JOANNE BORTS ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY:This is Christa Whitney, and today is August 21st, 2014, and I am here at KlezKanada with Joanne Borts, 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?

JOANNE BORTS:  Yes, you have my permission to record.

CW:  Thank you.  First of all, can you tell me briefly what you know about your family background?

JB:  My father's mother came from Austria-Hungary.  We're not quite sure whether she was born in Austria-Hungary, whether she was born on the boat, or whether she was born in Presque Isle, Maine.  I think that they fudged with 1:00some of the data so she could go to school.  So she was very, very young.  But there are records that say that she was a citizen and she was born in Presque Isle, Maine, but it's sort of -- we're unclear about that.  And then the Presque Isle, Maine library burned down -- or the records hall burned down -- so we don't have any of that information.  My father's father came through Montreal -- again, unclear whether it's Minsk or Pinsk or something -- I just never, ever got a clear picture about that.  But my last name, Borts, seems to have been very prevalent in Canada.  There are not very many Bortses -- B-o-r-t-s -- in the US, but a lot of them came through Canada.  And it's unclear whether they -- a lot of people changed their name to Borts and made believe they were family so they could bring them over, or whether or not they 2:00were -- we just had a big family.  It's sort of unclear.  But the name itself, "Borts," is Russian.  And you'd think that I would have had a more clear picture about what my family looked like and how that happened.  But the name is Russian, and it means, like, "an unpolished gem."  And I always liked thinking of myself as a diamond in the rough.  I think that's a good description of me.  And yet, every time I look at a piece of davening and it says "ba'aretz [Hebrew: in the Land]," it's how we spell our name, Borts.  So who knows whatever piece of fiction we were told.  On my mother's side of the family, my grandmother -- her mother was from Yekaterinoslav, which is in Ukraine.  And my mother's mother watched her father being murdered, so her mother -- my great-grandmother -- buried my great-grandfather in the middle of the night and went west.  And we had family, and she stopped in England for a 3:00few years, and then wound up in the US.  And then my mother's father -- my grandfather -- came from Częstochowa, Poland.  And they were in Nowo-Radomsk, and they had been there for quite some time.  And also, a very large family.  And a lot of them went to London.  And my grandfather went to the US, but my grandfather's brother and a lot of the family stayed in London.  Okay.  I think that's all I know.

CW:  (laughs) And are there any family stories that have been passed down?

JB:  Oh, one is worse than the next.  I know that my mother's father had been studying to be a khazn [(synagogue) cantor].  And he was part of the Hasidic movement.  And I wish I could remember what the real story was, because there's sort of the fiction -- "Oh, he was a khazn!"  And then, the other piece of the 4:00story is that he was frustrated with the Hasidic movement and he was himself very much a freethinker.  So when he left Poland in order not to be thrown into the army for twenty-five years, he went to Germany first, and then was working for a newspaper -- because he had been a journalist and a writer -- I think that was more of his -- despite all of his singing prowess and his religious background, his artistic temperament was in the field of journalism.  And he was working for some newspaper, and then they found out he was Jewish.  And the owner of the newspaper said, "Well, we need to send you away."  And this was before the First World War or during the First World War -- they were gonna send him back.  He said, "Listen, just take a gun and shoot me now.  Because if you send me back east, they're gonna put me in the army and I'm gonna die anyway.  5:00So either shoot me right now, or let me go west."  And they let him go west.  So between my grandfather and his brother, they all, one at a time, were able to bring out the rest of the brothers and sisters.  And they moved to England and to the US.  Oh, and did I mention that my father's father moved to Montreal?  I did.  And I will say, the interesting story there is -- you know how Jewish families can be.  So my father's father and his brothers were all in Montreal, and most of them moved to the US.  And my grandfather got his citizenship, and I'm pretty sure both sisters got their citizenship.  And his one brother, Uncle Bill, just never bothered.  And so the entire time he was in the United States -- which is from when he was a young man, maybe even a kid -- he sort of just led a life without anything except his -- you know, running around.  And when 6:00he was in his eighties, he moved back to Canada, because his daughter somehow ended up in Windsor, Ontario.  And the family story was that he voted for the first time in his life in his eighties.  For someone like me, that was really tragic.  But -- not that interesting a story, is it?

CW:  No, it's --

JB:  I'll just keep talking (speaking at the same time; unclear) --

CW:  -- interesting.  (laughs) Can you tell me a little bit about the home that you grew up in?

JB:  My parents are -- were -- very secular, and were clearly products of their parents.  My father grew up in a kosher home, and my mother grew up in what began as a kosher home, and it's unclear where it went.  But when my parents got together, we were very decidedly secular.  However, we were very Yiddish.  My grandfather worked for the "Forverts," and we went to Workmen's Circle shules 7:00[secular Yiddish schools].  And I went to Camp Hemshekh, which was the Bundist, socialist summer camp.  And my brother worked at Kinder Ring.  And we were really surrounded by a lot of Yiddish, but not necessarily a lot of religion.  So we celebrated holidays, but we celebrated from a secular perspective.  And the Workmen's Circle has a lot of materials surrounding really secular versions of these religious holidays, which is kind of awesome.  And so all of the music that I know -- all of the Yiddish music I know -- comes from a really secular place.  And it never occurred to me that Yiddish was ever spoken anywhere but in these surroundings, because I never experienced Yiddish from -- in any of the other parts of my life.  Because when I went with my best friend to shul -- 8:00'cause her father was the rabbi and she was my best friend, it seemed like a good idea to go -- everyone spoke Hebrew.  So to me, Yiddish was the language of secular Jews, and Hebrew was the language of religious Jews.  And it wasn't till much later when I -- my in-laws' kids, they're all going to yeshivas, and they're in Passaic, and I think one kid goes to school in Long Beach -- and he's like, "Aunt Joanne, Aunt Joanne!  I'm taking classes in Yiddish!"  Because all this yeshivish yidish [a blending of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Yiddish spoken in yeshivas] is happening in their yeshiva.  Which I find a little confounding, 'cause me, Yiddish was the language of rebellion and the language of freethinking Jews.  And I will say, my camp experience at Camp Hemshekh was awesome, because when you're young enough and most of the people you know speak English and all the really cool people at camp speak Yiddish, it's what you want 9:00to do.  It's not a marginalized language, and it's not something from really far away -- it's from the cool people.  So, you know, I had my first kiss in Yiddish, outside of [baydl vov] at Camp Hemshekh in Mountain Dale, New York.  So to me, Yiddish was the language of cool.  So flashing forward -- if you want to know about that -- I worked on -- I still work on a project called "Kids & Yiddish," which is a way of inspiring Yiddish in young people.  And, you know, they're a couple of generations away now.  And there's a lot less guilt about the Yiddish.  I think that a lot of people came to the United States -- people who were escaping the pogroms and escaping the Holocaust were running away from that language and that experience and that sound, and were very clear about teaching their kids English and not speaking Yiddish in the house.  But my 10:00friends -- the cool ones -- were speaking Yiddish at home, and they sang Yiddish all the time, and it was really cool.  So I wanted to teach Yiddish to the younger generation -- because it was cool.  And so now, these kids who are not bilingual can learn Yiddish and suddenly be bilingual.  Because every other culture comes to the United States, comes to Canada, comes to the New World, and brings their language and their culture with them.  And I have no problem with bringing the rest of our culture -- you know, we eat our foods and we celebrate our holidays; why shouldn't we also bring the language with us?  So, for me, Yiddish was always really cool.

CW:  Did you speak Yiddish at home?

JB:  No.  Well, a little bit.  My mother spoke Yiddish with her mother so we wouldn't understand what they were talking about.  But by the same token, they were sending us to Yiddish school -- like, they weren't teaching us Hebrew in school.  We did learn Hebrew at shule -- that is absolutely true -- but we went 11:00to Yiddish school, so there was really a concerted effort to do that.  But there seemed to be a cultural disconnect, because my mother's Yiddish and her mother's Yiddish was super galitsyaner [Galician], and I was learning klal [standard] Yiddish.  And we would come home, and she would be like, "I have no idea what you're talking about."  And then she would speak with my grandmother, and it was sort of, What?  Wait.  I was told that that's this word, but you're saying this, and I don't get it.  I'm just gonna keep singing the songs.  And I have to say that the music is really a bridge between all the languages and stuff, because they could understand it and I could understand it.  And the minute you have music going on, everyone sort of hops on board.  So we had a lot of Yiddish music in our house.  And we conducted our seders in Yiddish, and all of the holidays -- Hanukkah was all about Yiddish, and Purim, and -- 12:00everything else.  But my parents didn't necessarily speak to me in Yiddish.  And the real interesting part as a young person was, my father said, "Well, I can read the Yiddish, but I don't really understand it" -- 'cause my father was brought up to read Hebrew.  And my mother said, "Well, I can't read it, but I can certainly speak it."  So I was like, "All right, I'll just sit here and sing.  (laughs) Okay?  You guys work it out amongst yourselves.  I'm gonna sing a song."

CW:  (laughs) So what was some of the Yiddish music that you grew up listening to?

JB:  Listening to whatever we learned.  We didn't really have a lot of Yiddish records -- that wasn't sort of the music that was playing in our house.  But the holiday songs -- we sang Pesach songs and -- peysekh songs -- and Hanukkah songs and songs about Rosh Hashanah and simkhes toyre and Purim and -- so the Yiddish music that was in our house was like that.  We had a very musical house 13:00just in general, so we were also listening to a lot of barbershop music -- because my father is a big barbershop singer, and my brothers are both really, really involved in the barbershop world.  You know what barbershop is?  It's four-part a cappella harmony.  It's super American music.  And so that was always playing.  And I was always a big Broadway person, so there was always a lot of Broadway music playing in our house.  And, you know, when it all comes together -- which is sort of part of the fun, which is kind of where I became so inspired -- was, when I was in camp and then I was in shule and then in my real life, I was able to put together the theater music with the Yiddish.  So suddenly, I realized I wasn't just singing American theater music -- I was singing Yiddish theater music.  And I got my work and I got my jobs and I 14:00turned around and I built a career around the two things that I really love the most.  So that's where that came from.

CW:  Can you describe a typical day at Hemshekh?

JB:  Hemshekh was awesome!  Have you had other people talk about Hemshekh?  I'm sure, right?  So I was a little kid, and we woke up to Yiddish.  The first thing in the morning were the announcements.  It was, "Oyfmerkzam, oyfmerkzam!  Ale kempers un oyfpasers geyt itst arayn in estsimer far [Attention, attention!  All campers and counselors should go to the dining hall for]" -- morgn-broyt [breakfast, lit. "morning bread"]?  Morgn-broyt.  I can't remember.

CW:  Frishtik [Breakfast]?

JB:  Frishtik!  What the hell is "morgn-broyt"?  I have no idea.  Ovn-broyt [Supper].  It's not ovn-broyt.  "Geyt itst arayn in estsimer farn frishtik!"  So we woke up to Yiddish, and we did exercises in Yiddish.  And we would go around -- before we went to breakfast, we would go to the khavershaft plats, 15:00which was the -- I guess it's the "friendship place," and it had a flagpole and it had a fabulous little rock garden with a red falcon in it.  And we would sing, we would hear about the news of the day and we would talk about stuff that was important, and then when we were finished, we sang "Mir kumen on [We're on the way]," which was fantastic.  And of course, I get to camp the first time, and I don't know the camp songs -- I know the shule songs.  And how I got to camp was actually interesting, too.  Because my parents didn't just send me to camp -- they sent me to shule.  And then, because my friend Vita, who was the coolest person I ever knew -- her mother said, "Well, you know, Vita's going to mitlshul [high school].  Are you gonna go, too, on Sundays?"  I was like, "Yeah!"  So I went with Vita to mitlshul.  And her mother drove us the first couple of times.  And then -- listen, the world affects life, right?  Then 16:00there was a gas crisis.  So then her mother stopped driving us in, and we were gonna take the railroad into the city, and then the subway down to Bank Street, where the shule was.  And what that means for a little kid is: freedom.  So my dad did it once -- taught us how to take the train, taught us how to take the subway -- and the second time around, we were on our own.  And, I mean, can you imagine an eleven-year-old going, "Oh my God!  I've got a little token, I put it in the thing, and I can go wherever I want!"  And for a kid from the suburbs who was always being driven around and always being taken from here to there, to get that kind of freedom?  So Yiddish has always been associated with freedom, cool people, and -- like, the wonder of a child exploring the world for a first time.  So I got to go to shul, and then these people said, Well, Vita's not 17:00going straight home today.  We're going to a camp reunion first, and then we're gonna take train home.  So I went to this Hanukkah party, which was a camp reunion, and they stuck a piece of paper in my hand and they said, You're coming to camp this summer.  So that's how that started.  So I go to camp.  I don't really know anybody except the people who were in mitlshul with me.  And I'm just learning all of this stuff.  And I am surrounded by people, for the first time in my life, who sing -- in Yiddish.  I mean, I was in a chorus and here -- but in public school, people are just singing because they have to -- 'cause that's the time that they're -- here, I am surrounded by people who are completely swept up in the music and the joy and the Yiddish.  So how do you not get swept in that?  And it makes for an awesome childhood -- to be surrounded by people of like mind.  And I remember going back to school at the 18:00end of the summer and the choir teacher saying, "Raise your hand if you actually opened your mouth to sing this summer."  And I was like, "Of course I did!  That's all I did this summer!"  And at the same time, I was surrounded by people who recognized what I knew how to do -- because that's what I know how to do.  I know how to sing.  And, you know, the world was waiting for me, and I was waiting for the penny to drop.  And the penny dropped when I went to camp, because I was inspired by all these people, I was inspired by the language, I was inspired by the music, and the whole cultural situation, which was very -- and at a time when you're really listening to this, that it was all about fairness and equality and -- it's not the money, it's the principle.  And that 19:00was the first time I heard that -- (UNCLEAR) it's not the money, it's the principle.  And I thought, Yeah, it's the principle.  That's right.  (laughs) So, you know, suddenly a little kid's singin' about red flags and equality and learning all of these songs about power and glory and workers' struggles.  So it was really -- like, I know there were other Yiddish summer camps, but I don't know why you wouldn't want to have justice be a really big part of the conversation when you're talking about Yiddish.  I don't feel like you can separate Yiddish from social justice, because of the situation where it just -- they really, literally, went hand in hand.  Oh, are we still on the day at camp?

CW:  Yeah.

JB:  We'd go to the khavershaft plats.  We'd finish singing there.  We'd go to breakfast.  You can't leave the estsimer without singing, so we sang a bunch 20:00of songs.  And then we went on our way.  And we would have Yiddish class.  (laughs) And then we would swim.  And everything -- every event had Yiddish involved.  So we would go to the shvimbaseyn [swimming pool] and we would gey shvimen [go swimming.  And you had to have a buddy.  And you would, every once in a while, they would blow the whistle, and we would count off: eyn, tsvey, dray, fir [one, two, three, four].  So it was so integrated that you kind of didn't know that you were learning.  Because when you're young enough, you're like, Okay, well this is -- and there was plenty of English.  It wasn't like I felt like, Well, I don't know what's going on.  But it was so integrated that you had no choice but to learn.  And then we'd go to lunch, and then we would eat.  We would drink bug juice.  And then we would sing.  And you know, in hindsight, I'm sure that the people who were working in the camp were like, Go!  Just go, so we can clean up and we can also go to the pool!  But we had 21:00an awesome time.  And then we would put together a Friday night culture night every week.  And they were always, Oh, you know, come here!  Joanne!  Adel!  Shiffy!  Jessie!  Carrie!  Sabina!  Okay!  Come on, let's do it!  And we would put together some kind of a culture night.  And it was always about something interesting.  You would have stuff -- we had Yada, so -- "Yada" was "color war."  And "color war" -- it wasn't just red and blue and green.  It was two different teams with names of Yiddish poets, Yiddish authors, Yiddish composers, so you could be on the Peretz team and you could be on the Avrom Reyzen team or you could be on the Broderzon team or the Secunda team.  So, what are you doing?  You're singing the songs of this person.  You're writing 22:00cheers about this person.  Maybe you're writing an English original or a Yiddish original about this person's life, about this person's art.  You know, it's funny, I don't think I ever realized how much Yiddish was really there.  It was just there.  So you have all this Yiddish culture being just thrown at these kids who don't really get that you're absorbing a piece of the world that may not be in everyone else's line of sight.  So that was Yada, which happened early in the season.  And we would do other things.  Sometimes we played basketball.  And then we would go to dinner.  And after dinner, we would sing.  And we wouldn't leave.  And then we would go to a culture night or we would have Yiddish dancing.  And we would put on plays.  We had play rehearsal.  And the first role that I had at Camp Hemshekh was Bobe Yakhne in 23:00"Di kishefmakerin [The sorceress]."  And Moishe Rosenfeld -- we called him Rock at the time -- Rock put me in, like, the ugliest costume with the ugliest big nose.  He put putty on my face and drew all over my face.  And I was like, (shrieks) "Kim tsu mir [Come to me]."  I was like, Okay, I can do this.  And I don't know, it was just -- it was the way childhood should be.  I don't get why anyone wouldn't want to go to socialist Yiddish summer camp.  And then, of course, when we did Olympics -- they used to have something called "seasons" in the middle of the summer, but I don't think they were doing that when I was at camp.  And that was sort of a color war with Jewish holidays.  And then you would sing about the Yiddish holidays in Yiddish, with all that -- that cultural version of the holidays.  And then we had "seasons" -- what a perfect name.  And then, I guess, Olympics.  And Olympics would be three different 24:00countries.  And we were also -- it's the '70s, and we were learning about -- I think one of the countries was Chile, and they had just had that big revolution in Chile.  So one of the teams was Chile, and we learned all about Salvador Allende, and we learned songs from Chile -- songs of rebellion.  And it's funny, 'cause in hindsight, I remember playing Trivial Pursuit, and someone said, "Well, who was the president in Chile?"  And I was like, "Well, Salvador Allende."  And they said, "You peeked!"  And I said, "No.  I went to Camp Hemshekh and I learned about Salvador Allende."  So, you know.  But everything had a real -- the conversation about commitment to social justice was a part of everyday conversation.  You couldn't get -- it wasn't separated out, like, "Today, we're going to do Jewish culture."  It was here instead of, like, here.  And I really think it's such a good model, and I've tried to bring it to 25:00other places.  I tried to bring it to -- this is sort of loshn-hore [gossip] -- I tried to bring it to Kinder Ring, Kinder Ring was really not open to it -- wasn't ready for all of that Yiddish culture.  We tried to put Yiddish signs on -- but it really -- it had already gotten away from the Yiddish long before I got there as an adult, so -- it had another taste.  And so when I was running the Jewish culture department, we talked about Yiddish heldn [heroes] and we did a great project about that.  We did a project about di goldene keyt and how we're all part of the golden chain.  But it felt very separated from what was going on in the rest of the camp -- it wasn't in any way integrated.  And I was frustrated.  There.  I said it.

CW:  (laughs) [BREAK IN RECORDING] Did you have any particular favorite 26:00teachers in Yiddish stuff?

JB:  Awesome teachers.  I had awesome teachers.  So my first shule teacher was -- in regular elementar-shul [elementary school] -- was Mikhl Baron.  And he was also super integrated into the rest of my life, because he was also the camp director at Hemshekh.  So my mother was the chairperson of the shule anyway -- so my brother was in shule, we went to every single event, so I knew Khaver [Comrade] Mikhl -- at the time, he was Khaver Baron, or Mr. Baron when we were in shule, but by the time I graduated and went to mitlshul and then went to camp, he was no longer Mr. Baron -- he was Khaver Mikhl.  And he remained a very big part of my life.  His daughter, Ruth Baron, was our Yiddish music teacher.  She was at camp when we were there.  Also, one of the coolest people, that you want to grow up to be.  And he was the witness -- one of the 27:00witnesses at my wedding five years ago, and he witnessed our rings.  And he signed my ketubah [Hebrew: Jewish marriage contract].  And he was huge in the big picture, because he inspired us as young people.  He had -- and still has -- this amazing wealth of knowledge.  So even though I was living in a secular house, the information he had made us feel that we could maneuver in any other place.  So he didn't talk about Jewish life as something someone else does; he just said, "In religious households, these are the things that happen."  So I learned about kashrut from him.  And it was never, "This is how you're supposed to live."  It was, "This is how a kosher house works."  So -- you know, and 28:00all of a sudden, you have a bigger understanding of how it is.  And why would it come up?  Because you're reading stories.  They're integrated throughout the stories.  So if the story has, you know, "Di mame hot gemakht milkhiks [The mother made dairy dishes]," what does that mean?  So you're not gonna brush over it because you're teaching in a secular school.  You're going to explain what it means so you get the cultural reference, and then you're gonna move on.  So we learned about shlogn kapores [atonement ceremony performed the day before Yom Kippur, in which a chicken is swung over one's head] and we learned about the holidays.  Even in a secular situation, you can't talk about the holiday without understanding what the religious aspects were.  So in religious households, some people fast.  And in religious households, some people do this and stuff.  So interestingly, when I grew up and became more worldly about what other people were doing, I was able to maneuver around it in a way that made me 29:00feel included and not blind to what the rest of the Jewish people were doing.  It was kind of great.  And then when I met my husband, who was observant, I thought, Oh, I get it!  Okay.  So now I can maneuver here as well, and live this life and be able to integrate it into my background.  So Khaver Mikhl was unbelievable -- he's a great teacher.  He was also at Kinder Ring when I was teaching there.  He was heading up some of the Yiddish culture programs.  All right, so I'm not gonna have a blank.  My mitlshul teachers were incredible.  I had Khaver Litzky -- he was our Yiddish teacher.  Khaver Berovik taught us geshikhte [history].  Khaver Blott -- no, Khaver Berovik taught us Hebrew.  And Khaver Blank taught us geshikhte.  And they each had their own individual 30:00personalities, but this is now mitlshul, where we have a lot of freedom.  We're not being dropped off by mommy and daddy -- we get there by subway.  And it's possible that as young people, I learned my first rebellion there -- you know, 'cause that's what you do when you're surrounded by your kids and you're a young preteen -- where the fun preteen things start to happen.  And our music teacher the first year was this guy with shocking red hair who played awesome piano.  And he used to take us -- this little group of shule kids -- and he would, like, "Oh, we're gonna go to the Workmen's Circle  benefit here and we're gonna go to that performance there."  And he rounded us up there.  And this guy, Zalmen Mlotek, who was our shule [Yiddish secular school] music teacher, he would shlep us to the Pennsylvania Hotel or the Waldorf Astoria, to the Lincoln Center.  31:00And we were doing concerts and thing-- I don't know what I'm doing.  I'm just -- he was like, "Oh, here's this young person with a really big mouth and a big voice."  And I was also a kid.  And he takes me -- "We're gonna go to WEVD radio and you're gonna do a performance with Claire Barry."  And -- Okay, that sounds about right.  Is it Sunday?  That's what I do on Sundays.  I go with Zalmen and my shule class and we sing with Claire Barry.  And we went to Avery Fisher Hall and we did some kind of performance.  You know, in hindsight, you go, Oh, that's who that was -- I was performing with Ben Bonus and Mina Bern, who were big stars of the Yiddish theater.  Little kid.  So when I came across Mina later in my life, she's like, (imitates her voice, with an accent) "Oh, the little girl!  I remember you from the shule!  You were very talented!"  And you get this large -- to my parents -- (imitates her voice, with an accent) "Oh, you have a very talented daughter."  So Zalmen was really, really inspiring.  32:00And he was also really kind of game.  You know, if it had occurred to me that he was -- he was really young, you know?  When you're eleven years old, everyone is really old, and anyone who's, like, over eighteen might as well be -- but -- so we kept treating him like an adult, and it was like, no, he was probably twenty-five?  I mean, I don't know how old -- he was a kid.  He was a young man.  But he was really cool.  And I remember once sitting in the back of our shule class, and Zalmen is playing, and we are shamelessly flirting with each other -- 'cause there are cute boys there, and they speak Yiddish.  And we're all just playing around with each other, 'cause that's what little kids do, and Zalmen is going to kill us.  We're singing, we're tearing on things, and we're giggling and giggling.  And he finally says -- he goes, "Ugh!"  And 33:00he goes, "What does Elton John have to do with 'Di zun vet aruntergeyn [The sun will set]'?"  And we all go, (sings) Don't let the sun go down on me.  'Cause we're coming from this place, and he's singing "Di zun vet aruntergeyn," and we know what it means -- the sun is going down, the sun is setting -- and we're giggling our brains out.  But if you have someone who's cool enough to be playing -- and we were also sitting in the back going, Yeah, I think Zalmen's cool enough to play Elton John, don't you?  Yeah.  So -- (laughs) -- we were so mean.  But it was great, you know?  You have cool people.  And every one of those people in that group was also super talented.  So when we all went to camp, they're writing amazing music and they're playing great and we're sitting under trees with guitars and singing harmony.  And that was another thing -- is when you have people around you who encourage your talent and encourage your 34:00musicianship and -- and why not?  You know, that's the way to get kids inspired.  And I look around here at KlezKanada and I see these kids who I feel like I may have inspired -- I may have had a hand in putting Yiddish into their mouths and getting stuff integrated into their lives -- that hopefully "Kids & Yiddish" was helpful to them and hopefully something that they see here on stage was helpful.  Okay.

CW:  You've done so much work in Yiddish.  Is there a project that you're particularly proud of?

JB:  Oh, boy.  Well, "Kids & Yiddish" goes right to the top of the list, because when I remember how much I learned at that age -- at that really young age -- and if I can -- I used to say that I want to teach Yiddish to the children so their parents won't understand them.  So if anything I did could 35:00take the guilt out of Yiddish, that would be awesome, and I think that would change the world.  We made this great CD that I've had more parents say to me, I have to buy a new one, because when my kid was really young, she wouldn't let us stop playing it, and it was after -- like, the thousandth play, I was going a little stir crazy, so I hid it, and now I can't find it, and so I need to buy a new one.  And to me, that's the greatest compliment ever.  I was part of a beautiful project called "The Three Yiddish Divas" with Theresa Tova and Adrienne Cooper -- ole-hasholem [may she rest in peace] -- and we had a really wonderful time putting together this material, because the Yiddish material isn't just one thing.  And Tova came from a really jazzy place.  And Adrienne was really -- I mean, she did a lot of things, but one of the things that she 36:00really wanted to explore was a lot of the art song and a lot of the classical sounding stuff.  And I was doing a lot of Yiddish theater.  And to see these three women coming together -- and we did translations of pop tunes sometimes, and we sang together on any number of different Yiddish songs.  And we had a really wonderful rapport with each other.  And we were very maternal with each other.  So I know that what we put out on the stage was really terrific, but traveling with these women -- and we very often were able to travel with Marilyn Lerner, as well -- so you have these four Yiddish divas traveling the world.  We went to Poland, we went to Vienna, we were in Canada, we were in San Francisco.  To be able to experience the world from this perspective with these 37:00sisters -- like, with these three Yiddish sisters -- was really, really wonderful.  And so that project is kind of on hold right now.  But Adrienne still continues to inspire me.  And I will say that Adrienne was a huge mentor to me -- I'm sure she was a mentor to a lot of people, but she was mostly my mentor.  I know those other people.  They think that that was with them.  But I would literally go into Adrienne's office and sort of, "All right, listen, I need help with this and this and this."  And, like, those little corners that turned -- literally, I would say, "I don't know how to do that."  And she was like, "Oh, yeah you do.  Well, you know how to do this and this and this."  I'm like, "Well, yeah."  She goes, "Well, then just do this.  And now you're d--"  I was like, "How did you know that and I didn't know that?"  So that was kind of amazing.  What else?  What else have I done?  KlezKanada's an awesome 38:00project.  I love coming here every year.  It feels like family.  I will say that this -- coming here was the beginning of my understanding the rest of the Jewish world -- the Yiddish world.  Because -- also, kicking and screaming, I was like, Yiddish theater was a job, just like American theater was a job.  And I went with people that I really liked, and we made great Yiddish theater, and I did three major Yiddish Off-Broadway shows.  I had done some touring.  I had worked a lot in the Yiddish theater -- but it was Yiddish theater.  And Jeff Warschauer called me -- well, rewind.  I was doing a concert with Sara Rosenfeld in some park in Montreal, and she brings this guy who I had never met.  "This is Dr. Goldman.  You need to see her.  She needs to come to KlezKanada."  He meets me and was very, very nice.  The next year, I get a call: "You need to come to KlezKanada."  I'm like, "I'm not a klezmer.  I 39:00don't know what you're talking about.  I do Yiddish theater."  And Jeff was like, "Joanne, what you do is what we do.  It's what we need here is we need some of that."  So the following year I came, thinking, I'm not a klezmer.  I don't know what you're talking about.  I do Yiddish theater.  And then it was like -- the door opened up.  You know, like, the little peephole went like this, and I was like, Oh!  And I went through, and my life changed.  And it was the first time I was able to live this Yiddish, Jewish world.  I'm in a kosher situation.  Some people are davening, some people are secular.  Some people have the egalitarian service and some people go to the Orthodox service.  And everyone is cool.  And everyone is cool with each other.  And that's the biggest part, is that there was so much acceptance that these very frum [religiously observant] people were very, very understanding and tolerant of all of these secular people -- and vice versa, because we can be really 40:00challenging to each other.  But you had in this world people interacting in a way that was so loving.  And I fell in love at KlezKanada.  And I really found another home.  And it's a lot like Hemshekh -- it's like that time in life where you find this home.  And I really don't believe that if I hadn't experienced this world and really lived in it with my whole body and my whole soul that when I met my husband, I don't believe I would have been able to recognize that I could be part of that life and still be myself.  Because that was it.  Literally, I was like, Oh, okay.  I can daven.  I can go to shul on Saturdays.  I have to say, the other thing about him is that he's awesome.  And, when -- (laughs) 'Cause I'm kinda simple sometimes.  I was like, "So do 41:00you go to shul every Shabbos?" (laughs) And he's a little bit sarcastic.  He goes, "Well, Shabbos happens every week, so let's say, yes."  I'm like, "Well, I don't get it."  'Cause I don't get the prayer thing.  I don't -- I wasn't raised with that.  Like, I feel really Jewish and I feel really -- like, I feel like I'm a religious person, because I feel like I live with great -- okay, I remember our language -- but I feel like I live with integrity and I believe in social justice and fairness and I believe that I listen to other people.  I don't get where the prayer comes in.  And he says, "Well, I don't feel centered for the week if I don't go to shul."  And I'm like, Oh my God, I'm a Reiki 42:00master, I've listened to all these other different kinds of philosophy.  I'm like, I don't think you could have given me an answer -- and then he gave me the only answer that was gonna really -- and we barely knew each other at the time.  I was like, Oh.  I get it.  So your soul is fed by that aspect of your life.  And I crept along and went a little bit at a time.  And I was never told, You have to go.  And if you get the right people to inspire you and you go to the right place -- that is speaking to your soul and your spirit -- it's sort of inspiring.  So I suddenly found myself in that world.  And I really believe that KlezKanada was the place that opened that door for me.  There was something I was gonna talk about -- something -- I forgot.

CW:  Well, we don't have too much more time, but I wanted to ask you to say a little more about the idea of Yiddish and guilt and taking the guilt out of 43:00Yiddish.  What do you mean by that?

JB:  So, many immigrant cultures want to -- at least during the earlier parts of the twentieth century, the idea was to come to the New World and assimilate your children as much as possible so they could then make a living in the New World -- in the new language, in the new pla-- and I believe that some cultures have done a better job of letting that happen and still not losing your background.  And I may be wrong.  I know I have a friend whose parents were from Italy -- they moved to the United States, they could barely speak English.  And he actually used to talk about how he knew his parents could speak English perfectly well, but they just didn't want to.  (laughs) So he 44:00spent most of his childhood translating for his parents.  But I think a lot of the Jewish cultures came in and were speaking Yiddish in the house and were very much about, Don't speak Yiddish outside of the house.  You know?  This is what we are gonna do here.  And then there were the people who were doing what my mother and grandmother did -- speaking Yiddish so we wouldn't understand.  It was a great secret language.  And at the same time, people grew up with not understanding what their parents were talking about.  I didn't resent it.  There were a lot of people that grew up resenting the language, simply because it was the language that was going to keep them from what the parents were talking about.  And you know, people do different things.  Some will then go ahead and learn the language so they can speak -- so they can understand what's going, which is what I did -- and my parents were thrilled by it.  And then the 45:00other people that said, No, we don't want you to speak this language, because we want you to have a better life.  People were changing their names -- they shouldn't sound so Jewish.  People wanted you to go into a secular life so you wouldn't be marginalized and then you wouldn't sound so Jewish.  There's also a lot of guilt attached to Yiddish as a Germanic language.  And so after the Second World War and the Holocaust, it -- I mean, look at the decision that was made for the language of the State of Israel.  And there are a lot of different stories.  Who knows what is true -- and maybe they're all true.  But when they were coming up with a language for the State of Israel, a lot of the people who were there already -- and a lot of the people who were moving there already -- spoke Yiddish.  And there was a decided movement that said, The language of Israel will be modern Hebrew.  And at the time -- and that was years before the 46:00Holocaust.  So when the Holocaust came, it was, Well, we don't want to be speaking a kind of pidgin German.  We want to speak the new language.  And the new language -- the modern language -- was now going to be Hebrew.  And with that new modern State of Israel, it's now 1948, the new state -- it became not just the land -- that Hebrew is the language of the land.  Hebrew now becomes the language of the Jewish people.  And I think that Yiddish became marginalized and forgotten and very much pushed aside.  This is the language of slavery, and rather than being slaves to this Eastern European language -- the Eastern European countries, look how they all turned their backs on us -- I mean, you can be angry with Germany, but the truth was, there was a lot of Eastern Europe, starting with Poland, and Hungary and France and all these countries that gave up their Jews and turned their backs.  And the resentment 47:00-- it was something that you couldn't even articulate anymore, but you could articulate it in this language.  And this gorgeous culture suddenly died out.  Which is -- it's like letting the enemy win.  And we always talk about, Well, you let the terrorists win when you take away our tourism, when you take away our this -- our language, our this.  And I think that's where the klezmer movement and the Yiddish movement comes back in, because now we're saying, I'm gonna take it back.  This is gonna be the weirdest story.  I was once doing a performance of "Kids & Yiddish" -- it was at some event at the Jewish Museum, and I had these cute kids, and I had them in these bright yellow T-shirts that said, "I Heart Kids & Yiddish" -- 'cause they're bright and they're yellow.  And we finished this performance, and I'm waiting at the bus, and someone says 48:00to me, "Well, why did you have" -- just at the bus stop -- someone I didn't really know, but remembered me, and said, "I'm a little upset that you had yellow T-shirts."  I said, "Why?"  She said, "Well, you know, they're yellow T-shirts.  Like the yellow stars.  You shouldn't have the children in yellow T-shirts."  And meanwhile I'm thinking, They're bright and you can see them.  And I just stopped for a second and I said, "I'm taking back yellow.  Yellow is no longer the color of oppression.  Yellow is the color of the sun.  Yellow is the color of a free day.  And I'm taking back yellow."  So that's where -- I'm taking back Yiddish, and we're gonna send it to the next generations -- now there are a few generations past where the survivors are.  And I have to say, we have -- this is my last little thing here.  One of the things that I found 49:00really interesting at Hemshekh was, it was started by survivors so they could send their kids to camp.  Now, I was younger, and my parents were not survivors -- my parents' parents came over during an earlier wave of immigration.  But all of my peers were children of survivors.  And there was a definite separation between -- not a separation, but a delineation where you know that your parents were American-born and these people's parents were survivors.  And we had a lot of respect for these kids whose parents were survivors, because they had a different kind of childhood.  This person's parents always had fear -- they had a different world.  Someone's father woke up screaming every single 50:00night.  And her childhood was, Yeah, my father wakes up screaming every single night.  And Hemshekh also had a week about the Holocaust, where we had the conversation.  So during the week around Tisha B'Av, there was "ghetto week."  And we put together a "ghetto program."  Everyone in camp participated.  The CITs would guard in front of a ghetto wall that was made of mortar and brick and broken glass and barbed wire.  And the CITs would each stand for an hour.  And then we had a changing of the guard.  And it was very respectful and serious.  And we told the stories without flipping out the kids -- like, you were keeping the stories alive without making the kids go insane.  I think sometimes kids hear about the Holocaust, and it's very third-person and it's very scary.  But my guess is, when you're growing up with this as part of your home and your 51:00house, it is integrated into your life.  So the conversation was always being had.  But as an American-born kid to American-born parents, I always felt like I had a better perspective on -- "better" is a funny word -- it's qualitative, it's not -- but I had a different perspective on that.  And I was not surrounded by guilt.  Neither were these people in this camp -- no one was surrounded by guilt for speaking Yiddish, because we were all studying and speaking Yiddish together.  But I always felt like those kids had a certain amount of authenticity that I didn't necessarily have.  So now, it's many years later, and I realize that I also have an authentic Jewish background, because my grandparents came from a different wave of immigration -- that each one of the waves of immigration were equally important to the cultural aspects here.  But 52:00in terms of what we want to teach our kids -- and I knew when the first time I said this I was gonna get a lot of pushback, and I said, I know that I am not a child of survivors.  My parents were American-born.  However, as the generations keep going, I believe we need to start telling that story the way we tell the story of the Passover.  Right?  I was liberated from Egypt -- I, and I am not some past generation.  I was liberated.  So I believe that we all need to be survivors of the Holocaust.  Not to diminish the real survivors, the actual -- the people who were there, and not to diminish the children of survivors, but I really do believe that we're all children of survivors.  And that my parents are children of survivors of a different Holocaust.  My parents 53:00are children of survivors of the pogroms, but even though my parents were born in the US, I am in many ways a child of the survivors of the pogroms.  And I am a child of the survivors of the Holocaust, because those were my teachers.  So if each one of my teachers brought me a story and brought me part of my childhood and my upbringing, I also get to do that.  But if we're not all somehow children of the survivors, we might forget.  And I don't want kids to forget.  I think that we can forgive, but we can't forget, because the story has to keep getting told.  And not just the story of oppression, but the story of the culture and the story of the music and the poetry and the prose -- that we have to keep telling the stories.  Which is why "Kids & Yiddish" became so important.  Which is why it was about taking back yellow, taking back Yiddish, 54:00and becoming the children of survivors -- and becoming the children of Yiddish.  So I don't know that I'm gonna start a movement, and I don't need to change the world, but I really do believe that we're children of Yiddish and we're children of the larger Jewish Yiddish culture.  And I also believe that even the people who settled -- the chalutzim [Hebrew: pioneers] and all the people that went to Israel, I think they're also now getting used to the idea that Yiddish is not so foreign. [BREAK IN RECORDING] So I did "Fiddler on the Roof" with Topol twice.  And I know he's a big star in Israel.  I know he starred in the film.  And I did the show with him twice -- I did one a long, long time ago and then I did one very recently.  And I must have had some Yiddish nameplate on, so it was like, "Yokhevedl."  And he was like, "You know" -- and then he started saying something to me in Hebrew.  And I said, "Ani lo 55:00medaberet ivrit [Hebrew: I don't speak Hebrew], ikh red yidish [Yiddish: I speak Yiddish]."  And he is suddenly -- why?  Because he's got Polish parents.  And he's beautiful.  His Yiddish is gorgeous -- this big star in Israel.  And he taught his kids Hebrew and -- gorgeous, beautiful, geshmakte [delicious], getamte [tasty] Yiddish.  And I have this special relationship with him, because I could speak Yiddish.  And that was also another experience where it wasn't about being separated -- it was about all being part of the same culture.  We're a very small little culture.  I think it's okay that we all get along.  So, anyway -- take back the Yiddish, man.  So --

CW:  Great.  I just want to end by asking -- well, first of all, is there a song that you might want to sing?

JB:  Oy gevalt!

CW:  (laughs)

JB:  Oh, you see?  You should have asked me before, because I'm terrible with remembering so-- tell me what song you want to hear.

CW:  Maybe something from Hemshekh or "Yiddish for Kids."

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

JB:  So this is "Kids & Yiddish."  This is why it's so awesome and kids love it.  Put your hands on your head.  In Yiddish, we say, "kop [head]."  Put your hands on your shoulders.  In Yiddish, we say, "akslen [shoulders]."  In English, these are our knees.  And in Yiddish, we say, "kni [knee]."  And these are our feet.  And in Yiddish, we say, "fis [feet]."  And it goes like this: (sings) "Kop, akslen, kni un fis, kni un fis [Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes]" -- everybody!  (sings) "Kop, akslen, kni un fis, kni un fis."  Now, in English, we say "eyes" -- in Yiddish, we call these our "oygn."  In English, these are our ears, and we call them our "oyern."  In English, this is a nose, and in Yiddish, this is our noz."  And in English, 57:00this is our mouth, and in Yiddish, we call it our "moyl."  And so that goes: (singing) "Oygn, oyern, noz un moyl" -- from the beginning -- (singing) "Kop, akslen, kni un fis, kni un fis."  So that's "Kop, akslen, kni un fis."  And I think Adrienne wrote it probably to teach to Sarah Gordon, because she's great.  She was a perfect parent.

CW:  (laughs)

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

JB:  That -- that particular piece -- everyone likes to sing it.  Whatever it is -- it's an old tune that everyone is kind of familiar with.  And everyone gets very, very excited about it.  So, like, Oh, Joanne!  You know, "Kop, akslen, kni un fis"!  And then you just tell -- you know, and then kids are suddenly bilingual where they were never speaking Yiddish before.  So you take the guilt out of it when you make it sort of fun.  It's a little bit like Julie Andrews and "Mary Poppins." (laughs) "You find the fun and snap." (snaps) "The job's a game."

CW:  (laughs)

JB:  Okay, now I might have done a Julie Andrews imitation in "Kids & Yiddish," 58:00and that was -- [BREAK IN RECORDING] -- (sings) "Alef, A, and sometimes O.  Beys, that's not the way to be.  Giml, G, in 'good,' and 'gut.'  Daled, it has the sound of D.  Hey, in fields we see it grow.  Vov, it rhymes with 'love,' you know.  Zayin, Z, it's time to say -- that's our lesson for today-yay-yay-yay" -- and it goes on.  It's ridiculous.

CW:  (laughs)

JB:  I'm ridiculous.  But this is why kids wanna learn Yiddish from me.  'Cause they're like, She's ridiculous.  I can -- I can do that.  I can be ridiculous.

CW:  Yeah.

JB:  (laughs) Do I have a serious song I want to -- do you want me to sing something serious?

CW:  Not necessarily.

JB:  Oh, I wish you could have let me -- a Hemshekh song?

CW:  Yeah.  Sure.

JB:  Oh, boy.

CW:  How about "Mir kumen on"?  Do you remember that one?

JB:  If I can remember all the words.  Because -- (sings) "A yontef makht oyf ale merk/un fayern [It's a holiday for all the markets/and flames]" (stands up) -- "tsint on oyf berg [are lit on all the hills]" -- you stand up for this -- (sings) "Mir kumen shturems on a tsam,/fun land tsu land, fun yam tsu yam [We're on the way, storms without bound, from land to land, from sea to sea]" --

CW:  Can you do it again?  Sorry.

JB:  What?

CW:  Can you start again?

JB:  Okay.

CW:  Sorry.  (laughs)

JB:  Okay.  So we stand up.  I mean, every camp had its anthem.  And it's like standing up for the national anthem or standing up for the Partisan hymn.  So we would stand up for "Mir kumen on."  But I'm not gonna remember it all.  (sings) "A yontef makht oyf ale merk/un fayern tsint on oyf berg./Mir kumen shturems on a tsam,/fun land tsu land, fun yam tsu yam./Mir kumen on, mir kumen on!/Mir kumen on, mir kumen on!" -- oh, Lord -- (sings) "Un fest un zikher 60:00undzer trot, undzer trot!/Mir kumen on fun dorf un shtot,/mit libe, fayer, un mit blik/mit hertser oysgebenkt nokh glik./Mir kumen on, mir kumen on!/Mir kumen on, mir kumen on! [Our steps are strong and assured, our steps!/We are on the way from village and city,/with love, fire and our gaze/with hearts longing for joy./We're on the way, we're on the way!/We're on the way, we're on the way!]."  [BREAK IN RECORDING] And you know, I'm sitting here feeling guilty, because I didn't mention my parents' names.  This is like this whole Yiddish project, and I don't have a Yiddish life without mentioning my parents' names, so --

CW:  You can mention their names --

JB:  Oh, my mother is Beverly Borts -- Beverly Littman Borts.  Her father -- olev-asholem [may he rest in peace] -- was [Avrom Litman?], and he worked at the "Forverts."  Her mother was Sonya Treit Littman, from Yekaterinoslav.  My father's father was Elias Alexander Borts.  And his mother was Yokheved 61:00Tsilberg Borts, who I was named for -- who, when I went to Vienna, I decided I was gonna try and find some kind of remnant, but we have no idea where she was from.  And -- someone else?  And my parents, Lonnie and Beverly Borts.  And they're awesome.

CW:  And why is it important to name the names in Jewish tradition?

JB:  You know, it's important to name the names.  Especially the people who gave you life and people who gave you your inspiration.  And my parents and my grandparents were a real inspiration.  I remember at one point -- 'cause you know, when you were a kid, you're like, I don't wanna go to shule, it's tired.  I'm this, I'm that.  And I remember at some point, my mother said, "Look" -- see, because guilt is awesome sometimes.  So I was going to shule for years, and something happened, and -- I don't know, someone looked at me funny, and I didn't want to go back to regular elementar-shul.  And she said, "Joanne, look. Your grandmother just passed away, and you used to" -- because I lost my last 62:00grandparent when I was ten years old.  And she said, "Grandma just passed away, so just go back and finish shule.  Just -- you don't have to keep going, you just -- finish it for her.  She was the person you used to sing to all the time.  She was the person you used to speak with all the time.  She was also an awesome cardplayer."  And she said, "Just do it for grandma."  "Okay.  I can do it from grandma."  So the irony is, I finished shule and figured I'm never gonna go back.  I don't need to do this.  I promised I would finish, I was -- don't have to ever go back.  And the next thing I know, it's the end of the summer, we're at this picnic, and Vita's going to mitlshul.  And I do whatever Vita does, 'cause she's awesome.  And it just -- I mean, that moment.  That -- going to that picnic changed my life.  It really did.  'Cause if I hadn't gone to mitlshul, I wouldn't have met Zalmen.  He put me in 63:00countless musicals.  And it's amazing how one little conversation you have when you're ten years old, eleven years old, is gonna make the world change -- which is actually pretty funny, 'cause I look at all these ten- and eleven-year-olds (UNCLEAR).  And I will say -- also in hindsight -- where I thought nobody in the rest of my world spoke Yiddish, when I met my husband, my mother-in-law is like -- at the time, she's like, "Oh, Joanne, we go to see all your performances!  We've seen you in 'The Golden Land,' and 'On Second Avenue.'  We saw you in 'Those Were the Days.'  We saw you in the revival of this and 'Hershl Ostropolyer [Hershel of Ostropol].'  And we saw" -- really?  And Mike says, "Oh, yeah.  No, I took Yiddish -- for one semester before I stopped."  But it was sort of amazing that -- also, the Yiddish comes back.  My mother-in-law used to take Yiddish with Moishe Rosenfeld who put me in that makeup at Camp Hemshekh.  So the world gets smaller and smaller and smaller.  And Yiddish is the great uniter.  I will say, it brings more people together 64:00than separates them.  So -- and now I'm finished with this interview.

CW:  (laughs) A hartsikn dank [Thank you very much].

[END OF INTERVIEW]