SASHA LURJE ORAL HISTORY

AGNIESZKA ILWICKA: This is Agnieszka Ilwicka and today is 25th of November, 2015. I'm here in the library of the Eastern European Studies at the Freie Universität at Berlin with Sashka Lurje. (laughter) And we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Sasha Lurje, do I have your permission to record this interview?

SASHA LURJE: Yes, you do. (laughs)

AI:Thank you very much. I would like to start with your family background. Could you please give me -- brief picture of your family background?

SL:Well, my family's a typical Eastern European family. My father's family comes 1:00partly from Latvia. His father -- on my grandfather's side. They lived in a small shtetl [small Eastern European village with a Jewish community] called Krāslava. I actually don't know what was the Jewish -- it probably had a Jewish name. I kind of never -- find that out. But so, they are from Latvia on my grandmother's side. They travelled really a lot, so it's hard to say because my grandmother's father was a big communist in the first wave. So, obviously, it was a miracle that he wasn't shot with all of them, because everybody he worked with was shot in the '30s because Stalin was just changing the whole party, and 2:00he was just sent to gulags for eight years. My mother is half-Russian, half-Ukrainian, also very different stories. The Russian side is very simple. They come from -- my great-grandmother comes from Penza, so quite far into Russia. And her father's side, her grandfather was a Ukrainian. And the grandmother was -- so, my great-grandfather, great-grandmother was a Don Cossack. So, they would never get married unless the whole denationalization happened in the -- our friend, Comrade Stalin, helped. And they were sent to 3:00Siberia, and that's where they met. So, basically a typical Soviet, Eastern European family background. We have all of them.

AI:Sashka, do you have any famous or infamous family stories about your ancestors?

SL:Family stories. Well, I mean, all of the family stories are -- it's hard to say. What do you mean by famous family stories?

AI:Something which is very important for you and what you carry on when you think about your family and past.

SL:Well, what I think about is basically what I just -- giving this brief overview. I think if I look at my Jewish side of my family, they have all the 4:00possible, typical Jewish things going on in the -- before the war, during the war, the whole thing.

AI:Like what? Give me examples.

SL:Well, if you think about the -- they were both -- if we think about the beginning of the twentieth century, they were both early communists, which was a very important Jewish movement, as well. But, as well, they were anti-Stalinists. They lived in small villages where they would only hear Polish and Yiddish and only learn the language of the country because of the Sundays when -- the market days, and the peasants would come into town to sell 5:00vegetables at the market, like my grandfather. And he learned Russian when they moved to Riga after -- I think he moved to Riga for college or something. No, for school, not college. He studied in St. Petersburg. But he learned Russian already after the war. I mean World War II. I realize that in different cultures, people call different things "the war." For us, "the war" is World War II. And on my mother's side, it's all, again, very typical things coming from different places. And if I think about it, if not for some horrifying events, if not for Jewish assimilation, if not for the war, if not for the Stalin regime, 6:00my family would not be the same, because basically these people would never meet or would never be together or would never get married. Even in the '80s, when my parents were getting married, people were going, Really? She's taking his name? Because my mother, with her non-Jewish name, was taking my father's Jewish name, you know? They were like -- in the '80s. They were like, Oh, but what is she thinking, doing this? I always think about my family as a very wide range of all the backgrounds that come together because of how history of the twentieth century worked out. And it's very typical untypical family. You wouldn't think 7:00that it's something unusual. But in a way, if you look at all the different sides, you're like, Yeah, it is unusual. I have a great-grandfather who spent eight years in gulag. But his children's name-- are Ninel, my grandmother is Ninel, and my -- her brother is Vladlen. But Ninel is Lenin reversed and Vladlen also stands for Vladimir Lenin. So, I mean, he was -- but then, (laughs) he was called an enemy of the state and he -- so were his children. And in order for my grandmother to get into college -- she was a gymnast, and in order for her to get into college in '53, the year Stalin died. She was with her team, they were 8:00in St. Petersburg, and she went to the exams wearing all her medals, because -- and they were like, Oh, no, what -- because she was the daughter of the enemy of the state, she was Jewish. There was no way she would get into the college that she wanted. But it's not even a college. It's like a technical school. And the sports guy was like, "No, we need this one," because of the -- so, that's how she got into -- there was no way she would. So, there are all these -- and in a way, the normality of these stories is what I think of. I think that -- one of my great-grandfathers was in a gulag and another of my great-grandfathers worked 9:00in wood -- what is it called? What is it called?

AI:The chopper?

SL:No, no, no, he was a boss of the whole system, and most likely, that was never spoken of in the family. In my generation and even my mother's, father's generation, they're already guessing that probably, he was working with inmates and they were the ones that he was controlling.

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AI:I would like to ask you about how your parents met.

SL:Oh, my parents, they met in Bulgaria. Not really. Well, yes, really. In the Soviet Union, you could get these trips to friendly communist lands and it was a 10:00big thing. And, yeah, my parents were on the same trip and they -- but they had already friends in common. So, somebody introduced them before because they were going on the same trip with my mother's best friend. Actually, they are still all family friends. And so, she introduced them because she thought, Oh, somebody -- she will need somebody to help her with her bags, so -- but it went a little further than that, yeah. (laughs) Yeah, so, yeah, they met, got married in a year, had me in a year after that. Was very --

AI:And what was the year when you were born?

SL:Eighty-five. So, yeah, it's --

AI:Can you describe home in which you grew up with?

SL:Yeah, I grew up in a typical small Soviet apartment building. When I was 11:00four, we moved out of my grandmother's apartment. We first lived with her and it was like this --

AI:How many rooms did you have?

SL:Two, and then we moved to another apartment of two rooms, fifty-five square meters. It's --

AI:How many people?

SL:Well, me, my parents and a dog. But that apartment that we moved to, it's very interesting, it was considered really a big one. It was like a very -- even now, honestly, out of -- because that's how Riga is built. But now, nobody wants to live in these Soviet buildings. But these are the good ones because these are newer ones. I think the building itself was built in -- five years before we 12:00moved in. Yeah, and we were very lucky, apparently. We got it right -- and it was already privatized, it wasn't -- and we got it right before the country became independent and the prices of everything got so confusing. So, actually, in that sense, we were very lucky. Yeah, a small, small place, but I had my own room. That was a thing. It was like, Sasha can have her own room. And then, there's another room for the parents and -- which is also the living room. But yeah, it's funny, at that time it seemed like when we just got it, the whole family was like, Wow, it's such an amazing, wonderful apartment. And now, especially those that live somewhere else with a lot of my family, basically, in 13:00-- right now, only my parents live in Riga, and my one aunt. But everybody else is elsewhere. And now that -- when they come to visit, the first thing when they walk into this apartment, they -- because my parents still live in that apartment. When they walk in, they go, It's so small! We were sure -- they remember it from that experience and their feeling when they actually were still living there, and it was this amazing, huge place. But now that they live -- especially the Americans, when they walk in, they go, It's so small. (laughs) It's very interesting, their perception of it completely changed. So, it was always just us.

AI:And would you say that you grew up in a Jewish home?

SL:No. I grew up in a very normal Soviet -- little family. There was no 14:00religion. From my mother's side, sometimes there was a -- little attempts on some Christianity, because some of them are Russian Orthodox. But they were strongly resistant. There was no religion. I always was aware, though -- somehow, there was always an understanding that I'm also Jewish and I'm Russian. And I'm in Latvia, so I'm also kind of Latvian. There was always -- the identity question has -- I didn't realize it growing up, but it always has been a question for me because it's always been a little tricky. I always couldn't say 15:00what is the -- I never could say, I'm this or I'm that, and I still don't like to. And because I'm so involved with Jewish culture, I'm often asked whether I'm Jewish. And I never know what to actually answer, because I am and I'm not. And it should and shouldn't matter. It's a very complex -- we can get to that. But I would hear some things. I would hear some of the more popular songs sung at the table sometimes, when I was little. Or I remember my grandmother's big birthday 16:00party. I think she was turning fifty or something, and it was at a big restaurant and there were musicians, and they -- and I remember them playing "Hava Nagila" and how everybody was excited. But I was very little. Most of those memories are very -- from when I was little, because around the year '95, '96, basically out of my huge family -- all the cousins -- so, everybody who was there -- everybody moved away, within two years. And within two years, it stayed just me and my parents and my mother's mother and my mother -- some of my mother's family, very -- suddenly, it was a very small family and I had no cousins, no children of my age, nobody. So, it was just this little nucleus. And 17:00we didn't do very much of that kind of stuff at home.

AI:And when exactly was this happening? When did it happen?

SL:What?

AI:The whole move-out of the people from Latvia?

SL:Well, in my family, they somehow all moved within those two years, '95-96.

AI:And why?

SL:'Cause they could. (laughs)

AI:But why only '95?

SL:I don't know. I really don't know. Well, I think it's a decision, right, even -- and to decide where to go and why. I remember when my grandparents were moving to Israel that -- I mean, I don't -- I remember how sad my father was, 18:00because at that -- even then, even though we already lived in an independent country, we were still saying goodbye forever. We didn't know. We didn't know how to travel, we didn't know whether we would be able to -- yeah. But I didn't really understand then, and somehow after that, I just accepted that that's how it was. So, I never asked many questions about it. I never asked why they decided to move, why did they decide to move at that particular moment? I know why my family didn't move, because my mother still had her grandmother there and 19:00she was almost ninety and there was no way to move with her. And my mother wouldn't leave her family. And then her mother got cancer, so my grandmother was dying and we couldn't -- and there's always a relative and there's still a relative that is -- you know, the next one that is getting older and you can't leave. So, I know why they didn't. But I don't know why everybody decided exactly on that time. 'Cause they could, I think. 'Cause the opportunity was suddenly there. And it was easier than before, I think.

AI:Sasha, I would like to know what languages were spoken in your home.

SL:Russian.

AI:But think also about the generations and --

SL:Russian. Just Russian. At home, we only spoke Russian. See, in my family -- 20:00well, there might have been some Ukrainian at some point, but I haven't -- if I have heard it, I don't remember it. But with Yiddish, I have never even heard my grandfather speak Yiddish. My father tells me that sometimes he would run into somebody in the street with my grandfather, and he remembers it from when he was a teenager. They would run into somebody -- he told me once that they ran into somebody that looked tall and blonde and a very typical Latgalian, Latvian, Latgalian from the part where Krāslava is. And suddenly, my grandfather started 21:00speaking Yiddish to him. And my father was very interested, how did that work? And he said, "Well, this is a guy who -- he's not Jewish, but he used to come to the village to sell, so he learned Yiddish because everybody was." And he was like, "He speaks pretty decent Yiddish." But I don't remember hearing any of that because everybody else, in my grandfather's generation even, they already -- they're talking about how their parents spoke Yiddish to each other so that they didn't understand. So, I'm always a little curious to hear -- how does that work with people when they're in their fifties, because in my experience -- because I hear a lot of people in the fifties saying that their parents did that. But in my experience, that happened a generation earlier. I think it 22:00depends on the location, because for Latvian Jews, the assimilation happened much later. But in Belarus, where a lot of my other part is happening, I think it just happened earlier. At least that's how it feels from my family.

AI:You mean, one generation earlier?

SL:Yeah, one generation earlier. So, my grandparents already, my grandparents' generation already didn't speak Yiddish. Right now, after my grandfather passed away and his brother passed away -- they were the last ones, and they could read and write. They went to a Jewish school. Basically, the fact that I'm learning how to do it, and that I can read and write in Yiddish -- my family's incredibly 23:00proud, and they feel like this is great, because there is still a person who does it in our family. 'Cause I'm the only one now. Everybody who could do it is dead.

AI:So, now we have to talk more about Yiddish. (laughter) How did it happen that you start to learn Yiddish? When was the first moment when you said, Okay, I'm going to do it?

SL:Oh, I'm a little bit of an opportunist with Yiddish. A lot of it just came. I wish I had put more effort into it than I did, but okay. It has to do, obviously, with the fact that I'm involved with Yiddish song and Jewish music, 'cause when -- I'd want to be -- briefly, when I realized I'm doing it 24:00seriously, and this is what I'm doing, I realized how connected music and language are. And I realized that you have to know the language at least on some level to understand how the music works, to understand the phrasing, the melody, the way it all works out. I joined a youth Jewish theater when I was fourteen, fifteen. A friend of mine brought me there because we were singing together -- with her in a choir, and her mother said, "Well, that girl has a Jewish name. 25:00You should be friends." So, it's not why we became friends, but that also worked out. And so, she brought me to this theater group, and what we did in that group was in Russian and in Yiddish. So, I started hearing the language and I started getting more involved in -- but it was, again -- see, you asked me before whether I was feeling Jewish or growing up in a Jewish home -- kind of not. But when somebody approached me and was, like, "Do you want to join a Jewish theater group?" It was a completely normal thing. It was like, "Yeah, sure." It wasn't like, "Oh, why do you ask me?" I wasn't unaware of it, but I wasn't doing anything actively before my teenage years. I haven't been to a synagogue till my 26:00really late teenage years.

AI:When was your first time when you were in the synagogue?

SL:I went for Purim and got horribly drunk. Obviously, it's Purim. That's legal. I mean, this has -- it's a kind of like a very patchy thing. There's no line there. It's like, here I did this, here I did that. So, it started with this theater. There was a singing group there, and we were doing a typical Jewish community singing group where we're doing some Yiddish songs, some Israeli songs.

AI:What songs?

SL:I don't remember. I sang an Israeli one. But we did -- just songs. Things that I consider well-known, but then I realize not everybody knows them. I don't remember what we were doing.

AI:Did you have some teachers who were inspiring you to go into Yiddish? Or 27:00you're just --

SL:No.

AI:-- choose your own path?

SL:No, at that time -- well, our theater director was very interesting.

AI:What was --

SL:[Karmala Skolik?]. She was a very special lady, and she stood behind a lot of the rejuvenation of the Jewish community in the '80s, in Riga, and Jewish culture, and trying to revive Jewish theater and Yiddish theater. Very interesting woman, yeah. She passed away about ten years ago. But so, I think a lot of things that I do now is because of the things that she was doing then. But then it worked out -- there was this Klezfest in St. Petersburg. And what 28:00they did, they would try to gather musicians from different places. So, they would send requests to different Jewish communities, asking for their musicians to be sent. And they would share expenses and stuff. And one year, a girl that also was singing in this group was sent as a singer there. And she -- [Ina Reichman?], her name -- she just saw all these crazy musicians playing all night. And she had gone to music school to study violin, so as soon as she could, she had to make a year break to have a baby. But then, she came back, 29:00already with a fiddle, and was playing and was getting very excited about it. And then, when she got back, she was like, "I need people to do it with in Riga," because nobody was doing, really, klezmer in Riga. And she approached this accordion player -- well, accordion player. He was playing accordion for a month at that time, Ilya Shneyveys. And they started playing a little bit together. And I was singing some stuff like "Yidishe mame [Jewish mother]," and they were like, Do you want to do that with live music? Because I always had these stupid synthesizer playbacks to sing with, because this is what I could do. And I was like, "Yeah, sure, live music is much better." Even though Ilya can -- it's kind of impressive, but the first concert, the first performance we 30:00did, he's been playing accordion for four months by that time. (laughs) And it was fun, and it took off. And we started doing things. And I've been learning German in school, so I had a feeling like, Oh, I can understand stuff here because I can understand German, I can understand the Slavic, and I kind of always was a little bit of -- it felt like it was easy and things started falling -- and I was listening a lot, and I started listening to a lot of different singers and trying to find maybe older recordings. I had no idea about all the field recordings at the time, right? For me, all the recordings were like, theater recordings from Paris or whatever. Or America, there are all these -- and I was listening to that, I was listening to how they pronounce things -- 31:00and try to repeat that, and copy -- and I started developing a sense for how the language works. But because the combination of already speaking some German and being a native Russian speaker, it really does help because the grammar is somewhere in between. The vocabulary, well, is largely Germanic. So, then I had to go -- how do I start reading and writing?

AI:Yeah, but tell me when exactly it happened. So, how old you were when you went to St. Petersburg?

SL:Well, the thing is that I was unlucky several years. I couldn't -- for many reasons. I kept trying to get there and I wouldn't. I actually was already -- I went there to perform, and I was already involved and trying to get into this 32:00whole thing on my own at home, and from what my colleagues and Ilya were bringing back for years before I actually made it there. The first time I made it there was in 2006. So, I've been doing it for a few years by then.

AI:So, that was your --

SL:Oh, no, I actually -- 2006 was Moscow. I didn't make it to St. Petersburg in 2006. I was going to, and then something got in -- oh, sorry. (laughs)

AI:No, it's okay.

SL:And then something got in the way. So, I didn't make it -- that St. Petersburg happened only in 2007. And they have a rule. They kind of don't check, but I was -- it was such a big thing for me to finally make it to -- because I've been already going to different places. But it was an important 33:00thing for me to actually make it there, because even though I'm not the one who got inspired from it, but I always had a feeling that that is the festival where it was born for us. That is the festival that got the first person inspired that brought it to us and they kept going.

AI:To us, you mean to --

SL:To us in Riga, to our little -- already -- band at that time. And they had this rule that you have to learn the alphabet before you come to the festival, because everybody has to take Yiddish classes there, on different level. And the basic Yiddish class already functions with -- is supposed to already function with alphabet. Nobody takes it seriously. Most musicians just come there to play. But to me, it was -- I don't know why. And it was fun. I wanted to. And 34:00that was also around the same time that I started working at the Jewish Museum in Riga, and that would be useful, too, for that, because --

AI:So, when actually you started to work for the Jewish Museum in Riga?

SL:That's also --

AI:How old you were?

SL:-- 2006 or 2007, so --

AI:About twenty-one.

SL:-- twenty-one, twenty-- yeah.

AI:Yeah, so you took it seriously, and then --

SL:I took it seriously and I just sat down, downloaded -- I had something from the internet -- and studied it. And I would just take a text and rewrite it. And because my job at the Jewish Museum was -- I was the, what do you call it, the -- I lost the word. The keeper of all the funds, right? All the -- so, my job was to catalog things and read. And what we get there is a lot of old letters 35:00and stuff. So, it just -- I had a thing to practice with right away. So, just use it for my job and I would practice writing and I would practice reading. And I -- to catalog, you have to rewrite it, at least -- so, I kept doing all of those things and it kind of started developing. And my father saw that I'm serious about it, and here's the Hanan Bordin story. So, my father saw that I was serious and he goes, "Well, my classmate moved to Israel right after school. And he became a Yiddish professor there. And he's coming to Riga for the summer 36:00because Israeli summers are very hot and he likes to spend a cooler summer. A lot of people do that. And, would you like to meet him?" So, we met and it was incredible to see that there is this kind of funny connection. And we met and he gave me my first Yiddish classes. Well, besides the things that I had to take in -- and maybe had to take a class in St. Petersburg before. Or was that -- I can't tell, the timeline is blurry for me now. But he showed me the basics and he gave me some keys how to practice it, so -- but the rest I mostly learned from just trying to talk to people or reading or songs. I never took an official 37:00Yiddish class, but somehow when I get up at a shtiler ovnt [quiet evening] at KlezKanada and Kolya Borodulin is doing it, and he reads it all in Yiddish, it just start-- I just realized at one point, it just started coming out naturally. I stopped shying away from speaking Yiddish. And I don't know, you're about to ask me when that happened. I don't know. It happened all very gradually. But I do still treasure Hanan as my first teacher, because he kind of gave me the key.

AI:And you --

SL:And then everything worked out out of that.

AI:And it was individual class or --

SL:Yeah.

AI:-- did you meet for a few times or how did --

SL:We met a couple of times, just -- and I still have that notebook, and he -- 38:00where he would make little dictations so that I write, and give me texts to read. And we would talk, and he would explain how certain things work and how -- certain letters are weird to write, all the tsadeks, all the shlos [final] letters, all the end letters. They're all -- and he would just spend some time and we would just chat and hang out and do that, and it was just nice. So, yeah.

AI:And what was the attitude towards Yiddish in your family and community, that time?

SL:Well, I don't know. I think, you see, I think everybody is excited about 39:00Yiddish. There is a certain level of, Oh, you actually are doing it. And kind of like, Oh, you actually can read it? Oh, you -- I never felt -- people tell me sometimes that -- unless those are Israelis. I have never felt a kind of a push-away, No, we don't want Yiddish. Quite the other way. People get very excited about it. And in my family -- for instance, when we released the Forshpil CD and we got a very nice review -- Itzik wrote a very nice review in the "Forverts" and my family was so excited about it. And they were like, Oh, 40:00have you read it? I was like, "Yes, sure, I have read it." And they were like, And who translated it for you? And I was like, "Well, I just read it." And I just remember my -- what is it called? My great-aunt -- aunt, I just call her aunt -- it's all wrong in English. She's my grandfather's brother's wife. I just remember her face changing, like, You read it yourself? She was amazed. Every time I bring a new CD to her, she plays it to all of her friends and goes, "See? She does it in Yiddish! And she can speak it and write it and read it," getting a little -- yeah. So, at -- well, this is now -- and as soon as I was getting 41:00interested, I was kind of always supported by that. There have been struggles: What are you doing? Are you going to be a musician? What are you going to eat? We don't understand how that works, and all of that. And also, the idea that I'm -- out of being a professional musician, I'm also choosing quite an obscure branch of it, right? So, that I have had struggles in a family, with parents just getting seriously worried about it. But there was always an appreciation of what I'm doing, and --

AI:Sasha, we will talk more about your work in a minute. But before, we will do, we can -- before we will develop the topic of music and your (unclear; overlapping dialogue) --

SL:Yeah, I have to go by it, because it's --

AI:That's for sure. I would like to ask you and I would like people to know what 42:00is your degree? Because this is quite interesting.

SL:The degree?

AI:Yeah. Please tell me briefly about your formal education, and don't forget about your diploma.

SL:(laughs) Well, honestly with diploma, it's tough. I studied -- well, when I graduated from high school --

AI:It was like a public high school --

SL:No, it's just a general -- yeah, general school. I mean, you see this -- again, the education system is so different in all the places. So, it was called a classical gymnasium. So, it was a grammar school. It was more of a -- I mean, we studied philosophy and history of art or history of culture and languages. 43:00And it had a lot of stress on that. And when I graduated -- but it was a general state school. It wasn't a private school or something. Wasn't a Jewish school, either, even though there was a Jewish school in -- and is a Jewish school in Latvia, but -- and when I graduated, I pretty much had no idea what I was going to be doing. I mean, I wasn't sure, and so I started studying at the technical university in Riga, because my father -- everybody in my family are engineers or 44:00chemists or -- there is nobody in arts or anything remotely not science-y. So, most of my family are engineers. So, it just felt normal to also become one. And I was studying -- I didn't graduate, because pretty much a year before -- or maybe even half year before graduation, I was like, Okay, I'm done. I can't do this anymore. I was doing more and more music, I was in an evening music school. And I felt like I had to just quit right now, because later I won't have enough 45:00courage. Because I was so afraid that I would break my father's heart, because I was going in his footsteps, taking his job, working in his firm. And it was kind of amazing, because when I told him that I'm going to do something else, he was like, "Yeah, that makes sense for you," right away. I was like, "Thank you." (laughs) He's like, "I thought that from the very beginning. I just wanted it to be your choice." And I thought, That's pretty great parenting. So, I started studying at the Culture Academy in Latvia. I studied intercultural relations and cognitive linguistics. And the funny thing about it is that the system, the 46:00higher education system in Latvia, it works in a way that all the state universities are kind of under the umbrella of the Ministry of Education. But there are three colleges that are under the umbrella of the Culture Ministry and some -- the Academy of Culture, the Academy of Fine Arts, and the Academy of Music. And they all kind of go with each other. So, if you study at one, you can -- you have your program, but you can also take classes in the other schools. So, I took a bunch of classes at the Academy of Music. I could take folklore, I took some classes from the musicology department, and -- because I didn't want to go study ethnomusicology. I already was thinking about that. But in Latvia, you can only study with a strong focus on Latvian folk music, obviously. And 47:00neither was I interested, not was I going to spend my time on that. So, this is my studying history.

AI:And then, you just came into music with --

SL:Well, I've been doing music all my life. It's not like -- I've been singing since I was three years old. When I was in the fourth grade, I had a thing every night after school. I was in a choir, I was in a music theater. I mean, we're talking nine years old, right? When I was seven, I stalked a teacher to get into her ensemble. I don't remember that, but she called my mother and she was like, "Do something about your daughter. She's stalking me! She follows me even to the bathroom." I just wanted to be in that group. I wanted to sing in that group. And then they met up with me and they were like, Well, see, that group is for 48:00older kids. They start with the fourth grade or something. You'll have to wait four years. If we had more kids your age -- I'm seven years old -- we would start a group for your -- in a week, I brought eight more kids. (laughs) In a week. I have no memory of this. My mother told me all of these stories. Or when I was four, she told me -- not four. When I was in the fourth grade, she told me that I have to choose one, because I was learning guitar, I was in a musical theater, I sang in a choir, I -- God knows. I was taking lessons with a classical singing teacher, because there was a lot of -- in the school where I was at the time, there was a lot of opportunity to do that. And I was doing everything. Every night, after school. And my mom was like, "Well, you should 49:00focus on the studies, you should pick one. You can't do all of them. Pick one." And I was like, "Mom, you don't understand. What if this is going to be my profession one day?" And she was like, "Yeah, yeah." So, by the way, I didn't quit any of those no matter how hard they were telling me to. No, I stayed with all of them. So, I don't have formal musical education, but I studied with all the different people, musically, and I did attend an evening music school, because at one point I realized I want to learn how to read music, I want to learn solfège, I want to -- all of that stuff. So, I've been learning that.

AI:And when did you do it?

SL:Around when I was twenty, so about ten years ago. Was an evening school for grown-ups.

AI:In Riga?

SL:In Riga. It's another amazing thing about that thing. It was a state evening music school. It was part of another school. But there was a school for grown-ups where grown-ups could, in the evenings, come and we had classes. So, there's music theory and solfège and piano, and I was learning with a very fine classical singer, and music literature. We had all those things. And we had to pay ten lats a month. Ten lats, that's like fifteen Euros. (laughs) And at that 51:00time, right? Now there are no lats at all, but -- and a few months into it, our solfège teacher gathers us and goes, "Okay, so here is" -- I was there for two months, and it's the third month, she gathers us and she goes, "Okay, there is a new government program that our school falls under. So, from now on, this is going to be for free." (laughs) I still don't know what that was. I still have no idea how that happened, but -- and I was in the middle of all these different things. So, I was -- and in a way, I don't know how I was managing it, because I was studying at the Culture Academy already. I was at the music school. I had a day job at the Jewish Museum, and I was already touring. And I don't know how I 52:00was doing it. But I had just a feeling that I have to do it right now or I'm not going to do it. So, yeah. But also, as for musical education, I consider the things that I've learned at some of the workshops, especially at Yiddish Summer Weimar. I consider that as -- if I could get a degree for what I learned there, that would be at least a master's degree because -- but you can't get a degree in Yiddish music. Or you can, but it's not -- because of how academia works, I think, you have to -- it's not about what you actually need to be a good Yiddish musician.

AI:And what do you think you need to be a good Yiddish musician?

SL:Ears. (laughs) Well, I think there is a certain respect for the whole culture, to start with. And you do need to be aware of a lot of background. So, actually coming from the Old World really helps. I don't need to learn about a lot of certain things, because they're in my family. When I sing an agune lid [widow song, lit. "chained woman song"], I go, Okay, and great grandmother was one. Or great-great grandmother.

AI:How come?

SL:Oh, well, her first husband left for America and never got back, and didn't even send her a get [divorce contract]. He just left. And she was with a kid, 54:00she was waiting for him, and then about ten years later, the rabbi allowed her to get remarried and she did. My family comes already from the new marriage. But that's not my grandmother's side. So, you know what I mean? I don't need to really learn about what it means. I don't -- yeah, had one of those. So, for me, that is -- but understanding that background, I think, is very important. Understanding the language is incredibly important, because it influences -- 55:00language influences how you think, how you phrase things. Language influences your melody. Language influences your thought process, your choices, your rhythm. Yiddish is a -- in a way, a restless language. It has the melody of -- kind of like, I need to go somewhere. I need to do something. It's a kind of -- it's a restless language, but at the same time it has a very relaxed melody. So, the combination of that is what is very important in Yiddish music. When I hear a lot of musicians, I can go, "That person has no idea. They don't" -- and I don't think that you necessarily have to speak Yiddish in order to be a -- but 56:00it doesn't hurt, for sure. But what you do need is a relationship with it. You need to understand how it works. You need to hear how it works. You need to have a feeling for it. Maybe you're not a fluent Yiddish speaker, but you still need to have a relationship with it, too, because if you're in any folk music, you have to have the whole story of it, the whole (UNCLEAR) of it, the -- not just the notes, because the notes on the paper mean nothing. They don't represent what the music is. I mean, they're just a symbol of it. It's like -- there's this good saying that "the map is not the territory." If you look at the map, you are aware of -- where what is, but it doesn't mean you know how the 57:00territory is, how the land is, how the air feels, how the trees look, right? The map doesn't -- if you look at the map of this place where we are right now, you don't see this. You have to see this, to be here to see it. And the same with sheet music and the actual music. And for folk music, it's even more important because it comes from oral learning, from oral -- it goes from ear to ear, from generation to generation. And learning by ear and understanding that is incredibly important. Am I moving too far from -- (laughs)

AI:Sasha, definitely not. You are not going anywhere too far, no.

SL:(laughs) Okay.

AI:We are just getting deeper and deeper --

SL:Good, good, good.

AI:-- in the place where we would like to be.

SL:That's perfect!

AI:So, that's the good part.

SL:Yeah, I -- that's the good part. I like talking about these things. So, yeah. (laughs)

AI:As we are listening. (laughter)

SL: That's great.

AI: And because I like to know more, I would like to ask you a few more questions about Yiddish in your life.

SL:Sure. Sure.

AI:First of all, you mentioned before that you spoke with whoever you could, and this is how you learned. So, I would like to know with whom exactly you spoke. That's very interesting to me, because we live in the time when Yiddish is considered to be dying language, so --

SL:Yeah. Well, the first person who really made me speak was Pesach Fiszman. I met him at Yiddish Summer Weimar. And it was actually -- it was kind of amazing. 59:00It was my first time at Yiddish Summer. I have just arrived. It was in the middle of the night. I was kind of freaked out. My train was late. So, I got to the hotel where I was supposed to pick up a key from the apartment where I was staying. And a lot of people on the faculty were in the lobby when I walked in. And they started talking to me and I knew some of them, so we started talking. And Pesach was sitting there at the same table, on the other side. And I saw this older man looking kind of funny, studying me while I was talking to somebody in English or in Russian, I can't remember. Doesn't matter. I think Russian. I think I was speaking Russian. And he looked at me for a while, and I could feel this look. And he was like, "Farvos redt dos meydele goyish [Why does this young woman speak Russian, lit. "non-Jewish"]?" And I just was like, "What 60:00does this mean? Am I in trouble?" (laughs) 'Cause I had no idea, right? I didn't know what kind of -- I was jumping into these things, and I had no idea who these people are. I went to these festivals and I was just figuring out what this whole thing is, right? And I was like, "Is this not allowed? Is that a problem?" And every time I tried to speak any -- because he spoke so many languages, any time I tried to speak any other language with him, he would just answer in Yiddish and he would just completely ignore -- and it wasn't any kind of arrogance or anything. He saw that I could understand. If he saw that I couldn't understand, he immediately would translate the word or -- he did it in 61:00such -- it's this kind of -- it's also a typical Jewish thing, right, to be a little bit ballsy in that way. It was with this kind of chutzpah, but then kind of generous at the same time. I don't know if he did it to everybody who he met. But to me, that was a huge thing, because suddenly things started coming out and I could speak. And then, I would suddenly say something, he goes, "No, no, that's German. (laughter) Don't do that." Because I was still at the point when I hadn't figured out the difference between Yiddish and German that much. I mean, obviously I saw that -- but to me, they were still very close, and I was in Germany and I was visiting Germany, right? And I was like, "What?" It was all 62:00very confusing, hearing a lot of German and hearing Yiddish. But people that I would try to speak with or dared to speak with at a certain point were all people that I would meet at these different festivals and camps. KlezKanada is a great place for speaking Yiddish, much better than others. And then, there is Janina Wurbs here, living in Berlin, and she's incredible and wonderful. And she's our Jewkipedia. When I'm lazy to find things or have no idea how to find something, she's the go-to person. And first I saw that Daniel Kahn always speaks Yiddish to her. And I'm like, "Well, that's smart." So, I started to. We 63:00switch between languages all the time. But there are these -- it's not like I have Yiddish people to speak with, people that are really -- but it's more like encounters. But I do try to stick to it so that it comes out a little. Rarely happens, unfortunately, because in the end, you still want to -- for many things, you still want to talk to somebody -- the most efficient language, because you want to have a conversation, not a language practice group, so -- but yeah. Meyshke is sometimes Michael Alpert, when I see him. But we also 64:00switch between languages, right? We also have several languages in common and we like to speak all of them. So, there are a few people, and when there is -- and the perfect situation is when there are several of them, and it works out. Like lately, Josh Waletzky has been a very important Yiddish conversation partner for me, even though we speak English to each other a lot. But also Yiddish. Last time I was in New York, we had dinner together with Josh and Efim Cherny from Moldova and Suzanna Ghergus, the pianist that he works with. And we had a dinner together in Borough Park. And suddenly, for some reason, it felt like Yiddish 65:00was our best common language for this group of people. So, I mean, we did switch between English and Russian and Yiddish. But most of it -- and it was so weird, because -- and then we went for a walk and we kept speaking Yiddish to each other. And we're in the middle of this Hasid land and they -- you should have seen the children. The grown-ups kind of could figure out what was going -- but the children looked at us like -- because we're -- we look like goyim, right? And then, we're speaking their secret language. And I was wearing a small white summer dress with short -- and open arms and everything, (laughs) right? It was -- but this whole experience of combining all these worlds, and here's us from 66:00the Old World and here's Josh from the New World, and his very own brand of New York secular Yiddish world. I mean, he's one of those few families, right? Walking through the land of Hasid. It was a very special experience. But this is the kind of encounters --

AI:Okay, thank you very much for this answer. (laughter) I would like to know, also, how did it happen that Forshpil became a real thing? Because now you're established, well-established group. You perform together, and you are from sort of different countries, different backgrounds. And tell me: how did it -- became a Yiddish thing?

SL:Well, the band Forshpil was founded in 2003 by that fiddler that I told you about earlier. So, this little trio -- well, it was a quartet, a trio. It was various -- but the core group was this accordionist, Ilya Shneyveys, the fiddler, [Ina Reichman?], and myself. And we were doing different things. But mostly, what our goal was, was to study the culture, study the music, and do the traditional thing together. So, it was like a study group that was performing. And for years, we were doing that. And we started developing it a little bit. But it was that and we were all based in that. And then, at one point, the 68:00fiddler left because she had other priorities and she had to choose something else. And it suddenly was Ilya and me, and we had to figure out what we were going to do. So, we started developing this new style based on Yiddish ballads. And, see, things fall together. And that was also around the time when Weimar had -- in Weimar, they have every year a different topic. And they decided to have deep Yiddish topic, not Yiddish and something, but deep Yiddish topic. And, well, Ilya and I were working already and we were working with some Latvian musicians. We had a Latvian drummer and guitar player, also from Riga. So, we 69:00were developing it, and that's when Alan brought Ethel Raim to Weimar. And I've been already into the whole unaccompanied ballad, and the -- I was already starting to follow some blogs, and looking for some recordings. And Lauren gave me some stuff from YIVO and I was already aware of the Ruth Rubin collection and I was already drawing things. But then, Ethel -- meeting her completely moved it into this other thing, 'cause she is that person that knows that style, that -- and is a wonderful singer and an incredible teacher, and her knowledge of music 70:00is so vast. And, I mean, for God's sake, she (laughs) founded the Pennywhistlers. What an amazing history. She's behind the whole polka revival that happened even before the klezmer revival. And so, we started falling in love with that style and putting it together with what else we love, and this whole rock thing started coming out. And it started working out, but somehow, we constantly had issues with our Latvian musicians. They were absolutely great musicians, but this is what I told you about earlier: in order to play Jewish music, you have to have a vast knowledge of things. And we kept lacking that, 71:00because they couldn't understand. And I deeply believe that in order to do something new or -- well, whatever you do is new, because nobody has done it. But all these fusion things and combining styles, you really have to be fluent in the styles in order to do that. I hear a lot of the time, when jazz musicians start playing klezmer, they approach it like jazz and you can hear it. It's good music, but it doesn't have the thing that Yiddish music has, right?

AI:This purity's not there.

SL:I don't like calling it "the spirit" because spirit is such a vague thing. But I still can't put it in the words what it is. I just don't like when people talk about music like, Oh, it's fiery, it cries and laughs. I'm like, Yeah. 72:00(laughter) Well, because, honestly, it does and it doesn't. But it does have certain rhythmical structures, certain ornamentations, certain dialogue between the musicians. And I think one of the reasons that Forshpil works is that we're all fluent in the Yiddish side of it, so we can play with it in a different way. But it will still have musical parameters from the Jewish music, from the Yiddish music. So, after struggling for a while, finding the musicians that we 73:00want to be playing with -- and also, Ilya and I have gone to St. Petersburg as a duet and played with musicians there. And we know these people from all these festivals, for years. And when we separated from our -- yet another drummer, we were like, Why don't we just ask Zheka from St. Petersburg to join us? Riga, St. Petersburg, close enough. We'll figure it out. We play most concerts elsewhere anyway, so we'll just be traveling and meeting -- let's just try that out. And it worked. And then, we needed a new guitar player. And then, we also wanted -- and we were like, You know what? It just makes sense. And the problem was when we started, none of us -- in Riga, none of us knew anything. So, it was okay for 74:00all of us to be learning these things together and developing these things together. By the time we were looking for these musicians, honestly, we didn't want to spend time --

AI:Teaching.

SL:-- teaching. We wanted to take a musician that has enough understanding and enough background and will just come in and be able to play this stuff with us. And I don't think there are that many musicians that are flexible that way. And these are very good musicians to do it with. So, yes, it's not the easiest thing. Long distance anything is not easy. But we meet up, we rehearse, we'll put something together. We just recorded a few new songs here in Berlin last week. We meet up, we play, we put something new, we go on tour, we play some 75:00concerts, we go home. Everybody's happy. I moved to Berlin, it didn't influence how the band works, which is -- it's just easier to play gigs in Germany for me, because I don't have to do that much travel, but --

AI:I would like to move to your life in Berlin, (laughter) and I would like to know more about diversity of the Yiddish life in Berlin. And also, the klezmer life in Berlin. Berlin suddenly became European capital for --

SL:Oh, totally. Suddenly. That's very right.

AI:Yeah, and I would like to know your perspective on this. How did it happen and some -- tell me, please, something about the changes which you observed here.

SL:Well, it's interesting. Well, first of all, Berlin used to be that already. 76:00About twenty years ago, it was this -- there were all these American musicians coming in, right? Brave Old World was here, and Klezmatics were here a lot. And they brought up a whole generation of musicians. And there are musicians here that have been playing klezmer for twenty years. I rarely see them, though, because they're (laughs) in their bubble. I mean, we do intersect and I'm always very happy to -- and it is funny. Well, I think there are several levels to it, how suddenly it has become this new thing. I'm just trying to --

AI:Put a lap [Russian: foot] in between?

SL:Yeah.

AI:Yeah.

SL:The thing is, okay, the thing is that they're -- oh, it's complicated! There 77:00are several stories here. What's going on right now, in Germany in general, there is the old generation of -- older generation, these people that have been doing it for twenty years here, in Germany, that mostly -- that all mostly started from all these Americans coming in and bringing it. But there is also the whole Giora Feidman school, because Giora Feidman is a huge influence on German klezmer musicians, and he's been incredibly popular. And still, if -- to most Germans, if you say klezmer music, they think Giora Feidman. I barely connect klezmer music with Giora Feidman. I even forget about his existence and I forget about the existence of all the people that do the Giora Feidman thing. It's, again, a whole different camp. That's a different bubble. And then, there 78:00is a bubble of mixed -- but mostly people -- like here in Berlin, mostly people that are not from Germany that came to Berlin in the last years. Some longer, some more recently -- that are becoming a new nucleus of klezmer life. I think a lot of it is because of Yiddish Summer Weimar, because it's in Germany and it has been bringing and drawing all these people. And in order to go to Weimar, because it's a little bit of an obscure location, you mostly have to go to Berlin. And if you go to Berlin, you want to stay in Berlin for a little bit. Why not, right? Catch a break in Berlin. And this is what happened to me. I just fell in love with the city. And I thought, Wow, there are so many great things 79:00here, and it's so nice and it's so good for artists, in the sense of it's cheap and interesting. It's not great to play shows here, but it's a whole different thing, because it's cheap. And then, there were already -- some of my very good friends lived here. And then, within a couple of years, a whole bunch of us -- within about three, four years ago, a whole bunch of us moved here. I can think of, right away, at least three other people that moved here that are involved in this. So, suddenly, there is this whole new nucleus, and we tried to connect with all the other ones. And I'm not even starting to talk about the Jewish community, because we kind of -- it's a whole -- it's another thing on its own. And the Yiddishist world here is kind of also rotating on its own, right? So, 80:00it's a little like these different worlds that kind of intersect. They touch each other and then they go somewhere else and they touch each other and it's just -- most of my interaction here will be with klezmer musicians rather than with Yiddishists. I even don't think -- I can think again of Janina. She's the person. And then there are -- I know there are people that are -- they're studying and doing other things and there are all these people -- and the Potsdam -- and see, you're here for something and there are lectures. I'm not even aware of these things. I would love to be, but it's, again, a whole other thing.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

It's kind of amazing what's going on, because it started being popular with a 81:00lot of young people again. Yes, partly it's because it's a lot of young people doing it that it's kind of interesting. I know people who now go, I want to be a klezmer musician. I'm going to move to Berlin.

AI:Really?

SL:Yeah.

AI:Did you meet people across Europe or the world who said that?

SL:I met people here who moved here because they wanted to play klezmer.

AI:Oh, really?

SL:Yeah. Not many, but that's a thing. And I have friends in other places who say, I want to be playing more klezmer. Maybe I should move to Berlin. It's a thing. I mean, it's New York or Berlin.

AI:And where else potentially you could go if not New York or Berlin?

SL:You could go anywhere.

AI:Sure.

SL:Right, so --

Q;But to have community?

SL:Right, exactly. You see, it's a question of -- community is the key, exactly. 82:00Here we now have a community, and because there are different layers, because there is an older German generation. I mean, those are more local people, right, that -- from twenty years ago. And then -- and this newer -- our generation. And there also all next and -- there are people that go for both and people that -- and because there are different levels, it's a real community. It's not homogenous in that sense. It's very varies -- and there are more religious people, there are less religious people. There are people coming from different countries, different backgrounds. It's a very interesting community. Very different to how klezmer community works in New York. But it's a community, and 83:00that's the key. And other places, yes. I mean, if you think -- yes, for instance, in Paris, there are musicians. But every Parisian klezmer musician who has seen what we are doing and has come to our klezmer sessions, they go, Oh, this is what we're missing, because we don't have people who can just show up and have a -- like, we had a klezmer session last night, we had twenty people playing together. Well. Nicely. All fluent in the language. It wasn't like, these are people who know and then there are the other ones that ask for sheet music to play simple tunes. These are people that can actually jam in the language, and that's possible here. And I think it's a big difference.

AI:It's a comfortable zone, that's for sure.

SL:Yeah. And there is a community and it's beautiful. Yeah.

AI:Okay, so my following to this question is, what do you see as the future of Yiddish?

SL:In general?

AI:Yes, and in music.

SL:It's interesting. I'm kind of hopeful, because I see young people learning it. I see young families speaking Yiddish to their children. And it's not only in those four major families in New York. It's happening elsewhere. I see people that meet at Yiddish courses, fall in love. And for both sides, maybe Yiddish won't be their first language, but it's their common language because they met 85:00at a Yiddish class and now they're having children that grow up with this new, very klal shprakh [standard Yiddish dialect]. But still -- so, it's a whole generation growing up outside of dialects, outside of shtetls. It's tiny, yes. I'm not oblivious.

AI:But it exists.

SL:But it exists. And I think more and more musicians realize how important it is to learn language to music. Because if you want to play Latin music, you will probably learn Spanish. And it's the same. If you want to play Bulgarian music, you will probably learn Bulgarian, more or less. Maybe not perfectly, but -- so, I think there is a generation of musicians who has that respect. I don't know, 86:00I'm hopeful. I wish there was more of it happening. I wish we wouldn't constantly hit walls with it, though. We do hit walls. And still, even though there is a new growing interest in Yiddish music in Israel, Israel is still a big wall, because there are so many people that grew up with pushing Yiddish away as the language of victims, as the old thing that they left behind in Europe. And I think it still is a problem, because of money, because of 87:00politics. And I think -- and it's nice to see that there is interest growing in Yiddish in Israel, that there are musicians, that there are people learning Yiddish there, that there are programs at the -- I think the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, there are programs run in Yiddish, right? So, there is a thing about it, right?

AI:And there is possibility to build up something --

SL:Yeah.

AI:-- based on this --

SL:And I think the key for it to be developing is -- I think the key for it to 88:00be developing is there. I really believe that. I mean, of course, elsewhere, as well. Of course, also in Russia. Of course, also in Europe. Of course, also in America. The whole idea of -- one of the beautiful things about Yiddish as a language in general and a culture in general is that it's a culture with no land. And it informs a lot of the decisions in the language, in the story, in the music, in the general sentiment of -- and it should stay that way. It shouldn't find its land anywhere.

AI:Sasha, we are nearing to the end, but I would like to ask you two more questions.

SL:Go ahead.

AI:Yes --

SL:I'll be short. (laughter)

AI:You don't have to.

SL:No. (laughs)

AI:But the first one is what is your favorite Yiddish word or song?

SL:(laughs) Oh!

AI:Something that is special to you. Or phrase.

SL:That's a good -- it's a good question. I never think of it in that way. I don't think I have a favorite. Most of -- I don't have a favorite color, I don't have a favorite number, I don't have a favorite artist. I don't have a -- and if we talk about Yiddish song, it's such a beautiful, vast -- see, and the language. I can't say that there is one favorite thing, because what I love about it is the variety, is that there is all of that stuff in there and it's 90:00all packed into one culture. So, I can't -- it's like, who do you love better, your mom or your dad? No, I love that it's a package. But that's what I love about it. So, I'm not going to -- maybe today, there's going to be my favorite word -- it's going to be that, or today I'm going to be feeling like this song, so this my favorite song. And tomorrow, it's a completely different thing.

AI:Okay. And the last one, the very last one, is --

SL:And another thing -- now, let me just add one thing here. Another thing I love is -- what I really appreciate, the thing that I really love, is the new Yiddish words. I love that there's a development that is following -- that there's a group of crazy fanatics that are going, Okay, Facebook. We're not going to say "Facebook." We're going to call it, I don't know, "punim bikhl," 91:00right? We want to have a -- you know? There are languages in which these new words are artificial and ugly. And somehow, in Yiddish -- I appreciate how it's being created, because it feels like it's natural.

AI:When you speak?

SL:Yeah, and it's part of keeping the language alive. Was talking about the language going on and it going into the future and all of that, I think that's very important.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

AI:Last but not least, it's about your advice to musicians dealing with Yiddish, and also other performing artists dealing with Yiddish. What you, based on your experience as an artist, as a professional Yiddish musician, would you like to say to other people doing this?

SL:Well, first of all, I think what's incredibly important is: check the background. Check your grammar. Check your pronunciation. There is so much bad Yiddish going on. And I think it's just disrespectful. And it just upsets me and often offends me that people don't think that nobody understands, don't think that -- Ah, who cares? We can just repeat kind of what we just heard. Take time, because it's respect to the culture and to yourself to do something that actually matters and means something, not be a parrot repeating words without 93:00meaning. I think there are a lot of people that go, Ah, whatever, I'll just learn these words, kind of on the -- that transliterated badly. And it's sad. And I do believe that it's not -- and also, it's not that hard to look into it and fix it, to figure out that certain sounds sound in a certain way. You don't have to sound like a native Yiddish speaker. It's actually cute that we all have our own accents, because we come from different worlds, we come from different lands. And it's nice. But there is a level of respect that we always have to show to the culture that we're dealing with. If I am going to sing a Macedonian 94:00song tomorrow, I'm going to find somebody who can help me with the language before I do it, just a little bit. Not that I'm planning to become a fluent speaker, but I'll -- it's not that hard. Especially now. You just write on Facebook. You go, I'm looking for somebody to help me with this thing. There's going to be somebody. It's not a big thing. It's easy. You always can do it. And it will improve your performance and it will improve how you feel about it. And I'm sure that putting in that work will make you understand something that -- 95:00about what you are doing, that you won't if you are just mimicking. And I incredibly deeply believe that that's true. I think that everybody can hear whether you understand or you don't understand what you are doing. You can be a perfect singer, but if your Yiddish is not there, it's just not there. And people can hear it. People hear that there is something wrong with it. They can't tell you, because maybe they also don't speak Yiddish. But they hear that there is something going on. And I think that this is the one thing that is 96:00important, that we respect what we are doing and take some time. There are lots of Yiddishists around to help you with translations or pronunciation or something. And nobody's perfect. All of us make mistakes. If you learn the language, it doesn't mean, don't make mistakes. Mistakes are good. Without making mistakes, you won't learn anything. But put in the work. Figure out how to pronounce things. Figure out how to -- and it's -- I think if everybody did that, it'd be so great. Be really good.

AI:A sheynem dank [Thank you very much], Sasha. (laughter) A sheynem dank on behalf of the Yiddish Book Center Wexler Oral History Project for your time and for this, what you have shared with us.

SL:Oh, I'm very, very, very, very glad to do it.

AI:Un fun mir, a groysn dank far dayn arbet [And from me, a big thank you for your work] --

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

[END OF INTERVIEW]