THELMA OLDAK FINKLER ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney, and today is October 28th, 2015. I am here with Thelma Oldak Finkler. And where are we, actually? In --

THELMA OLDAK FINKLER: Mexico City.

CW:-- Mexico City, más o menos [more or less].

TOF:Don't get into trouble! (laughter)

CW:And we're going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Do I have your permission to record?

TOF:Yes, you do.

CW:Thank you. So, to start, can you tell me what you know about your family background before Mexico?

TOF:Okay. My father's family came from Poland. The only thing we really know about my great-grandfather is that he was a baker, and that people knew him all 1:00around the town because he was a very kind man. But he had twelve sons, and my grandfather was one of them. He was an adventurer and decided to come to America. And he got stopped at the border. There were no crossings to the States, so he began in Veracruz, then left for Puebla, where he worked with a donkey, taking his merchandise and selling it in small payments. And he had to save for five years until he was able to bring my grandmother with him. And then, they came to Mexico City, and --

CW:So, they were already married before? Or --

TOF:They got married, and a week later, he came to America. He left her, and sent for her five years later. My oldest uncle was born in Tehuacán, Puebla, 2:00and my father was the second one -- he was already born in Mexico City. But even their names and their birth certificates -- they were all in Yiddish, not in Spanish. And the clerk couldn't tell the difference. So, my oldest uncle was -- his name is Shin [S.] Mordkhe. He was named in Spanish as Sesaya Mortacha. My father was Chaim Shloyme and he was named Chaim Chaloma. And (laughs) the youngest was Feivel, and he was written as Feyvel. So, they had to make a whole court session and change their names later on, because my father was always Chaim Oldak, never Chaim Chaloma. (laughter) And, on my mother's side, they came 3:00from Russia. And they both arrived separately when they both were very young. Three and five years old. And they were raised here. Half their family left for the States, did make it to the States, and the other half stayed here. It's a very small family -- in both sides. But they were raised here. They began in Guadalajara, and then came to Mexico City, and we were all raised here.

CW:Do you know anything about your great -- Wyszków, your great-grandfather's town?

TOF:Yes. A few years back -- it's in Poland. It's a very small town, and a few years back, some researchers began completing a book -- what they call a Yizkor book on Wyszków, and they started compiling whatever material they got from the 4:00people that lived there from what they called -- not the famous people, but the "known" people. And that's where we found the paragraph talking about my great-grandfather. That's how -- we assume that maybe our last name has been misspelled all these years, because they spell it differently. And we haven't been able to find anyone -- it's only the Oldaks that live in Mexico who's family. We never found the Baltistov brothers. Whatever we -- the only information we have is one paragraph that says he owned the bakery and that he never began Shabbat without giving to the poor, and that the whole town loved him. That's it.

CW:(laughs) And how did they spell the name differently? They --

TOF:At the Wyszków book, they spell it with a hey, Holdak. And my brother has 5:00been to the March of the Living a couple of times, and we have been guessing that maybe it's with a giml at the end, not with a kuf. So, we might be wrong. But Poland had great registries, great logs, and we did find it as Oldak, through the Jewish name, because it -- David Leib, and crossing names, we always -- all of us have spelled it O-L-D-A-K. But maybe we are wrong. We cannot know.

CW:Right. And did your grandfather talk about his childhood here in Mexico?

TOF:My Finkler grandfather, yes. He was always full of stories. I'm the only one who remembers him. And he was a very tall guy. He resembled more like a Russian 6:00soldier than a Jewish guy. (laughs) And my Oldak grandfather, when my father got married, was unsure that he was really a Jew. He used to tell my father -- he used to question him, "Are they really Jewish? They don't look like Jewish" -- (laughs) and my father told him, "Okay, if they are not, my future bride is a Yiddish teacher. She's been teaching us a little [UNCLEAR] -- studying to become one. She must be." And my grandfather, he was afraid of two things in life: redhead people and gypsies. And of course, he -- my brother was -- when he was being raised, he was always in the sun. So, he was very dark. He was very tanned. And one of my cousins is a redhead. So, my grandfather said, "What did I 7:00do wrong?" (laughs) But as a whole, what they told me is that my grandfather didn't remember much, but in Russia, they were very poor. And he didn't like to talk about it, because they were afraid that something would happen, and they didn't want us to have the wrong ideas. I remember, when he passed away, we were looking for his tallit. And my brother climbed the stair where he -- the place where he always kept his tallit. And we found this very old bag, a very small bag with a Magen David on it. But very, very strange for us. We opened it and we found out it was a very old tallit. It had belonged to my great-grandfather. He gave it to him when he left the Old Country. And as much as we tried, as much as 8:00we have searched, and as much as we have looked everywhere, we haven't been able to find nothing about the family.

CW:The Finkler side.

TOF:Both. Both. Even though the Finkler side came from Russia and half of the family is in America, they didn't keep as many records then. My grandmother -- I mean, my great-grandmother was really Russian. She prepared the borscht, and she always drank brewing coffee, with the smoke. And whatever she prepared -- my grandmother kept, for example, for Yom Kippur, after the fast, she always prepared kreplach [meat-filled dumpling], and I have the board and the rolling pin that comes from Russia, from my great-grandmother. We have been passing that 9:00along. And from Poland, we really don't know anything, except for the bits and pieces my grandfather told us, from time to time. But he didn't want to -- it's like he kept it in a stash. He was always very sad, because he didn't know anything about his family.

CW:Can you tell me a little bit about the food that you grew up with?

TOF:The food?

CW:Yeah.

TOF:Well, it was always a fight at home between the Polish and the Russians. So, my mother prepared borscht. She used to serve it to one side of the table with potatoes and cucumbers for the Polish, and on the other side with sour cream for the Russians. And we always made fun of her, and then started cooking in the 10:00Mexican way. So, now we are all mixed up. And, for example, in Pesach, we make -- we at home call them matzah-quiles. It's Mexican chilaquiles, made with matzah and hot sauce and everything. But it was always a mixture, and fighting between the Polish and the Russians. Some like it sweet, some like it sour. And it was always -- not so much a fight, but they were combining -- a combination of both kitchens.

CW:Where in the city did you grow up?

TOF:In Mexico City, in la Colonia del Valle, where the school was located. But then, my parents -- when they got married, they went to Polanco, as most of the Jewish community -- and then, we went to the new area, the state of Mexico, in 11:00the metropolitan area. Also, a very popular street. Well, it was like a neighborhood divided by a big avenue. And on one side, on my street, we lived most of the Jews from that side. And on the other side, there was one street where most of them lived.

CW:Which street?

TOF:My side was Francisco Alonso Pinzón from the Christopher Columbus times, all the streets were named like that. And I remember the school bus stopped five or six times -- in my street alone. (laughter) Because we all lived there.

CW:Can you describe the neighborhood a little bit more?

TOF:Yeah. It was like living outside -- well, it was living outside the city, and it was like a small town. We were all raised together, and we had -- at some 12:00point, they made a park on each block. So, we spent all of our afternoons together at the park, playing with the bicycles. There was no insecurity, there was nothing, and we all grew together. We went to the school and then came back to make homework and stuff. And the other day, we were remembering that even sometimes when we were already teenagers, we used to go from one house to the other through the roofs. (laughs)

CW:Were there Jewish stores or restaurants or anything in that --

TOF:In that neighborhood, not precisely. They all came to Polanco to buy everything. Even when my mother moved around here, she always went to Polanco for everything, until the stores began moving here or to the Condesa, to the old 13:00neighborhood. Everything was bought there and made there. We always made fun of them, because when I was very little, they were robbed in the house and they took away the ketubah [marriage contract]. So, we always joked about my father and my mother not being married, because the rabbi had died. They didn't have any pictures. And the ketubah was missing. So, when both me and my sister and my brother got married, there was no ketubah for my parents. So, we had to trust them. (laughs)

CW:Yeah, and what type of building did you grow up in? What did it look like?

TOF:It was a small house, four bedrooms. And we had a small garden outside, so -- and my mother loved -- for her, traditional was first. So, Shabbos was Shabbos, and my brother's bar mitzvah was an event, and it was always in the 14:00house. I remember my mother, when my brother was born, his bris was made at home. Everything was at home and at the garden.

CW:And you had your grandparents around, or some of them?

TOF:Yes, always. My Oldak grandparents died when I was very young. I don't know my sister remembers them. I do. And my grandmother, she's still alive. She's almost ninety-four years old.

CW:Biz hundert un tsvantsik [May you live to 120].

TOF:A dank [Thanks]. And she's going to be ninety-four next week. And she's still with us, thank God. She has suffered a lot, because her children are not here anymore. But whatever she has lived, she tells you stories from the Old Country and from when she was little, and it was like another world.

CW:Do you remember any of the stories you could share?

TOF:She remembers that her mother didn't like speaking Yiddish because they were afraid. So, they began speaking Russian until she understood that no one understood her, not even her children. So, they started talking to her in Yiddish. But whenever she was angry, then she spoke Russian. When she got really angry, then she spoke Russian. And who understood her? No one. (laughs) So they were always telling her, Speak Spanish! We all speak Spanish now! "No, I will speak Russian, because I was born in Russia." But, no, she was really angry. But then, they started speaking Spanish, and -- but Yiddish always remained with us -- my mother being lererke [teacher] and my father coming, his family, from 16:00Poland -- they never told us things in Hebrew. It was Shabbos and Hanukkah and everything in Yiddish.

CW:And was that the main language that you heard growing up?

TOF:Spanish.

CW:Yeah.

TOF:Spanish.

CW:Did some people in your family speak Yiddish to each other?

TOF:My grandfather, my Oldak grandfather, spoke Yiddish to us until he got very sick. Then, he began only speaking Polish. We never even knew. He spoke so much -- obviously, he spoke Polish -- he came from Poland. But after thirty years of not speaking it, only when he became very sick he began speaking Polish. But with him, it was always in Yiddish. Always. And his children and -- they all understood Yiddish, and then they started speaking Spanish. But always, in my 17:00house, we never missed a holiday. We never -- until this day, we never miss a holiday, we never miss nothing. It's tradition before anything. Even my father that was supposed to be very modern and whatever, when I got married, he was checking my dress and, "Don't show the shoulders" and don't show this and don't show -- because it was all -- we had to go to shul. When I decided to get married, I didn't know -- no, he made me get married inside a shul, because it was proper. That's also my grandmother. Everything has to be proper.

CW:Did you go to shul growing up?

TOF:Yes, of course. We grew up in the Orthodox synagogue, in Acapulco setenta, and then, my father decided he wanted to be with his family, together, when he 18:00had to say kaddish and that. And we moved to Bet El, to be together. With us, my grandmother on my mother's side always worked for the community. She was always a volunteer with the Jewish women and the Jewish council, and she was named honorary treasurer at Bet El. She worked thirty years there, with the Sisterhood. And we were always involved with the synagogue, one way or the other. Me growing up in the Jewish -- in the youth committee, and we made -- at some point, we had a Hebrew program. We transmitted in one of the, then, most important stations, rock stations. We broadcasted a program with Hebrew rock. It 19:00was a lot of fun. And always at synagogue. Always. Even the, excuse me --

CW:No.

TOF:-- I grew up in the Scouts, in the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. We have our Jewish Boy Scouts until this day.

CW:Were there any special traditions in your family for the yontoyvim, for the holidays?

TOF:Food. Yom Kippur, my mother never let us leave the house without having honig lekhekh [honey spongecake] after eating, and then watermelon, because it keeps water. And so, you would not be as thirsty later on. But my grandmother never came, because she said she didn't need any food. She only ate chicken, but made in -- almost only cooked in a pot, and that was it. She didn't like coming, 20:00but my mother never left a holiday without a meal. We never sat down -- my uncle said -- and until this day, my family knows it, we never sit down at a holiday, at the yontoyvim, without a carrot cake that my mother made. It's a carrot kugel, actually. And she invented it. There's no holiday without carrot cake.

CW:What is it like?

TOF:If I tell you -- it's made out of carrot, sugar, and we adapt it for Pesach and adapt it for -- rice flour. It's very sweet, but it was ideal for Rosh Hashanah, ideal for Pesach, (laughs) ideal for everything. So, you mix it -- you serve it with the meat, not as dessert. It's a kugel. Then, she started trying 21:00lokshn [noodles] and potato kugel and whatever. But we had to bring back the carrot kugel. And until this day, the only one who cooks it is me.

CW:What was your favorite holiday as a kid?

TOF:Pesach. Pesach, because my mother used to cook everything herself. And we always sat down at the table all together. It was like a festive meal -- be eight days. And she taught me how to prepare everything with matzo. I make tacos, tortillas, everything during the holiday, and until this day, I don't keep kosher. But Pesach is Pesach. I change everything, and I take out all the chametz, and I clean and -- Pesach. And my son knows it and loves it. He waits 22:00for Pesach. And, "Mama, what are you going to give me now? What are you going to cook?" I spend the week in the kitchen, like my mother did.

CW:Did they do the Haggadah in Yiddish or Hebrew?

TOF:We sang in Hebrew -- in Yiddish, because the hagode, they didn't have it in Yiddish. But all the songs -- as we practiced them in school, we sang them at the table. Always in Yiddish. Never in Hebrew. My father was a great admirer of "Tevye der milkhiker [Tevye the Dairyman]." And he used to have an old record of the play in New York in Yiddish. And whenever he was depressed, he used to listen to it. It was his favorite play, book, and whatever you can -- and I remember, we read it in high school. And he was proud as a peacock, because, My 23:00daughter is learning it and she's now -- again with the traditions. He was always the man of the tradition.

CW:Do you remember other -- sort of activities around Yiddish in your home? Music or, I know, reading --

TOF:Yes, my mother used to read us stories in Yiddish, or she would sit down and make the homework with us. And being a teacher, being a lererke [Yiddish teacher] at the school, she had the material with her always. So, it was very easy for us to make homework or to get the stories explained, because it was normal for her to be speaking in Yiddish. So, she sat down with us and taught us, and she used to tell us to -- she used to help us read in Yiddish. Until this day, we have a recipe for my Oldak great-grandmother for the strudel that 24:00no one has been able to make, because it's "a bisele fun dos, a bisele fun yents [a bit of this, a bit of that]." We have never been able to calculate it.

CW:When you think back, are there any phrases that, in Yiddish, that you remember hearing a lot in the house?

TOF:We never went to bed without the "a gute nakht [good night]." "Shlof gezunt [Sleep well]," that was a must. And when you sneezed, it's "tsum gezunt, tsum lebn, tsu lange yorn [to your health, to your life, to long years]," the whole legend. And "es past nisht [it's not acceptable]." I use a lot of Yiddish in my daily expressions. You will never catch me saying that my son is going to have bar mitzvah. No, he's going to have a bar-mitsve. So, was in Yiddish, and he knows it from it's not Hanukkah, it's khanuke.

CW:Can you describe your mom?

TOF:She was a teacher in the flesh. She was born to teach. It was a natural talent of her, and she enjoyed it. It was her life. For her to teach was, she told me once, like having a baby, like making someone understand what her roots were and her story was more than teaching them facts. It was like, "Okay, all the traditions and all the stories and everything goes back to Yiddish. Hebrew's in the books. Let's speak Yiddish, because someday, someone will not know how to speak Yiddish." And she was so sad and so angry when the school took the Yiddish away that she started speaking Yiddish to my son. She was always teaching. 26:00Always. For her, the worst time of her life was when she retired after forty years of teaching. And she was always looking for new material and translating songs. And I remember her translating for Purim Walt Disney songs, and for the parades and all --

CW:Into Yiddish?

TOF:Hmm?

CW:Into Yiddish?

TOF:Into Yiddish, or into Spanish. No, but most of them into Yiddish, because they were in Hebrew, like children's songs. They came in Hebrew. She translated them into Yiddish, and a lot of them are still being used today, or in old records. They're there. And it's not the Morah [Hebrew: teacher] Corey, it's the Lererke [Yiddish: teacher] Corey. And so are all the lererkes in the school.

CW:And this was the Yidishe Colegio Israelita de Mexico, right?

TOF:Yeah.

CW:Can you describe the school? What was it like to go through that school?

TOF:Well, it was also a way of living, because it's the school that my parents 27:00went to. They studied there and they went to that school, also. And all of my family, and then their children. So, it was always integrated into us. It was not going to school. It was everyday life. My mother lived there practically, and it was like a part of the house. The lererkes [teachers] were like your aunts, and everyone was family. The only non-speaking Yiddish teachers were the Spanish teachers, and they were always in the crossing line. But Jewish life was always a part of us. We grew up Jewish, living Jewish, because it was never like a day school or a Sunday school or a -- we lived through it. I mean, elementary 28:00school, we had to -- we knew -- or high school, we knew that if we didn't pass the Yiddish or the Hebrew subjects, we wouldn't receive a certificate. So, it was not like just having fun in class. You had to learn. And in my times, I studied Yiddish since kindergarten until the last year of high school. And not one subject. We had traditions, and we had geshikhte [history] and we had many things and lived, let's say, the Hebrew part of the history -- the world part, to the Hebrew. We spoke more Yiddish than Hebrew at school.

Q;Did you feel any conflict between the Hebrew and Yiddish?

TOF:No, no, no. Not at all, because they're completely different, yes. Hebrew is stronger or harsher, in a way. And Yiddish, it was always soft and sweet. It was 29:00like a reminder of home. But then, I was in Israel for a year, so I had to speak Hebrew anyway. (laughs) Either way, you spoke Hebrew or Spanish, because no one spoke Yiddish there anymore, or only old people at the parks.

CW:How old were you when you went to Israel?

TOF:Eighteen. After finishing school, it was -- it's still a tradition to go there for a year. But in those times, we went to work at the kibbutz for a year. I spent ten months working in a kibbutz.

CW:What was your first impression?

TOF:I'm still in love with Israel, but it was strange. I remember, before going, people told me, If somebody screams at you, scream back. (laughs) Don't stand back, don't let them scream. If they scream, you scream. Treat them as they 30:00treat you, because it's not that they're being aggressive. It's the way of being, and the way that they describe the sabra and being aggressive in the outside and sweet in the inside, it is like that. And I was lucky enough, because being a part of the Jewish Scouts, my group went representing the school and the Scouts. And the sheliach [counselor sent from Israel] was there. He was like my stepfather for those years. And we knew we were going to work, and we did, and we had lots of fun.

CW:What did you do?

TOF:I worked with babies and at the laundry. Ask me if I know how to iron until this day, and I can iron with closed eyes (laughs) after being at the laundry for -- I mean, you had to iron fifty shirts a day, and it was a little -- 31:00(laughs) because I didn't like the country so much. But we had bananas and avocado, and it's a small kibbutz, but we had lots of fun.

CW:So, once you -- oh, but back to the school. I know there were different schools when you were growing up. Can you just describe what they were and what the differences were between the different Jewish schools?

TOF:Some of them -- in Mexico, we are divided, as you probably know, from where we come from. The people who come from Arab or Sephardic countries have their own schools, and the Ashkenazim, we had our own schools. The only difference, for example, with the Tarbut, it was, who were -- it was the other big school in the community is that they didn't speak Yiddish there. It was only Hebrew. And 32:00we were, like, No, no, we speak both Yiddish and Hebrew. So, it was always like fighting. And the religious school, the Yavne, and then the small one, which was Naye, which is now -- it disappeared a few years back. But they were always considered the Jewish schools. And all of my friends and all of my relatives and -- it was either in one school or in the other. But it was very different. The celebrations were very different. In the Arab schools, for the Jewish holidays, they made some things that we didn't know, and -- because we were isolated then. It was more like a Jewish way of -- the Ashkenazi way of life. And now it's more combined.

CW:Can you give an example of what would [UNCLEAR] --

TOF:For example, I remember when my sister -- we started dating. She used to date only Sephardi. My father told her once, "Do me a favor. Once. Date an Ashkenazi. Once, just for you to know what it is, what it feels like!" Because in those times, they called a marriage between an Ashkenazi and a Sephardi a mixed marriage, which we know it's not. But they did. And for my father, it was very important for us to be with Ashkenazi men, and not -- my sister or I married an Ashkenaz, so he was kind of sad at the beginning, but then he adapted. (laughs) But it was always different, because the people from the Arab community cook different, spoke different, and prepared everything different. And we, in the Ashkenazi community, it was all the same stores, the same 34:00neighborhood, the same shul. And, okay, maybe we moved from the Kehila to Bet El, but it was always in the same -- we went from one shul to the other during the holidays.

CW:What was the relationship between the Alte and the Naye?

TOF:The schools?

CW:Yeah.

TOF:Okay, from what my mother told me, my parents told me, at the beginning, they wanted to separate them, and it was a group of, let's say, teachers that didn't agree with what was happening in the old school, and they founded their own school. But, for example, they never changed the anthem. The school's anthem was always the same. So, it was difficult to distinguish between them. Then, they went different ways. But in the legal sense or in the educational sense, 35:00because one was with the national university, the other was not. The only real difference for me was the size. The Naye was always a very, very, very small school. Everybody knew each other. Everybody was friends with each other, and they were like a real family. We all knew each other in the old school, yes, and we inherited the teachers and even the classrooms, because my father studied at the same building that I did. But it was much bigger. I mean, we were five hundred at school, and at the Naye, there were a hundred, so -- or two hundred, so there was no way to compare the feeling between the big ceremonies and the 36:00big everything from the Yidishe and from the Naye [I.L. Peretz School]. But after all, they were both the same. They created their own materials, because they wanted to separate. But at the end, they got together again.

CW:For you, growing up, was politics a part of your upbringing?

TOF:No. No, never. It was Jewish life before anything else. I didn't really know there was a world until I went to university. And that happened to most of the Jewish people, because we grew up in our Jewish neighborhood and life, and then we stepped over to grown-up life and faced that we had a world. There was no internet. There was no communications like such, like we know them today. And then, you'd have to sit down and face the fact that you were sitting down at a 37:00classroom with a whole bunch of people that had all kinds of religions, not just Catholic. I remember when I was studying and I majored in communications. I had a philosophy teacher once. He was strange, but he began talking about the time of the virgin de guade-- the Virgin Mary and everything. And there's a lot of stories and myths around it. And he was mocking it. He was more into, Religion is not a part of it. And somebody, some of my classmates, said, Can you please try to keep your tone down? Because we are believers, and we do believe in those events. And he laughed at them. And guess who fought him. The only Jewish girl 38:00in the room had to say something about it, and I had a fight, a big fight, with the teacher because he didn't have a right to make fun of or bully -- in our times, it will be bullying -- anyone because of their religious beliefs. But we were educated to defend it. And the rest of the world just lived it. We had to learn how to defend ourselves, being Jewish, and being segregated in some way. As soon as you came into university, you located all the Jewish people there, and you know who they were. Even, for example, when the big earthquakes in Mexico -- I remember the whole university got together and we organized many 39:00things and many ways to work. And there were many industrial people who helped and sent trucks and whatever. And a very big group of Jewish students got together, and we went our separate ways to help at the Red Cross and everything. But it was all the Jewish bunch, because we had different values. Me, being my grandmother's granddaughter, I know about volunteering and about charity and about all that. And so, we knew what to do. They didn't have as much idea -- as a big idea, no. But it was fun to combine them.

CW:Looking back, what were the values that your parents, grandparents were trying to pass on to you?

TOF:Tradition, number one. If you forget where you came from, you cannot teach 40:00it. And my mother, may she rest in peace, she always said that the house, the home, is where tradition lives. And even if at school we are not speaking Yiddish or learning Yiddish anymore, everything has to come from your home, because it's like a burning stove. So, she showed us the way to live through it, not with it. Through it, because all the vocabulary, all the traditions, everything is still here amongst the three of us. I mean, it's two sisters and one brother, and we all live more or less the same way. And so, she did a quite good job, I would say. Both of them.

CW:And so, what happened in terms of your connection to Yiddish after you, say, 41:00went to university?

TOF:After I went to university, I became -- well, I started translating twenty years ago, but mainly from English. And my Yiddish connection was left at school, but not left at school because at work, I worked for the rabbi and the cantor at some point, at the hazan [(synagogue) cantor], and he speaks Yiddish, a lot. So, he began talking to me in Yiddish, because he said, "You have to practice again." So, I began talking and speaking and hearing Yiddish again.

CW:This is Lebelah?

TOF:Lebelah.

CW:[UNCLEAR]

TOF:And my mother was the proudest mother, because she's speaking Yiddish again. So, we began speaking Yiddish again at home. And then, I started reading stories and things, and doing research on the internet and finding there's a lot of resources in Yiddish, and Jewish resources. And I started becoming passionate 42:00with the difference in the Yiddish terms, because Yiddish is nurtured a lot from the places where it lives. Like here in Mexico, we have a very Mexican Yiddish. And in New York, they have a very American Yiddish, but it's also very -- their own Yiddish. They have their own expressions and their own way. And it was interesting to see the contrast between them.

CW:Can you give an example?

TOF:Yeah. For example, it also happens at some point with Hebrew, but Hebrew does have the words like tikshoret [communication] in Hebrew, which is comunicación in Spanish. They also say komunikatsye [Yiddish: communication]. And now, in Yiddish, we say -- for copy, we have kopirn, and some people say ibershraybn. And it depends -- where do you come from, how you use it. I mean, 43:00me being Mexican, if I read a Yiddish translation, I am more able now to detect where it comes from, given the expressions they are using. And it was a challenge when I was asked to translate in Yiddish, because I didn't consider myself strong enough to be a Yiddish translator as such. But it has been exciting to know that whatever I'm doing for Yiddish is helping people to get a clear sentence in Yiddish when you go to Google Translate. At least I know that the legal agents, which is what we are translating at this point, are okay. It was a surprise, an interesting surprise, to be asked to translate all the New 44:00York City emergency regulations or advisories. They're all translated into many languages. And, for the first time, Yiddish was one of them. And I was honored to do it. So, it's like giving back, and somebody's caring for the Yiddish again. So, I was so shocked at the beginning to find words that didn't exist. Web place and website and -- they don't exist in Yiddish. So, I had to call one of my teachers and ask her for her permission to invent the words at some point. Now, I know what to do more or less, but the first time that I wrote vebplats [website] it was like, I just invented a word in Yiddish. (laughs) And it's great to know that you're helping something -- I mean, you're leaving something for the world, and Yiddish is not dead. It is much alive, very much alive, and I 45:00can start reading again.

CW:What do you like to read?

TOF:I like all kinds of books. I read novels, I read a lot. Reading was in our family, almost for everyone. But now, I can go back to the old stories in Yiddish. At the beginning, when we found my great-grandfather's story, I had to resort to my mom and help me translate some words. Now I can read it, the whole Yizkor book, and do it myself, again.

CW:Can you explain what you see as sort of the Yiddish online -- what is the world of Yiddish on the internet?

TOF:Okay, that's an interesting question. I feel that we can do so much. But now, it's like an awakening of things, because, for example, in the last few 46:00weeks, we have been translating people asking for volunteer -- if they speak Arabic. I know no one who speaks Yiddish who speak Arabic, but, okay. We're doing the efforts -- the world is doing for the refugees and for the people that are leaving their countries. But knowing that Yiddish is becoming so hip, it's like, Okay, now let's integrate with society. It's our way, and I feel that it's the moment where we can create and establish many things for the future if we want Yiddish to survive. It's the time to create websites and resources, because if you go -- have you checked the Yiddish dictionaries online? Sometimes you 47:00have to find or use three letters to find the word, and then you have to invent it -- and then you have to guess it. There's so much we can do. Scanning material, writing material -- but we need the teachers for them to tell us that we are doing it okay, because we can write anything, and misspelling it -- wrong, and nobody will tell us it's wrong. And that's why I feel we must have the work that is being done. We need translators, we need people who speak -- now, for example, I've been following a religious guy. He was former religious guy. He's now not -- and he wrote a book in English, but he has many Yiddish words. And, for the first time, he gave an interview in Yiddish, a few months back. So, I was following him. And then, when I was working, I just remember -- when I was teaching English, one of the founders of that school had some 48:00manuscripts in Yiddish that he didn't understand. They were making a book of his life and they had to call me to see if I could unscramble their mess and help them understand what they were talking -- because it was in Yiddish. And that's what's missing, because we don't have those stories anymore, and it's like becoming the old stories. I feel it's our turn to create things in Yiddish. It's now, when people want it, when people are willing to listen, and when people are eager to learn it again. And it's the time to be working in Yiddish.

CW:People talk a lot about the internet as a way to make connections that you wouldn't nec-- with people far away. How do you see that playing out with Yiddish?

TOF:Well, you can relate to me. I was hired by a translating agency located in 49:00Egypt to translate in Yiddish for Google. If that's not getting together and linking people, what is? And I think that the net does help you to do that, because there are no boundaries. And it's a world for everyone to do it, no? And it's a way of getting people together, yes. What we have to do or help create -- an interest, a real interest on the net for that. Because this project is extremely interesting, yes, but what happens with the kids? The little children -- my own son, he's age thirteen. He doesn't know Yiddish, except for a few 50:00words. He knows he's Ashkenazi, he knows his traditions. But Yiddish is not so much a part of his life as it was with me. That's where I feel that the internet can do that. It's the way to link generations nowadays.

CW:Do you have kind of a dream of what would exist that doesn't exist yet?

TOF:Many things. We don't have interactive sites and we don't have games, children's songs, again. Let's renew them. I mean, Hebrew has been continuing creating material and all the songs -- and I know a lot about that because of my mother, and there's a huge amount of songs and children's material in Hebrew. 51:00Let's help create it in Yiddish again. Okay, we might not have schools that are teaching it, but we -- these kind of projects. People are learning Yiddish again and are hearing about Yiddish. It's not a strange thing to hear about Yiddish. I mean, there's many people in America that don't know they know Yiddish, but they use Yiddish words. And why not use it to expand our boundaries? But I feel like, for example, the religious people who use it only in the ghettos and only -- no, they also have a lot to say. And they might live in a ghetto in a closed situation, but they have a school system and a schooling way of creating things and of inheriting -- I believe in inheritance, and in traditions. And I think 52:00that Yiddish is part of that.

CW:So, where do you -- sort of what does Yiddish represent or mean to you now?

TOF:Family, work, and values. When I learned what people had to say about my great-grandfather, I felt very proud. I mean, a hundred years later, and he's still remembered, because he was a nice guy. A nice Jewish guy. I will tell you this [UNCLEAR] that's the basics of it. I mean, being a good guy, a good person -- and that's what I feel I'm raising my son to become. Or my goal, no? And I would love for Yiddish to be a part of it. If we had the chance to teach them again, it would be wonderful. I mean, my mother had boxes full of materials -- 53:00education materials, created materials from the school, for the school, and what happened to all of that? Years and years of work that can still go on. And now, for me, it's a professional challenge, because I have been teaching myself to translate it. So, I went back to my roots.

CW:Do you have a method that you -- if you're starting to translate something, how do you approach it and go about it?

TOF:Believe it or not, I read it out loud. Sometimes, when I get mixed up, I really have to read it out loud to see if I'm doing it correct or if I'm making any sense. (laughs) And whenever I don't find a term, I do go and use -- I relate to the Mexican dictionary that we have, and I consult two or three 54:00dictionaries, and then make myself an idea, because of the localization terms and -- be here and there, and I'm trying to make it as neutral as possible for people, wherever they are. That's the idea of translating, for people wherever they are to consult a neutral language, not knowing that, oh, no, that was made in Mexico or in the States, or -- and in a professional, personal way, it's like living history, like doing something for the future.

CW:Do you think it'll have a big audience?

TOF:I hope so. I do hope so, because it's like, when you learn another language -- in Mexico, we speak English as a second language. Yiddish is not the same. 55:00Yiddish, in a lot of ways, it has to be lived. It has to be experimented -- that's why it's so Jewish, no? But there's a lot of people nowadays that are not Jewish and are learning it. And why? Because there is a lot of literature, there's a lot of stuff created in Yiddish that's worth exploring. Like, have you ever read "Tevye der milkhiker"? If you don't know how to read it, it's impossible because it's mixed with Russian and with English and -- but it's an adventure to read it in Yiddish. Not in Spanish and not in English. Okay, I've watched the movie since I remember, and I know the dialogues. But it's a whole new story if you read it from -- I've always thought that when you read a book, 56:00it's better to read it straight from the writer's heart, which -- when I was at university, I insisted that when we were reading English literature, I read it in English, not through a translator. Being one. But it's always -- you get the whole picture when coming from the real source. And that's what people are doing now. So, I think it's a great thing to bring them -- to hand them the materials they need. And with all the work that's being done, and the scanning and the -- we're putting them -- it's like handing them over to see what people do. And I do believe it's going to boom again.

CW:Are there any funny stories or interesting stories you could share from your 57:00work translating into Yiddish?

TOF:Well, you find out sometimes that you really, like I was saying a few minutes back -- the first time that I had to translate the buttons for Google and the copy, I sat down and I said, "No, I cannot do it." In Mexico, we say kopirn. It's the Yiddish word for copy, but for us, growing up children, it was like making fun of Yiddish. We always said borirn [Spanish for "erase," with Yiddish verb ending]. Everything we used the --irn [ending for verbs in Yiddish]. So, we make fun of it. When I found out it's kopirn, it's really kopirn, I said, "Oh my God, we weren't that wrong, no? What are we doing?" But I heard the word and I said, "No, no, I cannot put" -- I can't imagine, at a website, saying kopirn. No, there has to be a formal word. So, there I go, and 58:00ibershraybn and iber -- I found out twenty-five different ways of saying copy. So, I was like, Which one do I invent or which one do I take? But it's like creating, because after all, I am not a Jewish teacher, a Yiddish teacher. That was my mother. I'm English teacher, making it as a translator in Yiddish. But it's fun in the whole picture.

CW:What do you think your mom's reaction would be, if she knew this is what you were working on?

TOF:She would be the proudest, the proudest, after lecturing me for not doing it correctly. (laughs) She would be -- at the beginning, I thought she would recuperate and do it herself. I wanted to teach her. She didn't have enough time. She didn't live to see it, but she would be the proudest to know that 59:00somebody in her family is continuing living with Yiddish along the way. And she would be the first one in line to see what she can create.

CW:I'd like to end by asking if -- do you have an eytse [piece of advice]? Do you have advice for other Yiddish translators?

TOF:I think we should get together online. Using modern resources, it would be very helpful to get together and cross ideas and establish, maybe, guidelines. Or between us, make one dictionary or one -- a dictionary's being made, I know that, but helping it, creating guidelines for Yiddish translation or for Yiddish 60:00books, because we're -- sometimes, I feel we're all doing isolated efforts. And it would be worth -- to make one effort, or a big one. For example, the people are translating -- you mentioned the other day that you are training people to translate. I would love to be there, to take part, to learn, and to become part of it, not only for my Jewishness or whatever. Professionally, it's a whole challenge, and it would be the way to get all together. I mean, I feel that all these isolated efforts, it would be worth -- to finding a way to conjugate them instead of making them separate, no? And, well, there's a lot of forums, there's a lot of pages, and there's a lot of systems to create the joint effort, creating a glossary, creating translation tools that can help not only me -- the 61:00rest of the translators, because you guys are, I imagine, are getting a whole group of people together, a big group. We need those resources. They are not available. They don't exist in Yiddish. And I think it's the time to work on them.

CW:Sí [Yes]. (laughter)

TOF:Count me in! (laughs)

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

TOF:Nishto far vos [You're welcome].

CW:Thanks for taking the time to share this with me.

TOF:Yeah, for me, it's honoring my mother. Honoring my mother every day.

[END OF INTERVIEW]