DAVID CHERSON ORAL HISTORY

SAUL HANKIN:This is Saul Hankin, and today is May 27th, 2014. I'm here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts with David Cherson, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Mr. Cherson, do I have your permission to record this interview?

DAVID CHERSON:Yes, you do.

SH:Thank you. Well, to start us off, can you tell me what you know about your family background?

DC:And I assume you mean both sides of -- okay. Well, (laughs) they kind of split in terms of (laughs) the parts of the Jewish people. They both had something in common. They were both very hardworking people -- in a few cases, 1:00to death. My father's folks actually were the original Jewish settlers in Saugus, Mass., via a very strange custom to the -- each of them -- my grandmother was -- arranged -- it was an arranged marriage back then in Russia, and she got married when she was fifteen, and they had a couple of miscarriages. But still, they decided that we're gonna leave -- she had some cousins here in the West End of Boston, which has a history of its own. Very mixed area, very apart from very old Boston. But in any event, she walked across Europe with a baby on her back and went to Antwerp and came to Boston's North End, while my grandfather -- this is before the revolution, when they're in -- the czar was still in power. They usually had a habit of drafting Jews and putting them up on the front lines, you know -- kind of like using Jews as sandbags, to be literal 2:00about it. So, he escaped -- went the same way: walked across Europe. Originally, he wanted to go to Montreal, which would have pleased me to no end -- we're talking about Montreal bagels. But my grandmother was comfortable with her cousins and they're in the West End, and so he came down here. But somehow, my grandfather's religious, people say -- and we'll talk about religion a little bit later. And one morning, after shakhres [Jewish morning prayers], this man came up to him and said he's a builder, and he'll build him a great, nice new house in Saugus. Now, Saugus is officially a suburb these days of Boston. It's just on the beginning of what's called the North Shore. But back then, it was country. For my grandmother, it was sibir [Siberia] -- literally. But she was a pusher, and she helped organize -- they couldn't get a minyan in East Saugus, but they the shul in Saugus Center, which still stands today, to get the means 3:00to organize a minyan. So, I come by this stuff honestly. Now, wth my mother, it's a little bit different. You're talking about -- well, you heard -- she had three uncles, and two of them had immigrated, made it over to this country in 1909 and 1913. And those are the two brothers that subsequently went into the upholstery business in Providence. But my mother and her family and my uncle, Nachum -- it was uncle Nachum, he's the youngest brother of my grandmother -- were living in Proskur-- now known as Khmel'nyts'kyy, it's Proskurov. And Proskurov was basically the size of a city like Brockton, let's say -- and that kind of a population. But they actually had a -- of course, the Jews live in one section, although I understand that there were a few Jews who lived over in the 4:00gentile section of town. But they had a represent-- Jews had a representative on the town council. I wouldn't say that everybody was in love with each other, but there was nothing like what came during the civil war. And that's kind of how that started -- my mother's journey here to America. As you probably know, if you study Jewish history, during the civil war, in what became the Soviet Union, there was numerous armies. Of course, you had the Red Army and the Bolsheviks, and then you had the White Army. But then, within the White Army, you had different segments, and especially what is now called Ukraine today. You'll find that those of us of a certain generation of Jews, we just call it Russia. Well, it was part of the Russian Empire, and then became the Soviet Union, so, it's still Russians to us. And during the civil war, the Jews -- my brothers, the 5:00Armenians, were caught in the middle, and literally -- and excuse my language -- catch hell, okay? Which is -- it was a historical position for us. And so, there was -- battles between the Red Army, Red Guards. And there was a section of Petliura, who was the military leader in the Ukraine. A fascist, Nazi. And he had on them, there was another battalion called [Ukrainian - 00:05:17], and led by -- I forget. This is that Turkish title -- Ottoman -- he was an Ottoman. It's like Turkish, by the way. So, in 1919, on the weekend of Purim, the [Ukrainian - 00:05:39] had planned a pogrom, mostly in Proskurov because that meant more 6:00Jews. And there was another town that -- matter of fact, there's an active landsmanshaft [association of immigrants originally from the same region] here in the United States -- Felshtin, smaller village. Not a town like Proskurov. But they were hit, too. And so, a few days -- now, before I tell you about this -- my mother only told me this story once, and I remember it was -- I think we were -- I was home from school one day. It was snow or something like that. And for some reason, she just told me -- sat me down and told me what happened and, okay. And that -- you can only get that information the rest of her life -- what was common amongst those of us in our family and other families who came from there, they would talk about the Old Country, and it was mostly to make a contrast. And I'll tell you a humorous anecdote about my mom. First time I went 7:00to Europe -- I mean, first of all, she just flipped out, I -- saying I was going to Europe, "What do you want to go there for? It's all buildings, people standing in line, the Depression and all of that," and what you have to remember -- and I'll tell you about my mother's journey, why she became (laughs) -- had a certain attitude towards travel. Resorts like Hawaii, Florida, fine -- at least you get to rest there. You're not -- no one's coming to threaten your life because you're Jewish. It's what it is. So -- and this was something my mother told me, that a Cossack officer had come to my grandfather's house -- their house -- and warned them about what was about to come. So they boarded up their apartment and they hid inside of a room downstairs for the course -- and then when this happened -- well, Shabbos and on Purim and then the next day. It was 8:00about -- something on the -- approximately two thousand Jews died. This is before the Germans, with their technology of killing. This is just guns and knives. So, she said that she could hear screaming and all the -- but she was very scared. She was like twelve years old at the time. And her and her brother and my grandfather and grandmother. Now, following the pogrom, there was no other question to get out of here and somehow join the family in the United States. But they stopped at Kyiv -- by the way, my mother always would insisted it's "Kyiv," not "Kiev." (laughs) Anyway, Kiev, Kyiv. So -- and where -- my grandfather was a printer. Now, when we think of printer now, it's not the same as they -- over there, it was -- here in the United States, we refer to it as a fine trade. I know that there's a school in the North End called the Bennet Street School and they teach violin making, repair, piano tuning, that kind of 9:00trade. So, printing, in the Old Country was along those lines. But then came the Bolsheviks (laughs) and they regulated -- they introduced the regulated salary level. And this is obviously -- must be before Lenin's -- what do they call -- new democratic plan or something like that. Here's an echo from my Marxist background, so -- (laughs) don't go there. So, but my grandmother, being bossy in the kitchen, ran a worker's cafeteria for her living. They had to bring money in, but my grandfather was very perturbed that he would be out there working the same salary level as an entry-level person, so to speak. (laughs) Now, that in itself, okay, maybe it's -- no, but to get you to go -- I mean, if you've escaped death and now -- just 'cause there's social turmoil going on in all the other countries, it's -- but my mother did credit one -- well, positive 10:00attribute to the Bolsheviks: they gave her free piano lessons. (laughs) She never could stop saying that. It's true, so -- and that -- she carried that through the rest of her life. So, something good came out of that. But, eventually, they had to get out of there. And it actually was literally in a hay wagon where they got over the Polish border. And they made their way to Warsaw, and my mother would always talk about its beauty as a city. And they had to secure -- probably you've interviewed other people mentioned affidavit --- okay? Well, you have to get an affidavit from her uncles who were here so they could immigrate to the United States and they could go to Danzig or Gdansk and they took a ship there to New York, where I think uncle -- who used to be known as Lazar -- became Louie -- he met them and took them back, actually, to 11:00Somerville, which was where my mother's uncles were living at the time, before they moved to Providence, on Pearl Street in Somerville. So, actually, that part of Somerville was a Jewish community. So, my grandfather -- they finally arrived in this country, into Somerville and in the -- he had nothing, no choice, but to join his brothers-in-law in the upholstery business. And so it was a hard trade for him. And my mother always thought that he didn't adapt to America very well. And I'm not sure when he died, but following my uncle David -- died of blood poisoning when he was twenty-three. Now, that's who I'm named after. And then, a few years after that, my grandfather, Louis -- so, I never knew my grandfather. And, matter of fact, the whole curiosity about Proskurov, Khmel'nyts'kyy is that, at that time -- 'cause I'm on the Neifeld side, and he was a Neifeld. Of 12:00course, Neifeld is a -- (laughs) a widespread Jewish name. Newfield. And so, they were all Neifeld, but -- so, that's still my hope, but I don't know.

SH:And how did your parents meet?

DC:Oh, my parents? It was in Roxbury in those days, yeah, which was a vibrant Jewish community. They both liked to dance, and -- I'm trying to remember what the exact first date was. I'm not quite sure. Oh, he met her through his friends somehow. And they both liked to dance, so I guess dancing -- so, they met in Roxbury, and my dad was beginning his career as a kosher butcher. And eventually, they were married in 1933. And my dad actually started a business in Brighton, not Roxbury or Dorchester. It was on Commonwealth Avenue. At that time 13:00-- when I grew up, there was about four or five kosher butchers in our vicinity, more than there is today, and it's -- different landscape.

SH:And before we continue to your own life, are there any other family stories you'd like to share?

DC:I'm not quite sure. My grandfather, or my father's dad, was from [Cherkessk?], and I'm not sure -- that might be Russia proper. But I could imagine -- my grandmother was matched up with him -- that he was a big guy. He was six-three, and he had blonde hair at that time. So, he looked like a Cossack. (laughs) And then you have a fifteen-year-old girl who's offered up in marriage. But they did it back then. Actually, they were even married -- in several years. So, maybe after a while it was bashert [meant to be].

SH:All right, then let's move on to you. Would you say you grew up in a Jewish home?

DC:Yeah, but it's different when people think of Jewish now. And I refer back to when I said the landscape was different. Well, the landscape for us, at least in Boston, was different. I mentioned that there were several kosher butchers in the area. And I -- was no question from the day I was conscious that I lived in a Jewish home. And I remember telling someone that, and they said, "Well, why?" -- "My father's kosher" -- "Oh, that's because" -- I said, "Well, it's not -- that's only part of it." And, of course, why do we have all the Jewish holidays off? (laughs) My dad doesn't work then. But that's just part of it. I think that -- I'm what my brother calls the family Jew. (laughs) In other words, I'm 15:00holding the flag up here, okay? And I'll actually enter a synagogue once in a while, I mean -- and I speak Hebrew, da-da-da-da-da, you know, so -- and we take care of -- we'll both keep care of our yahrzeit [anniversary of death], the family -- the important dates in our family history. But my grandmother -- my mother's mother lived with us. So, that was what made -- they were -- between her and my mother every day, they spoke in Yiddish. That was the mame-loshn [mother tongue]. That was their own language. Although my mother was very good in languages. She learned Russian and Polish -- Polish, she just picked up on the street. So, I picked up a little of her talent and skill with languages. But my grandmother was someone who actually could read and write Yiddish. And it 16:00wasn't -- amongst us commoners, really, you didn't have many Yiddish scholars. I mean, reading and writing was different from redtsn -- talking, just speaking Yiddish, which a lot of people did, and -- not too much my generation. We kind of -- my grandmother would speak to me in some Yiddish and I'd answer it in English. And so, it was that kind of arrangement. And -- even though she was good in languages -- good enough -- she got by. She did more than get by. And, I mean, my father's side, they were Yiddish speakers, of course. And somehow, when I was together -- when we were together at home and I came to visit 'em, I didn't hear a sentence of English. They would say, Hi, hi, David, good -- but no paragraphs of stories or anything like that. That talk went on -- my dad and them would be --

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SH:And what, for your family, were the most important holidays or other events?

DC:Well -- we're in the kosher meat business, and my wife's -- my in-laws were -- kosher meat business. But they were yeke, they were German, so it's a little different, and I can explain that afterwards. But anyway, they had this in common, that, as I explained, that my dad didn't work Jewish holidays, yontifs. But in terms of stress from work, the number one holiday -- and I think it's true today, although you're dealing with large markets like the butchery -- is Pesach, Passover, because somehow -- the seder, most people, most Jews in the world have seder. And so, people want to have meat, they want to order for the entire yontev, the eight days. And so, there were times that I didn't remember my dad coming home. I used to get scared. But he'd show up in the morning. But 18:00yeah, and then, secondarily is what we now treat as the yontevs [holidays], Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur. That depended on what time it fell. And this is something we might want to look into also -- we spent our summers at a Jewish spot, Old Orchard Beach, Maine. And it was the meeting place of the Boston and Montreal Jewish communities, literally, because for Montrealers, that was the outlet to the sea, right? I mean, yeah, and we called "eltere [old] maritimes." And Old Orchard Beach was the most northernmost town that would take on Jews as hotel guests at that time, so -- and so when the yontifs would come early, they would cut our summer time at Old Orchard Beach off and we had to leave beginning of August, go home. My dad would need at least four weeks preparation. If it came 19:00regular time, yeah, maybe leave a week or two early. Or if it can just come late and -- (laughs) baruch hashem [Hebrew: thank God], we'd get to stay till Labor Day, or just before Labor Day. So, I mean, those are -- and people -- we interacted with other Jews. Actually, we actually interacted with some Orthodox people, which you don't see today. It wasn't people being apart. It wasn't -- I was remarking to my wife yesterday that there was an Orthodox family that lived on our street. We weren't all fall over each other in love, but we recognized each other as Jews and there would be -- that much respect. And so, things have, since 1979, kind of -- kind of a little more self-segregating.

SH:Can you say more about the German Jews in your family that you mentioned before?

DC:Well, not at length. I would leave that to my wife. (laughs) But actually, 20:00she's a Werthe-- well, half -- she's a Bloch and a Wertheimer, and she's related to some of the people -- it was the Zionist portion of the family and, in fact, became Stef Wertheimer -- is a well-known entrepreneur in Israel. And his brother had a coffee business in Haifa. So, those were the side of -- those two families went to Israel -- by then Palestine -- and everyone else went to -- a few people went to the U.K., and then everybody else comes over there, specifically Washington Heights in New York. And there was this joke -- they used to refer to it as the Fourth Reich, okay? Well, that's not it so much anymore. Now, the streets where my mother-in-law lives, there's still some families. But everybody's pretty much over across the river in Jersey. But I was introduced to different aspects. Were they less observant -- and I put that in 21:00quotes -- than us? I don't know. They were different. And in different ways. The German Jewish community [BREAK IN RECORDING] -- so they tend to be a bit more rigid about things. It's interesting, at the first Hanukkah party -- and my in-laws always had a Hanukkah party. And I came to -- what our tradition was, uncle Nachum would come over and give us the chocolate gelt, and spin dreidel and that was it -- and lighting the candles, of course, my grandmother -- which she did on the dot at sunset. So, there's just that -- I mean, there were many -- I'd say many aspects of life that -- drove home the point to me that, gee, I'm living in a Jewish household. Now, what their past was in terms of the pogrom in my mom's town or what my other grandparents went through to get here, 22:00and what they did in Saugus, et cetera, was kind of not much discussed. It's kind of like the way you look at the Old Country. Get it out of the way and -- once in a while, you'd be able to get some history from another family member. It's a lot of -- I got -- my uncle was the last living person on the Cherson side, and he told me that they actually had a couple of cousins who had died in the Red Army and -- during the war, and the rest of the fam-- my grandmother's family didn't make it out of the Holocaust. So, I can't -- you know, to grow up thinking, Well, we didn't suffer any of this stuff -- yeah, I must be weird. But -- well, we're not weird. We're Jews. And both sides of the family lived over in Russia. So, unless you lived a charmed life or hide yourself or somehow -- 23:00you're subject to what we Jews lived in in that diaspora.

SH:And could you say more about the things your family did together like the Orchard Beach trips?

DC:Sure. We had our large seders for Passover. We'd go one night to my grandparents in Lynn, and that was the real late-night seder. He tended to -- (laughs) and here, I don't know what you call it in Yiddish, but in Hebrew they say "duk [Hebrew: to beat]" and he's like (hits his fist into his palm) pressed to the -- we'd always say he'd take the lightbulb out of the refrigerator on Fridays, which people used to do back then. Now the technology takes care of that. So we'd have Friday -- the first seder would be at zeyde's [grandfather's], and I remember he had a Haggadah that was voluminous. It's, like, Okay! I know the Haggadah of a time in Mizraim [Hebrew: Egypt], but how 24:00much are you building it up here? He must have had commentaries -- you know, Talmudic commentaries, et cetera, and inside there was the actual body of the Haggadah. I don't know what happened to that book. That -- Sarah would know. And then, the next night, we'd have the more seder. My mother's uncle Nachum and aunt Lottie came over. Uncle Nachum, he did a pretty good job as ava seder [Hebrew: the leader of the seder, lit. "father seder"]. But he wasn't attentive to detail, shall we say, as my grandfather -- though he did it -- but, you know, he'd have -- an old-timer -- and we liked that -- even for the American holidays, like Thanksgiving, we'd have a lot of people over for dinner, though our tradition was to have this kind of lunch, between lunch and dinner. What are other occasions? I mean, lighting the candles with my grandmother, okay? And I was -- before (UNCLEAR), my dad and mom are out working. And no one ever told -- 25:00I don't know if she knew that you had until midnight to light your Hanukkah candles. But the minute she saw the sun go down, we were lighting candles. So, that was -- and lighting the candles for Shabbos. So, those were really fundamental memories for me. I just couldn't -- I can't doubt -- a lot of people will -- maybe it was easier for me -- and I know the importance of Yiddish, but for me it was the house language -- try to learn some picante words from my mother and my grandmother, so -- that was us. I mean, we were Jews.

SH:Any more Orchard Beach stories?

DC:Well, yeah, as I said, it was a meeting place of the Boston and Montreal communities, with a few oddballs thrown in -- a person from Indiana that -- or somewhere else. Somebody came up from Western Ontario. So, it's kind of like -- 26:00a subject to learn things -- the Montreal kids would talk endlessly about smoked meat. Someone in a previous interview to deal with Montreal would have to bring up -- since I married into my wife's family, and they were in the business, it's like, "Yeah, well, fleysh [meat]." So (laughs) -- so, we've had that. But -- and then they needed to learn about "zed" as opposed to "zee," because they used the British dictionary. But we also learned that in Quebec at the time, there wasn't any public school. So, they -- everybody went to yeshiva, where -- the Jewish people -- and apparently -- there must have been a yeshiva track that -- people to get the education, but not come out with smikhe [rabbinical ordination] or anything like that -- just to get the basic education. So, I met them and I learned a lot about things that we had in common. And I got to be friends with 27:00other people who were in parts of the Jewish community -- in those days, you know, you didn't go to Sharon or -- often saw -- you knew friends from Sharon or from the North Shore. So, we got to know different aspects of our community itself.

SH:And speaking of community, can you describe your neighborhood growing up?

DC:I actually lived in Brighton, that part of Brighton that borders near Brookline. And when I was growing up -- Brighton is a row -- there are two-family brick -- two-family house, rows of them. They're the most common house. It was built by, I think, one contractor in Brighton -- in Brighton and Newton, other places. And in our street, I'd say it was about ninety percent Jewish. We did have a few gentile neighbors, but it was -- in fact, half of the 28:00ninety percent were all related to each other. They were the Richman family. (laughs) And they were cleaners. We had the meat market, they're the cleaners. That was the other thing -- we actually had -- my parents had friends -- one guy had -- today, if you think about a Jew driving a truck route, (laughs) you'd think, guy must be crazy. But no, he -- more like he had a business selling -- I remember one guy had a business selling dairy products, and have a route of stores he'd make sales to. So, it's really sales. It was kind of like blue-collar sales. But that was a respected profession. And of course, tailors. So, you could see how these -- the Jews in these trades die out over the years. It's sort of like -- kind of -- it evaporated before my eyes, when I think about it. It started kind of like -- I think I was in my teenager years -- I was in 29:00high school. But not until after I got out of high school did things kind of change around here.

SH:Could you go into more detail about those changes that you witnessed?

DC:Well, it's not good -- I mean, the changes in the community of Roxbury and Dorchester. I mean, we're not -- I used to think we were the only -- the city of Boston had a reputation of problems along these lines. And I think it was -- it's basically America, because I had friends from Chicago, they would tell me, Yeah, they're coming up to this line, or -- they had similar things. And there was -- a lot of discussions when I was growing up. People would say, "How far up -- and they got to Blue Hill Avenue. Blue Hill Avenue was kind of like a measuring stick, literally. How that transformed from being a Jewish community into an African American community -- it wasn't pretty. It was a gain that was 30:00-- well, first of all, they tried to blame it all on the banks, that they would redline communities -- what they called redline, where you couldn't get a second mortgage. And a lot of people would need second mortgages to keep their house going. But there were real estate agents, and some of them were Jews, who were kind of helping the movement of people along. A lot of people did want to stay there. So -- and when I was -- up until I was in high school, I used to go over there -- in fact, I had to go to another high school to practice -- I was a shot put. No one (UNCLEAR) these days -- but shot put. And the only facility. And I remember -- I'd come right into Roxbury, and it was different, and -- that changed. So, when I said landscape, I mean physical landscape. Things -- might 31:00increase in Brookline and Newton. So, a locus of Jewish activity migrated out to the suburbs. In our case, it was Brookline and Newton. And the South Shore, which was more affected by Dorchester -- Milton, down the South Shore, Sharon, et cetera. And in Malden, there was a Jewish community there -- still is. Matter of fact, there's a -- I'd say there's a vibrant Orthodox synagogue there in the center of Malden. So, let's not call it a dead community. Now, there was a turnover, and so most of those people would go north to Peabody, for instance. It's pretty easy to track geographically. Like there was a Jewish community in Cambridge that went out to Lexington, points west.

SH:Can you tell me about your general education and also your Jewish education?

DC:Well, I was a kheyder [traditional religious school] boy. Matter of fact, my siblings never took to Jewish education, or much to Judaism. Well, not quite all 32:00-- but my mother, I think, invested in me, and so she named me David. And at that time, the Kehillath Israel in Brookline had an excellent Hebrew school, kheyder. It was mixed -- and there was also a girls' school, but that met once or twice a week -- that met there. And the reputation of the Hebrew school was very high, even in some Orthodox circles, because of -- some years ago, when I was saying kaddish for my folks, I used to go to Congregation Kadimah in Brighton, when Rabbi Halfinger or Shalom, he was there, too -- remembered my dad from being a butcher across the street on Commonwealth Avenue. But also, when he found out I went to Kehillath Hebrew school -- that was like a -- got a kind of a hekhsher [approval] -- had a good reputation. It was like going to a Schechter 33:00school today. We met five days a week, Monday through Thursday after school and Sunday morning. So, you know, it kind of spoiled things growing up. But I actually liked it better than public school. And public school -- I was in the Boston Public Schools. It just went -- that track and public. And I actually encountered the -- gentiles I knew -- but especially when I got into junior high, down in Allston, I really did a class study, I think, (laughs) because I met gentiles that I didn't meet before and they weren't so nice people, so -- and you meet -- kind of like you have to deal with rudimentary anti-Semitism, I would call it. Not the same as my mother faced or anything like that, but still made you very aware of who you are. But anyway, when I got to high school, it was a better climate. We were -- at that time, my high school in Brighton was 34:00very integrated, and we had good friends. So, we didn't go through any of that garbage about my being Jewish or, you know, someone else being Irish. And then I went to college at the University of Arizona, which was (laughs) a cultural -- explosion. It really took me about a week. Once I got into living there, I didn't leave for the next three, four years.

SH:I do want to get into more detail about your college years a little later.

DC:Yeah.

SH:But right now, let me ask: what organizations were you and your family involved in during your childhood?

DC:Well, I mean, in the synagogue -- we were members of the synagogue for many years. And, like I said, I attended Hebrew school. I didn't belong to any 35:00organizations like Young Judea or B'nai -- BBYO, B'nai B'rith Youth Organization. I really kind of was not a joiner of that kind of thing. (laughs) I happen to be the only one who made Aliyah in Israel, but -- no, that's not true, I know someone who -- actually still living there, she's much more tsiunit [Hebrew: Zionist] than me. Way to go, Janet. So, no, I mean -- and the other thing about -- and I spent a good part of my young adulthood, I think -- going back now and trying to reconcile the Jewish me with the non-Jewish me. And that's what I went through at the University of Arizona and afterwards, when I got back here for a while. Eventually, that ended up in my making aliyah. I was there for about eight years, though, so -- where else do you define the Jewish 36:00you but in Israel, okay? Balagan [Hebrew: Complicated], real --

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SH:And to kind of wrap things up on your early years, when you look back at your childhood, what values do you think your parents were trying to pass on to you?

DC:Honesty. I think my dad might have been too honest, if there's such a thing. Respect. Open-mindedness, especially on the part of my mom. Kindness -- chesed. And there was other things she'd -- like clockwork -- the blue box on Friday afternoon. Yeah, Israel. And my dad would have liked to make aliyah, but -- my mom wasn't going anywhere. (laughs) Got here, that's it. So, those are the 37:00things that stick with me from my folks.

SH:And how did you choose the University of Arizona?

DC:You better edit this portion out. (laughter) Somehow, I developed an interest in anthropology. And if you wanted to major in anthropology of the Southwest, in Mexicology, that was the center for it. Ultimately, I began to decide that this is not me. So, we had to get degree, and then -- make up for it as I went along in life. I also ran into -- it was kind of a -- being the '60s, kind of a -- existence on the left for a while. I roomed with a fellow named Tom Miller, who was a great writer. And he's become an expert on the border. And we -- he was a 38:00writer for "Rolling Stone." I got -- it was at a point where we had -- Jerry Rubin stay over one night, which invited the FB-- local FBI, Pima County Sherriff's Department, and Tucson Police Department camping out in my front yard. So -- (laughs) then, Jerry Rubin, later on -- now, he's dead, too, that -- he became a stockbroker or something, became an official -- not a yippie, entirely the opposite -- while Abbie Hoffman kind of -- yeah, and so on. So -- but also, when you participate in those activities, I had to balance my mom at the same time, because here she came -- I mean, she saw the beginning of the revolution, okay, and what precede -- in the civil war, and I'm going around 39:00there -- I should praise Stalin or someone like that? I'll tell you one story I didn't tell you about my grandmother, Anne. I told you, she lived with us. So, whenever I'd be sitting together with her in front of the TV, if they showed any Soviet leader -- it didn't matter if it was Stalin, Trotsky, Brezhnev, Khrushchev, she'd be, "Tsebrenen zikh, you should burn in -- bastards!" (laughs) She would -- and that kind of got me thinking about Eastern Europe and communists. And I developed a strange -- people would be crazy to think I have a fascination -- but an interest in what makes -- what would make my grandmother react so? So, I spent -- going back against that period and then realizing I -- 40:00oh, jeez, what a fool I was, because, I mean, how could I say anything favorable about Stalin, who wanted to do away with the Jewish people? He was a vicious anti-Semite. So, like a lot of people -- I don't want to say -- if I say passing phase -- but it really was a phase, that whole -- but eventually, like I said, I made aliyah. I got reattached to Israel. And it was very interesting being with Jews from all the way around the world. Very interesting.

SH:Perfect transition. Could you say more about how you made the decision to move to Israel?

DC:Well, we had just had the Yom Kippur War. And -- I'm kind of a bad tourist, 41:00because I tend to hate short stays. So, if I decide to go to Israel -- I mean, I decided that, well, maybe I'm going to check it out at the beginning, and even come in like a semi-permanent status. And that's what I did for about two, three years. I decided to get azrechut -- you know, citizenship. But I started out in the kibbutz movement, and actually ended up at Kibbutz [Tzora?], which is in the Arava. It's about sixty kilometers north of Eilat, and that -- now, you can picture -- it's the desert -- but it's really beautiful, because the Moab mountains are out in Jordan, and when the sun falls down on them, they turn red, har adom [Hebrew: red mountain]. And I got into -- the things I was involved with was the mangos and dates, subtropical agriculture, which they have really 42:00developed since I left the kibbutz there. It's quite an ongoing industry. And I worked for a person that's a very well-known authority on subtropical agriculture. So, it was hard work, but that's another aspect of my life that -- always in the back of me.

SH:Are there particular stories that you'd like to share about your time living in Israel?

DC:Well, I wish I had -- all I can say is I wish I had spent more time in -- as we would refer to, in the city, or up north. When you live that far down south -- you're in Israel, yes, but you kind of feel apart from main Israel. And I feel -- kind of -- I feel sometimes like I was a rube as they say here when I come into Tel Aviv. And I think, had I decided to find some way to live in the 43:00city, I probably would have remained in the country and my life would have been 180 degrees different. Well, stuff happens. Kibbutzim, when they begin -- or communities, when they begin -- and specifically, it's a participant community, a share community like kibbutz or a moshav -- that everybody has a particular direction that they want the community to go in. It becomes very ideological in that way. And we had a lot of makhlokot [Hebrew: disputes], makhlokes [Yiddish: disputes], that's in Yiddish, makhlok-- over in the assembly, the atzefah would meet on Thursday nights. They'd bring so-and-so up for membership. And I won't 44:00get into it, but there was some things that -- I met someone who belonged to the kibbutz about ten years after I left and I told him about this, and he thought I might have been coming from Mars and he was on Earth. And that's how different it is. But it was -- so, I lost a lot of my khevrey -- my circle of friends. So, I decided I -- well, I don't know, I'm going to come back and see what goes on. And that's why I came back, completed my education, actually, and then went into high-tech industry and worked for the late but not forgotten Digital Equipment Corporation, ten years.

SH:Well, so far, we've been talking about the early part of your life. If we fast forward, can you give us a snapshot of your life today?

DC:Well, I'm still Jewish, and I'm gonna die that way. I'm still the kind of Jew that I always was, and I married someone that's the same way. (laughs) I guess 45:00that's one -- something about -- sticking out -- it's a common trait. And that's a big one. And -- I was thankful -- I never thought that I'd be married, but I did get married and had a child. And now, she's engaged. So, it's kind of -- it's very disruptive. I mean, you -- when you never experienced this before, and her -- my future son-in-law -- will ask you, "Is it okay with you?" (laughs) What's okay with me? (laughs) So, you have to acc-- it's these new experiences, too, at the same time. The other thing is that I'm very cognizant that I'm going in probably to -- next period of my life will be a -- use the musical term, a coda on my career. So, I have to keep perfecting myself so I can go out the way I want to go out.

SH:And you've been involved for many years with the Tremont Street Shul.

DC:Yeah.

SH:And could you speak more about your role there?

DC:Talk about Yiddish speakers. Well, the leader of the community when it was (laughs) more of an outpost, I'd say, because it's old membership. Was at Tremont Street, it was Reb Moshe Holzer. And he introduced himself to me, Mr. Holzer. He was the shammes. Now, a lot of people didn't like that, because the shammes is looked upon -- you may have heard it before, that it's kind of like a secondary job. But he was holding up the community that was gone. So, he was like a watchman, more a shomer than shammes. So, he had a community there which -- he used to attract people from the Hillels at the universities in Harvard and MIT, and also assorted others -- kind of like Orthodox, but it had ecumenical spirit. And his dvarim [Hebrew: Torah readings, lit. "words"] basically had to 47:00be translated, 'cause he didn't speak enough English. So, he would do it mostly in Yiddish, with some English thrown in, so -- and I don't even know if anybody at the -- they might have made a recording, but Reb Moshe was kind of -- so there's a lot of people, he was inspiring. He helped a lot of people that were -- maybe that hadn't been as Jewish before. For me, he helped me bridge -- because the KI at that time was kind of in dire straits, and I couldn't -- I felt I couldn't go back there. But I did meet -- by chance, I was working for the Bostoner Rebbe -- he passed away last year, too, olev-hasholem [may he rest in peace] -- as a translator. And -- what was I saying? So -- this is what happens when you get old.

SH:The speeches, and then worked with the --

DC:Oh, okay, well, Reb Moyshe. So, Moyshe -- I worked as his (makes air quotes) 48:00gabbai [manager of the synagogue] for twenty-five years, until he passed away. I used to make jokes when we were going to synagogue. I'd say, "The boss is going to kill me because I'm late." But he was a figure, and you can look him up. A lot of people hold him dear in their hearts, you know? So, I've been a member there for more than thirty years. It's also a community that houses -- cannot house more -- two separate minyanim, and now they're trying a third, one being egal -- egalitarian -- and then you have a traditional one, with a mechitzah [partition] -- and yet, be the same synagogue. So, it's kind of a different place. It's also Cambridge.

SH:I'm sorry, just to clarify, the Tremont Street Shul is in Cambridge?

DC:It certainly is. Number Eight Tremont Street.

SH:Thank you.

DC:It's between Hampshire and Broadway.

SH:I'm interested in some of the historical events that took place during your lifetime, and I want to start by asking you: have there been any experiences or historical events that were especially formative for your sense of identity?

DC:Well, you mean Jewish identity?

SH:Sure.

DC:Six-Day War. Yom Kippur War. Kind of war-centric here. (laughs) The growth of the State of Israel. I guess it's -- I should consider myself lucky that I grew up in a partly Yiddish-speaking household. A lot of people who didn't grow up -- now doing that, are now trying to educate themselves in that. So, that's why I'm 50:00almost kind of -- I hate to say the word nonchalant about it -- it's still Yiddish, right? But I can't speak it as well as I understand. But that's how we grew up. In the general sense -- person-- JFK assassination. That came on my birthday, by the way, so -- (laughs) yeah, I was fifteen. So, it impacted a lot of people, and had a particular impact on me. I mean, graduating college, graduating high school, those are days that -- and I went on in -- transition, or work towards the transition. Those are major things in my mind right now.

SH:As you say, you've -- you grew up in the early years of the State of Israel, and you've witnessed just about its entire history. Can you talk more about the 51:00place that the State of Israel has continued to have in your life since you came back here?

DC:Well, it's my -- you know a little French, it's my bête noire [French: inescapable presence, lit. "black beast"], (laughs) it's the black -- obviously, kind of like I'm banging my head against -- obviously, you've gotten a sense that I've had some Zionism in my identity, okay? I tend to try to shy away from ideologies, especially the national ideology. But it's the basis of the state and it's -- no matter how you feel about it, it is our country. So -- growing up in the KI -- KI was a very Zionist -- flagship Conservative Zionists. We used to -- a lot of our education was -- they emphasize Jewish history. I mean, we learned Torah, but -- Chumash [Pentateuch] and a little bit of Talmud, I mean -- and a lot of things in our Jewish history and sense of ourselves. Those things 52:00had a real impact on the person I am and the Jew I am. It's not really hard work to be a Jew. (laughs) I don't know why some people think of it as that. I mean -- okay, maybe I came with it built in. But it really is a good way to live, (laughs) if I might say. And I know a lot of people may not understand that but, yeah, I think my wife will understand it, 'cause we kind of remark about that ourselves.

SH:And you grew up not too far removed from the Holocaust. What sort of presence did the Holocaust have in your life?

DC:Well, the Holocaust kind of dwarfed everything. As -- oddly enough, I met my wife at an organization that's no more, it was called "One Generation After." 53:00Now, whether my mother was -- I mean, my mother was a survivor, of an anti-Jewish action in which thousands of people did die. So, like I said before -- that they just lacked all the quote-unquote technology the Germans had, so -- but when I went there, and I used to be active, and that's where, actually, I met my wife. But the Holocaust, I mean, had -- and another thing I can tell you about the kheyder in KI is that half the teachers were survivors, which is not surprising, so -- and I had a couple of friends who had arrived in Israel, but then their families had to emigrate to the United States. In Israel, they used to be known in Hebrew as nosim chaifa [Hebrew: Haifa passengers], or traveling 54:00to Haifa, so maybe that -- the place of the Holocaust made me feel like, gee -- and kind of influenced this silly thing that we didn't pass through anything. If we weren't in Auschwitz -- but that's silly, and we did. But the Holocaust is -- I have to -- the only thing that comes to my mind -- it just -- it dwarfs everything else. In the '50s, there wasn't much discussion of the Holocaust amongst the Jewish community. It was kind of hushed-up. Very strange -- I understand, where someone came over and had been a survivor -- even my mother -- survivors, she referred to them as greenhorn -- you're green, new immigrant, you know? That was kind of the rule. There was no open discussion of the Holocaust 55:00until late '60s, and then it just blossomed out, thank God.

SH:Have there been particular works of art or literature or music that had a special impact on you?

DC:Tchaikovsky's Fourth. My grandfather died during that. (laughs) Every time I hear it, I -- he did. I'm very, very eclectic in -- now, you won't be surprise at this point, I'm -- very eclectic taste, at least in music. I used to be into -- well, jazz and R&B and some symphonies. And then I kind of branched out -- many things. So, I'm not kidding you when -- if I mention a piece like Tchaikovsky's Fourth or Beethoven's Piano Concerto Number Five, those things -- and I always rank that -- when I was growing up, my dad had been an opera fan. I 56:00don't like opera. (laughs) He'd torment me, but my dad, who was like -- he didn't even have a high school education, actually, but he would -- he was listening to operas and symphonies, almost on a daily basis when he was -- you know, when he was -- to and from work, or -- not during work, because other people wouldn't want his taste in music in the -- working in the back of his store. And my father didn't -- they didn't -- in those days, businesses small and large did not -- music's -- is not a part of the business environment.

SH:And could you talk about your connection to Jewish language and culture through literature, in Hebrew and English?

DC:Most are in Hebrew, since I can't -- I'm illiterate in Yiddish. I can't read it and I can't write it. My grandmother did, as I said, read and write -- in fact, the few copies we get was all the "Forverts" -- my mom would buy for my 57:00grandmother, bring it home. And actually, I tried reading the "Forverts" a few times. Very difficult. But I got into reading various Hebrew literature. I mean, some elementary stuff that was in Hebrew school, but then, as I was older, particularly when I was in Israel, I tried to read -- I tried to also only read Amos Oz, for instance, in Hebrew, and a couple other authors, as well. It's different in the sides of the family. My mother's side is -- I like to think of -- a little more intellectual. My dad's side of the family is hard-working people. (laughs) But not their forte. Very strange. I -- or, yeah -- nah, I won't comment on that. (laughs) No, no, that's --

SH:All right.

DC:-- I only speak well of my family.

SH:All right.

DC:No, there's nothing -- and I want to emphasize that. Believe me, -- when my 58:00folks died, I had perspective on where I could have land-- up, and then I was really -- I told my wife, I said, "Thank God." So --

SH:How does your connection to Yiddish and to East European Jewish heritage fit into your broader sense of Jewish identity?

DC:Well, I'm going to be very honest. There's a voice of my mom, I can hear it in my back -- my ear, saying, "Who cares about that stuff? It's the Old Country." She just wanted to wipe it out. And I've never been very positive in my life towards the countries of Eastern Europe, because for us, it was that -- so, all that stuff happened, and it seemed like -- and they didn't improve any 59:00after the war. So, it's kind of contradictory feeling. I mean, I told you that I have a contact in my mom's -- what is now called Khmel'nyts'kyy -- it's Proskurov -- was my mom's hometown. So -- and I'm very interested to know what life is like for her -- I mean, it's nothing like it was in 1919, but they're aware of it. And it's very gray when I think of Eastern Europe. And that goes back to -- again, my grandmother sitting in front of the TV screen and seeing (UNCLEAR) or who knows who -- and wishing "Tsebrenen zikh" -- "You should burn -- burn in hell." It's kind of like -- it brings up all these contradictory feelings. I understand that if -- for the sake of the history of the Jewish 60:00people as a whole -- that Yiddish is -- as much Yiddish should be saved as possible. I'm not anti-Yiddish in any event. I do kind of want to emphasize we're an Asian people, believe it or not. (laughs) So, we want to remember our Asian part of ourselves, too. And so, that kind of enters my mind at the same time. But just looking at -- just in the books in this room, I mean, to say -- I would have done a great job to save just this many books, but the number of thousands of texts that Aaron has saved here and everybody here -- I'm happy, and I do thank God that someone has done that, and that we -- that something for scholars everywhere to be able to -- this is where we go to research in -- 61:00Yiddish part of Jewish people.

SH:Do you think your relationship to Yiddish has changed at all during your lifetime?

DC:No, well -- it's a lot less -- there's less of it. (laughs) People are dead. I mean, it was, like I said, a daily thing. And then, when my mother's family would get together, either up here or down in Providence for this kartshpiln [card] game, that was the conclave of Yiddish. (laughs) And it's stuff they knew they could pass by you, that you didn't understand. (laughs) So, I can think about those times -- too, my mother's uncle -- his name was Mendel, but he took the name Max, and he and his wife, Sadie, they were like the freylikhe [happy] people in the family. And so, when we had affairs, dancing. And we knew who we were, 'cause everybody would get up and try to do, 'cause -- what they call a 62:00"kozatshky [Russian dance]" in Russian. I'm not gonna show you. First of all, I replaced my hip. I couldn't do it. And so, we would always have music that we related to. And I don't know why, but I think in the Boston Jewish community that most of us had come from Russia and the Ukraine, say more so than other spots in Europe, whereas in New York you get -- you know, like the Jewish German, Jewish community and other -- people come from middle Europe and you have that -- but here, we have a strong influence of -- the Old Country for us is Russia and Ukraine.

SH:On the flipside of the coin, how does your connection to Hebrew and to the State of Israel fit into a broader sense of Jewish identity?

DC:It's a tough place to live, and I'm not talking about war, any of that. That you can deal with. It's a tough place to live, because when you talk about the 63:00kibbutz haguliyot, the incoming of the gathered, the exiles, (laughs) the trouble is they all came from different guliyot, exiles. Everybody is kind of -- some of the German Jews, the yekes, were rigid, and then crazy Russians, who were the most radical, and the people -- and Iraqi Jews have an even older tradition than we do in Europe. And Yemenite Jews -- yeah, it's how -- the fact that it's able to actually persevere and run to some degree -- in fact, to an excellent degree, given all -- forget about the conflict with the Arabs. I mean, just within the Jews themselves -- what I found difficult was that, if you notice that 1979 was kind of a watershed year -- Khomeini came upon the scene in Iran. And it seems that religions change, even though they would dispute being 64:00like Khomeini. And there came a growth of evangelical Christianity. Jewish people have been -- the black hat movement grew -- and Jewish people became more balkanized, let's say. And so, you have a block of people who are firm -- this is the way, and then you have people who have problems realizing they're Jewish. Or they think it's like, Oh, if I come to Israel as Jewish, I've got to be a black hat. Or, I've got to be some raging settler from the West Bank -- something like that. And we're kind of at a crazy -- we are, like they say, are a strange people, as someone said. But -- at the same time, it can be vibrant as well as draining. Yeah. I mean, I still feel a connection after all these years. 65:00It's a little bit difficult for me. The funny thing -- when I first came back to this country, I wanted to go back to Israel. I was very uncomfortable, so -- but I had a nephew's bar mitzvah to attend. But that changed.

SH:Has your relationship to the Hebrew language changed during your lifetime?

DC:Well, I haven't read -- I need to catch up on literature. I haven't read as much as I used to. I used to be a daily reader of both "Maariv" and "Haaretz" -- and here, too. But I've been a little lazy. I've been busy at work and other things that -- but I could -- yeah, at this period of my life, I should get back into -- but I still think in Hebrew a lot. I make comments in Hebrew a lot. So 66:00-- remember, I started learning this when I was a little kid. (laughs) So -- and five days a week. So, it got me up to a certain point, and then -- Israel and everything else filled it in.

SH:What has been most important for you to transmit to the generations after you about Jewish identity?

DC:That I think people should understand why we kind of appear -- I don't want to say bigoted -- and I have to deal with this in my family, as well as my wife does -- in how to deal with what they call in Hebrew "hitbolelut," the assimilation. Actually, the word "litbabel" is the -- like how you do it in a laboratory, you dilute a solution, so now you get -- and now you know why they use that term. But I have to explain to people -- and I was explaining to a 67:00fellow Jew, friend of mine, last week in Connecticut, said "It's not about -- I don't want it to be religious." But, we're trying to keep ourselves together as a people. Unfortunately, we have this rule, says it's matrilineal, and I haven't seen a plebiscite for the Jewish people in the whole -- and there'll never be one -- voting on this. Reform thinks, well, let's try -- we'll convert them and we'll recognize the patrilineal side, too. But what about other blocks of the other Jewish people? There's no dialogue that's going on. So, that's kind of depressing, in a way. And kind of in the back of mind, whenever they come out with the latest poll about how assimilated Jews are in America and all that other stuff comes out -- and so, I try to explain, as I tried to explain to my friend last week, we're just trying to keep ourselves together. So, if you want to be Reform or you don't want to believe in God -- your business. But, well --

SH:Have there been particular rituals or traditions that remain important in your own life and your family's life as Jews?

DC:Doing things at yontif. I'm not what you would describe as an Orthodox or Conservative. I kind of like to think I'm a free-floater between those two movements. And everybody over in the Cambridge shul, by the way, is kind of the same way, mostly. So, in some prayers, you know, just -- and would help -- sometimes, I go to a synagogue, I don't have the focus, rikuz [Hebrew: concentration]. And other times -- was one day last week I went to morning shacharit and I was -- kivun, my direction was very focused. And I think for me, 69:00that's as much a meditation as if I were to go off in a corner with my palms up and -- meditations in the general society. So, I can explain to someone that that's my meditation, okay? Sometimes, my meditation will just be home reading the weekly Torah portion. And I'm actually into the Bible. I learned to love it for the literature of the Bible. It really is fascinating to me, and everything built -- of course, everything built around -- follow the flow of the story. But the little things -- even -- that's what -- Reb Holzer in Cambridge taught me that. You can make a whole dvar [Hebrew: textual interpretation] out of one word. You can do it, you know? And you can make a dvar, you can -- I remember when I was at Kadimah in Brighton, and I said to Rabbi Horowitz, I said, "Replace one word in the" -- I said, "Ah, this is dvar." He looked at me like I was crazy. But I thought of myself -- I tried doing it, and it was sort of 70:00successful. But that's the way Reb Holzer used to do it, mostly in Yiddish.

SH:To what extent do you think language plays a role in transmission between generations?

DC:Okay, let's clarify what you mean by language. Are you just talking about English versus French versus Hebrew, or language in terms of how I taught my children, or these --

SH:Let's start with the Hebrew language, say, what role that plays in transmission.

DC:Well, it didn't help me with my daughter, I -- (laughs) although she learned some Hebrew. I kept trying to point out the logic of the language. I said, "Look, here's the root, the shoresh. Look how it's built" and duh-duh-duh. And then you've got the irregular things, which you've got to be careful of. And I made a mistake of saying -- it was natural to me -- and that's the way my mother 71:00was around language that -- "What? You can't speak Russian?" (laughs) So, I made that mistake with my daughter, although she's doing okay. But it's always -- when I grasp a language like Hebrew, and -- in more than one way -- not just I can get by on the street -- and that's quite different. Just reading a newspaper -- and that you -- that much more immersed in a society, what's going on. But -- look, I -- maybe I want -- I should have wanted my daughter to be more adept at languages than I am. But we don't pass genes equally, and we don't get to choose our genes.

SH:Do you see a role for Yiddish in transmission between generations of Jews?

DC:As a spoken language?

SH:Any role at all.

DC:Not spoken. (laughs) -- and I realize there's recordings and people are doing 72:00radio shows. I know that, I know that. And, no, no, it's just -- I was the last generation to be exposed to that. We had two radio hours here in Boston. Now, (laughs) the more Yiddish one was broadcast on Friday night, (laughs) Joseph Tall. (UNCLEAR) And then, there was Ben Galing, who operated out of Brandeis, I think, on Sunday mornings, and it was more like he would sprinkle Yiddish in with his broadcast. My aunt Ida liked him a lot. He was a very heymishe [familiar] person -- you could feel -- immediately identify heymishe people. So, do I think -- you're never going to return to that day. But the literature, thank God, is here. And so, literature is here for every people to -- 73:00intellectual and non-intellectual alike -- to study and to discover. So, I very much support that. But as a language between generations, spoken or written? No. It's not -- we have to hold ourselves together as Jews -- it's hard enough, let alone we do it in Yiddish language.

SH:What advice do you have for future generations of Jews?

DC:Oh, we had an old member over at Tremont Street, years ago. His name was Sam Glott, and he had one of those Jewish professions that used to be -- he ran a gift shop in the Copley Hotel in town. And he would -- "Oh, pipe up, everyone! Don't be ashamed of your nationality." I was, like, what's he talking about? (laughs) But I think that I would modify that and say you're not differentiating 74:00yourself from everybody else on Earth by being proud of you being a Jew. Whether God had a place for us, we'll find out later. But -- (laughs) I don't want to even get into that. But we need to be here. We need to be on this Earth as a global community of ourselves, whether we are Yiddish shprekhers [speakers] or only speak Hebrew or Ladino. Point is that we all have to understand each other and solidify with each other. So, I don't want to be buried in a Jewish cemetery 75:00and there won't be any more Jews for me afterwards to be buried -- I mean, to carry on after I go. That's what I would have to say.

SH:Well, we're nearing the end of our time, and so I'd like to ask if there are any topics that you'd like to touch on that we haven't gotten to already?

DC:As I said, I belong to JewishGen -- and we have a -- what do they call special interest groups around the Ukraine, SIG. And I did speak to one woman, and I said, "For me, I was wondering -- are we looking back, when we should be looking forward?" Because I kind of -- why are we looking back? And why are we so -- why do we -- do people think that life in the Old Country was "Fiddler on 76:00the Roof?" It's very hard. There's a reason that shver tsu zayn a yidn -- it's tough to be a Jew. He meant that. And that came from that area. So, it's the back of my mind, but I know all the work we do is important, and a lot of people have no idea. I happen to come -- my mom came straight out of the Old Country. So, a lot of people, the nearest they came was their grandparents, and for a lot of people now it's their great-grandparents. So, my situation is a bit different. It lived with me, literally, every day. So, you have to understand that about me and don't react to me if I'm not so -- Yiddish, kind of -- nah. But I can't -- that's where -- we need to speak in one language with each other as Jews. And I can't see thinking -- a language that had a European base and try 77:00to impose it upon other parts of the Jewish people. Not to say we shouldn't grow it and preserve it and grow it -- that's not what I'm saying. I tend to be a Zionist outside of Israel as well as inside, so that's why I --

SH:Well, to close things, I do want to ask if you have a favorite Yiddish word or phrase.

DC:(laughs) I have to laugh, because when I was growing up -- I was thinking to myself, What were the first Yiddish words that I actually heard? "Sheygets [Non-Jewish man]" and "shikse [non-Jewish woman]" -- I had a debate with a (UNCLEAR) friend of ours whose father was a Yiddishist. My parents would say the word "af tselokhes [out of spite]." And I think -- a lot of -- we took were Russian words. And it was kind of like -- you'd say in Hebrew, "ma pitom [Hebrew: what are you talking about]." All of a sudden, "af tselokhes." Or -- I 78:00need it like a lokh in kof [hole in the head]. Every time, I don't want to assume this problem, 'cause it's like a hit in the head -- it's a lokh in kof. Or my grandmother -- if I get dirty playing outside, she said I looked like [Russian - 01:18:27], which is the Russian word for coal. So, these are the kind of things that I was thinking of trying to take an inventory, personal inventory of what were the first things I learned? And then, my mother and grandmother would be having their nightly tea on the kitchen table and discussing the family and what's going on. And that's where we learned some of the picante uses of the language. (laughs)

SH:And what about a favorite Hebrew word or phrase?

DC:(laughs) Maybe it's Russian, "[Russian - 01:18:58 to 01:18:59]" -- no, it was -- we had to adapt -- especially in the army, it's swear words. We had to take it out of the Arabic -- and I won't repeat those. But -- you know how you say, 79:00"Ma pitom?" so many times during the day, and other expressions that are said in Yiddish that were translated to Hebrew. We took a lot of Russian and turned it into Hebrew. So, well, I'm sorry, but I just can't -- you'd think I would have a treasure trove here, but I'm not -- it's not like -- like I said, I grew up in Yiddish, and when we went to discuss the world in the family, et cetera, it was in that language.

SH:Lo nora, lo nora [Hebrew: No problem, no problem]. Well, then, I want to thank you personally for sharing your story with me, and I want to thank you on behalf of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Thank you very much for your time today.

DC:Thank you for having me. Thank you.

[END OF INTERVIEW]