ZE'EV TSANIN ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney, and today is June 18th, 2014. I'm here in Tel Aviv. We're going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Do I have your permission to record?

ZE'EV TSANIN: Sure.

CW:So can you start by first just introducing yourself? Can you say your name, and when and where you were born?

ZT:My name is Ze'ev Tsanin. I was born in Tel Aviv in 8/8/48 to my mother, Dora Dvora Alter and my father, Mordkhe Yeshaye Tsanin.

CW:So today, we're mostly going to be talking about your father --

ZT:Yes.

CW:-- and your family. So where and when was your father born?

ZT:My father was born in 1906 in a little village town called Sokołów in Poland.

CW:And do you have an image of what life was like in Sokołów?

ZT:I have stories. It was -- very simple village, and the family was quite poor. My grandfather, who I never met -- my father's father, was an accountant -- or a bookkeeper, I think they used to call it that day. And my grandmother, who I did know, because she was here in Israel -- she came to Israel. Tova Malka was her name. And my grandfather -- my father's father name was David Cukierman. Tsanin was Cukierman, originally. And my father was still in Poland when he was young -- a young reporter -- changed it to Tsanin. And he was known as Tsanin since then.

CW:And the Cukierman family -- do you know any history beyond your father?

ZT:Not much. We -- I don't have many details. Not much. My father had some sisters and a brother. And I still have some cousins, of course. And most of them are in Israel, some are in England, in Canada, in Australia. But they're all part of this family. So cousins, I have; aunts, I don't have anymore.

CW:And the place, Sokołów -- what kind of place was it? Do you have a sense?

ZT:It was a rural place -- living next to Polish farmers. My father was a -- I know from his stories, he was delivering newspapers when he was a kid. By walking, delivering newspapers and other papers. And it was -- very, very simple, rural, agricultural area.

CW:Did he ever talk about the relations with the Polish --

ZT:Yeah. He said that he always loved the Polish people. He never felt any hatred for them, for what happened in the Second World War. He was always fond of Polish people. Christian Polish people.

CW:So, any other sort of famous family stories from him from back then?

ZT:Yeah, there are some stories. I don't think we have all the time to tell all the stories. But the main story that I remember is that during the beginning of the Second World War, my father was in the Bund. And he was traveling around. And he somehow found out -- and he got the rumors of what is going to happen to Polish Jewry. So he came back to Warsaw. And he went to the Sochnut, which was 4:00then very opposing the Bund. Sochnut was, of course, Zionistic and Bund was not. And he came to the Sochnut, and he told them, you know, "Start taking Jews out of here. Do what needs to be done." And then he came to the Bund and he told them that he was in the Sochnut. So there was a big fight. How can you betray us and go to the Sochnut? Et cetera. So this is one story. Another story is that when he came back to Warsaw, he took my mother -- he wasn't married to my mother then -- and my mother was -- I had an older brother who was half-brother from my mother's side. And my mother was married before that. But her husband, together with many other Jewish writers, had to escape Warsaw. Because of the German coming in, they were afraid, so they took all the writers. Most of the families stayed behind, but my father took my mother and my older brother, who is 5:00deceased now -- he was maybe nine then, nine or ten. And he put them on a wagon or something. And they escaped Warsaw, and they came to Israel in one way. And my father had to travel -- from Poland -- he also -- he left the Polish army, left after one or two days -- he was a soldier in the Polish army. And he left, and he went through Russia and India and Japan and came to Israel that way. And my parents got married here in Israel. So that's another story.

CW:Do you know about how he started writing -- working as a journalist?

ZT:No. I know that he just started when he was very young, maybe sixteen or seventeen. He left his village. All his family moved to Warsaw for economical reasons. And his father continued to New Zealand with his older brother. After 6:00that, they moved to Australia -- my grandfather and my uncle. And my father stayed in Poland with his sisters and mother and everything. Until the war. And I know that he was involved, also in Warsaw, in the writers' community and the journalists' community. He was -- he started -- he changed his name to Tsanin already in Poland, when he was writing then.

CW:Did he ever tell you how he -- or why he shortened his name?

ZT:No. I think it was like a writer's name or writing name -- he didn't want to be -- to use Cukierman. He wanted to be incognito, so he can be more free to write things. That's why. But then it became his name, so (laughs) it didn't matter anymore. It's like the beginning and the end of Cukierman -- "Tsa-nin." I 7:00don't know how he got to that, but it's quite unique, so I don't mind.

CW:Yeah. So when would he -- when you say you heard lots of stories, when would he tell you stories?

ZT:Over the years, here and there. It was never, like, in an organized fashion, ever. And I'm sure he didn't tell me even half of the things that happened to him. And my parents -- especially my mother -- didn't want to talk about this period so much. She was really -- her family was all vanished, all of them. Nothing -- nothing left. So this whole period was not very popular in our house. Which is very custom, very regular. And this is, I think, one of the reason I don't know Yiddish so much. Which is a shame. Also, because of the -- my parents 8:00thought that they -- for me to assimilate in Israel, better not speak Yiddish -- speak Hebrew. So, it's strange. But he was a fighter and a crusader for Yiddish, but not in my case. In my case, I think my parents wanted to keep me away from the problematic issues of Yiddish in those days in Israel. So, I don't know much Yiddish. I never really spoke it. I do speak a little bit and I understand some, but not too well.

CW:Yeah, I definitely want to come back to that. But before, can I ask -- what do you know about his education? Anything?

ZT:He is a self-taught person. I think -- I know he went to university in Warsaw for a while as a free student -- like, non-registered. But yeah, that's -- his whole education is self-taught.

CW:And any religious education --

ZT:None.

CW:-- or religious background?

ZT:None. No. He was totally secular. When he left his -- my grandparents were -- 9:00my grandmother was more religious, until she died. In Israel, she would go to synagogue and everything. But no, I grew up totally secular. And so was my father. He was not religious at all. Non-believer.

CW:And can you tell me a little more about this journey across the whole continent to Japan during the war? Do you know?

ZT:Not so much. I know that he -- at some time, I think, in Japan, he met some other Jewish writers and Jewish people. And in Japan, from Japanese people, I know that he received his certificate or some license to go to travel to Israel. And they let him stay there. They even gave him some money -- like, himself. So for him, the Japanese were very kind -- at that time. And they really helped him 10:00a lot to come here. For some humanistic reason? I don't know why. Other than that, I'm not sure. I know he was in India. And I know he was in Russia. And I don't know the details. Sorry. I think he wrote about it in one of his books about his travels, but I don't know too much about that.

CW:Can you describe what he looked like?

ZT:Describe what he looked like? He was about my height, maybe a little bit shorter. I thought he was very handsome, but I don't know. I think he was very popular. He was very -- I don't know. His character was drawing people to him. He was very kind. He was very gentle -- in most cases. Until he lost his temper in some cases, so -- not his temper, but he lost his patience sometimes, 11:00especially from stupidity and from -- stupidity of other people. But in general, he was very kind, he was very understanding, he was a good listener.

CW:Did he have any special features or any, you know, distinctive -- in his face or the way he presented himself?

ZT:Well, I don't know. Yeah, he was very dignified. He was very always -- like, kept himself correct. Not on purpose, but this was his personality. He was very personable, he was very kind. He had a very nice voice, I think. It was very nice to listen to him talking, lecturing.

CW:So did he dress up usually?

ZT:Yeah. He usually dressed up. Usually, when he went to official places, he always dressed up -- tie and everything. Yeah. Always. Always.

CW:And have you seen pictures of him from when he was younger?

ZT:Yeah.

CW:And what did he look like then?

ZT:Well -- (laughs) young. (laughter) Yeah, I have a picture of him in the Polish army uniform. And some -- a few more pictures of him when he was younger. Not many pictures were left, so -- just a few. Yeah. Yeah, he looked nice.

CW:(laughs) If someone -- if you saw him walking on the street now, what would be people's reaction, do you think?

ZT:If they saw him walking on the street now? (laughs)

CW:I mean, would he look out of place, or would he look in --

ZT:No, he wouldn't look out of place. No. He just died a few years ago, so -- no, no. He was always very involved in everything that happened in Israel. He was a reporter, so -- journalist -- so that was his life. So no, no. He would 13:00feel today -- people would feel very comfortable with him today. He wasn't a weirdo or anything like that. No, no. No.

CW:Can you tell me a little bit about the house that you grew up in? What was the atmosphere of your house?

ZT:My parents were much older than me. By the way, it's the same with me and my son -- I also have a son who is younger than me by a lot. So, there was always, like, an atmosphere -- I was a little kid amongst older people who spoke Yiddish and some Polish. And so, I was always -- I felt a little bit -- outsider, together with the fact that I wasn't speaking Yiddish and nobody spoke Yiddish to me. I kept Hebrew with me. And amongst themselves, people talk -- my parents 14:00and their friends, they talk Yiddish or Polish. But rarely Hebrew. Rarely Hebrew. Only with people who were not originally Yiddish-speaking. So the atmosphere was always an atmosphere of culture in the house. My parents went a lot to theater and concerts and -- it was like a cultural atmosphere. Literature and culture. Theater. I met so many actors and writers and things. I was a little kid, so I -- but I -- I used to meet a lot of them.

CW:Who do you remember?

ZT:I remember Sutzkever and I remember Bashevis Singer and I remember Luden, of course, who used to work with my father -- and all the other writers who used to work with my father. Brat and so many others. And Dzigan and Shumacher are the actors. And other actors. Yeah. Many.

CW:What was their reaction to you, this kid in the middle of this sort of --

ZT:Kid in the middle of this -- (laughs) that was the reaction. You know, I was a little kid, so I didn't have anything to contribute to them, I think. So -- I wasn't in the picture.

CW:When you were a kid, what was your idea about this whole world -- this Yiddish cultural world that your parents were a part of?

ZT:I don't know. I didn't read Yiddish, I didn't speak Yiddish, so it was a little alien. I wasn't in. I felt like an outsider. I was never too close to that. I went to some comedy theaters or other theaters in Yiddish, et cetera, but it was also kind of -- not deeply involved. That was the atmosphere -- for me.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW:You said already it wasn't a religious home.

ZT:No.

CW:Did you celebrate any of the holidays?

ZT:Yeah. We would celebrate holidays. And we still do today. But not on a religious side of it. Yeah, we did celebrate all of the holidays.

CW:Did you have a favorite one as a kid?

ZT:Favorite one? Eh, Purim was nice. Hanukkah was nice. Yom Kippur, eh, not so much.

CW:(laughs) Do you remember --

ZT:And Pesach was nice, of course, yeah.

CW:Can you describe, for example, how you would celebrate Purim?

ZT:Purim -- we always used to dress up in all kinds of costumes. We used to go out on the streets with the kids, travel, you know, the city in a bunch of people and -- we didn't go to synagogue or anything like that in Purim. Basically, costumes. You know, like Halloween, more or less.

CW:Right. Could you please describe the actual physical space of the home that 17:00you grew up in?

ZT:Yeah. Well, in most years -- since the age of when I was four, we moved to the house which I still live in. And we changed the house -- we rebuilt -- but then, my father was working a lot. He had a study -- he had a little room that he worked in. And my whole life, I heard the typewriter clicking. Day and night, all the time -- all the time you heard the typewriter. And we weren't supposed to -- I wasn't supposed to disturb him when he was working, of course. But, you know. My mother was a housemaker or a housewife. And, there was a lot of cooperation between them -- my mother and my father. And when I was growing up, I went to school, I went to this. But --

CW:And so other than the study, there were -- like, what was the --

ZT:Millions of books everywhere. He had lots of shelves and books and books and books and books and newspapers and things. In addition to those, he had -- in the editori-- I mean, in the office where he published his newspaper. So I remember the old place was in a very, very -- now it's like almost Florentin place in Israel, which is Levinsky Street, corner of Ha'aliyah -- very run-down, very -- today, it's -- also, then, it was like a market -- still is -- on the second floor of a really run-down building. One floor, one and a half floors, with a big sign on the balcony, "Letste nayes." And there were just a few rooms there. And they were working there. And my father, and Luden was already there, 19:00and other people. And they were printing the newspaper in a print house that belonged to someone who never knew Yiddish. He was Egyptian Jew by -- in origin. And there was even -- I don't know how you call it -- the profession where you set the letters --

CW:Typesetter.

ZT:-- to print -- typesetter. So the typesetter was also Egyptian. And he learned Yiddish. And he was doing (laughs) also the corrections and things in Yiddish while he was working. So that was fun. Very old -- very old print place. Very old machines. And then, years later, they moved to -- my father moved -- he made a partnership with Yid press, which is -- like, a partnership with another 20:00publishing house of -- they also had some other newspapers -- foreign newspapers in Israel -- Romanian, Hungarian, Arabic. So he was part of that group. That was another place closer to the central -- the old central bus station in Tel Aviv, which was also not very -- upper-scale place. And so --

CW:Would you visit the office?

ZT:Oh, yeah. Plenty. I remember a few times -- a few summer holidays where I worked in the print house, to help a man fix the machines with some engineer that was there, so I was like his apprentice or something -- a few times. Yeah, I was there a lot. I used to go to my father -- visit him a lot of the time. Yeah.

CW:Before we go on more about your father, can you tell me a little more about your mother -- what her background and what she was like?

ZT:Her background? She grew up in a wealthy family, also in a village. Her parents had -- I think they had a brewery, they had some orchards, they had some -- like, they were well-off. Also, in a little village called Brzozówka -- I remember the Polish name, Brzozówka. I've never been there. I think both of my parents went there after the war to try to salvage maybe a few things, and it was very unpleasant with the Polish people. And then many years later, my parents went back to Warsaw. I still have a cousin in Warsaw, by the way -- still living there, never left. My father's oldest sister -- I think she's still alive -- we don't have -- for some reason -- strange reason -- we don't have any connection with her. Her son doesn't let us through -- maybe she's not well, 22:00maybe -- I'm not sure. So my parents went back there to Poland after the war and then, a few years later, and they said, Everything looks, you know, different -- nothing stayed. Everything was destroyed and rebuilt and so there's not much to see from what was there. Her entire family was -- her father died before the war. Her mother died and all her cousins and all her sisters and brothers -- they all -- they were all -- they vanished. She was in Warsaw already with her son, my older brother. And they all -- they just -- we don't know what happened to either of -- any of them. They just vanished.

CW:And do you know anything about her journey to Israel?

ZT:Yeah, just very little. With my brother, she went -- and my father managed to 23:00get her out of Warsaw through -- I think through Białystok. And somehow, I'm not sure how -- and my brother is already dead and my mother is dead, so I'm not sure that I can get the information, but somehow, they got through Italy. They took a ship, and they came to Israel. And my father went the other way, through Asia. He came to Israel later.

CW:So how did your parents meet? Do you know?

ZT:I think they met in Warsaw, in some gathering of writers or something like that -- she was there. And from what I understand, they met there and fell in love there. And they had an affair -- she was married then. And when her husband 24:00left Warsaw to -- and then came to Israel by himself, she went by herself with my brother. I think they got divorced here, and then she married my father.

CW:So, of course, your father is most well-known for his journalistic work. Can you just explain as if -- for someone who didn't know, sort of what his role was in the paper here, and --ZT:Yeah. He was very politically involved -- very much. Very, very much. Yiddish was persecuted there when I was younger, because the regime -- my father always blamed Ben-Gurion, who was the first prime minister -- he always blamed Ben-Gurion for initiating and pushing the war against Yiddish. Because they wanted to have the new Israel with new language and all 25:00kinds of historical, Zionistic, political ambitions and directions, and Yiddish was banned. So he didn't even -- this I remember -- that he used to -- he came home, and he said that he doesn't -- there was a -- they used to call it "tzena [Hebrew: austerity]" here. Tzena was a period where there wasn't -- the economy wasn't -- in the first years, the economy was very bad. So there were rations of food. And you had to get some kind of stamps, like food stamps, from the government. And you could buy only so much on the free market. Only so many eggs per person per week, only so many, I don't know, olives, et cetera. So at that time, there was also a shortage of paper to print -- print paper. So first of all, the Yiddish paper didn't get any paper. No quota. So he had to buy paper in 26:00the black market. So -- and they sued him. So he was very happy, because he wanted to bring this to court. And then they banned his newspaper from appearing -- daily. So what he did, he created another newspaper, together with "Letste nayes" -- "Yidishe tsaytung." So every other day, the name of the newspaper was alternating from one name to another to bypass this ban of a daily newspaper. And this took a few years -- until this punishment was over. So he was very, very politically involved. And he was a big warrior of Yiddish -- to preserve Yiddish culture and Yiddish literature, et cetera.

CW:Do you --

ZT:He was very active with that. He built -- his initiative was the Leyvik 27:00House, which was in Tel Aviv. It's his -- basically, it's his work.

CW:And when you were a kid, did he talk to you about this -- I mean, the sort of banning of Yiddish?

ZT:Yeah. Yeah. All I'm telling you now is from things I heard from him. I was not personally involved in that. But everything I'm telling you is what he told me, and what I saw sometimes in the house. I saw -- I remember one time -- I'm not sure it -- I think it was police, like, plainclothes police or some other government officials who came and -- serve him a court order to come because he bought paper in the black market, et cetera. I think I remember that as a very young kid. So, yeah. And he didn't like Ben-Gurion at all, I think because of that -- because of the fight against everything that was not totally tsabar, 28:00totally Israeli, totally Hebrew. So, that was difficult. That was difficult for him.

CW:Was there a political force behind -- or ideology behind the newspapers?

ZT:Yeah, yeah. He was totally socialistic. Like, he came from the Bund, so that was naturally his mood, his spirit, his direction. Yeah, yeah. Very socialistic. Very. And so was the newspaper, of course.

CW:Right. When you were growing up speaking Hebrew, what was it like to have 29:00this Yiddish world at home. You know, when you went out and talked to your friends, for example? Or at school?

ZT:I think a lot of my friends have the same issue at home. So, a lot of my friends had parents that came -- that were not born in Israel. I think maybe ninety-nine percent of them were not born in Israel. So, each one of them had some other -- not all of them. Some of them were -- their parents spoke Hebrew at home. But many of them spoke other languages, maybe Arabic and Yiddish and Romanian and Hungarian. Yeah. There were lots of languages everywhere, so it wasn't strange. I was normal. That was it.

CW:Were there certain times of day when your father would write or be working in 30:00his study?

ZT:Was there a time --

CW:Certain times of day -- or --

ZT:During the days, he was working in the newspaper, so it usually -- it was usually the late afternoon or in the evenings -- and Saturdays -- that he used to work. And in later years, when he didn't work in the newspaper anymore, it was all the time, day and night. All the time. I think until he was very old.

CW:Did he ever share his writings with you?

ZT:Not very much. There were some books that were translated to Hebrew -- not very good translation, I must say -- that I read. Like, historical book -- his "Artapanus" is like -- there's some -- some books, like "A Saga of the Wandering Jew throughout the Jewish History." So those two books that were translated to Hebrew, I read. And he also -- yes, sometimes he would tell me very little about 31:00it -- the other books. But not very much. And I couldn't read them. Which was -- still is a shame.

CW:So what did you think of the books that you could read?

ZT:The translation was very -- not good. That's one. Besides that, it was very, very interesting. It was historical -- the ones that I read was historical -- facts. So he wrote historical books -- novel based on historical issues, which was very, very interesting. Very nice. Very good.

CW:When you were a kid, was there ever a conflict between the sort of sabra [Jewish person born and bred in Palestine/Israel] and the Yiddish world in your life? Like, did you ever argue?

ZT:Argue? No. Argue about that -- about the cultural differences? No. Not that I 32:00remember that we argued. No. No, it was like two separate -- also, remember, I was very young then. So, you know, what did I know? For a kid, you know, all the details. So -- no. No conflict there. I think my parents probably had a lot of conflict with me, deciding not to teach me Yiddish so much. So I think they -- my mother once said that they didn't teach me Yiddish and they didn't speak Yiddish with me so kids would not laugh at me, maybe, at school. That I'll be like anybody else in school, and my friends, and this is why they kept the Yiddish away from me, which is funny. But no, I think this was the reason. So I will be okay. Yeah. They were very protective.

CW:Yeah, what was he like as a father? What was his --

ZT:Oh, he was great as a father. Very understanding. Very -- he was very nice. Very good.

CW:Can you give an example as -- of --

ZT:Yeah, I could go and talk to him any time about anything. He would never shush me or kick me or -- not kick me, but tell me not to bother him now. Never. No, he was a very good father. Very understanding. Very good. Yeah.

CW:So how does having this background affect your own identity? Having this --

ZT:I think a lot. I think I'm also more socialistic-inclined. I think, like him, I'm very critical about a lot of things that happen in Israel. Anti-regime. And 34:00he was always a fighter with the regime, and I find the same. I wish it wouldn't be like that, but I think the regime here and the -- it's not -- we're in a bad direction. A very bad path. Then, it was the very beginning, so you could fight for -- he did -- fight for -- you know, to get to on the right track or in the right direction. Nowadays, it's much more serious. But the problem is still the same. And I feel the same, like him. Like, you have to struggle with the authorities here. And I think more and more, people are feeling this here -- more than before. I think much more than before, people (UNCLEAR) feeling detached from the regime, I would call it. And he was like that. And I think I got this from him -- trying to criticize and trying to see if things can be different, better. Yeah.

CW:What is the role, if any, of newspapers, literature in your life?

ZT:I read a lot. I read a lot.

CW:Yeah?

ZT:And that's about it. (laughs)

CW:(laughs) Do you see him -- understand him differently now than you did when you were a kid?

ZT:No. No. I think no. It's the same.

CW:(laughs) And why would you encourage someone to read his work today? What do you think you could learn?

ZT:In Yiddish?

CW:Yeah.

ZT:Well -- that's (laughs) -- why? I think to -- from the books that I've read 36:00and from things that I know that he wrote, to learn more about the -- Jewish history. Basically, to learn more about Jewish history. His theme was always the Jewish history. In all his books. He was documenting and writing on topic of Jewish history.

CW:Do you think, from your perspective, he had a -- what audience did he have in mind when he was writing?

ZT:Yiddish-speaking people, of course. Of all ages. I think people who were more or less like him, that came from similar background and had similar ideas -- 37:00political ideas. I think this was his audience. Which was not always the case. I know he had some friends that were not on the same political things, but -- so he wrote -- for anybody who reads Yiddish, he wrote. I think. Anybody.

CW:Did he ever express to you his ideas about the future of Yiddish?

ZT:Yeah. He was very pessimistic. In his last years -- it didn't start like this, because at the beginning, he was very -- fighting for Yiddish. And he was lecturing in Yiddish in university and he was going to things. He was organizing -- the Leyvik House, et cetera, et cetera. But in his last years, he was very pessimistic. He didn't think Yiddish can survive as a really live, daily language.

CW:Can you explain, just briefly, what the Leyvik House is for someone who didn't know?

ZT:Yeah. The Leyvik House is this center of writers -- Yiddish writers -- poets, novel writers, journalists, et cetera -- of Yiddish in Israel. That was the center of their activity for many years. They had a very large book library there -- Yiddish book library there. They had lectures, they had meetings. There is -- have you been in this place? Where they have this little theater there that they used to put up things. Nowadays, it's -- doesn't live very much. It's not very active. It goes more to the direction of music, because of the people 39:00who run it now, who more or less changed all the direction of Bet Leyvik. All the books that were there are gone. And they made a kindergarten there. They rent the place to -- not a Yiddish kindergarten, but just a kindergarten -- a regular kindergarten. A lot of people who were active there died. So it's kind of fading away.

CW:In general -- generally speaking -- how have you seen Yiddish change in Israel during your lifetime?

ZT:When I was young, it was very popular, especially among the people who my parents were with and the neighborhood -- the people that I was around. Yiddish was much more alive. It was used daily -- like, alive. But nowadays, I think it's used in the religious sector -- Ashkenazi religious people -- in Bnei Brak, 40:00in Jerusalem, in other places, it's used. But -- and in the academy, it's more like an academic language now. They study it, they investigate it, et cetera -- document it. But I -- in my life, because I grew up already, I don't go around people, speaking-Yiddish people now so much. So personally, I feel that it's fading away.

CW:The general sort of attitude towards Yiddish nowadays here -- what is your perspective? I mean, what is your opinion of what people think about it, even if they're not using it?

ZT:I don't know. I think maybe like Ladino, which is Spanish -- Jewish Spanish. 41:00People who don't use it, who don't live next to it, they just disregard it. They don't -- you know, for them, if it's dead or alive, it doesn't really matter. They don't have any connection with that. And I don't know, really, how many people -- I'm sure some people care about it a lot. But I don't know how many, and I don't know how many are still alive -- who really want to take Yiddish and continue it. There's very few people, I think, in Israel that I know of. Not many. Not many people. And they're dying out.

CW:So from this world that you grew up in, for you personally, what have you taken with you into your own life? Where do you see the influences from your parents?

ZT:Oh, everything. I don't know where to -- I put the divider between the language and the culture and the background. And so it's all together. It's one 42:00big package. So, I think I got everything from them. So I don't know. I can't tell you exactly. But -- everything, basically.

CW:(laughs) Yeah. I mean, are there specific values -- things that you think they were trying to teach you?

ZT:Yeah. Yeah, I think -- politically, socialism. Capitalism -- the thing that my father hated the most is banks. Bank, for him, was the sin of all sins. Money and greed and things, for him, was horrible. And I think I got it from him also. And materialistic stuff, he didn't care about, you know? He was very well-dressed always. But he could live on nothing and he would -- he didn't 43:00care, really. It wasn't important for him. People were very important for him -- helping people. I remember for many years -- just for an example -- after the Holocaust, I remember as a kid, in his old newspaper office, he had a program to get together people who lost their family members during the Second World War. So he would publish in his newspaper names and addresses and things. And I was there a few times -- he took me with him to his office. I remember one time, two brothers -- older people already -- who met. And it was very, very moving. So he did that a lot. A lot of people he -- somehow investigated and got them together. It was a big project for him. So that was one thing. So, I think 44:00humanistics is basically his thing. Yeah.

CW:Is there anything else that you would want people to know about him that they might not know?

ZT:Yeah, how honest and how fair and how kind he was. Really. Very much. I think people who knew him know that, but people who don't know him, they don't know him. So, yeah. He was a good person. Good person. No mean streak.

CW:Yeah.

ZT:He was very good with his hands also. He did a lot of building, not only writing. He built everything, from furniture to sofas to brick-laying -- from -- everything. Really, he was a man of all trades. And he also -- self-taught. He 45:00never went to, you know, serious college or university or that, and everything he knows, he knew himself. When he was -- I remember when -- I was told when he -- in the first years of the newspaper, he didn't have much money, so he was -- write the whole newspaper -- the medicine section and the theater. And my mother used to write and go to theaters and write about the theater. And literature and economy and everything. And he wrote under different (laughs) names -- like, different people, but he wrote it all. He had to study some in order to write about it. So, yeah. He was smart.

CW:Do you still have his typewriter? Or any of his --

ZT:Yeah. I have a few -- a Yiddish typewriter -- two of them. And then another English one. Yeah. I still have it. Yeah.

CW:Any other of his mementos -- things from him?

ZT:Yeah, a lot of papers and a lot of things. Yeah. Some pictures and -- yeah. All his books, of course.

CW:I guess I'd just like to -- and if there's -- I mean, I'm sure -- there -- unless there are any other stories that you want to give. Any other stories from him --

ZT:Stories. Yeah, maybe -- I'll give a story. When he came to Israel, running from the Second World War, and he came here and he was immediately arrested by the British authorities and put in a camp or something in Atlit. And because he was a member of the Bund -- that's what they told him. Which was anti-this and anti-that and was pro-Poland, et cetera. And when they released him finally, 47:00they took him to Cyprus -- I think he went to Cyprus, and then he came here. I'm not sure how long, but not too long. And then, after the foundation of the State of Israel in '48, he told me that someone approached him, I can't remember the name, but someone he knew from Tel Aviv approached him, and he said, "If you buy me a nice lunch, I'll tell you something very interesting." And they went to eat. And this guy told him that the Sochnut was -- he was the spy for the Sochnut who was after my father for six months. And he had a booklet with everything written -- where my father went out and where he went, who he talked to for six months -- because of his relation with the Bund and what he did in Europe and -- for six months he was followed, which is, you know. And this guy 48:00told him, and they just dismissed the case and that was it. But that's strange. Yeah. Another story I remember -- there was a very famous poet in Israel, Uri Zvi Greenberg, who was extreme right -- not at all socialist at all. And my father was very -- he didn't care what -- he wrote with no limitations. When he wanted to say something, he just wrote it up. He wasn't afraid of anything. And I remember Uri Zvi Greenberg was redhead -- he was like a real ginger, spirited like that. He came to my father once in our house -- I remember, and he told my father, "Be careful. They are looking after you. You have to be careful. You're writing too bad." You know, about Ben-Gurion and all. "Be careful. Be careful. They can do you harm." (laughs) And my father was just laughing. That's something that I also remember. Yeah. (UNCLEAR) Right off, I think that's -- 49:00maybe there are more stories, but I can't -- come to me now.

CW:What do you tell your -- you have one child?

ZT:Yeah.

CW:Two? What do you tell your child about?

ZT:Yeah, I tell him those things. I tell him those things. When my son was much younger, then my father would still talk to him also. He just died, I don't know, three years ago. So, yeah. The same thing. And I think my son also inherited some of the same spirit and feelings and direction.

CW:From your perspective, what do you think about Yiddish -- the future of Yiddish? Personally, what do you think?

ZT:Personally, I hope it will survive, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure it'll 50:00happen. I'm not sure it'll happen. I don't see how, you know? Not so many people are really using it or -- it's not a live -- there is no physical justification for it to survive, except for, you know, if you want to maintain this piece of culture. But if you don't use it -- if it's not a live, everyday language, then -- I don't see it surviving forever, okay? Except for in libraries and in -- like old Sanskrit or old -- I don't know, Assyrian or whatever. Something like that, I think. I'm afraid.

CW:Yeah. Well, I want to thank you very much. A hartsikn dank [Thank you very much] --

ZT:Thank you.

CW:-- for taking the time to talk about your father. It's important.

[END OF INTERVIEW]