RUTH SMITH ORAL HISTORY

DANIELLE WINTER:This is Danielle Winter, and today is February 21st, 2014.  I'm here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts with Ruth Smith, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project.  Ruth Smith, do I have your permission to record this interview?

RUTH SMITH:You certainly do.

DW:  Okay.  Thank you so much.  So the first thing I'd like to know is, can you briefly tell me about your family background?

RS:  Okay.  I was born in Boston.  And I grew up in the house that my father grew up in, actually -- in Mattapan, which was predominantly a Jewish neighborhood at the time that I grew up there.  My maternal -- paternal, excuse 1:00me -- grandparents lived on the second floor of a three-decker home -- there were many three-decker homes at that time.  My maternal grandparents lived a block away.  And so I was surrounded by a fairly extended family.  And every Shabbat afternoon, my maternal grandmother would come over to visit my paternal grandmother, as would other female relatives.  And I would sit upstairs on the second floor and hear my female relatives talk about the old days back in Russia.  So I grew up surrounded not only by family but by stories -- a very warm upbringing.  Both my parents and my grandparents were observant Jews, so I 2:00grew up in a fairly traditional environment, as well.

DW:  Did your grandparents from your maternal side and your paternal side know each other previous to your parents getting married?

RS:  No, they did not.  But as I say, it was a small Jewish community.  And you really didn't misbehave, because even though you might not have known them, they knew who your family was.  So if you were in the community and you misbehaved, by the time you got home, your parents knew that you had misbehaved, because they had heard from everybody.  Oh, Ruth was not good in the neighborhood today.  So, you know, that's the kind of community it was.

DW:  Do you have siblings?

RS:  I do.  I'm the oldest, and I have a younger brother and sister.  But there are many years between me and the two of them, so by the time they came 3:00along, I was pretty much out of the house doing my own thing.

DW:  Can you tell me a little bit about the street in Mattapan that you grew up in?

RS:  Yeah.  Well, it's very interesting.  I grew up on Blue Hill Avenue, which was a main thoroughfare.  The house that I grew up in actually was at one time -- it was all farmland when my grandparents bought that house, and then it got pushed back to make room for where they put the tracks for the subway -- the train that would go into where you could pick up the subway.  So they put our house on a cliff.  And we were the only house on that portion of Blue Hill Avenue.  And when we had a dog when I was very young, the dog would sit on top of the cliff and sort of overlook everything.  And he was a German shepherd, 4:00and a lot of people would cross onto the other side of the street 'cause they were afraid of our dog.  And across the street from us actually lived one of the rabbis.  And I spent a lot of time in his house, because I had a crush on one of his sons, who grew up to be a writer.  And his oldest daughter, actually, was a camp counselor of mine -- I went to Camp Naomi, which was an all girls' Jewish camp, before I got older and then went to Camp Young Judaea.  So that street was a very busy street, and, again, was a Jewish street.  And on the corner of the street where my grandmother lived, this elderly couple had a little grocery store where my bobe [grandmother] -- my paternal bobe -- used to send me to get a pound and a quarter of farmer cheese for the blintzes that she used to make.  She was a great baker.  And I used to watch her make apple 5:00strudel.  She would lay out the dough on this whole table and I would watch her -- covered with flour up to her elbows -- while she would bake.  And I once asked her how she would bake, and she used to say -- you'll excuse the language, because it's a Yiddish word, anyway -- "Ye shit a salt, ye shit a pepper, ye shit [You sprinkle some salt, you sprinkle some pepper, you sprinkle] --"  She could never give me exact ingredients.  (laughs) She would just tell me like that.  And she also made great preserves.  And to this day, I can taste the hot strawberry preserves on top of cottage cheese on top of a piece of dark rye bread.  But that was the street, and those were the kinds of experiences -- there was a little, on that street, too, where my zeyde [grandfather] sometimes went to pray, there was a little type of shul -- it was almost like a shtibl shul [small Hasidic house of prayer] -- where very small -- I think it held 6:00maybe a minyan and a half.  But when the people didn't want to walk down to the big shuls, which were on Woodrow Avenue -- they were all related to what kind of shul they went to back in the old country -- they would go to this little shul, which was very convenient, because it was across the street on the other side of Blue Hill Avenue.  And in those days, on Blue Hill Avenue -- this was before supermarkets -- you went to the fish store for the fish, you went to the kosher butcher for the meat, you went to the produce store for the produce.  There was a little grocery store, [Pramasel?].  And my parents didn't always have money during the week, and they would say, Go see Mr. Pramasel and buy a few things, and tell him to put it on the tab.  And since this was before computers, I'd go see Mr. Pramasel and I would say, "My mother will be in at the end of the week 7:00to pay her bill."  He would take a paper bag and he would add it all up, and he'd say, "Tell your mother this is what she owes, and I'll see her at the end of the week."  People were very honest in those days.  And they knew how to add.  Now you go to a supermarket, you're lucky if the cashier knows how to add.  (laughs) But that's how it was in the old days.

DW:  That's so nice.  Oh, wow.  So now that we've gotten a picture of the outside and the neighborhood, can you tell me a little bit about the house you grew up in?  What do you remember about feeling Jewish?  Specifically -- I guess you can take it from there, actually.

RS:  Yeah.  Well, I had to make sure that I got home early Friday night.  As I say, my parents were very traditional, according to my friends who were 8:00Orthodox.  But I would say, "We're not Orthodox."  They were very secular -- you know, maybe they lit candles on Friday night.  But at my house, we kept Shabbat and we kept the holidays.  But I would say to my friends, "We're not Orthodox.  My mother doesn't go to the mikvah [pool for ritual immersion] and she doesn't wear a sheitel [traditional women's head covering]."  But my father wore tsitses [tassels on the undergarment worn by Orthodox Jews].  He davened three times a day.  But we didn't belong to a temple.  We didn't belong to a synagogue.  I think I was the first one to go to a synagogue.  My parents were traditional in that they thought just my brother needed a Hebrew education.  But I wanted one, so I made them send me to Hebrew school.  But every Friday night, there was -- Shabbat candles were lit, we kept kosher.  But my bobe upstairs, who was the baker, she made kasha and she made lokshn [noodles].  And 9:00the biggest fight on Friday nights was who was gonna get the egilekh [little eggs] for the chicken soup, who was gonna get the feet.  And my parents would say, Go see bobe upstairs and get the lokshn and the kasha and the egilekh.  Which she would send down for the chicken soup.  And like I say, we would fight over it, because there weren't always enough egilekh for the soup.  (laughs) But the holidays were always observed.  Didn't tear toilet paper, so my father would tear toilet paper before Shabbat every Friday to make sure there was enough to get us through to till Havdalah.  But it was very interesting, because we didn't make Havdalah in the house.  When Shabbat was over, Shabbat was over -- that was it.  But I remember it being warm and very comfortable.  My zeyde, he would always lead the Pesach seder.  But he did it at a very rapid 10:00-- because he was from the old country, so he sort of rushed right through the whole Seder.  (laughs) So that's what that was like.  And my grandparents from the other side, they would do their own seder.  So I think we celebrated one seder in my house, and then we would walk across the street for the second night's seder.  And we would do the second night's seder at my other bobe's house.  And that grandfather we called "poppa" -- to distinguish between the two grandfathers.  So that's what it was like.  And she kept kosher, too.  When she had a little pushke [alms box] -- on my way home from school, I would always stop by her house and I always had to put a coin in the pushke.  But on 11:00my way home from school, I would always stop by her house, and she would always give me Ovaltine -- which was chocolate you put in the milk -- and she would always give me cookies and Ovaltine on my way home.  And in those days, she had an ice box.  And people heated their house with coal.  So my task for her was -- she would say, "Ruthie, put the sign in.  This week, I need ice for the ice box" -- or, "I need coal to heat my flat."  So I would have to put the sign in the window so when they came down the street with either the coal or the ice, they would look up at the window.  And she would say, "It's time.  I need coal."  So I would put the sign in the window, so when they looked up, they could say, "Ah, Mrs. Levine needs coal this week."  So that's what it was like in the two houses -- and my role in the houses.  But it was wonderful to have 12:00both available to me -- both sets of grandparents.

DW:  Cool.  I'm just going to fix this really quickly, because it's hitting against my microphone --

RS:  Okay.

DW:  -- and then I'll ask the next question.

RS:  Okay.

DW:  I'm sorry about this.  Yeah.  I'm hearing extra feedback.  Let's do this here.  Okay.  Do I still have my microphone on, or did it fall off now?

RS:  I think it fell off.

DW:  It fell off?  Oh, there it is.  What I'm going to do is -- I think the best way to do this is bring this back maybe from the back so it doesn't hit -- all right.  Fantastic.  Thank you.  I apologize for that.  So jumping right back into this --

RS:  Oh, okay.  So, let me talk about the Yiddish.

DW:  Yeah, definitely.  So yeah, we usually spend about twenty-five minutes on the early part of the life and then move in.  But speaking about the Yiddish, I'm curious to know what languages were spoken in your home, by whom, to whom, 13:00and when?

RS:  Okay.  So my parents were first-generation American, as were their siblings.  My parents knew Yiddish, and they spoke Yiddish all the time to their parents.  And we grew up not learning Yiddish, because there was this subliminal message: When we want to talk about you children, this is the language we speak.  Don't learn it.  So we picked up a few phrases here and there, but we didn't learn Yiddish.  And it was very interesting -- and it was too bad that we didn't when we were young.  And I think the emphasis was because the state of Israel was founded.  I was eight years old.  And my 14:00maternal grandmother had a brother who had gone to Israel when it was still Palestine.  And I think we got caught up in that.  He came a couple of times to the States to visit her.  And I'm a Zionist, and I think that was his influence on me.  And so I was anxious to learn Hebrew.  So I think when he came to visit her, they spoke in Yiddish.  But I was interested in learning Hebrew, and so I did.  And I think a lot of us -- of my generation -- because of Israel and the state of Israel being established, we were interested in learning Hebrew -- you know, because of the influence of Ben-Yehuda really revitalizing it as a spoken language.  But the grandparents -- the parents 15:00spoke to them in Yiddish, because that's the way they communicated.  But they spoke in English, too.  And actually, my bobe -- my paternal bobe, who lived upstairs from us -- they had all come from various parts of what was then known as Russia -- turned out to be different parts of Eastern Europe -- but she used to make up wonderful stories.  She was very creative.  And she loved to scratch my back and tell me about the mice and the crocodiles who lived in the basement but were friends.  And she would tell me all those stories in English.  She would also make up stories about Russia -- and, you know, riding across the Russian snows in a troika -- and they were all made-up stories.  And she told all those stories in English, because she knew I didn't know Yiddish.  And so she told those stories in English.

DW:  So, going back to what you said about being eight years old when Israel was established -- do you remember where you were or how you understood what Israel was at this point?

RS:  Well, as I say, my great-uncle -- and I still have relatives in Israel -- his grandchildren -- my great-uncle went to Israel when it was still Palestine.  And I think the reason his sister came here is, she was already engaged, and he was here in Boston.  So she came right to Boston -- she didn't even go through Ellis Island.  He went to Palestine -- they came from a Zionist family -- and my great-grandparents are actually buried in Israel, because he went to Palestine and he eventually brought his parents to Palestine -- so 17:00they're buried on Mount Olives.  And he went to Palestine with Ben-Zvi.  They were in the same Zionist group together.  And he went to clear out the malaria swamps and helped to found the first kibbutz -- one of the first kibbutzim -- Ramat Rachel, near Jerusalem.  And his granddaughter is Anat Hoffman, who is one of the founders of Women of the Wall.  And she has come to this country many times to speak.  And so when I go to Israel -- a few times -- I always see my cousins -- I see Anat and her siblings.  And so I think I was more connected than many of my friends with that -- although, of course, the people I went to Hebrew school with were very, very connected with that.  And I'm a graduate of 18:00Hebrew College, and I remember when I was at Hebrew College, Ben-Gurion came to visit, and that was very exciting for many of us.  And I spent a year in Israel in the early '60s, and we had other Israeli dignitaries come to visit us.  My biggest regret is, when I went to Israel, my great-uncle came to the dorm where I was staying and said, "We're going to Ben-Zvi's house to make kaddish" -- it was erev [eve of] Rosh Hashanah -- and he said, "Would you like to come?"  For kiddush, rather.  And I said, "I'd like to wait until I'm a little more comfortable in the colloquial Hebrew, and then we'll go."  And he said, "Okay, I understand.  You just arrived today, you're not quite comfortable yet.  We'll go another time."  And unfortunately, that was the year that Ben-Zvi passed away, and I never got to meet him.  So to this day, I'm kicking 19:00myself -- and I've learned from that, never let an opportunity go by.  But when they got to Israel -- or what was then Palestine -- Ben-Zvi said to my uncle, whose name was Yehuda Bukhman -- he says, "Yehuda, we have to change your name -- your last name -- because you have a galut [Hebrew: Diaspora] name, and now we're in Palestine.  You've got to change it to a more Hebraic name."  So my uncle went from Bukhman to Yuval.  (laughs) So we always wondered, Where did Yuval come from? (laughs) So Ben-Zvi helped him get his new last name.

DW:  You briefly mentioned your education there.  Can you talk a little bit more about your education, both Jewish and general?  Where did you go to school?

RS:  Okay.  Well, for my secular education, I went to Boston University for my undergraduate.

DW:  And even as far back -- 'cause you mentioned that your family was more interested in investing in your brother's Jewish education than your Jewish 20:00education --

RS:  Oh, yeah.

DW:  -- so also if you can even talk a little bit about your younger experiences, and then I'll move into college as well.

RS:  Okay.  Well, I went to what was known as Dorchester-Mattapan Hebrew School.  And we called it "Dor-Mat."  (laughs) And it was very interesting, because most everything -- I fell in love -- I had a great first-year Hebrew teacher.  And she made Hebrew so much fun -- or learning Jewish history and everything else so much fun -- and the aleph-bet [Hebrew: Hebrew alphabet].  And I think she helped cement my love of learning things Jewish.

DW:  Was this a day school or was this --

RS:  No, it was an afternoon Hebrew school.  My brother was sent to yeshiva, but this was an afternoon Hebrew school.  And there was one teacher at another afternoon Hebrew school who started to teach his students Hebrew.  And pretty 21:00soon, all the afternoon Hebrew schools started teaching Hebrew -- or teaching in Hebrew.  So then I decided to go to Hebrew College -- at that time, it was known as Hebrew Teachers' College.  And there they taught -- all the classes were in Hebrew.  So everything -- all the textbooks -- I mean, the teachers stood up, and they taught you in Hebrew.  So you had to learn Hebrew.

DW:  And this is during college or prior still?

RS:  While I was going to college.

DW:  Oh, this was college.  Wow.

RS:  Yeah.  So I was in two schools simultaneously with a whole bunch of other people.  And the only time I didn't go a full year to Hebrew College was my senior year in undergrad, because I just had a heavy course load.  And in those days, you could split your years at Hebrew College, so I finished it not with 22:00the class I started with but the following year.  So I went to Hebrew College in part because my friends were going, but I also wanted to study more.  So I did.  And it was still on Hawes Street in Brookline -- this was before they moved to Newton.  And I continued to stay very involved with Hebrew College up until we moved here to Amherst.  I was on their leadership council, I was co-chair of their alumni association for many years.  So Hebrew College is near and dear to me.  So that was my Hebrew education and background.  My brother, actually, he went on and became a nondenominational rabbi.  He doesn't have a full-time pulpit.  When our parents were in a nursing home, he used to volunteer on the Russian floor and learned enough Russian that he performs 23:00weddings in Russian -- Jewish Russian weddings.  (laughs) And he trains children for their bar and bat mitzvah.  And I went to high school -- the Jeremiah Burke in the Dorchester-Roxbury area.  And when I went there, it was an all-girls' school, and then it eventually became co-ed.  But middle school, I went to the Lewenberg, and it was around the corner from me.  Kids used to cut through -- our house had a very big backyard, and you could cut through our backyard to go up to the junior high school -- as it was called then -- and lots of people used to cut through.  My grandfather on that side was a master carpenter, and he built a swing for us in the backyard.  And we had big pear trees.  And he built a thing to take the pears off the -- a utensil to take the 24:00pears off the pear tree.  And I remember -- to this day I'm very partial to lilac bushes, because the stairs leading up to our house, he had planted lilac bushes all along the stairs, and I used to come home from school and smell the lilac bushes as I was walking up the stairs.  But back to the languages -- so I went to Hebrew College all the way through my undergraduate days at Boston University.  And then I went to Israel for a year, came back, and I had decided pretty much that I wanted to go on aliyah.  But -- worked at BU, and decided that I really wasn't making enough money, and said, Well, I think I'll go to New York where the salaries are a little bit better.  So I went to New York and worked for NFTY -- the Reform movement -- even though I never belonged to the 25:00Reform movement.  (laughs) But I stayed with friends of mine in Bergen, New Jersey -- I had been her maid of honor -- and he was a Reform rabbi.  And he said, "You know, I think there's a job at NFTY.  Why don't you go and apply?"  So I went and applied.  And I ended up working for Rabbi Skirball of the Skirball family -- Skirball Institute and all of that.  And I actually spoke to him the last time we were in Israel.  And I loved that job and I was making a little bit of money and I said, Gee, maybe I should go back to Israel with some kind of skill.  And when I was ten years old, I decided I wanted to be a social worker.  I had read about Hull House and Jane Addams.  I said, That's what I want to do when I grow up.  So I applied to graduate schools in New York and was not accepted.  But at that time, you could work as a social worker under 26:00the supervision of somebody who was a social worker or already had a degree.  So I looked around and met this man from a Jewish community center in Brooklyn.  And he happened to be adjunct faculty at Adelphi.  He said, "You come work for me at the Jewish Community Center in Brooklyn and I can probably get you in as a special student, and if you do well, it's easy to matriculate."  So I said, "That sounds good."  So I went to work for him.  And my first day on the job, he introduces me to the two other full-time people.  One's a woman, one's a man.  And they introduced me to this man.  I said, Oh, this man's cute.  And the rest is history -- except before I said yes to him, I struggled.  I said, I want to go back to Israel.  There's this 27:00man.  Israel.  There's this man.  And I said to him, "I'll say yes only if you promise me we go to Israel every so often, 'cause that's where my heart is -- that's my spiritual home."  He says, "Okay.  We'll go to Israel every so often."  So we got married.  So I got my master's degree in social work.  And he is a New Yorker, but couldn't wait to leave, so we came back here.  And then I decided to get my doctorate, so I have a PhD in Education from Boston College.  And my master's is from Adelphi.  So that's --

DW:  I definitely have a lot of follow-up questions --

RS:  Okay.

DW:  -- to things you've just said.  The only thing I'm worried about is I am getting pick-up, and I think it's 'cause it's on your scarf --

RS:  Oh, okay.

DW:  -- and so it's hitting.  So what I'm gonna have to do, if it's okay -- sorry to do this for one moment --

RS:  Okay.  'Cause she put the wire under the scarf.

DW:  I think it's fine.  I'm just going to move it --

RS:  Okay.

DW:  -- to your shirt.  Is it okay if I move it here?

RS:  Okay.  Sure.

DW:  Because I think the scarf is too light that, it's, like --

RS:  Okay.

DW:  -- hitting against it.

RS:  Okay.

DW:  Perfect.  Oh, perfect.  Let me --

RS:  Okay.

DW:  Perfect.  Okay.  Thank you so much.  I was like, Oh no!  But I didn't want to stop you --

RS:  Okay.

DW:  -- because it sounded so good.  So one of my questions is, you talked about how you were still very active in Hebrew College, and I was just curious to know what you enjoyed so much about the college and the school experience?

RS:  Okay.  Well there were -- Hebrew College -- Hebrew College in particular?

DW:  Yeah.  We're going to start with that one.  Yes.

RS:  Hebrew College -- first of all, the student body was very small, so it really felt like community.  And I've always been into community.  Most of the faculty at that time were from Europe themselves.  Actually, one of the 29:00professors had survived the Holocaust.  He was a very religious man -- very soft-spoken, very caring.  The others were the scholars of their time from Eastern Europe.  And when I say scholars, I mean scholars -- very learned gentlemen.  There were a couple of rabbis.  They cared deeply about the students as well as their subject matter.  The student body as a whole were very, very bright.  We're talking about students who went to Harvard, who didn't all come from religious schools -- this was a nondenominal higher 30:00institute of learning -- but they came from all denominations.  They came from the Jewish communities of greater Boston and outside of Boston -- I mean, some of the students came from South Brookline -- Bobby Kraft from the Patriots was a student there.  And many of those students went on aliyah eventually.  These were students who were committed to their Judaism one way or another -- either religiously, culturally, whatever.  It was just -- it was like a home away from home.  And the bonds that were created there among the student body continue to 31:00this day.  There's still a group of people who were part of my group -- we get together every so often -- a couple of times a year.  So it was a very special heymish [homey] kind of place that none of us ever forgot.  And we never forgot those teachers.  And it was very interesting, one of my experiences here -- just a few weeks ago I was sitting at the front desk doing my docent shift and this woman comes in and she signs in.  She's from Los Angeles.  And I said to her, "I have a couple of acquaintances in Los Angeles."  She said, "Oh, LA is a big place, but maybe I know them."  Because she teaches in Jewish Studies.  And I mentioned one, she said, "He was the chairperson on my PhD."  And I said, "I'm still in touch with him.  He was my teacher at Hebrew College."  And she said, "When you go home, would you e-mail him and tell him when I get back to 32:00LA, I'm gonna be in touch with him about setting up a dinner date with him and his wife."  And when he was on sabbatical a few years ago, he rented a house not far from my house in Newton and I invited him and his wife over for dinner.  (laughs) My husband likes to say, "It's a small world, smaller for Jews."  But here's a woman who had the same teacher that I had at Hebrew College, you know? (laughs) He's about ten years older than I am.  But it was like those kinds of bonds, you know?  And none of us ever forgot those teachers.  They were wonderful people.  And they continue to this day.  So that was Hebrew College.  And BU is a very big place, but you were able to find your place in it.  And the very interesting thing for me at BU -- I was always looking for ways of expanding my world.  I got very involved with the 33:00international students who were there, and I became friendly with some of the Arab students -- as did some of my other Jewish friends.  And we would spend the first two, three months arguing about the Palestinian-Israeli issue, and then we would look at each other and we said, enough politics!  Let's get to know each other as people.  And that's what we did.  We put the politics aside.  And not all of the Arab students were from Palestine -- a couple of them were -- but most of them were from other Arab countries.  And we just had a wonderful time getting to know each other and getting to know each other's cultures.  There was one fellow from Lebanon, and he was a great dancer.  I mean, we just had a great time when we had parties and we would watch him dance -- he was just terrific.  And one of them -- who I'm still in touch with to 34:00these days -- became a scientist, a chemist.  And he is in charge of the -- whatever the national chemists' society is, he became president of that.  And he lives in the Midwest and we're still in touch with each other by email.  So I made a lot of friends.  I used to say, If I go to those countries, I have people to be in touch with.  And same thing when I was in Israel.  There was a contingency from South America, I made a very good friend -- one of them donated his father's books to the Yiddish Book Center -- and then I made friends with a fellow from Argentina.  And he works at the Jewish center there.  And gratefully, he wasn't working in Buenos Aires when the building was bombed, but he lost some friends that day.  And a friend of ours went to Buenos Aires and I gave her his name, and they got together for coffee.  So those connections 35:00stayed as well.  And Adelphi, too, the student body was very small -- the social work school.  And I made very good friends there, too -- some African American students -- and we're still in touch with each other.  And that's the kind of person I am -- I like to have community.  And I think that's why I loved Israel so much.  I was there at the time that Israel was a small country population-wise.  And it felt like a community.  And you never read about a murder in Israel or anything like that when I went -- when I lived there.  So that was wonderful.

DW:  Can you tell me what you did during your year living in Israel?

RS:  I was there as a student.  But that was a pretense, because I really went with an eye to checking it out to see if I wanted to go on aliyah.  And when I 36:00would meet Israelis, they would say to me, Speak to us in English -- because they wanted to practice their English.  And I would say, "If you want to practice your English, go to the States.  I'm going to speak Hebrew."  I never spoke English with the Israelis -- I only spoke Hebrew.  So within a few months, they would say to me, Where are you from?  And I'd say, "I'm from the States."  They would say, No you're not.  You don't speak like an American.  We know you're not a sabra [Jewish person born and bred in Palestine/Israel], 'cause you don't have a native-born accent, but you don't speak like an American.  So where are you from?  I said, "From America." (laughs) But they didn't believe me.  'Cause I refused to speak English.  And my group that I went with, at the end of the year they took a vote and they said, Who got the most out of the year here?  And they said, Ruth -- because except for when she had to be in class and in the dorm to sleep, she was never here.  (laughs) 37:00Which was true.  And we had classes at the university, and we had our own little -- we were on a program which was for teachers outside of Israel, so we had some classes in our own little institute as well as at the Hebrew University.  And we studied with some very famous people -- Yigael Yadin and archaeology and some other very well-known Hebrew -- and Amichai -- who you may know the name -- who was a poet in Israel.  I used to do a lot of writing of poetry at that time.  And they were very approachable.  And I once said to him, "I write a little.  Would you be willing to look at my writing?"  And he said, "Sure.  Meet me at five o'clock at such-and-such a coffee shop and I'll look over your poetry and I'll you what I think of it."  I think that's what Israel was like then.

DW:  That's so nice.  So we're gonna fast-forward now.  And I was wondering if you could tell me -- can you give me a snapshot of your life today?

RS:  My life today?  Well, we just moved to the Amherst area.  We've had a house here, actually, for about ten years, but we just finally made the complete move.  And it'll be a year in April -- unfortunately, right before the Boston Marathon, we moved here.  And since I'm a joiner, I couldn't wait to join right away a number of things.  We joined the Jewish Community of Amherst.  And Rabbi Weiner actually went to Prozdor with our daughter, and we remember him from temple in Newton -- when he was a little boy.  (laughs) And so when we sat down to talk to him, we said, We remember you when you were a little boy.  And 39:00actually, his mother is friendly with a friend of mine back in Newton.  So we know him from a lot of different connections.  And I joined the Mak'hela Chorus -- I don't know if you're familiar with Mak'hela, but we're performing here in June, so you'll get a chance to hear us sing.  And I love singing -- I belonged to a chorus back in Newton, and that's one of my favorite things to do.  And I belonged to a book club at the Jones Library.  And I had been teaching -- Cambridge College has a satellite campus in Springfield, and I had been teaching there, but I've just retired from teaching.  I was starting to feel burnt out -- they have a wonderful student body, but it was getting to be too much.  So I just stopped doing that.  My husband is a therapist, and he has a job in 40:00ServiceNet, which is a clinic here.  And so he's working as well.  But we love this area.  Our oldest daughter went to school in this area.  And one time, I was working for the Department of Education, and I was a liaison to schools here in Western Mass.  And we just love it here.  Even though my husband's from New York, he couldn't wait to leave, I grew up in Boston, and we enjoyed Boston a lot -- that area -- but we really wanted something that was a little bit more laid-back and not as hectic.  And so we're just very happy here.  Anyway, that's what we're doing.  And I love being a docent at the Yiddish Book Center.

DW:  I was gonna ask about that.  How did you get involved, and how did you decide to become a docent here at the Yiddish Book Center?

RS:  Well, it's very interesting, 'cause we first came and visited here way back in the '90s, after this building was first built -- before the new 41:00addition.  And my husband, who is one of those secular Jews -- his mother lit candles and he had a bar mitzvah, but it was mostly for, you know, social reasons kind of thing -- but when we first came to visit here, my husband was so taken with this place, he says, "We have to make a donation right away."  I said, "Absolutely."  And we knew we were eventually going to move out here.  And I said, "As soon as we move out here, I want to be a volunteer."  So as soon as we moved out here, I volunteered.  (laughs) I met with Sarah and I said, "I'd like to volunteer."  So I came in and sat down with her and the rest is history, as they say.  But I love it.  As you can tell, I love to talk.  And I like to welcome people and find out where they're from and what interested them in the Yiddish Book Center.  And I also -- when we were still back in the 42:00Boston area, Aaron came one time to give a speech at the Hebrew College and I heard him speak.  And it was right after he acquired the collection from Montevideo, and they wrote about that in the magazine.  And it belonged to my friend's father in Montevideo.  So I went up to Aaron and introduced myself and explained to him that I knew about that collection and had sent the article to my friend Uri in Tel Aviv, who emailed me -- got very excited about it -- and he said the gentlemen who had been referred to in the article were people who he grew up listening to them talking to his father and having discussions.  And he was so excited.  And Aaron mentioned to me that it was very difficult to get that collection out of Uruguay because of the politics in Uruguay.  So when I came here and started to do my docent shifts, the first time I saw Aaron, he 43:00came over to introduce himself.  And I said, "You and I have met before."  And I reminded him of the conversation we had in Montevid-- and he said, "Oh, yes, I remember that conversation." (laughs) But I love being a docent here.  It's a lot of fun.  I enjoy it.  I prefer when it's busy than when it's quiet -- (laughs) -- 'cause I like greeting people.

DW:  How has your relationship to Yiddish evolved over your lifetime -- but also spending months here as a docent?

RS:  To Yiddish overall, you mean?  Well, since I grew up not knowing Yiddish, I've already signed on to the course that's being given -- the week-long course in Yiddish -- because I don't want to leave this earth without having learned Yiddish.  I think I've always had an appreciation -- I'm also into genealogy, and I think I've always had an appreciation that people should know their roots 44:00and what they come from.  If you don't know where you come from, how can you know where it is that you're going?  And even when my children were little -- I moved away from keeping kosher when I was an undergraduate, but when I got married, I said to my husband, "I want to keep a kosher home, and I want to expose our children to keeping the holidays" -- not necessarily being observant around the holidays, but exposing our children.  Because I feel as a Jewish parent, it's important to expose our children to that -- so if they decide they don't want that, they'll know what it is that they don't want.  And that they should have some connection to what their culture is.  I believe I've always 45:00identified predominantly culturally.  I always said that if I lived in Israel, I wouldn't keep any of that, because it's all around you.  So I feel it's important to know what you come from, and if you don't want it, then you know what it is that you don't want.  So I think that's part of why I've always cared about: what was this for, and what was it like for my grandparents, for their parents?  It's part of our history.  I mean, I found it interesting that a young sabras came here and was talking to me in Yiddish.  And I said, "I don't understand."  And he said, "Oh, there are a lot of sabras who are learning Yiddish now."  It's like this generation of sabras has realized, This is part of our historical background.  We need to know this as well.  A generation ago, sabras would not have said that.  They didn't want to hear 46:00about the Shoah, they didn't want to know about -- "Ah, who needs to know that?"  And all of a sudden, you've got this generation of sabras who are realizing -- not all of them, clearly -- but they're realizing, We should know this.  This was part of our parents' and grandparents' backgrounds.  It's important that we know this.  And I feel that way, too.  So that's why it's important to me.  It's part of who we are as a people.

DW:  How, if at all, has language influenced your sense of identity?

RS:  Oy.  Yiddish is a thousand years old.  It's one of the things that I think has kept the Jewish people together.  Long before Hebrew.  I mean, 47:00clearly, for very religious people, Yiddish has certainly kept them together.  If you talk about the Hasidim and the Haredim, you take Yiddish away from them, what do they have?  I mean, they have their religious belief, but how would they talk to each other?  Because for them, Hebrew is loshn kodesh [Hebrew: holy language].  They're not speaking Hebrew to each other -- they're speaking Yiddish.  That's how they communicate.  For a thousand years, this is what the Jews spoke.  They didn't speak Hebrew.  It kept them together -- in the marketplace, in their homes.  It's one of the things that set them apart from non-Jews.  It probably caused -- was one of the factors in anti-Semitism, too 48:00-- "Those people are not like us, they speak their own language."  And I think that's part of the reason we need to honor the language, too.  So I think that's part of the reason it's important to keep it alive.  I would agree with Aaron on that, for sure.  I mean, I think you young people who come here and want to get a fellowship and want to learn and want to pass it on -- I think that's wonderful.  I think that's terrific.  You should be very proud, all of you -- that you want to do that.

DW:  Thank you so much.  What has been the most important thing for you to -- oh, sorry.  What has been the most important for you to transmit to the generations -- all right, this is a very long question.

RS:  (laughs)

DW:  What -- well, yeah.  What is most important, do you think, for the Jewish people to transmit to generations in the future -- the youngest generations?  You sort of talked about how you wanted to keep kosher with your own children.  Are there any Jewish values or other rituals or other language aspects that you think are important for Jews to pass on in general to the younger communities?

RS:  I think it's important to pass on -- that's a hard question, because I think it's all important.  I think the culture, the language, the literature.  I can't remember the first time I saw "The Dybbuk."  I think I was very young.  It's still one of my favorite silent Yiddish movies, okay?  As is "The Golem."  It's very interesting.  I know Josh Jacobson is gonna be at the 50:00JCA.  And I know Josh since we were kids.  And at one point, I was teaching a course as part of a program that I initiated between Hebrew College and Simmons School of Social Work for students who wanted to work in the Jewish community who are social workers.  And it was a course on Jewish identity.  How do people identify Jewishly?  And I showed a couple of films.  And one of the people talked about -- it was like a cameo, and he said, "Oh, latkes!"  That's how he identified Jewishly -- it was through the food.  It was the latkes for 51:00him.  I used to have Josh come and speak to my class, and he would talk about the influence of Jewish music on jazz, and vice versa.  So I think it's all of these things.  It's the music.  It's the food.  It's the language.  It's the values.  I was part of -- I took -- participated in the Civil Rights Movement.  I had friends who went on the Freedom Rides.  I was in the back room running off fliers to get people to join the Civil Rights Movement.  All of that.  And what I've tried to instill in my own children is what Judaism has 52:00brought to the world -- and that that's part of what they should be proud of -- that Jews have made these wonderful contributions.  And some of it's founded in religious value, but it goes above and beyond things religious.  Humor.  What we've brought to the entertainment world -- and how much it's permeated the non-Jewish world in terms of language.  It's hysterical.  You listen to non-Jewish entertainers, and they're using our language.  If you take a look at movies and how much of it has Jewish themes running through it.  And my kids, they tease me all the time -- Oh, mom, that's the Jew in you!  But my youngest 53:00daughter has also developed an appreciation of genealogy.  And she's scanning all of my old photographs.  She says, "I'd like to get back to Israel one of these days" -- 'cause we took them to Israel.  So I think there's a connection there.  It's not the same kind of connection that I feel, necessarily.  My oldest daughter doesn't necessarily believe in Hashem [Hebrew: God, lit. "The Name"], but every Yom Kippur, she takes a walk through the woods and she contemplates, What was my last year like?  How do I want to improve as a person next year?  So she takes Yom Kippur and she is in contemplation.  That comes from her Jewish tradition, you know?  So I'd say my kids are identifying 54:00Jewishly -- not the way I identify, but they're identifying Jewishly.  So that's what I think -- that's what I think's important.

JW:  That was a really beautiful answer.  I really liked that.  So we're now nearing the end of our interview, and so this last little part is dedicated to Yiddish -- again -- we talked about a little bit before, now bringing it back.  So what do you see as the future of Yiddish?

RS:  Well, I'm very hopeful because of the things that I described earlier.  You've got sabras studying Yiddish, you folks applying for your fellowships and you're coming here and you're translating, and I see all these people who are coming to visit the Yiddish Book Center and they're not all old people -- (laughs) -- like me.  I think Aaron has done a wonderful thing here -- this 55:00revival.  And then there are collections and they're establishing other libraries.  I think that's wonderful.  And there are other places where people are studying Yiddish.  I just think it's wonderful.  So I think it's gonna go on and on, and it's just terrific.  And I sort of feel like -- I think there's an appreciation for language in general.  I'm one of those people who have always said they should make kids study Latin again.  Because I had five years of Latin -- the last year was at college -- and I think Latin is the key to so many languages.  Even today, if I come across a word while I'm reading something that's a new word to me, I can usually figure out what it means 56:00because of my Latin education.  And I think to have a background in any kind of language is wonderful.  And I not only want to learn Yiddish -- and I'm taking the Yiddish course -- but I keep on saying, "I'd like to get Rosetta and learn Mandarin" -- because it sounds so wonderful.  Even if I don't have anybody to speak it to, I'd like to learn it.  And I'm not a linguist by any stretch.  So I'm very optimistic about Yiddish.  Again, I don't think it's going to appeal to the masses, but I think anybody who's interested in language or interested in their Jewish heritage, who never grew up learning Yiddish, is at some point going to say, This is something I should learn.  So I'm optimistic for that percentage of people who want to learn that.

DW:  What advice do you have for future generations?

RS:  Learn everything you can about your background, because it's the key to the future.  And I once had a doctor's appointment, and I walked in to check in at the registration table.  And I recognized that the person sitting at the desk must have had some Somali background -- she was a stunning-looking woman with very high cheekbones.  And I said to her, "Do you have some Somali background?"  And she said, "Yes, I do."  And I said, "So, a set of grandparents or whatever?"  And she said, "Actually, I have one grandmother who was a slave.  She's in her late nineties."  I said, "Have you asked her any of the stories about when she was in slavery?"  She said, "No, I haven't."  I said, "Woman!"  I said, "Sit down with her with a recorder and get those 58:00stories before your dear grandmother passes away, because if you don't, you will do what many of us do -- you will kick yourself afterwards.  You have a history in front of you.  Record her while you can."  And that's the way I -- and I'm sure many other people -- why didn't we ask those questions?  My grandmother was a -- my maternal grandmother got kicked out of Russia -- had to leave Russia -- because there was a price on her head, and she came to this country and was a suffragette, okay?  I mean -- you know, and I wish I had asked her more.  I wish I had asked her more.  So anybody who can, should ask, and should find out, because your past is the prelude to your future.

DW:  What is your favorite Yiddish word, phrase, or song?

RS:  (laughs) God, that's hard.  I wish I had known you were going to ask me that, I would have thought about that ahead of time.

DW:  Take your time.

RS:  (laughs) Gee whiz.  Well, I probably have a lot.  I probably have a lot.  But I like the word "mensch" a lot.

DW:  What does it mean?

RS:  Oh, gosh.  "He's a mensch."  "He's a real human being."  "He's a real" -- it means -- it's one of those words you can't really translate literally, 60:00because it -- he's more than just a man.  He's a real human being -- he has soul, he cares, he's compassionate -- he cares, he has a commitment.  So I like that word a lot.  And it's probably one of many, but that's one that comes immediately to mind.  I probably could think of more, but you sort of caught me off guard with that.  (laughs)

DW:  We're nearing the end of our time, but I'd like to ask you if there are any specific stories or topics you'd like to cover at this time.

RS:  I don't know.  In the pre-interview, what did I tell you? (laughs)

DW:  Yes, there are a couple of things.  One was how you did Israeli dancing 61:00in college, and another one was about your grandfather in World War I.  So if you have anything to expand on those big ideas.

RS:  Oh, yes.  Well, I actually have a picture if she gets back with the pictures.  Yes.  When I was an undergraduate, I was very active in Hillel House.  And we had an Israeli dance group.  And we used to perform at the local temples and synagogues and other venues.  And I enjoyed that a lot.  I danced when I was younger -- did modern jazz and all of that.  Dancing was -- my oldest daughter -- on the side -- is a choreographer, and I think I passed that gene on to her, 'cause I used to love to dance.  And actually, at the Hillel House, they also used to have dances.  And I also had an Israeli friend I used to dance with -- ballroom dancing.  And people used to -- if I can sort 62:00of boast a little bit, people would stop and watch us dance -- that's how good we were.  So yeah, I loved Israeli dancing -- folk dancing.  So I did a lot of that.  I did that at camp, as well.  So we used to perform for groups in the community -- as I say, for temples and that kind of thing.  My paternal grandfather was a master carpenter.  And he was actually hired by the government just prior to World War I to build barracks for soldiers in Ipswich.  So for a while, the family lived in Ipswich, where he was building these barracks for soldiers.  And that was before they moved to Mattapan.  And 63:00when they moved to Mattapan, he actually had a workshop in the basement, and I would go down and visit him while he was working there.  And there was always the wonderful aroma of sawdust on the floor.  And he was very -- all of my grandparents were very political.  They were very proud to have made it to medine goldene [the Golden Land], and voted in every election.  And my grandfather, I remember -- I have fond memories of him and myself watching John F. Kennedy getting elected -- we stayed up all night to watch the election returns come in.  But he was in Ipswich and the whole family was up there -- all of them together.  So that's what he did.

DW:  Do you remember what you were thinking about when JFK -- when you were 64:00watching this on the television?  Did you understand what was happening or awareness of anything?

RS:  Oh, sure.  Well, I was already in my twenties --

DW:  Oh, okay.

RS:  -- when he got elected.  So it was very exciting.  This nice young guy -- first Catholic, you know?  And of course, a lot of us thought, If a Catholic, could a Jew be far behind? (laughs) And I came from a ward in Mattapan where I think a lot of people were very into politics -- especially that generation that came from czarist Russia.  The opportunity to vote -- who ever heard of such a thing, you know?  The opportunity to vote for who you wanted to lead the country.  That whole idea of democracy is a wonderful concept.

DW:  Is there anything else that you'd like to add, then, at this point?

RS:  I don't think so.

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

[END OF INTERVIEW]