HANNI DORN ORAL HISTORY

EMMA MORGENSTERN:This is Emma Morgenstern, and today is March 4th, 2015. I'm here at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City with Hanni Dorn, and we're going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Hanni, do I have your permission to record this interview?

HANNI DORN:Yes.

EM:Thank you. Okay, so can you start by telling me briefly about your family background?

HD:Okay. You want my immediate family first or the ancestors first?

EM:Whatever you'd like, yeah.

HD:Okay, well, what brings me here, really, is that my grandfather, Mark Selchen, was the editor of a Yiddish daily newspaper in Winnipeg, Canada, where my mother was born. So, she left after college and came to New York, and both my 1:00parents actually grew up in Yiddish-speaking homes, so they were fluent in Yiddish. My mother certainly continued an active involvement with Yiddish throughout her life. So, a little bit of it --- at least the interest --- was transmitted to us. I have a brother, also. And I am married to my husband, Charles Rudansky, Rabbi Rudansky, and we have five boys living in New York. And so, as I said, he's a rabbi, Modern Orthodox, so we're very involved in a community there, and my boys are all in either day schools or summer at Yeshiva University, so -- mostly into the Hebrew now, but again, we have this passed-down interest and involvement in Yiddish.

EM:And what about your father's family? Where are they from?

HD:Both my parents -- all my grandparents were originally from Russia. My mother's father came to Canada directly, first to Saskatchewan, I think, and then they moved to Winnipeg. And my father's parents both came, also from Russia, but they came directly to New York.

EM:Great. So, tell me about your grandfather's involvement in the Yiddish press in Winnipeg.

HD:So, he was very involved and interested in education. He was a writer and he became the editor of "Dos Yiddishe Vort," which was originally a daily Yiddish newspaper in Winnipeg, Canada. It, in its later years, became weekly as the Yiddish-speaking community dwindled somewhat. But he also was very active as a 3:00community leader, partly because of his role as the editor of the newspaper. So, he did writing on the side. He was the president of the Peretz School for a time, where my mother went to school, and spoke out on a lot of Jewish issues. I mean, his main thrust, I think, was always -- it wasn't particularly religious individual -- there was a kosher home and everything, but that wasn't his thrust. The main thing was to maintain and disseminate Yiddish culture through the Yiddish language, because there's so much of it wrapped, they're so intertwined. And outside of Russia where it may have been used as a conversational language, that was much less so in the United States and even in Canada. But it carried so much of the culture that he wanted to maintain that.

EM:And do you have a sense of the political leanings of the newspaper he worked with?

HD:So, there's many things he wrote on that would tell us something about that. I know he was very much Zionistic and felt that Israel should exist, but he was also concerned about how they were going to do this and whether, in the long run, they were going to be able to do it successfully. Certainly, and this really was the case, almost everything that happened, I remember my mother always knew, it was couched in terms of is this good for the Jews or bad for the Jews? So, there really was this idea; my grandfather was very attached that almost anything that occurred was evaluated along those two poles.

EM:And you talked about your grandfather keeping kosher. So, what was the religious environment of your mother's family?

HD:So, my mother had two half-brothers. My grandmother had been married previously and widowed, and so she remarried. My mother is the only child of my grandfather then, and she was by far the youngest, ten to twelve years younger than her two brothers. As I said, it was a strictly kosher home. I believe there was bentshlikht [candles used to bless Shabbos and Jewish holidays] and so forth. But I'm not sure how much, at that generation -- now, my mother's grandmother was completely by the book, so to speak, and had her hair covered 6:00all the time. And I think, again, when my grandfather got there, there was a drive towards both the secular, but maintaining, certainly, almost an insulated Jewish culture alive. I think there was always that distinction.

EM:And so, how did your mother learn Yiddish? Was she just in the home, or it was --

HD:In the home, absolutely. I think Yiddish was the primary language. There was some Hungarian, because I think there was someone working in the home who, she said, spoke to her growing up who was Hungarian, and English. But my mother's Yiddish was absolutely fluent and real, traditional Yiddish. So, she always maintained it and, again, while my father's parents, who lived in New York, were alive, we saw them all the time. And so, there was Yiddish even in our home. There was always Yiddish being spoken.

EM:And what do you remember of your grandfather, the newspaper editor?

HD:So, I actually never met him, because he died the year before I was born. So, what I do know, again, was through my mother's interest in Yiddish. And, again, we have many of his books and old photographs and so forth. So, a lot of it is what I've heard through family, and primarily through my mother.

EM:And what do you remember about the Yiddish that your father's parents spoke?

HD:So, I remember my grandmother's English was limited. My grandfather spoke both English and Yiddish. My grandmother's English was somewhat limited, so her conversations were sort of this Yinglish, where every word she knew in English was in English, and then she would lapse into Yiddish. But I remember hearing it from, specifically -- much more so my mother and my grandparents. My father was 8:00sent to English schools only, went to Stuyvesant. There was a big push not just towards assimilation, but almost away from the Yiddish -- underlying -- because they wanted success in that generation. And so, my father very much took to that, but my mother maintained her Yiddish throughout her life and spoke to my grandparents in Yiddish. So, we heard it quite a bit growing up.

EM:Do you remember a particular accent that they had or --

HD:Not so much. I think a lot of it was traditional. You would hear the voses [whats]. That was sort of the preface, almost everything was a question. And so, I don't know Yiddish enough myself to really determine what the accent was. I do know that when my mother, even later on, would run into, even khsidim [followers 9:00of Hasidism], some of whom may not have even spoken to women ordinarily, but my mother's Yiddish was so good that they immediately would lapse into a conversation with her. And she loved to find people who would speak Yiddish with her, so --

EM:Do you remember her speaking, any particular moment where she sought out people to speak Yiddish with?

HD:Well, she taught at City College for many, many years -- professor of education. And in the early days, there were a lot of Yiddish speakers there. So, she really had an opportunity to use it. Obviously, as time went on -- and she stayed there until very shortly before she died -- so, later on, there was less and less of that opportunity. However, we received the "Birobidzhaner Shtern," which was the daily Yiddish newspaper from Birobidzhan, the Soviet Union. We received that for a long time, and would always comment if the 10:00neighbor's gardener came and the van was parked outside across the street, we always thought maybe that was the KGB, wondering why (laughs) newspapers from the Soviet Union were arriving at our doorstep every day. But she read that paper, and she later secured a grant from City College to do an educational exchange program with teachers in Birobidzhan. So, she traveled there on several occasions, and then brought two teachers back here to study, as well -- who we're still in contact with. They've since left Birobidzhan, but they were trying to teach English as a second language and use educational practices that my mother helped introduce there.

EM:So, what years was that, or what approximate [UNCLEAR]?

HD:So, that was in the '90s. That was in the '90s, where she started to sort of 11:00-- and even maybe late eight-- yeah, it could have been 1990, somewhere around there, 'cause I was married in 1992 and she had already established friendships with these people. So, it could have even been the late '80s where she had done that exchange. Since then, one of the teachers made aliyah and is in Israel now, and one is here, in Coney Island. And it was sort over a period of time. She went there one year, they came here. She made a second trip there. So, that was --

EM:And what do you remember of what she told you of those trips to Birobidzhan?

HD:Well, again, I always had the sense that my mother really was an impassioned Yiddishist throughout her life. That's partly was drove me to sort of be here today is, we did not get the language from her, 'cause we just didn't -- my grandparents died when we were twelve and thirteen. So, we didn't get the 12:00language, per se, but we certainly got sort of the enthusiasm and the interest in the history of the language and the Yiddish culture. Again, I thought she felt it was something she was very impassioned about, very interested in. And I think she was impressed. She found these two teachers quite motivated. So, it was a very nice sort of establishment of an educational exchange and a friendship that developed over the years.

EM:And did she ever describe what it was like in Birobidzhan, like the landscape or --

HD:Yeah, you know what? I didn't get as much of that. And again, that's partly my regret, is that those weren't the questions we were asking so much. But I think she must have, sort of -- I'm sure she was taking it in very much. And to 13:00some extent, I got it from one of the teachers who moved to Israel who we're still in touch with, with her own kids growing up there, as young kids, and then moving to Israel, where they had to learn yet another language and take their medical exams in Hebrew then, so they could practice there. But I didn't get that much about the landscape, per se, other than the entire Soviet Union, I think, my mother found difficult. Every arrangement is difficult. If you have to change your plans, it's always a little suspect, and you had to be careful. But, yeah, I wish I had gotten more.

EM:So, now let's turn a little bit to your experience growing up. I mean, you've talked about your mother and how she sort of imbued this Yiddishkayt in your home. But let's talk a little bit more specifically about your childhood.

HD:Well, for instance, my brother and I went to Camp Boiberik, which was a 14:00Yiddish culture camp in Rhinebeck, New York. We went for many, many summers, which we loved. And that really was a Yiddish culture camp. So, the flag-raising and taking down was in Yiddish. We had Shabbos, the songs and the blessings were in Yiddish. The songs of the different occasions that we had there, mid-seyzon [mid-season], halfway through, there was a celebration where we did a lot of singing and dancing. And then, at the end of the summer, we had a felker yontev [festival of people], which was everybody taking a country and singing and doing a dance of that country. But it was all in Yiddish, and there was Yiddish culture classes. And so, from that, that was -- again, even though that was '70s, in the '70s, that was still holding onto quite a bit of Yiddish that I 15:00didn't see, certainly, around me growing up in -- well, we were in a suburb, but we were in New York, in the New York area. So, that was, again, an attempt to sort of transmit that little bit of Yiddishness. It's no longer open as a camp, but it was a --

EM:And what was it like where you grew up? Where did you grow up, actually?

HD:So, we were in New York City when my mother was finishing her doctorate at Teachers College. And then, we moved to Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, a little farther up. At that point, we actually stopped going to Hebrew school. We had gone to Hebrew school while we lived in the city. There was a Reform temple in Hastings, but my mother thought, actually, that to learn that it was okay to eat pork or intermarry was possibly worse than nothing. So, we were off the hook, so 16:00to speak. We didn't grow up in a kosher home, but certainly while my grandparents were alive, we never had meat and milk together. And even with my mother, we did not have pork or shellfish in the house, and she didn't eat it at all.

EM:And so, it was your parents and you and your brother, right --

HD:Correct.

EM:-- growing up. So, did you go to public school growing up?

HD:We went to public school. Yeah, absolutely went to public school, public high school. Then I went to Amherst College. In fact, in some ways, at Amherst, it was when I sort of discovered that my Jewish background was sort of lacking. I didn't have knowledge of Hebrew, certainly didn't have knowledge of Yiddish. And then, afterwards, I moved to the city, where I pursued my doctorate in psychology, and that's when I had an opportunity to sort of start exploring a 17:00little bit and going to a synagogue was a natural way to sort of explore some of your Jewish identity. And I started going and learning a little bit, and more and more, I learned to read Hebrew, actually, from my mother, who taught me the letters in Yiddish -- the alef-beys [Hebrew alphabet] but in Yiddish -- and then used those letters just to teach myself to read Hebrew. So, I became observant. And again, a lot of that came through recalling -- I remember when I was starting to keep kosher -- my grandparents grew up this way. It wasn't so out there as people might have thought. And my grandparents were kosher. We didn't think they were strange. We just thought that's their way of life, and that's sort of how I approached it, was not, I hope, anything fanatical. It was just an 18:00interest in identifying with your heritage, really.

EM:And so, going back to when you were growing up, do you remember celebrating holidays with your family?

HD:I do remember celebrating holidays. So, yes, of course, we always had a seder. My mother, again, was a little bit more strict about it and would not eat the bread or cake for a week. She recalls, growing up, everything really was done absolutely to the letter of the law. She remembers that her grandmother, right after Purim, would get into bed and say, "Ugh, I'm too sick to make Pesach," and everybody had to scurry around, getting all the dishes. (laughs) So, that's how we all feel, sort of, after Purim. But, yes, we did that. Some of the minor holidays were not so much on our radar. Simchas Torah, I remember, as 19:00a kid, my mother would take us to a celebration. So there were -- whenever she could, but we didn't really grow up in that milieu at all. So, the holidays were strictly at home. We didn't go to shul, we didn't --EM:So, were there other Jewish people in the area?

HD:Yeah. So, I can certainly say that, because I've always stayed in the Northeast, at least -- I think that has a good deal to do with it -- there were always Jews in our area, and religious or not religious wasn't so much -- they were identified Jews, they were observing holidays, they were aware of the calendar and so on and so forth. But we were not in a religious community, so to speak, at any point.

EM:And what did your parents do for work?

HD:They were both professors. My father was a professor of the history of science at Stevens Institute of Technology and my mother was a professor of 20:00education at City College. And they both were there throughout their professional careers. They were tenured professors, and so we had that stability. Once we moved to Hastings, we were there for the duration.

EM:And so, let's talk a little bit more about when you became more observant. So, how was that tied to your sort of Yiddish background?

HD:Well, again, I don't know if I would draw a straight line. But I think because I was exposed to a Jewish camp and through my mother, really, the importance of this history, and it really was part of who we were. I think that was the disconnect. It was so important to who we were, and yet I showed up at Amherst College and had almost -- there was almost nothing, certainly nothing identifiably different about how I looked, how I behaved, how I did anything that identified me as Jewish other than sometimes people were surprised when I said I was Jewish. That came as a surprise because -- so that was, it was, I 21:00think, more through, sort of, really then what's -- (laughs) -- some of the surprise was not so positive. Statements that were, Oh, that's okay, I like you anyway. Things like that that made me realize, why would I have the negative things about being Jewish without any of the positive things about being Jewish. I think that's what sort of drove me to align myself more with a community.

EM:So, were you involved in a Jewish community in Amherst?

HD:No. So, for holidays, really, what I would do is go home. So, at that point, again -- there's much more now, even in the Amherst College campus than there was when I was there. So, there really was not -- you could do it, but you really had to be inclined to do it and make it work for you. Now, I think it's probably easier. There really is a Jewish center, there's a rabbi who comes, at 22:00least, and shares his time there. So, he sets up things. That didn't exist then. So, really, I would come home and we would observe that way.

EM:And do you remember a specific time when someone said something negative to you about being Jewish when you were in college?

HD:Just that one comment when somebody found out that I was Jewish. He didn't realize, even though his roommate was Jewish. I mean, it would not have -- look, this is in a pretty elite college, these are educated people. So, to hear a comment like that in the '80s was a little startling. I remember I played on the volleyball team and I went to the coach once and said, "It's Yom Kippur and I'm fasting, so I don't know if I'm going to be at practice." And she said, "Well, you need to at least do the warmup." And I thought that was kind of a -- I don't think it would happen today, again. But I think she didn't realize that it was not just fasting, that it was kind of an observance of a day, that you weren't going to participate in. So, I don't take that as derogatory, I just think it 23:00was a lack of information on sort of what the day was about.

EM:And how did you end up becoming interested in psychology?

HD:That started very early. I read Freud early. I was just fascinated with the whole -- delving into what causes people to have phobias, the Rat Man and Little Hans and all those stories, really, which were quite fascinating stories in and of themselves. So, I was always interested in what motivates people to do what they do, and just interested in people in general.

EM:And then, you decided to pursue a doctorate in --

HD:Correct. I had a lot of neuroscience at Amherst. They had a specific neuroscience degree. So, I took a lot of that. That was sort of the up and coming thing at that point, all the brain studies and so forth. But I really 24:00wanted to work with people, so I then pursued a degree, a PhD in clinical psychology.

EM:And do you see that as connected at all to your Jewish identity, that interest in psychology?

HD:It could be. I think a lot of it, I probably again got from both my parents, but my mother was very psychologically-minded, as well. So, there was always things couched in terms of conflict and choice. And so, she was very savvy about that. So, that may have been part of it. In my day-to-day work, occasionally, I'll have the thought to myself -- I don't bring it in, necessarily, to what I'm working with. I deal mostly with cognitive rehabilitation for people who have memory disorders or cognitive difficulties. But I do still find that a lot of times, I've had patients who are Jewish, and because I deal with a lot of older people, if they were immigrants or have some Yiddish background, there's a 25:00connection. They immediately pick up on the fact that I'm Jewish. And so, there is that connection.

EM:And will you tell me a little bit about how you met your husband?

HD:Okay, sure. I was going to synagogue. I actually met him at a synagogue. Lincoln Square, in New York, which at the time was also dubbed "Wink and Stare" -- (laughs) well, we weren't doing that. But I met him through the synagogue. At the time, a lot of singles that age, and I was working at doing an internship at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, where a friend of mine also worked. And it turns out that she became engaged to his brother and then came to me and said, 26:00"Well, why don't you date Charles?" And so, we did and that's how we met.

EM:And was he already a rabbi at that point?

HD:So, he had already had smikhe [rabbinical ordination], yes. And then, actually, while we were dating, he went into the army. So, he had to go down to Savannah, Georgia, where he was serving as a chaplain. So, that was his first -- yes, he was working as a rabbi there. And then, when we got engaged, he was towards the end of his tour there, so he was able to leave and we got married, yeah.

EM:And is he a rabbi at a congregation currently?

HD:So, there's a synagogue, a small synagogue in Mamaroneck. And he's the rabbi there, so that's really weekends and holidays, and he works at Metropolitan Jewish Hospice during the week. He's the director of pastoral care there, so --

EM:So, how did you think about creating a Jewish home when you married and then 27:00started a family?

HD:Well, again, I think a lot of it had to do with what I saw as a lack in what I and the exposure that I had. Although it was the Hebrew language, not a Yiddish language, I thought having the language of the Jewish people was very important. I wanted my kids to have that. It wasn't all about the observance, although that is part of the connection and part of the transmission. But the learning, I thought, was very important. You need to have the language skills for that. Part of why I can't translate a lot of what I have inherited from my family, is 'cause I don't have the language skills. So, I knew I wanted them to go to Jewish schools and learn that language, which they have done. They all went to day school. Three are now at Yeshiva University, two are at a Jewish high school. So, Hebrew is part of their every day curriculum. It's always been 28:00-- so, they can read texts and understand in Hebrew, which I -- that's really, I think, what's -- probably drove me in a lot of ways to be where I am, is just having that connection to the past, which you need to do through the language.

EM:And did you ever think about sending them to a Yiddish class or somewhere where they could learn Yiddish?

HD:I'll tell you that if Camp Boiberik was still open, I would have sent them to Camp Boiberik, 'cause my brother and I loved it and I think it served so many purposes that it was fun. There was that Yiddish exposure, a little bit. The few years that they did go to camps, they did go to a Jewish camp. But, again, it was sort of a Modern Orthodox camp where Hebrew really was the language of prayer and discussion and so forth. So, I would have loved to do that. There's less and less opportunities, and that's why I think what you're doing is so important, 'cause there's really much less opportunities. I think when you get 29:00to the college level, there are some colleges now who are starting to offer Yiddish as a language. I'm not sure why, at the high school levels, even in these Jewish high schools, they don't consider starting it in high school. I think from our vantage point, it's an equal option to French or Spanish as the third language.

EM:And how does that make you feel, that it's not offered in the Jewish day schools?

HD:Well, again, I think part of it is just a lack of people who are qualified to teach it. The khsidim seem to be maintaining it off in their own particular communities. Again, it's much more, there, the language of conversation, I think, whereas when my grandfather -- at that time, again, he was trying to transmit a culture, a whole understanding of the world through the Yiddish 30:00language. So, the people who speak it, I think, regularly now, really, just -- it's conversational. They don't use that necessarily for prayer. They use Hebrew. So, I think part of it is the lack of qualified people who could teach it. And I think -- I'm guessing here, 'cause I don't know what their thinking really is -- I think a lot of people figured it's sort of past. That's it. So, that makes me sad. But again, I haven't contributed to the continuity, either, so I think that's just a sad comment on where things have come.

EM:And how does your husband feel about Yiddish and Yiddishkayt?

HD:Well, again, he's very -- what he does, certainly through the Jewish 31:00tradition. And again, a lot of this is the religious Jewish tradition. He's involved with people towards the end of life. So, many of his clients also have been Holocaust survivors, Yiddish speakers, immigrants, and so forth. So, he's providing them with some end-of-life care that certainly takes them back to where they started, regardless of where they are now. So, I think that's very meaningful to him and what he does.

EM:Let me just look at my notes here. How do you think your relationship to Yiddish has changed over the course of your lifetime?

HD:Well, I think that, as in most cases, when you're younger, you're involved in things, you're not thinking too much about them. So, while there was Yiddish 32:00being spoken between my grandparents and my parents, we didn't think too much about that except, as most kids, my brother and I would think, Oh, they're saying something they don't want us to understand. But again, there was not an appreciation or a lack of appreciation. That's just how it was. And then, there was a period of time after my grandparents died that we didn't hear it, but I don't know that we missed it, because it wasn't quite something -- again, we had some of it through camp that, I guess, was enough. I think what happened later on, as we get older and you reach my point in life where you look back and you sort of do say, Oh, it's too bad that I didn't have more of a connection or I don't have a better ability to really understand some of my own family history, 'cause a lot of it is in Yiddish. I have a cookbook of my mother's that she 33:00made, a notebook where she kept recipes, written in Yiddish. So, I'm not sure how to go about understanding that. So, I think it's changed in the sense that I feel some regret.

EM:And (pause) sorry -- (laughs)

HD:That's okay.

EM:-- I'm checking out my notes. So, what's tied up in Yiddish, like what kinds of values are tied up in Yiddish that you sort of wish you could access?

HD:So, it's interesting, 'cause I think a lot of my mother's Yiddish with me, when she would lapse into Yiddish, was usually in a way to express -- there was a lot of expressions, very colorful expressions, often meant to sort of intensify a denigration of somebody or something. Yiddish seemed to capture that so well, even when it sounded -- even when the word itself could be -- like 34:00meyvn [expert], he's a meyvn. Well, you know, not. (laughs) So, I think, in some ways, I had an appreciation for it as such a wonderful way to express things that you don't have sort of in English, other than just being direct. So, there was a way to sort of convey your feelings with sort of your underlying -- and you could sort of present yourself very -- so, that was, in a lot of ways, again, a lot of expressions. Discussions, not so much, 'cause again, I didn't have the language. But, I mean, that's sort of my take on it, was that it was able to transmit -- and that was part of the culture, always sort of not -- 35:00being in the Diaspora, you don't want to insult your host, but you also don't want to be too glorifying -- the generation that went through a lot of horror and distrust.

EM:And you mentioned a couple of words that your mom used. Do you remember any other expressions or --

HD:Yeah, farshlepte krank [drawn-out illness], that was anything that went on too long or was too tedious. So, we sort of picked up on, like a lokh in kop [a hole in the head], I need this. Ligt in der erd [Go to hell, lit. "lie in the earth"], he should -- (laughs) so, yeah, so you can see just from that little tidbit that they're sort of things like, He should be ligt in der erd, (laughs) that it was bits and pieces, because a sentence wouldn't mean anything to me, 36:00but picking up on little expressions.

EM:And have you met other people over the years who have sort of a similar relationship to Yiddish that you do?

HD:So, like I said, you know what, that's part of the sadness, is I don't seek it out as much. I mean, my mother sought it out much more because she used the language and wanted and actively went, as she did to Birobidzhan, to find other Yiddish speakers and to use the language. So, I can't say that it wouldn't be possible. I haven't sought it out as much. We do have somebody, I just found out, from our own shul, who studied Yiddish as a grown-up. So, that was a surprise to me, that somebody would go and do that. But not so many people who, as myself, had grandparents in the home where Yiddish was spoken and a direct parent who still maintained that. I think that was unusual about my mother, is 37:00that even people of her generation sort of let it go and didn't quite pursue it as actively as she did.

EM:And do your children have interest in Yiddish?

HD:Only through me, to some extent. They do appr-- I can't use the word appreciate, but they found it amusing if I would sing "Ale mentshn zaynen brider [All people are brothers]" and explain that to them, what the words meant and so forth. So, again, I think they're still a little young. When I take myself back to how, when I was their age, again, that was just at the cusp, some of my -- the older boys who might be realizing this meant something to my forebears. So, it might be interesting. But, again, direct is -- they really are immersed, and they have a dual curriculum even in college, so they're really immersed in the 38:00Hebrew language and textual skills. But I think there will be, a little bit.

EM:And what kinds of values, Jewish or otherwise, are you interested in passing down to your children?

HD:Well, again, I think there's just a sense of community, a sense of historical transmission, that there are important things besides Jewish laws that they certainly are being educated in. And those are important, 'cause they're part of our history, also. But the historical transmission of these Jews who travelled from shtetls [small towns in Eastern Europe with Jewish communities] in Europe, and some to Israel, some to here, and what that was like. We didn't do a lot of discussion in our home about the family members who may have been lost in the Holocaust because both my grandparents had come out, and so there were some of 39:00my father's uncles who had served in the Russ-- who were transcripted [sic]. I think the name Dorn actually was bought to try to get out of serving in the army, so it wasn't so Jewish-sounding. (laughs) Or at least that's the story we're told. But I think just the transmission of this community and the historical background of Jews, Judaism.

EM:And what kinds of, I guess, values are associated with Jews, Judaism, and all that?

HD:Well, I think education. Look, my grandfather, again, he was editor of a newspaper, but he served on the board of the school. Very interested in education through his life, wrote a lot about education. My mother became a professor of education. My father was a professor. So, certainly my brother and 40:00I grew up in a home where education was considered the ticket, and it was almost unquestioned. It just was an important value, and I think that certainly is one of the values of the Jewish culture, the Yiddish culture from both my parents' sides. So, I think education and then, again, sort of just reaching into the communi-- being involved somehow in the community. You don't have to be the community leader. My grandfather was, my mother was quite involved -- but sort of being involved in the community.

EM:And, I meant to ask you this before, but what did your parents think when you started to become more observant?

HD:So, I have to say, out of all of the stories that I've heard of friends who have gone through this, I had a very smooth transition. Again, I don't think my parents saw it as strange because they grew up in ko-- I wasn't doing anything 41:00-- my mother had said to me, "I wanted a sheitel and two sets of dishes." She met my father, it didn't (laughs) go in that direction. I think, out of all of the things -- although I believe there were friends of theirs who sort of would make comments to them that, Of all the ways to rebel, well, you're lucky she chose that way. But they didn't see it that way. I know they kept the set of pots and pans for me to use when I did come home. So, I must say, it was very smooth. And they came to us for Friday night dinners. They had no problem with that. My father went to the minyan when my husband would need a tenth. He was there all the time. So, it was pretty smooth.

EM:And was there anything that was particularly difficult about it for you, apart from your parents?

HD:I think if something fits you -- it's trying on clothes -- if something fits 42:00you, then you're comfortable with it and you don't necessarily say, Well, I could've done something else, or, This was hard finding this. It worked. I knew early on that there was interest. It was a very intellectual process in the beginning. I loved the learning, and it still is. It always is. That's one of the nice things. I mean, you have a seder every year, but there's always something that you're learning there, and constantly sort of reinterpreting and rethinking things, and analyzing, which I guess echoes back to your question about whether learning psychoanalysis and, you know, there's this process of always kind of splitting hairs. Go back and forth, think of it from this way, think of it from that way. So, I don't think it was anything necessarily that I found difficult. I just, like I said, if it worked, it worked.

EM:Great. Wondering if there's been any particular Jewish or Yiddish or otherwise artistic works or any -- I mean, you talked about Freud being a big influence on you as a person. So, is there anything else like that that you can think of that had a particular influence on you, as a Jew, as someone with Yiddish in your yikhes [lineage]? (laughter)

HD:I don't remember -- again, a lot of it was heirlooms that we had at home, candlestick holders, brass candlestick holders, menorahs that came through the family, that had stories attached to them. So, there was some of that. My father's father was a bookbinder, so he did some work that we still have. Just 44:00this idea of bookbinding was also sort of taking care of books. And not just Freud as just the interest, but there's always been a debate about his attachment to Judaism. And when they had the exhibit in New York, I remember going and seeing that. Until the very later years, when the Holocaust was already in full swing, he said, "I always considered myself a German, and now I consider myself a Jew." I mean, which was sort of sad, but at the same time, that was the statement, is that he was a Jew. I mean, he was allowed to leave, but a powerful statement.

EM:And what does Yiddish mean to you today, like right on this day? (laughs)

HD:Well, again, I think I have some nostalgia even though I'm not a Yiddish 45:00speaker. But when I heard of this project, I did have some nostalgia that, again, it's a little bit of a loss. I feel a little bit of a loss. I don't have that connection. My parents are no longer alive, grandparents are no longer alive. And so, there's nobody immediately around me to share this sort of -- the importance of Yiddish with. So, I think there's sort of this sense of loss, which -- a little sad, but nice to hear that there's a repository for the Yiddish works and that there's a place for people who say I have these, as I do, this collection of Yiddish words that we can't make heads or tails of. But there's a place that it can go and be appreciated and cared for.

EM:And what do you think the future is of Yiddish?

HD:So, it's hard for me to say. Again, I'm happy when I hear things like young people wanting to study Yiddish. Unfortunately, I still think of that akin to studying Latin, just so that you can go over the classic works. So, somebody's going to learn Yiddish so they could go over and understand and interpret these classic works. Whether there will be continued literature in Yiddish, I don't know. But again, it may not come to that point, because we don't have a nation, it's not the language of a nation. It was the language of a people, and many of them are no longer here.

EM:And what advice might you have for future generations of people who are interested in Yiddish and Yiddish culture?

HD:Learn the language. I think that's the difficulty, is if you don't have the language, and we don't -- when my parents were alive, I had interpreters. If I came across something in Yiddish that I wanted to underst-- you had an interpreter. Somebody could -- that generation is really going. My generation, for the most part, did not pick up the language. So, if you have an interest, learn the language.

EM:Great. And so, we're close to the end of our time, I think. So, I'm wondering a couple of things. First of all, is there anything I didn't ask you about in terms of Yiddish culture, your family's history?

HD:I think we covered most things. Again, I mentioned my mother has this cookbook. I think, to a large extent, when more relatives were alive, there was a lot transmitted through the food, also, the homemade -- the foods that were 48:00made, the old-style knishes that were made and so forth. So, I think a lot of that is through the cuisine, to some extent. Again, like the language, there's not a strict Yiddish cuisine. So, like the language, it was adapted from wherever they were, but I think that also conveys what the whole entire people sort of went through and how they adapted to wherever they came to be.

EM:So, do you remember making any food with your mother?

HD:So, not so much. And again, this is a big regret, because some of it I know my brother and I would remember as quite delicious. And so, I don't know whether that was because, in our day and age, we would consider it too time-consuming, 'cause I do remember my grandmother being -- I mean, my grandmother had to pluck the hairs out of the chicken herself and kasher it on the board in the sink by 49:00herself. So, that's done for us already. But I think there was just a lot more time put into preparing foods. So, no, I don't -- what we make now is either the store-bought version of blintzes or knishes or something. But that's how we -- cholent -- trying to --

EM:And what else did you eat growing up? You mentioned knishes. (laughs)

HD:Right, 'cause I remember that my grandmother made fabulous knishes. So, and chicken soup. I remember her making chicken soup, which we always wanted. Oh, the mandl-brot [almond bread], she would make, so that was always something. So, there were a few, the traditional things that you would think of. Again, it was 50:00pretty much the sort of Russian -- borscht, they made. She made her own borscht with meat and --

EM:Very nice. (laughter)

HD:Right.

EM:Sorry to talk about this --

HD:Yeah, right, our mouths are watering now. (laughs)

EM:Yeah, sorry we're talking about this on a fast day.

HD:Right! (laughter)

EM:So, my final question is: do you have any Yiddish songs that you remember that were your --

HD:None that I'm going to sing here. (laughter) Right, well, again, a lot of them from camp. So, yeah, we had a lot of songs that we sang, certainly Friday nights. The bunks, the cabins were all named in Yiddish. It was yingste-yingste, mitele-yingste, eltste-yingste [youngest young, middle young, oldest young] and all the way up to eltste-eltste [oldest older]. So, every group had their song that they sang Friday night. It was in Yiddish. "Ale mentshn zaynen brider," we 51:00sang regularly. And then, the Friday night songs. "In boiberik iz lebedik, in boiberik iz freylekh [Boiberik is lively, Boiberik is joyful]," that was our camp song. So, that was, again, sort of interesting that the Yiddish I have is probably from song.

EM:And are there any favorite words or phrases you have in Yiddish?

HD:Yeah, I like that farshlepte krank, 'cause I think, as the mother of five kids (laughs) and the rebbetzin of the community, I can relate to that. Yeah, offhand, I don't remember too many. But I just know that the ones that I did hear, again, I thought they so exquisitely captured something that, I guess as with most original language expressions and idioms, they capture something of that culture that cannot be translated.

EM:Great.

[END OF INTERVIEW]