MARLYN BUTCHINS ORAL HISTORY

AGNIESZKA ILWICKA-SHEPPARD: This is Agnieszka Ilwicka-Sheppard, and today is 13 July, 2015. I'm here in Kfar Saba in Israel with Marlyn Butchins, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Marlyn, do I have your permission to record this interview?

MARLYN BUTCHINS: Certainly, you do.

AIS:Thank you very much. I would like to start with your childhood and place of birth. Can you tell me briefly what you know about your family background?

MB:Yes. Well, my mother was born in Lithuania. At that stage, she was the 1:00youngest of three children. Her parents came out to South Africa at a time when it was a lot of prospects for people to come to Rhodesia -- to South Africa. They came to South Africa first, and from there went on to Rhodesia. And, in fact, it was my grandfather Meyer Sher, who came out to Rhodesia and later sent for his wife Ana and my mother and her two elder brothers. I must say, we've tried many times to find out why and what my late grandfather did. But the only thing I know is that he was involved in the fur trade or something like that in Rhodesia, but I honestly cannot be sure what he did. All I know is that at age 2:00six, my mother came with her mother and two other siblings to Rhodesia. My mother's mother tongue was Yiddish. That was the language they spoke at home. My mother was born in Vilna, in Lithuania, and they spoke Yiddish at home. So, when she came out to South Africa and then on to Rhodesia, she'd never heard English. But strangely, throughout my mom's life, she never actually had a Yiddish accent, but she continued to speak Yiddish for all her life until she died, unfortunately, at age of seventy-two.

AIS:We will come back to --

MB:We can come back to my mom's life. Her parents then went on to have four more 3:00children in Rhodesia. Well, so we grew up -- my father actually, his family came from England. And so, we did speak English at home. We lived in a place called Bulawayo, which was then Rhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe. We had a wonderful, wonderful life in Zimbabwe. It was a good place to grow up. I was the fourth child in my family. I have an elder brother, Darryl, a younger brother, Paul, my sister, Gail, and myself. I was the baby of the family. And if you really want to know, I was born in 1951. Yes, so I was brought up in Rhodesia. A wonderful 4:00place to live. My father was in furniture. He was a cabinetmaker by profession. He then went on to have a secondhand motorcar business. And, in the end, just before he died -- which, unfortunately, he was very young. He was just fifty-four years old. But he had sewing machines and he used to sell to the African trade.

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My dad could do anything. He could sew, he could knit, he could crochet. He made carpets. He made all the furniture in our house. He made tablecloths. He made our clothes. He was really wonderful at doing that sort of thing. And so, sewing machines -- was absolutely perfect for him, because he used to use these little hand sewing machines, because the townships where Africans lived were not electrified. So, they needed to use a manual sewing machine, and he loved to 5:00teach them how to sew. And if they came in and paid their installments off on their sewing machines and they paid on time, my father would always give them a sewing lesson. So, that was lovely.

AIS:Do you have any other famous or infamous family stories from the time before you were born, or maybe after?

MB:Wow, like famous? I'm not quite sure what you mean by famous.

AIS:Big family stories which you tell over and over?

MB:Over and over again? Well, I suppose one story that really sticks in our family is that my two elder brothers were in a pop band. And my father happened to be their manager, and they became professionals, and they traveled and did gigs in South Africa with people like Adam Faith and Peter and Gordon and Jackie 6:00Trent. And you might not know those names, but in the 1960s and '70s, these were big names. And my brothers accompanied them on their tours, and we as young groupies, my sister and I, got to meet real, real famous stars. And we could go backstage and we were big deals. And so, music has always been very close to our heart. My late mother played piano and violin, and my dad was a technical person. We grew up with music. Music was a very big part of our family. And we had so many musicians around our house. It was always terribly funny, because these groupies used to come into our house and listen to band rehearsals, and 7:00all of a sudden, next morning, my mother would find people sleeping all over the house. And once, we had somebody sleeping there and my mom said to some of the band members and others that were there, "Do you know this person?" And anyway, nobody knew that person. They just came into our house and was listening to music, slept over, and left the next day. We always had musical people around us. Let's say they were very flamboyant and spicy, and we had a lot of good times with musicians in our house.

AIS:So, you can say that your home was an open place.

MB:It was very, very open. I admire my parents enormously for the upbringing they gave us. I was in nightclubs before I was fourteen years old. I remember that very distinctly because, of course, you couldn't go into a nightclub -- I don't know if it was eighteen or twenty-one was the minimum age. But certainly, 8:00thirteen years old, I was in nightclubs because my brothers were playing in a band there, and I used to go with my parents. And, yeah, I went to some really great places. And my parents just always felt that if people came to our homes, they would always know where we were, because we wanted to be at home where all the action was happening. So, we had not a huge home, but we had a big enough home. But the lounge took a lot of people. They could sleep anywhere. They could sleep on the couches and -- yes, so we were brought up with music and the outdoors and picnics and that sort of thing.

AIS:Could you describe me Bulawayo while you were growing? Bulawayo which you remember from your childhood?

MB:Yes, I think we had a very privileged upbringing in Bulawayo. We had four 9:00African employees in our house. That's how I grew up. I had a nanny. When I think of it now, it's really weird to me, because I would get up in the morning -- no, let's rephrase. I would wake up in the morning and my nanny would come upstairs with a tray. And she would serve me breakfast in bed. Not only me. Me and my sister, we shared a room. And we would have breakfast in bed. Our school uniforms would be placed at the end of our beds. I mean, we just didn't have to think of anything. We were totally, utterly cared for. I used to ride a bicycle to school, and it was at least five kilometers away, and it was very safe for us to ride to school. I'm sure my brothers did much the same, or my dad would drop 10:00us off. I know when we went to high school, we had lift schemes. But in junior school, I used to ride. I think we mixed in the Jewish community, which was, at that stage -- and I stand corrected -- the Bulawayo Hebrew Congregation was the Orthodox synagogue, and there was a Reform synagogue. And I think the population may have numbered six thousand. I really stand corrected about that. But it was a very close community. My father worked on the chevra kadisha [Jewish burial society], which is the Jewish burial society. He was not a religious man, but all his expression of Judaism and how he felt about it was expressed in his privilege to bury the dead. He felt it was always his privilege to sit with a 11:00body at night, because when a Jewish person dies, they are not left alone. There is always somebody sitting with the body until it's buried, which may have a reason why we bury our dead so quickly. And he used to sit with a body at night, and this gave him a lot of comfort. Because of his gift and talent at cabinetmaking, he made a lot of items for what we call the ohel, which is the house into which a body is taken and prayers are said before the body is taken onward to the grave to be buried. And my dad built the light fittings and what's called the "bimah," which is a platform to pray from. So, although he wasn't 12:00religious, this was his feeling for Judaism. We used to go to synagogue with my mother on the Sabbath and on Jewish holidays. I can so clearly see my mother now wearing gloves. We also wore gloves to synagogue, and of course we would dress very nicely. And anyway, when I was nineteen years old, I left Bulawayo. Why did I leave Bulawayo, 'cause it was such a great place to live? All the young Jewish people who wished to further their studies went to universities in South Africa. And there just weren't Jewish boys left of marriageable age in Bulawayo. So, if I wanted to marry somebody who was Jewish, I needed to move to where they were, and that was either in Johannesburg, Pretoria, or Cape Town. Even Durban. I 13:00chose to go to Johannesburg, and I left with a girlfriend of mine. So, I was going on twenty, and I left to live in Johannesburg. And I dated and did lots of things in Johannesburg and had a really good time. I met lots of Jewish people, and certainly not from Rhodesia at all. They seemed to be all South Africans. And one day, a mutual friend of mine, somebody from Bulawayo was friendly with a guy named Larry. And it was the second night of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. And as young people, we all used to go to our families for these wonderful holidays and celebrate with them. But then, we always came back to somebody's apartment, and then, we talked amongst ourselves and had our evening. Anyway, that particular evening, the second night of Rosh Hashanah, everybody came over 14:00to our apartment, and our friend Susan brought Larry over to meet me. And that is how I found my Jewish husband in Johannesburg. And we started dating. He was a journalist, and I was working for a very controversial company at that stage called Carlton Centre. And I thought he was only asking me for a date 'cause he wanted a good story and a scoop about the place I was working for. So, I wouldn't go out with him the first time or the second time that he asked me. But on the third time, luckily, I did say yes to him, 'cause he said he was not going to ask me again. (laughter) And that led to a lovely relationship, and within a year, we married.

AIS:Listen, before we will continue this topic, I would like to come back for a moment to your childhood and to the place where you -- grown up.

MB:Yes.

AIS:So, let's stay, please, for a moment in Bulawayo, and tell me --

MB:Okay.

AIS:-- what languages were spoken in your home? We know about Yiddish from your mother.

MB:Yes.

AIS:And what else?

MB:Really only English. I can't recall any other foreign language. I remember that my mother still had some cousins who had survived the concentration camps. And they were living in Israel. And my mother wrote to them in Yiddish. All their correspondence was in Yiddish. You're talking now, let me think -- I was born 1951, so this would be the 1960s. I don't remember in what year my mother discovered that there were survivors in her family, because there just wasn't the internet at that stage, and I can't remember exactly when my mother 16:00discovered her relatives. But she did, and I know -- I'm trying to remember, 'cause we have a photograph. Let's say 1960-something, '63 maybe. No, not -- even earlier. Anyway, sometime between 1960 and '63, my mother's sister, who was living in Johannesburg, brought these relatives out to South Africa and then to Rhodesia. And it was the first time I met them. And I couldn't believe it, that we were all whispering as children that these are our cousins who came out of the camps. It so happens that much, much, much later on, these very same cousins were the subject of a quilt that I made. It wasn't a whole quilt, but it was a 17:00project in America which somebody started about the Holocaust, and Judaic quilters were asked whether they would like to contribute a block. And whereas so many people wrote about their relatives who had perished in the camps, I chose to write about my cousins who survived the camps. And I called my block "Survivors." And I had some photographs, and when I was trying to get some inspiration to make the block for this quilt, we were already living in Israel by this time, and I started -- I don't want to say my cousin's name, but let's 18:00call her Sharon. It's not her name. I started asking Sharon if she would tell me something about what happened to her. And she said she can't, she just can't go through it again. But she gave me permission to go into the archives at Yad Vashem, and I was allowed to see her testimony, because she gave testimony about what happened to her and her mother in the camps, and it was through that three-hour interview that she did that I learned about her life in Kovno? No, no, in -- where was she born?

M:Shavel.

MB:No, she wasn't. She might have been born in Shavel, but she went to Kovno.

M:(UNCLEAR)

MB:That's where she lived. And she was taken from there. But it was an amazing thing to see her testimony about the Holocaust, 'cause she would never, ever talk about it. That's who my mother was writing to in Yiddish. And when she spoke to her brothers, they often spoke in Yiddish. Either they didn't want the kinderlekh, the children, to understand what they were saying or not, I have no idea. But I must say, Yiddish humor, Yiddish words -- I never learned to speak Yiddish, and I'm so, so sorry that I didn't, 'cause I think it's the most expressive language there is. But we picked up lots of words that my mother was saying, like "farshtunkene." "Farshtunkene" is "stinky," really stinky. And I can't think of other ones, but I can remember things like my mother saying, "Ir 20:00ken nit kukhn," she can't cook. You know, was really a bad cook, and -- but many, many Yiddish expressions. And still today, those expressions come into my mind. But I don't know why my mother never wanted to teach us Yiddish. I would have really liked that. But I loved it that she had it, and when she herself went to live in Johannesburg, there was a very thriving Yiddish community or Yiddish-speaking community still in Johannesburg, and probably still is now where they have Yiddish theater, Yiddish discussions, Yiddish lectures, and my mom used to go to all of those things. She had her Yiddish friends, and they all used to go to them. But other than that, those were the only two languages I heard in my house, were Yiddish and English. My parents did have other friends 21:00who were living in Rhodesia, who were survivors. I can't say specifically Auschwitz, although I do believe it was Auschwitz, because there was -- only two camps where they put numbers on your arms. And so, she must have been from one or the other. And they were from Hungary, and she and her daughter and her -- not her first husband, a second husband who she married after the war, survived the Holocaust. But also, they would never talk about it. The only thing I can remember -- and her name was Mamashka. And Mamashka, I can even picture her saying it to me, and I was very young -- said that she and her daughter survived 22:00because she was working in the kitchens, and she managed to get food to her daughter, who was then about nine or ten years old. And she hid her and she took food from the kitchen. And, well, I know they survived, and I knew them, well, for a very long time before they died, too. I don't think they ever spoke Yiddish. I don't believe so. They spoke Hungarian and German. But, in my house, if that was your question, Yiddish I heard a lot of, and I'm sorry I never got to know it better. And English. Those were my languages I heard.

AIS:And in your synagogue in Bulawayo, what was the spoken language there?

MB:No, in the synagogue, people would speak English to one another, but all the services would have been in Hebrew. (UNCLEAR)

AIS:Did you attend to Hebrew lessons?

MB:I didn't. I didn't. I must say, almost all of my friends, my Jewish friends, went to something that they call heder [traditional religious school]. And I don't say they studied Hebrew, but they had some sort of Hebrew in their lives. I don't understand why I didn't have any, except that my father was not into things like that. He wasn't -- my mother was a traditionalist, and she lit candles on Friday night, and she said the blessings. But no, I never learned Hebrew. No, I didn't learn Hebrew, but I don't really know why. I just didn't. But I loved going to synagogue. I'm very happy to say that even though I met Larry in Johannesburg, we came back to Bulawayo and were married in the -- just 24:00called the Bulawayo Jewish Congregation. Ah, I have a book here, and this -- it was called the Bulawayo Hebrew Congregation, which gives the whole story of the synagogue in Bulawayo, which, unfortunately, was burned down with suspected arson. I don't know if it was ever proven that the synagogue was burned down through arson, although I am ninety-nine percent sure that was the cause. And I, at that stage, still had a cousin in Bulawayo who was very much a part of saving the synagogue, or what was left, and getting the books out of the synagogue in 25:00time, and the Torah, or more than one Torah. And we were all heartbroken, heartbroken when the synagogue was burned down, because it truly symbolized the end of Jewish life in Bulawayo. The numbers diminished very quickly, and at this moment in time, I believe there are certainly not more than sixty Jews left in Bulawayo from a very thriving community. And they are all probably in the old age home there, although I can think of a few people my age who still go in and out of Bulawayo 'cause they still have business interests there. But the wonderful thing about Bulawayo is that I still have so many friends from there 26:00who I stay in touch with, around the world. Fortunately, a number of them live in Israel. But most of them, I would say, live in America and England, South Africa. But I've stayed in touch with a lot of Bulawayo people, and the congregation is very, very tight, in that we all know where we came from. And we're close in our bonds with one another, because we know where we came from. It was a wonderful community to grow up in.

AIS:And what --

MB:Absolutely wonderful.

AIS:-- what does it mean, "We know where we came from"? You mean from Bulawayo?

MB:From the lifestyle. The lifestyle that we had --

AIS:And what was --

MB:-- growing up in Rhodesia. It was a very special lifestyle, and I can't really explain that away. I think I was particularly fortunate, because I had lots and lots of aunties and uncles. My mother was one of seven children, and 27:00they all seemed to have four children each. So, I mean, I -- twenty-eight first cousins without any problem at all. We would sit down for the Jewish holidays with these tables of, I don't know, thirty-six people there. And then, there was also my father's family, and they had children. But we had lots and lots and lots of cousins, because most of the brothers and sisters were all living in Bulawayo. So, I think I was fortunate, because I would go to school, my dad would come home from work, and we'd go and visit cousins, or cousins would come and visit us. And we always had people to play with who had these beautiful homes in Rhodesia and green lawns and swimming pools and lovely places to go to. And, I don't know, I just -- as an adult now, I feel that we had a very 28:00privileged upbringing. And aside from the fact that we had staff to take care of us -- but I don't know, I spent a lot of time with my parents, and we did lots of fun things like picnics and going to a dam or a lake to have picnics. And, as I say, we had all these cousins and aunts and uncles coming. And I'm very, very close -- or was very close to all my aunts and uncles. And to this day, if I go back to South Africa, as I'm going again soon -- and my husband and I went eighteen months ago. It was to see my last two aunts, because I care so dearly for them. It's lovely that they live in Cape Town. It's a good place to go.

AIS:Could you please tell me -- Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, that time when you were 29:00growing up, was a safe place for Jews?

MB:Yes. I cannot recall any acts of anti-Semitism. I'm just thinking, 'cause I don't think anybody's ever asked me that before. But I can't remember that my parents told me to -- no, I don't. I recall my brother, my eldest brother -- he's eight years older than me. I actually can recall him telling us a story that somebody at school called him a bloody Jew, and he beat him up. Maybe my father beat him up, although it's not -- I do remember that. For me, personally, I never, ever experienced anti-Semitism. Never. Thank goodness. And in the time 30:00that I lived in South Africa, I never experienced it. Personally, no, it did not enter my life. But it may have been happening around me. I can't say I was aware of it. So, I don't know. I don't know. Does that answer the question?

AIS:Of course, absolutely. And could you please tell me what were the political views in your home, and also your personal -- that time, many years ago, in Africa?

MB:Well, the best thing in the world was my nanny. I mean, what would I do without my nanny? It so happens that my nanny, whose name was Sarah -- Sarah had a child the same year that I was born. His name was Clement, and he -- I'm sorry to say it, but it was the way things were.

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When African children were born, they stayed with their mothers a very short time, and then they were sent back to their, let's say their ancestral homes, their homes which were out in the -- well, I don't know how you translate "bundu," in -- well, outlying areas. Let's say outlying areas. And the children were sent to the grandparents to be raised in an African village. And then, every weekend or every second weekend, my nanny would go and visit her children. The main thing is that she would be sending money for their upkeep and education. And I cannot recall my parents ever discriminating between blacks and whites. But, of course, it existed. I think because -- in later years, my father 32:00dealt very specifically with the African trade, and he learned to speak many of the African languages. For instance, isiNdebele was the language spoken in Bulawayo. My father would speak isiNdebele. He had a wonderful driver who was really his right-hand man. Certainly, I remember him coming over to our house, and he would sit with us in our lounge, or -- I don't ever remember feeling that there was such a big difference. But I was young, and I did know that Africans lived in townships, and they weren't my neighbors. I do not recall anywhere in Bulawayo where there would be a park bench that said only white people could sit 33:00on it. It may have been, I don't know. But I don't ever remember seeing anything like that, whereas one of the first things that I recall seeing when I came to live in South Africa was exactly that. They had benches there that said "whites only" and "non-whites only." It meant white people couldn't sit on non-white benches and non-whites couldn't sit on white benches. The same went for public transport. But I never felt it in Rhodesia, and certainly my parents never -- I never, ever heard a derogatory word said about black people. So, I was brought up, I would say, in a very open home about so many things, very luckily. No, I never heard anything like that. No. I never got any political input from my 34:00parents that I can recall. Maybe my brothers, 'cause they were a bit older, might say something different. But I don't ever remember having a political discussion or even thinking black and white. The only thing I know is that my nanny made the most wonderful food. It was called "sadza." Sadza was like a thick porridge that -- she would make meat and gravy to go with this, and I used to go and sit with her in what was known as a "kaia," which was the housing that my parents provided for her on our property. And I would go and sit in her room and I would squat on the floor, 'cause that's how she would be sitting. And I would take the sadza, this thick porridge in my hand, and you mold it with your hand like this and make it into a ball, and then you'd dip it in the gravy, and you eat it, and there can be nothing more delicious in the world than sadza, 35:00which is a maize porridge. Sadza, gravy, and meat. Yes, that's wonderful. I love it. And I don't know why we didn't eat it, 'cause it was great food. But I had to go to the kaia to eat that kind of food. So, no, just didn't feel anything between black and white people, but I'm sure it existed. It existed. I just personally didn't feel it, and really only learned about segregation when I came to live in Johannesburg, as I said, just before I turned twenty. And that was the first time I knew that there was a very big difference, and that it was a law that white people could not live with black people, black people could not live with white people in a next-door neighbor kind of thing, because obviously your servants that you employed -- albeit, they were paid servants, though paid 36:00a dreadful sum of money -- they could stay in your house, but they would need special permission to be in the house. And they were not allowed to have African visitors to the house. Only the people who were registered to you -- and I'm talking about South Africa, now -- could be in your house. Weird, but that's how apartheid really was there. You're looking quite stunned.

AIS:(laughs) Yes, yes, I am. Although I know the history, it's different to hear this from the person who lived there. So, tell me, you moved to Johannesburg with your mother or alone?

MB:No, I moved alone. My parents stayed on in Rhodesia. My dad passed away quite soon, within a year of my getting married. And my mom stayed on there for a while, and then she came to live in Johannesburg. My two brothers, one stayed on 37:00Rhodesia. Actually, they both did, but eventually both moved to South Africa. And then, fortunately, a brother came to Israel and my other brother went to Sydney, Australia. My sister came on aliyah with us to Israel and, yeah -- but I still have many, many relatives in South Africa.

AIS:Okay, so I would like to ask you about the Jewish life in South Africa. Did you attend to any Yiddish events in Johannesburg?

MB:No. No. Maybe Yiddish even disappeared a bit out of my life. At the same time, I had an uncle -- so, that was somebody who was married to my mom's sister -- who never really learned English. He came from -- and honestly, I can't remember where he came from. He probably also came from Lithuania, my uncle 38:00Benny, and he spoke Yiddish nearly all the time. So, yes, actually, I'd forgotten that, that I heard Yiddish in their house, 'cause he mostly spoke Yiddish, or a very broken English. In later years, his two sons grew up and came into his business, they did all the business in English, and my uncle always spoke Yiddish, 'cause he never really learned English. He came out to South Africa as a prospector. And very fortunately, he wisely bought prospecting rights on lands that it was available to do that, and became an extremely wealthy man from many of the mines that he founded. But he never learned English properly. He only spoke Yiddish. But other than that, I didn't go to any Yiddish events. I can't say that I did. I knew it was around, and just as I enjoy 39:00hearing a Yiddish joke today, I remember hearing Yiddish jokes being said in my aunt's house. Even if I didn't clearly understand them, just the way that a Yiddish joke is told is -- there's no comparison, and it loses everything once it goes into translation. I think it's a wonderful language, and I'm so sorry, again, that I never learned it. But I do have a couple of friends here who have learned Yiddish and who actually do Yiddish theater. So, I still have a connection, but honestly, my children know very little Yiddish. If I knew a little, they know a lot less, and I'm sorry for that. But when I read Mr. Lansky's book and I learned that all the Yiddish books in the whole wide world 40:00got saved and that they now have been digitalized and that they will never, ever be lost -- it made me so happy, and I read the book, and we had long, long discussions about this wonderful Yiddish Book Center. And I was so happy that such a project ever came about. I think it's very special and everybody who is working to save Yiddish as a language and as a culture and -- 'cause it was so vibrant. Just if we're talking Yiddish, I had the opportunity to work with someone, and I'd like to show you another book. This is a wonderful book called "Passionate Pioneers" that I helped to edit -- I certainly didn't have anything to do with writing it, I was just helping in the editing -- by Fradle Pomerantz 41:00Freidenreich. Fradle was very involved in the Yiddish schools all over America, and she wrote this absolutely fabulous book. It's called "Passionate Pioneers: The Story of Yiddish Secular Education in North America from 1910 to 1960." And I learned so many things in this book about what Yiddish schools were about, without religion. Without religion, because, as it says in the title, these are secular schools. They learned Yiddishkayt. They learned about being Jews, and they put on plays in Yiddish. And they had Yiddish newspapers. And Yiddish survived in America until the 1960s. I know that from this book. As to what's 42:00happened since then, I can't say, 'cause then it becomes my generation, that we lost it. Our parents spoke it or, in my case, my mother. But then, it gets lost. If it's not continued to be spoken or the kids don't learn the Yiddish, a language can get lost like that. So, it makes me very happy that there are still people in the world who care so much about it and want to save it. But this is an incredible book about the Yiddish movement and the Yiddish schools. And anybody who's interested in that should definitely be reading this book. I worked with Fradle, as I say, in editing it, and it was a great project to work on --

AIS:And how did you start to work with her? How does it happen?

MB:Honestly, purely on a working basis. She knew that I was freelancing as a secretary and was prepared to get paid by the hour. I was pretty cheap to hire, and -- 'cause she was also working with grants, and so she had very tight budgets to write the book. And so, that's how -- and I worked with her for about four months on the book and then, again, a couple of times after that. I was lucky to see the reports that are contained in this book, written by hand, many of them in Yiddish, and were then translated. It's wonderful to see how it survived in America in that time. So, it was quite an education.

AIS:And in your life, in your African years, did you meet any Yiddish celebrities?

MB:No.

AIS:Authors?

MB:I can -- oh, I hate to say that. How awful. Maybe I did, but I can't recall one. Not one. How awful. Nope, I'm sorry to say I can't give you good news on that one. I cannot recall one famous Yiddish artist. All I remember is seeing on my mom's bookshelves books by Sholem Aleichem and maybe others. But as I say, I just don't pay attention. Maybe I only started paying attention to the world when I got married and had children. Maybe that's what happened.

AIS:And what was your first book written in Yiddish and then later translated into English?

MB:How do you mean my first book?

AIS:The one which you read and you will remember, written by Yiddish author.

MB:Can't recall one. "The Golem." No, I can't remember any one in particular that comes to mind. Oh, that's really awful. How embarrassing. But I really can't remember. Maybe they're still coming to be read.

AIS:Of course. Of course.

MB:There's still time to do that later.

AIS:And you have many translation projects, so you're absolutely welcome to make --

MB:To try and get -- acquire them. I'll see what's available on my Kindle.

AIS:(laughs) I'm sure that you will find --

MB:Good.

AIS:-- a Yiddish collection.

MB:Good. Maybe you'd like to recommend one before you leave.

AIS:(laughs) With pleasure, with pleasure. I would like to ask you if you are -- religious person.

MB:Wow, that's a big, big one. I would say I'm not a religious person. I belong to a Conservative synagogue, although I was raised --- raised -- as I say, not that my parents were very into Judaism, and I -- other than what I learned at school in some of the programs that we had there, my knowledge was very, very basic. But I certainly am a traditional Jew. I keep all the chagim, the Jewish holidays. I like to make food, especially for those holidays. In my food repertoire, I certainly can make lots and lots of Jewish traditional dishes that I remember that my mother made us. I love Jewish food. I think that -- I don't 47:00know, it's -- yeah, it was just a part -- I feel it's very much a part of me to have this Jewish food that I know came from Russia and it came from Lithuania, and my mother made them. And I can remember some really strange things that my uncle, the one I mentioned earlier -- eating on a Friday night something called "ptcha," which is basically the hooves of an animal that are boiled up or -- and then, it's got oh, strange, horrible things in it, and it comes out like a jelly. And -- is it called "ptcha"? Anyway, but I like pirogn [meat pie], if you've ever heard of that, and gefilte fish and gehakte [chopped] herring and chopped liver and borscht. And those are things that I know I can make. I can't 48:00say that they're my kids' favorite foods. But for me, when I have the holidays here, the Jewish holidays, I like to serve traditional food. And I stay that way. So --

AIS:And what --

MB:-- Jewish food's good.

AIS:And what is your favorite Jewish dish that you prepare?

MB:That I prepare? Has to be chopped liver.

AIS:And how do you do it?

MB:(laughs) Well, I do it with chicken livers, although it can be made with calves' liver, but it's very, very strong then. But I take chicken livers and they are fried in oil, because I do keep milk and meat dishes separate in my house, so I wouldn't be cooking it in butter. But I bet it tastes absolutely wonderful in butter. But I would use oil, and it's made with hard-boiled eggs 49:00and fried onion and something called schmaltz. Now, there you are. schmaltz is an untranslatable word to me. Schmaltz would really be chicken fat. I don't use chicken fat, but I would use schmaltz that's made out of carrot and celery that's boiled for a very, very long time with oil and margarine. And you boil and you boil and you boil for a long, long, long, long time, and the carrot color goes into this oil and margarine, and when it's finished cooking after a couple of hours, you leave it and it coagulates, it solidifies, and you keep it in the fridge. And then, you also put that into chopped liver. You mix it in a 50:00Magimix. Have you ever had chopped liver? 'Cause if you haven't, I promise you next time you come back to Israel, you're coming to my home to eat chopped liver for dinner.

AIS:(laughs) With pleasure.

MB:Good. Here's your invitation. (laughter) Bring your husband.

AIS:Thank you very much. I will pass this invitation back, although he may see it as (overlapping dialogue; unclear) (laughter)

MB:Okay. So, you tell him I'm inviting him to come with you for a real, traditional Jewish dinner. And I will make you chopped liver, and I will make you something called tzimes, which is a boiled meat dish with very sweet prunes and carrots and honey. I will give you a traditional meal. I will enjoy that very much.

AIS:And I will be more than happy to have some. I know that music is an 51:00important part of your life. Is Jewish music -- play an important role in your life? Or does Jewish music play -- important role in your life?

MB:No, I can't say it plays an important role in my life. Now that you're saying this, I remember some of the Yiddish records that we had at home. Wow, I haven't thought of that for a very long time. My mother loved to listen to some Yiddish records, and there was somebody called Yafa Yarkoni who did lots of lovely Yiddish records, and we listened to those. Jewish music per se, if that is klezmer type of music -- to me, it has its time and place. Strange, at a wedding, I'm prepared to get up and dance to it. I can't ever imagine me putting it on my hi-fi set at home. But in the right atmosphere, I would say that it's 52:00pretty cool music, and I can understand why it's so catchy. And it makes me feel very good. It's not the music I would buy, but it makes me feel very good. Hebrew music, which I believe is different to Jewish music -- Jewish music is lots of that sort of stuff, endless klezmer type of music. But Hebrew music is something else. I think it's very melodious. It has these wonderful melodies. It has meaning, and although I can't understand everything I hear in Hebrew, the feeling that I get hearing Hebrew songs is an amazing feeling. I don't know why, but there is something very special in music that comes out of Israel. So, I 53:00have -- and I buy Hebrew music. But I'm not into the klezmer style of music, which I know is very traditional, and certainly amongst the religious community is a lot of fun. And, as I say, when I go to weddings, okay, I'm prepared to give a little stuff like that. But it's not the kind of music that I would buy.

AIS:Right. And I would like to ask about Israel. You live here for -- quite long time. Why did you come here in the first place?

MB:Well, it came about because my husband and I were living in Durban in South Africa, and we'd been married fourteen years. And for some unknown reason, we'd got ourselves onto every Jewish committee that ever existed, I think, in Durban. 54:00And we were starting to pass each other in the night. We were going to so many meetings, and we were both involved in raising funds for Israel. We were involved in a movement called B'nai B'rith. We were involved in the local Zionist societies. I was president of the Durban Jewish Welfare Association. I was chairperson of the school committee. My husband was writing things and fundraising -- I don't know. We were just on committees, committees, committees. And one day, we said, We hardly have a marriage, 'cause we don't have time to be together. We're leaving town. Okay, we're leaving town. Where are we going to go? 'Cause we thought this is the only way to get off the committees -- is to actually say, We are moving, and that's why we are resigning. And we started 55:00thinking, and then everything seemed to point to Israel. We realized that all the charity work that we'd been doing was all for Israel. And we thought we would come and look around. Other than one visit to Israel when I was much younger -- and my husband had never been, or had -- I think he had also been one -- on a business trip here. We came on what's called a pilot tour, which is a subsidized tour to come and see if you like it. If you like it and came on Aliyah, that was good. And if not, okay, so be it. Part of the trip was subsidized, and we came, and literally from the moment our feet touched the ground in Israel, we just knew this is where we belonged. We loved the feeling 56:00that we got when we were here. We loved being amongst Jewish people. We loved being amongst Israelis. We loved -- I don't know, we just loved every single thing that we came across. The history, everything. We just loved it, and we went back to Durban and rather foolishly, I'd have to say, we packed up within six months and returned to live here. We came with virtually no money, and we didn't plan at all. I don't know what we were thinking, in fact. I don't know how we thought we could manage. But anyway, we came, and we went on to an absorption center, which is called a "merkaz kitah." And from living in a very comfortable house with a swimming pool and having two staff members living with me permanently, I came into an absorption center, which was the size of my 57:00lounge, maybe, that I had, and I loved it. I only had that area to look after, and that's how much I learned to clean. I certainly had never cleaned a toilet, ever in my life. I'd never turned on a washing machine. I'd never turned on a dishwasher. I'd never -- I don't know, I -- there were so many things that I'd never -- and all of a sudden, I loved doing them all. I loved doing them all. So, while I was on the ulpan, I was cleaning and I learned to clean floors, and it was wonderful. We loved Israel dearly from the first moment. And we came on Aliyah with my sister and one of her children, a daughter. And so, I had somebody very close to me, although -- and a brother of mine had already been 58:00living here for a year. And we had some other cousins here. And that's why we came to Israel. And we came, and we had to -- both of us worked very hard. I started working quite soon, within six months. As soon as I finished ulpan -- I wasn't even finished, actually, 'cause it was the fifth month. I started working, my husband started a business, which was very silly, 'cause we lost every -- the very little that we came with, we lost in no time and had debts for the next fifteen years. So, things have not been very easy for us here in Israel. But we are absolutely passionate about it. Completely, utterly passionate. And we see the humor and the goodness in everything. And although 59:00tragedy has unfortunately come into our lives in Israel, and the fact that we've never been able to buy a home here, we couldn't afford many, many things along the way -- and we learned to do holidays, as such, with our children by going on camping trips. And we've developed such a love for the outdoors here, and camping stays with us now. And we are well into our sixties, both of us, and we still love camping. And still, if we say to our children who are all grown up now that we're going camping, they're there. They want to come. So, it was a very good thing. We love Israel. We love Israel. We feel very passionate about it. And when we leave Israel, we count the time until we return home, yeah. This is truly our chosen home. Not our place of birth, but our chosen home. And I 60:00don't believe that I would want to ever live anywhere else other than Israel.

AIS:Thank you for saying this about Israel. But also, I have to ask you a question about your quilt project, which you did many years ago to commemorate the death of your mother, which happened here. Can I ask you for this?

MB:Do you tell it from a quilting perspective or do you tell it from a personal? So, we'll go for the personal. So, after we'd been living here -- let me think. We came in December of 1987, '88, '89, '90, and six -- so, nine years. So, seven 61:00years after we'd been living here, we -- being my family, my sister, and her one daughter -- we invited my mother, who was still living in Johannesburg, to come and live with us. We felt that since she had three out of her four children in Israel, this is where she should be. And she was very thrilled about that. And she came to live with Larry and I and our three children. And it was great. She contributed to our household, and that helped us a lot. And my mother, also from day one -- although she'd been to visit us quite a number of time-- since we'd left South Africa, she loved Israel. (laughs) Comes back to the Yiddish. My mother used to get on the buses, and straightaway, 'cause she didn't speak Hebrew yet, she would find somebody to speak to in Yiddish. Very often, it was 62:00the bus driver, and that's why she never had any problem. She spoke to them in Yiddish. But she always found somebody who spoke Yiddish on the bus, and that -- and she was always happy traveling, from somebody who I don't believe had ever taken a bus until she came to Israel. She looked forward to all her bus journeys, and -- because she would be speaking Yiddish on the bus. Anyway, my mom was with us for two very happy years. And one day, they went off to Dizengoff Center. It was erev [eve of] Purim, which is the Jewish festival of Purim, and it was the fourth of March, 1996. My mother and sister went into the heart of Tel Aviv, a place called Dizengoff Center, and they went to see -- my 63:00sister's daughter was trying on her wedding gown, and they were in Dizengoff Center. And after they had seen that, 'cause -- well, my niece went into the center, but my mother and sister came out of the center, and they crossed over a zebra crossing with a suicide bomber, who blew himself up right next to them. And, unfortunately, they were killed there. And it so happens that I was working quite near there, and I heard the blast. I didn't know at that stage that my mom and sister were there. And I quickly rushed home, because I knew that there would be a lot of traffic jams if there was a blast nearby. There had been several that same week. And I came home very quickly. I walked to get a bus, and I got home. Within minutes -- it was just when cell phones were coming into -- 64:00that most people were -- no, not most. A lot of people had cell phones, and I had calls from my husband and a couple of other people, asking, Was I okay? Because they knew I worked near Dizengoff Center. Anyway, I made my way home, and that was at exactly -- the blast was about three minutes past four o'clock. By ten past four, I had left. It took me a long time to get home. Anyway, by six o'clock in the evening, I realized that neither my mother or my sister had phoned to see if I was okay, which normally they would have done. And I started asking questions, Where were they? And my sister's husband phoned and said, 65:00well, he was supposed to meet my sister at the synagogue for Purim prayers. And she hadn't turned up. And this started a very long process of trying to establish where they were, and contacting my niece, the one who was getting married, and finding out what had happened, when they left Dizengoff Center. And a very tragic story that ended soon after midnight, when my husband and my brother-in-law went in to identify their bodies. And, yeah, it was a terrible time for us. And anyway, nine years after that came this quilt project. All the 66:00years after that -- thirteen people were killed at Dizengoff Center. My mom and sister and two -- eleven other victims were killed alongside them. And we had memorial services at the place where they were killed. And there is what's called an "andartah [Hebrew: monument]." I can't think of the translation of that -- not a statue. A memorial -- that stands on the corner of King George and Dizengoff Street. We had services there every year, and I'd just started quilting, and I'd never made a quilt about people. I'm a traditional quilter, and I made traditional patterns, blocks. I'd never known even that you could tell a story in pictures and then put those pictures into fabric. And I met some 67:00very special people in my quilting group, and I said that I wanted to make a project about all the victims that were killed alongside my mom and sister. And they helped me to put this project together. And it was a way for me to finally really get to know the victims themselves and their families, as I went with all of the quilters on the interviews so that we could make these quilts. And we made thirteen individual quilts. I joined them all together, because I felt that they were, most of them, strangers to one another, but that they were all attached to one another. So, I connect to them all in the quilt. And I started giving lectures about the quilt, and introducing the world to real victims of 68:00terror who weren't just statistics. I got a terrible hang-up after Dizengoff that my mom and sister were just numbers. They were just number so-and-so was a terrorist victim, and number so-and-so. And I wanted them to be real people. And the first time the quilt was given out was at the ninth year. And it was very, very meaningful. And I took that quilt to Australia, to England, to South Africa, and I gave about sixty lectures here in Israel about it. And I do know that anybody who has ever seen that quilt will never, ever forget seeing it. I 69:00know they will know my mother and sister's names, which were Sylvia Bernstein and Gail Belkin. And they will never be forgotten. So, the quilt was very, very meaningful to me. And it helped heal me from the tragedy. In the lectures that I give about the quilt, I've always spoken positively about Israel. The tragedy never caused me to hate anybody. I never hated Arabs. I don't hate Arabs. I love Israel. I'm not afraid in Israel. I've never made my children feel afraid in Israel. I never restricted their movements. I've never restricted my movements. I went on buses straight away, the week after. It didn't do that to me. It made 70:00me feel that my family became real soldiers for Israel, that the incident was one of fate. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I must say, I do measure time in my life as before Dizengoff and after Dizengoff. It is definitely a milestone in my life, and I do measure things from that time. Everything is so many years since Dizengoff, or it was so many years before Dizengoff. But as a family, we heal together. We were always able to talk about it. None of us bear any hatred to anyone about it. Yeah, we got on with life, and yes, we worked through it. And, yeah, that's what happened. So, with all of 71:00it, we love Israel. We're very passionate about Israel. I want to be here. I love the people who come here. I love it that people like you come here and feel very fulfilled here, even though they might not have direct family or direct connections to Israel. But there is something very special about this place that makes you feel so passionate. Yeah, it's good.

AIS:It's very difficult to get from this story to the other topic. I would like to go to Yiddish, straight to Yiddish. From your perspective, what is the place of Yiddish today in Israel?

MB:I don't know. I don't know. I just don't think I'm amongst people who really -- who want Yiddish to be a part of their lives. At the same time, I have a girlfriend whose sons are involved in Yiddish theater, and they're my children's age. I do still know people who speak Yiddish, and professionally, I'm a brain aerobics therapist. I work with people who have dementia. But one of the ladies I worked with for about three years -- so, she was low-grade dementia when I first started working with her. And she came from a very, very Yiddish place. 73:00And she used to speak some Yiddish to me. And there were lots of dictionaries, and Yiddish dictionaries in her home. And I used to sit, and especially as she started getting worse and couldn't do too many of the exercises that I wanted to do with her, I read her the definitions of these Yiddish words, and she used to laugh at them. And we both agreed that there was no language like it for being so expressive. But in that dictionary, they had one side -- I wish I could remember what it's called -- one side was in Yiddish, the joke, and then the other side would be the translation into English. And she would read me it in Yiddish, and I would read the translation in English. But even if you don't understand Yiddish, it gives you such a warm feeling of -- I don't know, it 74:00gives me a warm feeling of where I came from, where my mother was from, what Yiddishkayt she had in her home, how life might have been in Lithuania for her. I still often imagine it. But you're asking me or your question was, Do I feel that there's a place for Yiddish in Israel? I would have to answer it -- yes. I don't think a big place, but it is nice to know that they are offering Yiddish studies at universities here. And I do believe that they are supported. I don't know if they're as well-supported as maybe they hoped. I don't know that, 'cause I'm simply not involved. But the opportunities are still here to get back to Yiddish, and to get back to Jewish roots, and this wonderful expressive 75:00language. I reckon going to a Yiddish play or something like that must be absolutely fantastic. I really do. It must be incredible to hear poetry or plays that were written in Yiddish, being performed in Yiddish. But I can't say that I've ever done that. I haven't. I haven't.

AIS:Well, maybe you can still do it, right? (laughs)

MB:Yeah, there's still time.

AIS:Yes.

MB:There's still time.

AIS:And fortunately, from Kfar Saba to Tel Aviv, distance is not so --

MB:No, you're absolutely right.

AIS:-- not so long. So, because of that, I would like to ask you -- do you think that the elements of culture in which we are surrounded by play a role in the transmission of culture to us? Or you can alienate yourself from it? Like in 76:00Israel, you're surrounded by so many different aspects of Israeli culture.

MB:Yes.

AIS:So Yiddish is just one of them.

MB:I would say so, yes.

AIS:Yes. And do you think that, through the fact that you are here, you can get some Yiddish? Or not?

MB:Yes. No, I certainly think that if I wanted to, I would be able to find it very quickly. I don't doubt that at all. No, I'm absolutely certain that it is available. And, yes, I think that if I wanted to find something, it would be no problem to find it here in Israel.

AIS:Right, and in other places in the world -- like, for example, South Africa -- would it be easily accessible or not?

MB:As I say, I don't know today. I would think that it still is. I would think so, but I know when my mom was living there, as I said, she definitely went to 77:00Yiddish theater. She went to lectures in Yiddish. Ah, I know something that Larry and I have done here. It also made me think -- Fradle, who wrote the book I told you about earlier called "Passionate Pioneers," they have a Yiddish group going. And they have monthly or bi-monthly sing-songs, all in Yiddish. And somebody sets the program for all the Yiddish songs, and they have song sheets. And they sing these gorgeous Yiddish songs. You see, I'd forgotten about that. I'm so happy you asked me these things, because Larry and I went and we had a lovely evening listening to all these lovely Yiddish songs. And I think we even went a second time. But that is ongoing. They do have Yiddish songs. That's definite.

AIS:Here? In Israel?

MB:Yes, here in Israel.

AIS:Where?

MB:Well, I could phone Fradle. (laughter) I'd put you in touch with her, 'cause she'd definitely one of the players. But they have them regularly. So, remind me. I will give you her phone number.

AIS:Okay, with pleasure.

MB:Hmm?

M:The Gesher Theater.

MB:I'm not familiar with it. My husband's just mentioning to me about the Gesher Theater. But I'm afraid I'm not familiar with it, because I've never looked out for it. But I guess that Yiddish plays are performed there.

AIS:Okay. Well, everyone has different approach to Yiddish, and yours is very individual.

MB:Yes.

AIS:We are nearing -- to the end of our time. But I would like to ask you, first of all, if there is anything -- what you would like to say, and I didn't ask you about? Can you think about something, what you would like to share with us?

MB:I can't think of anything significant that I've left out. Just, as I said, I know that you're coming from a platform about supporting the Yiddish Center and saving Yiddish books, and I just know that within me, this makes me feel very good. So, though I don't feel I'm playing a big part in it, I love to think that this is being saved. And I hope you carry on doing it. And I would definitely like to read more about it, and now try and make it my plan to fulfill that I'm 80:00going to go to some Yiddish theater, whether I understand it or I don't. But I don't think that there's anything else, except that Israel makes me feel very fulfilled. I hope my children will continue to live in Israel. I have three children, I didn't mention that. I certainly don't want to get into politics, but I have to say that my family is somewhat disillusioned with politics at the moment, and we only hope that things do get better here. But it is what it is, and I love it that you can have two people talking about something, but they have got sixteen opinions on what they're talking about, so -- and they'll never 81:00agree. It's a good place to be. And I have wonderful friends, both English and Hebrew-speaking.

AIS:Certainly. Okay, so I have two last questions from me. And the first question is -- do you have any favorite Yiddish word, phrase, or maybe song?

MB:I remember a song that my mom used to sing to me about -- was it "Papirosn [Cigarettes]," about a young girl who used to sell cigarettes on a corner somewhere. And I loved that song. No, I just think some of the little expressions -- and I'm very getting blank about them, but I think -- no, Yiddish 82:00has just got a lot of expression in it, and -- but I just can't think of anything specifically that I could pass on to you. But it's a lovely language, and you must keep doing things like this.

AIS:Thank you. And the last question is what advice do you have for the future generations?

MB:What advice? (laughs) Not quite sure how to answer that one, because my advice is simply to be true to yourself, be kind to others, never expect anything in return. Do things because they make you feel good. Yeah, just the 83:00truth. I think just being truthful. Truthful to others, but mostly being truthful to yourself. Yeah, that's good enough for me.

AIS:Thank you very much for sharing your story with me.

MB:It was great. I enjoyed doing it. Thank you so much.

[END OF INTERVIEW]