MILDRED BERMAN ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney and today is February 10th, 2015. I am here in Boca Raton, Florida with Mildred Berman and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Do I have your permission to record?

MILDRED BERMAN: Yes, of course.

CW:Great. So, first of all, can you just tell me where were your parents from?

MB:They were from the Ukraine, in a -- they called it Lubin. I have recently found out it was called L-E-B-U-N, but it was Lubin in the Ukraine. And when the people came over, they formed -- they got together a brotherhood, a society, and they called it the First Lubiner Association. So, we say it's Lubin. It's not 1:00there under that name anymore that -- we have found out.

CW:And when did they come to the US?

MB:In the 1920s. My father and my mother came differently. They had to work their way through to get to the ship, to come, and my mother actually came -- a cousin's daughter had died and the uncle went to my grandmother and said, "Let me take somebody to the golden medine [country]. Let me take somebody." And my mother went at that time. But there was a history before then. But they came to the United States, downtown, East Side. My father practically schlepped my mother, because she was not willing, but she came all by herself, a young woman, and they got married in 1922.

CW:So, did they meet in New York or --

MB:No.

CW:-- back home?

MB:Back home. My father was a very mischievous -- I would call him a delinquent, and he loved my mother. She was such a pretty girl. And anybody would look at her, he'd beat 'em up. You know that kind of guy? And he was quite a character. I have many stories to tell you about him. But they came to the United States, and they worked. My mother used to -- worked in the laundry, and she'd walk to save the five cents carfare, to save money to send back home.

CW:And do you have a sense of what their town was like?

MB:In Lubin?

CW:Yeah.

MB:It was just like Sholem Aleichem. It was a shtetl [small town in Eastern Europe with a Jewish community], and they were very naïve in many ways and very 3:00funny in other ways. In other words, my mother told a story, they went to another town and one of the girls said, "Look at this! The moon shines here like it shines in Lubin." That's all they had to say. So, soon as someone said something a little stupid, they got a nickname. So, her name was shikse [non-Jewish woman], so it's shikse levone [non-Jewish moon] because that's where she said the moon was, in another town. When the train came, they went miles to see what a train was like. And my father was very strong. They were in a wagon one time, and mud up to your knees. And they were stuck in the wagon, and the story is, my father, with his shoulder, lifted the wagon out and got them back on the road. And it was a very small -- my mother, she maybe had just a couple of -- she had a family and my father had a family. And they had very little, but 4:00they believed in who they were and they had a strong sense of doing the right thing, of Torah. And there are many stories. Can I tell you one?

CW:Yeah, please.

MB:They had pogroms. They're not from the Holocaust, but they had pogroms. And there was one time my mother's oldest sister -- I'm not sure. One was Sussy and one was Sime. And the husband got killed, and she had a baby. And a non-Jew came running through the town who was a friend and said, "Everybody get out, the Bolsheviks are coming!" And my grandmother packed a little something for my mother and said, "You go with the people on the road." She was younger and she started out on the road. And as she's walking, she said, "What am I doing here? If they kill my mother and my father, my sister, I don't want to live. I'd rather go back and be with them." She turned back, and many of the people on the 5:00road were caught and horribly killed. When I say horribly, I don't want to be graphic, but I mean horribly. They would throw up a baby -- you can picture it. But she went back. It was meant for her to live.

CW:And were they religious?

MB:Yes. They all were religious at that time. And maybe they didn't have much to eat, but they were kosher and they were religious. So, my mother had to wash dishes for her mother to make them kosher. And it was interesting -- if they made a bread, it went to a baker. Everybody brought their bread in to be baked, and -- but they survive. My mother's grandmother wasn't very nice. Her name was 6:00Batsheva, I think. But my mother would -- her mother would send her to the grandmother and she'd have something cooking or -- outside, say, a pie or something, and my mother would look at it. She didn't -- wouldn't give the kid anything, and my mother remembered that. And I'm such a different grandmother and so was my mother, my God! So, it still was all kinds of characters in the town. And the best part is they knew each other from other towns. In fact, even -- my husband came from a family that my father knew, but I'll tell you about that later. And he was born in this country. So, they had stories and they survived, I think, by telling their stories. And they imbued a Yiddishkayt. It was done to them, and they did it to their children.

CW:Do you have a sense of -- do you know anything about your grandparents or 7:00great-grandparents? What'd they do for occupation?

MB:One of them made bootleg liquor. I heard that. I love that! I like when something like that -- plain is not for me. I like the adventurous kinds that -- otherwise, they might -- they raised geese. And my mother used to say the goose was like a watchdog, that it would run around -- if you were a stranger, it would run around and peck at you. That story I heard. And they had a shul. They had a shul. They were very, very superstitious. Nobody would go in the shul at night. It was dark. But my father used to take a candle and sneak in and go from window to window, and the people would shudder. But he did it on purpose. I tell you, he's a bad boy. And my kind of guy. Anyway, that's -- so, they all did 8:00thing-- but they were so close that they -- like I say, when they came to America, they joined forces again.

CW:Did you ever hear stories of any of the superstitions -- sort of folk medicine or any of that?

MB:Oh, yeah. My father -- this is funny. His mother couldn't light the samovar. It was clogged. So, he -- she called him in and he blew on it. And when he blew on it, the hot water fell on his face. And she took him out -- now, we're not sure: did she put cow dung on or chicken? We're not sure which. But he never had a scar. So, you tell me. I have no explanation for any of that at all.

CW:Wow. Any other stories like that?

MB:They would fish. They were near a lake. They would sell whatever they could. 9:00That's why I love "Fiddler on the Roof" when I saw it. You could really picture the way it was. There were -- hierarchy. Someone had money, maybe the money was sent from the United States, so they were a little better off. Some of them were more educated. You'd hear these stories when you got together at their society meetings. Then, you never left children home. You took them with you. So, we grew up hearing all the stories of what went on in Europe. But at that time, it was a terrible thing, because there was a -- had been a revolution in Russia. And my father actually was in the army. But I have a paper that I'd like you to read later. I'll show it to you. My father is gone twenty years, and he was a 10:00Young Israel man. And they still give a service award to two people in his name in the town of Sharon, at the Young Israel. And they bring out some stuff, history about my father that I think you'd like to read.

CW:Wow. So, can you tell me a little bit about your home growing up? New York?

MB:Okay, this is very interesting, 'cause they came to this country, what do you do? My father was a butcher first, but that didn't work out. Someone taught him the glass business, but he actually has -- they called him the man with the golden hands. He was a carpenter. And that man could really build. So, what we did -- first, they came in and they lived with my father's family, downtown, East Side. Then, they moved out to Long Island in New York. And I was born in 11:00Brooklyn. And very funny, we mentioned the daily "Forward" -- they gathered together, even when they lived -- they were friends. It was so interesting. One time, when my mother moved, everybody moved to -- same place. There was such a camaraderie that was so warm. But they used to send me for the daily "Forward." But as a little girl, I couldn't pronounce it. Now I don't know if I'm allowed to say this word, but I used to go to the candy store and I say, "Give me two fokhtses for my father." And they purposely sent me because I mispronounced the word. And that I heard many, many times. They really -- with their friends, they really had a great time. My father learned to ride a motorcycle. Go know, my little father, a motorcycle. Eventually, to a car. Eventually, they had a glass 12:00store. And the glass store, we lived in back of the store and over the store. My mother, my sweet mother, learned to cut glass and frame pictures. And at that time, they made window shades. Window shades were made out of Holland linen, I remember that, sized to be very stiff. My mother, when they -- they bring the roller in, my mother would measure it, order a window shade, take the old window shades, and wash them and boil them and boil them. And then, you had linen. So, my mother would make slipcovers, pillow covers. Nothing went to waste. Very amazing. Also, when some of the young men came over from Europe, my father would teach them a trade, the glass business. Actually, I saw a New York paper and the 13:00name Cogman was still in New York. My father wasn't the best businessman, but he was very talented. And he couldn't pay them, so my mother would feed them. And they might have slept in the store till they found a place to go. And most of them became very successful glaziers and mirror work-- in New York. Interesting. But my mother would feed them and she could add another potato, another cup of water. She was immaculate, my mother.

CW:Can you describe a little more about the shop and that -- what did that space look like, and --

MB:The glass -- well, I'll move to the last one that I remember. And you walked in, and in the front was a picture frame. You saw picture frames and you'd walk in, and on the wall were samples. And in the back was a long room. They had glass lined in partitions. All the salesmen would come on Friday because we had 14:00a kitchen in the back and my brothers actually slept in the back. They would come Friday 'cause you could smell the chicken soup, the gefilte fish. And my mother would feed anybody. The detectives, the -- they all loved -- anybody loved my mother. My father was a character. He could do what he did because my mother learned how to frame pictures. Now, she's self-taught. She knew how to measure, how to cut, and she had an inborn sense of what looked good with a matte and everything. People wanted my mother, so my father could go out and do jobs on the outside. And it was really -- and we lived over there, but my brother slept in the back.

CW:How many brothers did you have?

MB:I had two brothers. However, my father's youngest brother died and my -- he 15:00had been married for the second time, leaving two children. And my mother went downtown and saw my cousin sitting on the floor in the kitchen. And she said to the ex-wife, she says, "What are you doing with him?" She took him, pulled him, and he's -- we took him in the house. We didn't have room, but he slept with my brothers. And his sister went to the mother's family. And I just saw her, this cousin. So, they were orphaned, but they took him in, Avromy, and the back, it was a daybed that opened up and then a piano, because my first job that I got, I bought a piano for my sister. When she was born, I was ten. When I came from school, she was my responsibility. And that's the way it's been ever since then. Ask my sister how many fights we ever had. There are none. We didn't even fight 16:00with my brothers. I don't understand it. When you hear such stories -- my mother must have done something right. And my father was a marvelous carpenter and builder. He really was. He once went to Levittown, which is a community in Long Island for -- they made homes for the veterans returning, and he, as a carpenter -- and the owners saw what he did. And he said, "No, you can't work for me, except you're going to build my house." For instance, when you laid a floor, you laid it this way. My father put it at an angle, which is more labor-intensive but stronger. So, he built -- he was wonderful. That's all I can tell you. But they built, in 1929 -- I was born in '27 -- they bought property out in Long 17:00Island from the "New York Daily News." It was my father. There was a Hungarian, there was -- Italian barber, there was Irish, and they all bought the property together and they helped build that bungalow community, which turned into a suburb of New York much later. And there, I'll tell you a funny story. We had a dog, and the dog was Daisy. And that dog could understand Italian, Yiddish, and English. Bilingual. And the dog didn't know she was a dog. She was a nanny. Interesting, 'cause in Europe, you didn't have a dog. You couldn't feed a dog. But you had a cat, maybe, because the cat could catch mice, stuff like that. My father loved dogs and we always had a dog. But that dog was something so -- but there I digress. But you'll have to forgive me, that's --

CW:No, it's fine.

MB:I leapfrog from place --

CW:It's great! Your stories, I mean.

MB:But that was -- we had that place a long time, and my father built for his sisters, two sisters, a bungalow. And then, that turned into an all-year-round house.

CW:So, before you moved there, what part of Brooklyn were you living in?

MB:Well, I very -- it was Bensonhurst, I think. Then we moved to Woodside, Long Island, and then to Jackson Heights, where they had a store for maybe forty, fifty -- over forty years: Roosevelt Glass and Shade Works, it was. (laughs) And the elevated ran over, outside. And I had to sleep with my sister in a twin bed, in a room that just held a twin bed and a dresser. And we did.

CW:And so, you were growing up in the '30s. Do you remember sort of the Depression and people being unemployed?

MB:Yes, but we didn't know. I remember wearing my older brother's knickers -- they had knickers -- for ski pants. What did I know? Nothing. I did not know. The business we had in Jackson Heights was really a very upper-class neighborhood. And we were just in the store, and I remember the school I went to, P.S. 69. And I became a Girl Scout or a Brownie, and they were all getting blouses and skirts to -- and my mother couldn't afford it, but she sewed something. And I can see her running up to the school and giving me the skirt and the badge that she made for me. And that was my mother. And I did not mind. And some of my friends had servants. No, I did not mind that. My father was very 20:00active in the Young Israel in Sharon. And there was a young boy later on that came from Israel with his mother. His father had been killed in the war. And my father took him under his wing. Bob Pick. He's a doctor, he's an orthopedic doctor now. And the mother said, when he was thirteen, she said, "I can't make him a bar mitzvah. And my father said, "You don't have to. I'll take care of it." That boy grew up, he joined the service to go to school. He became a physician. Never, never forgot my parents. Not only that, when both my parents died, he said Kaddish for them. Both of them. And I'm still in touch with him. And that's the kind of people that -- anybody needed a hand, they got it. But 21:00the best thing that I know about growing up is we went to the Yiddish theater. That was downtown, Second Avenue. And my father was hard of hearing, so we had to sit up front. And the first thing I remember was, there was Aaron Lebedoff. I don't know if that's -- familiar name, "Rumania, Rumania." And we knew all the music and all the songs. And I was sitting and he was singing. And I was sitting and clap-- and I remember the song. It was "Mir a bisl, dir a bisl, khapt nisht oys di gantse shisl [A little for me, a little for you, don't grab the whole pot]." That was my first adventure in the theater and -- but we went all the time to hear the music and the plays and the stories. So, the Yiddishkayt --

CW:What were the --

MB:-- it was so imbued with us.

CW:Do you remember any other actors and what they were like?

MB:Oh, Maurice -- my father would say, Maurice Schwartz -- is the way he said it. And the names, I do remember them. But when you ask me a question, sometimes 22:00my mind shuts down. If I'm telling the story, I might think of -- I knew them, and when I -- we had my Yiddish class, and we studied New York and the Yiddish theater, I was in heaven. At one time, my husband and I came to -- elder hostel here in Florida and it was about Yiddish theater -- and put on a play. And funny thing, I said to the direct-- I said, "I don't know, I'm reading it in English, but in my head it's Yiddish." He says, "Do it for me in Yiddish and record it." And I'm sitting there. I was like, the mother who had a child and she was married to an older man who was terrible. And she fell in love with the gardener and left her child and ran away with the gardener and had a child by him. And these two boys grew up, one Yiddish and one not. And the one who was not Jewish 23:00hated the Jews. And at one time, they got together and the Jewish boy said to the mother, "How could you leave a child?" And she's telling him the story and she's crying. And eventually, her other son went -- killed somebody and she took the blame. So, it was such a story, and -- but I did it in Yiddish and I cried because I was so nervous. (laughs) And it was just quite an experience. And they said that was the best part of the whole thing. So, we've always done something with Yiddishkayt. My Yiddish class was amazing.

CW:Can you describe what Second Avenue looked like with all the theaters and --

MB:Oh, well, I remember we had the meeting that -- the society -- the First Lubin. I'll show you, I have a book from 1936, a journal. I'll show it to you. 24:00And it was at some open room. I remember going -- after the meeting, we went to Rapoport's Restaurant. And my father's family lived downtown, and it was an adventure to go and sleep down there. I remember -- I can't tell you exactly what the -- it was like. But I do remember we used to go for Passover. And my grandfather, when they had Elijah's cup, he told all the children, "Keep your eye on the wine in the cup." And we'd bend down like this, and he hit the table so the wine would shake. So, we were so sure that Elijah came in and drank the wine. And I never forgot that. And they put us to sleep on chairs. We managed. We managed. I don't know how y-- they don't manage today like we managed then.

CW:So, when you were -- we're going to talk later, a little more, about growing up and the banquets that you and your sister, presumably, went to. But when you left home, what Yiddish did you have in your own life, sort of as an adult?

MB:Oh, well, I was married, I was twenty-one in 1948. The interesting thing was I had met my husband -- his sister had come down to a banquet from Boston, and she said to my mother, "I'd like your daughter to meet my brother." He was born in this country. His sister and his brothers could have been his parents. He was the only one born here. And it was just a fascinating thing. He was very well-educated in Boston. His parents were -- oh, his mother was forty-nine when 26:00he was born. Unheard of, years ago. And he was a very, very good, good son. He helped his mother. In fact, I'll tell you a little aside: I have love letters from my husband, from February to August. I only saw him a few times, and they are -- tells you what you did at the time and how it -- they're so sweet that I'm going to have them published, put in a book for my children and my grandchildren to read them, because they are so sweet. How I have them, I don't know. They had once been wrapped in a blue ribbon. The ribbon is faded to white now. But I have a few letters at -- with a one-cent stamp on it. But when he came to New York, they said, Oh, what a nice boy. But why is she marrying a refugee? Because he could daven so well they thought he wasn't American-born. And he was wonderful to my parents. And he was just a great guy. Many stories 27:00about him. But this isn't about him.

CW:(laughs) So, when you were growing up, were you speaking Yiddish at home?

MB:We understood it, and I did speak it. If they wanted to say something we didn't know, they would talk Russian. But I remember one time I went with my mother to visit somebody in an old age home -- a "meyshe zikeynem," they called it. And when we came, I was telling my brothers -- Rhoda wasn't even born then -- my little brother was -- must have been like -- he was a devil. He was something else. A mazek [mischievous child], he was. And I was telling him that, "When mom and papa grow old, I have a nice place where the old people live." And he sat there and he said, "Mom and pop are going to get old, going to bury 'em." Just like that. And he used to say, "I eat tin and I spit nails." He was such a 28:00tough guy. He would fight for his older brother, who was four years older. My older brother was not like that. The little one, he'd go headfirst into something, punching left and right. They're both gone, my brothers. But we had great stories about my brothers. And growing up in the store -- the store was a big, big part of it. I remember they had the World's Fair, 1939. But they had a preview march going up Roosevelt Avenue. And somehow, my sister got out the door. And the dog, Daisy, went with her. And the police came running to my mother. Rhoda's out marching in the parade! And the dog was walking circles around her. Nobody could go near her. And imagine my mother having a baby, and in a store, taking care -- she was remarkable. We always said, If she had an 29:00education, she'd have been another Golda Meir. We sent in an application to "What's My Line?" and they wanted her to come. But she was embarrassed because her English wasn't that good, and I can hear my mother and my father say -- my father said, "I could speak better Hanglish than you." (laughter) But she was such a pretty woman. Rhoda has pictures, you'll see. And she was just amazing.

CW:So, you were speaking sort of English and Yiddish then at home?

MB:Yes. Now, there I -- it's kitchen Yiddish. For instance, you'd say a bedroom is a "tsimer." My mother'd say, "Gey arayn in [Go to your] bedroom." And when I first heard the word "tsimer," I didn't know what it was. So, there -- also what we did, we listened to WEVD. And the program was "Tsures b'laytn [People's problems]." But the announcer never just said "Tsures b'laytn." He'd take a deep 30:00breath and he'd say, (in a slow and heavy tone) "Tsures b'laytn." Oy, I couldn't wait to run home from school to hear the next episode of what it was. And when we used to come down to Boston, WEVD was still on from Boston to New York and we could pick it up maybe in New Jersey or Connecticut and hear it all the way down. And, of course, we have recordings of the song.

CW:Can you explain what that program was to --

MB:Oh, it was like a "Dear Abby" and people would write in from their heart, their problems. "Tsures b'laytn," and it's -- that means troubles that people have. And someone else's troubles always sort of -- it maybe made you realize you weren't that bad. But my mother's saying was "Dim vos treft, dim tit vey." I still say her saying. Another one she would say --

CW:Can you just translate that first?

MB:Dim vos -- the person who it's happening to, that's the person who is -- hurts. You could feel bad for them. Their pain, you can't feel. She'd also say, "M'ken nisht tantsn af tsvey khasenes mit eyn tukhes [You can't dance at two weddings with one rear end]." In other words, you can't be in two places with one rear end. And I use that all the time. People love it. And "Dim vos treft," so that is part of me, that was part of them.

CW:Any other sayings you remember?

MB:No, but words.

CW:We'll come back to it.

MB:Words. "Oy, such a mazek." Oh, I had a girlfriend whose daughter picked up polio and my mother said, "Er iz a kleyne feferl, er et zayn alrayt." In other words, he was like a little pepper, spicy, and he was going to fight it. But she called him always "d'kleyne feferl." So, everything did -- but they also 32:00mispronounced the English. Like Cumberland Farms was maybe "cantaloupe." And we had, in Sharon -- my parents came up every month, but we have Hixson Farm, which is a senior -- and my mother would call it Nixon's Farm. Now, they came and they lived -- they left New York. But they also came downtown, here, to Miami Beach, along the boulevard, for years. They were both ninety-six when they passed. And I say, coming to the South and giving up the winters added to the longevity of their life. And they had a wonderful time down here. My father was a born storyteller. I can tell you one funny story, but it happened in Massachusetts. He would go out of his way -- he rebuilt -- all right, the Young Israel in 33:00Massachusetts was -- met in a house. They had a fire. My father said, "You take the insurance money. You get a rabbi. I'll clean up from the fire." And he turned that into a shul, the house. That Young Israel now is one of the biggest -- it's very Orthodox. That's why they're giving a service award in his name. That's what he did. He would go out of his way to find something in -- they lived where I live, and I live in their condo. And they were redoing them. He would take those cabinets and put 'em in the kitchen in the shul. He made shtendes -- shtendes which you would -- a stand that you would put your books on. People that have them treasure them. There are some up there in Massachusetts. But he would lay you out in lavender. There were doctors, professors, and he needed help. And he'd call them a certain dope. "You're not 34:00doing it right. You're a certain dope." They loved my father. One very funny story is he went to put a gaslight outside of their -- they bought, finally, a new building and it didn't work, though. But aesthetically, it looked nice. One of the members came and said, "What's this doing here?" Say, "Reitman said we should do it." My mother -- Reitman, they called him. He says, "Oh, no." He takes his car, he backs it up, takes a chain around that lamppost, puts it on his bumper and pulls away. His bumper fell off. The lantern was still there. So, they tell all these very funny stories about Reitman. My mother always called him Reitman, and they still -- anyone who knew him still tells stories about him and how -- because of my mother, who she was. After the war -- I just remembered something. Actually, he worked with the HIAS in New York, with Eddie Cantor, 35:00Jack Benny. He didn't have the money, but he had the will to do something. And at one time, they -- he did go to Israel. And when he landed, he kissed the ground and he hugged Ben-Gurion. That story I heard. But he would have us calling around the United States, trying to reunite people. I remember calling the Singer Sewing Machine in Ohio or something. But then I got married and my sister can continue, 'cause I was twenty-one when I left. But they'd come up every month and my mother would bring a capon and an end of steak in the roasting pan. And when we finally moved into the house -- we had a three-family house. Apartments were very difficult to get, and I was already due with the baby, with my oldest daughter Sharon, who's sixty-five. Got a daughter, sixty-five. And my mother, my father came up, my brothers. I went to the 36:00hospital. At that time, you were in the hospital ten days. When I came home, the cabinets were in, curtains were on the window. I had a wall that my father -- my brothers put mirrors up on the wall to make the room look larger. Papered. Everything was done. At that time, they had a layaway for the furniture. That was in. And I had lived on the second floor with my mother-in-law till we moved down. And the furniture was down, and that's my parents. I walked into that after ten days.

CW:Wow. And when you had your own family, what did you -- what kind of Jewish traditions did you -- were important to you as a mother?

MB:As a mother? Family was always important. The three-family house we lived in -- we were three families. And my two sister-in-laws lived upstairs, I was 37:00downstairs. And the door was open all the time. And this Mrs. Drootin, who was Leonard Nimoy's -- she'd come and she just loved me, loved my family. Her husband was a klezmer -- in Russia. She was so dramatic. She had pins, jewelry. Every piece of jewelry she had was on her. But she loved my children. And whenever she went some place, if there was leftover-- she'd bring them half-eaten pastries. I can't even begin to tell you. But they had a shul there. Blue Hill Avenue. And many shuls. And we would go, the women sat upstairs, and unfortunately, my mother-in-law had died right after my daughter was born. So, we were married, September, and she died on Yom Kippur the following year. But we went to shul and everybody went, walked Blue Hill Avenue. My mother loved it, because in New York, it was not a Jewish neighborhood. And she loved to come up 38:00-- and they came up all the time. Then my sister, she would take the bus, she would take the train. She came up and she ended up marrying a boy from Massachusetts, which is very funny. And I was into -- I was not a card player, and volunteering was more -- it still is, like Meals on Wheels. But I was a Girl Scout leader. I can't even begin to tell you. That's my thing. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with anyone or anything else. I almost envy the women that can sit and relax. I've got to keep my tukhes moving around. And that's the way it was. My girls -- interesting. They loved the grandparents. My grandparents were so exceptional. When my mother died, my grandson -- finally, we had a boy and he used to come to the hospital to see her. And she would pat 39:00his head. And he talked to her, "Bubbie [Grandmother]" -- he was a little boy. And the day she died, he came and -- "Bubbie, bubbie!" And she couldn't talk to him or pat his head. So, he bent down and he went like this and he says, "It's okay, bubbie, you can go to sleep now." And she did, eventually, that day. But they loved my parents. What's not to love? The shul loved my parents. They afforded them affection and respect. Yiddishkayt was -- they imbued us with that, that to this day --

CW:Yeah, can you tell me a little more, what did -- about Blue Hill Avenue? Can you just describe it to me?

MB:Oh, gee. Blue Hill Avenue -- unfortunately, some of the people who didn't like -- called it Jew Hill Avenue. And that always offended me. But there were butcher stores, kosher delis. And they would have a G&G Deli that the -- all the 40:00politicians would meet at. And it was something until there was a big changeover in Boston. And we ended up moving to West Roxbury. But I stayed there for a long, long time, until we just ended up having to move and the kids were -- they didn't really want to move. They went to school there, they went to -- they had Sunday school. The girls, at that time, you didn't teach them Hebrew school. My sister, yes, learned Hebrew school. But we just went to Sunday school. So, then I'd been in West Roxbury and now in Sharon. So, we were married sixty-three years.

CW:What were the Jewish businesses on Blue Hill Avenue that you remember?

MB:Oh, funny. There was deli, there was a barbershop. There were a couple of delis. They had a bank, quite a few banks. Drugstores, yes. The drugstores were 41:00not the drugstores of today. You had a soda fountain and you were -- the druggist watched out for you. That's one thing. The neighbors. You couldn't be bad. The neighbors watched out for you when you were playing in the street. Blue Hill Avenue was a row of three families. The back of my house, there was an angle of Goodale Road. My sister-in-law had lived in the top. My girlfriend lived in back. Her side of the house was my back, and I used to go out on the porch and yell, "Mickey!" That was her husband. "Are you sleeping?" And he'd come to the window. "Not now. I'm not sleeping now." But we had a back porch and the kids played together. They're still in contact with the childhood friends or the kids they went to school with. Very interesting. In fact, my daughter came 42:00down and one of her friends, they brought me down here, and this goes back to high school for them.

CW:So, nowadays, do you have a chance to speak Yiddish ever?

MB:Oh, well, my Yiddish class was fabulous. The instructor, God bless her, she's in her nineties, she just had to give it up. She's in Orchard Cove, in assisted living, and now she's in more -- a rehab. I learned so much in that class. We didn't want to learn to read, but we wanted history. I knew about -- to me, when they came from Europe, they landed on Ellis Island and lived in New York. What did I know, what was all over the country and all over -- we studied the Jews of the Southwest. Fascinating, if you want to look something up, the -- Columbus, there's still -- it's still out, the jury's out whether he was Jewish or not. 43:00However, his son was the governor of Jamaica. And when the Inquisition came to the Western hemisphere, he would not let them land on Jamaica, giving credence to: was there a Jewish history? And he wrote something in Hebrew on his letters, but they still say no. However, we learned the islands, South America, Australia, China, the Jews in China. There is so much going on. I'm involved in a program, it's in a charter school in Foxboro, which is next to Sharon. They're collecting a million stamps, cancelled stamps, for the eleven million lives that were cancelled out during the Holocaust. Six million Jews and five million gypsies, you name it, whatever. They take these stamps -- they have five million already, and they make mosaics out of the cancelled stamps. So, there's a 44:00picture of a dove of peace. Imagine, little stamps cut and they make these pictures. And they're doing so well, everyone -- I have people collecting stamps, they send me from all over. The thing that I like about it -- it's that it's not just Jewish children. It's in another school where they're learning that there was a Holocaust. You don't deny it. So, we have speakers, that's -- in fact, April, when I go back, we're going to have Yom HaShoah, it is. That's one wonderful thing. So, if you've got stamps -- it's hard to get stamps. A lot of mail is not stamped unless it's personal. But I do collect stamps. And, the men's club just turned in over five thousand stamps. So, we do very well. The community center -- the town of Sharon -- I digress -- was at one time maybe sixty percent Jews. But the dynamics are changing. We have a lot of people in 45:00from Southeast Asia. They're wonderful, students and everything. But there's still quite a Jewish community. And the community center, we have that Yiddish club. I miss it terribly, and so do some of the people. Their history -- did you know Wy-- oh, you would know Earp. Wyatt Earp was married to a Jewish girl. You didn't know that? She was. I don't know how nice she was. (laughs) But he was, and so we learned all these interesting -- in the Yiddish club. And when they came to New York, Alexander Hamilton's mother was Jewish. And that's when -- he was born off in an island, I don't -- maybe Cuba, Puerto Rico, I don't know. That's when they decided you had to be born in America to become president. He could've been president. So, these little facts are marvelous. In Daniel Boone's 46:00time, how they crossed over. During the slavery years, there were Jewish slave owners in the South. But it so happened they were very -- they were better to their slaves and they allowed peddlers to come in and sell them stuff. Who were the peddlers? They were Jewish. But singing, I love singing. I belong to a choir and I love -- and I do sing -- I'm gonna sing (singing) "S'iz gekumen tsu mir a kuzine. Sheyn vi golde iz zi geveyn, di grine. Bekelekh mit royte pomerantsn, in fiselekh vos beyt indz tsu tantsn. [My cousin arrived. She is pretty as gold, the Greenhorn. Cheeks with red oranges, and legs that beg you to dance.]" I'm going to sing that in our next chorus. So, I like -- Yiddish is so important, and when you can talk -- someone who can say a word, they're so happy when they hear you. Even if they don't understand it -- I mean, if they can't speak it, 47:00they still understand it.

CW:Do you have a favorite Yiddish song?

MB:(singing) "Ikh hob dir tsufil lib, ikh trug af dir kayn has. Ikh hob dir tsufil lib. [I love you much too much, I cannot hate you. I love you much too much.]," that's one of them. Oh, and then, "Rozhinkelekh mit mandlen [Little raisins and almonds," do you know that one?

CW:Can you --

MB:(singing) "In dem beys-hamigdash, in a vinkl kheyder, zits di almune batsiyoyn aleyn. Ikh bin a yokhed, a yingele, zingt tsum keseyder, zingt tsu im tsum shlofn a lidele sheyn [In the temple, in a corner of a room, a widowed daughter of Zion sits alone. I am the orphan, a boy, she sings to constantly, sings him to sleep with a pretty song]." Then it goes on and we -- oh, we had recording-- the Barry Sisters. I learned songs from the recordings, even as a kid. My father had 78s. Brown -- if we had them today, they'd be worth 48:00something. And Yiddish was a very good part of our lives.

CW:What do you think about what's going on with Yiddish today? What do you think is the future of Yiddish?

MB:Well, if we have a future, sometimes I wonder who's building the ark. If there's a future -- Yiddish is not a dying language. They're teaching it in McGill University, Harvard, Yale. New York, I know, has YIVO. Are you familiar? You must be familiar with -- and look at you, the Yiddish Book Center. It's not going to die out. In Sharon, there are evangelicals who feel -- they don't want to proselytize. However, they feel the Jews were actually chosen. They didn't emigrate. They were chosen by God and they have a belief in Israel. What's going to be? I don't know. I don't care, for me. My children, my grandchildren. What 49:00are they going to have? So, we want to pass a Yiddishkayt down to them. And that's why I want to give them my letters. My husband said Kaddish for his parents. And at the time I met him, his father was gone. And they'll read that he went to shul, or he played ball, and it was a closeness, a big closeness.

CW:What is the most important to you about being Jewish?

MB:Actually, it's the Tor-- by the way, I'm learning Hebrew now. I'm just starting in a Hebrew class after all this time. Any of the prayers I know, I knew them by heart, not by reading. And my teacher wants us to understand Yiddish. Rhoda is in -- she's learning to read Yiddish. I can't even read -- she 50:00can read Hebrew. So, that's just the two of us. So, there is something going on, isn't there, that we're still trying. To me -- is doing mitzvahs [good deeds]. I want to do as much as I can for as long as I can for as many people as I can. We have a kolel rabbis' group in Sharon that want to bring the different Yiddish factions closer together. And they're the sweetest rabbis you want to know with the nicest wife, with boom-boom-boom-boom kids. They'll have children. It bothers me -- the Muslims are out-birthing children more than the rest of the world. And that's when I'm kind of nervous. But I want to believe that someday it'll straighten out. Not in my lifetime, though, but --

CW:What's important for you that your grandchildren, great-grandchildren someday 51:00will know about you, your family, and what we've been talking about?

MB:Okay, I have artifacts, I have pictures, books. And those letters, like I'm telling you that I'm going to publish for them -- publish. I mean, have them, whatever you call, I don't know what you -- but I want them to know they are part of a history, a part of a people that did -- contributed a lot. I'm not saying they're perfect, but I want them to know who they are and where they came from, no matter where they are, and to try and follow something. To me, there is a Jewish religion for everybody. I'm not so steeped in Orthodoxy or anything. There is something truly that you can do, and try to do the best you can. 52:00There's some -- so how many mitzvahs the Torah says you have to do? You just keep trying and don't give up. Keep trying. I am a little pessimistic, but I don't want them to be pessimistic. I want them to be more positive and I want them to stand up and be proud and to know, even if there's intermarriage -- but they should know who they are and where the whole world stemmed from.

CW:Well, a hartsikn dank -- thank you very much for all --

MB:Ikh dank dir, a sheynem dank [I thank you, thank you very much].

[END OF INTERVIEW]