RACHEL ROJANSKI ORAL HISTORY

ROLA YOUNES:   This is Rola Younes, and today is Tuesday, December 17th, 2013.  I'm here at the Association for Jewish Studies conference in Boston, Massachusetts, with Rachel Rojanski.  We are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project.  Rachel Rojanski, do I have your permission to record this interview?

RACHEL ROJANSKI:Yes, you do.

RY:  Thank you.  So, can you tell me briefly what you know about your family background?

RR:  Well, do you mean in all terms?

RY:  So, for instance, you mentioned that your mom is from pre-war Kovna?

RR:  Yeah.  Okay, so, of course, my parents were from Eastern Europe.  My 1:00mother was from Lithuania.  My father was from Eastern Poland.  My mother came to Palestine in 1936 as a student at the Hebrew University.  My father survived the Holocaust, and they got married in Tel Aviv in the '50s, and I was born later.  And in terms of Yiddish, I mean, this is what you are interested in -- so, my mother grew up in a Yiddish and Russian-speaking home.  They spoke Yiddish and Russian.  I mean, the non-Jewish culture was, of course -- was Russian culture.  They didn't read a Yiddish newspaper and they were not 2:00interested in Yiddish culture, but they spoke Yiddish as the vernacular, their everyday language.  My grandfather, who died before I was born, he was dealing in commerce.  He was -- would go to Germany to buy merchandise and to sell it in Lithuania.  And after the rise of the Nazis, he figured out that Europe is not a good place for the Jews.  And he had the opportunity to go to -- to leave.  And he decided that -- as Jews, the best place to go to will be Palestine, of course, for him.  I mean, he wasn't ideological.  He wasn't a Zionist or -- but he was an Orthodox Jew.  America wasn't in the cards, and he 3:00decided to go to Palestine, and he could go -- during British Mandate, Jews couldn't come in.  But his sister married a well-to-do Jew who could put down the money.  So, they came to Tel Aviv earlier, and he bought some significant real estate, and he put down the money for my grandfather, my grandmother, and two of the children who were under sixteen.  Children under sixteen could come without a certificate from the British Mandate.  And they came in 1935.  And then, my mother, who was already a student at the University of Kovna, she -- if you were a -- if you were admitted to the Hebrew University and you paid in advance tuition for two years, you would get a certificate, provided that you study -- that you're a student.  But no one left after -- nobody -- most people 4:00didn't leave.  Most people went to college, and then they stayed.  They didn't go back, especially in the light of the situation.  So, when they came -- I mean, here -- when they came to Palestine, to pre-State Palestine, I know -- I mean, all these -- I mean -- even -- my grandfather died before -- he died in the '50s, but he died before I was born, so I haven't anything seen anything, but I understand that they spoke to the father, to my grandfather -- they spoke to him in Yiddish.  I understand that he didn't speak modern Hebrew.  But they, themselves, they were young people.  They switched to Hebrew.  They stopped using Yiddish.  It's a normal process.  Young people, when they immigrate, they abandon the old language.  They move on, especially Yiddish, 5:00which was -- it's not a language of any country.  So, they, the young people, they moved to Hebrew.  And actually, my mother wasn't very much interested in Yiddish.

RY:  Can you tell us more about your father and how he became --

RR:  Yes, now -- so, my father was born in Bialystok, which is Eastern Poland.  His -- I don't know much about his childhood.  I've never asked him -- when I was interested in it, it was too late.  I never asked him what language they spoke at home.  I assume they spoke Yiddish.  I have reasons to believe that they spoke Yiddish, but I'm not sure.  I mean, I'm pretty much sure, but it's a speculation.  I have no evidence for it.  He survived the 6:00Holocaust, which is a long story, which is irrelevant for Yiddish.  And after the Holocaust, he was in the Jewish settlement in Zaglembie, and he came after -- he came during the War of Independence, during the War of 1948.  He was a great fan of Yiddish.  I mean, he liked to speak Yiddish.  My parents, when they got married -- I mean, when I was born.  I don't know what happened before I was born -- they were speaking among themselves Yiddish.  But if they spoke to me or if they spoke to somebody else, they would immediately -- like this, automatically switch to Hebrew.  So, my father, although he was a great fan of Yiddish, his Hebrew was superb.  He knew Hebrew very well.  He was an only son after girls only, so he got this special attention.  And he had a tutor for 7:00Hebrew, as a child.  And when he came to Palestine as a new immigrant, he already knew Hebrew very, very well.  Plus, he was a hard worker and he was a -- very meticulous about everything.  So, he really knew -- his Hebrew was very good and very high, and he didn't need Yiddish for communication or for writing or for anything.  But still -- and he never read Yiddish, by the way, and he read Hebrew only.  But still, he liked to speak Yiddish and -- at home with my mom, they would speak Yiddish only.  But when they would go to -- on the street or -- I -- if they would speak to me, I mean, we would say at the dinner table -- so, for example, he would say something to my mom in Yiddish, and then he would refer to me in Hebrew, the same sentence.  It was so natural that -- and I know that in families when -- where they use more than one language, it's very natural that people switch languages without even noticing.  So, this is how it was.

RY:  Apart from Yiddish, can you tell us about the experience of your father in Eastern Europe?

RR:  Well, it has nothing to do with Yiddish.

RY:  Yes, but in our work, we are interested in Yiddish, of course, but also in personal lives that --

RR:  So -- okay, so my father was a violinist.  And he was in Bialystok.  And, as you know, under Molotov, Bialystok became the Soviet Union.  So, when the Soviets came in, they found that -- a big orchestra, and he got a job in this orchestra.  Actually, this is how he survived.  So, he was in this orchestra, and they, the Soviets, they sent the orchestra to the -- further -- to the east.  And so, he actually left Bialystok, and when the Germans occupied Bialystok, he wasn't there.  So, all -- his father died when he was a child, so 9:00it was a -- his mother and his two sisters, who were married, and one had three kids.  So, we know that -- what we know is that -- we don't know for sure -- that his mother died in the ghetto.  We also know that one of his sisters was a shabesdike [widow].  You know, there is even a song about -- "Rivkele di shabesdike [Rivkele the Shabbos widow]" -- so, she was also a shabesdike, so they took her.  They took her husband, and then, what we think, that -- I mean, that they perished in Treblinka.  This is what we think.  We don't -- we had no evidence.  We don't know.  And so, nobody survived, and he was with a -- with this orchestra, with his violin, going to the east.  And, in the end, they disintegrated the orchestra, and he was forced to join the Red Army.  So, that's how we survived.  And then, he came back and nothing was left, and 10:00that's it.

RY:  And how did he immigrate to Palestine or --

RR:  Well, after the -- during the War of Independence, the State of Israel -- every Jew could come in.

RY:  Oh, so it -- (phone rings) him -- after -- oh, so and he immigrated --

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

RY:  Can you describe your neighborhood growing up?

RR:  Okay, so I grew up in the -- what is now called the Old North of Tel Aviv.  Now they call it the Old North, because there is a New North.  It was a -- I would say a middle-class, even upper-middle-class neighborhood.  What's interesting, I mean, from my perspective now, as a scholar of Jewish immigrant societies, is that, actually, I grew up in a Jewish immigrant society.  So, most of all -- I mean, this -- buildings -- like, coops here -- yeah, like a 11:00condo here, not like -- like a condo here, and apartment buildings.  And -- if I think about the neighbors, I think that every family spoke a different language, which is very interesting.  Plus, we have -- I think we have thirteen apartments in our building.  So -- about four families, at least, or five families spoke Yiddish at the home in five different dialects.  But nobody paid attention to it because who -- I mean, this was a natural thing.  And, of course, you don't -- if you don't speak my dialect, your dialect is wrong.  My dialect is good, your dialect is not good.  And now, they do excursions to the Ukraine to hear people speak -- you know, I grew up, everyone had -- spoke Yiddish with a dialect, and nobody thought it was important, not to record it, 12:00to preserve, because it was an everyday thing.  And people spoke German, people spoke Polish, people spoke Romanian.  The most -- I would say the most -- the prevailing languages were Yiddish, Polish, and Romanian, and a little bit German.  Hungarian was quite rare, but it was there.  We had two -- meaning the neighborhood -- two, three families was -- who were speaking Hungarian.  So, it was multicultural, multilingual.  Most of them -- has to be said, most of the people were of Ashkenazi origin.  I mean, there were hardly people from the Arab countries.  Ninety-five percent were Ashkenazi people, so -- but we didn't -- the kids spoke Hebrew.  Everyone spoke Hebrew one way or the other.  I mean, some knew better, some knew more, some knew less.  But generally 13:00speaking, everyone spoke Hebrew.  And, I mean, it wasn't an issue.  Nobody paid attention to it.  This is how we lived.  So, in my -- I can say that in my house, a non-Hebrew publication didn't set foot, if you can say -- no, nothing.  Once in a blue moon, you could see Russian book.  But this was really an occasion.  And the neighbors downstairs, they were -- he was a cobbler and she was a seamstress.  I mean, not with a high education, and they were reading a Yiddish newspaper, and my parents really, really underestimated them for not being able to read, like I mentioned, a Hebrew newspaper.  They needed to read this Yiddish newspaper.

RY:  What newspaper was it?

RR:  "Letste nayes," this is what people read then.  So, that's it.  So, this 14:00is now -- but even now, I remember it only because somebody once said that they're reading "Letste nayes," but who would pay attention?  If they read "Letste nayes," they're really uneducated people.

RY:  And is there a difference between the Yiddish spoken by your mother and the Yiddish spoken by your father?

RR:  No, Bialystok and the -- Kovna, it's the same -- almost the same dialect.  I mean, there are very, very tiny differences, but if you're not a professional, you wouldn't notice.  I mean, people who really have specialized on dialects can see the differences, but no, it's the same dialect.  Eastern Poland and -- Eastern Poland is Litvaks.

RY:  Was there any political -- particular political atmosphere in your home?

RR:  No.

RY:  Okay.  Did you do anything special for Shabbos or --

RR:  Yeah, sure, sure.  Sure, I mean, this was a -- I mean, most people in Israel, they have a Shabbat dinner, one way or the other.  Some do more, some do less, but they do kiddush and they have Shabbat, yes, but it has nothing to do with Yiddish.

RY:  Yes, yes, yeah, but this interview, it's not only Yiddish (UNCLEAR).

RR:  I understand, but I'm -- yeah, okay, yes, of course.

RY:  -- so --

RR:  Of course.

RY:  -- okay, yeah, yes.

RR:  Most families have Shabbat dinner.  I mean, some have a bigger Shabbat dinner, but some have a more symbolic Shabbat dinner.  But most families have a Shabbat dinner.

RY:  So, you mentioned growing up in post-Holocaust Israel.

RR:  Yeah.

RY:  Can you elaborate on that?

RR:  Honestly, not too much, because -- it's very interesting, from our perspective, it wasn't something special.  This is -- now, I'm telling young people, when I grew up, there were many people with this -- what we call the blue tattoo, the tattoo of Auschwitz.  And nobody would -- I mean, okay, so 16:00there were people like this.  I mean, some ten years ago -- now, you hardly -- you can hardly see them, but some -- (phone rings) [BREAK IN RECORDING] So, when I grew up, it was -- I mean, it was a common thing to see people with a blue tattoo of Auschwitz and we didn't -- okay, so it was something -- it was part of our lives.  Nobody paid attention to it, and there were -- and what was interesting -- and another thing that -- some ten years ago, I had a neighbor with this blue tattoo, as we say, this tattoo from Auschwitz.  And she was then -- she was relatively young.  I mean, she was in her early seventies.  And we all treated her like she was so fragile, because now we understood, as adults, 17:00and after all these years, we were processing this information about the Holocaust.  We understood what it means.  But when I was a child -- so, okay, so they had this blue tattoo.  People -- my -- it was part of life, and people didn't talk about it.  People started talking about it later.  People started talking about it in the '60s, in the mid-'60s.  And it was part of our life.  We didn't -- I first learned about the Holocaust when I was eight.  And it was already in the '60s.  And my mom bought me a book, which was written by -- Israeli writer, who -- then I learned that she actually was married to my mom's brother, and they're -- there were six siblings.  So, the parents with the 18:00youngest came to Palestine then.  My mom came, and three were left behind.  And two, the -- a brother and the sister, they were on their escape from Lithuania to Russia, and the road was bombarded and they were killed, but she survived.  And then, she survived the Holocaust, and then she came to Palestine.  And she wrote a book about children in Kovna during the years of the Holocaust.  And this is how I was introduced to the Holocaust.  And most kids didn't know anything about the Holocaust.  It was not part of the curriculum and people didn't talk about it too much.  So, there was something -- the only thing that there was -- this -- there was the years later, the years of the reparation money from Germany, and the work -- my father didn't take reparation.  It's -- okay, so people were too proud to take this and -- this 19:00money.  And there were many people who didn't take the money, and people wouldn't buy German stuff.  They wouldn't -- I mean, there wasn't so much to buy, but people wouldn't buy German stuff.  And "I'll never go to Germany," all these kinds of -- but, I mean, it wasn't -- now, we see differently, but then, it wasn't really -- there were -- I know about people my age or a little older that the parents were very active in the commemoration of the Holocaust, and the Holocaust was part of their life.  But where I grew up, it wasn't part of our life. 

RY:  While growing up, what representations of Europe, if any, did you encounter?

RR:  What do you mean?

RY:  How Europe was represented, or did your parents, for instance, talk about 20:00where they come from --

RR:  Oh, okay, Europe is one thing.  What we are talking is about Eastern Europe, right?

RY:  Yes, sorry, yes.

RR:  So, Eastern Europe -- well, my mother wasn't interested at all, so this was our past, it came to an end, that's it.

RY:  Okay.

RR:  But my father was talking about it, but in very, very -- I would say in very beautifying way.  Everything, they -- the way things were done there were the right thing to do.  What you are doing here is not the right thing to do.  The relations between teachers and students should be like they were in the old home.  Like many immigrants, old home is the right thing.  Plus, my father was quite old when he came to Israel.  So, the old -- it's very difficult to immigrate when you're older.  So, the old home is the right thing, this is no -- to -- this is a different -- this is -- a very different culture, very 21:00khutspedik [gutsy] and very straightforward, and -- so, this is it.  But you know what?  We didn't call it "Europe."  We call it "the exile."

RY:  Galut [Hebrew: Diaspora, lit. "Exile"].

RR:  Yeah, we call it exile.  I mean, "Oh, you're talking about the exile, and the exile is a bad thing, so why would we listen to you?"  I mean -- or if you are -- and if you are praising the exile, you're an exilic person, and there is nothing worse than an exilic person.  You can't be worse than an exilic person.  Is a horrible thing.  I mean, not anymore, because I married a man from -- who wasn't born and raised in Israel.  Sometimes, I tell -- I say to him, "You're galuti [Hebrew: exilic]."  But, I mean, this is how we perceived it.  I mean, you -- our parents were galutim [Hebrew: exiles] and we were Israelis.  We were strong Israelis.

RY:  So -- and so, in Israel, there has been a trend to Hebrew-ize, Hebraize 22:00Jewish European surnames.  For instance, people who were called Epshtayn --

RR:  Yeah, I know.  Yeah, yeah.

RY:  Yeah.

RR:  So --

RY:  Did your family connect with that?

RR:  No!

RY:  -- that?

RR:  Why?  Why would we do it?  No way.  Some people wanted to do it, some people on pur-- listen, I -- some people did it, some people thought the old names are too difficult to pronounce -- young people of my generation, when they turned twenty or twenty-two, they themselves changed the names.  And some families, no, I -- what -- this was my mother, my father's name.  This was my grandfather -- this was our -- names for generation.  Why?

RY:  I'm not saying you had to, I just asked because --

RR:  No, no, no, I'm just --

RY:  Yeah.

RR:  -- and they -- no.

RY:  Yeah, I know it has been a choice for some people.

RR:  No, if you have -- if you go out of the country -- on the half of the country -- I don't know if it is still, but it was a requirement --

RY:  Okay.

RR:  -- you can't represent -- I mean, then, you can't represent your country with a name Rojanski, because will think that you're Polish.  And some people here in America think that I'm Polish.  But no, if you're -- if you don't have any such position, nobody requires you to change your name, but -- yeah, it was -- it's a -- well, I've written a book about it, so it's part of a big, big thing.  But this is a very tiny little detail that -- maybe it concerns people, but no, my family wasn't --

RY:  So, while growing up, what representations of Yiddish, if any, did you encounter?

RR:  Well, my parents spoke Yiddish at home.

RY:  How Yiddish was represented.  So, for instance, I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but I (UNCLEAR).

RR:  Yeah, I understand, okay.

RY:  -- Yiddish adishut [Hebrew: indifference] or --

RR:  No.

RY:  -- how was it represented?  What were -- what did you hear about it --

RR:  At home?

RY:  -- yeah, or in your environment while growing up.

RR:  Nothing.  I mean, my parents -- it was -- I mean, everything -- you know, I've written a book about Yiddish in Israel in 1948 to 2008.  So, I can make the difference between what I have experienced and what was the general trend.  Now, there is a big difference between what -- between my personal experience and the general experience.  So, the general experience was that Hebrew is the right thing and Yiddish the wrong thing.  But I've simplified it.  I mean, I can't -- you can't simplify it more.  But my parents spoke Yiddish.  My father would -- used to say -- [BREAK IN RECORDING] my father used to say, "Yidn redn yidish [Jews speak Yiddish]" and people who knew Yiddish or -- you know that, in 25:00Poland, between the two wars, the young generation, many of them, they went to Polish schools.  People were born in the '20s, they went to Polish schools.  Their Yiddish wasn't so good.  My father was born in the Pale of Settlement in -- the previous Pale of Settlement.  Bialystok is the Pale of Settlement.  But people who were born in Congress Poland, they spoke Polish.  So, didn't -- I mean, even if they understood Yiddish, it wasn't the natural choice.  So, these people would speak -- we had neighbors, and many people who would speak Polish -- and my father knew -- we went to a Jewish school in Bialystok, but it was a Jewish school in Polish.  The reason they sent him to this school is because everyone was Jewish, including the teachers, so he didn't suffer anti-Semitism.  This was the reason. Not because of Jewish culture.  Just to be in a Jewish environment so he wouldn't suffer anti-Semitism.  So, his Polish was excellent, but he hated the Poles and he hated Polish, so he didn't use it unless he had to.  But we had neighbors who would speak Polish, and he knew 26:00Polish better than they did, and he would call them "ma-yofesniks [servile people]," because yidn redn yidish.  If you don't want to speak Yiddish, you should speak Hebrew.  If you --

RY:  What's "ma-yofes"?

RR:  Oh.

RY:  Ma'afat [Hebrew: Tiring]?

RR:  "Ma-yafit," no, "ma-yofes" is -- no, no, "ma-yofes" is an -- oh, it's a big thing in Yiddish culture.

RY:  Yeah.

RR:  It's a dance.  Jews were dancing to please the goy, it's --

RY:  Oh, okay, yeah.

RR:  -- "ma-yofes" is a big thing in Yiddish culture.

RY:  Yeah, okay.  So, can you tell us about your education?  What kind of school did you go to?

RR:  Well, my parents, like good East European Jews, they sent me to the best school available.  And I went to elementary school -- in my days -- it's 27:00returning to this pattern, it was first to eighth.  I mean, middle school included, and they're going back to it now.  So, I went to school that was -- in its past, it was -- it belonged to the labor movement.  After -- when I went there, it was not allowed to call it a lab-- but it still was.  It was a school with the values of the labor movement. It was an -- was a very good school.  Very secular.  Not related to Yiddish.  I understood Yiddish because, I mean, my parents were speaking Yiddish at home.  But, again, it wasn't an issue.  I would come to friends and, for example, had a very close friend, and her parents came to Palestine in 1950.  And they spoke Polish.  Her mother didn't know -- her Hebrew was very bad and they spoke Polish.  She understood, she spoke to 28:00her mom -- Hebrew and her mother answered in Polish.  So, okay, I had another friend, they also came, I think, in '52.  And, I mean, they were born in Israel, but the parents came in '52.  And they were speaking Romanian and, again, the kids were speaking Hebrew, the parents -- so, it wasn't a big deal.  Nobody -- it wasn't -- this was the reality.  Many -- in many homes, the parents were speaking one language, the kids were answering in another language, so -- but this was a very -- I mean, these were the quintessential Israeli -- if you -- I mean, if you want to point out the fortress of the quintessential Israeli that has nothing to do with the galut, this is the school where I went.  And then, I went to another school, to a high school.  It's the municipality, but in those days, the public school were the best, not -- the private school were for failing students and the public school were for the excellent students.  So, I went there, also, again with -- again, very secular, 29:00very Israeli, and that's it, so --

RY:  Okay.  And then, when you went to uni-- to college, you studied Jewish history and --

RR:  Yeah.

RY:  -- Hebrew literature.  Can you tell us more about your choice?

RR:  Well, no, it -- I have to go back to high school.  So, now I have to go back to high school.  So, you could -- I don't know if you still can -- you could graduate high school with honors.  I don't know if the option still exists.  So, I wanted to do -- to graduate high school with honors.  So, I wanted to do an oral thesis.  And, in those days, you would start when you were in eleventh and you finish by Hanukkah, by December.  You submit by December when you're in twelfth grade.  You start in the middle of eleventh grade, and it's a year-long project.  And so, I want to do -- I mean, oddly enough, I come 30:00to -- I don't know now why, but this is how it happened.  I wanted to do something about the Holocaust then -- because years later, I never wanted to do anything about the Holocaust.  But then, I wanted to something about the Holocaust.  And my history teacher, I know that she -- at the same time, she was doing her master's degree at Tel Aviv University, in ancient history.  So, she's not an expert, but there were -- after school, there were some classes that you could take voluntarily, and I took a class with a teacher who was a very charismatic person that -- it was a class on the Holocaust.  But he taught us in a very -- not -- until then, teaching about the Holocaust was, oh, it was lachrymose.  Oh, what happened to the Jews?  They took them to the gas chambers, they killed them.  The Nazi beast, the Jews are poor things.  And it 31:00was like a commemoration event.  Every time you dealt with the Holocaust, was like this.  And then, I came to these classes and it was a different thing.  We were talking about uprising, about the Judenrat, about -- and about a -- and it was early '70s.  I mean, about the reaction of the world.  And people were not talking about it then.  So, I mean, he was very charismatic, and it was a new world for me, not only the -- what would happen to the Jews again and again, how they killed them, which -- but there are other -- there are more aspects, and why didn't -- why was there an uprising here and why wasn't an uprising there, and about the Judenrat, why did they agree to become Judenrats, and the -- it's a -- so, I went to him and I told him that I want to do an oral thesis 32:00on the Holocaust.  And he said to me, "Can you read Yiddish?"  And I said to him, "Yes."  Teenagers have all these crazy ideas about themselves.  But I couldn't read Yiddish.  Why -- how could -- I understood when my parents -- if my mom had a recipe for a cake, I could understand the recipe, but I couldn't really -- I've never read Yiddish.  But then, I told him that I can read Yiddish, so now I'm stuck with it.  So, I said to him, "You know what?"  "So, why don't you do -- have you heard about the Bund?"  "What is the Bund?  I've never heard about it."  Now, you have to remember that in those days -- now, I've written also a book about the Labor Zionist movement, so I know exactly that all these -- dichotomy between Zionism and Bundism, it's much more complex.  But in those days, the Bund was some kind of bad word, they're anti-Zionists, so they weren't included in the curriculum.  You are not 33:00supposed to know that they existed.  I mean, it's not a good thing.  If you're not a Zionist, you are erased from history, you're not -- you don't -- you have no right to exist.  So, "No, I've never heard about -- what is the Bund?"  So, he told me, "Go to the encyclopedia."  Okay.  And then, he said to me, "Have you heard about Szmul Zygielbojm?"  Said, "Who is Szmul Zygielbojm?"  "Go and look for -- look it up."  So, Szmul Zygielbojm is the one who committed suicide as -- on -- on May '43 as a protest against the world that didn't do anything to rescue the Jews during the Holocaust.  "So, would you like to do your honor thesis about him?"  I said to him, "Yes, why not?"  And, I mean, it's only some kind of stupidity of a teenager that doesn't know what he does.  So, he said to me, "Okay, if you want to do this, you read this and that, and then I'll 34:00go with you to the archives and introduce you to the archivists, and you'll start doing your work."  So, we went together to the archives -- and he introduced me to the archivists, and almost all the rest is history.  And I started doing the work, and it turns out, surprise, surprise, I don't know Yiddish.  But what will I do?  I mean, I talk about myself to do this project.  I'm not going to withdraw.  I'm not going to let myself down, because I decided that I will do it, so I'll do it.  So, during the summer, while everybody else went to the beach, I simply was sitting there with a dictionary, which was a very weak dictionary then, and reading articles in Yiddish.  And more or less, all the rest is history.  And I did this paper, 35:00and it was a big deal.  They interviewed me on national radio, and then -- it was a big deal.  And then, I decided to study Jewish history.  So, actually, I think this is the major thing, this honors thesis is the major thing.  This is the path breaking --

RY:  I also have a question on who were your academic mentors or influences.  You mentioned that person --

RR:  Yeah, okay, so this is also a story.  He was also -- he was a very interesting man.  He's still alive.  He's ninety-one now.  He himself wasn't a survivor.  He was born in Poland, and he was raised in Warsaw.  When he was sixteen -- the war broke out when he was sixteen.  His father took him to the 36:00train station, and he's never seen him again.  And he also -- he went -- he was in the same high school with Mordechai Anielewicz.  Mordechai Anielewicz was older than him, and Mordechai Anielewicz attracted him to Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir, and he was going to the east.  And I don't remember -- I heard the story in details.  I mean, it will take us a whole interview, but in general terms, somebody told him to go to Vilna to meet Anielewicz, and he met him, and he told him where to go.  And in the end, he wandered from one place to another.  And in the end, he went on a train of the Joint, who took them to Moscow.  And from there -- he came to Palestine in 1941.  Now, he spoke Yiddish in a different dialect than my parents.  He was younger than my parents, but to me, he looked 37:00very old, because his kids were older than me.  So, for a child, if you're a parent of older kids, you are old.  He was very charismatic, as I said.  He was very -- he had a very original thought.  And actually, I mean -- of course, he knew -- he was a native speaker in Yiddish and Polish.  In Yiddish and -- Yiddish, Polish, and Hebrew were his -- my father also was a native speaker in four languages.  My father was a native speaker in Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, and Polish.  And he was a native speaker in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Polish, and he also knew Russian very well.  And actually, this is how it happened.

RY:  Any other academic mentors or influences?

RR:  No, most -- no, listen, later on, when I was already -- when I had my PhD, later on -- actually, I wasn't focused on Yiddish.  I did -- I studied Jewish 38:00history and Hebrew literature, and then I did my master's in Jewish history on topic which was not -- my sources were not in Yiddish.  I mean, only a very small part, an insignificant part of my sources were in Yiddish.  But then, when I went to do this, my PhD, I want to do something with Yiddish.  So, then I did this project on the Labor Zionists in America, which is, whooh, I tell you, do this, I mean, you become an expert in reading handwritings in Yiddish.  So, this was -- I think I read, I think, a few hundred thousand documents in handwriting in Yiddish, and I did it with the same -- while this person -- when he was my teacher in high school -- I mean, in Israel, it's very different.  You don't have this track -- you go from high school to college, from college to 39:00graduate school.  You go to the army, sometimes you go on a job, on a temporary job for two, three years to save some money, then you go to college.  Then, you go to work again, and then you go to graduate school.  So, he was in his late forties, and he -- it turned out that he was a graduate student.  And then, he got his PhD and he got a position at Tel Aviv University.  And by that time, I graduate -- my BA, and my -- anyway, he was already a professor when I did my doctorate with him, so -- but then -- and I didn't focus on Yiddish.  I did -- I focused on more -- I focused much more on political history.  I was then interested in political history.  And then, I started to be interested in the encounter between politics and culture.  And then, I became interested in Yiddish as a field.  And then, I met some people -- [Shalom Lurje?], who is -- 40:00who -- he died already, and he was the son of [Zalika Menovich?] of Ghetto Vilna, right?  And I met some other people, and then I started to delve into Yiddish as a field.  But still, I'm a historian.  I'm not a literary person.  I'm -- of course, I'm not a linguist.  I do cultural history with a focus on the history of Yiddish culture.  But I focus on immigrant society, which means I focus on Yiddish in the immigrant environment.

RY:  Yeah.  Is this how you define yourself academically?

RR:  Yeah, I do -- actually, I'm doing political and cultural history of East European immigrant society.  So, I did this Po'ale Tsiyon, which is -- it's political and social history, and also a little bit cultural.  I didn't focus on the cultural aspect, because, I mean, the book is big enough and -- but I've 41:00written several articles about the encounter of culture and politics.  And culture for them is Yiddish culture.  But we have to remember, this is how I perceive it, that the development of Yiddish is part of their political -- is a political vehicle for them.  And then, I did this book on Yiddish in Israel, which is also -- it's Israeli culture and Yiddish culture, and the encounter between the two.  And now, I will embark -- I'm embarking on a new project.  It's a huge project.  I won't -- I hope I will have enough energy to do it.  I want to do the biography of Abraham Cahan, the editor of the Jewish Daily For-- "Forverts," as I say, 'cause it's easier to pronounce for me, as an Israeli.  So, it's -- again, it's cultural history, but also, it has -- it also has an 42:00encounter between culture and politics, because, after all, the "Forverts" -- it was a newspaper, it's a cultural endeavor, but it was also a political vehicle.  So, you can't separate the two.  And they have this relationship that they push one another, they support one another.  They conflate all these --

RY:  Do you know how you came to get your interest into culture and politics?  Is there (UNCLEAR) --

RR:  Well --

RY:  -- or --

RR:  -- this is something that happens while you --

RY:  Yeah.

RR:  -- do -- when you do your work.

RY:  Yeah.

RR:  Some stuff appeals to you.  And during -- when I was younger, I was more interested in political history.  Now, I'm more interested in cultural history.

RY:  Okay.  Yes, you mentioned your book, "Conflicting Identities."

RR:  Yeah.  This is the book on Po'ale Tsiyon.

RY:  Yes, about Po'ale Tsiyon.

RR:  Yeah.

RY:  How did you come to work on Po'ale Tsiyon?  This is why I asked you your -- the question about political atmosphere in your home --

RR:  No, my parents were not --

RY:  Yeah.

RR:  I'll tell you this -- that when I did my honors thesis on Szmul Zygielbojm, on the Bundists --

RY:  Yeah.

RR:  -- I wanted to go to the archives in Lohamei HaGetaot -- the kibbutz of the ghetto fighters.  And this woman who was married to my mom's brother -- I mean, in the -- I mean, she married somebody else and she had three sons.  Every one is very successful.  She and her husband, actually, they were the founders of the kibbutz, and they were also the founders of the Ghetto Fighters House, which is a museum and also an archive.  So, my mom spoke to her and said to her that I want to come for a few days to do some work in the archives.  And she started yelling at my mom.  "How did you allow your daughter to do a project on the Bundists?  Aren't there enough Zionists to write about?  Why does she have to spend her good time on a Bundist?"  So -- but it wasn't 44:00atmosphere in my parents' house.  It wasn't this atmosphere.  I was interested in it in many -- for many reasons.  First of all, I wanted to do -- at this point, I really wanted to do something with Yiddish sources.  I really, really wanted to do something with Yiddish sources.  I loved reading Yiddish, and I wanted to do something with Yiddish sources at this point.  And I wanted to -- I didn't want to do history of East European Jews.  I wanted to do Jews in America.  In those days, when I started my PhD, history of the labor movement was one of the most prevailing topics that people were dealing with.  It has nothing to do with my -- I mean, my home.  Many people wrote -- there were all kinds of aspect of Jewish labor movement.  This was a very -- this was a very, 45:00very common thing to focus on, on Jewish labor movement, so --

RY:  How about --

RR:  Well, I will -- I did about the labor -- the Zionist labor movement, so I'm so pious.  You can't be more pious than that.

RY:  And what brought you to be interested in the life of Abe Cahan?

RR:  Well, oh, okay, because I wanted to do something really important in the field of American Jewish history, the history of Yiddish, and this is very important.  I mean, I can't think of somebody more important than this -- in this society, more influential, both culturally and politically than Abe Cahan.  Can you think about somebody more influential?

RY:  No, no, yeah.  There has already been a biography about him.

RR:  Written by Seth Lipsky.

RY:  Yeah, yeah.

RR:  Did you -- have you read what Gennady Estraikh wrote about it?

RY:  Yeah, yes.  So, okay, yeah.

RR:  So, the answer is in the question.

RY:  Okay.  (laughs) So, let's talk about your forthcoming book, "Yiddish in Israel."

RR:  Yeah.

RY:  Yes, so -- where you talk about Yiddish in Israel between 1948 and 2008.  And how did you see Yiddish change or develop or --

RR:  Okay, so the book has -- okay, so it's a very wide range of thing-- but, it's not a documentation of everything that happened.  But my goal was to give a broad picture that will present Yiddish in the context of the Israeli culture.  So, I have -- I started with -- I have the -- my first chapter deals with the politics of culture, where I -- and the point of departure is that, 47:00actually, that there's a general truth -- or, I say it like this: there is a very well-known story that -- I've written an article about it, that in 1946, after the war, there was a convention of the Histadrut of the general federation of the -- called the Hebrew Workers, and [Hosta Kolchak?] was a survivor.  She came there and she was invited by the people of Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir to tell about -- to tell her story, how she escaped the ghetto, and she joined the partisans in the woods, and she came to the podium, and she told her story in Yiddish.  And the next speaker was Ben-Gurion.  And this is a very famous story.  And he said, after -- and he started by saying, "In spite of fact that the khavera, the comrade on the -- who spoke before me spoke in a foreign and grating language" -- and the commotion arose in the hall, and people started, "How dare you?  People went to the gas chambers and they spoke Yiddish!  How dare you say that Yiddish is not a Jewish language?  A for-- Yiddish is a 48:00foreign language, how dare you say" -- and the meeting stopped.  And this became a kind of truism that Ben-Gurion hated Yiddish and he was persecuting Yiddish and everyone was persecuting Yiddish.  So, my point of departure is that -- I wrote an article about it -- I mean, it was published some -- I think some seven or eight years ago, where I show that, actually, Ben-Gurion was the first to perceive the big, historical meaning of the Holocaust, where people said, okay, six million people died and they were speaking in term-- of loss of people, and they were mourning of the human loss -- he was at the head and he understood the big meaning for the Jewish people, that the Holocaust was a history-changing event.  It changed the history of the Jewish people, it changed the culture of the Jewish people, it changed the demographical structure 49:00of the Jewish people.  He was the first to understand it, because it took a long time for people to understand -- and he was a very practical man.  Very -- not sentimental.  Wanted to move on.  And actually, what -- I argue that already in 1950, he thought that there is no point in prosecuting Yiddish.  It's stupid and pointless.  But he had this label that he's the very -- persecutor of Yiddish.  So, I mean, he even wrote in his diary, "Well, I think that Hebrew should be the first language, but there is no reason to persecute Yiddish."  So, (coughs) what I'm showing -- that deliberation, what to do with it, how to do with it, what is -- what should be the nature of the Israeli culture, the whole idea of creating a new society, a new culture.  Then, I have two chapters about the Yiddish press, which is a big deal, plus -- that the most important vehicle for Yiddish culture, historically, is the press.  So, you 50:00can't underestimate -- you can't exaggerate when you tell -- when you emphasize the importance of the press.  Then, I have a big -- two chapters on literature, on the early literature, on the "Goldene keyt," on the quarterly, on the "Yiddish Quarterly."  I mean, it became the most important Yiddish journal ever, and certainly after the Holocaust, but I think ever -- it came out from 1948 -- now, I -- I've never thought about it, but from 1949 to 1994 --

RY:  Yeah.

RR:  Yeah, and no, I never saw the --

RY:  Yeah.

RR:  -- it's the same digits, but --

RY:  Yeah.

RR:  -- anyway, so came out for many years, and it -- I think it was the most important and the best Yiddish journal ever.  And it was funded by the state.  51:00By the state.  So, I have a big chapter on it, which I can't -- but then -- and then, I have a big discussion on the young writers who came to Israel in -- and I wanted to pursue a career in Yiddish in Israel.  And this is very interesting, because there are many questions to be asked: for whom did they write, what did they write?  Did they write it against the Israeli literature?  Did they write it aga-- I'm using the word against, because this is how the -- how you use -- how you describe this literature.  Did you write it -- were they influenced by Israeli literature?  Did they read Israeli literature?  Were they influenced by the big historical Yiddish literature?  And I have a chapter -- two chapters on Yiddish theater in two periods of time, in the '50s and then in the late '60s.  Then -- so, actually, what -- the main 52:00difference is that during the early '50s, there was a significant population that was using Yiddish.  They were reading Yiddish and they were -- I mean, they were speaking Yiddish, and many of them were reading Yiddish.  Now, what is -- what happened is there is a natural process that happened in the United States, too, that immigrants switch to the language of the country.  This is a natural process.  If they're not too old or even don't have this ideology to adhere to their former culture, most of them, during the time -- they switch to the language of the country.  So, the whole issue of the Yiddish press and 53:00Yiddish theater in the '50s is very different from the same issue in the '60s.  Of course, it has to be said that Yiddish press declined immensely in the '60s, while Yiddish theater emerged in a different form, because people went -- started going to the theater as a kind of nostalgia, which they didn't do in the '50s.  And again and again in the '80s, they started to have a regular Yiddish theater.  Now, one of the things that I examine in the book is how Yiddish literature in translation was perceived in Israel, which -- what I'm trying to argue, that it's not only a question of language.  It's also a question of substance.  And how -- it depends what you write and how you write, because if 54:00it's relevant and it will be read while it's translated, people will read it.  And those writers who were writing in the early '50s, some of them not only translated the work, but some of them -- the translation came out before the original in Yiddish, and nobody wanted to read it.  So, there are other things at play besides the language.  And then, I have some -- I have a big chapter that tries to evaluate why people didn't pass on the Yiddish culture to -- the Yiddish culture and the Yiddish language to the kids, and about the attempts to revive Yiddish, and that's it.

RY:  Okay, Yiddish -- can you tell us about Yiddish today?  It's not in your book, but Yiddish, 2013, in Israel?

RR:  Where, in Israel?

RY:  In Israel, yeah.

RR:  Well, I mean, modern Yiddish is -- we perceive Yiddish as Yiddish culture, 55:00it hardly exists.  Most people -- I mean, people who speak Yiddish are the Ultra-Orthodox, and this is -- very different language.  I mean, it's -- I see it as another stage in Yiddish.  It will -- it takes Yiddish to another direction.  Even grammatically, they hardly use the Slavic component, that they -- so, it -- they take it into a different direction.  Now, modern Yiddish -- I mean --

RY:  Yeah.

RR:  -- as a native, natural language, I don't think it exists anymore.  There are courses in Yiddish, there are attempts to preserve Yiddish in the university.  Now, I mean, we have to take into account that most people who go to the university, they want -- I mean, if you have a degree in Yiddish literature, it won't get you a job at Google, yeah.

RY:  Yeah, you mentioned teaching courses on Yiddish culture.  Did you teach 56:00the language itself, or --RR:  No.

RY:  Okay.

RR:  No.  I teach also at Brown the same thing.

RY:  Yes, yes, yeah, sure.  And, so --

RR:  I mean, I teach it differently --

RY:  Yeah.

RR:  -- because it's a different population.

RY:  Yes.  Can you talk about teaching Yiddish culture in different countries, and your --RR:  Okay, so the huge -- two things.  (laughs) One thing, and it surprised me -- I mean, I thought -- in the end, I thought it was stupid of me to -- when I came to America, I said, okay, something about Yiddish.  But Yiddish is stigmatized.  And the students said to me, "What?  Why is Yiddish stigmatized?"  And said to myself I -- should shut your big mouth, because in Israel, Yiddish is still stigmatized like something ridiculous, something funny.  Funny, but not in the good way.  You know that there was a Yiddish film festival in Haifa ten years ago, I think.  So, they had these brochures in Hebrew and English.  And they asked to do a Yiddish translation.  So, we did a Yiddish translation, and the people who organized it said, "We saw it in Yiddish.  It was hilarious!"  "What is hilarious?"  "Just the sound of it, or 57:00the thing that -- had to say it in Yiddish, it's just so funny" -- for these generations.  But here in America, you say to people something in Yiddish -- so, the most awkward thing that can happen, they will think it's a language they don't understand, that's all.  It's not funny for them, it's not stigmatized for them.  So, this is one difference.  The other difference, which is -- so, after somebody said to me, "What stigma?," I never repeated it.  I thought it was -- I realized it was a stupid thing to do.  But then, there's another very big difference, still: students who are not very young, I would say -- 'cause in Israel, you had students who were forty, too, for -- that -- not forty-two.  Forty, too.  Or you can have in the -- at a graduate class of a master's degree, you have -- can have the average age of thirty-five.  So, it's not kids, like here.  So, most of them -- I don't have any experience with young 58:00kids at the age of American college students, because even the college students, undergraduates, are older.  They start -- I mean, they -- first, they go to -- for the military service, then they take a year off -- no, they take few years off, they work contemporary jobs, they save money, then they go on a big trip.  And then, when they come back, they're already twenty-three, twenty-four, and then they start their undergraduate -- I mean, they are more mature.  It's very different.  I mean, they had much more experienced in their lives, they're more -- it's not only that they're older.  They are more mature because they've been -- they've done their military service, they've been traveling in the world.  But there is another thing.  So, I'm not sure about the -- these very young -- but the older -- and they can be -- I mean, people who are around thirty, thirty-five, they know a few words in Yiddish, which is part of the language.  59:00They know what Yiddish is, approximately.  They don't -- some of them, if I would say to them, "What" -- I start always the class, the first -- when I come in, I say to them, "Welcome, this is a class, Introduction to Yiddish Culture.  Now, what is Yiddish?"  So, they say, A language.  They say, A language of the Ashkenazi Jews.  Here, they say -- I mean, at Brown.  I don't know what's happening elsewhere.  They would say, It's a language and a culture.  But what they know is not something that they heard on the street or at -- they heard it somewhere else.  They read about it or they saw a TV show or a movie or something, but -- so, this is one thing.  The other thing is, as I said, in 60:00Israel, they -- most of them know two, three, four words in Yiddish that are used in Hebrew.  I mean, they know, of course, the letters, which -- so, they can try and read the word-- a few words.  And they have some idea -- something -- wrong idea, but they have some idea what Yiddish is.  Here, it's a mystery.  However, I would say that many of the students, even at Brown, when they come to my class, they have some connection -- for example, one told me that her grandmother would say to her, "Reyte bekelekh [Rosy cheeks]" or something else.  Or one said, "My grandmother would say to me 'Yingele [Little child]'."  So, it represents some connection to the past, but in a very different way.  And here, they're open to learn about Yiddish, because they 61:00don't know anything, so they are more open to learn about it.  And in Israel, it's still a little bit stigmatized.

RY:  Are there any specific challenges or pressures or delights that, as a teacher of Yiddish culture -- in Israel or in the United States?

RR:  (laughs) Yeah, very Isr-- I'll tell you a very Israeli story.  I think the last year, before I left Israel, I was giving this course, Introduction to Yiddish Language and Culture.  And you know what?  After the semester was halfway -- so, two students -- not young, not young women -- came to me, and they said, We want to tell you something.  Your course wasn't our first choice, but the slot of time that you are teaching, this is the only slot that we can come.  So, we took another course with another professor.  So, we went to her, 62:00and we disliked her so much that, although we thought Yiddish is very boring and uninteresting, we decided to take your class.  I mean, what a compliment.  And sometimes students don't hear what they say.  And they say to me, But now, we are happy that we took it.  It opened our eyes to a world that -- we didn't know it existed, and it is so interesting and so enlightening.  So, I said to myself, You shouldn't have said that you came to me because you dislike somebody else, but -- so, most students, if they take this class -- in the end, they say, We learned a new thing that -- we didn't know it existed.  And this is something to bear in mind, that people don't know what Yiddish culture is.  63:00Now, in America, they don't have any stigma, they don't have -- and they don't have any prejudice.  So, they're not expecting anything.  They're expecting to learn.  So, if they decide to take this course, they're very open.  And so, for them, it's a course in Jewish culture, in a part of Jewish culture.  And I wouldn't do it in Israel because of many reasons, but here -- especially at Brown, because the multidisciplinary nature of this teaching -- I do history, then I do literature, and then I go back to history, and I integrate history and literature and a little bit cinema.  But the idea is to show the multifacet-- of Jewish culture.  So, one of -- I mean, of the -- it -- of the -- what I 64:00enjoy in these courses is we read Sholem Aleichem and we read Peretz, and then they become interested in it.  And after a while, they say -- and we read some Mendele, then we -- it's not -- I mean, a certain part of the course, we read Mendele and then we read Sholem Aleichem, and then we read Peretz.  And I ask them, "Well, did you enjoy it?"  And they say, Well, Sholem Aleich-- Mendele's a little bit -- is a little bit difficult -- and a little bit tedious for them, and I can understand it.  And then, they start reading Sholem Aleichem, and we also read some literature of Dan Miron and it opens their eyes.  And then, when they come to Peretz, they said, Whoa!  Peretz is like literature that we read -- because it's modern, he's a modernist.  It's like the literature that reads like English literature.  So, I mean, it's very nice.  And they say young 65:00people -- and this is something that -- they don't specialize in Yiddish.  Most of them will become lawyers or I don't know what, but this is something they will take with them.  So, it's nice. 

RY:  Have you noted any trends or changes among students -- your students over time?  Is there a difference, for instance, in why students chose Yiddish ten years ago and why students choose Yiddish today?

RR:  I haven't taught it for ten --

RY:  Yeah.

RR:  Well, I -- in the beginning, when I started teaching in university, and I want-- I offered this course, the department didn't approve it.  I had to fight for it.  The department said it's not right, and nobody wanted it.  And we started doing it only, I think, in -- I mean, in Israel, I started doing it after 2000.  Before that, I tried to fight for it, and the department in Israel -- department didn't approve it, they didn't want it.  They didn't want to include it.  And so, I can't compare.  So, I think we started in 2004 or 66:00something, so it's about ten years that I'm teaching these courses on Yiddish culture.  Before that, the -- in Israel, there is -- not exactly, but there was a Department of Yiddish at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, which -- they shut it down, and now they revived it as a kind of inter-university master's program.  So, okay, if you want to study Yiddish culture, you go there.  And the other university -- I mean, it's listed -- my university --- the University of Haifa, they didn't let me offer it.  So, I don't -- so, my experience is not that long.

RY:  Okay, can you tell us more about why the program in Yiddish was shut down and about your --

RR:  In Jerusalem?

RY:  Yes, and about -- yeah.

RR:  Well, I don't know the secrets of --

RY:  Or when was it shut down, yeah?

RR:  When was it shut down?  I think in 2009 -- but I'm not -- you know, I'm -- I can't swear on the Bible that this is --

RY:  Yeah, sure.

RR:  -- around 2009.  No, they were doing a reform in the humanities there, and they wanted the -- a very, very serious cut in the budget, especially the humanities.  And they had only -- I think they had only a few students in the department.  Most of them were in -- graduate students, and they tried to combine departments.  And actually, they had a department for folklore and department for Yiddish and department -- so, they merged it into one department.  Yiddish -- Hebrew literature, Yiddish, and Jewish folklore.  And to the best of my knowledge, it was not successful.  And then, they reorganized it and -- I mean, it was a part of the decline of -- it's -- there is a general 68:00trend in the world of decline of humanities.  So, Israel is the last place for elaborate programs in Jewish studies.  So, I mean, there is a department for Jewish history, department for Hebrew literature, and department for Jewish language, department for Hebrew language, department for Talmud, there was -- not anymore.  Department for Jewish philosophy, department for Bible.  So, in the -- during the time, they declined -- in the number of the students, and a decline -- that you have -- in Talmud, you have only one student.  Or in Yiddish, you have a few students, and most of them are graduate students.  So, doesn't make sense to have a department.  I mean, it costs money.

RY:  So, yeah, about academia and the role of academics, what is the role academics play or don't in the transmission of culture, according to you?

RR:  Well, I think the most important are the -- sorry, most important role of academia is research, it is research and teaching.

RY:  Yeah.

RR:  So, you know that in Israel, they have now a very good program, summer program, for teaching Yiddish language, and -- which is very important.  They have many, many levels and very good teachers.

RY:  Yeah.  Some -- you know some people are speaking about a Yiddish revival.  What do you think about that?

RR:  Well, I think they're either fervent optimists or -- well, I'll answer in two levels. One level is that I don't see that reviv-- I don't see it.  I don't see the revival.  Well, some young people -- a few young people are interested.  I mean, twenty young people are interested in Yiddish, this is not 70:00a revival of a culture.  Now, I'll answer on another level, which is, as I see it, culture is rooted in life.  I don't see how Yiddish culture can revive out of the Israeli Hebrew-speaking culture.  I can't see it.  I simply can't see it.  So, I'm not saying that there are not people who are trying to write in Yiddish, and maybe they even write very well.  But a revival?  I think it's a little bit exaggerated.

RY:  Okay.  Do you have a favorite Yiddish word or a favorite Yiddish song?

RR:  No, I don't like this --

RY:  Okay, okay.  Okay, then, we're near -- what do you see as the future of Yiddish, then?

RR:  Oh, tough question.  I think -- I really, really believe it -- that it's 71:00an urgent mission to translate and to translate and to translate and to do good translation into English and into Hebrew so that the culture and the literature can live.  I don't assume that even people who study Yiddish in these summer courses -- and they don't make it their life profession.  They will not read the whole body of literature, and I think that if we want -- that this body of literature will remain alive, it has to be translated into Hebrew and into English.  This is a holy mission.  If there is a holy mission, this is it.  This is it.  Now, of course, these people who go to the Ukraine -- and when they find people who are ninety years old and ask them to sing a song and to 72:00speak in the dialect -- I think -- I mean, it's important, but I think it's less import-- I mean, it's not contradicting.  You can do both.  But these people are old, they haven't spoken Yiddish for forty years, they don't remember exactly, and I mean -- and sometimes, they don't remember because they're old, sometimes because they went through a lot of things during their life.  But this is a treasure, a cultural treasure, that -- if it is not translated, we will lose it.  I mean, as much -- I understand that people say, "Oh, okay, undzer libe yidish, vos vet zayn [our dear Yiddish, what will become of it]?"  But you can't rely on people being able to read books in Yiddish, and what we need is good -- if we want to keep this culture -- and this is really, really Jewish treasure.  If we want to keep it alive, we need to translate it.

RY:  Okay.  What advice do you have to students of Yiddish?

RR:  Love what you are doing.  (laughs)

RY:  Okay.

RR:  I mean, if you don't love it, don't do it, because, I mean, it won't get you a job at Google.

RY:  Yeah.  Is there anything else that you'd like to add before we conclude the interview?

RR:  No, thank you very much.

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

RR:  Thank you.

RY:  Thank you.

[END OF INTERVIEW]