YALE STROM ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney and today is December 21st, 2016. I'm here in San Diego with Yale Strom. We're going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Do I have your permission to record?

YALE STROM: You certainly do. (laughter)

CW:Great. So, first of all, where does your family come from?

YS:Okay, so my mother's family -- my grandmother, maiden name Marcus was -- but that's a whole other story because the -- I'm just researching more. I know more about my dad's -- there was a name change because of the Cantonists and having to change the name. But my grandmother, she's from Kovno, so lite [Lithuania], 1:00and came here as an infant. My grandfather, her husband, Harry Newman -- so, she married a Newman -- he was born here but his grandfather was German, and I'm not sure where. Father's side, I know more just because we had more relatives and they were more talkative, et cetera. Different family dynamics. My dad's father, Itzik Strom, was from Dombrovitsah. Dombrovitsah is a small town a little north 2:00of -- as the Jews call it, Rovno, the Ukrainians say Rivne -- in Ukraine today. Then Poland, right? Poland. And he married my bobe [grandmother], Chava Wiener. Wiener was her maiden name.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

My father, Itzik Strom, my zeyde [grandfather], comes from Dombrovitsah, just north of Ukraine, near Rivne, and he married -- excuse me, I said it wrong. He married my bobe Dora. Chava was her mother. Dora Weiner. And my bobe Dora was from Stolin, which is, of course, a town outside of Pinsk in today Belarus, then, of course, Poland. And we know quite a bit about that side of the family because of their Stoliner yikhes [ancestry]. My bobe and my alte-bobe, the great-grandmother, were -- and brothers and great-uncles were adherents, followers, bal-ebotim of the Stoliner rebbe in the Old Country. And then, when they -- and then, they kept in contact when they moved here to Detroit. In fact, 3:00the Stoliner rebbe -- I'm trying to -- I'm thinking of his first name -- I can't. But he was known as "the yenuke," which means "the baby." He actually became rebbe in the 1870s when he was four years old. It was quite a special time. There's stories written about him. But anyway, he really spread Stoliner khsides [Hasidic doctrine] in that region. So, there was -- other rebbes at Luninets and Horodok, et cetera, Slonim. So, he had six sons and four, sadly, passed away in the khurbm [Holocaust]. And two had gotten out earlier and come to where? New York. So, they settled in Williamsburg. So, there's sort of two rebbes for two different purposes. And, whatever, one was teaching and leading, one is giving advice. Whatever, they were -- they got along well. They didn't 4:00let their egos get in the way, and -- but why I'm saying this story is here -- is because one of those rebbes, Reb Yankev Perlov, who's the great-uncle of the rebbe today in Yisroel, he would come to go wherever the bal-- once a year, 'cause they're -- all the Stoliners weren't in Europe. So, there's an enclave, there's a khevrisa [community] in Detroit and he would visit. And where did he stay? He stayed at my bobe's house, to -- a rebbe to stay at your house, it's a lot of skhus [rare privilege]. It's kosher, but he just feels comfortable. It's heymish [familiar], he feels az ales iz in ordenung, ruik [that all is well, calm], and he would hold a beis din [Jewish rabbinical court]. My father remembers him -- where Jews would come in, like the Old Country, where -- to give eytses [pieces of advice], whatever. He tells a story where two guys come out after the judgement. "I don't care what the rebbe said. You still owe me twenty dollars," even after the rebbe -- but the point of the story is -- 5:00afterwards is he would always come nokh peysakh, right after Pesach. And 1946, April 1946, it's after Pesach and he's not wak-- he doesn't make shakhres [Jewish morning prayers]. So, they knock on the door, "Reb Yankev?" Bobe walks in. Nifter, he's dead, he died. So, quickly, they -- authorities and call New York and they're going to put him on a train. It's 1946, they can't put him on a plane, put him on a train. But they open his suitcase and they see the veyse kitl, his shroud that he's going to be buried in. And this meant that he kept it with him so wherever he died is -- to where he's to be buried. So, he's buried in Detroit, near my zeyde, and the Stoliner rebbe comes every year to pay his respects to his great-uncle and also see some of our family. And so, that opened a lot of doors for me when I was doing research about the Stoliners, because of that story. And it's written in books. I mean, I'm telling it to you now, but 6:00it's in history books and I didn't write those books. So, that's my dad's side.

CW:And were there any stories about the -- going to the -- visit the rebbe from the Old Country?

YS:I wish I could say there were. I'm sure there were. My bobe, my alte-bobe, she -- I was eleven or twelve and then I was sixteen when my bobe passed. And I wish I had been more -- I was already getting curious, but not curious enough to really do oral histories and I wish I had. So, the stories are bits and pieces from the great-uncles and aunts that I asked afterwards, none of which, of course -- they've passed on. As young as I look here, I'm getting older in my years. I'm reaching my true youth. (laughs) So, my dad and my uncle, Harold -- he just celebrated his ninety-fifth birthday -- they're the ones I remember most 7:00'cause they're the oldest. So, the stories are from here. But they -- apparently, another great rebbe -- and I want to say someone connected to the Chofetz Chaim yeshiva came to visit my bobe in Detroit and it was a big deal. And my dad tells a story -- and came, and very well dressed, but from the Old World, speaking only Yiddish. And my dad is seventeen and he has to drive -- he's the chauffeur, drive him here to there, there, and -- for a week. And then, takes him to the train station where he's gonna go back to New York. And I don't know if he was just staying in New York and then he was going to go back to Europe. But anyhow -- and at the train station, he says to my dad, "Dovid, di redst a zeyer git yidish [you speak a very good Yiddish] and your English is not too bad, either." And my dad -- mouth -- "Rebbe, you speak English?" "Of course I do, but you need to practice your Yiddish." My dad was trying -- his Yiddish 8:00was kind of hard. For a week, he thinks this guy only knows Yiddish and he spoke quite a fine English, so -- oh, the story talked about Reb Yankev Perlov, who's in the history books, Reb Yankev, the Stoliner rebbe. Ah, that's what my father said. He remembers his hands. His hands. He said, "If you looked at his hands, they were like women's hands. Looked like they" -- or, "And you turn it over, no calluses, soft." They had never done much labor. They were for studying, for just consoling, pages of a book. But he was amazed by that. They were just beautiful. 'Cause my zeyde worked in a car factory. My dad worked -- they were shver arbeters [hard workers]. They had to work. They were poor and -- but his work, it was heavy lifting, but it was all mind heavy lifting.

CW:So, what were the other professions in the family?

YS:And my father's side -- so, all right, we'll start from the oldest. My aunt, 9:00Gertie Gitel, when she married my uncle Sidney -- and she's Stoliner, she has a Stoliner yikhes. They ended doing -- they eventually moved to Phoenix, where I have a lot of family. All it takes is one, then other people move. Auto parts. (laughs) What they learned in Detroit. And they were very successful. Auto parts, mechanics, stuff with autos. My uncle, Mickey, who -- Mikhl, who moved to Phoenix, he was the first one because he had rheumatic fever from World War II and he needed a dry climate, et cetera. He became a CPA. Uncle Harold, my beloved uncle Harold, who's still with us, he owns a truck parts -- in Detroit, still, in Dearborn. And then, my dad was the other boy and my dad became a professor from Detroit, Wayne State University, but came to San Diego -- why we're sitting here in San Diego, 'cause he moved, or I'd still be sitting in 10:00Detroit. And the two other girls, my aunt Esther worked in a bank, was a singer at restaurants. She had a beautiful voice. Not trained, but a natural voice. And my aunt Margaret, Hindy, that was her name, Hindy, Hindl -- small shops. A little restaurant. That's what they did. They were all hardworking people and first generation but Yiddish was the mitr-loshn -- the mame-loshn [mother tongue] until five or six, until they went to school, and then -- but they kept it. They liked to sing Yiddish songs. Yiddish was part of my dad's life where, for my mother, my bobe, my grandmother -- now, I didn't call her bobe, it was grandma to her. She grew up out, when she came as an infant, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, not far from Amherst. Textiles. Now, her father was a rabbi, a shoykhet [ritual slaughterer]. But poor, orem [destitute], and he never really 11:00learned to read and write English, so she did all the translations and there would be letters. She'd tell -- I did interview my grandmother and she said she would get letters from the Old Country, from lite and stuff. And his eyes were going bad, so she would read the Yiddish and then he would say, "Write back," and she would write back. And he's buried in Lawrence and eventually -- but Yiddish was the language with them. But she married this Hershl, Harry, of the German-Jewish background. And we know that their language, their first language was German, not Yiddish, so -- but there was Yiddish in the home. The language -- so, the kids -- so that my mom wouldn't understand. But when I was studying Yiddish years ago, I was taking a remedial course in the Arbeter Ring. I decided -- I was writing words down, I said, "Wait a minute, mom used to say that." And I would write words or phrases, and I had two hundred. And I think, Wow, mom 12:00actually knew a lot more Yiddish than I ever gave her credit. And she would just say things, so -- but it was --

CW:Do you remember any of them?

YS:Oh, my mom, "Oysgevarfene mit gelt [Drowning in money, lit. "throwing away with the money"]," when someone just has so much money they're just throwing it away. Yeah, when a man -- she would say, "Oy gevald, vos for a yold [Oh dear, what a fool]." She would give that comment. My mother would always tell me stories -- she'd say, when she was in Detroit -- this was in the late '30s or the '40s, and she'd be going to get her shoes, try to -- she'd be going to a shoe store and a young man -- so, she was eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. And the man would say, "Can I help you, miss, mies [ugly]?" And, "I know what 13:00you're saying!" (laughing) Like "mies," it's like you're Miss Ugly. And, "Hey! Watch your mouth there!" And I'm trying to -- others, as well. Oh, it'll come to me when I --

CW:Yeah.

YS:But it was interesting. That was part of her culture as well. But my dad came from the more Hasidic background in that sense. So, those are the -- that's just some of the stories of the immediate family, and my great-uncles and aunts who were born in the Old Country -- I mean, I have a great-aunt -- I have a wonderful picture. She was born -- the picture of her, when she's seven in Stolin, but she was from a small town called [Ruble?]. That was a dorf [village] -- that you could say. And we had Osher the khazn [synagogue cantor] was a very famous khazn, a Stoliner, our yikhes. So, we have, actually, a -- quite an extensive family tree and we have a -- I guess you'd call it a mishpokhe heft [family notebook], right? A shriftlekh [little journal], right? You'd call it a 14:00journal, a shriftlekh and it's great. We get it every year and family news, current -- but you can go back, back, back almost 130, 150 years. And it has photos, so it's fun.

CW:And can you describe the home you grew up in?

YS:Yeah. I grew up in a home -- I always described it as this -- between the two Hs -- the H on the right, H as in English, 'cause it's a khet in Yiddish, means Hasidism and the H as in the hey, Hashomer Hatzair. So, I grew up in a home where -- a strong love of Jewish tradition, both folklore and culture, as well as religious traditions. I grew up in a kosher home, I went to shul on Shabboses. My father didn't like to work -- walk on the yontev [holiday], didn't 15:00like to walk to -- I mean, so he didn't like to drive. He would walk to shul, walk to shul on yontev. I went to public school but I stayed out all of the yontoyvim, including shvies or Shavuos, which -- most Americans forget that it's even a holiday -- I mean, Yiddish -- Jews forget it's a holiday. So, steeped with Jewish tradition, music, songs. But the Hashomer Hatzair part was the political side. Zionism, talk about Palestine -- well, Israel, of course, when I was born. But also, social conscience. My parents, both my mother and father, were very involved in politics, particularly my father, and then brought in my mother, really. My father was a socialist, is a socialist. And he was friends with Leon Trotsky's wife. She came originally from Detroit or lived there, I can't remember her -- I can see her Russian name, but -- and he told me that 16:00story, and he met her a few times. So, progressive politics. Not necessarily Jewish. They were Jewish because I feel that Jews, if you're a true Jew and a Jew of the Torah, you have to care about other people's struggles, not just your own tribal struggles. So, that's the kind of home -- a mixture of the social conscience along with the love of Jewish culture, not to be ever ashamed of it and to know where you come from. And in Detroit, there were a lot of Holocaust refugees. My mother and father tell me, and particularly my mother tells me -- here she's in the '40s, and kids coming into her high school, she's fourteen, fifteen, and hearing the stories and meeting these kids who've lost everything. It was -- those stories, my mother even tells me today, very traumatic, and these kids telling her stories and feeling sorry for them -- but how they were able to get on with life, and going to dances and learning a new language, English. And so, it was a mixture. Detroit was wonderful that way. Cut to: we 17:00move to San Diego when I was beginning middle school at twelve. And it's the West Coast. We're, as you were just saying -- we're all transplants except for the indigenous and the Mexican-Americans, for the most part. And it was a different kind of Jewish. We were trying to find our way. We went to a Jewish community. We moved near San Diego State University. Colleges attract Jews because a lot of the professors are Jews. And there was a shul there, so my dad could walk to work and he could walk to the shul. And so, I went to Hebrew school. In fact, actually, my -- I went to, actually, a day school and to a yeshiva, 'cause my parents didn't like the public school, whatever. After the day school, I went to the public school and through high school. So, I would say the Jewishness was more inside the home now. There wasn't as much -- there was a Jewish center and some shul activities and a little Hebrew school. But it wasn't 18:00the same for me -- I could see myself as a kid -- where I'd see Jews walking down the street or you see signs in the storefront, sales on this Jewish food, this Jewish item because the yontoyvim were coming up or it's Hanukkah or it's Pesach. You didn't see that. You'd see a little display in the back of a Von's or something. So, it was different.

CW:Where in Detroit did you live?

YS:I lived in the city. Well, my last home was on Hartwell, which is between Seven and Eight Mile Road. The Jews were moving west and north. There's that whole -- and that's a whole socioeconomic thing that's actually being explored in 2017 a lot in Detroit and around the country because of the '67 -- as my uncle would say or as my cousin would say -- not the rise, but the insurrection. There was really an insurrection. I remember the insurrection, the riots of '67. I could see the smoke. My dad interviewed kids, African American kids that were 19:00walking by. It's quite an interview. My dad wasn't a cameraperson, he wasn't -- but he had a tape recorder and he'd tape right there while it's happening. Their voices -- what do they think of what's happening, police -- but what led to that? About --

CW:I was just asking where --

YS:Oh, so, yeah, so that's it. So, the Jews -- so, my parents had lived farther east, near the river and then -- and as economics and -- Jews move like all immigrants move. And so, we lived not far from Oak Park. Oak Park is a Jewish enclave, more Orthodox. But that's my last home. And I still have family. I go back there -- in the outskirts, the suburbs. But maybe even Detroit, now -- Detroit's growing back and the Jewish part of Detroit's really kind of an exciting -- for youth, they're doing a lot of exciting arts and Yiddish stuff, actually, downtown. So, I'm a big promoter of Detroit. Here I live in San Diego, but I've always felt warm about Detroit, particularly when I was in junior high 20:00and high school, when Detroit -- you know, murder capital of the world and Dirty D and all the bashing of Detroit. Well, now we're coming into our own, Detroit. So, I was always a promoter of Detroit, even when Detroit was not doing so well.

CW:And looking back, how did you feel about being Jewish growing up? What was your --

YS:Well, it was who I was. I mean, the cuisine in the home had a Jewish flavor. Not everything, but my mother, who is a fine cook, actually, and she --

CW:Like what?

YS:Well, Jewish foods. Well, cholent on a Shabbos. And when I ate meat -- 'cause I'm a vegetarian now, since I was sixteen -- but flanken [stew meat]. She would make kreplekh [meat-filled dumpling] and krupnik [barley soup] and homentashn 21:00and rugelach. I mean, killer rugelach.

CW:What was it like?

YS:The real rugelach.

CW:What was it like?

YS:Not the kind that -- well, she would make the rugelach with the -- like a pastry dough. You had the rice and -- with the preserves in it. She made streusel. The homentashn she made, instead of the -- a doughy homentashn with mon [poppy seeds]. I loved the -- that's my favorite, the "mak" as we'd say in Polish, right? The poppy seeds. Challah. My mom would bake a challah. Bagels. My mom made bagels. Kosher dill pickles. She made pickles. We did that one year for a family project and they were great. And Jewish books. My father loved to read. My dad's profession was sociology of education, elementary ed., teaching teachers how to teach. Pedagogy was his forte. But his other forte was American 22:00Jewish history, Holocaust. Self-taught, just reading, reading, reading, taking some courses. He taught Hebrew school. He gave a class here and there at the university level. So, that was the home life. I come from a large home. I'm one -- there was actually ten. My mother lost an infant, my sister, Hari, at a month old. She just didn't make it. Had very bad lungs. And then, my sister, Naomi, passed away just before she was five. She passed away of what they called then acute leukemia. What is kind of unique about the home -- so, there's eight of us. My mother had six children. She gave birth -- that share the DNA of my mom and my dad. Hari was one of those, and she passed. So, there's five of us. So, then, my mother and father became the first Jewish couple in the state of Michigan to adopt an African American child from a Catholic orphanage. And we 23:00did this in Michigan. My sister Naomi was born -- (coughs) excuse me. My sister was born in Saginaw and I was twelve. Eleven, twelve. And she is my sister. And so, then when we moved out to San Diego, sadly, she passed away a couple years later of this sickness, which is very hard on all of us. You lose anybody, but a sibling -- and you don't understand it when you're a young kid. You know, why? But my parents then proceeded to adopt three more children, all of African American heritage: my sister Stephanie, my sister Tamar, my brother Ari. So, we were a mixed family. The question -- are they Jewish? 'Course they're Jewish. We brought them up Jewish. My father did -- my mother and father -- even though, 24:00with her very strong feminist views, on one level, that's simply that she did the Orthodox conversion so that no one could ever question they were halachically Jewish and they can have the right to return, if they so chose to, to Israel. I'm the oldest. So, it was a noisy home. Lots of noise. Birthday parties, Simchas. Imagine eight kids. And we're loud. We talk, lots -- we had a dog or dogs. And my dad speaks a lot, mom -- we're very verbose, and -- but a loving home. Joking. When I wrote my very first symphony -- I wrote a symphony that was premiered by the St. Louis Symphony in 1998 called "Aliyot, Symphony No. 1." I was commissioned, to honor Israel, the State of Israel for the fiftieth anniversary. And we had just -- Tallulah had just been born and she's 25:00crying and -- like a baby. A baby's being a beautiful baby. And I -- some people would say, well, Is he going to a studio or is he going to the library? Where is he composing? And I was composing in the kitchen with her crying and everything. And Elizabeth would say, "How in the hell are you able to get any" -- and I compose on the violin, not the piano. A little bit on the piano but mostly the violin. All the instruments: trombone, bassoon, all from the violin. And she's saying, "How?" I said, "This is nothing." I used to have to study, college text, the high school -- with seven siblings, noise coming in and out of the kitchen, food, arguing. There was plenty of arguments. Screams, crying, laughter. So, I was able to tune out -- I'm able to do that. And I can do that today very well. So, it was a good home. I mean, it was a home where -- I want to mention it -- 26:00for my siblings, the adopted ones, it was not always easy, though. 'Cause they're black, they're African American -- in terms of the Jewish world, not only just in terms of -- vis-à-vis the Caucasian world out there, the non-colored world. So, there were moments of prejudice and it smacked us in the face, or smacked them. I remember going to shul, going to a Chabad, and I say it very clearly. In fact, as my father and I really helped -- we were sort of the antecedents of the very first Lubavitcher shul here in San Diego. Now there's lots of Chabads. And I don't say this for all Lubavitch, but this particular -- so, we went to Lubavitch and there was a -- someone there, I think the rabbi, and I won't mention names. "That's your daughter? That can't be your daughter." Or said, "That's your sister, Yale?" "Yes, rabbi, it's my sister." "Well" -- "Yes? She's my sister." "Well, she's" -- "Yeah, what? A little darker than you 27:00and me? Yeah, but she's my sister. Like Tsipporah," I said, I threw that out to him. "Like Tsipporah was?" And then he walked away. But then, we were trying to get her into the day camp, my siblings, and trying to -- 'cause we didn't have a lot of money. I mean, now, I'm not crying poverty. We were middle class. But eight kids, my mother was a homemaker. She did the heavy lifting but wasn't getting paid for it as she should have, right? My dad -- so, my dad, professor, you make some money, but he also supplemented his income by teaching Hebrew school, so -- and shoes and food and everything, it adds up for eight kids. So, we were asking for a scholarship for my -- to go to the day camp, the Jewish day camp that the Lubavitcher were doing. And there were some problems. "We couldn't because we don't know if she's really Jewish. Did she go to the mikveh [ritual bath]?" It was all B.S. And you can see, to this day, it bothers me. Because, to 28:00me, that is so not Jewish, not Torah, so -- but I'll leave that aside. But I say that because you're talking to me now. That's part of my memory, so that's part of who I am. So, I don't forget these things and -- because guess what? Now, as adults, and we talk, they don't forget these stories. Now they're grown, they don't have grudges. But they remember being -- this bias against them. I had -- there was bias in San Diego. San Diego's not a New York, not a Philadelphia, not a Boston in terms of Jewish. Not an LA, not a Chicago, not a Miami. We're Jewish here, but there were -- a little community here, a little there, there's -- we didn't have great Jewish museums, no great institutions. There was the synagogues and one Jewish community center. So, there was anti-Semitism when I was in middle school, kids calling me "Jew-boy" or "kike" or throwing -- I never 29:00understood why they would throw money. See, I did not grow up with that in Detroit. So, this one kid would throw pennies at me. And so, I went home to my mother and I was kind of disturbed. And my mother said, "Ask him to throw quarters. (laughter) He's that stupid -- and throw money at you, just pick it up." (laughs) But penny-pinching Jews, we all -- (UNCLEAR) so -- but I had other friends. I don't pay attention to him. And not from a very educated family. Caucasians. We'd call 'em -- from the other side off the tracks. We'd call 'em white trash today, to be honest. We're speaking honestly here. But I won't say that about the whole family. He just was not a nice boy, this kid. But I stayed away. But one day, he was saying something to me and we were on the blacktop and I -- it's ninth grade and we're getting -- we're wearing our gym suits, getting 30:00ready to do our calisthenics with our coach. "One, two, three," which we found very boring, 'cause we just wanted to play -- The hell with this. Come on! We want to play football, baseball! Oh, and screw this and this -- boring! And I'm hot. The sun's radiating on this blacktop. It's like a solar panel. But anyhow -- and he said something to -- he whispered something to the kid to his left and I'm -- we were standing -- very military, right -- on a number. And he said something, "That straw-neck Jew-boy" or something like, "That kike, he's just a wuss or a puss," he said. And I lost it and I leapt and I smashed him to the ground. And I had him down -- first of all, I was afraid of him, 'cause he was a little bigger than me and physically stronger. And I just never was one of these kids -- I knew I could run fast, run on and run quick. But I got the first hit in and I smashed him to the ground and I took his head and I was pounding it on 31:00the ground and my friends had to pull me off because I would have given him a concussion or something. I mean, they hadn't seen -- they'd never seen this side of me. I went to the principal's office and, oh -- 'cause for that, you get suspended. And so -- and there, he's there, my dad's there. I call my dad from school and my dad comes in and this guy's dad comes in. So, we're sitting there. I'm dirty, he's dirty. He's bleeding and I have a little scratch. And the principal says -- and I started it, I mean, in terms of physicality. "Who started it?" And we're silent. And he said, "He did! He jumped from the" -- "Is that true?" "It is." But then, I cut to -- I said, "But there's a reason why." And I said, "Because -- and you want to" -- and I said to him, "Mr. Kasebel" -- the principal, I was saying, "You know why?" And I can't remember his name but let's say Steve. "You know, for the past year, he's calling me names, dirty Jew, 32:00kike, throwing money at me. I've ignored it. That's his problem. But it got on my nerves. And finally -- and he's whispering something to some guy about -- we're on the blacktop! Talk about sports or something. I have done nothing to this guy. I don't want to do anything to this guy. I don't even want to be near him. And, yeah, I lost it. It angered me and it hurt me." And so, he said, "Is that true?" "Well, yeah." And then, my father said, "Well, I'm not angry at you," he said to the young boy my age. "Most likely, he learned it at home." And, of course, he's talking -- and this guy's a big bruiser of a guy and my dad, professorial, comes -- but my dad just said it straight up and the guy goes, "Well, yeah." "Or, if not at home, sir, in some kind of environment. He didn't pick it up on his own, right?" "Did you say those things to Yale?" He said, "Yeah." And I said, "Yeah, and it hurt my feelings. And that's why I 33:00jumped on him." And so, anyways, we had to make up, whatever, we had detention, but we didn't get -- so, I grew up in that -- and so, San Diego was different that way, where -- listen, not -- Detroit, there could be anti-Semitism. There was. But it wasn't overt like I had there in high school. So, there were some differences there, 'cause it was an interesting -- most of my friends in -- up through grade school, elementary school, they were Jews or African Americans 'cause I lived in the city. I had -- I'm going to tell you, I'm trying to think, maybe one white friend -- in other words, he's from something other than Jewish, African American heritage. He was -- one, all -- and not that I was seeking -- that's who -- as a kid, you go out and play -- "Go play! Hey, you're a kid, get on base, let's go." It was really that way. And I kind of grew up that way, color-blind. Whether I would have had African-American siblings or not, my friends, who I -- who stood up for me, I stood up for them, we -- it was just -- 34:00yes, I knew they were of a different background and different foods, and I hear language or the patois, whatever. But I grew up in a home, really is -- you treat people as a -- human to human, boy -- man to man, woman to woman, whatever. And that was really a sticking point and I credit my parents to that end, and that's how I am today. So, one might say -- I'll just say this little story. "Oh, he's gay," or "I'm gay," or "I'm transgender," or "You're going to meet my friend whose parents are mixed and he's black and" -- "Oh, that's nice. Next subject? Okay, great, wonderful. Next subject? Okay." Unless we're -- unless that's what the subject or the play or the discussion has to be about, and that's fine. But if it's not, "Okay, I appreciate it, very nice, very beautiful, very handsome, and next subject." And I've always been that way, so -- which I think is a positive, and I taught my daughter that. And then, 35:00luckily, I married a woman who is that progressive that way. And so --

CW:And when did you start getting involved in music?

YS:So, back to Detroit. I was called out of the classroom, was third grade, eight years old. Mrs. Baker. Takes me into a room, there's a piano. She hits a note, A, I sing it. C, I sing it. D, I sing it. She does about ten, twelve, some sharps, some flats. No paper. "Oh, you seem to have a very good ear, Yale. Give this paper to" -- (coughs) excuse me. "Would you be kind to take this paper to your mother or -- and father?" "Oh, sure, Mrs. Baker." "Okay, bye." Whatever. Yeah, music. Piano. I go home, I give my mom the paper. I don't look at it. Nope, I don't care what it says. What kid does unless it was a paper -- you did bad and maybe I would rip it up and lose it. (laughs) And my mom's reading it. 36:00She says, "Oh, Yale, you passed the music test. You have a good ear. Mrs. Baker's offering free violin lessons. She's going around certain public schools in the Detroit Public School System. All you have to do is provide a twenty-five dollar monthly fee for the rental of the violin and you get to go out of the classroom once a week on a Thursday for forty minutes." Guess what? The only thing I heard was one thing: get to go out of the classroom for forty minutes. What kid's not going to say, "I'm there! Sign me up, mom! I'm out of the classroom, yoo-hoo!" So, I could be playing the bassoon now or hurdy-gurdy or the harmonica. Or playing nothing perhaps, 'cause I said that -- my dad played the radio, as he said, very well. My mom played the piano but they weren't the parents -- like, "Okay, now you must have -- play an instrument." Wasn't in my parents' vocabulary. So, I started their public lessons and I -- then we moved to San Diego, I started private, 'cause there wasn't public lessons. And now, 37:00with private, now -- I was practicing, but now I have to practice 'cause, "We're -- if we're going to fork out twenty-five bucks a week, we don't want you just pulling out the violin an hour before the lesson," but -- and about the age of fourteen, I started not liking the violin. I was disliking, in fact. I'd have to come home from school. So, you're in middle school, now you have homework. Maybe you have something to do with clubs and then a little time to go play, hang out with your buddies. Homework, if there was anything to do with clubs, or Hebrew school, which I cannot make a lie, it wasn't always fun. It was boring sometimes. And then, practicing. What the hell? That leaves no time -- or five minutes of -- it's, like, Oh, crap, man. And it was like, when I'm practicing the scales and the Schirmer exercises, Wolfgang -- (sings) whatever. So, I would 38:00go in my bedroom and turn on the Padre games. There would be -- I think it would be on the weekends, but sometimes, during the week, too. If I turned the baseball -- 'cause I loved baseball. So, the Padres, the professional team here, if you turned on at the first pitch, at the first inning, the very first pitch, the time allotted to the fourth inning of the first pitch would be the amount of time I had to practice. About the same, unless there was a lot of scoring. But average. And so, I would have the antenna set really soft for my earplug. "Are you" -- "Oh, yes, mom!" (sings) (laughter) So, obviously, my teacher sees me not progressing after many months. Like, "Yale, this is not happening. This is sorry. And I see you're not interested. You're really" -- and I said, "No, I'm" -- I was ready to quit. I was ready to quit. And she says, "Well, before you quit, let's try one other thing." "What?" "There is a youth symphony that's here in town and it's made up of youth from the ages" -- what, they're to eighteen -- 39:00"of musicians from all over the county. But you have to try out, and it's a very well-respected symphony and they play in concerts and they play in different places around the city. And so, they're going to have tryouts in a month. Why don't we prepare you? You want to try out for it?" And I think, Yeah, that sounds like fun. Because what she did is she hit the nerve -- I'm very competitive. So, that means -- a tryout, you have to compete. You got to -- you have a goal. So, I practice, practice, practice. We go to the audition and it's an audition where I can't see -- I can hear them, so it's a blind audition. I can't see the conductor and her or -- I didn't know her, him -- I know it's a her now because I saw who it was. And she's sitting there and she's kicking ass. Oh, my God. Vivaldi. (sings) Like, "Dad." I go -- I said to my dad, "Shit, dad, that's Heifetz in there. I can't go in there! Forget about it! I mean, what?" 40:00"Shtil [Calm], confidence, Yale!" "Yeah, right dad, you go in there. It sounds like a mini-Heifetz in there. How am I going to play?" So, I go in there and I play and -- I do pick up the violin. And he says, "Can you play this piece? You have to sight read something." And I start and I remember the violin (UNCLEAR) violin, there's vibrato. But my whole -- I was -- (sings) after about eight bars, the conductor says, "You seem to be a little nervous." "Can you tell? Yes, I am a little nervous!" And he says, "That's okay. I was nervous, too, when I tried out. That's all right." And he told a little story. He was a wonderful person, a wonderful teacher. So, we talked a little bit for about five minutes. He says, "Let me hear you play something. Anything you want to play. I just want to get a sense of your tone. And listen, I'm not judging you on that piece you 41:00were just trying to sight read, 'cause I know you're -- but take a deep breath." So, I played something. I can't remember from -- by heart and left. I said, "Pfft, forget it," and I just put it off my mind. Two weeks later, a phone call rings. "Yale, you've actually -- we accepted you. We want you to be in the youth symphony." And I -- "Wow, I made it!" And the challenge of -- "Wow, I did it!" So, I go, my dad takes me, and for my dad, it was -- they would meet on Shabbos, right? They're not going to meet on Sunday. God forbid, on the Christian Sabbath. So, we meet on Shabbos, but my dad said, "It's okay, this is for a good cause. Music!" So, he takes me, I walk in, I see my name. "Yeah, oh, Yale!" "Glad to meet you." "And you just -- your number will be -- you'll see the corresponding seat." Walking, walking, walking, walking, walking. Trombones, French horns. I'm sitting back with the timpani! Oh, my God! There's thirty-two 42:00violins and I'm number thirty-two. There's the first section of sixteen and I'm -- so, me and the trombones and tubas, we all became great buddies. I'm learning their parts. (sings) But what it was is -- 'cause my mother loved classical music. And she would play Rimsky-Korsakov's "Eastern Overture," "The 1812 Overture" of Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Glinka. She loved the Russian -- fat, rich, sonorous melodies, and now I'm playing them. And then, it clicked. Wow, to be in a living organism, an ensemble that breathes and moves. And you're important! It's like the corpuscles, every -- our organs have to work in tandem to be healthy. That's when I began to love the violin and come home and want to practice. Wanted to practice. And everything else is history. So, thanks to Mrs. 43:00Baker in Detroit -- to giving me the opportunity -- of course, my parents were willing to save up enough money for me to be able to rent a violin. And thanks to my violin teacher who gave me the chance to compete and get accepted, eventually, to the youth symphony. And I played in it for six, seven years. I loved it, all kinds of music. And then, violin -- but I never thought I was going to be professional. It was just still a hobby. A hobby I loved truly, but it was never -- it was a vocation. No, it was an avocation, not a vocation.

CW:Had you heard much -- was there Jewish music around, when you were --

YS:In the home. My dad would play wonderful khazonish [cantorial-style music]. He loved Yossele Rosenblatt, Koussevitzky and others. So, he would play those. I heard Yiddish folk music from Paul Robeson, Theodore Bikel -- the Polish-Jewish 44:00singer, the woman. It'll come to me. And my dad would sing Yiddish folk songs, some Yiddish folk songs.

CW:Like what?

YS:My dad would sing "Bulbes [Potatoes]," he would sing "Geyen mir shpatsirn [We go for a walk]," and -- but he mostly sang zmires [Shabbos hymns sung at the table] and nigunim [wordless melodies] because that was his background. So, I grew up with a lot of khsidish [Hasidic] nigunim -- that I found out later on as I got into klezmer culture and history, that these nigunim were part of the klezmer repertoire, 'cause these -- the klezmers were playing these nigunim.

CW:Were there any niguns from the family?

YS:Yes, in fact we have one we're very proud of. We call it -- my dad calls it the "stall song." Why? As in stalling for time, because it was sung always -- as he'd say, "Nokh [After]" -- it was on Yom Kippur -- "Bay nakht -- nokh nile." At neilah. So, neilah, you got the aron hakodesh [Hebrew: holy ark] open, you've been fasting for over twenty-four hours. I know everyone says twenty-- it's zeks-un-tsvantsik sho [twenty-six hours]. There's no twenty-four hours. It's longer. It's a couple hours longer. And it's in the Stoliner shtibl [small Hasidic house of prayer]. My dad's there. He's a young boy, he's ten years old, eight years old. He's trying to -- he's being a shtarker [strong man]. "I want to fast." "You know you don't have to fast till you're thirteen." And the rebbe says, "The gates of heaven are still open and the stars are not quite there" -- the three stars. "Before we close the aron hakoydesh and he blows in the shofar, let's sing a nigun!" My father saying, "Oh, man! A tune? I don't want to sing! 46:00Let's blow the shofar because I'm bloody -- I want to eat! I got this apple sitting right here! You know how much self-control it takes for me not to take a big piece of -- chunk out of that apple?" So, it was a stall song and -- which is interesting, 'cause when I went to the rebbe, the Stoliner rebbe in New York and I sang -- he said, "What tunes do you remember from your childhood?" And I sing. He says, "Oh, that's an old one. We don't sing that much." So, it was coming from my bobe and is a -- because people forget. You think that there's -- the Hasidim are humans like anybody. You remember some, you forget some. If you don't sing it, you forget it. So, that one, a couple Simchas Torahs and nigunims --

CW:Can you share it?

YS:Yeah, it's in my sort of my cold-driven voice. Let's see. (sings wordlessly) 47:00Oh! I'm signing Stoliner one. Oh, that's a different one. That's not the one I learned from my father. Wait. That's another story. No, one from my father -- wow, tired. No, the one from -- and it goes -- (sings wordlessly) and so forth. 48:00That was the Stol song that my father taught me, taught my daughter -- and have heard it -- other Stoliners, other people singing it.

CW:Did you have a favorite yontev as a kid?

YS:Probably my favorite yontev was Pesach. I liked to come downstairs. I 49:00remember in Detroit, we'd come downstairs and there would be the tish [table], the special peysedike [Passover] tish that -- where they would keep all the peysedike foods, the special foods they would buy. We would clear out everything, we'd put things downstairs in the basement, all the chometz. We changed dishes, changed all the utensils, cleaned the house up. But there would be that -- but instead of putting it on the regular table, we had a little portable table. And I liked it because there would be the things -- the egg matzah I'd like 'cause it was sweet. The whipped butter that we only got on Pesach. These -- remember those gels, those half-gels -- I forgot, they -- lemon and -- probably terrible for you, all artificial. But I loved them. They were sour. We only got those on Pesach. The coconut-covered marshmallows, only on Pesach. Farfl [Noodles]. The soup nuts, we called them. We'd have those. So, the 50:00foods that were for Pesach, I loved that, 'cause we only got it for the eight days, so -- and I liked the siddurim. Why? Because I got to stay up late. Didn't matter. And I stayed out of school. And even if I had -- the tsveytn seyder [second Passover seder] was on a Wednesday and you're going to school the next day 'cause it's khol hamoyed [non-holy days of a Jewish festival]. Twelve, it didn't matter. And our seders were long ones. You got -- first of all, because it wasn't just my family. It was my dad and the -- we'd usually just have my dad's side. So, the uncles and the aunts and the cousins and they're reading and then they're arguing 'cause it's a seder about not just reading the hagode, but then -- "Well, what does the -- what did the rabbi mean by this?" Or, "What about the bad -- the rasha, hatam, mah hu omer [Hebrew: what the bad son, the simple son, said]," or "Hatam hu omer -- the simple son says, rasha mah hu omer -- the bad boy, the bad son says," and, "What is the metaphor?" We were 51:00encouraged to ask questions. And, of course, singing, eating twenty courses. And then, of course, finding the afikomen. And then, me and my cousin, we would find the afikomen and then we would hide it. We would ransom it 'cause we knew you couldn't continue without the afikomen. You can't continue the seder without a little bit of the dessert. So, my uncle said, "That's it, I don't care. Here's a quarter." "Quarter? Come on, at least ten bucks!" "Ten dollars? Are you" -- we'd negotiate. Of course, we always settled for a dollar. (laughs) So, I have fond memories of Pesach, of the foods, of the camaraderie, the family, and the singing. It was -- I loved singing those songs, that -- we sang special -- there were special Stoliner tunes that were Stoliner tunes for the Pesach leader, that was great, that are known among the Stoliners. Others have heard them and learned them. But everyone has their tradition. So, I was very proud of that. 52:00So, yeah, that was a yontev that I hold dear. And still, we love it today.

CW:And you were saying earlier you would go to the shtiblach?

YS:Yeah, well -- so, my father, as I said -- so, my father growing up that more traditional Orthodox Hasidic world felt more comfortable -- he didn't feel -- he didn't need to have someone say, "Now, turn to page sixty-seven." What do you mean? If you don't know how to daven, you don't know how to daven. And also, he also -- well, he got this from his zeyde. My zeyde would say -- and I'm being told this by my father, 'cause I didn't get to meet my zeyde -- he said when there would be a traveling khazn would come, and start to sing, whatever, there'd be special concerts. (sings operatically) And he'd be singing and all that. And my zeyde said, "Ugh, gevalt, fardreyen mitn shtime [Oh, my God, he drives me crazy with that voice]!" "Oy, if I want to hear opera, I'll go to the 53:00opera. Just daven!" And so, my father -- so, he liked good davening but he didn't want -- it's overly dramatic. One word, (sings operatically) "Baruch [Blessed]," for a minute. "Okay, we're going to be here till tomorrow. I want to finish the tfile [prayer], come on! Baruch atah [Blessed are you]!" So, it was kind of -- so, he liked this kind of old-fashioned where it was about davening. They leyen [read] the Torah -- and then, afterwards, they would have a little -- they would study a little bit. They'd have a cholent, and I remember -- I loved the kiddushes in Detroit because at kiddush time, they would -- it was an old-fashioned kiddush. They would have the shmalts herring, which -- I didn't like when my father had it. There'd be cholent, or you go to a home. You would often -- Oh, it's going to be at so-and -- the Ginsburgs or the Hobermans or whatever. And we're -- six or seven of us would go over there for cholent and that was fun. The kikhlekh [cookies]. I loved the kikhl. And then, there was the 54:00arbes, the chickpeas, which you don't see at shuls. And so, it was chickpeas in a little bit of oil, little olive oil, with -- dusted with black pepper. And they just ate 'em as nuts and I loved that. You don't see that often today. So, those are fond memories. So, for me, it was playing, it was singing, eating food. I mean, Simchas Torah, I remember this one shul we went to. I'll never forget it. So, Simchas Torah's -- is all -- well, let's see. Okay, so erev [eve of] Simchas Torah. So, that's Shemini Atzeret. So, Shemini Atzeret is closing. But what they would do in the afternoon is all the older guys, all these -- and these many are survivors or the first generation speaking Yiddish or some -- I would hear Polish or Russian, also, and sometimes Romanian, Hungarian. And so, they had their tradition. And maybe it's -- it came from the Old Country. So, 55:00just between the closing of Shemini Atzeret and the beginning, the onheyb, of Simchas Torah, they would study and sing a certain text, I can't remember what. But what I remember is they would have nuts, peanuts, but ones that you have to crack open the shell, and beer. Nuts and beer! And the shells covered just -- I mean, they didn't even -- so, I remember coming and looking for the unopened ones or the -- there was a peanut stuck in a -- and sipping a little remainder of a beer. I'm ten years old. And it was a -- so, that's a fond memory 'cause I can see it now. You can see it. And then, of course, Simchas Torah with the singing and the dancing and putting an apple on the fon, on the flag and marching and getting sweets and getting called up for an aliyah and all that. But the next day, Simchas Torah was great, 'cause they had this tradition, this minhag, in the shul, which -- I've never seen it here in San Diego. So, Simchas 56:00Torah, what you'd do is the kids, the youth, we would go up and they're davening and serious, davening. We would go up and take the taleysim [prayer shawls] and we would take the tsitses [tassels on the prayer shawl] and we would tie 'em to each other's tsitses or tie 'em to the legs of the chairs, quietly, so that when they got up, the tsitses came off, the chair came over. Or when they all got up, all their tsitses are all like this, you know. And, of course, they would get angry. So, they kind of knew and we -- crawling underneath and trying to catch it, "Hey!" (laughs) Give us a little smack or something, a patsh. And I did that with my cousin, Ilana. I can remember, at a Young Israel Orthodox shul in Detroit. So, those are fond memories growing up in Detroit. The shuls in San Diego we went to that eventually became the Chabad were -- a couple were storefronts. I remember one being a doctor's office. You saw the doctor's 57:00utensils, tools, as -- we put the Torah on the patient's -- where the patient lie down, laid down, until we finally got money enough to get a building. So, those are good memories. When Tallulah was young, we lived in New York. I lived in Washington Heights. If you know Washington Heights, there's the Breuer's, there's the old Austrian and German Jews. But I went to a little shtibl around the corner. You only knew it was a shul 'cause you saw the mezuzah. They had no -- and I went and I found the shul. It was on the corner of 181st and Cabrini Boulevard. And it was like, Wow, this is like I walked back into my childhood, but -- with the mekhitse [partition] and everything. So, my wife came one time. One time. And she says -- and while Tallulah was a baby, it was okay, but she says, "As soon as she's out of infancy, we're not going there anymore. You go, 58:00but you can go by yourself." And I understood. So, I grew up in a shul where there are mekhitses. And as a kid, there was no big deal. And my mom grew up even in a shul -- or sometimes there were mekhitses, though she went -- grew up in a Conservative shul. But she was okay with the tradition. She understood it. But my wife, who -- you've got her story. Very different background than mine and I agreed with her. I mean, the mekhitse didn't bother me from the sense that it was a mincha, it's an old custom. It harks back to nostalgia. But in terms of what it really meant or how we interpret it and how she interpreted it, I agreed with her. I said, "Yeah, women -- why, just because they're woman -- can't be with the men?" And so, I stopped going to that small, traditional -- I took her -- took my daughter -- and to this day, when we go to shul, it would be to a -- not an Orthodox shul that way, because I don't believe that women and men can't sit together. They sat together -- if Devorah can sing a song -- and I know the 59:00rabbi's saying, "Yes, but that wasn't rabbinic Ju--" -- I say, "Listen, it was good enough for Moses to hear a woman's voice, it's good enough" -- the rabbis made me these walls. The rabbis made 'em. "If there is a God," I said, "if there is a Hashem, He/She/It, if there is -- what, the khumesh [Five Books of Moses] wasn't good enough? You had to write all these other -- okay, fine. But there are those Jews who would -- follow just the khumesh. Which -- guess who? Those were the Ethiopian Jews. That's the only book they knew, which is -- of course, that's another story and how they had problems in Israel. They followed the five books. There was no such thing as Talmud or Mishnah. But anyway, so that's my -- got off on a tangent, so -- but that's how I justify it. (laughs)

CW:I'm curious, did you -- were you hearing, speaking Ashkenazi accent or --

YS:The Hebrew was totally -- it was Shabbos -- it was a "gut-shabes [good Shabbos]," not a "git-shabes," because my bobe, my dad, "Boyrekh ato eloheyni 60:00[Ashkenazi Hebrew: Blessed are You, our Lord]" sometimes or -- no, no, not "heyni," that would be -- no, but definitely an Ashkenaz Hebrew for sure. So, I was learning a modern Hebrew and I learned the modern Hebrew. But then, when I started to learn more Yiddish, I started -- it got so mixed -- so now, when I read Hebrew, I read it in the Ashkenazi, old version, though I know modern Hebrew. But, yeah, it was an Ashkenaz --

CW:But from --

YS:-- up through --

CW:-- Hashomer Hatzair, you might have had the --

YS:Yeah, what -- well, now, Hashomer Hatzair, they're not davening, they don't -- they're anti-religious. So, that was an interesting -- I used to ask my dad that. "Dad, how do you work that out?" And my dad would say to me when we were walking to shul, he says, "Well, I go for the camaraderie, I go for the social atmosphere," which is very true. Lot of people don't realize that shul was 61:00actually a very social gathering. It wasn't just about davening. And a lot of Jews, they -- Jews are -- not everyone was so into it. It was, "Oy, I'll daven, but I'm here to schmooze and feel comforted with the collegial -- the khevruse [community]." But my father said, "It's my time to think about my father, my ancestry, what it was like in the old -- alte heym [Old Country], and to argue with God there. Little pilpl [hairsplitting] with God." So, that's how he was able to come to terms with it, that -- the social Zionists who built the kibbutz -- our family Kibbutz Ein Dor, which is in the Emek. It's near, as they say, (UNCLEAR) Tabor, Har Tabor. And I've been there, I've lived there, I worked there, I still have family there. So, I'm very much a product of that. In fact, 62:00you ask me straight up do I believe in the entity of a God, that's a good question. I don't believe that there's something over me, hanging over me, a man with a white beard. Certainly, if I had to say it, that there was any identification of a human, it's a woman for me. I mean, I -- Mother Nature, ima m'malkatseynu [Hebrew: mother our queen] -- mother, my queen. I mean, I wrote a Yiddish song about this. But I'm more -- as the Native Americans, I know there's something greater than me. What is that? That is nature. Now, nature can take all kinds of forms. I can look in the mirror and say I'm not the greatest thing. First of all, look what came before me and what's going to come after me, particularly if you don't -- we're not honoring this world, sadly to say. But there's something out there. There is a power, there is an energy that -- and if you want to put a name to it, whatever, you call it Buddha, Jesus, it's a chakra, it's Hashem, it's Adonai, that's fine. I'm happy. I don't know -- I say 63:00there's something out there that governs all of us and gives us the will and energy to move forth. So, I'm -- my wife's a much -- she'd probably say very tried and true atheist. I'm an atheist in the sense that I don't believe in a traditional God, but I believe there is a power. So, I don't know what it is, and why do I need to know what it is? I think the journey of life is just trying to follow that path and -- I mean, that's what -- for me, what is Kabballah? The simple fact -- the simplest way for every Kabballah is -- instead of going all esoteric, is every day you want to just get a little closer to the essence of who you are. So, want to say God -- but the essence of what makes you special. 64:00And I'm not talking about your heart and your kidneys and your DNA. And when I tell my students that -- and I say, "And so, every day, you're reading a new book, you meet a woman, you meet a guy, you eat a new food, you smell something different. You get angry. You get happy. Jealous. You travel. All the things that makes what a life is, you go down that path and maybe, maybe just maybe you might get closer to the essence, 'cause you're truly never going to answer the question. 'Cause if you could answer the question of why am I here and what's my purpose, then what's -- why travel down that path?" So, Kabballah, for me, the essence of Judaism is to go down that path and to enjoy the wonders and try to find out more about myself and others. And it's about the journey. It's about the travel. It's about the derekh [path]. It's never the entfer [answer]. I don't want to know the answer, because maybe I'll be disappointed. So, the 65:00answer is in the search.

CW:And speaking of journeys, I want to fast forward a little bit and hear about your first trip to Europe to gather music. How --

YS:Right.

CW:What's the back story there?

YS:Well, I had two degrees, two BAs, one in American Studies, one in Art, Furniture Design. I used to go and do that. But I was working in a factory, I was planing the left side of a rocking chair. And I had ideas, kept going to the baleboste [boss], the mayster [master craftsman]. "Please" -- he was not Jewish, obviously. I wasn't calling that -- "I got this great" -- "Strom! Three hundred. Get over to your corner and" -- (planing sounds) (UNCLEAR) -- ah! Six months, and I went -- I was okay at it. I had some good designs, but I was not a great 66:00craftsman, I'm admitting this, with the wood. I loved it. I can do some things. But if you're really going to be -- you've got to be good unless -- if you want people to buy your stuff. So, I was disappointed and I was, Ugh, what am I going to do? And I thought, law. Law. I'm going to help people. I'll be a good lawyer. I like to talk, I like to write. There are people who need my help, whether it's labor law -- my dad was a very big labor activist. Or poor people or something. And so, I decided to go into law school. So, I took the LSATs and I'm waiting to get my applications back. My yeas and nays. Got some yeas and got some nays. So, I'm about to enter law school and I went to go hear -- and my dad had gone to hear the Klezmorim out of Berkeley. They had done the first -- they did a 67:00record, I think, even before Andy and Zev, that -- their record first came before Andy's and Zev's, like '75, maybe '76, the "Golden Wedding," I can see it now. I think that's the one. Anyway, he wanted to go hear them at a club. Nothing Jewish. He brought home the record, he said, "Yale, listen -- this is music I -- what I was listening to as a kid." And I recognized it, 'cause I'm -- because I would hear klezmer music from when there was little instrumental pieces in between the Yiddish songs when they were singing, and even some of -- the B-side of some of the cantorial music was just a klezmer tune. "Oh, this is great, dad." But they were improvising. It was interesting. I said, "Oh, that's intriguing." Then there was a klezmer dance. This is 1980, '81, one of the first -- and it was a klezmer band here in San Diego. They were one of the early klezmer -- a lot of people don't even know that. San Diego, the great bastion of 68:00Yiddishkayt, right? Started out of students from UCSD. And so, they were called The Big Jewish Band and they were having a concert downtown, not far -- where you were just staying and -- at this club called Sushi's. And nothing Jewish, so wasn't -- there was -- the edifice wasn't Jewish, wasn't for a Jewish conference, was nothing. It was Jewish music to play at a club for anyone to come and have a good time. So, I went to it with a buddy of mine. And I knew many of the musicians in the band, 'cause I was then playing a little bluegrass, some swing, throwing in a couple Jewish tunes. And I was doing some busking on the streets, but making a little bit of money. But still, was a side thing. I was working actually in a liquor store and teaching Hebrew school -- and a gardener. I was combining all these things to make money. So, I went to it and 69:00it was really good how they were playing. But what's also interesting, the improvisation, the arrangements -- it was different. So, I'm having a great time and, of course, I met a girl that night that became a girlfriend for about a year. So, that helped. My endorphins, the hormones, everything's raging. I went up to the leader, I say, "Hey!" During the intermission, the break. "Maybe you need another -- I love what you're doing, it's great." And he said, "Oh, yeah, great." "Exciting, wonderful. Do you need a violinist? Maybe -- can I jam with you? Maybe a violinist will get sick or maybe she'll break a wrist or (UNCLEAR)" -- no, no, I wouldn't wish that upon them. "Yeah, yeah, I don't know, we'll talk. I can't -- yeah, I'm sorry, I got to focus on my next set." "Oh. Oh, okay, thanks." All right, it was a little off-putting and I came home at three A.M. that -- took home this girl, but I took her to her home. Didn't bring her home 70:00yet. And my friend, I was with my -- a good buddy, Brian Blue. I mention him -- you'll see why in a second. And I come home. And a lightbulb went off in my head. I said, "You know what? They say if you can't beat 'em, join 'em? No, if you can't beat 'em, form your own." And then I said, I'm -- all right, screw it. He didn't want me in his band, okay, whatever. And I was getting him off guard and not the best of times. He was focusing on the concert. But forget about it, I'm going to form my own band. Okay, so I'm going to form my own band. But if you're going to form something that's already out there, you got to get a clientele. What's -- he's already been around for about a year or two years. People know him. So, if I'm going to be a band, what makes me different, right? I'm not -- you don't open the same pizza shop next door to another pizza shop that's been there for ten years if you're making the exact same pizza. There's no seykhl [logic] on that. You got a new ingredient, grandmother's secret recipe from Italy, Sicily, whatever. You've got to be a little clever or how's a 71:00customer going to walk in the door? Why should they walk in the door? So, I thought, How am I going to attract? So, I said, I bet -- I saw what he -- I looked at what he was playing. So, he had music from the Kammen books, the Jewish fake books. And he had a couple tunes that he had transcribed from some 78s, which -- oh, that's clever. He had taken some old 78 LPs. But I thought, I wonder if there's tunes in Eastern Europe still in the memories of those Jews that are living there and in archives that we know nothing about that are hidden or forgotten, whether in a library or literally in a private archive, in a stuffed drawer? And I called the next day, the law schools, couple of them that had accepted me. They said, Oh, you're nervous. "No, no, no. I'm not nervous. Torts are for eating, not reading." And click -- they didn't find that too amusing. They probably took me off the list, even if I came -- "Oh, I made a 72:00mistake!" They'd say, No, no, we don't want you. And I bought a one-way ticket to Vienna. Why Vienna? 'Cause that was the portal to the East Bloc, right? That was the biggest city that was in West free Europe next to -- you go into East Bloc. It was about Pesach time, so I didn't tell my parents until after the sedeyrim [seders], right? Keep everything calm. And I told my mom. "Yale, you're what? What are you doing? Do you know where you're going?" "No, but I have an add--" -- "You have an address of a Jew? And you're just -- you're going to travel? And with what money?" And my mom's just going, "Oy gevalt, my son!" And she is -- I remember my mom saying, "Well, you have two degrees. At least you didn't quit school. I mean, you didn't quit and do it when you were getting your BAs. I don't know, okay, be safe." And when my dad took me to the airport he 73:00said, "I wish I was going with you." (laughter) And thus, I started my first ethnographic expedition.

CW:So, before you get to that, looking back now, where did this idea come from?

YS:Literally, you know what it is? Now that -- it's funny, I hadn't thought about it in this way till you just asked me. It was from my competitive side. In other words, he's not going to let me be in his band? Screw him. I'm going to make a band that's better than him. He's going to wish I joined his band. That was it. But, remember I said -- but it can't just be any -- I could get to the Kammen books, but what? Okay. In other words, I -- yes, I could play it better, I could do different arrangements, I could be in all -- we could all play harmonicas and we'll be a five-piece harmonica band. I mean, I could've done something like that. But I wanted to find repertoire that was different. Because what is a band? The band is not only -- the band rests upon two things: the personnel of a band, the personalities of who's playing, but also the music. And 74:00so, I knew I could get great musicians. But I wanted to get great music that he couldn't get so easily or maybe never get. And because I had studied a year abroad, my junior year in Sweden, I had already had the bug of living in a foreign country. So, I liked wandering, I liked -- what was around the corner? I didn't know. I liked being in strange places, meeting new people, that -- every day, I woke up, it was going to be something new. What was I going to do with it? Hell if I knew. Career? I didn't know. I just -- you're young, you don't worry about that stuff. Bills? I was still living at home. I had lived away from home with a girl. That's another story, whatever. I was engaged, that didn't work. I came back home, but -- so, to the credit -- my parents never kicked me out of the home. I contributed, obviously, 'cause I was working and so forth. But never made to feel bad. Because I remember my mother said, "Never measure 75:00maturity by miles." Meaning it's not how many miles you live away from home, it's how mature you are. And that's a great -- so, again, people would say, Oh, you're living at home. So, what of it? I'm living at home, who cares? So, probably that competitive spirit and to say, yeah -- and the adventure. You put the two together -- what's so fun about going to YIVO? Ah, YIVO-shmivo.

CW:So, then, what did you -- can you -- what was your first impression?

YS:Well --

CW:Where'd you go first? (laughter)

YS:-- my first city -- well, it shows you I really didn't know a lot. I take the train from Vienna and I travel to Zagreb. Now I'm in Yugoslavia. Now --

CW:Was there any problem --

YS:At the border? The initial border, no, to -- initially not. But subsequent borders afterwards, lots of problems. In fact, I will say -- this is in a book of mine called, as you well know, I'm sure it's at the Yiddish Book Center, at 76:00least I hope so, "A Wandering Feast." And I did have problems, because of the politics and -- and also, me sometimes being a bit, "You can't do this to me! I'm an American! I'm not going to take this B.S." "Oh, yeah? Get out of here. We're taking you into the hoosegow. You don't have proper visa or you didn't register with the police," blah-blah-blah. So, I had some problems. But once -- but with people, it was great. I go to -- Yugoslavia, real quick. The history of Yugoslav-- who knows. Ah, seventy to seventy-eight thousand Jews up to the eve of World War II, a mixture of Sephardic and Ashkenaz. Well, I forgot about the Sephardic side. So, when I go, I'm going, Oh, my God, I'm meeting all these Sephardic Jews. I mean, Ladino! Gevalt, what an idiot! Why do I start my trip there? But why I started in Zagreb is I was going to go down then through Bulgaria and then make a big circle, up Odessa and a big -- so I came back to Pol-- around. Kind of a weird circle. Actually, probably finish up in Budapest. 77:00I get off the train and I have this address. I ask people to show me on the map. It's an address of the Jewish old age home, the moyshe af zekeynim.

CW:And where did you get this?

YS:The address was -- you could get -- was in -- "The Jewish Chronicle of London" used to put these old books together. I think there was actually a talk this week about the -- I don't even know if they make these -- like Jewish travel guides, but before they became hip. They just did it as, like, "If you happen to be in Zagreb and you need to meet some Jews, you can go -- here they are. You get a meal." So, I had this address. And so, the guy shows me on the map. And he says, "Oh, you can take this train here and get off here and then change for that electric tram there." And I thought, Eh, that's too complicated. And I just followed -- I said, "And, it's money. I'm going to walk." "Shpatsir," 78:00the guys says. "Spatserova, okay it's ten kilometers." "I'm a cross-country runner." That's another thing you -- forgot. I was a very avid -- in college, that's that side of me that's very part of who I am. People don't know that. I was a competitive runner in high school, very good. All-county. I was all-American in college and I still run. And that actually helped me because I had to be physically fit, a lot of the things I did. And I was really fit. So, I said, "Eh, what's ten kilometers? That's nothing." I would run twenty kilometers every day. Eh, I'll walk ten kilometers. Backpack -- after I'm walking, I'm getting hot, I'm shvitsing [sweating], it's July, it's humid, yay! And I get to there at ten thirty at night. The sun's finally coming down. The sun stays high in the sky in the summer. And it's closed. Well, of course it's closed. What are you, an idiot, Yale? It's 10:30. They're all sleeping. I ring the bell, I ring the bell, I ring the bell. And the guy (gate sound) opens this iron gate, looks at me, and I said, "Hello." I said, "Pardon." "Shlof -- tsimer [sleep -- room]?" 79:00(pause) "Yitskhok Strom, yid, Jewish, yevrey, yevrey, yevreyski [Russian: Jew, Jew, Jewish]." I'm throwing out whatever words -- (gate sound) closes it and it starts to drizzle now. And I think, Oh great, now it's drizzling and I'm going to get soaked even more and this is -- and my backpack -- so, I ring the bell again. He opens it up and then I hear this shuffling (imitates shuffling sound), shuffling of feet. And all of a sudden, I see six, seven women, bathrobes, nightgowns, and their sleep caps on. What would that be? Shlof hitl, I guess. Yeah, sleep cap. And one woman starts -- 'cause they speak Serbo-Croatian -- a little (UNCLEAR) maybe there's some German, a little Yiddish. But one woman speaks English. So, she's the leader of them. "Young man, is your grandma here? 80:00What is her name? We'll wake her up." "I don't have a grandma." "Is your grandfather here? We'll wake him up for you." "I don't have a grandfather." "Do you have anybody here that lives here?" "I have nobody." "Why are you here? This is highly unusual!" And I tell her my story. "I'm an American, I'm getting klezmer music. I just came, I have no place to sleep, I have -- I'm hungry, I've had no food. And take pity on me and I'll sleep on the floor!" They close the door and I hear this -- (whispering) they open the door. "You don't have to sleep on the floor. We'll make a room for you." And my first encounter of central Eastern European Jewry is living with seventy to hundred-year-old Jews in an old age home for ten days where I had my private room. And it was clean, it was quiet. The bathroom was clean. And so -- and I would go from table to 81:00table during the day or outside and just collect stories and music. So, that was my very first encounter, of all places. People think, Oh, Warsaw, Kiev, Lublin, the heart of klezmer. No, I'm in Zagreb, but Zagreb actually has very interesting Jewish history, both Ashkenazi as well as, of course, the -- which was Hungarian Ashkenazi more, which was interesting. And I actually learned a very -- a waltz there from a woman and so forth. So, that was my foray into my initial ethnographic research.

CW:So, just briefly, where else have you done field work?

YS:Well, okay, so that year, I went to -- okay, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Ukraine, or the Soviet Union. And then, subsequent -- and then, I left and then subsequently, when I went back in '84, '85, that 82:00was the trip -- so, first went '81 -- '84, '85, that's when I come home, I published my very first book. Co-photographed it with my good friend, Brian Blue, who was going to go in 1981 but he got a little -- cold feet. But he said, "No, now that you've told me about your great adventures, I got to come the second time. And so, that -- we traveled -- those very same places and new cities and, of course, published the book. And then, subsequently, returned to those places. I also added Lithuania to it. I mean, I traveled to Western Europe, I've traveled to Asia and so forth. But in terms of my Jewish focus, from Germany to Ukraine to Belarus, those regions --

CW:And what were the -- how were you communicating with people?

YS:So, generally, when I can, with Jews, Jews that spoke Yiddish, I spoke 83:00Yiddish. There are people -- you'd be surprised that -- I speak a broken Polish. But I can make myself understood. I would find people that did speak English, even a broken English. Or we combined -- excuse me for a sec. (coughs) We -- a little English, a little Polish, a little German, a little Yiddish. I'd find people that could act as translators, sure. And so, on that level, I never -- you know what it was? I never said to myself -- this is where researchers have problems, people just starting off: "Oh, I don't speak that language. Oh, how long is it going to take me to learn the -- well, but -- and I don't speak that language." I don't put it down. I wish, sure -- do I wish I could speak Russian and Serbo-Croatian and Polish and Bulgarian fluent? Why not? Yeah, I wish there 84:00was eight days in the week, too, thirty-two hours a day. I don't have that time. I'm doing so many things. I don't put it down but we pick and choose what we do in life. And so, I wanted to master my Yiddish, so -- but as soon as you say can't, difficult, soon as you put a negative in your mind, it's going to be hard for you. So, people said, Wow, you didn't have anthropology courses, ethnographic courses. How did you do this? How'd you find this -- you know what? I knew how to ask a good question. I knew how to listen. And the tool that really opened the doors, that spoke, was, forget about language -- was the violin. Very few ethnographic researchers, like myself, play an instrument. I know that for a fact. People have done this. People are doing it now. Yeah, some do, most don't. And that's where I always had an up on them because music touches a person in a very different way than language does. That's very academic, that's very -- the mind. Music touches the heart, touches the soul. 85:00Music can open -- can make someone think about something that you would have never thought of asking a question about. So, I'm very grateful for that. And so, doesn't mean I don't pick up -- I speak a little bit more Romanian all of these years and more Ukrainian, sure, yeah. But I don't say, "Oh, I can't go there," because of this. Or I have to take the Berlitz course. Or I didn't do well enough -- nah, I'm just going to -- because I have the field knowledge, though. But I also know what kind of questions to ask and where to find people.

CW:So, how did you translate what you found into your own band?

YS:Well, with the music, I transcribed it. Not all the tunes. I have many tunes. But my book, "The Absolutely Complete Klezmer Songbook," which I didn't want to title -- 'cause it's not absolutely complete. There are many more songs out -- but they wanted to call it that 'cause they thought it's a good selling point. 86:00But I'm very proud of it, 313 tunes. You're familiar with it. You probably saw it: 313 tunes. Why? Because -- two for every day except Shabbos. In that book, there's, I don't know, fifty to sixty of my tunes never saw the light of day until I put them in the book and would have been lost. I know that for a fact. These people are gone. These people weren't interviewed by Spielberg. This is way before Spielberg got the interest to start interviewing Jews, Holocaust survivors. So, I transcribed 'em. I also worked with good musicians, particularly one that I'm going to play with tonight, in fact. A great bassist, Jeff [Picarin?]. He arranges for me. We work together. He's a brother, I've known him since -- he's fifteen. We've been playing music for many decades. In fact, when I said I'm quitting law school, the one musician I said -- I spoke to one. I said, "Jeff" -- 'cause he was so good, virtuoso. Virtuosic player for -- 87:00got a four-year all-paid Julliard scholarship right out of high school. I said, "I'm going to do this. I'm going to go look for this Jewish folk music. Will you be the bassist in the band, as in playing the bass, and the base of the band?" He said, "Sure, yeah." And he loves world music. "Of course, go do it." 'Course, I called him and I remember it was four months or five months I'd been gone. I called from Budapest. "Yeah, when are you coming home? You've been -- it's been five months! Haven't you got enough music?" "No, I still got a few more tunes." So, I work with good musicians that can help me if I have a problem notating something. But that's it. So, I've incorporated the music into the actual playing but I've also incorporated the stories of the people, because I realize it's not just notes. These are people that just -- black notes. Who are the people that sang me these tunes, who played me these tunes, who remember the person who sang or played the melody. They had full lives. And I wanted to know 88:00about them, 'cause that was fascinating. Who were these Jews that survived the Holocaust that returned to the very cities, towns, villages where -- they don't need to go to a Jewish film festival or any kind of film festival, read any kind of book to know that the Holocaust happened there. They just -- they go out the front stoop and that's where the blood ran down the street. And so, I've used their stories and when I talk about my music -- I've written, obviously, many books about it. So, I want to keep their stories alive. And it created fiction sometimes from it. That's why I took my ethnography, my love of Yiddish culture, my ethnography, and my love of music, particularly playing the violin, and combined this career, created this career of -- where I could have just said, Okay, I'll go get my PhD -- through plays and recordings and movies and lectures 89:00and photo exhibitions, I've been able to take this research and bring it to people in many different kinds of forms. 'Cause let's be honest: not everyone's going to go to that conference yesterday. And if only the scholars are preaching to themselves, then it's -- we're talking to each other, which is good and I can correct you, "No, you're" -- that's good. But I am kind of -- I think sometimes academe, we put that so high up on the pedestal. What about everybody else? Because if culture is going to -- if Yiddish culture's going to survive, it's not -- it can't survive just among those in the ivory towers and those stuck in archives. And it's going to survive with everyday people, with my daughter. My daughter's going to go into -- I don't know, she's interested now in biological anthropology, whatever. She traveled with me to Eastern Europe. She's played for 90:00Jews. She's been in Jewish cemeteries. This is as a young kid. I dragged her. She has a sense of Yiddishkayt, she speaks Yi-- she's going to keep it going 'cause it's interesting for her. Well, is she going to go read these -- she may read one of these scholarly books. But that's not going to be her life. But she's not lost, though, 'cause she -- I brought her up to look at the Yiddish culture in this very diverse way. And so, that's why I wanted the research I did not only to be for scholars. I want scholars -- and I want my peers to like it and accept it 'cause we all have egos, artists, and we want them to think it's good. But I also want the everyday person -- and not just the Jew. How boring! Only for Jews? Then we stay small. I want everybody, which brings me --- (UNCLEAR) which brings me to: I'm showing "The Last Klezmer." I mean, the -- I want to say the Red Vic up in the Haight in San Francisco, an art house. I show "The Last Klezmer," lights go up, clapping. I give you a little Q&A. African American woman comes up to me. She had tears in her eyes. She's wiping it with a 91:00tissue and I said, "Wow." I said -- oh, I said -- "You're the director. Wonderful film. I loved it so much." And I said, "May I ask -- you're probably not Jewish. I don't want to assume. Are you Jewish?" "No, no. I'm not Jewish." "Oh, well thank you for coming. What brought you here to the movie?" "Well, I just read the reviews. It sounded very interesting." And she said, "It touched me on a human level. I don't have to be Jewish to know what that guy went through with the music." And there, that was a compliment that I wanted to get. That compliment -- more to me than if my professor said, "Yale, cum laude, I love you." "You're Jewish! You taught me" -- I mean, I want that. But from an African American -- from someone who's not from my culture, who could find something of value, who -- to this day, I'm sure that woman remembers something of that film, like we all do if something touches you, so, that touched me. And I hope that's how my work touches everybody.

CW:And to what extent do you think -- or to what -- where do you see people's 92:00view, in the wider society, of Yiddish?

YS:Well, just everybody? Jews and non-Jews?

CW:Yeah.

YS:Everybody? Well, there are still those who see it as a -- is it viable? No? Yes? It's dying, it isn't. The Hasidim, the Orthodox are keeping it up, but that's a different kind of Yiddish. There are pockets. I'm not a gloom and doom. No, there are strong pockets. Secularists. I mean, but are we -- but we're hundreds. Let's be honest now. We're not thousands. You can't wipe out one third of Yiddish-speaking -- the ninety percent of East European Jewry, ninety percent, I think they -- what is it, the -- seventy-five percent were Yiddish speakers or -- I mean, whatever. Yeah. Are we going to ever get back to that number? Probably not, just because -- guess what? Man, woman aren't -- not sleeping together. Jewish man, Jewish woman, and creating babies. And then, it's not just enough creating babies together: then bringing them up in a certain 93:00atmosphere, but -- we're just not. That's why it's good to see non-Jews and everybody interested in language and the culture and the music and history and whatever aspect of Yiddish culture interests them. So, I do see positive things happening, it growing in fits and spurts in different ways. And so, I think we'll always be there. I think we have something to contribute. Yiddish culture has something to contribute to humanity, greater culture, the -- and it's -- we're not creating in a vacuum. When I'm making a film or writing a book or writing a play or photographing, I'm thinking, Who's watching this, who's looking at this? Who's that person in the photo? Who's going to be sitting in the seat, watching this drama? What are they getting out of it? I'm thinking about all those things. So, there certainly is hope and it's growing. But it's a struggle, it's -- I don't think it's ever going to be easy so that we're just 94:00gliding. And it comes down to science, demographics. We don't have the numbers. We don't have the numbers. And even with the non-Jews joining -- 'cause that's little bushel-fulls, little -- we're talking tens or hundreds. We're not -- 14.3, 14.5 million Jews in the world, of which I don't even -- what? One-and-a-half million maybe speak Yiddish -- 14.5 million, what, there's twenty million people that live in Mexico City. That's all I have to say. So, that's why we do our work. And we do it on the highest academic level, but also the level that the average person, who may not be steeped in the history or the language or knows how to read it or understand it, you don't want to turn them off. You don't want to get so high and mighty -- "Well, you don't understand this" or "You don't have a degree" or talk in such scholarly high terms -- just for the average people. Not that you talk down to them, but if you want to make 95:00it so they understand and don't make them feel uncomfortable -- because guess what? They say, You know what? You've intrigued me enough, now I am going to take that course. Or, I want to read that book, because it -- yeah, Oh, that's fascinating. Oh, I like that. That's what my bobe used to say -- that, or my grandmother, or whatever. So, that's what I hope my work does: brings in more people, all stripes and colors and face, creeds, races, size and shapes. Big, fat, din, dik [thin, fat]. (laughter)

CW:Well, I have -- I'd love to ask, if you have another couple minutes, just what has this meant to you personally, doing this work?

YS:Well, it's been -- again, as an artist -- any artist who says they don't have an ego -- guess what? Big fat liar. That's why we're artists. It's just how we keep in check our ego. But it's been fulfilling.

CW:Yeah.

YS:I get a rush out of the applause or knowing that people have read my book or my photos are at Yad Vashem or my films are at Yad Vashem, my materials at the Book Center and it will be here long -- when I leave Earth in some form, digital 96:00form, whatever -- that people come up to me, Are you Yale Strom? Did you do that? I saw a film, I saw that play, I saw that photo. Makes me feel good 'cause I touched 'em. 'Cause if they just went, Eh, boring, or, All right, next. Yeah, we've been to -- all of us here in this room, we've been to many museums. There's some that stick with us and some that don't. It's like everything in life. Not everything can be in the front lobe of our brain. I mean, we just -- we would be -- everyone would be manic like me. So, I think -- now that -- it's been very fulfilling because I've met so many wonderful people. And I'll tell you two short little stories -- and also my wife. And my wife. To be able to do this with my wife, and she's enriched it. If I didn't have her, yes, I'd be talking to you now. It'd be a very different feeling. I can't even imagine, 97:00'cause I don't want to even imagine if I wasn't with her. Two short little stories. Warsaw. Okay, so Warsaw -- not Zagreb. Warsaw. Yidishe kultur, yidishe shtut [Jewish culture, Jewish city], right? Thirty-three and a third percent Jewish before World War II. I'm at the Kosher kikh. I'm in the Kosher Kitchen. They were started in the late '50s, early '60s by the Joint, so that the Jews who were there in the East Bloc, they could have a kosher meal and a hot meal 364 days a year. Not Yom Kippur. And I'm interviewing Moyshe Shvarts. Speaks Yiddish. He was saying -- it's a long story, but he eventually got taken to the Russian side, Soviet side, and then came back as a soldier. And he stayed in Poland. His daughter had made aliyah when I met him, and he was going to stay there. He had been the shoykhet there but then the government came down -- this is when they're talking about [Zelsky?] and it was hard. And we're talking, he's 98:00singing me a song. I remember he's singing -- (sings "Reyzele" wordlessly) and all -- you know that part -- (continues singing "Reyzele" wordlessly) -- (singing) "Kum, kum, kum [Come here, come here, come here]." And I can just see his face going -- (singing) "Kum, kum, kum." That face, you know, and I can see his beard. He looked like the Jew, right, an alte yid mit a bord [an old Jew with a beard], he had the shvartse hitl [black hat], and he said to me, though, he says, "Yitskhok," he says, "It is only by fate, bashert, chance, luck that you're sitting on that side of the table and I'm on this side of the table and I'm not sitting where you're sitting." And he paused. It was quiet. And I said, "Well, wow, that's heavy. That's true." And I thought about that. And so, that drove me, because it was the fate when grandparents decide to emigrate to 99:00America and not who stays -- I mean, it was. We don't have that free will as a child. I don't choose my parents. And that stayed with me. So, I was grateful for that kind of -- those words and I never forgot that. And the other thing that stayed with me was I was in Nyíregyháza, east of Budapest, a small town. Twenty Jews -- once a nice Jewish community -- one shul. So, I'm staying in a home with Ejbeta. Elizabeth Ejbeta and Magda. It's two sisters that survived the war, it was very -- both at Auschwitz. They had -- and Magda, the sister, had the son -- oh, I'm forgetting his name now but I can see his -- wonderful guy. So, we come there and I'm there at this time with Brian. And we're photographing, living with them, nice people. And she'd -- spoke wonderful 100:00English. She had learned it, woman knew like seven languages. And she said -- and we stayed with them and their son took us around. We interviewed every -- went to the cemetery, shul, whatever. They gave of themselves. And then she said, "Yitskhok," as we're about to say goodbye. And, you know, she became my alte-tante [great-aunt]. And she says, "Yitskhok, don't forget the people that these stories are -- these stories and songs came from." (starts to cry) And she's passed on now. And -- sorry, but I can see it as if she's sitting right there, because she said, "These aren't just words. These aren't just notes. People lived full lives that were cut short or didn't get to live full lives. And don't collect it for collecting purpose to put it in a drawer, to say 101:00"archive." What good does that do, Yale?" And I said, "I promise you, I'll never do that." So, I guess that -- driven by -- and many other people. But Elizabeth saying that and Moyshe -- that I had the great chance to meet them and that they opened themselves to me. 'Cause they didn't open themselves to everybody. They said that to me. They said, We've had people -- I asked them. They said -- one guy said to me, he was, "You're a regular guy, Yale!" Because -- in fact, I'm in Košice -- last story. Here's a story. Košice, Kaschau as the Jews call it. Not Košice, which I learned, too, right? You learn about what was stratification of what Jews -- socioeconomics. They didn't call it by the Czech name or the 102:00Slovak. They call it by the Hungarian name, all the Jews there. Kaschau. Foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. Eastern Slovakia. So, I had gone there my first time. I've been there a second, a third. My fourth time in, I come -- I remember, I knew the train, this early train gets me there, it's five A.M. I walk. Walk from the train -- it's snow-- I walk down -- I remember, I can see it, "[Svarnaska?] Ulica [Russian: Street]." I go down, I turn the corner. I go in and they should be davening right about now. I go in, I sit down. One guy, "Eh, Yitskhok's here for shakhres [Jewish morning prayers]." It was -- and that made me feel so good, that I was a regular. They didn't turn their heads like, "Oh, Westerner," whatever. He said, "Yitskhok's here. Yitzkhok hot gekimt, git, tsayt far a bisl forshungen [Yitzkhok came, good, time for a little research], doing some research." And that made me feel good that they accepted me as I was just -- I was part of the minyan, part of the kehile. And so, I hope I always come off that way. I've tried to, and with -- through all my work.

CW:So, just last thing, and --

YS:Uh huh.

CW:-- do you have an eytse [piece of advice], do you have a --

YS:An eytse, wow. I guess for anyone listening to this, particularly a younger person who is starting off in a career or careers, whatever. First of all, I'll say this. A couple -- two eytses. One is if you're eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, and you don't know what you want to be yet, you're getting -- "I'm getting a degree but is that it?" Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't worry about it. You hopefully have another eighty years ahead of you. And you don't have to know everything at -- your freshman year, and you don't have to know everything in your senior year. In fact, if you say that you don't know -- that you still have a lot to learn your senior year, that's what you really learned, is how much you don't know. And so, don't be afraid to try a career, 104:00whether it's Yiddish, study -- whatever it is, whatever you go into. Music, arts, doctor, lawyer, human services -- but if after ten years or fifteen years you say, "You know what? I did that. Can I do another career?" Why not? You guys, if you're looking at -- listening to me, you're a different generation. It's not that one generation, you get your degree and you stay that way for fifty years, then you retire. No. I've had many different careers. They're kind of all together in a ball of wax, I guess. But people always say, So, what do you do, Yale? I mean, people used to -- I mean, now I can say, "Well, I'm a professor." But I do this, 'cause when I wasn't -- had the professor job, we don't -- kind of -- "Well, I do this, I do that." I combined them all together. So, that's one piece of advice. Don't settle. I mean, if you have one career and you love it, great. And first of all, be passionate about it -- everyone tells you that. The other thing is, I'd say -- is if you want to do something that seems a bisl meshugene [a little crazy], a bisl crazy -- travel somewhere, try a 105:00career, anything that's off the beaten track -- and people say, Oy gevalt, you're nuts! You can't do it! Don't! You don't have the language, you don't have the degrees, you don't have the coursework behind you. You haven't read enough! Don't, don't, don't! You're always polite. Say, "Thank you," and walk the other way and do it. 'Cause if I had waited for professors to say, Now you can -- now you have your degree in ethnography, Yale. Now, oh, your master's degree. Now, you can go and do your field research. Guess what? Some of those people that I did -- and I did it -- they're dead. They would have been dead. We don't have time. Now, certain things, you -- people are time sensitive, particularly if you're eighty years and above. So, that's the big -- do what your heart says. And I tell high school students today, "If anyone says no, no, no, you shouldn't, whatever, that's hard, that's difficult, you can't make a living." 106:00How many -- "You can't make a living, you'll be struggling." "Thank you." Always be polite. And do it. Now, they may be very well true. You may not make a living. It may be difficult. But then, you've decided, after five -- you made the choice. Don't let them. Don't let them do that. So, that's the eytse from Yitskhok Ben-Dovid V'Peyse-Vera Strom.

CW:A hartsikn dank [Thank you very much].

YS:Oh, nishto far vos [you're welcome].

[END OF INTERVIEW]