CARA DE SILVA ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: Today is September 18th, 2014, I'm here with Cara De Silva in New York City, this is -- I'm Christa Whitney, 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?

CARA DE SILVA: You do.

CW: And, any other questions before we begin?

CDS: No.

CW: Okay. (Laughs) Well, I think we should just jump right in. Today we're mostly going to be talking about your father. Could you just give a general introduction to someone who doesn't know who your father is? His name, and where he was born?

CDS: Ah-ha! (Laughs) My father was either born in Poland or Russia. He always 1:00told me he was Russian, and that he was born around Kiev. But -- and there are documents that say he is Russian, but there are also documents that say he was Polish. And one in particular, I think on a draft registration card -- and I just found this out from my cousin -- that said he was born in [Staline?], Poland, which I don't think is possible because places weren't named after Stalin. Staline means iron man or something like that. Places weren't named after Stalin until after Stalin was Stalin, and that was much too late. So I really don't know. It could also have been the shifting borders between Russia and Poland, but I only just realized this about the Polish thing, I have always 2:00thought I was Russian Jew on my father's side and Polish Jew on my mother's side, with other things thrown in, but now I really don't know. So, and I'm not sure it's solvable. He was born in the 1890s, that also is inexact, about what year it was exactly. And he died in New York in 1962. And he came here alone at age seventeen. And went on to become a Yiddish writer. Largely -- not only, of course, that's not what he did for a living -- but not only of short stories, but of other things as well, but short stories were his main métier.

CW: Do you know anything about his childhood?

CDS: The only thing I know about his childhood, very little of the kind that you 3:00mean. What I know about his childhood are his, probably fantasy stories about things. I remember his talking to me about his little sister being stolen by Gypsies, and it began, for me, a lifelong interest in Gypsies. I'm actually on the board of the Gypsy Lore Society, which is the scholarly society in England and America that studies Gypsies. And I know it came from that, because even though he said she was stolen, it was very romantic. (Laughs) And so I didn't know, of course, to check, or, you know, he could have said they tried to steal her, my memory was he said they stole her. Um, but of course they didn't -- 4:00Gypsies really don't steal children. And there's a lot of romance around Gypsies, and he incorporated it. That was one of the stories he told me when I was a child. And that is the only other thing I can think of that I know is that my father always said that the family on his side was partly Sephardic, and that the Sephardic families are Abarbanel and that it had been changed because of the conscription of the eldest son of every Jewish family by the czar, so there's another Russian thing, depending again on what the history of that particular period was. But that is really all I know of his family there, I mean, I know a little bit about his family here, and obviously they were there as well. But I 5:00assume you're gonna get to that, or I can tell you who they were.

CW: Yeah, do you know anything about his parents or grandparents? Anyone of the older generation?

CDS: No. I believe his mother -- that part of my family was a part of the family I knew much less well than my mother's family. They lived in Boston, and, or outside in a town called Haverhill. And, I believe I met his mother when I was very tiny, but I couldn't absolutely say for sure. I did know his brother and sister. And Philip and Pearl.

CW: And do you know how he came over here? Did you hear anything about the journey?

CDS: Well, he always said that he came as a cabin boy, by himself, in the very 6:00early 1900s. What that meant to him I have no idea, nor -- I mean, I don't have any description of what his life was like as a cabin boy at that time, or how he happened to come on his own, which does seem to be the case, and when his family came in relationship to that. I just know he was very young to set off on his own. In fact, I thought he was even younger than seventeen. But, it does -- that's one of the few consistent things in the story.

CW: Do you know if his family was religious?

CDS: I think, to a limited degree. As with so many Jews. I can't tell you whether that Massachusetts side of the family kept kosher or not. My half-brother grew up with them. But I only saw them very occasionally. We didn't 7:00have much money, it's not like we went traveling to there all the time. And I don't -- I have a very -- there was another sister, my aunt Esther, and I have a very strong -- I'm sorry I just realized she's not on the ancestry.com tree. Anyway, but she was the most important, she used to come to visit us all the time. But I don't have any memory of her turning my mother's kitchen kosher or anything like that. So, I would say probably, sort of. I don't know how else to say it. But certainly not in a way that was very noticeable. My grandmother must have been. But I knew them best after she died, so, when things could have slipped into a very different way of being.

CW: So, and, so you knew the -- your aunts and uncles, his siblings.

CDS: I did, in a limited way. But especially this aunt Esther. Who was the person most responsible for raising my brother, my half-brother Leo. And I knew her for that reason. Also, as I said, we had a tiny little house in the country, in Monroe, New York, which was Orange County. And she used to come and visit sometime and stay with us, as well as in the city. And as I said, we would go to Boston very -- Haverhill, very occasionally. So, and I just remember her as dear -- as in very dear but very strong-minded woman. Very sweet, very loving, but (laughs), so. And the others, her -- his brother Philip, I just remember a 9:00certain amount of physical resemblance. And Pearl. I'm sta-- I don't -- I think -- I have the feeling Pearl was a daughter and not a sister. But again, you're talking to my tiny, you know, four-year-old mind, (laughs) and so I'm not a hundred percent sure. And I wish, very much, I had had more to do with them because I would know much more about the family than I do.

CW: Yeah. Can you describe what he looked like?

CDS: Yeah. He was -- he is -- he was what the French call beau-laid, meaning ugly-beautiful. He had a very expressive, sensuous, dark, poetic face. But he 10:00was not handsome. He was just very, he was striking-looking. But not in a gorgeous way. But in a -- sometimes, of course he changed over the years, but almost more from pictures than from my actual memory of him, I remember him that way. As, looking like these dark-eyed, poetic, wild photos. Which was really, I mean the very fact that he let photographs be taken of him that are so scraggly says something about what he was like. But I think in later years his hair was more exactly combed, and he was going to a job every day, at the International 11:00Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, where he was a manager. When he first arrived here, he worked in a factory as an operator, a dress operator on clothes, but he rose within the ranks of the union to become the manager of a department. And of course that required a certain amount of decorum beyond what maybe came to him completely naturally. And then it did become part of him.

CW: Yeah. Did he have a particular feature, you know, that was -- that you -- was prominent or reminds you of him, physically?

CDS: You mean a physical feature?

CW: Yeah.

CDS: I think his whole face. I mean, I think that's the thing, especially, the more poetic, you know, and his strong eyes.

CW: Dark eyes?

CDS: Yeah, dark eyes. And, um, yeah, I think that, more than anything else.

CW: And what was he like, was he small?

CDS: He was probably, I'm guessing he was about 5'10'' or 11''. Medium build, not dramatically one or the other. And it was long before men worked out (Laughs). So, there was nothing of that kind that was part of him, I mean, you didn't have a sense of huge muscularity, he just looked like guys looked at that time, unless they happened to be bodybuilders or something like that. So he wasn't particularly large, or small, he was just regular, average height and build.

CW: Do you remember how he dressed?

CDS: I think, as I said for the office he always wore a tie and suit. Other than 13:00that I remember him in short-sleeved shirts, not polo shirts or anything like that, but in regular white or maybe a colored, pale shirt. But I think regularly, if he was not at work, that's what he was wearing, like a white cotton, or a blue cotton shirt. Just regular belt, regular pants, with a pleat down the front. The kinds of things it seemed like everybody, every guy -- everybody wore then. And so I don't ever remember him in any other kind of top than that.

CW: What was his personality like?

CDS: It depends what you mean by personality. He was certainly a very engaged person. Part of his personality is something I took away from him and my mother 14:00in the best sense, which is that he was an enormously caring person who cared very, very much about other people. And was, would try to do things for other people, and had a political bent towards the world which carried through his life, his writing, his work, everything. And, I mean, I think, and, he liked to talk, and he liked to imagine, and he, there were a lot of people in our house.

CW: When you say political, what was his -- he was involved in the unions but --

CDS: He was very involved in the union, he was a leftist, very early on he was a Communist. He broke with them at the time of the Hitler-Stalin pact. And, but I think my experience with him was that he was, that he continued to a certain degree, not with communism itself but with a sense of the rights of the people, caring for the people. The importance of looking out for your fellow man. Of putting yourself on the line, whether it was the picket line, the union line, he was an organizer before he was a manager at the ILGWU. And, I mean, he I'm sure 16:00had his selfish bits as we all do, but my primary remembrance of both him and my mother are that to a larger degree, I think, than many people, that their identity came from caring about others. And trying to work for the benefit of others. And again, I don't mean to make them sound saintly, they were also human. But it was a very much pronounced characteristic in my life with them and what I knew of him from other people.

CW: And, you grew up here in New York --

CDS: Um-hm.

CW: -- can you describe your home?

CDS: I grew up in Upper Manhattan, which was in part the Jewish part of Manhattan, not the only part but it was -- and there were others, of course. My 17:00home was very nice without being fancy, we lived in an apartment on, basically on 204th Street. I was born in a different apartment, which was across the street, still on 204th street. But I mention it because it is part of him, in a way, that we overlooked a very old Dutch farmhouse, that is still there, called the Dyckman house. And, behind the Dyckman house, there was a Revolutionary War hut, there is, still, a Revolutionary War hut. I of course didn't know what it was, and by that time we had moved across the street. But that war hut 18:00fascinated me, and when I asked my father about it, he always told me, that's where the three bears lived. And so, it's still in my head even though I subsequently found out it was from the time of the American Revolution, and what it was used for -- it's still in my head the home of the three bears. And our house was -- it was very pleasant without being fancy, because we didn't have a lot of money. And my -- there was only one bedroom, and it was mine, my parents slept in the living room on a pullout sofa, so that I could have the bedroom. And it was -- I don't mean it was Shaker-like, it was Jewish-like, but it was very -- it was simple. You know, but every -- but there were certain things. My 19:00mother had hiked across the country prior to meeting him, so there were things from that period around, colorful things, and other such. And I remembered a big armchair in the living room, and their sofa. And, as I said, I just remembered because of what I'm telling you, that vase, I had completely forgot, that was something she brought back, that must have been Indian. There was a piece of petrified wood from the Petrified Forest, which is behind you, actually. And, some other things of that nature, and I don't think -- my mother was a sculptress -- I don't think she had started to study yet. She subsequently did. So I don't remember anything like that. I do remember that there was a blackboard set up for me in a hallway. I remember that my childhood furniture 20:00was painted white with pink candles, wooden furniture. And, you know, sets of drawers for my bedroom. And that my particular room looked out onto 204th Street and I remember both of my parents although my father was obviously there much less, their ability to look out the window and call me when I was playing in the street. They would go to the windows in my bedroom and be able to do that. And it was lovely. I don't know, that I thought so a hundred percent later, but as a child, because of course so much more was given to me as a child by their desire to make sure that I had everything, that it was probably nicer for me than it 21:00was for them.

CW: Can you tell me a little bit about your mother?

CDS: My father was much older than my mother, considerably older. And she also had been a dress operator. She also was very political. And, I think they were very much in love with each other. He was married when they met, to someone else, named Jenny, who was my brother's mother. My half-brother's mother. They had to wait a long time until he could get a divorce. And of course what money they had was also going towards the divorce. And she was very artistic, but her 22:00big thing was sculpture. And, but as I said, I don't remember exactly when that started, except that it was when I was a child. And, she did this head of my father, which is over here, there's another one over there, that was in an exhibition when I was a little girl sometime. With a wonderful (laughs), terrible name, and it was called in the show, "There's a Limit to Endurance." And here's this woman, you know whatever, but it was so much out of their politics, that she would even think that way, you know, to call it that. And she wanted to rescue that person, and other such people, of course, immigrant life. She was very, she was very well-liked. She was a good cook, in her kind of 23:00instinctively fusion way. I remember her pouring maple syrup over her matse bray [matzah gruel]. And, I mean not that she ever thought about it, in those terms, but she was famous for her potato latkes, and I also remember her when she discovered pasta, that she would make these big stews of chicken and meat with tons of caramelized onions, they were luscious, and garlic. But she would put it over rigatoni. And there would be this pot full of rigatoni with this delicious, very non-Italian topping on it. (Laughs) But it was just, absolutely wonderful. And she would always say to me that I would -- I never wanted to learn to cook. And, she would always say to me that I would never get married because I didn't 24:00want to learn how to cook. And so I learned to cook after I got married. And of course I outshone her greatly to her delight, just. But, and she was very emotional. I think she had a hard time as a child for a variety of very personal reasons relating to her family.

CW: Was she born in this country?

CDS: No, she was born in Poland. And came here when she was in her late teens, probably. Just like -- well maybe twenty, but with family, as opposed to my father, who came alone. And lived on the Lower East Side for a time, then her 25:00family moved to the Bronx, and -- I think they -- as I said, I think they were basically a really good couple. An imperfect couple, but a really good couple. And I think they were both, I think, unusually sensitive people. And that was both the good and the bad of it. And, mostly the good of it. Not a hundred percent. And I was indeed the apple of their eye. And my brother was in California by that time, and he was vastly older, I mean like twenty years older. And I really, my father was very much in touch with him and my mother and he and his -- the woman he married were very close. And I was very close to her 26:00too, when they lived in New York briefly. But then they moved to California. And I really didn't know him very much at all. So it's another one of those things that you don't really realize as a kid how much it's gonna matter later, and so we just let it go like that, and he called me sis, which made me crazy (laughs). And because I -- it's ex -- it's just not a name I like. And so, but I think he also was a good person politically. He was certainly very intelligent. And I'm still in touch with his wife. And my mother -- my father died in 1962, so a very long time ago -- and my mother maintained the relationship strongly, even going out there alone, until she died. And now I maintain it. But he died, so the 27:00maintenance is with my nieces. And with my sister-in-law, who's still alive.

CW: And, do you remember your father writing?

CDS: That's -- sorry, that just brought tears to my eyes. I wasn't expecting that. I -- yes I do. I most certainly do. And mostly what I remember is a little black notebook that he had, with -- that was a ring binder. And I used to see him at various times sitting in a corner, or at the kitchen table, or other places, writing in that book. And I would see Yiddish in it. And never English, 28:00that I recall. But Yiddish. And he would always be working on something that's -- I mean his identity as a writer was enormously important to him. And so it was threaded one way or the other, through my life, as -- I also used to see him type, but I don't remember -- and I do have a Yiddish typewriter, that may have been his, I'm not sure, it came through my mother. But I don't remember if he was writing on the typewriter. My major re -- um, writing in Yiddish on the typewriter. My major memory is this little black book, and several years ago, going through some of the stuff that I have of his love letters, some of the material he wrote in English, because he did write in English too. Largely for 29:00left-wing kinds of publications, with wonderful names like "Blast," and other such things. I discovered where he had lived, either when they were together -- when he was together with my mother, or, I believe so, and it was on west 48th street, which is in Hell's Kitchen, just West of Ninth Avenue. And the building is still there. And I have gone there a number of times and just stood outside. And wondered which apartment they lived in, and whether it was in the back, or in the front, it's very moving to me to think about it, and to think about him in that area. And also, because New York is one of my beloved cities, the change 30:00in the area to being trendy now, from what it was when he was there, and it was sort of near his office at the ILGWU. But I know that one of the first things I pictured when I went there and I stood downstairs looking at the building was my father with his little black book with the ring binder. Sitting -- I would try, you know, to concentrate, to be able to picture what room he was in, was there more than one room? But it was always that he was sitting in that apartment writing in Yiddish in this same ring binder. And very touching to me. Very, very touching. So yes, I do absolutely remember him writing, and love the memory. Love it, as you can see from how much -- what I -- a couple of years ago I was 31:00in the research library, the New York Public Library, the big, great library, that is one of the greatest in the world, and I looked him up. And he -- Dorot has his complete works and a couple of other things as well, other than the three books, one of which I think must be a magazine or a journal or of some sort. But first of all, just seeing his name, you know, there, it's -- that is one of the great, from the time I was a kid in high school, and going there to research papers, to becoming a researcher myself, and a writer, and coming in for other purposes -- and at one point I called myself up to, and the -- because 32:00I have a book there, and, the book I did on the Holocaust. And there was something about seeing the two of us on this computer, his name, and then my name, and -- I felt so proud of him, and of how proud he would have been to see -- and my mother would have been, to see the same thing. And even though he was writing largely in Yiddish, I'm sure that, I mean, I have a gift, you know, that, it's not genetic, but I'm sure that my openness to writing as a career and as something I identified with so strongly, and literature, ultimately came in some way from him. And from what he brought to my household as a child, and later of course.

CW: Were there particular times when he would write? Times of day?

CDS: You mean times of day? I don't have a particular memory of that. I know that he would also sometimes -- I mean obviously he was tired when he came home from the office, so I think, I'm guessing that he probably wrote a lot in the early morning. And that, he also wrote on weekends. And I know that he also used to write in the cafeteria. He would go in, and sit by himself, and since there were many other Jewish writers, or workers, or whatever, there, I don't know how he got to be by himself except by going at times when there weren't so many people there. But I know that he did that a lot. He would just go and write.

CW: And what was, what were the, the languages of the home growing up? Did you --

CDS: English and Yiddish. My father and mother spoke in Yiddish a lot of the time. It may have been, for them, the time-honored thing of the kids not understanding you. But I don't think it was that as much as it was their natural language. Although they also did, certainly, speak English to each other. I think it was probably more than fifty percent Yiddish. And also because we used to have guests in our home who were Yiddish speakers. Regular folk, but also writers. And I remember, not that I remember very much about him, but that one of our very regular visitors was this man named Yosl Cohen, who was a very noted 35:00poet, and he had a very distinctive face, and I still, I remember it --

CW: What was it like?

CDS: Well, if I said my father's face was sensuous, this was like massively beyond that, in, very large lips, and, very round, imposing face, and, of course because he was speaking in Yiddish I really didn't understand a whole lot of what went with his whole way of being. But I do as -- I remember him, there was somebody else too, whose name, I don't re-- who were particularly close to the family. And sometimes they were editors in the Yiddish publications, or other writers. But, like, most writers, you know, you expect to have -- or painters, or other such people -- you expect to have other such people in the house, and so there were many dinners, when there was that, and although, and another 36:00reason I don't think my parents were speaking Yiddish to keep anything from me, is that they really wanted me to learn it. And I simply was not very good at it. And I don't have a lot of shprakh-gefil [feel for languages] in general, and so I understand a lot, and I understand a lot of Yiddish, but I'm not very good at speaking any of the languages, I'm very good at understanding, even though I may not have studied them. So they sent me to an American Labor Party school, when I was very little, and, very little, little -- and I really didn't like it. Not because I didn't like Yiddish, but because I was so uncomfortable there. And because things were -- I was a smart kid -- things were expected of me that 37:00really did not come naturally to me at all. And it scared me. I somehow was scared of circumstances in this particular school, maybe at another place I would have done better. But between that and hearing Yiddish so much at home, I did come to understand a fair amount. And I subsequently had the very odd experience of starring in a Yiddish play with the Folksbiene --

CW: Yeah, how did that come about?

CDS: It just came about, it just -- I knew the person who was directing it, and I was right for the role, and it was singing and dancing, Miss Yiddish America, and the role was, it was "The Rise of David Levinsky," and the role was the 38:00mother. And, I think I just seemed right to everybody, and I was walking around in the hallways wherever we were, and I don't remember singing at the top of my lungs. At that time, I was also studying voice, and I had studied acting a lot. And, I just wanted to do it. But it -- and they wanted me to do it, it didn't matter that I wanted to do it. But because I wanted to do it, I made myself accessible, desirable to them for this part. And I was, because I don't speak Yiddish, and only understand a certain amount, but the understanding was the least of it. I was trained by the old character actor Zvee Scooler. Not trained, 39:00that's not the right word, but he went over lines with me, so, instead of -- so I was saying "ibn" instead of "iben" and things like that. So that was helpful. But it was really, unbelievably scary to go out the Folksbiene stage, it was a very famous troupe, and to have to perform, be on the stage most of the time, in Yiddish. Because I was already an actress. Going up on your lines in a language you speak is bad enough, when you can improvise. To go up on your lines in a language you don't speak, if that were to happen, was really very scary. Very very scary. So, um, I don't think it was the best acting performance I ever gave, but it was, it became -- it was very worth doing, it was beautiful, some 40:00of it was wonderful, and, um, it's very shocking to people that I did it. (Laughs) So it became sort of a story to dine out on also about when I was a Yiddish actress. But I knew enough, as I said, to -- to be able to fumfer [muddle] through, from having heard it so much. Otherwise I don't think somebody who hadn't had that background could have done it at all.

CW: Can you tell me about Zvee Scooler? What was he like?

CDS: He was a lovely man, I can't tell you much, because our exchanges were completely his irritation with me when I couldn't say something right. But there was something just very -- he was a brilliant, brilliant actor, and he was very old school so -- there was something about him that made you feel the old world 41:00when you were with him. And feel it through him somehow. But my major memory of him is what a taskmaster he was. Trying to get me to pronounce things properly so I didn't embarrass the entirety of the Folksbiene. And he, I mean, to some degree it worked. But remember, I was also singing. I mean it was -- in Yiddish -- it was not just talking. And so, just -- and I was surrounded by people who really did speak Yiddish. And who were part of that -- they were the remnants of the -- and the Folksbiene is great. And they were the remnants of the -- you know the children of old Yiddish theater people, et cetera.

CW: Did you ever go to the theater when you were a kid?

CDS: Very much so. My -- I think part of the reason that we had little money, it 42:00was partly wages then, were low, but also it was very important to my parents to educate me, in -- culturally. And so we would periodically, they would get enough money together to take me to the theater. And I remember going to the opera several times, the old Metropolitan Opera House. Because they were so focused on my being a person of culture. And, so yes. We did go. I remember mostly -- I'm sure it wasn't only, but since I was a little girl, I remember mostly musicals, and, as I said an opera, although I don't remember what the operas were. I do remember going, and being in awe of the old Metropolitan Opera House, which was so beautiful, and so different than this one in Lincoln Center, 43:00not that it doesn't have its own merits but -- it's the, again, the old world that was so present in the Metropolitan Opera House. And also because I remember it so fondly because it was so much part of New York, and New York's cultural life then. Oddly, I don't remember going to museums, which you would think they would have done, and maybe they did, and I just don't remember. But I don't have a particular memory of that, I do remember going to exhibits that had some of my mother's work in them, but I don't remember where they were and they were probably in some left-wing schools somewhere, so, but other than that, I mean, it was, a half, sort of, reading of culture of, whatever else they were doing. And, you know, there was, even before my mother did more sculpting and my father 44:00moved on within the union to become a manager, et cetera, there was such a strong sense, in the house, of that thing that people often say about those immigrant Jews, about, that even those in the shops, who were working, had these other, intellectual lives, and artistic lives, not all of them of course, many didn't, but, and a kind of intellectual awareness, or lust for books and reading. And certainly many of the people we knew did. And not -- I mean -- again, I don't just mean people who professionally were artists or writers, but even the regular people we knew were keeping up on things, and political 45:00arguments, and all of that stuff, and being very aware of what was going on was very important. And although a number of those people subsequently, as also happened not infrequently, that some of the most left-wing among them became the most right-wing. But, and they were people I knew, and whom I knew later in life. But my parents did not. They stayed -- not communists at all, but they stayed left. And you couldn't care politically about the people in the way that they did, and moved in the other direction.

CW: Did your parents keep any contact with the old country? Did you --

CDS: I honestly don't know. I mean, I'm not aware of it, particularly, I think, 46:00as with many immigrants, I don't know, I assume that my father's immediate family came after him, because he was so young when he came. I think my mother's family mostly came with her. And if they were in regular touch, I didn't know it. Not that -- that doesn't mean the old country wasn't part of our lives, although my parents were certainly very American in a certain way, even though they were Jewish and old world, and all the rest of those things. But they were not kosher, and they were not -- I was not raised as -- I'm very, very Jewish, and profoundly so. But I was not raised as an observant Jew. We didn't go to 47:00synagogue, we didn't do anything like that, and the holidays were the holidays, but they weren't the holidays in the sense that an orthodox family would have had them.

CW: Did you have a favorite holiday growing up?

CDS: I think probably Passover at my grandmother's. And -- in the Bronx, at that point. And she was, because she was primarily a Yiddish speaker, I couldn't speak to her very much, but she was a fabulous cook. And I remember as a little girl, she had this green enamel pot that, the most wondrous things would come out of. Including divine kreplach [meat-filled dumplings] and knaidlach 48:00[dumplings] and other things like that. Which were sometimes served -- the knaidlach were not necessarily served in soup, sometimes they were browned in caramelized -- well, we called it -- now caramelized in browned onions. Wonderful chicken and other such things. And she was also a great baker. And, I, again, I don't know that I would have known enough to ask her, anyway, but I couldn't, because she didn't speak English. But I remember that she had a hatbox on top of an armoire in her bedroom that she shared with my mother and sister, and it was always filled with,well especially around the holidays is what I mean, Rosh Hashanah or Pesach. She would bake and bake and bake, or for Purim or whatever. And the hatbox was always filled with pastry. And that's where she 49:00would keep it, I mean these were things that would keep, they would not go bad. And I have a very distinct memory of a pink Chenille bedspread, on her bed in the bedroom, and my climbing on it as a little girl to try and reach that box, because it was so full of wondrous things. And people yelling at me to get down. (Laughs). Not that I could reach it anyway, but I wanted to, desperately, because she was so good at what she did. And I wish now that I had been able to talk to much more about it. But I think I've talked about that green pot even recently 'cause somebody interviewed me for something else, and -- it was really magical what came out of there. And it was, because my mother did this kind of fusion of cooking, of a kind, as she picked up on things around her, it was in a 50:00way where I learned Jewish cooking. I mean, learned more about cooking and heard people talking about it in Yiddish and so forth and so on. So those family gatherings, around that big old-fashioned table, that old-fashioned furniture, and these wonders coming out of the kitchen, and my father and my aunt, and my uncle at the table --

CW: So this was your father's mother?

CDS: No.

CW: Your mother's mother?

CDS: My mother's mother. This was all my mother's mother. As I said, I really didn't know my father's mother. I think I've seen a picture of her. But, and I may have met her when I was tiny, but no. I didn't have -- I mean, I did, in Boston, have meals around that table in Haverhill, I shouldn't say Boston. But I 51:00don't have particular memories, and I wish I did also because that is allegedly the Sephardic piece of the family, or the piece that would have Sephardic blood in them. And I don't know whether that turned up on the table or not, or when this change in name happened, from, again, I keep saying allegedly, because so much about that family, my father, is iffy. But this Abarbanel name, I don't know when the conscription of the eldest child in every Jewish family was, and my father said the name was changed to Krawetz because of that. But I don't actually know. And, but it's striking that he carried the Abarbanel on a little 52:00bit. And Krawetz means tailor. In Polish, maybe from the Russian, I'm not positive. But his pen name here, as a result, when he wasn't writing in Yiddish, was Taylor, spelled with 'Y'. And he was frequently M.K. -- as in Meyer Krawetz -- Taylor, but even his first name is spelled different ways. There are many official records, I realize we're talking about transcription from another alphabet, but in many things he's M-A-Y-E-R, and in many other things, like your situation, he's M-E-Y-E-R. And I don't -- and these are unofficial things, they're not, I mean, there are census records also, but there are documents of all kinds. His will is under M-A-Y-E-R, a million other things are under 53:00M-E-Y-E-R. And I remember that his business card, all his union stuff was under M-E-Y-E-R. And it may be I do the same kind of thing, where I -- since all my names are different, I answer to several things and several pronunciations, and I guess he did the same thing. And so, but it -- and he seemed to -- basically, I think he used M.K. Taylor for English, but not only, as I said, I have this one thing he wrote in English that's selling M.K. Abarbanel. And I would love to know much more about that, because he never, he told me and my brother the same thing, about the conscription, and certainly my brother grew up with that side 54:00of the family and always believed that, and believed in the Abarbanel, you know, connection, but if it is that, it comes from Don Isaac Abravanel, who was the finance minister for Ferdinand and Isabella, and who was the person who got Columbus on his way. But who is the ur-father of that family. And there are many variants on the name. Many, many, many. And so, I don't know. I mean, and I keep thinking about doing a DNA test to see what I can find out, go, in that form. Anyway, so I didn't have their food, I don't -- I mean I had a little bit, I 55:00wasn't old enough to be perceptive about whether any of those dishes were different than traditional Jewish fare. And I think they spoke more to each other more in English, but to him in Yiddish.

CW: Can -- what do you know about, can you just describe what you know about the contents of his writing? What did he write about?

CDS: Well, as I said, I sadly, I was never able to read it. But, although there were lots of talk about translation and other such things. However, I do know that they were very much about the underdog. And about finding a better life, a new beginning. About, I don't know, for some reason I've always associated him 56:00with Gogol. And I once did an off-Broadway thing, an off of Broadway thing, of "The Lower Depths," and I felt very oddly connected to my father while I was doing it, but I don't really know, I just think he was a person who had a tremendous amount of feeling for the common man. And I believe that's what is in his work. And certainly in the few things of his that I've read in English, like a play in English that he wrote called "In God's Country." I suspect that he was a much better writer in Yiddish than he was in English. But that theme of caring about people, of worries about people, of the dark side of poverty and of life, 57:00was I think very much always in his writing. And I think that re the Gogol think, I think that I actually saw him referred to that way once, and it's probably -- as the Yiddish Gogol or something like that. So it's probably what my association with it was. And I think I was so busy with my own life and other things going on, and I also wouldn't have known who to turn to have translations, or have money to have them done, but I do wish they had been done. And maybe somebody did do it, and I just -- or did some of them, and I just don't know it. It's possible. And I also -- what I don't know, is I know he wrote for the "Forward." And probably not when there was an English-language 58:00"Forward." And I know that there were Yiddish magazines that came out, I'm picturing one in particular that I think was called "Zayn," but I'm not sure. That he was -- there was a big picture of him on the cover. And I think it may have been an issue dedicated to him. It could have been that he was just in it, but then his picture would not have been on the cover. So, I don't really know. And I also don't know what was there. I don't know, I could, as I told you, I noticed that there was something at Dorot in the public library that was not his three short story books. But -- and I'd like to find out what it was, and see if one of the librarians there, if it's not too long, can tell me what's in it. But I -- anyway I can only answer you about my impression about his short stories, 59:00which is that they all had something to do, mostly, I'm sure some were romantic and other things too, but I think a lot of them had to do with his love of the common man, as I said, and his concern for the common man, and for finding a way through the difficulties of life. And I think that's largely what he was known for, they're gonna tell me they were comedies or comic stories I'm gonna be very, very shocked. (Laughs). But I don't think so. And I remember, whenever a book of his came out, that there would be a party at the union. I remember going as a little girl with my little dirndl skirts and my braids. And, of course that wouldn't have been all in Yiddish, it would have been in English too, but I was 60:00too young for the most part to understand. And even when I was older I was probably more distracted by everybody telling me how pretty I was, (laughs) Or how cute my skirt was, or something like that. So I don't remember if anybody talked about that aspect of it, then. I do remember feeling very proud. And, but in a quite -- I mean as a -- I think there were three, there were at least two that I remember going to with crowds of people. And I think, because he was very friendly with people from other locals as well as with the manufacturers that he had to deal with and keep in line, that there were a lot of non-union people there as well as fellow writers, and -- Yiddish writers. And people, I mean like 61:00from the Italian union, which I think was Local 10, but I'm not sure. His was Local 22. So it was very diverse, and, you know, they would have food, and speeches, and it was really very nice that they did that.

CW: Did he ever -- do you ever remember hearing him recite, or speak at those?

CDS: Yeah, I'm sure he did. can't say I have a particular memory of him, but of course. I mean, I had visions of him at the front of the room in sort of a sports jacket and, speaking, and I'm sure -- but what I don't know is whether he was reciting or whether he was thanking, or doing some other form of something.

CW: What was his voice like?

CDS: I want to say regular. I mean, it's not like he had a particularly deep, or a particularly anything voice. I would probably jump out of my skin if I heard it. Because my mother did several historical interviews, she did a number of oral history things. Like for Ellis Island, she was one of the Ellis Island oral historians. I have a closer memory of that. I can picture him speaking, I can, as I told you, he told me stories when I was a little girl. And, I have a memory 63:00of that, but it's like very dim thunder from a distance, and --

CW: Like bedtime stories?

CDS: Yeah. Bedtime stories, and often about Russia, and as I said, he -- about Gypsies, about life there, about, you know, whatever. My mother did too. But it was less her thing, and hers were about some fisher village, fishing village. His were I think more varied and because he was a writer, they were more intense. And I remember bedtime stories but I also used to go for walks with him, I remember walking with him and his, holding my hand and we would sometimes go out for breakfast together and we would go to a -- or we would go to this soda fountain that was nearby, and I do very fondly remember his buying me, of 64:00all things -- it was always a special occasion -- something that were called vacation funnies. Which were these sort of thick comic books, like for the summer, you know, for summer reading for the kids, so they were thicker than regular comic books. As well as classic comics, which was a big thing then. And buy me milkshakes. And it's a very special memory. And, I just read -- there's a new book coming out, called "Eating Delancey" about the -- Jewish foods, largely the Lower East Side. And I was asked to do a -- I did a very short piece on the breads of my childhood, and buying them with my father, and, particularly, of a 65:00bread that's particularly associated with Jews, that was called Jewish corn rye, and it's like a very heavy broad bread. It's still to me, and God knows I've eaten at the world's great tables, the -- it's still the best bread I've ever had in my life. And it's now being paid a little bit more attention to. But I remember that bread on the table at home, and the light shining in from the window, and sweet butter on this great thick bread, from another -- I mean really peasant bread, from another time, and wonderful sweet butter and my parents would never buy salt butter because it was, it meant butter was older. 66:00Because it had preservatives in it, from the salt, so they would always buy sweet butter, as I think many Jews did, and sprinkle a little bit of kosher salt on top of it. It's still my idea of gastronomic heaven. And, so, um, and recently, one of the Lower East Side stores, Russ & Daughters, started carrying Jewish corn rye, that's very similar to what I had as a kid. So, and of course I associate that too with Yiddish, because there was Yiddish around the table. That's what I was listening to, at least part of the time, at every meal, and so, and plus that was an old world bread. I didn't yet know what I came to know about American immigration, and all these other things that were happening, but that was really part of it, so I just did a piece about that, and going out with my father to buy bread in the morning, up in Washington Heights in Inwood. And 67:00the bakery, and not being able to push the door open by myself, and waiting for my father eagerly, eagerly, and talking about how for me, and so true, that the big thing was always bread, not pastry. Except at my grandmother's, when I was climbing on the bed. But when I wanted to go to the bakery with him, it was for bread. And pushing the door for bread. So, anyway, it was just, I don't remember the exact timbre of his voice, but I remember the act of his speaking very well. And the look on his face, and how he looked when he told me, and his tenderness, and the way his mind worked, and also he talked a lot about his, both his 68:00Yiddish life, outside of the house, and the Café Royal, which was a huge Yiddish meeting-place for, and they have the Yiddish theater district over on Second Avenue, where he talked about going, often. And with and without my mother, I think. And meeting other Yiddish writers and Yiddish theater people. So that became, that was very exciting to me, I mean, to think about it when I probably pictured it in very much the wrong way because the name, Café Royal, I don't think I was ever taken there, but it certainly was an extremely celebrated place. So I remember his talking about that. And I also remember his talking 69:00about meeting Jack London. And I don't remember the circumstances, but it was a very major thing for my father. Perhaps because Jack London had some similar themes in his writing, perhaps because he was such a celebrated writer that even meeting him was significant. I don't know. And the other thing I really remember him talking about is, that I can't tell you to what degree this was so, but he was a mystic. And if other people had Orthodox Judaism, my father was off in a very different space. And I don't know to what degree he practiced. But I have books here still from his library that were books about mysticism, about Madame Blavatsky, and theosophy, and about adventures in Tibet, or in odd places. And 70:00other -- and I -- oh I still have his tarot deck. And, they were, again very -- not -- my mother was nothing like that. And I remember their arguing about it, and my father would say this table may look flat but it isn't flat at all. And my mother would say, oh come on Meyer, what are you talking about? (Laughs) So it was -- not constantly between them, but it was a way in which they were extremely different. My mother was a very down-to-earth person. And my father was down-to-earth in terms of his concerns about others and the suffering of people and poverty and so forth and so on. But he had this whole other dimension that he fed with reading and thinking, and -- I don't know if he ever went off 71:00to be a theosophist, or something like that. If he ever did he never told me. He never told her. But I still have probably a dozen books that came to me after my mother died that she had kept during that period, that just have his mind all over them, and as I said, I still have the tarot deck. And so --

CW: Do you ever remember him using it or anything?

CDS: No. I remember it being there. I remember it always being around. I remember that there's a guide to it, that he had, that was with me sometimes, I don't mean with me, I mean that is with me here, somewhere. But, and I think, I'm not a mystic, but I think that I inherited some piece of that also. Not that I couldn't have gotten to it by myself, but I think growing up in a household of 72:00that kind, and it's not theosophy, it's not any of that stuff, or systems of belief, but I think I'm much more open to alternative beliefs than many other people would be, and I really think it's because of him. And I think he would have understood that I talk to trees. I think he would have really understood that. And that I -- and that really, they have become even more important to me. And there aren't many people I can talk to about that, although at the moment I'm talking to everybody. But it's just feeling like the roots of trees, and I identify with trees whose roots break through the pavement and they survive and thrive no matter what. And trees talking to each other through their roots 73:00across the world, et cetera. I mean, and I'm just a nature person in that sense. And I think -- this was supposed to have been my parents' apartment, by the way. It had to do with my getting married, my father dying, various other things went on, but we're actually sitting in what would have been their space. And, so, I hadn't thought about this before, until we were talking about it, but I have no doubt that I could have -- one of the things I love about this apartment is grass and trees downstairs. And in the middle of Manhattan, you know, you don't see that. And I'm quite sure I could've taken my father by his hand, and gone downstairs and talked to him about my feelings, about growing things, and -- I don't mean growing up -- things that are growing, and living things. And I think if I had talked, had said to him what I just said to you about trees, he would 74:00have instantly understood. So in that sense there's a deep connection to a number of things that he was, and other things for my mother, but he planted good seeds.

CW: Do you remember anything else about his library, or about what he talked to you about?

CDS: Well, as I said, I mean, I think those are the three main categories, or the stories he told me, that he talked to me about the world, and conditions in the world. That he talked to me about mysticism. That -- a life beyond, and by which I don't mean heaven necessarily, I have no idea what he believed about that. But I think he was just -- it's remarkable, given his background, that he 75:00was just open to a lot of things. And for instance, I don't think he believed in fairies, but -- I don't actually know, but I don't think so. But I do remember, he cooked very little but there were certain things that he made. And one of them was this thing called fairy eggs. And they were called fairy eggs because he would stir them until they were in such tiny bits, you know, they would coagulate into tiny, tiny little bits, that to him seemed fairy-like in some way. And I loved fairies as a child, I just loved them, loved them, loved them. And so, probably for that reason he called them fairy eggs. But there were also lacy cushion eggs, which was another part of his remembering. Which was a slice of bread in a pan with this -- a hole made in the center, and then the egg dropped with the yolk in the center. And then the white would spread out over 76:00the bread. And it would look like a lacy cushion. And so, it became that. And that of course was not about fairies, or about anything else. It was just his mind, which was always -- I have such a des-- I wish I could have known my father as a grownup, when I was really grown up. And, he died relatively early in my life, and I think he was a really interesting person. And so, and, I don't mean in the way of just madly loving everything he was, I don't think I probably would have. But I think that were I to have met him on the street and had a cup of coffee with him, and sat down and talked to him, that I would have been enchanted by the diversity in him. These very odd things, you know, being a communist (laughs), and a mystic. It was just sort of a very odd combination of 77:00things and I think that his mind just flew. I think it just flew in so many different directions. And I think he would have been -- and, for anyone, a very interesting person to know. I can see why people had such high regard for him. And while I'm sure there are things that I would not have connected with, or that would have been downright irritating, (laughs) it would be wonderful to be able to know him now. I mean, I feel the same way about my mother, but it's different, because she was so different. Whereas, I think, in some ways, I'm much more like my father. Not very, but there are enough things coming into me that have formed my life, that I think are similar. Not the least of which, as I 78:00said to you before is how much I care about people, and how much I resonate with friends and not friends, and just people in general, and always the desire to help and be there in some way.

CW: And also a writer.

CDS: Yeah, and I'm -- of course -- that is one of the biggest things, which is why that moment at the library, because this Holocaust book I did, which was really a pro bono effort, and it's not that I had, or he had, or my mother had family in the Holocaust, I grew up with stories of pogroms. Not that they necessarily lived through them, but it was what I heard about, that, of the things that preceded, the Holocaust, or some say led to the Holocaust. I didn't hear about the Armenians 'til I was older, but, you know, as things leading up 79:00to, but. This was a book, the book I did, which was a book called, and of course, I'm a writer in general, I mean, I write about all kinds of things, and -- scholarly things, and, popular and other such, but -- this, because it was a book, is called "In Memory's Kitchen: a Legacy from the Women of Terezin." And it was based on a dream cookbook of recipes that was found in Theresienstadt, or Terezín in Czech, written down by starving women, and I did a scholarly introduction to it, and it's the book itself. And, it really, because it was an unknown form of Holocaust literature, people went 80:00crazy, the -- I mean the world went crazy, it sold over a hundred thousand copies. And really left a mark on the literature, on women's literature, on -- there was an exhibit at Yad Vashem, that contained material from it, and, uh -- I'm in tears again. (Laughs) Another memory of being -- I was -- because of the book, I was invited to meet the director of Yad Vashem, when I was in Israel, and we had a very interesting discussion, and then I went out, I was with friends, and I went out, and went to the bookshop. And, which he hadn't told me, or maybe she didn't know somehow, was that there were copies of "In Memory's 81:00Kitchen" all across the entire bookstore, cover up, and on every -- they were just everywhere. And a window of the bookshop looked out over the hills, over Jerusalem. And, the thought of just having been a vehicle, that's all I was, through which these women were saved from oblivion, and here they were, in a book, with their work, embodied in a -- or embraced by a -- in book covers, looking out, over the sunshine pouring down over the hills of Jerusalem. It was just one of the great moments of my life, because it was such a privilege to have done that, even though it near killed me. It was just such a privilege to have been the -- through which it happened, and to think of them, of course, 82:00because it was though the books were alive to me with these five or six women, and their work, and set down as a way to -- not just for the obvious reasons that those recipes represented a gentler time, et cetera, but I think very strongly, as a form of psychological resistance. Because food is such a powerful identity marker. And when you write down recipes from your past, or the things you made your husband, or your son, if -- for the holidays, or whatever you were, it's deep reinforcement of who you are, and, in a way that I think many people don't realize, and increasingly more people do. And, um, I think, still for all the reading I've done, and I've now moved on to other such things, 83:00prisoner of war camps, and other such, were the same kind of thing was done, because of what food means. But I don't think I can think of anything that shows better the power of food to nourish not just the body but the spirit. And that moment, you know the combination of that and of imagining these women's faces and the disbelief of their being there because -- and it was one of the "New York Times'" most noteworthy books of the year, it was -- anyway, so I'm in the process of doing another book about Venice, but that book, because it was the Holocaust and, was about rescuing the spirits of people, and other such things, is something I particularly would associate with my father. So seeing his books 84:00in the library and then mine was for that reason too, I think, an extremely powerful thing for me. And I think it would be for him. I mean --

CW: Yeah, what do you think he would have thought of you becoming a writer?

CDS: Oh, I think it would have thrilled him. I really think it would have thrilled him, because -- and it's not something he would have known, because at that time, I was gonna be an actress. At the time he died. And went on and did it for a time, and then abandoned that and then through various means fell into writing. And, I think he would have been overjoyed. I mean, not in terms of money-making and stuff like that, it's not, you know, I think in terms of wanting to know that I was okay, I think he would have been, maybe a little 85:00edgy, but in terms of following in his footsteps in some form and being known as a writer, I think would have meant a great deal to him. And I'm not a sculptress, and I'm not a painter, and I couldn't have followed in my mother's footsteps, I don't have those skills. But I really am a strong writer. And also as he was, even though I can't remember the exact timbre of his voice, a strong speaker. And so, for what I believe in, for these women, for other such things that, I lecture a fair amount also, it's just something I think would have really pleased him. And also, I think, (laughs) what would have pleased him most, since I was kind of a wild child, was that I actually became something. 86:00(Laughs) I think that his worries about me at the time that he died, or slightly before, because he didn't even -- he -- I got married not long after that, and he didn't know my husband, or anything like that. So I think all and all, he would have been very relieved. (Laughs) And, the writing would have been the cherry on the cake. Because I think I was wild enough that he couldn't imagine me living the life of at least half a solid citizen. Which of course I do, and I have. So I -- but I think he would have been really proud. And especially of a book like that, because of what it was about. And as I said beca-- I don't remember him talking about pogroms particularly but I'm sure he did. And my 87:00mother had a friend, he may have known her too, because she went back a long way, she was living here, but she had had a crosscut in her face by the saber of an attacker in a pogrom, and so she still had it. She had a cross on her face. And things like that, um, I think I knew her long before, these don't go away. They stay with you, and so -- and I'm a person who identifies very strongly with others and I don't have to have been in the Holocaust for it to be mine, and for me to feel that. And when my closest friend is a second-generation survivor, and I've been extremely close to that family, so. Doing the Holocaust thing, was, and, it would have been -- I was scared of it because I feel so much. But, it 88:00would have been much harder not to do it, than to do it, is what it comes down to, really. I couldn't have lived with myself if I hadn't done it, so. And then we'll see what happens with the next one. Anyway it was, I think in many ways, until I was a wild teen I really had a wonderful time with my family. And then if it wasn't wonderful it was because they didn't know what to do with a kid like me. But, so they, you know, but I really, really came full circle and included them in who I became, which was -- which is great. And I'm so, I don't know who looks at these, or who does the -- uses these as research or how you 89:00use them for promotion, but it means a great deal to me to be able to talk about him. And his life as a Yiddishist and a man full of Yiddishkeit, and a man who brought Yiddish and a love of Yiddish to my life, even if I don't speak it, I have very, very strong feelings about what's being done at the Yiddish Book Center. And about Aaron and about the fact that there were so many books to be rescued, and discovered, when everybody thought there were none. And when people talk about Yiddish, um, dying out, it just sends goosebumps of upset through me. And, um, and you're doing something to see that that doesn't happen. And to me that's just extraordinary. And, uh, extraordinarily fulfilling. And it makes me 90:00feel safe as somebody who grew up in the world of Yiddish, and blessed to do so. And as I see, in some -- I mean, aside from Columbia University, and other such things -- I see other things happening with Yiddish, that are very exciting to me. And make me, just make me feel like my world, of that world of childhood et cetera is continuing, and that this beautiful language is -- which even I in my half-understanding can tell, beautiful and humorous, and intellectual, and the poetry of it, and as I've told you, I've become very interested, because I didn't realize it was there for a long time, and the use of Yiddish in Italy. 91:00And in the Renaissance, and after, and with all these immigrants pouring through, and because my special interest in Venice to find out that there was Yiddish in the ghetto. Ugh. That was really something. And so, anyway, I get so -- I'm very grateful to be doing this, and I wanna take a peep at that, mkay, just to --

CW: Absolutely.

CDS: -- make sure, I think most everything was probably, um --

CW: I have a couple other questions too.

CDS: Okay, all right, I'll -- I didn't do badly. (Laughs). Just -- in fact I did very well, the only other thing I would say is that one of the things that I 92:00have from my father, and oddly enough, they're in English, I don't know why, are these love letters to my mother. And over a summer when she was in a kukhaleyn [summer resort, lit. "cook alone"] somewhere, in Monroe, New York and I think it must have been just after I was born. That -- I loved that he kept calling her sweetheart. Even after they'd been together for quite some time, and he'd get describing himself as her sweetheart, and the depth -- I mean he saw her once a week, it's not like he didn't see her at all, he would come in on weekends, but I think it was partly the writer in him, and also how much he loved her, because I believe he really loved her an immense amount, even though, as I said, I think 93:00they made a wonderful couple, but in some ways an odd couple, because of his flights of fancy and imagination, and because she was artistic, but more down-to-earth. But having those is such a treasure. And, as I said, being able to walk to that building on 48th street where he used to live, where he was born, just to know that that's, I mean, with New York the way it is, I don't know how long that is going to go on, in fact, I feel like when we're done I should leave and go to visit it right now. And I've often wanted to look up in the city archives, the municipal archives, which apartment he was in, so I actually know that, and I can picture it better, and I know whether it was back or front, or anything like that, but. I just can stand and stare at that building for so long, picturing his life inside it, or at least his part of life 94:00inside it. So, ask me, what --

CW: I just, I wonder if you could tell me what you remember about when he died.

CDS: I can tell you but it was complicated because I was on my first trip to Europe. And I -- they didn't tell me. They told me to come home, and that something bad had happened, but my understanding was that he was still alive. And, uh, that he had had a stroke, or something of that kind, but, when I came rushing home, it was, um, expecting to be able to see him. And of course that is not what happened. He had died, and they had lied to me in order not to upset me 95:00too much while I was away, since I still had to make my way across three or four thousand miles to get home, and I remember the utter devastation that my mother was feeling, because it came out of nowhere, not just that he had a stroke, but she was told she could leave the hospital because there was no danger of his dying, that she could go home and rest, and he died while she was gone. And the shock, both of his stroke, and then of absolutely losing him when she wasn't supposed to, was understandably terrible for her. And it was terrible for me to come home and discover that he was gone. There was a large funeral, lots of 96:00people came, and lots of people spoke about him. I was, of course, in shock, you know, and trying to take care of my mother. It was not a good time. But I do remember that the, that I can't exactly remember where it was, whether it was at the union, or the meeting and not the funeral itself, but whether the event I'm remembering, which everybody spoke, was at the funeral home, or whether it was some post-funeral thing, but I think it was at the funeral home. And many declarations of, about the kind of person he was. And how much he would be missed, and actually, I keep remembering things because you're here. I have in 97:00the other room a plaque that he had been given, which I think you'd like to see, from the union, before he died of course. But he had just retired. And it was about that. And I really don't know, it's possible that even retirement was part of what killed him. As with so many people. It's just not a good thing to do -- you think it's going to be wonderful, and then it isn't, and, but I really don't know the circumstances of his retirement, just that he decided to retire. And, but it was -- it was fraught. It was -- it was a very fraught time, but it was also a time to be very proud. Because of how many people cared about him, and 98:00how many people thought highly of him, and from all the worlds from which they came. You know, his union world, his writing world, his -- as far as I know, not his mystical world but, who knows. (Laughs) But I remember, there was a lot of talk about how many people came, and I think it was in the many hundreds, and up towards one thousand.

CW: Is he buried around here?

CDS: He's buried, in, if I tell you that I don't know exactly where, it's because I'm not a cemetery person. But he's buried in the suburbs here, as is my mother. And it's,on Long Island I believe, it could be in New Jersey but I don't feel like they're there. So it's not -- I don't feel a need to talk to them by 99:00going to a cemetery, although I do love, and a couple of times I have been there, the custom of putting stones on the grave. I love it. And, that is what I'd like to be there to do. But they're in my head, and in my heart, and in this apartment, in the New York that I love. In my writing, in, you know, they're everywhere. So. And in the trees, of course. Although I'd not thought about that until a moment -- so yes, he's nearby. Whatever is left of him and my mother, the dust, is nearby. And I -- even though I don't go, I like that better than 100:00thinking that they were buried in California somewhere, or something like that. I do like the fact that the coffins are near, or what's left of them is near. But by -- my big memory of his dying is the size of -- being called home from Europe, my mother's condition, and then the remarkable size of the turnout for the funeral, because he was so beloved. And so highly thought of as a writer in the Yiddish world, and very, again, it's a funny thing to say, but it was a -- even though I was a wreck, it was a privilege to be there at such a funeral, where he was so honored. And to have been a child of such a person. Just lucky me.

CW: How has that affected your identity, being the daughter of a Yiddish writer?

CDS: I'm proud of it. I'm really proud of it. And not, it's -- when I tell people they're always startled, because I'm so identified in people's minds with Italy, and because the name I ended up with is not one that people associate with that world. And, uh, but I talk about it openly it's just -- with pleasure, it's just a matter of how often it tends to come up. And I think, in some ways, a lot, I think as re my own writing, re my sense of Yiddish, and how beautiful I 102:00find it, re my ongoing interest in it, so even in the work I'm doing now it has crept in, in some way. In a limited way my keeping up with what goes on with Yiddish. With sending information or jokes or -- in Yiddish, or other things to -- I have a friend who is a professor at Williams, who is a Yiddish speaker, so I was sending things along that relate to Yiddish. It's a very deep part of my identity, even though I'm in some ways Mediterranean-identified, and I write in a different language, and people who are always shocked, often, to find out I'm Jewish, although I could hardly be more open about that, people make 103:00assumptions, and I look very Mediterranean, so people think their assumptions are correct, and of course, because none of my names are related to anything I was ever called, even my middle name is different, because my mother told me it was one thing and it was actually another. She just mispronounced, she always told me it was Elaine and it turned out to be Eileen. So, and, names I took, and you know, theater names, and writing names, and even my first name is different. So, people tend to -- and I know a lot about the Mediterranean, and if I were going to go back and do doctoral work again it would be on Renaissance history. I am so profoundly Jewish. And I'm so proud of my dad and the world that I was raised in because of him. And I just, I'm just, before you came a friend of mine 104:00called -- this woman who is the second-generation survivor, and through a foundation, gives money to the Yiddish Book Center. And she was -- and I said, and they're coming to interview me about, you know, videotape me and -- and she was so excited, about it, and she is -- her parents were Polish Jews, Polish-speaking Jews, less than Yiddish-speaking Jews, I mean she came from a different strata, a different way of being, and a somewhat later time. But I hug it to me, it's very, it's a very deeply important part of me, and since I am very Jewish, and I identify so strongly with Jews, even though I'm not an 105:00observant Jew, in the ordinary sense of what people think of as being Jewish, but I am a cultural Jew. In a really, really profound, deep way. And I even enjoy, because of the same friend, who is not particularly religious, but I'm a fairy godmother of one of her children. And she does go on the holidays. And so, for all the years I've known her, I've gone, and I do, and of course I hear Hebrew more than Yiddish, but still being -- and I'm a per-- I have such diverse friends, religiously, in terms of nationality, just everything. But still, being, the power of being in a room full of Jews on those occasions, even though 106:00I'm not a religious person, is very strong to me, very, very strong to me. And that some of them still speak Yiddish, and I might hear Yiddish in the aisles, is also extremely, extremely strong with me. And so I think growing up with Yiddish and being lucky enough to have grown up with somebody for whom it was not only a language but an art, very blessed. Very blessed, and I have gooseflesh, as even, how you say in Yiddish -- however you say gooseflesh in Yiddish, do you know? Is there such a term?

CW: Yes.

(Laughter)

CDS: Okay, all right. But it's, oh, just very marked by it. Very marked by it. 107:00No matter where else I wander, who else I know, who else I love, um, it's like my right foot. I mean it's always there. Always, no matter where I am in the world. Or what I'm doing, or what work I'm doing. Or who I'm helping, or anything like that, Yiddish is with me, and it's my dad's Yiddish, and the Yiddish spoken at home, but his Yiddish, because of my identification with him as a writer.

CW: Well, a sheynem dank [Thank you very much].

CDS: Thank you.

CW: Thank you so much --

CDS: You're very welcome.

CW: -- for taking this time, and thanks from the Yiddish Book Center also.

CDS: Yes. You're very welcome, and I'm glad this finally happened, because as you know, and as I told you, Zvi and I talked about this --

CW: Getting up there and --

CDS: No, well, I would have happily done it if it -- if there were a way to do it without it putting everyone out, without it costing a fortune, without having to go round trip on the bus on the same day. I know someone who was on that bus who was so exhausted. And there wouldn't have been time.

CW: Right.

CDS: Which was the bigger thing. And I suppose it's nicer to be --

CW: It's great, and maybe we're going to see it on the bus. (Laughs).

CDS: Yeah, and having that, and knowing we didn't place it there specially, that it was just there all along.

CW: Yeah, it's great.

CDS: So, and I'm really, just very appreciative, whoever looks at this or just, anything I can do to keep his memory, and his work alive, or in places where other people can find it, look through it, is just hugely important with me, so I'm really very grateful as I am to the Yiddish Book Center, for what they do, 109:00but also for this, and I just think it's an inspired project, in terms of finding out about the people whose works you have, and who's left to talk about them, and it --

CW: Yeah.

CDS: -- and the world from which they came.

CW: Yeah, well it was great to -- it inspired me to read a couple of your father's stories, and to do that, so -- your description of his literature certainly lined up with what I read. So, yeah.

CDS: Okay, okay, I think that was it -- he was not a funny man, he laughed a lot but he was not a funny man.

CW: No no, it was, "it was a dark night on the East River, orphanage," and, yeah --

CDS: That's right, exactly, and that's what the play he wrote is like, "In God's Country," and other things, and it was just, that's who he was.

CW: Right.

CDS: It also made him a fighter.

CW: Yeah.

CDS: So.

[END OF INTERVIEW]