ANITA GARLICK ORAL HISTORY

ISAAC MOORE: This is Isaac Moore and today is December 10, 2015. I am here in Brookline, Massachusetts with Anita Garlick and we're going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Anita, do I have your permission to record?

ANITA GARLICK:Absolutely, yes.

IM:Thank you. So, I'd like to begin by asking you what you know about your family background.

AG:Not as much as I would like to. I should've asked more questions. But I do know that my maternal grandparents, my bubbie [grandmother] and zeyde [grandfather], came from Lithuania. They didn't have enough money for a ticket for the whole family, so zeyde came first and left my grandmother with three 1:00young children. My mother was five and Sam was three and Dave was two. And they were -- till he saved up enough money, he worked in the garment industry in New York City, Lower East -- New York, and saved up enough money to bring her into the city. And then, after they lived in Manhattan for a while on the Lower East Side, they moved to Brownsville, which was a part of Brooklyn which is like -- it was a Jewish ghetto. It was entirely Jewish.

IM:Can you tell me where in Lithuania they're from?

AG:The Vilna guberniya she called it. I think guberniya was a county, and it was a shtetl [small town in Eastern Europe with a Jewish community] right outside of Vilna, which is a big city. But in the county of Vilna, in a shtetl. They didn't live in the city.

IM:Do you have any idea of when they came to the United States?

AG:My mother was born in 1902 and she was five years old. So, I think they came 2:00around 1907, 1908. And as I say, he came first. I don't know how long they were separated. But she came along with three small children and met him. I understand that ride was -- they took a boat on the Baltic to New York (laughs) -- I heard it was three weeks on the Atlantic Ocean, in steerage. It must have been pretty, pretty hard trip, but they came and they were reunited.

IM:Can you describe your grandparents for me?

AG:Oh, yes.

IM:Or any stories you have about --

AG:Yes. To me, Yiddish is the language of love because my grandparents spoke Yiddish. And I was the much adored and much valued first grandchild of my bubbie and zeyde. And because they spoke Yiddish to each other, I had to figure out what they were saying. So, that's how I learned Yiddish, by ear. And it was a language of love because they loved me so much and they were so expressive in 3:00their love for me, in Yiddish, that I always associate Yiddish with very loving, warm, marvelous grandparents. My bubbie would sing lullabies to me, my bubbie would talk to me. It was always du, du, du [you (singular, informal)]. I didn't know about the third person singular. (laughs) I addressed everybody with du. And because we also lived either with them or on the next street or a block away, I spent a great deal of time with them. Children didn't move so far from their grandparents as they do now. And I learned a lot from being with my grandparents. I was very, very lucky to be with them.

IM:You were born in 1924 in New York City.

AG:Right. Right.

IM:What was it like growing up in the Great Depression?

AG:That was very hard, mainly 'cause my father was a smoked fish salesman. And smoked fish in those days, which he delivered to appetizing stores -- they were 4:00like Zabar's is now -- it was a luxury. People did not have a lot of money. And they stopped buying smoked fish and whitefish and carp, all those delicacies. So, he was not making a lot of money, and he would come home with leftovers in his unrefrigerated truck, and that's what we were eating. We were eating very well, but we couldn't pay the rent, which was thirty-five dollars a month for a Brownsville apartment. Two-bedroom apartment. I have memories of the landlord coming in and saying, "Mrs., where's the rent?" And my mother would say, "Tomorrow." I remember being ashamed to go to the grocery store because we didn't have cash. And we each had a page in the book and we would buy -- my mother would send me with a little list like two ounces of butter, three eggs -- if she wanted to bake something, she had to buy exactly the ingredients. I didn't have the money to pay for it. So, we'd write in the book how much we owe 5:00him, and hopefully, at the end of the week, if my father brought home money, we were able to pay what was on that page. But I knew there was something shameful about that, and I was not happy to go. And when my little sister was old enough, we sent her, 'cause I refused -- I was too embarrassed to go and say, "Put it in the book." (laughs)

IM:Can you describe your neighborhood growing up?

AG:Growing up in Brownsville, I thought the whole world was Jewish because I never met anybody who wasn't. We had wonderful public schools but they were closed on Yom Kippur because nobody came to school on any -- the Jewish holidays. We had Irish teachers who were wonderful and very, very wonderful to these children of first generation immigrants. They knew we were so anxious to learn and they knew that the parents were anxious to have the children educated in English. And they were wonderful. Our teachers, I think they -- I got a 6:00wonderful education in P.S. 125 and then in P.S. 165 public schools. And got into Brooklyn College from public schools.

IM:What did your neighborhood look like?

AG:Well, it was mostly poor. (laughs) Luckily, after my grandfather and grandmother worked for a long time, they were able to save up enough money to buy a three-family house on Chester Street. Corner Dumont Avenue. And it was amazing to them because in Lithuania, Jews were not allowed to own property. They bought a three-family house. They occupied the first story, six rooms, and they rented the other two, which made it possible for them to own that house, 'cause they had a little miniature backyard with tomatoes and a little garden and little bushes in the front. Whenever I see a snowball bush, I think of my 7:00zeyde's little snowball bush on Chester Street. Everybody was poor, so we didn't realize that we were poor. We didn't feel poor, 'cause we all had the same standard of living. There was no feeling that I don't have, I don't have. We had friends, we played on the street. Grandma had six rooms, six children, and occasionally a boarder or two. She'd rent a room to a boarder to have an extra income, or a relative came from Europe and they took in whoever came. I remember my grandmother -- bubbie and zeyde setting up three chairs in the kitchen and putting pillows on them so one of the children could sleep in the kitchen while they gave his room to a relative. They were always welcoming people, always.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

Everything I did was wonderful. They thought I was just wonderful. It made me feel very secure. (laughs)

IM:That's great. Something that's very rare today.

AG:Even though we were so poor. I mean, I never felt a lack of anything. I really didn't feel a lack. We had enough to eat. Food was very important. And then, oh, I have a story to tell you about my grandmother's cooking. (laughs)

IM:Yes. (laughs)

AG: (laughter) Okay.

IM:Okay, so --

AG:I'm enjoying this, Isaac. (laughs)

IM:Great, I'm so glad.

AG:I am.

IM:I'm enjoying it, as well.

AG:I'm feeling good about it. Well, this is your orientation. So I wanted to --

IM:So, the last thing we mentioned -- you were talking about your grandparents, I believe.

AG:Yes.

IM:Yeah.

AG:I'll be talking a lot about them. Oh, but I left off with what? What are we doing? I was saying, although we were poor, I didn't feel poor. I really felt very secure. There was a story I wanted to tell you -- oh, about going shopping with the -- yeah. Oh, the kitchen. I want to talk about the kitchen. The kitchen was the center of the house because, first of all, it was the warmest room in 9:00the house. In the wintertime, the bedrooms were ice-cold. There was no steam heat. They had to heat each room, and so the kitchen, there was a great big coal stove. In the kitchen, a coal stove which heated the kitchen, and we practically lived in the kitchen. My bubbie and zeyde had, in the wintertime, a -- this is how I learned to love Jewish music. They had a big Victrola and they had records of Jewish music. And, of course, I had to wind it. My job was to wind up the Victrola. On the lid of the Victrola, there was a picture of a little dog and it said, "His Master's Voice." It was Victor's Records. And I would put on all these -- Yiddish music for them, wind it up, and then the minute I hear it winding down, my job was to run back up and wind it up again. But I learned all the beautiful Yiddish songs from listening to those records. I really loved Yiddish music. I knew that before I knew any other kind of music. I learned 10:00"unter eneles vigele ligt a klor vays tsigele" [under Annie's crib lies a little white goat]. I wasn't sure what a tsigele [goat] was, but it was such a nice -- the melodies were all lovely. And I heard a lot of very, very beautiful melodies, which I'm sure, to this day I would remember the words (laughs) if I heard them.

IM:So, you spoke Yiddish as your first language?

AG:It may have been my first language because I was with my bubbie and zeyde more than I was with my parents, and they spoke Yiddish to each other. And my grandfather, who had to go out to work on the -- he was a tailor and he went on the Lower East -- the garment industry, which a lot of Jews worked at -- he learned English. But my bubbie never became fluent in English. So, we had the "Daily News" -- came into our house. Two papers came in: the "Yiddish Forverts" came in and zeyde would read to my bubbie at night. He'd read her the "Yiddish Forverts" and I would listen. He was reading her -- they had advice to the lovelorn column. (laughs) It was just like Ann Landers today and it was called A 11:00Bintel Brief. And he would read her the stories and then some of them were very sad. And she loved when he read that to her. And then, I would read her the "Daily News," which at that point cost two dollars -- and full of pictures. So, we'd turn the pages and she'd say to me, "Anileh" -- she called me Anileh -- "Vos shteyt der man do?" "Why is this man's picture here?" So, I said, "Oh, bubbie, it's terrible. This man killed somebody." And she said, "Oy gevalt! Iz er a yidisher?" "Is he Jewish?" And I'd say, "No, he's not." She says, "Dankn got" [thank God]. (laughs) As long as he wasn't Jewish, (laughs) that was okay. And that's from her shtetl background. I knew that. But I loved reading to her, 'cause she never learned to read, poor -- she was too busy cooking and baking and providing for her family. She got up at the crack of dawn and went to sleep as soon as it got dark, but cooked and baked -- and Friday was -- food was important, the fact that they could feed their family of six children and 12:00guests. We had no telephones. A guest would walk in, say, "I'm here!" (laughs) And, of course, you made room. You pulled up an extra chair and the children ate a little less soup, or -- there was room for guests. One of my favorite stories is my bubbie used to make gefilte fish. And on Thursday -- for some reason, the gefilte fish recipe calls for a live carp. I don't know why, but it has to be live. So, on Thursday, very often if you'd walk into the bathroom -- and there was one bathroom in the house with usually eight to ten people -- in the bathtub was swimming a live carp on Thursday. I never really asked who was the murderer of that carp. (laughs) But the next night, we had the most delicious gefilte fish. Somebody had to kill it and skin it and take out the bones. And the house smelled so wonderful on Friday -- yeah, erev Shabbos [Shabbos eve], it smelled so good. Chicken soup, she made her own noodles. She used to give me a piece of 13:00dough to play with. When she made a challah, she'd give me a piece of dough and I would make a little challah. And then, she chopped her own noodles. And she'd make her own gefilte fish. Everything from scratch. Anything you wanted to eat, she made. And I do remember her cholent. I don't know if anybody to this day eats cholent, because I don't know, it's not very easy to digest. (laughs) It has fat and beans and potatoes and -- she prepared the cholent on Friday afternoon. But you were not allowed to light your oven -- I mean, they still had all of the Orthodox restrictions. They lived by it. So, on the corner was a bakery and they took the pot of cholent, they put their name on it, and they put it into the baker's oven. It cooked all day on Saturday. One of the children went to pick it up Saturday night, after sundown, and then we ate that cholent, which had cooked twenty-four hours. And you never tasted anything so good. (laughs) It was a wonderful -- more than pot roast and more than any French dish 14:00that I've ever enjoyed. My bubbie's cholent was (kisses fingers) delicious. (laughs) Heartburn special. (laughs) So, I remember her cooking, I remember her love, I remember her anxiety about -- nothing should happen. The Jews should have a good name in America, the Jews shouldn't get in trouble. And she worked very hard, 'cause all her children -- almost all her children, except my mother, had a very good education. My uncle went to medical school, became a doctor. Another of my uncles became a superintendent of the post office in Brooklyn. The boys got the education. There were four girls who did not. But the girls graduated from high school, except my mother, and got married and raised very fine children. And the next step, of course, was to get out of Brownsville. (laughs) So, then they moved to a little classier neighborhood and then a little classier neighborhood and then out on Long Island. And the families were not as -- their children did not have what I had with my grandparents, 'cause we lived 15:00around the corner and I enjoyed -- that was an important part of my life, was living so close to my grandparents. They gave me a lot. I only wish I had asked them more questions (laughs) about their childhood. They would have been happy to tell me. I was just too self-centered, I guess, at that age. And had a lot of affection from aunts and uncles 'cause they were all young. They were still in the house. They were in high school or they were going to -- my uncle was in college. Course, nobody could study at home. They had -- if they wanted to study, they had to go to the library because there's too much going on in the house with friends and relatives and -- but it was -- there was always enough to help somebody who did not have as much as they had. And, of course, they had very little. I do remember, on Friday night, we -- after we lit the candles and said the kiddush over the wine -- in the corner of the kitchen, there was a little tin box. And we would drop in pennies or nickels and it was to buy land 16:00in Palestine so when it became -- so the Jews would have a place to go. It was just to purchase land so Jews might someday have a place to go. And every six months or so, a little old man would come with his book and empty it, empty the can, (laughs) and then write down how much we donated. And then, we would start refilling it again. But that's a very vivid memory, of -- 'cause pennies were so -- you could do so much with a penny in those days. We were helping people, we didn't know who, to buy land in Israel. It was the National Jewish Fund, and I could just close my eyes and see that box. (laughs) It's so vivid in my memory.

IM:Great. Did you speak Yiddish with your parents?

AG:With my parents, no. My parents spoke English. My father came here, he was the only one -- it's interesting story, 'cause he was the only one of his family who came to America. His parents all stayed, and they were in -- I call it 17:00Poland or Russia. They changed the border sometimes. He came from a family of talmed-khokhems [scholars]. His father was a [rov][Orthodox rabbi] and his brothers all were studying to be rabbis and [rovs] and he refused to study. So, they didn't know what -- what do you do with a son who -- a Jewish boy who doesn't want to study? You send him to America. That's what they did. He was sixteen years old. One delightful story he told me about -- he remembers when he was fifteen or sixteen and the Yiddish theater came to the shtetl that they lived in, and I wish I could remember where it was. They didn't have enough money to buy more than one ticket. So, they'd buy a ticket, they'd send my father. He'd come out, home, and act out the whole show for them. He was very gifted. He sang and he played -- that's what he should have been instead of a talmed-khokhem. He should have played on the Yiddish stage. He was wonderful with that. And when I was about twelve years old or thirteen, he started taking me to the Yiddish theater on the Lower East Side. And I loved it, I just -- I 18:00understood the language. It was comedy, it was drama, it was musical. Everything in one show. Everything was -- and I saw some marvelous people. I saw Aaron Lebedoff, I saw Molly Picon, some big stars. And it was a very important part of my education, my father taking -- not my mother. He took me to the Yiddish theater. And I loved that. It was wonderful.

IM:Do you have --

AG:Got me interested in theater. (laughs)

IM:Great. Can you recall any favorite performances?

AG:You know, they kind of all blended into one because they're always alike. (laughs) But I do remember he would go when there was what they called a benefit. What they did was, when there was some actor who was down on his luck, or some producer or somebody who's down on his luck, they would charge a dollar or -- maybe a dollar extra for the ticket and it was a benefit for that -- so, my father always went when it was a benefit. And the audience, I remember, was -- they would bring food and they would eat and talk and laugh and call out to 19:00people on the stage. But I don't remember individual -- now, I don't -- I think it's because they were all so similar. They were all musicals, they were all tragedies. They were all comedies. Everything in one show. And I think Michael Tilson Thomas, his father was on the Jewish stage. I can't rem-- oh, he changed his name to Michael Tilson Thomas. But his father was a Jewish actor and director. So, he grew up in that atmosphere, too. But I was only about twelve years old or thirteen. And that's when I learned to love theater. (laughs) I would still go if -- but there's no Yiddish theater around anymore, I guess. Otherwise, I would go. I really don't. But it developed my love for live acting.

IM:And so, tell me about listening to the Yiddish radio, WEVD.

AG:I remember the commercials (laughs) that they had. Funny commercials. And, of 20:00course, we loved to sing, so we would sing some of the commercials. It was a clothing store on the Lower East Side. They would sing, "Bring your boy, bring your -- we have all sizes," and they would sing out the singing commercial. It was so funny. I remember the commercials. I don't remember the programs. Again, I think I was too young to remember -- yeah, it was on in the house, WEVD was on in our house.

IM:Who listened to --

AG:Yeah, we -- it was on all the time because my bubbie would be listening to it. And she really never learned English. The reason my Yiddish is not perfect anymore -- I have to tell you, this is a funny story. At the same time when I was learning Yiddish, my grandmother was trying to learn English. So, she'd say something to me like, "Anileh, efn uf di vinde" [open up the window]. So, I grew up thinking window was a Jewish word. I didn't know there was a Yiddish word for 21:00window. Fentster [Window]. I didn't know that till I was an adult. So, she was already into mixing English words in her vocabulary. "Efn di vinde." And I thought that was -- of course, a four-year-old child would think that that was a Yiddish word. And we had a lot of -- in that neighborhood, a lot of Yiddish tradespeople would come around because, of course, nobody had a car. They brought a lot of things to the house. Milk was delivered, seltzer. We got a case -- that was a Jewish champagne. (laughs) We got a case of seltzer at least once a week in those siphon bottles. And then, if we had a lot of money, we'd buy Fox's U-Bet and made egg creams and it was -- you know what an egg cream is? Lot of people don't know.

IM:I don't, no.

AG:Because Joe and I were once traveling once in New Jersey and I wanted an egg cream, and the waiter said, "What is it?" And I said, "Well, never mind." He says, "No, no, tell me, how many eggs and how much cream? I'll make it for you." (laughs) But an egg cream is a little bit of chocolate syrup and a little bit of 22:00milk. You mix that up together and then you put in seltzer and it froths up on the top. It's the best thing you could ever drink, and that's called an egg cream. No eggs. But it looks like eggs. All those memories keep resurfacing. There were men who came around singing, I cash clothes. I remember that melody's in my head. They were buying old clothes if you had anything to sell. I cash clothes! I can hear them singing that in the alley. A lot of local people came to the neighborhood. The insurance man would come. He had a big black book. I don't know, maybe a quarter a week or fifty cents they would pay till they saved up enough to buy an insurance policy. And I think there was not a lot of money around, but I never felt poor. I felt very secure. Never realized that we were -- I never wanted for anything. I was very happy with whatever I had. I never 23:00asked -- if I wanted to go to the movies, it was ten cents. I got ten cents. I didn't have to ask, so it was nice.

IM:So, who were your friends growing up?

AG:Everybody on the block. (laughs) All the generations. I wish I could remember some of them, 'cause we did play on the street. The houses were not -- it's not like today. You had big houses and you could entertain at home. There was no room to bring children into the house. What we did was mostly play on the streets. We had wonderful, cheap games. We had a game called "Hit the Penny." You put the penny and you had a bouncing ball and you'd try to hit the penny. You got a point and then hit the penny. Was a good game. We had hide and go seek, and that's a popular game. I think that's not just a Jewish game. We had stoop ball. My sister was very good at that. I didn't have roller skates, but she did for some reason, 'cause I was afraid that I would fall. So, she had 24:00roller skates. We really -- we played on the street. That was our -- and, oh, near us was a beautiful little park called Betsy Head Park. I never found out who Betsy Head was. I should look that up. There were swings. My zeyde would take me, push me on the swings. There was a slide and it was a great place to play. And once a year, they would have a children's parade, a beauty contest. And one year, my sister, Thelma, won. And you know why she won? (laughs) 'Cause my uncle, Sam, was very clever. He put her in her carriage and he decorated the carriage. And it was during Prohibition. And she had a big sign that said, "We want beer!" She came in first. It was in the "Daily News," her picture. I wish I had that picture. Yeah, maybe I could access it. And, of course, she was very pretty. But she won because, "We want beer!" And that's a very clear memory, too. I remember that. It was so marvelous to see my sister win the first prize 25:00at Betsy Head Park, in the beauty contest. There was a swimming pool. We could cool off in the park. So, the city did provide very good things. Oh, and the children's library on Stone Avenue. Oh, it was wonderful, a two-story stone building, just children's library. And in the winter, they only let me take out two books at a time: one fiction, one non-fiction. And sometimes, I was very torn because I would find two fictions and I couldn't take that out. So, I used to hide one (laughs) and when I finished the two books I took home, I'd come back and hope that I could find the other book. In the summer, they let us take out five or six or seven or eight or nine books. Book pile. And I would sit on the fire escape, we had fire escapes, and read from the library. And, of course, we didn't -- there was not a book in the house. Books were a luxury. We couldn't afford to buy books. The two newspapers, which I say, were two cents and I don't know how much the "Forverts" was. Maybe three cents or four cents. But I grew up 26:00in a house without books and I think that's why now, I have to buy books. (laughs) I'm surrounded by books, because it represents something to me that I couldn't have as a child. That's the only thing, I think -- no, I didn't feel deprived. I had that wonderful library. I loved that children's library on Stone Avenue. And I walked over, of course. (laughs) It was nice. It was very nice. The city -- you know, New York City was very good to its immigrants and provided a lot. Good education, free. Free public library, which -- I don't know if every city had it at that stage, late 1920s, early 1930s. The only thing that was lacking was money to pay the rent. That often was lacking. So, I was very conscious of the fact that we didn't have enough money for that. And it was embarrassing. I was old enough to be embarrassed by it and felt sorry for my 27:00mother, too. But my father couldn't help it. He was not selling (laughs) anything that people could afford to buy at that point. So, I remember that.

IM:Can you tell me briefly about your education in terms of general education and any Jewish education you might have had?

AG:Interesting. We had no Jewish education. My grandparents were religious, my parents were not. We never joined a -- I guess we couldn't afford to join a synagogue, 'cause there were dues to be paid. And girls did not get the education. The two boys in the family did. My two uncles. They were sent to Hebrew school and they were bar mitzvahed. But the girls, there was no Jewish -- only what we learned at home, and the values of Yiddish were perpetuated by my bubbie and zeyde. I could still remember -- it was important to help somebody who had less than you. You don't hurt people. All the wonderful, traditional, good values of Judaism. And that was the only education I got. I had no Jewish education at all. My father was a born-again atheist. So, he practiced nothing. It was a complete rejection of his childhood and -- where everybody was so religious. By the way, his family eventually all went to Palestine and wound up in Israel. So, they were not -- one brother -- oh, that was a tragedy. I have the picture of brother -- one of his brothers was a rabbi and it was in Europe. And they kept sending him -- they sent him -- the family was already in Palestine. It wasn't Israel yet. They sent him a visa and money to come with his wife and two children. He sent it back and he said, "Don't worry, we'll be safe." And they were murdered. They were murdered by the Nazis. And Amos Oz tells about that city where my uncle was, and mentions his name, my father's 28:00brother. He's in the book that I bought about -- 'cause he was a Talmud Torah teacher and he said -- and his name was Yitzak. And -- Barkaye. And Berkovsky, I guess, in Europe. In Israel, they changed it to Barkaye. So, I do have a very deep association with the Holocaust and loss of my father's brother, which they didn't find out -- and two beautiful children, and I have their pictures. Never met him, but it affected us personally in many ways.

IM:Speaking about the Holocaust and the Second World War, did you hear anything about the war growing up in --

AG:No.

IM:-- New York?

AG:No, no. My bubbie did get letters from Europe, but never a word about -- nothing about -- maybe it was too early. She'd get Yiddish letters from relatives and she could read it. My zeyde would read it to her so I would 29:00overhear it. But nothing about the war, nothing about what was coming, or no sense of fear about what was coming. As a matter of fact, I don't think we knew while it was going on what was happening. I don't think I was too young. I just don't -- we didn't know. I don't know if the -- President Roosevelt at that time, who we all felt was a big friend of the Jews -- I don't know, he was not willing for some reason -- politically, I guess -- to go in and help the Allies fight Hitler. And I remember when President Roosevelt died, my zeyde was crying. He felt that the Jews had lost a very good friend. He cried. And then later, when stories came out about his political alliances and allegiances, we were disappointed in him, that he hadn't gone in earlier, that maybe more people could have been rescued. But while it was going on, was I too young? Nobody talked about it. It was not in the paper. No, I didn't know. We didn't know. I guess it was better not to know. (laughs) Easier for us. And the letters, no, didn't reflect anything as far as I could tell.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

IM:What organizations, if any, did your family belong to?

AG:Nothing. No, they were not affiliated. It wasn't until Joe and I, my husband and I, moved to Monticello, New York, and he opened a Jewish funeral home there. He came from a -- he was third generation funeral director. His grandfather --

IM:So, before -- I have one more question --

AG:Before we do it? Oh, okay.

IM:-- before we get to that part. That part's coming next.

AG:No, we didn't join anything. We were not -- well, why, I don't know. Later on, I did. We became -- but we didn't have that kind of community in Brownsville, but when we moved to Monticello, we did.

IM:So, looking back on your childhood, what values or practices do you think your parents or, in this case, your grandparents were trying to pass onto you?

AG:Not so much by words but by example I saw how they were really ethical, good 31:00people. Did as much as they could to help family. I'm not so sure about strangers, except the little pushke [alms box] in the kitchen. We called it a pushke 'cause you pushed in the money. But by their example -- they took in relatives who had no place else to stay. They were very generous, feeding people. I think I watched and learned. That's the kind of hospitality that I continued after they were gone. Strong sense of being Jewish. There was pride in being Jewish, but not religious, not the --

IM:Can you tell me more about the pride of being Jewish?

AG:When you're a child, you don't even think about it. Just the whole world's Jewish. (laughs) And I remember on Yom Kippur, my grandpa would stay, zeyde would stay in shul [synagogue] all day and fast. And then, I would go -- my sister and I would go bring him home, and he was so weak and so hungry and -- but we would go to the shul. I tried once or twice to go -- think he took me to 32:00sit in the shul. I had no understanding of what was going on. It was all in Hebrew. And I sat downstairs with the men because I was a child. But the women were upstairs and it never appealed to me. Had no understanding. I did not know what was going on. No education in Judaism. I had to learn that as an adult, by reading and making decisions about -- but there were enough Jewish values that I saw. The way they lived, I think, was an example of how you treat people, which was -- that was important to me.

IM:So far, we've been talking about the early part of your life. And now, we're going to talk about the later part of your life.

AG:Okay.

IM:So, you lived in Monticello, New York, once a part of the Borscht Belt, for around fifty years.

AG:(laughs) Right. We knew --

IM:So, first of all, can you describe the significance of the region in terms of Jewish culture and leisure?

AG:Yeah, I know a lot about it because I understand how that developed. Jews were not welcome in many, many vacation areas. I had a personal experience when we were first married. Two young couples -- we went up to the Adirondacks and tried to find a place to stay. And in one place, there was a sign that said, "Churches nearby," so we got the message. And the other place, we tried to check in, there was a man at the gate. He looked inside the car and he said, "No, we have no rooms." Jews were not comfortable. This was the Adirondacks. We were not comfortable there. And I think that's why the Jews developed their own vacation place where they were comfortable, only ninety miles from New York City. So, it took, in the olden days, it took about three or four hours to get there. (laughs) But now -- later on, it took an hour and a half or two hours, 'cause cars were more -- and Jews made their own vacationland where they were comfortable. It's all gone now because Jews are welcome -- for the same money, 33:00they can go to Europe, they can go anyplace in the whole world and feel totally comfortable. But that was a phenomenon -- the Catskills, we called it the Borscht Belt. I didn't make that up. That's what it was called, because of the menus. And food was -- everything was included. When you went to a big hotel, three meals a day, as much as you could eat. You could order everything on the menu. You didn't -- and nothing -- and entertainment, swimming. And then Grossinger's, the very, very famous Grossinger's had big name entertainment. They had an eighteen-hole golf course. So, the small hotels had to put in golf courses. Indoor pool so they could be open all year. So, the Concord put in an indoor pool. Little by little, those hotels became little Jewish -- small Jewish cities. They could entertain three thousand people. The Concord could feed three thousand people on a weekend in the summertime. And aside from the hotels -- not everybody could afford to go to a hotel -- there were -- something that I felt 34:00was unique to the Jews: bungalow colonies. I don't know of anyplace else that had -- where you rented a bungalow for the summer, your mother cooked, and they were called kokhaleyn [cook-on-your-owns]. The Yiddish word was kokhaleyn. You cooked for your children, but you had the mountains, you were up in the mountains, the foothills of the Catskills, and you were out of the hot city. This was before air conditioning, before -- we didn't even have a fan. So, to have that wonderful comfort of sleeping cool -- we had cool at night, and husbands came up weekends. So, Monday to Friday, it was women and children, and then Friday night you'd see all the husbands driving up. We used to call it the bull train -- was coming. (laughs) And the husbands stayed Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday and then go back again. But they were happy that their wives and children were in the country. And we had rooming houses for those who couldn't afford a bungalow, where you could come -- just rent a room 35:00and be in the mountains and be cool and be -- so, New York Jews, the Bronx and Brooklyn, developed a gan-eydn [Garden of Eden] (laughs) in Sullivan County. And it was a thriving -- from what I've read, in the summertime, there were five hundred thousand Jews in that area, in the whole of Sullivan County. In the winter, I would say maybe five thousand. (laughs) Just the residents, who made their living from the summer. Most of the people made a living -- enough money in the summer to live the rest of the year. So, that was an interesting phenomenon. Something very unique. I don't know if it ever happened again anyplace else. I was glad to be part of it. Very glad.

IM:Great. What was it like living there?

AG:We fell in love with it immediately. We loved it because -- first of all, my husband, for the first time, was in business. He had his own business. He had gone into this 'cause he was third generation funeral director. The Garlick 36:00Funeral Home was the first Jewish funeral home on the Lower East Side, and then his uncle was in the business. And when Joe came home from the army, he worked there for two years till he got his funeral director's license. He had to apprentice there. But he could not get along with his father and his uncle. He felt they weren't running the business the way he would like to. So, he looked around for a place between New York and Albany where there were enough Jews for him to open a funeral home. And of course, where else? The Catskills! (laughs) And we were encouraged by people we knew. We knew a family there, the Gordons, who said, You must come. We don't have a Jewish funeral home here. When a Jew dies in Monticello [UNCLEAR] the funeral home, they lay out under a cross. He refuses to take the cross down. So, it's very hard for the Jews. He says, "You'll be welcomed here." And we were. Everyone was very pleased that he came. We were an old building on Broadway. It was the Jewish center. It was for sale 'cause they had made a bigger Jewish center. We lived upstairs, over the funeral 37:00home, and downstairs was renovated for the business. And that's a book in itself, what it was like to live upstairs over a funeral home with three small children. (laughs) I call it "Upstairs, Downstairs," which is not too original. But it's true. I'm writing that book. But we were so welcome there, and we immediately became involved. We had a Jewish community we felt part of. And in the winter, we immediately became involved. Joe became president of the Jewish community center -- he was very active because, of course, he had a lot of time between funerals. [BREAK IN RECORDING] It was a very -- it changed our whole feeling about -- we became part of a Jewish community, which I -- were not -- in an organized Jewish community, 'cause we joined everything. (laughs) That was the difference. And what didn't -- I should tell you, what didn't exist, we created. And I'll tell you what, okay?

IM:So, tell me about living above the funeral home. What was it like?

AG:Oh, that was very difficult, because on days when I found out -- if we knew 38:00there was a funeral scheduled, I had to take the children someplace, out, because otherwise they'd hear the pitter-patter of the footsteps or the children could be crying or carrying on. So, I had three friends who I knew I could count on. I'd call Helen Lushner and say, "Helen, could I come over this afternoon?" Or I'd call -- if it was the summertime, my friend Estelle Shoreman had a wonderful backyard. "Stella, I'm bringing the kids over." "Okay, that's fine." That was the only part that I felt was very, very inconvenient, that I had to remove children while the funeral was going on. And then, we learned to live with -- we knew there were bodies downstairs. We knew there were khevre kedishe [Jewish burial society], washing the bodies down there. It was amazing how we were able to separate and have a wonderful life upstairs. We entertained, we had birthday parties, we had -- when I look back, I don't know how we created such a separation, that you had a perfectly -- I think, with few exceptions, we had a 39:00really normal life upstairs over the funeral home until we could save up enough money to buy a house. And that was -- David, let's see, Saul was -- well, David was two, so Saul was probably six, and Jonathan was -- they were about six, seven, and two by the time we could move out of the funeral home.

IM:These are your children.

AG:My three sons: Saul, Jonathan, and David, yeah. And they remember their childhood with great pleasure. We had a lot of fun up there when there was no funeral. There was a little side yard where we had a little wading pool and we had swings and seesaws. And people even came to visit us, it was okay. People got used to walking through the funeral home. We didn't have a separate entrance. They walked through the funeral home and came upstairs to visit us without hesitation, which also amazed me. Maybe it was my grand-- my bubbie's hospitality that I inherited that made it -- but we lived there a long time. More than I had hoped. It was renovated into a very nice apartment. It was a 40:00three-bedroom apartment up there, 'cause it was a very big building. That was nice. And it was just keeping quiet at certain times was a -- but I can't think of anything that was more upsetting than that, just having to evacuate. But there was always notice. I knew the schedule, and the whole town loved my husband. He was a very sympathetic, wonderful man. And after he died, one of my good friends, Joan, called me and she says, "Anita, my father just died. I don't know what to do. I have to talk to Joe. I didn't know what to do. I called you. What should I do?" Luckily, I inherited the business. I say luckily, 'cause Joe died at the age of fifty-five. He was very young. And his three children, his three sons, were still in college. And he left me the business. And I continued to run it until they were all out of college. But people just called him, and they knew Joe would take care of it, everything would be okay. He was an 41:00unscheduled, uneducated social worker, but that should have been his field. He was very good at that. And I kept it until all the boys could finish college and were making a living, which was a long time. And they always asked me, Mom, how did you know we were making a living? And I said, "You stopped calling me collect. (laughs) Then I figured you've got enough money to make phone calls, I don't have to keep this business anymore." And I was able to sell it 'cause it was a good business.

IM:Yeah.

AG:But so, I stayed there -- Joe died in 1978 and I must have been there until 1995, I think, around -- and stayed there a while and then moved to Brookline, because two of my sons were here. And then the third one came, because he wanted to be near his mother. (laughs) That was nice.

IM:Can you describe your life there in terms of Jewish culture and Jewish community?

AG:It was the first time we had a real Jewish community. We had no affiliations 42:00in New York. We felt Jewish but we never joined anything. But here, we joined everything and what wasn't available, we started. A group of my friends started a Reform temple. There was no Reform temple there. And it was needed, because not everybody knew Hebrew. And we hired a rabbi who'd conduct the services in Hebrew and in English. And started a school, a Hebrew school where the children -- and it's a Talmud Torah for -- so, there were a lot of things that didn't exist in Monticello then, because a lot of Jews, my friends, had come up from New York and wanted things that we didn't have. I remember coming there and going to the library there and saying, "What time is the children's story hour?" And she says, "We don't have a children's story hour." "Well, I'll do one." So, I started a children's story hour at the library. Whatever was missing, we provided. We started a Jewish film festival. It didn't exist there. We rented Jewish film-- this was our need and the community responded beautifully. And we 43:00joined all these -- we joined the existing organizations. That was my husband's business. He needed to join. So, eventually he took in Monticello and Fallsburg and Woodridge and Ellenville, which is another county. It's Ulster County. But he had a very good business. And then, in his free time, he ran the community. So, we were very identified and very happy there. Very happy. It was a wonderful experience. And the children remember growing up there, and they loved it. They really have good memories. I hear them talking about their childhoods. Very, very -- feels good, although some of the things they did, I'd say, "Where was your mother? (laughs) You were doing what?" (laughs) I thought I was on top of everything, but I wasn't. (laughs)

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

IM:Did you have any favorite restaurants or hotels that you went to with your family?

AG:Oh, yes. Oh my goodness, we were so -- we were welcome, of course, because we 44:00knew the owners of the Concord and they were wonderful. The Winarick family. And Mr. Winarick -- and Gordon Winarick was wonderful. He really ran the place and we were welcome there. Every Saturday night, we went to a show. And we had a table. Here was the stage and here was our seats, with the family. Every top Jewish comedian you could think of we have seen, and they were all wonderful. They would either come from Grossinger's to -- either we went -- some Jewish organizations ran conventions at the Grossinger's, so we would go to that. But mostly, it was the Concord on Saturday nights. And the food, oh, my goodness, it was -- (laughs)

IM:Do you have any favorite dishes?

AG:Everything was so good. I could not -- you can't explain the food. I kept some of the menus because I think it's unbelievable that anybody could eat that much. But you could order two main dishes. The waiter would bring you anything you wanted. They were very, very good. They were mostly college students. A lot 45:00of them were -- they said, Be kind to your waiter because he's in medical school. He might be your doctor someday. (laughs) They made enough money to go back to school in the fall, and they -- the family was nice. I just loved that whole family. They were very, very -- they just welcomed us and took us in. And so, the hotel for us was our -- we didn't have to run into New York. Well, it was our entertainment. We had two very good restaurants in Monticello itself. One was a kosher restaurant. It was called Kaplan's. And sometimes we did that on Saturday. We would bring home delicatessen for the -- delicatessen was a very broad phrase for corned beef and roast beef and pastrami and hot dogs, all the indigestibles that I can't eat anymore. But that's what we'd have on Saturday, with Heinz baked beans, frankfurters, that kind of thing. And Sunday, we liked to have Chinese food, and there was a very good Chinese restaurant there. Jews 46:00love Chinese food. (laughs) So, we really did that a lot. We ate out a lot. But it was always with friends, always with people. Not just our family. And it was a wonderful, wonderful community and a great place to live. And it's dead. My son, Saul, took me up there to see what it looks like about two or three years ago. We wanted to see Woodstock and that's the only thing that's left in Bethel, is Woodstock. We drove to the town of Monticello, I -- you could cry, 'cause all the stores are closed and it's just not -- nobody vacations like that anymore. Looks like everybody's on welfare and -- or public relief. And I have one friend left there from all the friends that we had, and she can't leave because she can't sell her house. There's no market. But no reason for her to go back there anymore, so -- it was too depressing. I'm not doing it again.

IM:Yeah.

AG:It's changed totally.

IM:How, if at all, did living in the Borscht Belt influence your sense of Jewish identity and connections to Yiddish or Yiddishkayt?

AG:Yeah, that's a very good question. I think because so many of the -- so much of the entertainment was Yiddish. Yiddish music, Yiddish songs, Yiddish actors and Jewish -- why is it all the comics were Jewish? Every single one of them. Maybe there's one that wasn't? But it did make you feel like you were part of the mainstream, which is totally unrealistic. We felt like we were part of a very, very Jewish life.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

Yeah, it did enhance our sense of being Jewish. We were part of a -- we didn't feel like a minority, and up there we weren't. And living in Brownsville first, where the whole world was Jewish, and then moving to the Borscht Circuit, Borscht Belt, where the whole world was Jewish, I think I didn't feel 48:00anti-Semitism a lot, the way other people who lived amongst the goyim [non-Jews] felt. I had one anti-Semitic incident in my life. Would you want to hear about that? Just once. My mother and father separated and we went to live with my grandparents, who at that point were living in Queens, 'cause my uncle was a doctor and he opened an office in Queens, and they were helping him. They were taking care of the house. And so, I entered a school in Queens in the middle of a semester. I didn't know anybody there. And we came home for lunch, every day at -- so, I was young. I was maybe -- sixth grade. And a group of kids followed me home -- I'm walking home from school and a group of kids running behind me and saying, You killed Christ! You killed Christ! I went home crying. And zeyde was in the house, he goes, "What's the matter?" I didn't know who Christ was. And I told him what happened. He explained the whole story to me. He said, "It's 49:00a bobe-mayse [fairy tale]. Don't worry, it's a bobe-mayse." He made me feel better. He gave me lunch. But that was really my only childhood experience of -- and he explained the situation, and -- how could I experience that? I never lived amongst non-Jews. But this was Sunnyside, New York. (laughs) I never went back there, (laughs) so -- and it was, nineteen what, 1934, 1935? A lot of anti-Semitism. Didn't feel good there. But my parents reunited. Oh.

IM:Oh, (laughs) that's great.

AG:My parents reunited, so we went back to live together again in Brooklyn. (laughs) That was okay.

IM:Okay. Have there been any experiences in your life that were particularly formative to your sense of identity?

AG:Aside from living in Brownsville and in the Borscht Circuit? (laughs) 50:00Marrying a man who was very identified with Judaism, too. More religious than I was, so -- and I can't think of any one thing. Just the kind of life that we had. I think that answers it.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

IM:Over the years, you've done a lot of volunteer work.

AG:Yes.

IM:Can you briefly tell me about some of the work you've done?

AG:Oh, sure. I have a boxful. (laughs) I'm collecting it so my grandchildren will know. Starting with the reading at the library, I volunteered for everything I could, because Jewish wives didn't work. All of my friends and I were -- they were all educated. My friends all came from New York. They all had college degrees. Didn't work. What were we going to do with our education? We did a lot of volunteer work as a result. We started a lot of things that did not exist and that, as I say, was our need. We started book club, we -- oh, they didn't have a nursery school in Monticello, a preschool, so we started it as a 51:00Jewish community center. Organized it, hired the teacher, who came up from New York, and started a nursery school, which my children went to. It was a wonderful project, and it lasted for many, many, many years, until there was no -- till the community disintegrated. Some of those kids are now sixty years old, but -- (laughs) that was a need, we -- well, that was volunteer. We did so many wonderful things. I wish I could remember everything. But whatever was missing -- I told you, we started a Yiddish -- a Jewish film festival. Oh, we had speakers come up to speak at the Jewish community center. Amazing people, on topics of Jewish interest. And we had one very wealthy man there who had a big home, and sometimes he would have the lectures at his house and people would come 'cause they wanted to see his house. (laughs) 'Cause they were very interested in seeing how he lived, Mr. Rohoftik. And --

IM:Do you remember any of the lecture topics?

AG:I have a whole list of them, I -- not off the top of my head. I could give 52:00you a list and tell you. We had people whose names you'd know. And there was another thing I wanted to tell you that I just -- as I was talking about Mr. Rohoftik I forgot -- maybe it'll come back to me. Something I wanted to tell you that we did. My husband was the kind -- if we found out the speaker was going to go home that night on the bus, he'd say, "No, no, sleep over at our house and I'll drive you in in the morning." That's the kind of man he was. So, I remember making a phone call to Jonathan and saying, "Jonathan, listen, we need your bedroom tonight, so you go -- please sleep in Saul's room. So, we're bringing home an -- a very famous man." And he said, "Who is that? I never heard of him," he would say. But it was somebody that I felt -- it was lacking his education, he didn't know that name, and I can't remember who -- Jonathan will remember who it was. But he went to sleep in his brother's room and we had him sleep over. Gee, I wish I could remember his name. Our house was like that, like my bubbie's house. (laughs)

IM:That's great. You were also a zamler, or a collector, for the Yiddish Book Center.

AG:Oh, yes. That was a great experience.

IM:First of all, can you describe what a zamler does for the Yiddish Book Center?

AG:Yeah. Well, the zamler collects books of Yiddish interests. In my community, in Sullivan County -- I decided, after I heard Aaron speak, I decided that's what I wanted to do. So, I put an ad in the paper saying anyone who had Yiddish books -- be happy to pick them up. And I couldn't believe the response. There were a lot of elderly people who had collections of Yiddish books in boxes. They didn't know what to do with them. But they valued them so much, they wouldn't throw them out. And whenever I came, they'd sit down, and some of them were crying. They'd -- What should I do with these? I said, "They're going to a library. You're going to rateve [save], you're going to save these books." And some of them I spoke to in Yiddish because they didn't speak English. They were probably as old as I am now. Really old people. And it was a wonderful 54:00experience. And I didn't do it on my own. We had volunteers who went to the post office and mailed boxes -- went to UPS, mailed boxes of books. We collect -- I don't think there was -- from a community like that -- it was mostly elderly people who valued these books, and nobody -- they'd say, My children don't want them. My grandchildren don't want them. They were so happy that they were going to a good place. They were very happy to hear that.

IM:How long were you a zamler?

AG:Until I -- as long as I lived in -- let me see. I started in 1984. I think we ran out of people in about two or three years. We ran out of people who -- the population was small in the winter. But in each place, I had a wonderful experience. I had -- they talked about how -- whose books they were. They talked about their grandparents and how much they valued -- I wish I could read Yiddish. I can't. I'm illiterate in Yiddish. (laughs) But I can sing Yiddish songs.

IM:That's great. Why was it important for you to be a zamler?

AG:Once I heard Aaron Lansky speak, I realized how important it was to save these books. I had never -- I really don't think I valued the Yiddish language, although I had read everything in translation. I read all the famous Yiddish writers in translation, in English. But I thought, Well, who's going to read this? There's no need. I never felt the need to save these books until I heard Aaron speak. And then I realized that there is a need and he's going to -- I knew that he was going to be successful in doing it. He told us of his experiences and what he planned to do. And he did it all. He did everything he planned and more. I could never envision what he -- that it would be what he did. I guess because of my love for the Yiddish language that -- that was my in. I love the language. I really do. So, that was my impetus in collecting the books, even though I couldn't read them, I'm ashamed to say. I'm not boasting. I'm just ashamed to say.

IM:Oh, no, it's fine. How, if it all did collecting Yiddish books influence your own relationship to Yiddish and/or your Jewish identity?

AG:I don't know if it changed it in any major way. I can't think if it -- 'cause I was so identified before I collected, and so. I thought it might give me a reason to study Yiddish, but concurrently, at the same time -- this is interesting, I started to study Hebrew because I had two sons -- my two oldest sons made aliyah to Israel, and they were at Hebrew University and they were planning to live there. And my oldest son married an Israeli woman, and I was sure that they would live there and my grandchildren would speak Hebrew. So, I joined an ulpan and I start -- to study Hebrew, and I think that's when I, for a while, dismissed Yiddish. I was positive that I needed to learn Hebrew because I 56:00would have Hebrew-speaking grandchildren. It never worked out. They came back. After my husband died, they came back. But they both have degrees from Hebrew University. And they are fluent in Hebrew, but not Yiddish. (laughs) Not Yiddish.

IM:(laughs) Okay. Did you enjoy learning Hebrew?

AG:I loved it. We had -- because, again, the experience we had -- I called the ulpan bureau in New York. I got a telephone number and I called up and they said, yes, they would send a teacher to Monticello -- we didn't have to go into New York if I organized enough -- again, organized enough people. So, I called all my friends and I knew who'd be interested. And we got a teacher who came up from New York once a week. She came on the Short Line bus the first time. After that, we didn't let her take the bus. And you know who it was? Do you know who Eliezer Ben-Yehuda is? Well, it was his daughter, Dola. Dola Ben-Yehuda came up on the Short Line bus to teach us Hebrew. She was a remarkable teacher. She came 57:00up once a week, and we fell in -- yeah, we fell in love. We became buddies. She stayed in our house and we never let her go back on the bus. Somebody always drove her in. (laughs) But to have the daughter of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda teach us Hebrew was an inspiration. And we were getting very good at it. And then -- we kept in touch with her. She did that only for a year, and then she went back to Israel. But my son, David, was bar mitzvahed in Israel and we invited her to come to the bar mitzvahed and she came, 'cause I always kept in touch with Dola. She was over a hundred when she died.

IM:Wow.

AG:And I had Eliezer's book, her father's -- Eliezer Ben-Yehuda's book of how he did this. I compare him to Aaron Lansky with Yiddish, what Eliezer Ben-Yehuda did with Hebrew. He made sure that they would -- it'd be a live language and that it would be spoken in Israel, 'cause there were many discussions about what language should Israel speak. Should it be Yiddish, should it be Hebrew, should 58:00it be German? There were people who wanted it to be German. But Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, he did it. He made sure it was going to be Hebrew and he made so many new words. He had to develop a whole new vocabulary. So, that was an exciting relationship, too.

IM:How do you see your connection to Yiddish and Yiddishkayt in terms of your broader sense of Jewish identity?

AG:Very important, I think. Very important. If I hadn't had that Yiddishkayt, beginning, I don't know if I would have felt so tied to being Jewish. I think it was the childhood with the very strong love -- I loved the language, I tell -- it's a language of love to me. To me, it's love. And I think it influenced the rest of my life, I really do, and what our interests were. Maybe if I hadn't 59:00married a Jewish funeral director, I wouldn't have been so identified. (laughs) But Joe, too. He didn't have the Yiddish background that I had. His parents spoke English. And he didn't remember his bubbie and zeyde. But it influenced me a great deal. I know that.

IM:How has your relationship to and/or interest in Yiddish changed throughout your lifetime?

AG:Disappointment in myself (laughs) that I didn't pursue the reading and the -- that I only learned it by ear. And I told you, I learned it incorrectly and I made a lot of mistakes. Now I found -- as I say, I'm still interested. I found out that the Workmen's Circle is having a Yiddish sing group, and I've just joined that. And I'm continuing with my -- I love to sing and I love Yiddish. What could be a better combination? (laughs) So, I'm starting that next week. (laughs) And it's my love. My children know it. And they never heard it growing 60:00up, so they don't know Yiddish at all. But it's funny, so many words in Yiddish have become part of American language. There are non-Jews who know Yiddish words. Somebody made a whole list of them for me once. I wish I had that list. But just words that everybody uses, and they're Yiddish words. And sometimes, they don't know that they're Yiddish words. (laughs) But they -- it's come into the English language. Those words, I think my children know. At the moment, I can't remember any.

IM:So, we're nearing towards the last part of the interview.

AG:Okay.

IM:What has been important for you to transmit to the generations after you, about Jewish identity?

AG:It's very important to me. Very important. I don't want to see it die out because of the value of the culture and the teachings and the -- I don't want to sound like I feel Jews are better than non-Jews, but I would not be happy with intermarriages in my family. And I know that's going to happen, because children -- my Jewish grandchildren are subjected to -- not the same world that we were. We only met Jewish people. We never met non-Jews. Brooklyn College was almost all (laughs) Jewish. My high school was almost all Jewish. I would have to accept it, but I would prefer that they marry within the Jewish religion. And if they intermarry, I would hope that they raise their children with Jewish values, that they don't forget what they learned from their parents. And even if the spouse is not Jewish, I would hope that they give their children a Jewish education. And it's likely to happen.

IM:Are there any particular works of art -- say, music, literature -- that remain important to you or have taken on new meaning throughout your lifetime?

AG:Literature, mostly. Books, because -- but I've read everything in translation. Any Jewish author you can think of. I have a whole pile of them. (laughs) Jewish comics, Jewish authors, Jewish -- I would -- I think I could hear it on a record. I could hear them read in Yiddish. I should buy some of those, 'cause I love the language. I love hearing it. But I've read everything in translation. Sholem Aleichem -- oh, my bookcase is full of Jewish wr-- I have a whole section of Jewish authors, and it's contributed to my understanding of my grandparents' life, what it must have been like in the shtetl, not through asking them but through my reading. So, that's very important in my life. Very important.

IM:What do you think is important for your grandchildren to know about their Jewish background?

AG:Everything. (laughs) I hope I can transmit it. I'm doing some writing. I'm doing this interview because I want them to know as much as they're interested in. And I'm doing some writing about what it meant to grow up in a neighborhood like Brownsville, and just a -- where Jews are a hundred percent of the community.

IM:Can you tell me more about the writing you're doing?

AG:About my childhood, yeah. Mostly it's -- I hate to call it a memoir. Memoir sounds so pretentious, doesn't it? (laughs) But I am writing about the little stories I've told about reading to my bubbie and the way our house was, guests 63:00were welcome, and the warmth and the love and the caring for people, more so than -- there wasn't much love of God. It was sort of here and now kind of relationship. And I want them to know how we felt when I was very young. I hope they'll be interested. That's why I'm writing it. Some of them will, I think. I know I'd give anything to have something my grandparents had written like that.

IM:To what extent do you think language plays a role in transmission between generations?

AG:I didn't hear that. Could you speak a little louder?

IM:Oh, yeah. (laughter) To what -- I'll give you a sec--

AG:My glasses --

IM:-- do you need a second?

AG:Oh, okay, go ahead.

IM:To what extent do you think language plays a role in transmission between generations?

AG:Yeah. It's a good question, too. I think it's an important -- yeah, 'cause 64:00there are nuances in a language that are so hard to translate. Sometimes, I have a Yiddish word and I'm asked for a translation. I need three or four English words to make it translatable. Language is very important, and it has to be preserved in its origin-- I know I studied French in school, and when I was able to read the French -- I can't do it anymore, but it was valuable, more valuable than reading the translation. So, it's important to -- for that -- languages to live, I think. We get a sense of community that you can't get, or culture or -- and I haven't got the right word. But you get a sense from the language you can't get from anything else. That's how I feel.

IM:Okay, so -- and now we're moving on to the end of the interview.

AG:Good, because I'm getting tired. (laughs)

IM:Great.

AG:You're great. The questions are wonderful.

IM:I'm glad.

AG:I want to see if I left anything out. (laughs)

IM:Okay.

AG:No, we covered a lot, yeah. Just the little things about going shopping with my bubbie, but that's not important.

IM:Oh, yeah! No.

AG:It's something.

IM:So I'll just ask you one question --

AG:Okay.

IM:-- and then maybe you can share that little anecdote --

AG:A little anecdote --

IM:-- and then we'll wrap it up.

AG:-- that I think is amazing. It shows her feelings. (laughs)

IM:Do you have anything you would like to share with younger generations concerning Yiddish language and culture?

AG:I'd need more time to answer that question properly. It's a big question, and I don't want to sound too glib or off the top. If you could send me that question, I would love to answer that question.

IM:Oh, yeah. (laughter) Yeah, we can --

AG:I would love to answer that. But I can't do it off -- because I'm tired now.

IM:Great.

AG:And it requires -- a good question requires a good answer, so (laughs) okay?

IM:So, we're nearing the end of our time, but I'd like to ask if there's anything else you'd like to share before we end?

AG:I just left that about, again, how much time I spent with my grandparents. We would go shopping on Belmont Avenue. Belmont Avenue was like a street -- shopping. There were pushcarts and there was a live chicken market. And I would go with my bubbie on Thursday, she'd buy a live chicken. And, of course, it was alive and she'd feel it to make sure it had enough chicken fat. She wanted to make -- she rendered chicken fat. So, she would pick out a nice yellow plump one, and the shochet [ritual slaughterer] was right on the premises. He would kill the chicken according to his -- according to the Jewish religion, and then for five cents more you could have it plucked, could have the feathers taken off. To save the five cents, she would pluck it herself. And then we would go home and (laughs) she would cook the chicken. But once she -- I'll never forget it, 'cause Belmont Avenue, besides all the pushcarts on the street -- and you had to bargain. If you didn't bargain, it wasn't Jewish. You know what bargaining is. You never give them the first price that they offer because it's 67:00too much. So, we would go to a little shop. She was buying me a special dress for a special occasion. It was a big deal to buy a new dress. We'd go into the store, and the first thing she says to me before we go in, "Zog nisht az d'glakhst dos." "Don't -- if you see a dress you like, don't say you like it 'cause then the price'll" -- no dresses had prices on them. You would say -- so, I would try on the dress and I'd give her a look, "I like it, I like it bubbie." Mustn't say it. So, she'd say to the owner of the store, "Vifl vilsti far di shmate?" "How much do you want for the shmate [rag]?" You know "shmate"? Piece of -- junky dress. (laughs) So, immediately, the price would go down. So, he'd say, "Three dollars." She'd say, "Oh, let's go." We'd -- walking out, I'd be ready to cry. But it was an act. The whole thing was a play. And he'd say, "Wait a minute lady. Two dollars." "Tsufil. [too much] Tsufil. Anita, let's -- Anileh, let's go," till she got the price she came in with. But you could never -- I mean, the whole thing was like a game. You never give them the first price, and 68:00you don't say you like it, 'cause then you're in trouble. So, I loved that little story. And I reminded myself of it, how I learned how to go shopping. Until they put prices on clothes, I thought you have to -- that's how you shop. You don't say you like it, and you don't give them the first price that they offer. (laughs) Now it's not a problem, right? (laughs)

IM:Right. Thank you for sharing that. So, do you have any favorite Yiddish words or songs? And then we'll be finished.

AG:Yeah, right, right.

IM:Just the last --

AG:No, I love Jewish music. I love it all, because, as I told you, I grew up with the music. We played at the -- I had phonograph records. I don't know how they bought them. But they were wonderful, wonderful songs. I had a list of them, of all the records, and I don't know what I did with them. I'm so sorry I'm not prepared, but --

IM:Oh, no, no, you're fine.

AG:But I did have a list of the Yiddish music that I loved so much. Oh, I remember one that terrified me, and I didn't know what it meant, but it sounded 69:00awful. It was, "Ikh vil nisht geyn tsu kheyder [I don't want to go to heder]." There was a boy singing and crying. I didn't know what kheyder [traditional religious school] was 'cause I was too young. But I felt it's terrible. I was afraid of that record, yeah. " Ikh vil nisht geyn tsu kheyder." (imitates cry) He was crying. He doesn't want to go. And later I found out what kheyder was, so it wasn't so dramatic. But for a four or five-year-old, oh, that's -- what is this place? It sounded like hell! (laughs) I remember that one. (laughs)

IM:Great.

AG:I have so many lists. I'm a list-maker. (laughs)

IM:So, if there isn't anything else, I believe we --

AG:No, I think I told you about the live carp in the bathtub? (laughs) The neighborhood people were amazing. We had a pharmacist who had a drugstore on the corner. And the pharmacist was -- my bubbie used to call him the druggist man -- 70:00was the most respected person in the whole community 'cause he had the highest education. A man who could -- a pharmacist had to go to college. So, to go to a doctor cost a dollar and it was too expensive. They would go and ask him everything they would ask a doctor, about everything. "My granddaughter has 102 temperature, what should I buy?" And they respected him so much. He was Jewish, and a Jewish pharmacist is the most educated person in the whole community -- in Brownsville, was the pharmacist. The druggist man, that's all we had. (laughs) But if you really needed a doctor, they came to the house. But that was two dollars. (laughs) Nobody makes house calls anymore. (laughs)

IM:Yeah. Well, it's been a pleasure to speak with you, and --

AG:For me, too. I enjoyed it so much.

IM:-- on behalf of the Yiddish Book Center, I want to say a sheynem dank [thank you] for telling me your memories and sharing your stories with me. It's been lovely, and thank you.

AG:Sheynem dank for coming.

[END OF INTERVIEW]