piece, there's the piece of being in a place where you are in charge of your own destiny, and you're -- and the creativeness that comes from that. And, indeed, a great deal of creativeness has come from it, and so on. But it's a package. It's a package deal, as far as I'm concerned. And that's what I hope I -- we hope we've conveyed to our kids. And from what I can tell, in their own way, they're using whatever works for them. But they're using it and working on it.

MG:We're nearing the end of our time.

ET:Yeah.

MG:Are there any other -- we talked about a lot of things here.

ET:Oy.

MG:Are there any other topics (laughter) that you'd like --

ET:I --

MG:-- that you'd like -- that you can think of that we haven't talked about or you'd like to talk -- touch upon?

ET:Could I recite for you the first poem I ever wrote, and I never wrote another poem?

MG:Sure. (laughter) Why not?

ET:Why not? All right, this is an apocryphal tale, and I know it only because my father repeated it to a lot of people at many times, that when I was about -- he said I was still in my crib. Now, I was a smart little girl. I don't know, unless they kept me in a crib for a very long time, but -- and I spoke early, and I spoke Yiddish. And he claims that when I was a little girl, very little, I made up a poem that he heard me reciting to myself when he came in one morning to pick me up or whatever. And I quote this as apocryphal, so I can't swear to 73:00it. But the poem was, "Ikh hob a mol, gezen a moyz [I once saw a mouse]" -- I'll translate for you afterwards. "Ikh hob a mol gezen a moyz./Hot es antlofn, veys ikh nisht vu./Efsher in keler, efsher in hoyz./Ikh hob a mol gezen a moyz." And what it's -- means is, "I once saw a mouse." Now, that's the Bronx, probably. "And it ran away. I don't know where it went. Either it went into the cellar or into the house. I once saw a mouse." Now, my father claims I made up that poem -- he wrote it down, and I don't know where it is. It's among his papers somewhere, where he copied it. And he claimed that I recite-- I made up that poem when I was two, three years old. And let's say I was four years old. But it tells you a little bit about how Yiddish was very much a part of who I was, that 74:00I could express myself in Yiddish that way, if indeed I did, and my father wouldn't lie. (laughs)

MG:I often ask people what -- do they have a favorite Yiddish song or phrase or word. Maybe that's it!

ET:Yeah, it's good enough! I don't know --

MG:That sounds like that was a --

ET:No, I don't have a -- my favorite Yiddish song, yes, "Reyzele." You know the song "Reyzele?" But I can't sing, I --

MG:Can you share the lyrics with us, a little bit?

ET:"Shteyt zikh dort [Standing there]" -- oh, God -- "in gesele [in the street]" -- (sings wordlessly) -- "dortn [there]" -- (sings wordlessly) -- "voynt mayn tayer reyzele [lives my dear Reyzele]" -- it's a beautiful -- anybody who knows Yiddish songs knows "Reyzele." Why is it my favorite song? 'Cause it was my mother's favorite song, and she was very special.

MG:And what -- and the meaning of that song was about a --

ET:It's a love song.

MG:It's a love song.

ET:This is a love song about a girl named Reyzele and the young man is walking 75:00and he's talking about his lovely Reyzele, and he whistles to tell Reyzele he's come to take her for a walk. And he hears her steps and he knows that she's coming. And then, at some point in the song, her mother tells him, "Don't whistle, it's not nice, for the goyim. Jews don't whistle." That's the song. It's a beautiful, beautiful song. And there are other beautiful Yiddish songs, but that one always sends me into --

MG:Yeah.

ET:-- tear mode.

MG:Yeah. It's great. (laughter) Well, Ethel, this was wonderful. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your memories with us.

ET:Thank you for putting up with me. (laughs)

MG:It was very nice. I enjoyed it very much.

ET:Well, I think my father would like it. He was a --

MG:Yeah.

ET:-- very special man.

MG:Sounds like it.

ET:And my mother was very special, too, but --

MG:Yeah, they both sound -- sounds like --

ET:They were very special people.

MG:Well, thanks.

ET:Thank you.

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

ET:Nishto far vos [You're welcome]. (laughs)

[END OF INTERVIEW]