DAVID SIMON AND MIRIAM FORMAN ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: Okay, so this is Christa Whitney, and today is October 29th, 2013. I'm here in New York City with Miriam Forman and David Simon. We're going to do an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Do I have your permission to record?

MIRIAM FORMAN: You have my permission, yes.

CW: And your permission?

DAVID SIMON: Yes.

CW: Thank you.

F:The mic is --

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW: Well, I want to just acknowledge that sort of -- that you two have very different relationships with the subject of today's interview, your father. But I thought first it would be interesting just -- today, I'll just raise some 1:00topics and ask specific questions, but also let you discuss what was different from your different points of view. So, I thought we could start just by describing your father as a father. What was he like as a father for each of you?

MF: Who do you want to start describing?

CW:You can start.

DS: You go ahead.

MF: Okay. Well, I -- my father, I could only describe my father in relation to my father and mother, because -- father was who he was to me partly because of the way my mother was to me. So, my mother -- and this is my story -- was mainly depressed and missing, emotionally missing. My father was the total opposite. My father was completely there, totally emotionally there, perhaps in retrospect a 2:00little too much for a child. So, he was a very large presence, emotionally. So, my relationship with him was extremely close. And he took over the mother part, largely, early on, and then subsequently remained that way. So, he was very important to me in my growing up.

CW: Um-hm. Yeah. What about you?

DS: Well, I think as I mentioned before, I was the ben yokhed [only son], the first-born son, favorited, and therefore under the most pressure of all, I think. I lived a childhood where my object was to please my father. My mother was sort of in the background, as a -- I viewed her as a somewhat stabilizing element, in a sense. Although there were periods when she could be strange. I mean, there was one year or two when she wouldn't talk to somebody for some reason or other, and another time when she used to sit on the --

MF: Radiator.

DS: -- on the radiator, in the dark, for I don't know how many hours. Maybe she thought she was back with the pripetshik [hearth] or something.

MF: (laughs) Saying nothing. Saying nothing on the radiator.

DS: Yeah, so she could be difficult. But my relationship with my father was, as I said before, was ambivalent. And in many ways, difficult, even though he was my life's hero. But it's difficult to grow up in the shadow of someone else, which is what was happening. He overshadowed all of us.

MF: Yes, this is correct. Yes, there was much of him. There was so much of him. The whole house was him. I mean, it was all about him. And she was there, to sort of say, Ditto. You know, it was that -- although she was very much her own person. But he just took over everything.

DS: He always used to say that she was the smartest one in the family.

MF: She was very smart, mama. She was very smart, she was --

DS: She was. He may have been right that she was --

MF: -- she was multilingual --

DS: Yeah.

MF: -- she read voraciously, she never stopped reading, she was extremely intelligent. But she was also, I think, quite depressed. Certainly when you left, as a child, she was very depressed.

DS: Certainly when?

MF: When you left, after you left.

DS:After I left.

MF:Although I don't remember when you -- before you left, because I was too young, but then, in my early life, she was very depressed. And that sitting on the radiator is a big memory that I have. The house was dark, and it was quiet, and, you know, that was -- and so, when my father came home from work, this was like, all the lights went on. The door opened, the air came in. Life, life came into the house. My father was life. He was passionate. I mean, I had my difficulties later on, but he was a passionate, very passionate person. And he 5:00lived so fully.

CW:How did -- what was his parenting style?

DS: Which style?

CW: Well -- his parenting style. What was --

DS: Panting?

MF: Parenting.

CW:Parenting.

DS:Oh, parenting. (laughs) Sorry.

MF:(laughs)

CW:It's okay.

MF: You say what you think and then I'll say.

DS: It was very loving. He never hit any of us, never laid a hand on anybody.

MF: Told us all over and over how he wouldn't ever hit anyone.

DS: Yeah. Yeah, he was very loving, very caring, and very demanding. That sort of summarizes it, I think.

MF: Yeah, he -- I think the other really important thing about my father was he loved, loved children. He really loved children. So, his children, he really, really loved. He loved all of us very much; he was very loving. But he wasn't -- I didn't -- you say he was demanding. I mean, it was, that's --

DS: Well to me, he was.

MF: Uh-huh.

DS: I don't think he expected anything from you two because you were girls.

MF: No, that's not true. (Simon laughs) But that's not true. And I remember him, when I was in high school, I mean, eight times seven, if I -- in three hundred thousand times, I couldn't get eight times seven. And how he would sit with me and impatiently finally say, "I can't believe this." (laughs) My multiplication tables.

DS: I still -- I just remembered now that one episode when I was very young, involving tying shoelaces. I couldn't tie my shoelaces. And he tried and tried and tried, and he was very patient, and we went on and on and eventually he said, "Okay, Dovidel, I'm getting you shoes with buttons."

MF: (laughs)

DS: After that, I tied my shoelaces. (laughter)

CW:What did -- you were -- I heard you both, as I was coming in the room, talking about what he looked like. Can you describe what he looked like?

MF: Well, he was pudgy. Short. He had a big head of hair, black hair, and then 7:00it turned lighter, but mainly it stayed quite dark, as I remember. He had a mustache. I think he was very handsome, but, well, that's 'cause I loved him so much, maybe he wasn't very handsome. I can't tell.

DS: Well, if I may, I'd like to read that description that -- by a stranger. This is the child of one of his patients, who later wrote a book, Richard Fein -- with whom I've been in touch, incidentally -- wrote "The Dance of Leah: Discovering Yiddish in America," published in 1969. And he was a -- his parents were patients of my father. And he later became involved in Yiddish, but not at that time, and he views this missing opportunity to acquaint himself with Dr. Simon. He said, "As a child, I knew that our dentist, Dr. Solomon Simon, was a somebody in the world of Yiddish. I remember his accented gold teeth, his 8:00aggressive stogies" -- he did smoke cigars --- "that used to punctuate the air when he was arguing, and his hairy knuckles" -- he was very hairy --- "maneuvering in my mouth. As well as his growling and imperative Yiddish that dominated the dentist's chair. I discovered from my mother that Dr. Simon was, to my parents, an example of an eydl mentsh [refined man]: refined, cultured, and polite. One they always regarded as several notches above them, though he was never condescending, never bullied them, and appreciated how they might find it difficult to make payments in time. Years later, I learned that he had been a truck driver, Hebrew teacher, house painter, and a sewing machine operator as he worked his way up to becoming a dentist and Yiddish cultural activist. He had fled a narrow shtetl [small Eastern European town with a Jewish community] life, but cherished his Yiddish." That's a pretty accurate description, I think.

MF: Yeah.

DS: But you gotta include the --

MF: Um-hm.

DS: -- the den-- the wadding he would put in his patients' mouths as he lectured them.

MF: Right, right. Well, he not just lectured, but that was his other habit, was that as soon as he wrote something, he had to have an audience to hear it, immediately. And since I was the remaining person in the house, I was the audience. So, he would sit me down -- it didn't matter how old I was, six, seven, nine, it was rid-- impossible, age was irrelevant, and it could be a Mishnah and it could be the Talmud and it could be something way beyond my development possibilities, and he would read the whole thing. And you sat there while he read the whole thing. And there was no question, that -- and so, we did this. When he stuffed people's mouths full of cotton, he would run in, and he had something new he had just written, and you should listen to this, and -- they had no choice, that's the way it was, that was it.

DS: Did you ever criticize anything he wrote?

MF: That never occurred to me, to criticize. First of all, I think early on, I 10:00didn't understand it. (laughter) Then when I finally did understand it, I wasn't gonna have a discussion about it. But the other funny thing that happened when we were in Boiberik that my husband likes to tell this story, that -- they had a reunion about five or six, maybe ten years ago. It was a reunion. And an older person, at the time, came up to me and said, "You see these? These are your father's teeth." (laughter) So, he took care of everybody's teeth. He was very friendly.

CW:I mean, aside from him reading to you, what were things that you would do with him, with your father?

MF: Oh, that's interesting. What did we do? He would tell --

DS: I never went -- I never went to a ball game with him. Never.

MF: Well, he would tell stories.

DS: He what?

MF: He would -- he would tell stories.

DS: Yeah.

MF: You would sit down, and he would tell you a story. I'll tell you a story. Here's a story. He wasn't into music particularly. So, there was no -- he wasn't interested in music, even Yiddish --

DS: In what?

MF: Music, he wasn't very interested in music.

DS: Only the Negro folk songs.

MF: Oh, really? I missed that. Really?

DS: That was the music he liked. That was about the only music that I remember to his liking. And when I started listening to Tchaikovsky --

MF: Yeah, he wasn't --

DS: -- in the "New York Post" series, you know, it was all news to them; they knew nothing about classical music.

MF: Mama liked classical music.

DS: Yeah, she did.

MF: Well, mama liked it, when she used to drive me to my piano lessons, and she drove me to dancing lessons, and we always had WQXR on the radio --

DS: Oh, yeah?

MF: Yeah. She liked classical music very much. And she would listen to me practicing the piano all the time.

DS: The only interchange as I remember -- mostly over what I was writing. And he would go over them with me --

MF: Oh, homework, homework, he did a lot of supervising of homework. Even when I 12:00was in college already, he was -- yeah.

DS: I remember how disappointed he was when I decided to go to law school. Because I wasn't going to be a writer, I was gonna be a lawyer. "Well," he said, "I suppose Cardozo and Brandeis were lawyers too." (laughter)

MF: Yeah, he had a grandiose streak. I mean, there was no question about that. And he plastered it on his children. And it was hard to live up to these ideals.

DS: And to the point where our spouses are sometimes really sick and tired of hearing about it. (laughs)

MF: Right. (laughter) Right.

CW:You actually wrote in your memoir about him as being a mysterious figure to children. Not quite understanding parts of him --

DS: I think I was quoting Mimi.

MF: Did I say that?

DS: Yes. You did, yes.

MF: Um-hm. I know he was frightening to a lot of children. He was booming, he 13:00was very booming. Actually, I have a cousin, Barry Lampert, talks about how frightening daddy was to him. Very frightening. That because he boomed, things came out -- unexpectedly out of him, and loud, and it was, you know, and like, for little kids, that's a little difficult. I wasn't afraid of him, but I could see how there were other kids who were a little afraid of him.

DS: And did we have a lot of conversations in Yiddish? I think we did.

MF: Well, this was a problem, you see, I was gonna talk about that at some point. He would speak to me -- see, you were a different generation, so I don't know what went on with the Yiddish with you. But he spoke to me in Yiddish and I answered in English, and this -- this could not -- he could not change it. And I thought a lot about this, what was behind it with me. Because I knew I could have spoken Yiddish to him, but I didn't. I just never did. Never. And it was terribly upsetting to him, very frustrating.

DS: I think mostly it com-- now that I think about -- the conversations were 14:00unilateral. He would speak Yiddish, and I for the most part spoke English. Maybe throw in a few Yiddish words. I think I was nervous that he would know that my Yiddish was grammatically incorrect in some way or other. And my English was better than his, even though his was excellent, and so was mine. (laughs)

MF: I think I was being spiteful. I don't think I was worried about --

DS: Oh yeah?

MF: -- yeah, I think it was my way of having some power was that I could speak English and he couldn't stop me. (laughs) That's just, you know -- but we talked a lot. We talked a lot about things; there was a lot of talking in the house. Well, you could see here, I talk a lot; I like to talk.

CW:What language did you use with your mother?

MF: Oh, English always. But she also occasionally spoke Yiddish, but mostly she spoke English to me, mama.

DS: So, I guess we learned the Yiddish at school.

MF: Well, I went to shule [secular Yiddish school], I went to mitlshul [high school], I went to yidishe lerer-seminar [Jewish teachers' seminar].

DS: Were you in Shul Fuftsn [School #15] also?

MF: Oh yeah, yeah.

DS: Was Kogan the teacher there?

MF: Shpitalnik.

DS: Oh, good old Shpitz.

MF: Shpitz. (laughter)

CW:Tell me about Shpitz.

MF: Khaver [Comrade] Shpitalnik, he was my teacher the whole time. Yeah, yeah, oh, he was not great. (laughs) Kogan I know was there, but I don't think I ever had her.

DS: Yeah, she was there before, yeah.

MF: I think so.

DS: Yeah, that was my teacher.

MF: Yeah.

DS: Yeah, and by the time I got to mitlshul, I was a total rebel. And I used to sneak off and watch dirty French movies at the Astor Theatre.

MF: (laughs) Oh, really? Oh, terrible, David.

DS: And I cut class. I -- this was Saturdays, Saturdays in Manhattan, and I think it's the only school I almost managed to flunk out of. (laughter) It was a terrible disappointment for papa. It was unheard of for his son not to do brilliantly in school.

MF: How did -- how long did you go to mitlshul?

DS: I went the whole thing; I think I graduated.

MF: Did you? You graduated from mitlshul?

DS: Yeah, I think so, vaguely. In spite of all the movies. (laughter) Do you remember any Jewish writers coming to the house?

MF: Oh yes, the house was full of Jewish writers. First of all, he had --

DS: Niger?

MF: Yeah, Shmuel Niger.

DS: I remember that, Shmuel Niger, yeah. (laughs)

MF: Uh-huh. Unfortunate pronunciation. Wasn't --

DS: Did Leivick come to the house?

MF: Leivick, I don't remember.

DS: No?

MF: No, but what were the names of some of them? I have to think about this. But there were always writers coming and going. Absolutely.

CW:What would they do, just talk?

MF: Oh, talk. Endless discussions and -- but my father had a krayz [discussion group]. He had a yidishe [Jewish] krayz. He had his talmidim [students]. He had a -- every week, at least once a week, they came, and --

DS: Just down in the cellar?

MF: No, in the dining room as I remember. They would meet in the --

DS: They had the talmidim in the dining room?

MF: Yeah, yeah. But these were mainly people who are learning from him, so he taught.

DS: Well I can't remember --

MF: He was like a rabbi, a -- today you would call him a rabbi, he wasn't a rabbi. And he didn't wanna be a rabbi, but he, you know, he was a teacher. He was a teacher.

DS: I think he focused on the ethical --

MF: Yes. Right, right.

DS: -- really on the Nevi'im, on the Tanakh, and he wasn't involved with rituals, or any of that --

MF: No no no, none of that, none of -- he wasn't interested in that. No. Talmud, he taught Talmud.

DS: Yeah, but the good parts of Talmud, not the bad.

MF: (laughs)

DS: I mean, not about stoning people to death here and there, or whatever.

MF: No, no. I didn't even know, is that in the Talmud?

DS: Probably, I have no idea.

MF: I don't think so.

DS: I have a guess. It's in the Bible.

MF: Hm, no. Like papa enjoyed very much saying that the advance of an eye for an eye was a Jewish idea because it was just an eye. So, if somebody had violated you in some way, you didn't murder them, it was like, appropriate to what the -- so the punishment would fit the crime. I mean, it wouldn't be like you would be murdered for any --

DS: Yeah, it was an amelioration of the sentence.

MF: Right, right, so it was --

DS: And of the doctrine of one tribe slaughtering the other tribe.

MF: Right, right.

DS: But, you know, I didn't mention before that the other books that are still extant -- and they're selling better than anything of it -- are actually "The Rabbi's Bible," which is in English in three volumes.

MF: Right.

DS: Where there's any -- part of it that's really interesting from the point of view of this study are his teachers aids, which are pamphlets that accompany his own unique translation, or modern translation of the early books of the Jewish Bible.

MF: The first five books, right?

DS: Ah?

MF: The first five books, but then he had also the Prophets.

DS: Yes.

MF: Yeah.

DS: And he has these annotations that are available for the teacher -- teachers resource books, which are a series of essays by him on various parts of the Tanakh. And mixed in with Talmudic annotations. And that's really -- that's still selling fairly well, actually. It's unusual that he was able to do something like that. His learning was not only fantastic, but he was able to put it into English that would work, and he -- there's a rabbi who's listed as the co-author, but my understanding is that that was done basically as a kind of a --

MF: Selling --

DS: -- make it look legitimate.

MF: Right, right, right. Be more likely to sell if it had a rabbi's imprimatur.

DS: Yeah, I don't think that rabbi had much to say about anything.

MF: Right. (laughter)

CW: So, you both -- you grew up in different decades of the twentieth century, 20:00and there were different things happening historically and politically. What historic events, political atmosphere, do you particularly remember?

MF: Well, you're older, so you go first. (laughs)

DS: Well, I remember the Depression, 'cause I lived through it. Pearl Harbor, was while I was at college, I don't remember talking about it. I do remember on Kennedy's assassination in 1963, I remember how distraught I was. I called papa from the office; I was working on a brief when I heard the news over the radio, and I said, "My God, how can the country survive if they're gonna slaughter our leaders?" And he said that --- he reassured me that the country would survive, we were stronger than that, and that it was okay, in the sense that -- the ultimate future of America. And I was talking earlier about how proud he was to 21:00be an American citizen --

MF: Oh, yeah. Oh, this was a big deal.

DS: -- and how much he loved our country.

MF: Absolutely. He was a patriot, absolute patriot. But the thing I remember, in terms of politics, the most important was really -- had a big influence on me -- what was happening to the Jews in Europe in the '40s. So, I was born in '36, and by 1941, '42, everyone knew exactly what was going on. Even by 1940, I was four, I was very aware that Jews were being killed, slaughtered, and this was always, constantly talked about. There was no idea of protecting the child or anything, forget that. I knew all about it, it terrified me. Absolutely terrified me. And I had terrible nightmares most of those years. And there was rage in the house about this. People would get together and talk endlessly about what could be done and what wasn't being done. So, that was very powerful. And then, the trip 22:00that we took to Israel -- I mean, that was 1949, so I was thirteen, so that was a big deal and a big part of my life. And then, the other thing I remember also was my sister got married in 1948 to Milton, and Milton came from a communist family. His father had died, but his mother was Russian, and she was a big communist, she loved communism. And Milton loved communism.

DS: Yeah, he had a subscription to "The Daily Worker." (laughter) It used to arrive at the house when they were living there.

MF: (laughs) Right. And my father would torture them about how, if you have to -- if you have to order something that has to arrive in a brown paper covering so nobody could see what it is, what kind of person are you that has to do such 23:00a thing, you know? And then, of course, the horrible thing that happened was the Rosenbergs, and then, that was really, really quite terrible. And so, that was -- a lot of -- there was a lot of chaos around that, whether you were for or against, or whether they were guilty or they weren't, and Milton had a very hard time with it.

DS: And the footnote to all of this, Milton now agrees he was wrong.

MF: Right. (laughter) Right, it's a long time coming.

DS: And papa isn't around to hear it.

MF: Right, right.

DS: Oh, that was difficult, actually. I remember that.

MF: Yes, it was very difficult, yeah. Oh, there was a lot of politics in the house.

DS: A lot of what?

MF: Politics. There was a lot of politics. That was a big subject, yeah.

CW: I want to ask about the seder. I know that the seder was a big deal in the house. We talked about it a little bit before, can you describe it?

MF: Yes, well, the seder was run by my father, except that there was uncle Ben. Did you talk about uncle Ben? Yeah, so uncle Ben, who was married to my mother's 24:00older sister, one-year older sister, Yetta, and they had the most -- the absolute biggest conflicts in the world were between my mother and her big sister, older sister, Yetta. And they were as competitive as two human beings can be. So, there was uncle Ben, who in my recollection --- oh, I'm sorry -- in my recollection, never said more than three words about anything, except at the seder. (laughs) Then, there was this contest between uncle Ben and my father about who could read faster, and then of course it had to be in three languages. So, the seder was run in three languages. First, you said it in Hebrew, then you said it in Yiddish, then you said it in English.

DS: Oh, I forgot the Yiddish version, yeah.

MF: Yes, absolutely.

DS: There was a Yiddish version as well. Oh gosh, I'd forgotten that.

MF: Yes, yes. And I can say the fir kashes [the Four Questions at the Passover seder] in Yiddish now, if you want. (laughs) But there was this battle to get through the phrases as quickly as possible.

DS: The entire Haggadah, the entire Haggadah. Not one le-- word left out.

MF: Yes, yes. No, no. But as quickly as you possibly, humanly could do it. Which was very funny, on some level, it was really funny. But the seders were wonderful. And my mother was a fabulous cook, I thought. Did you think mama was a good cook? Did you think mama was a good cook?

DS: Yes, I said, except her cooking could kill you.

MF: (laughs) Well, maybe cholesterol-wise.

DS: They didn't know, but they --

MF: Right. Right, yeah, so the seders were --

DS: What were her favorite dishes, as you remember?

MF: Oh, she made the best matzah balls in the world, which I know now how to make. So, I make very good matzah balls. She made kugels, wonderful kugels.

DS: I forgot that. With raisins. Kugel with the raisins.

MF: Right, but she also made a fleyshike [meat] kugel, also, which I haven't been able to find a recipe for. And she made these things that I know that everyone says it doesn't exist, this word, but they're called "falirtshikes 26:00[dumplings]." I remember falirtshikes. Everyone claims there's no such thing, but I remember them, and they're matzah muffins that you make the -- you soften the matzah, and you cook them in little muffin tins, and you have falirtshikes. And I make them every Pesach; I now make falirtshikes.

DS: I don't remember them. I looked up the word in my Russian dictionary, I can't find it.

MF: There's actually a German word that I've now seen that is very similar.

DS: Oh, yeah?

MF: Yeah. Uh-huh. So, I think it's from the German, not from the Russian.

CW: And what about the table? The table was sort of a pride of -- the expanding table, was that part of the seder?

MF: Yes, definitely, right. I think there were a lot of arguments about bringing the leaves up, and how many leaves do we need, and -- do you remember this, about the leaves for the table?

DS: I remember it was an expanding table that expanded right out of the dining room into the living room. (laughter) So you could seat enough people. And I also remember that sometimes I would sit at the back head, and behind me was this beautiful break front. And I was tall, so I liked to sort of lean back in 27:00the chair, (Forman laughs) and my mother was always afraid that I was gonna fall backwards and break the break front, which was her pride and joy. Remember that?

MF: (laughs) Yes, I do. But you also broke a couple of chairs, I remember that.

DS: I did?

MF: Yes. By leaning on them. (laughs)

DS: Oh. (laughter) Yeah, well --

MF: Yeah, well, the yontev [holiday] was nice. Yontev was very nice.

DS: But we didn't celebrate any other Jewish holidays.

MF: Well, Hanukkah, we celebrated Hanukkah, we lit candles.

DS: Oh yeah, the dreydlekh [four-sided spinning tops, used especially for Hanukkah], yeah.

MF: Yeah, and we lit candles, and we sang "Khanike oy khanike, a yontev a sheyne [Hanukkah oh Hanukkah, a beautiful holiday]," we sang that, and what other yontev? Well, there --

DS: Purim?

MF: No, well, Rosh Hashanah --

DS: Did we do anything for Purim?

MF: Well, we sang --

DS: Homentashn [triangular Purim pastry].

MF: Yeah. Well, because when you were in shule, you know, you celebrated all the holidays, so -- and you sang the songs, and --- simcha [holiday] stories, I remember. Even though we never went to a shul, it was simcha stories. But a lot of it was from the shule, it was from the school.

DS: What was the name of the fellow with whom he did the Jewish holidays -- he wrote a book about the Jewish holidays. And helped him, he was not a co-author, but helped him edit it or something. Do you remember that? In Yiddish, and it's since been published by this fellow. I have it here somewhere.

MF: Really? I never heard of --

DS: Can't remember his name, no?

CW: Can you tell me about the shule? What are your strong memories of the shule?

DS: Fuftsn?

MF: Shul Fuftsn.

DS: Were there really fifteen? I guess there were. Or more.

MF: Oh, I don't know, no, there were more, because in the Bronx, I think there were like thirty, number thirty, or three, or I don't remember, but there were a lot of shules. I even met somebody recently who went in Hempstead, there was a shule even that late. Yeah. And my oldest son Danny went to a yidishe shule outside of -- in Great Neck, I don't remember exactly where it was. And I spoke to him about these interviews, and he said that he couldn't find it, but he had 29:00a speech that my father had given at his graduation of the shule.

DS: At Danny's graduation? Really?

MF: Yeah. But he couldn't find it.

DS: Now, it's interesting that papa left an imprint on Mimi's children and on Judy's children, because he was there while they were -- he didn't leave any on mine, because my young -- my oldest son was one year old when papa died. And the youngest, Andrew, was born afterwards. So, they never knew him. But your kids did.

MF:Oh yeah, right.

DS:And Judy's kids did. He left a real imprint on them. Even though they don't really know Yiddish. A little bit.

MF: Well, it turns out, David, my youngest son, is very interested in this project. I asked him to call you actually, but he didn't, or email you, because he lives in Rochester now, and he's collected all of my father's books -- from the Yiddish Book Center, he's bought all of them, he's very invested in this, and in his zeyde [grandfather], because he was ten when my father died. And he 30:00was the writer; he was your replacement. And his name is David. Which my father did not object to, when I wanted to name him David. But he was the writer, and David is now really a writer --

DS: And he was the youngest of your three.

MF: Yes, he was my youngest, and he -- so his -- I asked him about what he would contribute to this and he said, Well, he thinks that he -- the stories, he told the stories all the time. And he had -- did you tell about his finger? Did you tell Christa about papa's finger?

DS: About papa's finger? No, about how they cut it off?

MF: Yeah, so he had -- he got skin cancer on his finger from holding the x-rays in people's mouths, when you -- in those days --

DS: They didn't know.

MF: They didn't know about it.

DS: Although his assistant Singer, he told me, had warned him constantly, he (UNCLEAR) --

MF: Oh really?

DS: -- not to do that, but my father said, That's nonsense, he would hold the x-ray in the mouth with his finger.

MF: Right, so they had to amputate the finger. Up to, I think, the knuckle.

DS: And that ended his dentistry.

MF: Yes, and then he retired. But my son David remembers being intrigued by this missing finger, (laughs) and saying to my father, How did you lose the finger? And each time he came up with some other horrific story that clearly couldn't, in retrospect, it was absolutely impossible. Like, some monstrous people came and (laughter) -- it was something like that, some crazy story, and each time, he believed him, and then he'd ask him again, and he'd get another story. So, he said it was only later in life that he realized what this about, technology not --

DS: He was a wonderful storyteller.

MF: Yes, yes.

DS: He had a gift for that.

MF: Right, right. And he was the editor of the "Kinder Zhurnal." And I don't know what became of -- what happened to the "Kinder Zhurnal." Are they around, or has anyone collected them, or --

CW: I'm sure you could find some archive, but I'm not sure where it would be --

MF: Um-hm.

DS: Well, there's a revival of Yiddish taking place, I mean --

MF: Yes, yes. Right.

DS: Here we have an example in Christa right here.

MF: Right. Right.

DS: Got interested in Yiddish. And these people I've been corresponding with on the internet, who are also not Jewish, but are studying Yiddish --

MF: Where are they studying?

DS: -- as part of a PhD program.

MF: Really? There's one at Columbia, I think.

DS: Yeah, and there's one in London. I've communicated with a number of these people on the internet about some of my father's books.

MF: Really? I didn't know this.

DS: One of -- this gal, I haven't heard from her in some time, but thinking of doing a PhD thesis about -- a post-thesis, after she got her PhD, about papa. As a Jewish writer who had not been sufficiently noticed.

MF: Um-hm. Well, that was the other thing. That was a big theme about his never being properly acknowledged in the circle of writers, and in the Institute --- in the Sholem Aleichem Institute, at Boiberik -- that somehow, he was always so -- at Boiberik, he was like a -- five steps behind Leibush Lehrer. And in the 33:00Institute, it was Gutman, was that his name?

DS: Goodman.

MF: Right, and so, he never really got -- I mean, he worked like a fiend for all these organizations; he was president of the Institute for many years.

DS: Sholem Aleichem Folks Institute.

MF: Yeah, right. So, but somehow, and I think part of it was because he was so sure of himself that he aroused some negative rea-- that he aroused others to sort of say, behind his back, We're not gonna let you be as big as you think you are, or something like that.

DS: I think they turned up their noses at children's books.

MF: And that was the other thing, right. That children's literature was not impressive enough.

DS: And then, his philosophical books, and his historical books, they also didn't really become a big hit. He always wanted to be in "Who's Who in America." He was in "Who's Who in World Jewry," he was in "Who's Who in American Jewry" --

MF: No, he was also in "Who's Who in the East." He was in "Who's Who in the East."

DS: Yeah, but he wanted to be in "Who's Who in America," and he never got in. Although, you know, practically, (Forman laughs) they beg you to go in if you buy the books. So, I always -- when I -- now, on Wikipedia, I did the biography of him on Wikipedia. And so, I view that he -- assuming Wikipedia's gonna be there in all eternity, he's there for something better than "Who's Who in America." (laughter) He would be pleased by that; that's why I did it, actually. I did that to please him, and I translated "Kluge Hent" to please him, and I paid my respects with those two things that I did.

CW: Are there things you've done to please him?

MF: Oh, that's a good question. I have to really think about that. Are there things I've done to please him?

CW: Well, you've gathered all these materials.

MF: I never thought of it to please him, though. I don't think I have done that. 35:00I think that my father's introspection, his capacity for introspection was very potent on me, as an influence, and I think that my becoming a psychoanalyst is as a result of that. That wouldn't have pleased him, though. It would not have pleased him. But my capacity for introspection would have pleased him. So, I think he would have been -- he hated -- when I went to graduate school, he was still alive, when I started, 1969, when I went back to school. I went into Columbia Teacher's College in their clinical psychology program, that's how I started. And he made -- really did -- was very disgusted.

DS: Oh, really? He didn't think much of that?

MF: Well, he was proud that I had gotten in, because it was very difficult to get in. But he thought being a psychologist was nonsense, absolute nonsense. 36:00Narishkeyt [foolishness]. That was a big word, was narishkeyt.

DS: Really? What did he think of Sigmund Freud? He thought Freud was --

MF: No, narishkeyt. And sex -- once you put sex in the picture, you got a problem.

DS: Oh that's right, sex. That was another issue.

MF: Anything about sex was a problem.

DS: I haven't mentioned that, but that was a very difficult subject in the house --

MF: Yes, yes.

DS: -- because -- it was a literary subject. At a literary level, he was fine on the subject of the rela-- sex between men and women. And he would often quote -- somewhere in the Bible or the Tanakh -- a man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave, cleave, C-l-e-a-v-e (Forman laughs) to a woman. I remember I liked the cleave part. But it left quite an im-- difficulty for me growing up, because as an adolescent I was a mess.

MF: (laughs) All of us, David. All of us.

DS: And particularly a sexual mess. A totally inadequate, impossible, couldn't deal with relations with girls. I went to college at age sixteen when I was 37:00still not even grown. I think part of my trouble at Boiberik was that I was so immature and difficult wi-- it spread over, into not just relations with girls but relations with people. And I think I tell this crazy story in my book, about -- that I did my -- which was the other thing I did for my father, this book I wrote called "I'm Writing, Poppa," which was a memoir, but a large part of it was about him. About how, when I first -- when Riah and I, my first wife, decided to get married, we -- I couldn't tell papa and mama face to face that I was gonna get married. I had to call from Grand Central Station, (Forman laughs) after I had left the house and been there for the weekend with Riah. I stayed at the house for the weekend with Riah which was very nice, things were going on, lots of lovely hanky-panky. And we decided to get married. And here I am, in the house with them, when we can't say a word. I said, "Don't say a word, Riah, I'll talk to them." And finally call from Grand Central Station. And this 38:00fits in with the story that mama told, which was that when she missed the second Passover, the year I was born, the day I was born was the second day of Passover, April 20th, 1924, was the second day of Passover, and she couldn't come because she was in the hospital, giving birth to me, and she couldn't tell her parents that that was what was happening.

MF: (laughs) Wow, I didn't hear this story.

DS: Because it involved, necessarily, some kind of sexual contact to have taken place in the past. (laughter)

MF: I'd never heard that story.

DS: Huh?

MF: I'd never heard that story.

DS: You never heard that one?

MF: No, I never heard that --

DS: I mean, the two of them were really -- maybe it was the whole generation, I don't know, but they -- it was -- we've improved a lot lately.

MF: Well, I have a lot of stories about sex, but we'll leave them for when I'm on my own. (laughter) But his main -- the banner that he would have put over the house in terms of his critiques of Isaac Bashevis Singer was that this is a 39:00complete distortion, because there was no sex in the shtetl. There was no sex in the shtetl.

DS: Didn't exist.

MF: Right. (laughs) There was no sex in the shtetl. So, he made all that up. It wasn't there. There was a big discussion of the difference between Yud Yud Singer and Isaac Bashevis Singer. And Yud Yud Singer got the prize because he was a real -- and that so happens, I think, also, if you read "The Brothers Ashkenazi," it's a much higher level of literature than --

DS: He did "The Brothers Ashkenazi"?

MF: Yeah, Yud Yud Singer, yeah.

DS: That's a better book.

MF: Yes, and I think papa also identified with the brother that didn't make it out in the public world. And it was also -- that also was another theme, was how all these famous people -- you know, and it doesn't mean they're the best, but that this world, our world, the American world had that as a problem, that they awarded people for things, but they weren't always the best.

DS: How true, how true.

MF: Yeah.

DS: Did he ever talk about his family back in Russia?

MF: Yes, a lot. And then, we went to Israel, and we met Binyomen there, and everybody.

DS: I never heard him talk about it. What did he say? What were the --

MF: Well, his father, what was his -- well, it was all in his book, in his biography, autobiography.

DS: Yeah, it's in there. I know. The first volume is all about --

MF: Right.

DS: -- life in the little hut.

MF: Right, right.

DS: In the shtub [home].

MF: Right.

DS: But I never heard him talk about his family in Russia. I think he'd be -- feel guilty.

MF: They were very poor. They were very poor. They were very poor.

DS: Yeah. I know I read the book, but I -- as far as talking about what was happening with them, I never heard anything.

MF: Uh-huh.

DS: Except that he tried to send them packages and the communists would intercept them.

MF: Yes. Right.

DS: He had to send them through some intermediary.

MF: Right. He hated Russia. He hated the czar, he always hated the czar, even 41:00more than, I don't know, anything. The czar was terrible. Do you remember that? He hated the czar.

DS: He didn't like the idea that I was studying Russian.

MF: Yeah, what was that about? Was that a --

DS: Why did I study Russian? Well, it was because of the Army.

MF: Uh-huh, but why did you pick Russian?

DS: Well, because there was a choice at Cornell, between Russian or Chinese or automotive engineering. (Forman laughs) They converted to the war effort, and it was full time available in any of those three subjects, and Russian seemed to me the easiest. I always went for the easiest. And it happened to save my life, as it turned out, because of the Army. So, there's another story.

MF: (laughs) Right. I have a memory, David, of, I think it was V-J Day, in August, 1945, and I was in Boiberik, so I was nine, and I have a memory of you coming up the girls' hill in your uniform. And you were gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. And I went running down the hill into your arms.

DS: It couldn't have been V-J Day because I was on Guam.

MF: Oh, so -- when did -- when were you shipped overseas? Because it was August.

DS: I was on leave -- I would have to have been on leave. I was on leave before they shipped me off to the Pacific --

MF: Right, so when would that have been?

DS: -- which would probably have been July.

MF: Okay, so it was that summer. But it was the summer of 1945, and you came to Boiberik, and you walked up the hill, and I remember this, and you were so handsome. (laughs)

DS: I hope you recovered from that. (laughs) Yeah, we have a close family, which is nice.

MF: Yes, and my sister is not well, so she couldn't participate.

CW: Well, you talked earlier about sort of the presence of your brother's absence in the home growing up. Can you say a little more about that?

MF: I think my whole childhood was an attempt to get to the status that David had. So even though he wasn't there, I mean, one memory I have is of -- when 43:00David was at law school -- now, I don't know, you'll have to correct me if you don't remember it this way, it's possible it didn't happen this way, but that you came home. It was like, you had just finished your exams or something in between semesters in law school, and you had a copy of one of your exams. And there were like three questions on the exam. And I looked at them, and I started answering the questions. And I got pretty good answers out.

DS: Really?

MF: Yeah, and I got a lot of applause, and a lot of accolades for this, and I remember that, that was one of my proudest moments. I mean, I thought that law was very interesting. And at one point, I thought that maybe I would even be a lawyer, but, yeah. Oh, I remember this very well. You don't remember?

DS: I have no recollection of that. I have no recollection of ever having had a copy of an exam.

MF: Yeah. Yeah, you had -- so, what year were you in law school?

DS: Forty-seven was my -- was when I entered law school. The first exam wouldn't 44:00have been till '48.

MF: Okay.

DS: Because they didn't have -- they just had one exam at midterm. Criminal law. And then, all the exams were at the end of the first year, which was '48.

MF: I guess I would have been twelve. And that's the other thing, striving to get the word that somebody could say, ah, "Zi iz azoy feik, azoy feik -- oh, feik [She's so talented, so talented -- oh, talented]."

DS:What?

MF:Feik. Zi iz azoy feik. Feik.

DS: Oh, talented.

MF: Oh, if you were feik, that was very good. That was the thing to look to be. That was really a good thing.

DS: So, what's happened to the fact that our children and especially our grandchildren are really, basically not -- our grandchildren are not Jewish at all anymore. More or less.

MF: Well, I have one, my oldest granddaughter, Naomi -- became Orthodox at one point.

DS: Yeah.

MF: And she's fluent in Hebrew, she studied. Now she's not Orthodox, and she 45:00actually married somebody who isn't Jewish.

DS: She's fluent in Yid-- in Hebrew?

MF: To read it, and to understand it.

DS: Hebrew?

MF: Yeah, yeah.

DS: She's the only one then, isn't she?

MF: Well, Rachel is -- considers herself very Jewish, also. My oldest son's two daughters, I would say, they're in their twenties. They consider -- they're Jewish people. They are gonna marry non-Jews, this is -- but the oldest already married a non-Jew and the youngest -- the younger one will probably also. She's going out with someone seriously. So, but --

DS: These are papa's great-grandchildren.

MF: Right.

DS: Of his grandchildren, six married non-Jews.

MF: Uh --

DS: All except the --

MF: Wait, wait, wait. My son Danny --

DS: Natalie, Natalie and --

MF: David Langner, they're both Jewish.

DS: David Langner, and Joe -- so Danny, that was it.

MF: No, and David married Leslie, who converted.

DS: Oh, converted, okay.

MF: She converted.

DS: My two sons both married gentiles. The interesting thing is that my older son's wife has a -- Allison, whose uncle or something was a Methodist minister, has been sending my -- now my three grandchildren in Miami, her children, my son's children, to a Hebrew school. Hebrew kindergarten. And they have been going through all the holidays.

MF: Really?

DS: Yeah, and they celebrate them at home as well. Even though they're only half Jewish. By Jewish tradition, not Jewish at all. They now know more about -- they educate me about the holidays when I go down to Miami. But still, the -- you can see, as I said earlier today, that you can see Jewish traditions and Jewish life evaporating here in America. Except among the Orthodox. And there was a recent 47:00study by the "Forward," I don't know if you saw that, the Pew study, which confirms that. So, we need some more oppression, (laughs) some more rejection to revive Jud-- Yiddishkayt. Not that we want it.

MF: Well there's the Yiddish problem, there's the Yiddish problem --

DS: Well, it happened during the era of the Greeks, you know. The Jews went through a similar process of assimilation and disappearance. And then, Christianity came along and --

CW: Where do you see the -- when you look at your descendants, is there any -- where do you see the yikhes [ancestry] come up? You know, is there anyone that reminds you?

MF: I think that, yes, all my children are extremely --

DS: Your three are extraordinary.

MF: -- incredible integrity. All my children have just extraordinary integrity, and their children, their children, each of them.

DS: You have a wonderful family.

MF: Real honesty, so -- I mean, they don't stray far. There's still a connection with Dr. Simon's grandchildren, there is a connection.

CW: Um-hm. What do you think?

DS: Well, I don't think I -- I think I sort of failed with my two sons. I mean, they know they're Jewish, but it's not something that ever seems to concern them or involve them in any way. I don't think they celebrate -- well, they come -- if they were here they would join us in celebrating Pesach. Andrew has done that on occasion and has brought his Swedish -- beautiful Swedish wife with him for our Pesach. But I don't see any signs of anything. Except as I say, Michael's three gr-- children are oddly enough going to what happens to be the best Jewish 49:00-- the best kindergarten school in the neighborhood, and it happens to be Jewish. So, who knows. I think, the -- who's the head of the National Yiddish Book Center? Lansky, is it? Or Sla-- Lansky? I think he's quoted somewhere as saying that Jewish is tough. It doesn't seem to want to disappear. He's talking about the language, but I think the whole tradition, the whole culture, that was apart from the religion, really, that maybe had its roots in the religion, but was sort of like an independent thing. An independent ethnic culture, it's gonna survive. One way or another. Maybe not here.

MF: But papa's biggest frustration, I think, in life, other than his children --

DS: What?

MF: I said, I think daddy's biggest frustration in life, other than his frustration with us, that we didn't do exactly what he wanted us to do, but his real big frustration was what happened to Yiddish. And that there was no -- for 50:00him, for the secular Jew, there was no community, there was no kehile [community, esp. Jewish community]. There was no place where they could really thrive, and that he understood that in addition to the fact that -- Stalin and Hitler and Zionism had all destroyed Yiddish, in addition to that, that secularism unfortunately hadn't allowed the Jews to create for themselves something equivalent to what Orthodoxy had, which was a place, a coming-together, philosophically and ethically and humanistically, to deal with the world. And that was his biggest frustration, that this happened. And he tried. At the end of his life, he took his krayz, he took his talmidim, and he tried to make something that would be like that. And the Reconstructionists were the closest that he got -- felt were out there. So, that was the Haggadah that 51:00we ended up using, were Kapl-- was Kaplan's Haggadah. And we still use that in the family. But that was the closest he felt that it came to having a place, psychologically and a real place for people to come. And without that, there would be nothing.

DS: The three of us, Judy, Mimi and I, all married -- among multiple marriages, in every case, Jewish. But as Suzy points out, back in those days, there was a real separation. I mean, you really didn't, there was --

MF: John isn't Jewish.

DS: Huh?

MF: (laughs) John isn't Jewish.

DS: Well now, yes, now.

MF: Right.

DS: But, yeah, but previously, your two husbands were Jewish.

MF: Right, well, the -- my first husband, my father really approved of, and I think that was also a big -- that's a whole other story, but he was the son of one of my father's students in the neighborhood. So, that had to --

DS: I didn't know that. Milton's father was one of his students?

MF: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, that had to work, it had to work. As a matter of fact, his astonishment that you and Riah didn't work was what he would go on and on about why David's first marriage didn't work, it was impossible that it shouldn't work, because Riah's family was such a -- was a Yiddish-speaking family, they were educated people, just the right background for you, and how could that not work, it wouldn't be perfect? Of course, there was this other thing --

DS: Papa wasn't lying in the bed between us. (laughs)

MF: (laughter) Right, there was this other hidden item that we didn't talk about.

DS: Oh well, yeah.

CW: Well I wanted to ask you about Boiberik. Can you describe -- maybe we can go one and then the other -- a typical day at Boiberik.

DS: Yeah, well, I love Boiberik in memory.

MF: What does that mean? (laughs)

DS: Well, I like to think of it as a place that I, you know, I sort of romanticize it in my memory. I also do remember that I had an unhappy time 53:00there. Because I really wasn't sociable enough. I didn't have many friends. I couldn't -- I wasn't -- I was sent there at a very early age, initially. I don't know, I was about eight or nine or something, seven? And I missed home terribly. I wasn't interested in the swimming, I wasn't interested in the -- getting in the golden book Friday night -- goldene bukh. I wasn't interested in the vegetables they were growing. I played ping pong day day in and day out. I was kind of a lunatic. And I had only a couple of buddies in the bunk. The whole thing was to me, was a very lousy way to spend the summer. I would rather stay home and read some books. So, I wasn't suited for it. I wasn't really made for it. Mimi and Judy were excellent campers, they were wonderful campers.

MF: It was a whole other experience. That's a whole other story, also. But the day, how a day was -- (telephone ringing)

DS: Oh, damn.

CW: Let's just wait for that.

MF: The day started with -- you got up, and -- I'm trying --

DS: That's a good start. (laughter)

MF: Yeah, right. (laughs)

CW: Usually you got up.

MF: Right, I'm trying to remember now. Well, you brushed your teeth, and you got dressed, and I don't think there were any rituals or anything attached to that. But then, you came out of the bunk, and we marched to the dining room, that was the beginning of the day. And of course, there was some song you marched to, which --

DS: There were a lot of Yiddish singing, Yiddish songs.

MF: Well, Yiddish, Yiddish singing, as a matter of fact, I'm trying to get somebody to put together a CD of all -- because I have all the words written and everything, and -- a friend of mine actually emailed Josh Waletzky to see if he would do it, but he didn't answer yet, so I don't know. But so we marched to the dining room, we sang, we sat down, we stood -- at your table, you stood at your table, and you sang again, then you sat down, and you ate breakfast. And then, 55:00you got up from breakfast, you went back to your bunk, you cleaned up the bunk. Every day you had to make your bed. And then, there were the activities, so you had various activities depending on your age, and then there was the same thing, you went through the same thing, marching to the dining room, and there were the announcements in the dining room about what was happening, and what games were gonna be played and all that. And then --

DS: Were the announcements in Yiddish? Pretty much all the counselors were speaking Yiddish.

MF: Oh yeah, yeah. Always in Yiddish. Always in Yiddish. Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah. And --

DS: The kids didn't speak Yiddish.

MF: -- although my son Danny went to -- so this is much later -- went to Boiberik, and I asked him about his Boiberik experience, and he said he learned no Yiddish in Boiberik. So, I said, "How could you have learned no Yiddish in Boiberik?" Because I know -- he said, "I don't know, I didn't learn." He said becau-- and he went to shule also, but he claims he learned no Yiddish. He said, "What I knew was that things had names, like the vald-hoyz [country home, lit. 56:00"forest house"], but I didn't know that was Yiddish." He said it was the vald-hoyz. (laughs) I didn't know, that's what it was. So, that place was called the "vald-hoyz."

DS: The forest house.

MF: Yeah, right. But he said, but there -- it was all Yiddish.

DS:I don't remember the vald-hoyz.

MF:It was all Yiddish. It was in the vald.

DS: I remember some of the songs about -- "Di elste, di elste, di elste zaynen do. Di yingste, di yingste [The older ones, the older ones, the older ones are here. The younger ones, the younger ones] --" (laughter) Every -- each table was a different group.

MF: Oh well, yeah. Well, the camp was divided into three sections, and you had the yingste [young ones], the mitele [middle ones], the elste [older ones]. And within each section, there were three sections, the yingste, the mitele, and the elste. So, there were nine -- is that right, three, six, nine, groups -- different groups, and depending on -- I think it started at eight, so it was eight, nine, ten was the yingste, and then eleven, twelve, thirteen -- no, it started at seven. So, seven, eight, nine was the yingste. Ten, eleven, twelve was the mitele, and thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and then sixteen, you were already a sub-counselor.

DS: Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, there was a lot of hanky-panky.

MF: Was the elste. Oh well, that's another story also. Right. So, yeah, well you 57:00have all these kids thrown together and -- but then -- so, activities were dependent on what -- how old you were. But all the singing, a lot of singing, a lot of Yiddish, all the signs were in Yiddish, and --

DS: There was a Friday night services -- it was not a service, but there was.

MF: No, there was Friday night, and Friday you really cleaned the bunk, and then you got -- polished your shoes, you had white shoes. Everything was in white. And then, you marched to the dining room, they had special songs for Friday night. And then, you --

DS: (singing) "Shabes, shabes [Shabbos, Shabbos]" --

MF: Right. Right. (singing) "Shabes oyf der [Shabbos in the]" --

DS: "S'iz do eybik shabes [It's always Shabbos]" or something?

MF: (singing) "Shabes, sha--" Well, I can't sing, but.

DS: Yeah.

MF: Yeah.

DS: Something like that.

MF: Right. And then, you went into the auditorium --

DS: And then, were the awards and the goldene bukh, which I never got into. (laughs)

MF: That was one -- (laughter) -- that really made an impact on you. Well it's true, my best friend, Phyllis Einheiber, she was a year ahead of me, and she got 58:00a full page in the goldene bukh. One of the few. And I was jealous.

DS: Goody-goody.

MF: No, you don't get it, goody-goody, it's really not. It's really -- everyone likes you, you do best in everything --

DS: Nobody liked me, I remember that.

MF: -- I mean, really, all-around perfect person that everyone likes, and no one is jealous of because you're such a perfect person. This is, but --

DS: My fondest memory of Boiberik of ha-- maybe you -- maybe my only fond memory, was the felker yontef [holiday of nations, lit. "folks' holiday"]. I liked -- I liked the felker yontef.

MF: Yeah, the felker yontev was magnificent.

DS: Where each of us was assigned to a different country, with different costume, and different song. Each bunk, or each group. I was the Argentinian one year --

MF: And the dance, and the dance.

DS: Yeah, and then I remember the song, from Beethoven's Ninth, with the Yiddish words. (singing) "Ale mentshn zaynen brider,/misht di farbn oys tsuzamen,/s'iz an oysgetrakhte mayse [All people are brothers,/mix the colors up together,/it's all an invented story]."

DS & MF: (singing together) "Ale mentshn zaynen brider,/royte, gele, shvartse, 59:00vayse [All people are brothers,/red, yellow, black, white]" --

DS: What's the next line?

MF: (singing) "Royte, gele, shvartse, vayse [Red, yellow, black, white]" ---

DS & MF: (singing) "Misht di farbn oys tsuzamen,/s'iz an oysgetrakhte mayse [Mix the colors up together,/it's all an invented story]."

DS: Yeah.

MF: Right.

DS: Yeah, I heard Beethoven --

MF: And the Boiberik songs, these songs that we sang -- oh, so we came to Boiberik on the Hudson River Day Line, which doesn't exist anymore. And so, you met all your friends on the boat, and then you went up the Hudson River, and you got there, and then, on the -- at the end of the summer --

DS: At Poughkeepsie, you get off at Poughkeepsie, (UNCLEAR).

MF: But then, at the end of the summer, you go back the same way. So, the song that was sung, the final song of the -- there were two final songs. One was "Freyd matones [Joyful gifts]," which was the gifts -- at the end of the summer, each bunk made gifts to the camp.

DS: Freyd.

MF: And they sang "Freyd matones." (singing) "Freyd matones, shtromen, shtromen, vi a zunike getrank, fil di laykht af yede ponim, mit zayn [Joyful gifts stream, 60:00stream, like a sunny drink, feel the light on every face, with their]" -- something -- "un geshayn [and glow]."

DS: I don't remember it. And there was "Oh Boiberik, Oh Boiberik."

MF: Well, so then, yes, what the real song --

DS: You cried, you cried every time.

MF: Yes, you cried on the boat, all the way down, while they sang "O boyberik, mayn boyberik [Oh Boiberik, my Boiberik]." But it was sung to -- (singing) "O boyberik, mayn boyberik, in troyer un in freydn. Gekumen iz do shoyn di tsayt, mir muzn zikh tsesheydn. O boyberik [Oh Boiberik, my Boiberik, in sadness and in joy. The time has come for us to part ways. Oh Boiberik] --

DS and MF: -- mayn boyberik --

MF:-- ikh vil dir lang gedenkn [I will always remember you]."

DS: Now, what is that being sung to?

MF: Well, to singing to -- to "Tannenbaum [German: Christmas Tree]"! To Tannen--

DS: Is it "Deutschland, Deutschland, Über Alles [German: Germany, Germany, Above All]?"

MF: No, to "Tannenbaum." And someone discovered that it was "Tannenbaum."

DS: "Tannenbaum."

MF: And they said, No, we can't, cause this was after the war now, and no, no "Tannenbaum." So, they changed it to this tune, (singing) "O boyberik, mayn boyberik, in troyer un in freydn." But nobody cared for this, absolutely nobody.

DS: What song -- whose song was that?

MF: Someone made it up. (laughter) So, it was terrible. And so --

DS: (laughs) I don't remember you crying at this though.

MF: Oh, on the boat, you got on the boat, because --

DS: I must have been there.

MF: (laughs) No, so, when could you have gone that I went, 'cause there's not possibly --

DS: No, I must have been there one year when you ended, afterwards, or something.

MF: No, because --

DS: They had -- they had a guest side.

MF: There's twelve years between us, David. You couldn't -- how many years do you think you went?

DS: I would have been at the guest side.

MF: Oh, on the guest side.

DS: On the guest side, as an adult.

MF: Oh, huh.

DS: I did stay there. Papa and mama were there also.

MF: Yeah, they used to come.

DS: My fath--

MF: Well, my father would lecture there. He would lecture on the guest side, right.

DS: My funniest memory of the guest side at Boiberik was they had a -- sort of a community hall, which was the headquarters, kind of, where they would receive guests and all. Now then at night, the adults would gather there, and since they were -- so many of them were from Eastern Europe, there were a lot of chess players. And so, there would be chess boards set up, and there were kibitzers, but the kibbitzers weren't allowed, supposedly, not allowed to say a word. Not 62:00allowed. So, they would be drinking tea, people standing around the chess players, drinking tea, and Russian style, they would put the sugar cube between their teeth and drink the tea through the sugar cube. So, here's a -- a non-kibbitzer standing behind the chessboard, and somebody's about to make a move, and you would hear, (sucking sound). (laughter)

DS: And you knew he didn't think much of that move. (laughter)

MF: It was in the tey-tsimer [tea room].

DS: Huh?

MF: It was in the tey-tsimer.

DS: What?

MF: In the tey-tsimer. It was called the -- the "tey-tsimer."

DS: Oh, the tey-tsimer, yeah, the tea room, right, I'd forgot that.

MF: Right, right, right. (laughs)

DS: With the sugar cube (sucking sound).

MF: And then --

DS: And to this day, when I play chess, I think of that.

MF: So, and my father would lecture "untern boym [under the tree]" --

DS: He never played chess.

MF: No, no, he didn't.

DS: God forbid.

MF: Games, he didn't like games. He didn't like comics. Games, comics, feh. That 63:00was my only contact with comics, was in Boiberik, because at home we were not allowed to have comics. But he would -- he would lecture "untern boym" remember? "Untern boym." There was a tree --

DS: A big tree. It was sort of in between the two camps, the adults' side and the children's side.

MF: Right, right. It was very amusing to me because John, my husband, who is this Indian scholar -- scholar of India -- when we went to India, they're -- they do that in India, they sit around under the tree --

DS: My tree, the same tree, yeah? (laughs)

MF: Yeah, right. (laughs)

DS: Yeah, oh well.

CW: Oh yeah, can you pull maybe your scarf back? It's falling off.

MF: Oh, no, I knew I'd be a mess in the picture. (laughs)

DS: Michael (UNCLEAR) --

CW: No, no it wasn't like that, it looks great. Do you remember any of the, the writers who came to Boiberik? Other than, you know, your father was one of the ones --

MF: Um-hm. Right.

CW: -- do you remember any of the others?

MF: Um-hm. Shmuel Leivick.

DS: Shmuel Leivick, I remember that guy --

MF: Yeah. Shmuel Leivick.

DS: I think he came to the house also.

MF: Yeah? Uh-huh.

CW: What did he -- what did he look like?

DS: Shmuel Leivick.

MF: What did he look like?

DS: He's a famous poet.

MF: Yeah. Right. I don't remember what he looked like.

DS: Avrom Reyzen, was he around?

MF: Oh yeah, was he there still? Was he alive, Avrom Reyzen?

DS: I seem to remember him. Of course, the word raisin is stuck in my mind.

MF: Right. I think he -- I think he was still alive. Menachem Mendel's not possible, no. It was, the -- I don't remember the writers at Boiberik. Yeah.

DS: I remember them at the house. I don't think they came to Boiberik. Boiberik was -- there was a rival camp,

MF: Oh, there were two rival camps.

DS: Two rivals.

MF: The communist camp and the socialist camp. Right.

DS: Boiberik was an anti-communist camp.

MF: Right.

DS: They were the true socialists. The idealists.

CW: What about Leibush Lehrer? Do you remember him?

DS: Oh boy, do I remember him.

MF: (laughs)

CW: What do you remember?

DS: Yeah, he was this short, little martinet. And he had a voice that could (growling sound) "Ven er redt yidish, darf men hern az leybush lerer redt yidish [When he speaks Yiddish, everyone should know that Leibush Lehrer speaks Yiddish]."

MF: (laughs)

DS: He was in charge of the camp.

MF: There was a -- now, I don't know -- I think this was after your time, but there was a -- there were a lot of very talented Boiberikaner. And they would write plays and musicals that got sung. And one of them was with "Shmerl nar [Shmerl the fool]." "Shmerl nar" comes to Boiberik, yes.

DS: Oh, really?

MF: And, right.

DS: That's my father's book.

MF: Right. And one of the songs in that operetta, Phillis -- if Phillis were 66:00here, she knows all the songs, she remembers all of them. But one of them was (singing) "Leybish hot a plikh, der direktor hot a plikh [Leibush is bald, the director is bald]." He was bald. He was a cue ball. He was --

DS: Leybish hot a plikh.

MF: Plikh, so that was how I learned when -- how you say somebody's bald. It's a "plikh." And then, there was another song, (singing) "Der direktor iz a mekhtiker parshoyn [The director is a mighty person]."

MF:Der direktor is a what?

DS:Mekhtiker parshoyn.

DS: Mexican?

MF: Mekhtiker, mekhtiker.

DS: Oh, mighty. Yeah, mekhtiker parshoyn.

MF: (singing) "Vu er [Where he]" -- something -- "iz er do in yede tog un yede sho, der director [he's always here, every day and at all hours, the director]" -- and it was a real spoof. So, he enjoyed those, Leibush.

DS: Yeah?

MF: Oh, yeah. He enjoyed those. But there was some rivalry between daddy and Leibush Lehrer. I don't know --

DS: I don't remember that.

MF: Yeah, there was.

DS: Well, Lehrer was in charge of the camp, no question about that.

MF: Right, right. But the camp was really run by --

DS: With a whistle around his neck.

MF: But the camp was really run --

DS: He's really -- really Teutonic. (laughter)

MF: You mean the "Tannenbaum" was no accident. (laughter)

MF: But, he is -- he was really, though, I assume he was sent by the Institute. And the Institute ran the camp.

DS: Yeah sure, it was their camp.

MF: And papa ran the Institute, so you'd think he'd have something to say about it, so I don't think.

DS: They used to raise money at the dinners, and the joke -- the joke that went around was when they would, each person who -- you know, they were trying to get people to contribute, like a raffle, you have this announcer, how much money you're giving or something. So, his favorite joke was that -- I'm giving one hundred dollars from the Shmuel Leivick -- uh, whatever it is -- Delicatessen, at Forty-Second Street and First Avenue. Open from six in the morning until twelve o'clock at night, being given anonymously. (laughter)

DS: It was called the appeal.

MF: Yeah, the appeal. That's right. And I cringed, I used to have to go to these things because they never left me home. There was no babysitters, you never got a babysitter, they just shlepped me along wherever they went. So, I went to all of these things, and I was horrified that people were called out by how much they gave, and then if they gave fifty -- oh, you could give a little more, you could give some more, that's not enough. Yeah, it was really --

DS: Papa gave a lot.

MF: Yeah, yeah. He did. But still. I mean, I thought (UNCLEAR) --

DS: (UNCLEAR)

MF: He ran a lot of the appeals.

DS: Huh?

MF: He did a lot of them. Yeah. Yeah, that was quite embarrassing.

CW: Are there any -- like, when you think of your father, papa, are there any stories that come to mind, that -- after thinking about these things, thinking about him, any quintessential stories?

MF: About him, or that people told about him?

CW: That you tell about him, maybe, to other people.

DS: Well, I have two.

MF: Okay.

DS: One is, he used to have a d-- when he became religious again, sort of --

MF: He di-- never became religious again. No.

DS: Well, he became theistic, or deistic. Well, let me tell you what he used to say, what with the issue.

MF: Okay, all right, okay.

DS: He would say to me, he would say, "David," he'd come to the view that di velt iz nisht hefker [the world is not forsaken].

MF: Right, that's correct.

DS: Di velt iz nisht hefker. There is a purpose there somewhere. And something or other, somehow, is sort of guiding that purpose, it's -- there's a -- nisht hefker. So, I would say, How do you know? He says he could feel it. It can't be, okay. And then, the other thing we talked about was death. I quote this in my book at the very end. We'd say -- 'cause he -- when he'd had his first heart attack, and I came to see him at the hospital out in -- near Judy. He looked at my ashen face. He was seventy-four at that time, so this would have been 1969, I 70:00drove out there. And he looked at my ashen face and he said, comforted me by saying, "Az ikh bin do, dovid, iz di toyt nisht do [If I am here, David, death is not here]." And I've sort of been using that in my own mind, really, as -- it is kind of a comfort to know that -- believing, as I do, that there is no afterlife, there is no -- that this is it, you have a one-way ticket -- it's nice to know that when the ticket expires, nothing happens. You're just not there anymore. You're back to where you were, as I see it, before you started. And that's kind of comforting.

MF: When my father died, when daddy died, he died in Florida. You told the story 71:00of how he died?

DS: No, I didn't. Second heart attack.

MF: Yeah. They had gone. Yeah, he had a heart attack, but what happened was, they had gone down to Florida, tha-- and you had gotten them this trip because your client was the ship --

DS: Yeah, I represented the Prudential Grace Line, which had ships going down the coast that were mixed cargo passenger ships. A small group of passengers. American flagged ships. And I was the big shot, I was a lawyer for the -- for the whole company. And I had my own law firm, but I was still the lawyer for the company. And so, I got 'em a free ticket, he and mama to go down there on the ship.

MF: Right, so they went down. And they had this new little apartment they had bought, and they were only there a week or something when my father -- it was Sunday morning -- my father was about to entertain -- they had a Dr. [Soroff?], who I think he was a writer, actually.

DS: Doctor who?

MF: Soroff. Soroff.

DS: Soroff?

MF: Yeah.

DS: I don't remember him.

MF: And he was coming over to visit them, and so my father went to the bakery to get bagels or rolls or whatever, and he had a sudden heart attack and died.

DS: On the street, within minutes yeah, he would be dead.

MF: Right. Right. Now, what I remember, is when, before this, he would say to me, or say to people, "I wanna die on the subway." And people would say, Why do you wanna die on the subway? He said, "Because I'd still be going somewhere. I would still be alive and going somewhere."

DS: I never heard that.

MF: Oh yeah. He always said that, many times. So, when he had this plutsling [sudden] heart attack, and died on the spot, I thought -- felt good about that. I mean, I didn't feel good that he had died at all, it was horrible, but I mean, it was like, in a way, he didn-- he didn't have the bad thing that he didn't want, he got it the way he wanted it.

DS: Yeah. He wanted to die with his boots on, as they sort of --

MF: But then, you called me. Right, but you had to fly down to Florida to help mama --

DS: Oh, it was terrible.

MF: -- and you called me. I don't know if you --

DS: I called you?

MF: You called me. And it was -- must have been a Sunday, 'cause they were 73:00waiting for Dr. Soroff to visit, so it was a Sunday. You called me and you said, Tomorrow morning, you have to go to my office, and in my safe, in the -- my secretary will help you get it -- there's a document that papa gave me --

DS: I told you?

MF: Yes, to go to the office, because you were going to Florida. And get this document, and it was this will that he had, a tsevoe, that he had written out, that we had to look at before -- when he died. As soon as he died. And what that was, and I've given this document actually to Gella --

DS: It's not his will, this was a thing that accompanied his will.

MF: Yes, it wasn't his legal will will, but it was --

DS: It's not in the will itself.

MF: -- a Jewish will, in a way. I had given this document to Gella, who has lost it. She can't find it, and unfortunately, I never made a copy, or I can't find if I have a copy.

DS: It was his funeral instructions.

MF: And it was his instructions. And the first line of the instructions were, "To my wife Leah" -- and it was all in Yiddish -- "To my wife Leah, first of all you shouldn't be klogging [lamenting] and screaming and yelling. Forget that I 74:00died, I lived a long, full, life. I was old, I lived a long, full life. I did what I wanted to, don't carry on. It's okay." And that was the first --

DS: He was in charge even then.

MF: Right, and that was the first instruction, and then it was every step tha-- what we had to do. There were five people, as I recall, or four people, that -- what they should be called and told they should come and read different things. And each thing was written out in the thing, so it makes -- they couldn't find it, he had to -- to give to them, and then what was to be written on his stone, which was a text from Yermiyahu [Hebrew: Jeremiah].

DS: I didn't know that.

MF: Yes. And it was that, "You have put --" and it was in Yiddish, but I don't know the Yiddish, "You have put the word in my mouth, and I didn't want to say it, but I had no choice that I -- you forced me to say the word."

DS: "Ir hot geshtokn dem vort in mayn moyl un ikh hob nisht kayn --"

MF: It -- no, it's not that, but it was something like that, and --

DS: A quote from one of the prophets.

MF: It was from Jeremiah. Who was the reluctant prophet, that was how he's known. Jeremiah is called the reluctant prophet, and that was the quote.

DS: I never knew that.

MF: And it was, yes, that he felt somehow compelled to learn and think and take care of Yiddishkayt, and that that was his -- he had to do it, and he had no choice. And that was why he chose that. And then, I remember that I was put in charge of making sure that it was on the stone, and, to my horror, after the stone was made, I had made a mistake. And one of the oysyes --

DS: One of the letters?

MF: -- one of the letters is wrong, yeah.

DS: Oh, well.

MF: And I -- it was the first time in my life I understood the horror of this phrase, "It's written in stone," (laughs) which was really very upsetting. So, I remember that, yeah, but I don't remember the exact quote. I guess I could find it.

DS: I remember two things about his final words. One was -- and on this trip down on this ship, nobody knew him, but he said afterwards, he arrived in Miami, he spoke to me and he said he wasn't used to being called David Simon's father. (laughter)

DS: And then, the other thing he said was when -- just as he -- this is in my book, this part -- that he visited us right after my -- Michael was born, he's my firstborn. It was September 8th, two thousand and -- I'm sorry, 1970. And he 77:00died on --

MF: November 9th, I think it was.

DS: -- November 8th, I think it was.

MF: Something like that.

DS: I think it -- so this is September 8th. And there's this little infant in the crib, and he said -- he looked at me and he said, "So, it starts again." And I still remember that, because it's really quite a profound -- when you think of it, a profound statement.

MF: Right.

DS: He was good at that.

MF: Um-hm. Right.

DS: He had -- he had the gift of words.

MF: Um-hm.

DS: And --

MF: And of profundity. And the gift of profundity also. (laughs)

DS: So, I think we're more or less done, huh?

CW: Sure, yeah, well, I -- I have one more question if we have time.

DS: You have some more?

CW: Sort of following off what you're talking about now, just -- what did you learn from your father?

MF: I learned that people are complicated and more important than anything else.

DS: Than what?

MF: More important than anything else. People.

DS: People are more important. What did I learn from my father? The thing that comes to mind -- you're supposed to say the first thing that comes to your mind when you play this game, I guess. I think what I learned was to just keep trying harder. (laughs) It doesn't sound very sensible. But, he -- I also, I guess, to try and be a decent person. I think that's -- we all had that.

MF: But daddy also, if you watched him in his life --

DS: Huh?

MF: If you watched daddy in his life, he suffered, he suffered emotionally because things -- when things weren't right, when he couldn't make things right, 79:00he suffered. He was an extremely feeling person. And he wanted to communicate to people about justice, and the importance of justice in the world, and when it didn't work, or when it wasn't working, or when he himself, inside himself, didn't know how to go on that way with it. He suffered. He suffered. And it's in his writings. It's in all his writings. I brought some of that. And some of it's in English, even. Which -- he wrote in English, even. Of his philosophical works.

DS: I read mama's dedication to "Kluge hent [Clever hands]," which has exactly that in it.

MF: Oh really, I didn't know.

CW: Nu, a hartsikn dank [Well, thank you very much].

MF: Ah, a sheynem dank dir [thank you very much to you]!

DS:What's that?

CW: A hartsikn dank.

DS: Oh, a hartsikn dank aykh [thank you very much to you].

CW: Thank you so much.

DS: S'iz zeyer interesant [It was very interesting]. (laughter)

CW: Great.

DS: Epes andersh [Something different].

[END OF INTERVIEW]