ALANA FICHMAN ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY:This is Christa Whitney, and today is July 24th, 2014, and I am here at the Yiddish Book Center with Alana Fichman. Does that sound right?

ALANA FICHMAN: Yes, that's right.

CW:And 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?

AF:Yes, you do.

CW:Thanks. So, first of all, really basic -- can you tell me when and where you were born?

AF:Yes. I was born in Santa Rosa, California, in 1991.

CW:And are there any stories -- or do you know anything -- about how you got your name?

AF:Yes. My name was created by my parents. They thought that they were creating something original out of my mother's father's name, which was Albert, and my dad's -- I think his grandfather, which was also Al or Albert. And they wanted to come up with a feminized version, so they came up with Alana -- which is not an original name. (laughs) I know a lot of Alanas. But those are the origins.

CW:And do you know anything about your grandparents, or even farther back from that in your family background?

AF:On my mom's side, I know my, both of -- well I know my biological grandmother and my biological -- well, and my step-grandfather. Those are the grandparents I grew up with. But my mother's father died when she was very young, so I never 2:00met him. I've met a very distant relative in Germany that was related to him, and that's it, as far as I remember. And on my dad's side, I know my biological grandmother, and same situation where I never met my biological grandfather. I've met some members of my grandmother's family -- and my great-grandmother, I met when I was very young, and I traveled to her -- where she's from in Lithuania last summer.

CW:(speaking at same time) Where is that?

AF:It's in Kaunas. It's called Shirvint. It's a small town -- I don't know, forty-five minutes away from Vilna. But otherwise, I would say I have a relatively small family -- and especially with both of my biological grandfathers being deceased at fairly young ages.

CW:Do you know when and how they came to America?

AF:Yes. Rose Shapiro was her name, and she became Rose Sharon, which was my grandmother's maiden name. And she came to the United States in 1904. And I don't know the exact circumstance by which she came, but I imagine it was similar to a lot of -- there was a wave of immigrants at that time. So political, economic reasons. And I believe she was four years old. She was very young when she came over, so my grandmother has limited knowledge of her mother's immigration. And I haven't heard so many stories, even, about my great-grandmother, other than her personality. (laughs) But nothing too detailed into why -- to the trip.

CW:And how did it end up that you were born in California? How'd your family get 4:00out there?

AF:That's a good question. My grandmother, (laughs) I recently learned, went to Los Angeles when she was nineteen from Minneapolis, Minnesota -- which is where her mother and her father settled. Her father was also an immigrant -- from Lithuania as well, I believe. And so that side of the family settled in Minneapolis. And they had a huge -- there was a huge clan there. And then my grandmother moved to L.A. when she was nineteen to become a dancer. And she was rebellious. There's lots of family drama around this. She met my dad's father when she was that age. Oh, she might have come when she was eighteen, 'cause she was married when she was nineteen and pregnant -- pregnant first, then married. Had my dad. Divorced my dad's father at -- I don't know, I think my dad was somewhere -- I think he was thirteen or something? Between the ages of eight and 5:00thirteen. And then raised my dad the rest of the way, on her own -- with no involvement from my dad's father. So, very interesting there. And my mom grew up in California. Her mother's stepfather settled in Pleasanton -- Livermore Lab. They're involved in -- they're all scientists, worked as chemists. They worked in the East Bay area. So my parents met in medical residency in Santa Rosa at the hospital I was born at. And yeah, since then, I was in California.

CW:So you mentioned Lithuanian Jewish on one side, and then the other side is German Jewish? Or --

AF:Yeah. It's a little bit tangled, but my mother's biological father was Jewish -- as well as her stepfather -- and German Jewish. I know very little about the 6:00family. And actually, when I met this relative in Munich who was very distant but had been responsible for creating a family tree, I asked him about it, and he was very surprised that our family -- my family -- identified as Jewish. He certainly wasn't, and had an interesting war story from being in Dresden during the war -- and didn't really volunteer too much information, and I didn't press too much. But he mentioned that there was a few other family members that had been Jewish, but it was sort of like this irregular thing -- Oh, she might have been Jewish. So -- but yes, my mother's biological father was Jewish. My mother's mother is not -- doesn't have Jewish roots. And my father's mother -- yes, Jewish, Lithuanian. Father's father -- parents, immigrants from Poland and, I think, Romania. Yeah.

CW:So can you describe the home that you grew up in?

AF:Yeah. It's a fairly big house. It's on about an acre and a half of land. There's a garden and an orchard, and most of the people on our street had a variety of livestock. And there is a hot tub in the backyard and an upstairs. And it is my parents and me and a younger brother. And the house is often filled with neighbors or people visiting. And it's a pretty nice house, I would say -- very nice. And there's a lot of very old cars in the driveway. (laughs) And it's on a dirt road in a semi-rural area.

CW:And can you tell me a little more about the sort of atmosphere, culture of 8:00your home growing up? What are some distinctive things about your family culture?

AF:Um -- (laughs) -- I think there's a few things. When I was younger, the fact that we were Jewish was slightly distinctive. So when friends came over on Friday night, we would light candles and say a blessing over bread -- like very, very simple. And that was, I think, distinctive in the sense that it was different from what other people did in their houses. And same thing with Hanukkah. So that was slightly different. My parents -- I mean, they're -- I think they're slightly unique. They're both doctors and rather stern, but also have sort of twisted senses of humor, so -- that's slightly distinct -- my mom, less so. (laughs) And I think another distinctive feature is, there's a lot of 9:00music -- there's a lot of musical instruments. My mother and my brother and I are all musicians, and my brother became part of a bluegrass band when he was eleven, so (laughs) there's a lot of music in the house. And my mother recently -- sort of has people come over for playing music. So [UNCLEAR] --

CW:What kind of music?

AF:A lot of old-time bluegrass -- or, excuse me, old-time music, like Appalachian roots. And then bluegrass music -- so, Bill Monroe -- in that style. And then a lot of folk -- I would call, like, folk from the sixties, seventies era. Yeah. Some original playing around. Nothing very, very serious. I wouldn't say we're serious musicians. My brother might take offense at that. (laughs) He's a very good guitarist. But definitely more for sort of playful and vibrancy rather than more of a regimented practice. [BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW:So in general, in terms of religion growing up, how would you describe your family's religious observance?

AF:I would describe it as regular and irregular. It was, um -- (laughs) -- I guess we did -- we participated in religious events regularly in terms of the holidays. We went to services occasionally -- like, for Shabbat. And High Holy Days, always -- got pulled out of school. And Passover, there was a tradition with a group of neighbors. Yeah. So it was regular in that sense, and it felt 11:00like -- especially when I was little -- that there was this presence of religion, because practically no one I knew practiced a religion in the sense of going to a place to practice a religion, and we would go to places to practice a religion. So it felt, in that sense, like, Oh, we are religious in this sense. And on reflection, it was definitely a presence. But I don't know, it could be described -- we were part of, like, Reform Jewish services, so we were not keeping shomer Shabbos [Jew who observes the Sabbath] or any of these terms that I learned when I was older. But it felt like we were (laughs) very religious. Yeah.

CW:Were there any aspects of Jewish culture that you were exposed to growing up, other than the religious part?

AF:Let's see. I guess in Hebrew school, they had a Yiddish cultural class, so 12:00that was where Yiddish entered the equation. And I got to know something about Jewish culture that wasn't just religious. Israel always seemed like something that's Jewish but not religious, and that was definitely emphasized in day camps that I went to -- or summer camps. So I knew a lot about Israeli culture, more or less -- like, I met Israeli people and I learned Hebrew from an Israeli woman -- at the community group. So I knew Hebrew more or less -- shakily. So I guess those were sort of Jewish things that weren't religious. My grandmother on my dad's side was very interesting, and she was definitely the sort of token Jewish 13:00person in my life. She kept a kosher house -- she keeps a kosher house. And so I basically regarded anything that came out of her mouth as Jewish culture, because she was Jewish. Like -- um -- sort of traditional -- I don't know -- the Marx Brothers, things like that was what I associated with Jewish culture.

CW:Can you tell me more about this -- about your grandmother?

AF:Yeah.

CW:Can you describe her?

AF:She is -- she worked for many years in a gift store in Brentwood, in Los Angeles, and knew a lot of sort of movie stars and really enjoyed talking about them. She is kind of an enigma, because she's this extremely -- in my mind, she's an extremely religious person -- or when I was a kid, especially. I mean, she kept kosher. That was such a big deal for us. (laughs) And -- not that my 14:00family necessarily didn't -- I mean, we don't eat much meat, but that was still kind of a big deal. But she's an enigma because she was religious. She was very involved in Zionist youth movements when she was younger -- she helped start the chapter of the Conservative Jewish youth movement in Minneapolis. She was very involved in all these things. And yet -- and she was a single mom, very dedicated to my father growing up. And she allowed him to marry a woman who wasn't technically Jewish. So we explain this enigma by the fact that my mother was a doctor, so (laughs) maybe it justified it for her. But yeah, it was always surprising. So I would call her probably an extremely open-minded person with very conservative values. So I think -- yeah. I mean, there's a lot of funny 15:00stories (laughs) about my grandmother. I could talk about her for a while. She calls me every Friday night to say "Shabbat Shalom" and ask me when I'm gonna go to medical school, (laughs) basically, yeah. (laughs)

CW:Do you have a favorite story about her that you want to share -- something that illuminates her personality?

AF:Let me think for a second. I guess the thing that comes to mind -- it's not necessarily the funniest story, but it's just something that comes to mind. In the past few years, she's been getting older, and she broke a hip a few years back, so she's not as comfortable even leaving the apartment. But she came up north to where we live -- and she never likes to come to Northern California. It's cold there. You have to wear a sweater. So she came up north to Northern 16:00California for my cousin's wedding. And we had a free day. And it was really the most time I had spent with her in a while -- we usually -- our family would go for weekend trips. One time, I spent a week down there, which was a lot of time. But I spent the day with her and my grandfather. And I decided to take them to the redwoods -- there's a redwood grove near where I grew up, and there's huge redwoods. And we drove into the redwood grove and parked in front of -- just parked in this place. And I said, "Okay, well, if you want to get out and walk around." And my grandfather said, "Yeah, sure. Let's get out and walk around." And my grandmother said, "Oh, no, it's fine. I'll wait in the car." And I was thinking, What? We're here. We drove all this way, and you're going to sit in the car? But I didn't -- not going to pressure her, and she wanted to stay in the car, so my grandfather and I walked around a little bit. We got back and my 17:00grandmother had been sitting in the car -- in the passenger side of the car -- and staring -- gazing -- at this redwood that was in front of the car. And so we get back in the car, and she says, "These trees -- this tree is just so amazing. It's so big and it's so old." And she just had so much to say about this tree that she had spent the past half-hour staring at from the passenger side of the car. And I loved that, because it -- I think it does describe her. She has her place -- she stays in her apartment -- but she's constantly reading, and she's constantly thinking and contemplating whatever's in front of her. And I think she's a very grateful person in that sense -- even if, from an outsider's perspective, it may seem a little ridiculous. (laughs) I thought it was a nice moment, to hear her say that.

CW:Yeah. So did you -- do you have a favorite yontev -- holiday?

AF:Yes.

CW:And which is it?

AF:Rosh Hashanah, probably.

CW:And why?

AF:Because when I was growing up, we would go to that same redwood grove, and there was a community of people and some klezmer musicians and people who played traditional Jewish music. And it was very beautiful and outdoors. And obviously, very special -- like, sort of apart from everything else. And it was sweet. It was very celebratory. Apples and honey. All of that.

CW:So how did you first -- you mentioned -- can you tell more about the Yiddish that you were exposed to in Hebrew school?

AF:Yeah. As I remember it, there was about a page of insults and, like, basic 19:00greetings. And I think however old I was -- eight, maybe -- or no, probably older, like, eleven -- I thought it was the best thing in the world. I learned how to say, "Go smash your head against a wall." Like, what could be better? This is what we're learning in Hebrew school? But I think beyond that, it was really exciting to be speaking another language. It was already kind of exotic to be speaking Hebrew and learning Hebrew. So to learn Yiddish was really exciting. And the class was extremely popular -- everyone wanted to be in this man's class. He disappeared after that first year or semester and didn't come back. And I remember wanting to take more Yiddish, but couldn't really find a way. So yeah, basic -- it was just basic phrases. Nothing substantial. We didn't start learning grammar. (laughs) It was just memorizing phrases.

CW:Did you have any preconceived notions -- or did you feel there were any 20:00opinions about Yiddish around when you were growing up?

AF:It wasn't talked about so much. I think the general peripheral sort of feeling around it was that it was -- like, it almost made you laugh to say the word Yiddish. It was associated with comedy, and proverbs -- I mean, my parents had a book, "Yiddish [sic] Chochma" -- "Yiddish Wisdom." So it definitely felt like this older language that had -- but it wasn't so old to make it -- like, it was still interesting, 'cause it was like, Oh, I wonder -- I wonder what's there. It's not like, you know, Sanskrit. It's something -- it's there. It's, like, still kind of there. Like, what's going on with it? And my mom's stepfather grew up speaking Yiddish. And we found that out when I think I was fifteen or -- I'm totally guessing, but we found it out relativ-- like, past my 21:00childhood -- that he grew up speaking Yiddish in an Orthodox household. And so for him, the language was associated with this [UNCLEAR] Orthodox life and his childhood, which was unhappy -- or he doesn't speak about it much. So, I guess, mystery (laughs) would be a word that encompasses all of those things.

CW:And how did you decide to go back to it later? How did you decide to learn it?

AF:My last semester of college -- I went to a school that was very politically charged when I was there -- I went to UC Berkeley. And there was all of these riots -- or not riots, there was protests. I was involved in some of them for -- around tuition and accessible education. There was also a lot of uproar around divestment from Israel and a lot of -- I won't say conversations, 'cause there 22:00weren't conversations -- there was a lot of booing and signage and really strong opinions coming from both sides. And nothing was accessible or intelligible. There wasn't a conversation. And somebody I had met in an introductory Hebrew course -- I studied Hebrew and Arabic in college, and then just Arabic, but I stayed in touch with a lot of the people from my Hebrew class, and I stayed in touch with her. My last semester of college, I had more time, and we were talking about ways to make a space for -- I guess -- I don't really know if we could even define it. We had all these coffee dates. We were talking about, What are we trying to do? It's, like, making a space for progressive Judaism or -- something on campus, because the Bay Area was full of all of these groups, but on campus at UC Berkeley, there wasn't that feeling. It was just these -- like, 23:00extreme political polarization. And we were thinking about ways to do that. And my friend was really interested in doing something like -- with the Gender and Women's Studies department, and she was involved in a lot of gender inequality movements. And she thought it was great. And also, the Multicultural Center on campus -- maybe we could do something there. And I mentioned -- I don't know who mentioned Yiddish, but I think we both did, just thinking about multiculturalism. And I guess Yiddish is culture, and we should incorporate that somehow. And I don't remember why, but when I think back, that's what I remember -- this moment where we both sort of went, Ah! We're free from politics there, because who can attack Yiddish as this, like, dominating language that's, you 24:00know, imperialistic? And it's not like -- we were just thinking of ways that we could -- we both identified with our Jewish roots or whatever you want to call it. And it's not that we were afraid to identify with it, but we were straddling different beliefs, and we were confused. It was complicated. We didn't like the environment -- the atmosphere at the Hillel on campus, even though she worked there. So anyway, we decided to do some Yiddish workshops. And neither of us spoke Yiddish, (laughs) but we liked the idea. So we set out finding people to teach Yiddish or to talk about Yiddish culture. And so we found a grad student, Anna Torres, who was not Jewish, but coming -- which was surprising to me. I was like, What? People who study Yiddish that aren't Jewish? But she was studying 25:00labor movements. And we went into her room one time, and there was just all these wonderful posters of Yiddish labor movement -- and probably some of Lenin, too. (laughs) And so she agreed to do a series of workshops on -- it ended up being on queer Yiddishkayt, which -- sort of bridging the sort of Gender and Women's Studies background and Gay, Lesbian, Transgender Studies and, I guess, the cultural component that we wanted to access. And so we had three workshops. And we showed film clips of Molly Picon. And we talked about things and invited our friends. And a lot of people showed up to them. It wasn't like a ton, but it was a core group of people who were very interested. And I guess discovering that world existed was really great. It was like, you didn't need this huge 26:00rally with all of these people on board like you saw on campus in the divestment groups or whatever. It was just this solid core of people that were interested in this culture that was Yiddish -- it was fairly secular in a lot of senses, but it was Jewish in the sense that the people who were involved were Jewish. You know, they were having Yom Kippur picnics and all of this. This is when I started learning all of this history -- and I never knew this history before. And it's so funny to me that I didn't. I went to Hebrew school for all those years. I went through a public school system until I graduated with my undergraduate degree -- it was all public school. And I just never -- maybe there's, like, a mention of some riots or something at the beginning of the twentieth century in New York, but there's nothing about this. So yeah, it was really refreshing and, I guess, relief -- it was very relieving -- to find that history to stand on or to talk about.

CW:Can you explain a little more about what Yiddish symbolizes or means to you? What is this --

AF:Yeah. I think it's something that I can study and inquire about and poke at and learn about and receive inspiration from that's not politically charged. (laughs) I mean, it is politically charged, but it's not -- I don't worry about -- that studying it is going to be treading on anybody's toes -- that I'm not hurting anyone else by studying it. I used to love Hebrew. I still do. And I don't think that there's a problem with studying it. It's just, when I do study it, it comes to face with all of these questions that, for me, are more pressing 28:00than studying the language itself. And with Yiddish, it's different, because it feels like something that needs to be done. Like, there's not enough people studying it and interested in it -- for whatever reason, I don't know why. (laughs) And it's exciting. I forgot the question. (laughs)

CW:Yeah -- what does it mean or symbolize to you?

AF:Oh, yeah. I guess -- yeah -- it symbolizes a very powerful place to be curious that's part of my heritage in some way. It's also connected to so much else. And it's not dampening any other culture. It's -- yeah.

CW:I'd like to ask you a couple of question about the program that you're just ending now -- the Steiner Summer Yiddish Program. First of all, how did you find out about it?

AF:I found out about the Book Center in high school from a friend and from visiting the Hampshire campus. I found out about the Steiner Program in a summer program last year that went to Eastern Europe. And it was through Yiddishkayt in Los Angeles, which was started by the former director of the Yiddish Book Center. And it was funny because there was a lot of people who had been in the 30:00Steiner Program that went on this trip. But the program wasn't necessarily endorsed -- it was like, yes, you can go and do this and you can learn Yiddish there -- but also, there's all these other programs. And the Steiner Program was viewed as slightly more -- less vernacular, more studying -- more literary, I guess. Anyway. But I found out (laughs) about it that way -- by meeting people who had just gotten out of the program.

CW:And can you describe a typical day at Steiner Program?

AF:Yes. On a typical day, we start class at nine. We have language class. Well, I guess I should start -- we wake up in a dorm -- that's where we're living, with everybody -- together. And we have class at nine. And we learn grammar. We 31:00learn sentence structure in Yiddish. We learn verbs and conjugations and vocabulary. I'm a beginner, so we play games (laughs) and we draw pictures, because when you are a beginner, you are a five-year-old (laughs) -- in any language. And at the end of class, sometimes, we'll learn a song -- or in the middle of class. And after lunch, we have a culture class. And in the culture class, we'll have a different professor -- I think we have five or six -- four or five -- this summer -- who will come and teach us their -- his or her specialty for a week or two. And in those classes, we are expected to do readings. And we will speak about the readings. They're about history, they're about Yiddish literature, they're about Yiddish in America, they're about Yiddish today. And sometimes, we will learn songs (laughs) in those classes, as 32:00well. Maybe watch video clips. Depends on the context of -- or what the class is about. They're amazing classes. In the afternoon, we will probably have some programming. So that can be anything from a zingeray group singing exercise, an hour of Yiddish -- traditional Yiddish songs -- or a group meeting. There's different student groups -- poetry -- Yiddish poetry. A music club -- which I've been a part of, and we've made -- attempted to create songs in Yiddish and come up with our own lyrics and melodies, based on inspiration from sort of the traditional songs we've been singing and also our own musical backgrounds -- in opera and jazz and bluegrass. So yeah, that's about it. At night, sometimes 33:00there's a movie. Sometimes, we will go as a group to grocery shop. We will do our homework. (laughs) It's a very studious group of students. (laughs) I'm not being facetious. We do do our homework. We study together a lot. And yeah, that's a typical day.

CW:Great. Did you have a favorite -- or was there an aspect of Yiddish culture that you learned about that surprised you this summer?

AF:Hm. (pause) I think it was a lot of exploration into topics that were already surprising to me that I learned more about. Surprising -- (pause) -- yes. I was 34:00very surprised that a lot of the most prominent writers and ideologues -- if that's a word -- ideologues in Yiddish didn't grow up speaking Yiddish. It wasn't their mother tongue. And that the people that we are studying right now -- Sholem Aleichem and all of the peop-- a lot of the people involved in YIVO, and in the Jewish Enlightenment, and the Haskalah -- all of these people -- or a lot of these people -- the Yiddish wasn't their mother tongue. And it's interesting, when you're coming into a language, to think about that. And of course, a lot of these people spoke so many languages. So it's not surprising that, you know, you probably only have a few mother tongues, right? Like, the language that you speak in the home. But it was surprising that it had been used in that way. It doesn't dis-authenticate it in any way, it just really frames 35:00the language in a different place. This language was used strategically and with certain ideals in mind -- and very successfully. It was huge -- hugely used to communicate with people -- through newspapers and print. At least, that's what we learn in our classes. I don't know -- I wasn't there. But yeah, it was surprising.

CW:Anything else you want to say about Steiner before we move on?

AF:No. It's a great program. (laughs)

CW:I want to ask about the Helix. First of all, can you just explain what it is?

AF:Yeah. The Helix Project bills itself as kind of being an alternate Birthright 36:00experience, maybe. From what I know about both of those programs, it's not. (laughs) But it's a short trip with a group of young adults -- college students and recently graduated students -- who go on a trip to some place that is maybe associated with their heritage. Why I say maybe is, a lot of the people on the program were not Jewish, but were scholars of Jewish Studies or of Yiddish or of labor movements, and that's what brought them there -- or Eastern European history in one form or another. So I believe the whole trip was around three weeks, a little bit less, and it was designed to see the places that were studied by these people. There was also -- I would say a less important part of the program, but something that was present, was going to visit where people's 37:00family came from. So if you knew where your great-grandparents came from, they would visit that town if it was en route to these other places. So yeah, it was a mix of all of those things.

CW:And where did you go?

AF:We went to Belarus, to Poland, and to Lithuania, in that order. And we went to lots of very small towns -- shtetlekh -- in those regions, as well as a few major cities, like Vilnius and Kaunas and Białystok. And we went to museums and lakes and forests -- all sorts of places.

CW:And what do you do there in those places?

AF:We sit in a circle and we read Yiddish poetry -- or poetry written by people from those places. And we analyze the sites for their Jewish history, 38:00essentially. The trip also emphasized the vibrancy and the aliveness of the culture. Yet, there was a slight dampening of that vibrancy by the fact that a lot of these places we were visiting were being destructed before our eyes. One yeshiva we went to, there was an old man on a horse with a cart that was literally taking apart this old building, board by board, as we're talking about the significance of this yeshiva and all of the scholars who studied there. Another yeshiva we went is -- I mean, they're essentially in ruin. They're beautiful -- each of us did a photo project while we were there, so we were photographing these old ruins, and it was very beautiful. But also, sad -- that this culture that we were all studying or invested in was disintegrating -- in 39:00some senses. It was getting something of a revival in other ways. Klezmer music was obviously very big in Poland and Jewish culture was somehow achieving this comeback or vibrancy in cities like Kraków -- in a very different form than what we were studying. Very different form. (laughs) But yeah, so we would go to these places and we would learn about them. We went to a lake near where a very prominent Yiddish poet had lived during the summers and had written about in these verses when he was a sweatshop worker in New York City. And we met this Polish family there who were staying there for the summer in their dacha, their summer cottage. And they invited us back to their house to play music for us, because we were singing -- we were singing a song -- that's what we were doing by the lake -- "Mayn Rue Plats [My Resting Place]." And we went back to their 40:00home and we performed for them, and they performed for us. And as we were leaving, we noticed a notch on the door to their summer house where a mezuzah had been. And I think that our director told them this was probably a Jewish person's house, and you can tell 'cause of this. But they had no idea. And for us, it was amazing. And yeah, it was -- I don't -- the emotions on that trip were so complicated, I don't know how we felt about it. But it was surprising that this very lovely family we had just met was living in a house that could have been the poet who was -- you know, ended up in a sweatshop in New York City -- it could have been his summer home. So -- yeah. We had experiences like that all the time -- with this huge contrast between the present moment and definitely history we were studying.

CW:When you look back on that program now and sort of yourself before and after, 41:00are there things you notice that you learned or that affected your own Jewish identity through that experience of traveling in Eastern Europe?

AF:Yeah, absolutely. On the whole, it was an amazing program, and I learned a ton. And for me, it completely just dissolved all of these words and illusions and sort of placeholders for Jewish history. Like, the Pale of Settlement -- what's that? And, like, my family -- we're Russian Jews. What does that mean? What do these borders mean? What do these languages mean? What does it mean to be a Jew in a large sense? It made things a lot more real. When I was in my 42:00great-grandmother's town and walking around, it was so similar to where I'm from in a lot of ways. Everyone had a little garden and there was a nice lake. And there was these old, deserted Soviet buildings in the background that really made me remember why she had left. I mean, of course people left. I didn't feel this sense of, like, universal sinking of the world. It was just visiting this place that made things real. And it felt like I was a historian -- like an embodied historian. It didn't feel like I was -- I didn't know anyone in the town. I wasn't visiting my great-grandmother. I had just left Los Angeles, where my real grandmother lives. And that was another unique thing about this program -- we spent a week in Los Angeles, in California, where I do have more recent family roots. And we started in a Hispanic neighborhood now, which is Boyle Heights, which was traditionally Jewish -- not traditionally Jewish, but was 43:00Jewish for a while. And going from that vibrancy -- in my life, where I'm -- you know, I've been, more or less -- I hadn't necessarily been to Boyle Heights, but I'd been to Los Angeles every year -- to Eastern Europe -- I guess it connected things. I think it gave me more agency in my own Judaism, in my own Jewish identity. I identify as Jewish, though my -- technically speaking, I'm not in certain denominations and am in Reform. And what does this mean? I mean, it just -- it gave me agency as a person who has this Jewish background. And getting really -- I don't know, dissolving those terms really, really empowered me in my connections with other people. I don't know. I think it's still sinking in. But the result of that was, I wanted to learn Yiddish and be able to speak -- and 44:00just to learn more. I think in the Steiner Program, what's really stuck with me most is the culture classes. And I think the language classes are also very useful -- language is the best way to access the culture, I think -- but I think the culture classes themselves have been the most enlightening.

CW:So what's next for you in Yiddish?

AF:It's a good question. I think I would like to keep studying the language. Absolutely. I want to give this gift to as many people as possible. I would like to teach it. I would like to continue to talk to people about Yiddish. I talked to a friend of mine who lives in the south of Germany the other day -- she's German -- and she asked me what the difference was between Yiddish and Hebrew. And I said, "Lucy, can you speak three sentences to me like I'm from your hometown?" And she said, "Ich heyz Lucy. Ich gehe spazieren im park [German: My name is Lucy. I go for a walk in the park]." And I said, "Lucy" -- 45:00(laughs) -- "I can understand everything you're saying. Yiddish is from Germany. It's got German roots and it's got everything else too -- Slavic and all of that." But yeah, I want to tell people what it is. I mean, I think that's important. I think it's important to understand what the word "culture" means and what the word "ethnicity" means -- and that they are these -- not to be cliché, but they're constructed. They're made up of words and stories. And if we understand what they're made of, and other people understand what they're made of, then we can realize that they're just stories. So yeah, I guess I'd like to continue to learn. It's an extremely rich language, too. And it's fun to learn, because it's really opening up this treasure chest that not that many people are opening. And on the one hand, it's exciting. On the other hand, it's 46:00terrifying -- it's, like, where are the scholars? Where are the qualified people? We are, in a sense, those people. We can go into the Yiddish Book Center and pull out a book that no one's translated before. That's crazy. Probably no one's translated -- I'm not exactly sure about that. But it's likely. And -- I don't know. I think -- just beginning to scratch the surface. And what Yiddish has to offer to other language-- to language studies in general, I think, is huge. Like I mentioned before, the most surprising thing about it is so many people are invested in it when it's not their native tongue. Why is that? What does that tell us about language and what people use to communicate? I think it's, in a sense, maybe some sort of secret code, is the sense? That's the perception I had of it when I was a kid. You know, the whole thing, my parents spoke Yiddish when they didn't want us to understand. It's a secret code in that sense. It's what one Jewish person can say to another Jewish person to have them 47:00understand. I think it's more complicated than that, but I think it's an interesting puzzle. So I maybe one day will be one of those more qualified people (laughs) to bring those connections together. But in the meantime, I think I'll just keep studying and reading and seeing what I can do.

CW:Great. Well, I have a couple more questions, but is there anything about the topics we've touched on so far that you want to add?

AF:I guess a little bit. I would add -- I think it's interesting the reactions that I get and I know that other people my age get when we say that we're studying Yiddish -- from grandparents who perhaps have, technically, perceived more ties to the language, and from people who don't know the language, and from 48:00other Jews. It's really interesting. When I talk to people within the field of Yiddish, of course, it's the most logical language to study. When I talk to people outside of it, it's -- there's always the question of, why are you studying that language? Which is not asked about French. And I don't know, I don't find French to be particularly useful. I think it's a beautiful language. I'd love to learn it. But why is French a useful language and Yiddish is not? Yiddish is not spoken by the same amount of people as French, but there are not that many French speakers in the United States. There are in Canada, but in California, there's not. And again, people in California still study French instead of Spanish, when Spanish is obviously a more useful language to study. There's a lot of ideology that gets in the way of language study and accessing culture, so I think that's interesting.

CW:In your own family and community, what has been the reaction?

AF:Well, the person who's been the most supportive has been the rabbi at the synagogue that my family used to go to. He gave me Aaron Lansky's book when I told him I went on the Helix Project -- "Outwitting History." And so he was supportive. He's a supportive guy that's interested in Jewish cultural endeavors. My immediate family is also -- they're supportive of me studying in general, and education is valuable always, but I think they see Yiddish as sort of a dead end. Like, what do you do with that? My grandfather, who grew up speaking Yiddish -- when I told him that I was studying Yiddish, he didn't process it that quickly at first. And when I asked him if I insulted him in Yiddish if he would understand me, he said, "Yo" -- which was the first Yiddish word I ever heard him speak. But afterwards, he called my mother and asked her, very upset, "Why is she studying Yiddish? What can you do with that? There's no 50:00jobs in Yiddish!" It was not viewed as a practical thing to study. And there was no sentimental attachment to, Oh, that's beautiful that she's studying this language that I grew up with! None of that. And my father's parents also would consider themselves Jewish culturally and religiously -- similar questions. Dubious towards it, sort of careful to approach it. My grandmother, I think, has a collection of Yiddish articles saved for me somewhere, so she's still fueling it somehow. But they're not exuberant. And when they ask, How's Yiddish going, it's a sarcastic question -- it's not in earnest.

CW:I'm curious your opinion about the place of language in identity in general, 51:00in Jewish identity.

AF:Language in Jewish identity or language in identity in general?

CW:Well, maybe one, then the other.

AF:Okay. Language in Jewish identity is interesting. I think the reason why you can have a book center that's so popular is because Jewish identity, at least in the twentieth century -- and, well, I think I could venture to say for a while -- is based on study and writing and reading. And literacy is so valued. And you look at the numbers of literate Jews -- it's very high. And maybe that was because Hebrew was maintained as a holy language -- maybe there's religious roots to that. But for whatever reason, Jews are literate. And language in the sense of its written and read qualities is so huge, so books are so important. I think you can see that in people's apartments. So in that sense, language is a 52:00part of identity. In terms of speech, it's still there, but you don't need -- today, contemporary identity, you don't need that language -- the spoken language doesn't have a monopoly on your identity. You can speak English and still be Jewish. You can speak Hebrew and be not Jewish today. So I think the spoken gets a little more complicated. But in terms of the written, I feel that that's a part of Jewish identity. And I think that's interesting, because when I think about language and identity as a whole -- and think about, like, my Native American studies in college -- I took a course on Native American philosophy. And there was a rubric for "a people" which was made up of, a people has a 53:00language, it has a place, it has a religion, and it has a culture -- those outside -- and everything outside. So language was essential -- it was separated from culture, even, as its own thing. Language is so important. I mean, some linguists say it could influence how you think, you know? It makes you who you are. It shapes your brain. I don't know about that. I don't really subscribe to that so much. But in terms of language in its communicative force, in its expressive force, in the commonality that you share with someone when you share a language -- that's huge. So if you're creating a network of people that consider themselves to be a people or a nation or a religion, language is essential for that. And so I think for Judaism, it's always been, I guess, more 54:00of a diaspora, and so to have language as that way to connect is important. I think Hebrew has been a core of that experience -- and Yiddish, also, in terms of Ashkenazic Jewry and Jews in West and Eastern Europe. But I think it's also fascinating the other offshoots of Jewish language that developed -- Ladino, Judeo-Spanish, Arabic -- all of these languages that really showed that these people were assimilated partially to the culture outside of them. They were listening. Their ears were open. And they could likely communicate with the people around them -- and I'm sure they needed to. So in that sense, I see language really -- at least looking back on it -- as showing sort of, I don't know, the roots of -- I guess, showing us what social interactions were like. 55:00Like, historical linguistics is showing us what social interactions were like. Yeah. And it's also such an organic process. I mean, you can try and control language, but it's almost impossible to control -- it's as hard as making sure people don't look at computers or the internet. And, it's everywhere. I mean, how do you stop people from making up their own things from reading and writing? It's everywhere.

CW:How does Yiddish and Eastern Europe fit into your broader identity?

AF:I guess I think of Yiddish right now in terms of my world, my -- outside of being inside of a Yiddish program -- I probably will be the only person who understands a lot of Yiddish when I go home or when I'm in the various 56:00communities I'm a part of. So in that sense, it will sort of be slapped -- or it has been already sort of slapped on to me, as a Yiddish speaker. Which is not true. (laughs) I don't claim to be a Yiddish speaker. But I have more Yiddish knowledge than a lot of the people around me. So in that sense, it will become a small part of my identity. Eastern Europe? I mean, I think it's a huge part of my identity in that I guess it's where a lot of my family has come from throughout the years, so -- whatever that means. I mean, it gave me -- it has something to do with genetics -- genetics and biology, so in terms of race and ethnicity, that's part of identity, I guess. How I identify with it is more -- I guess not being from sort of this centralized hub of culture of Western Europe 57:00but being more on the -- more coming from the fringe, so having some sort of this immigrant background in my history that I may or may not be necessarily in touch with. But it's there. Not that there wasn't immigrants from Western Europe, of course, but -- I guess thinking about those people that came from Eastern Europe, being associated with that and, I think, to a certain extent, being associated with this narrative of Jewish history that came from Eastern Europe -- I feel partly associated with that. Again, personally, I don't really feel like I completely fit into anything, because I'm such a mutt from all of these different (laughs) immigrant backgrounds -- like so many people in America. But I guess I claim a part of that identity, if not all of it. So I guess I view it as having a small slice of the giant identity pie for both Yiddish and Eastern Europe. (laughs) But I don't -- I think of it more as an entryway point rather than an all-encompassing identity. I think if I didn't 58:00have that at all -- if I was completely not Jewish -- if I was completely not having any Eastern Europe background, but maintained the same interests, curiosity, and personality that I have, I would still be interested in studying Yiddish. Though maybe I would gravitate more towards Welsh (laughs) or something else.

CW:Well, I just want to end by asking, if you were speaking to someone who maybe could potentially speak -- learn Yiddish, why should they learn Yiddish? And do you have any advice for them?

AF:Yes. Abandon all of your preconceptions. Don't expect anything out of Yiddish. It's not going to give you anything. Well, it will give you a ton, but it won't give you exactly what you want. It's its own entity. So that's my advice, I guess -- abandon all preconceived notions. But don't let your love or 59:00your passion for it die, of course. But it's not gonna be the language that you think it is. You have to kind of rediscover it if you're actually gonna study Yiddish -- what's out there right now. There's so much out there about Yiddish that's not actually in Yiddish -- it's not in correct Yiddish -- it's not actually what Yiddish is. There's so much emotion around it -- this language. And emotion is beautiful, but it distorts what's actually there. It just -- it makes that subjectivity so much sharper. And why you should study Yiddish? I guess, why not? (laughs) It's a language. Studying language is amazing. It refigures the way you view the world. It makes you literally sort of step out of your own shoes. If language is a pair of shoes that is very comfortable to wear, it makes you wear a pair of shoes that is not necessarily comfortable, so I think that's always good. And Yiddish in particular, because it's --it's at this 60:00intersection of so many languages, so I think it's so useful for people who are interested in language as a thing -- linguists out there. I guess anybody who's interested in sort of intersections. I mean, we have Max Weinreich and Uriel Weinreich in this Yiddish language tradition who are these language scholars that coined these phrases about language -- you know, "a dialect without an army" -- these things that really reshape the way we view language. It's not just a nation or nation-state it's associated with -- this is a nation and it has its own language and it has its own flag and it has its natural butterfly and whatever you have that marks a nation. Yiddish could be said to mark the Jewish nation, which is such an abstract concept, because it's, you know, very much in the air -- well, I guess less so now, but still a little bit. But it's at the intersection of so much, so you really get to see how the language 61:00develops in terms of influences on where it is, what stays the same, what words are from Hebrew, what words are from Russian. Yeah. Why are there so many synonyms for "to think" in Yiddish? There's a lot of interesting quirks about it. And so anyone interested in Eastern European history should definitely study this language. Anyone interested in Jewish Studies has to study this language. Yeah. Those are all good reasons.

CW:(laughs) Great. Well, a sheynem dank [thank you].

AF:Yo, nishto far vos [Yes, you're welcome].

CW:Thanks very much for taking the time, for doing this.

AF:Yeah.

[END OF INTERVIEW]