ESTHER GOTTESMAN ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney and today is January 10th, 2017.  I am here in Brooklyn, New York with Esther Gottesman and we're going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project.  Do I have your permission to record?

ESTHER GOTTESMAN: Oh, yes, please.

CW:  Thanks.  So, ariber af yidish [switching to Yiddish] -- mir veln merstns redn vegn dayn bobn [we will mostly be talking about your grandmother].  Vi heyst ir [sic] [What was her name]?

EG:  Mayn bobe [My grandmother]?

CW:  Yeah.

EG:  Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman.

CW:  Un veyst ir vu un ven zi iz geboyrn gevorn [And do you know where and when she was born]?

EG:  Oh, s'iz azoy vi an eksamen [this is like a test]. (laughter)

CW:  Mer oder veyniker [More or less] --

EG:  I think August 8th, 1920.  Was I right?

CW:  Um-hm.

EG:  Yay!  Cool.

CW:  Yeah.  Un vu [And where]?

EG:  In Czernowitz -- oder neyn [or, no], in Vienna, in eystraykh [in Austria].

CW:  Un vos veystu vegn ir mishpokhe, ire eltern [And what do you know about her family, her parents]?

EG:  Oy got.  A sakh.  Ikh meyn, a sakh mayses [Oh God.  A lot.  I mean, a lot of stories].  Zi hot a sakh, a sakh, a sakh geredt vegn ir mishpokhe [She spoke a lot, a lot, a lot about her family].  Her mother was Lifshe -- I heard the voice of my whole childhood.

CW:  Far vos [Why]?

EG:  Her tapes and interviews and reading her book out loud.  And she was 2:00always just there as if a person, and stories about her and sort of her epic tale.  She came to the United States, Lifshe, and then went back.  And she came very young and she -- I think there's sort of folkloric -- surrounding -- or maybe it was -- I'm sure it's from her book, which I have read, but not in a while, about how she got her passage on a boat and she came here and she sang in the streets.  She had this beautiful, legendary voice.  And then, she went home.  And my grandfather, my great-grandfather, he was killed.  His death was something that Beyle talked about a lot.  It haunted her.  I mean, I think she 3:00would sort of -- she would tell stories over and over again and sort of re-grieve and re-- sort of experience.  And so, he had a very tragic death in a work camp, I believe, in Siberia.  And he ran a store and, yeah, I mean, that's sort of the tip of the iceberg, but --

CW:  Can you say a little more about Lifshe?

EG:  About Lifshe?  Yeah.  I mean, my dad grew up with her, in the house, I think.  Or am I thinking of the other -- yeah.  No, I think Lifshe -- yeah, yeah, yeah, 'cause -- yeah, of course.  Okay, yeah, my dad grew up with her and she -- I sort of cobbled together my own sort of image of her from many stories, and growing up sort of knowing BKG, who interviewed her and wrote a lot of -- 4:00wrote her -- recorded her and just -- I heard her voice.  And my family, I mean -- we do -- they listen to tapes all the time.  I mean, always at the table, they were telling stories of this time when everybody was sitting in their -- just of these images of the whole Bainbridgivke [Yiddish-speaking community around Bainbridge Avenue], I feel like everybody who lived in the Bronx would come together and there was all these -- so many stories where Lifshe and a bunch of people were sitting at the dining room table and then this person would come over.  This funny thing got said and then the funny thing sort of lost its initial meaning and just -- something we would still say or people would still talk about in our family.  So, she was very present, though I never met her.  She died when my dad was about eighteen, I think.  And yeah, it was a very -- particular stories about her --

CW:  Well, you mentioned Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett --

EG:  Yeah.

CW:  -- who recorded --

EG:  Yeah.

CW:  So, what did she record?

EG:  I think BKG interview-- did a lot of interviews and -- no songs, but interviews.  And her voice, her music was some -- Beyle sang and my dad sings very beautifully, though he probably didn't say so in his interview.  And it was sort of -- we've always -- she's -- was the best.  (laughs) She -- everyone sort of talked about Lifshe like she was the best of us.  And her voice was very beautiful.  And in our family, sort of -- she's discussed as being sort of this beautiful songbird who really got it and everyone else (laughs) has sort of been approximating that ever since.  But, yeah, she's -- just felt -- so, BKG did these recordings of her, which I've heard -- I mean, a lot growing up.  Not recently, but I've -- they were around a lot.  Every time my dad and my grandmother were together -- feels weird to say grandmother (laughs) in English 6:00-- but they would be talking about old times and he would be interviewing her and they would be retelling stories and adjusting each other's versions of stories.  And other people in the family would be adding and -- so, the storytelling of our family is -- was a major activity, communal activity.

CW:  And when would that happen?

EG:  So, I lived in Austin as a kid.  And my dad was a Yiddish teacher down there.  Professor, rather.  And so, we would spend summers on Bainbridge, parts of summers, and visit all the -- visit often.  And then, when I was eleven, we moved to New York.  And we lived with Beyle briefly.  We lived with her briefly while our house in Brooklyn was being -- so, we lived with -- for a 7:00year, but -- and then, when I was older, I moved in with her and I lived with her for the last two years of college, and I think maybe a year after that.  But my dad was sort of her primary caregiver from the last years of her life.  And I'm his only child.  And where he -- where he and I are very close, it was very important to him that I be near her and that we have a bond.  And so, I was around her a lot.  I was -- and still, she's a big part of our relationship.  My dad and I, I mean.

CW:  Can you describe Bainbridgivke?

EG:  Bainbridge Bainbridgivke?  Well, I think I was sort of around post-heyday.  I know I was.  But still, there was a little bit -- there was a 8:00tam [taste] of that, a little bit of that.  But it almost seems like some sort of Camelot or -- (laughs) not really, but the way they would talk about it was so idyllic.  I mean, real complex stories and it wasn't idealized.  But everybody moved and there was -- they were all part of the movement to try and find a Yiddish heymland [homeland] and it didn't work.  The Frayland-lige and then -- so, they -- it did work because they all moved to the Bronx, (laughs) or at least sort of one community.  Moved to the Bronx and they all lived in little houses near each other and it was -- seemed amazing.  And they had a nature club and a kids' journal and they seemed to -- whenever they all get together still, they'll tell stories that are sort of indecipherable because 9:00there are so many inside jokes.  But there's -- And then that one time when he did the -- so, they have a real -- and they would go to school, they go to New York City public school in the Bronx and then they would go afterwards to the Yiddish school.  And then, they would be -- at a certain point, they all became Yiddish teachers and they had a teacher training and -- but it was a big part of their lives.  They lived -- sort of seems parallel lives in English and Yiddish.  And yeah, yeah.

CW:  Can you describe the house?

EG:  The house?  Sure.  It's one of those houses that's more than a -- it's an idea that's also a house.  It is four stories, three, and this basement 10:00that's full of wonders.  There's this big living room where sort of a lot of gathering happens, and -- which I just remember very well.  I mean, I lived there for a long time, but also just -- it was so her in that -- there was -- embroidered pillows and her sculptures and lots of her art and paintings.  And her couch, which I can remember as a little kid, just lying on it.  It feels very -- it's a very tactile memory.  And then, there's this kitchen that was around the corner here and the dining room, and stairs that I would go down a lot as a little kid on my butt, down the carpeted stairs.  And then, there were 11:00bedrooms which are still called -- we still refer to them, even now, as the bedrooms of the kids who grew up in them, my dad and his siblings.  So, there's Toba's bedroom and then Haim's bedroom.  And then, around the corner, my grandma, my bobe [grandmother] and zeyde's [grandfather] big, big, big bedroom.  And then -- in which I remember the jewelry, the old 1950s pins and stuff and -- always out, and her powders and all the things that I would play with when I was little.  And then, on the top floor is where I spent a lot of time when -- I lived there when I was -- at different points.  And that's the attic, which is -- also has a bathroom.  And there's art everywhere.  And 12:00there is stuff everywhere.  There's pottery and old -- oh, so the backyard is actually a major feature, because that was where our Sukkos always happened when I was a kid, or sikes, I should say.  And then, there was a little cottage that was a 1920s painter's house that was solid glass that was -- I mean, not solid but had these big windows.  But we spent -- she spent a lot of time in the backyard, just sitting there and also drawing and just sort of being there and gardening, (laughs) even though mostly that just consisted of sticking chopsticks in pots.  (laughs) And then she would overwater.  But she did love nature and love being in the garden.  And there was this huge tree in the middle of the backyard that they remember when they planted.  There was a 13:00treehouse there for a while and -- when my dad was a kid, not when I was around.  And they knew the neighbors and they were -- it was famous neighbors and famous stories about this one time and -- but, yeah, it was a house very full of the people who lived in it, to the brim.

CW:  And the basement, you said, also was --

EG:  Oh, yeah.  The basement -- I mean, and -- I think it was probably organized at one point, but for my -- most of my childhood, it was just boxes and boxes of Yiddish books and five extra desks, should you ever need one, and things that are definitely broken but that nobody can throw out.  And china cabinets full of dishes, and a box of dishes which I have now, which was brought over when they came, which nobody ever used 'cause it was -- well, no.  I mean, 14:00they did, they -- it was this -- well, there was some of it downstairs and some of it up-- there was just lots of stuff down there.  And it would flood periodically, so it was -- it was kind of up high and -- yeah.

CW:  Do you -- thinking about the space, are there -- were there favorite corners or things on the wall or objects that come to mind?

EG:  Yeah.  Well, the back yard.  I mean, the back yard was very much a sort of very clear hearth.  I mean, sort of gathering space in that house.  So, we were in -- there was a lot of -- there's a lot of coffee drinking in my family.  People are very big on coffee, and so -- especially Beyle.  She would drink these little airline cups of -- you know those -- they don't give them 15:00anymore, but they used to give you these little dinky plastic cups and she'd have thirteen cups of coffee a day.  And so, she and my dad, being in the backyard, drinking coffee or whoever else was there, being in the backyard, drinking coffee -- nature plus coffee, generally.  And so, the backyard with the -- sort of slightly overgrown stuff and the berries.  There was -- and the stray cats.  It was a very sort of -- collision between the Bronx and nature.  And we spent a lot of time there and a lot of time in the living room.  I mean, when we would have -- and the dining room.  I mean, that -- the first floor.  A lot of -- there was -- it was a very social house.  People were over and --

CW:  What kind of people?

EG:  You name it.  I mean, Beyle was -- and my dad -- but very interested in 16:00people who were interested in Yiddish.  And that was really it.  That's all -- that was what you needed to be (laughs) -- or vaguely interested.  But over the years, really, people would live there for long periods of time and sort of help take care of her but also just be -- or not -- I mean, even before that was something that was needed, people would just live there to be there and to be near Yiddish.  And she would sing with them and there were guests, I mean, constantly.  And there was a big house, and her -- especially after her husband died and her son died and her daughter died, there was a lot of space in that house and it was really filled.  And then, my dad did a very good job of that, too.  But, I mean, you'd go -- there would be sort of an occasion and there would -- really run the gamut.  You would have a Hasid and you'd also have a group of Germans who were visiting for the week and were here to study with 17:00her.  You'd have really -- I mean, and she had friends -- and all over the world and she was always getting calls from someone who wanted to talk to her.  And a lot of very close friends who were people who wanted to be near her and study with her and who she had real affection for.

CW:  Looking back, what do you -- can you identify what drew people to her?

EG:  Well, I think she was very giving of her sort of memories and of her music and feedback.  (laughs) And, yeah, I mean, she loved anything Yiddish and she 18:00wanted to talk about it.  And she had -- she was sort of overflowing with things to share.  And I think she felt deeply the sort of -- the need to share those things about herself and to talk to people about art and to -- she was very -- she was an artist and she -- in all ways, and I think connecting with other artists and sharing her mission and sort of her -- and spreading Yiddish.  I mean, I think that was her life force and that people wanted that and people wanted to learn from her.  And she was full of songs, and you'd just be talking to her and she'd start saying, "Actually, I know" -- she'd say a twelve-stanza poem in German from her -- from when she was four or something.  19:00She would just really kind of -- yeah, it was just -- it was there to share, and those things she wanted to share with people.  Yeah, and people loved her mu-- I mean, people loved what she was making, too, her music and her poems were moving for people.  Also, she was like an authentic sort of -- not to -- I don't -- I'm trying not to commodify her, but she had this sort of feeling of Old World authenticity that I think people were really into.

CW:  What were your feelings about Yiddish when you were growing up?

EG:  A gite frage [A good question], very mixed.  I mean, growing up, I always 20:00knew that it was great.  But I had sort of -- I think it made me feel weird when I was little.  I lived in Texas and my parents were really the -- I mean, my dad, in particular, was the primary person I spoke Yiddish with, except for when we got back to New York.  And on the one hand, I think I enjoyed that sort of thing that I had, that people then -- like, a secret -- I'd talk to him in Yiddish when I didn't want people to understand and he did a really good job of creating a Yiddish world for me.  We would do -- we would make reyzelekh [little flowers], we'd do the little cutout for Shavuos and we'd do the different -- we celebrated together, but it was almost just our -- the two of us.  And he did -- I remember when I was a kid, he was -- like I said, he was a 21:00professor and he would have me come in and I gave his class a test once.  I came in and told them about my doll in Yiddish.  I was, like, "This is my doll and this" -- in Yiddish and I told all about her.  And then, I gave them a test.  So, I mean, I think there was a sort of -- I loved it and I felt proud of it, and then also, there was a little bit of -- a lack of understanding of why I was speaking Yiddish.  And not -- I mean, not from him.  He was very clear.  This is our language and this is not a question.  But it was sort of decontextualized.  It was the two of us.  And then, when I was eleven, we moved here -- or twelve.  And we met all these people, I mean, who I'd always known and sort of met and -- I guess met is not the right word.  We had spent time with over summers and over -- but started really spending time with the Yiddish community here.  And there are still many Yiddish communities in New 22:00York, but one that we particularly spent a lot of time with was the sort of klezmer Yiddish culture scene, which doesn't necessarily mean that they were speaking Yiddish but that they -- but people who loved Yiddish culture and were cool and were doing cool things with it and were political and were subversive and were thoughtful and sort of using Yiddish in intellectual ways that I thought was really awesome.  And I loved that, and I think finding that community of people to be a part of gave Yiddish sort of a different use of -- a different way of using it, with sort of the constant stream throughout that Yiddish was not -- it wasn't a variable.  It was the primary -- I would say if 23:00you had to ask, when I was a kid, what I thought my identifiers were, I would put Yiddish -- I still think I would put Yiddish before Jewish.  Yiddish is sort of -- it's our primary identity in my family.  I mean, Yiddish and Jewish are the same thing, obviously, but -- or not obviously, but for many -- and my dad was always like, You can't separate those two things, 'cause one created the other in sort of this mutual creation.  But Yiddish is our thing.  I mean, that's our creed.  Or some -- I don't know what creed means, actually, (laughs) but that's -- rambling.  Yeah, yeah.  Did I answer your question? 

CW:  Yeah.  Yeah.

EG:  Okay.  (laughs)

CW:  Yeah.  I was curious in that phase when you were meeting, kind of, as you 24:00said, cool people doing stuff with Yiddish.  Anyone in particular that sort of represented that for you?

EG:  Just the -- I mean, Yiddish youth.  The people who have now become my family of choice.  But also, yeah -- Sarah Gordon I met when I was twelve and I thought she was the bee's knees.  She was the cool older Yiddish speaker.  And all of these people who are making music and were making art and people who have since become -- family is not an overstatement -- have become part of my Yiddish family.  And Michael Winograd, Dan Kahn, Asya, Seb -- I mean, every -- it feels like a family of four hundred people who I feel very lucky to know.  But people 25:00who sort of get it.  And even -- and some of them don't speak Yiddish and some of them do.  Hopefully, they all will learn, or some -- I feel obligated to say that.  But, no, there's people who are being thoughtful about it.

CW:  I wanted to ask a little -- about, also, the yontoyvim [holidays] -- and you mentioned sikes.

EG:  Right.

CW:  Can you tell me how you celebrated that at --

EG:  Sure.

CW:  -- the house?

EG:  Yeah, so sikes was a big -- is a big deal.  It's a fun holiday.  We would -- and, well, when -- in Bainbridge, I mean, that's where we really celebrated it when we lived in New York.  And they would have a big table in 26:00the middle and we would hang the skhakh [green branches used to cover the sukkah] and we'd do the whole -- all the -- and there was -- old sheets from the '50s around and people would come over every night.  I mean, there was usually one big night of people coming over and we'd sing --

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

EG:  -- and family would come, like Michael Alpert and really -- Janet Leuchter and Perl Teitelbaum and all of these people would come and we'd sit around and we'd sing and eat food.  And Ethel Raim, obviously.  Yeah, it was -- I mean, and it's beautiful and it was sort of -- it was in the garden and that, I think -- we did that for many years.  And I know my dad did it growing up, too.

CW:  And what -- how much, if at all, was her religion and observance a part of 27:00your growing up in your family?

EG:  It's a great question.  I don't -- it's something I've always sort of grappled with because, on the one hand, I think identifying as secular would be probably highly offensive to her.  (laughs) But, at the same time, to --

CW:  To Beyle?

EG:  Yeah, I mean, it -- we were -- even though -- we'd light candles sometimes on Friday.  We'd do all the Shabbos stuff.  But drove and we turned on and off lights and we didn't keep kosher and so -- but there -- we were deeply -- I don't know if this makes sense, but we were deeply Jewish without religious observance.  And they would go to -- I think, as a kid, my dad maybe went to 28:00shul more.  But we always go on High Holidays and stuff, yeah.

CW:  Were there any special family traditions for yontoyvim or just other times?

EG:  Were there any -- I'm sure there were.  Give me a minute.  I guess I would say the thing that defines any practice, religious or secular or otherwise in our family was music, was song.  There was singing for every occasion.  Multiple songs.  I mean, that was, I think, sort of foundational, regardless of the -- yeah.

CW:  What kind of songs?

EG:  It varied depending on the holiday and on the occasion and on the mood and 29:00on the gender of the person singing and on the -- and certainly, even if there wasn't an official occasion, people would just sing, I mean, all the time.  But, yeah, there was a huge repertoire.  And she knew stuff by heart like -- I mean, she had an amazing memory.

CW:  What languages were --

EG:  Mostly Yiddish but also Romanian, a fair amount of Romanian.  German.  Not really English.  That was sort of taboo.  (laughs) Maybe not taboo, but not her preference.  But mostly Yiddish and some other stuff, maybe a Ukrainian song or a -- but mostly, I would say, Yiddish, Romanian, and then German.

CW:  I want to get back to Beyle a little bit by asking you if you could 30:00describe what she looked like.

EG:  From what period in her life?  I -- okay, I will describe what she looks like.  If I think of her as sort of -- throughout time, I think about her skin -- is the first thing I think about.  Sort of papery and soft.  And I can see the colors and the textures in my head.  And her warmth and the warmth of her touch.  And she had hair that was brown and then sort of turned more grey in a very warm, round face.  People have always told me I look a lot like her.  We 31:00have a picture I could find somewhere where we are standing next to each other.  I'm a teenager and we look eerily similar.  Her eyes were very open and curious and assessing.  And she was quick to laugh and also kind of smirk.  And sometimes, she looked quite sad.  And she was very small.  And, yeah, I mean, I think of -- near the very end of her life, when we were taking care of her, I think about her body in my -- I would help move her -- and her 32:00lightness and -- yeah.

CW:  And what do you -- what stood out from photos of her when she was younger?  What's that --

EG:  Always -- it was funny, because it was a period of time when you weren't supposed to smile in photos.  They were sort of (laughs) just a straight document of the -- but even -- there would be these photos of her in the whenever, in the '70s or -- she had big sunglasses and a hair wrap.  And she always looked like she was hiding a smile or she was sort of biting back a -- and she was always with -- I mean, closeness with people, with her arm around people, with -- there was a very sort of community-oriented way about her, even 33:00in photographs.  I don't know if that makes sense.  But she was always with people and holding people, arms around each other or standing next to each other, sort of.  Yeah.

CW:  What about her personality?  How would you describe that?

EG:  Well, that is -- she was feisty, I think is a good word, which -- I don't mean -- I think that actually kind of sounds precious, but I mean -- she was a strong person.  She did not suffer fools.  She was uncompromising in her values and opinions.  She was very affectionate towards her family and towards 34:00the people she loved, in her way.  Not sort of cooing and -- but care.

CW:  How would she display that?

EG:  She was very -- I think of her as being very Eastern European in her sort of -- the use of diminutives or the way that -- I mean, I mostly knew her when she was older and so that really colors my assessment in all of these things, obviously.  She was never sort of warm, or rarely was she warm to people.  But she was -- that's not true.  She wasn't overly warm to people, necessarily, but she would be warm about them when they were -- to me, she would be sort of -- 35:00just so, I don't know, not -- I was an American sort of kid and was really affectionate and there was lots of hugging and she was not down for that.  But then, I would be sort of in the other room and she'd be on the phone and I'd hear her say something lovely about me.  And she was -- yeah, she was lovely to people.  But yeah, I don't --

CW:  What did you call each other?

EG:  Esterl.  Everyone calls me Esterl.  It's my name in Yiddish.  I mean, that's my diminutive.  And she was bobe.  Or sometimes, if I was being silly, I would add extra -- bobenyu or -- yeah.

CW:  At what point did you become aware of her art, her work?

EG:  Yeah.  Always, probably.  I mean, that was a very characteristic part of both her and her house.  She had twenty sketchpads with her wherever she went.  Back of napkins and stained receipts and, I mean, she was always drawing and they were everywhere.  You would just turn over sort of any surface in her house and there would be twenty-five drawings of many different things.  But it was always sort of around her.  So, I don't -- I think it was -- I always knew.  And she would -- I mean, when I was a kid, she would visit me in Austin, too, and she would draw and sing and write songs for me and, yeah, I mean, that was also one of the ways that she showed affection was by sharing her art and drawing you and singing songs for you.  And she wrote a song for me about the 37:00-- my mom put those -- the glow-in-the-dark stars and -- on my ceiling when I was a kid, little kid.  And she wrote a song about -- which is called "Levone, levone [Moon, moon]," which is about sort of lying in bed and looking at the moon or other -- I remember her writing another song when we were in a sculpture garden when I was a kid.  And she would write a lot of music, yeah.

CW:  Do you sing?

EG:  I do sing, yeah.  I do sing in Yiddish.  I do.

CW:  Would you be willing to sing one of those songs for us?

EG:  I can sing "Levone, levone" if you want.

CW:  Sure.

EG:  But it's been a while.  (laughs) [BREAK IN RECORDING] (singing) "Levone, levone, di bist azoy sheyn, ven di shaynst in di finster in nakht.  Nor zog mir farvos, zi host nit keyn noz, un di oygn haltsti farmakht.  Levone, levone, vos 38:00bist azoy freylekh, ven di shaynst in di finstere nakht.  Bisti a malke tsi bisti a meylekh?  Zits ikh baym fenster un trakht. [Moon, moon, you are so beautiful as you shine in the dark of the night.  But tell me why you don't have a nose, and why you keep your eyes closed.  Moon, moon, you are so happy when you shine in the dark of the night.  Are you a queen or are you a king?  I sit by the window and ponder.]"  I can sing the first verse again.  Should I?

CW:  Sure.

EG:  Okay.  Okay.  (singing) "Levone, levone, di bist azoy sheyn, ven di shaynst in di finster in nakht.  Nor zog mir farvos, zi host nit keyn noz, un di oygn haltsti farmakht. [Moon, moon, you are so beautiful as you shine in the dark of the night.  But tell me why you don't have a nose, and why you keep your eyes closed.]"

CW:  Zeyer sheyn [Beautiful]. (laughs)

EG:  Yeah, it's a good song.

CW:  How would you describe her -- the way that she sketched?  I know that you 39:00mentioned the sketches.

EG:  Yeah.  Sort of unformed.  Like, very -- lots of lines and -- wasn't like a one-stroke -- she would do lots of lines together to sort of make it feel almost in motion.  And she would often sketch the same thing a couple of times.  So, draw a couple of different sketches of the same thing, often with, to others, very limited difference.  But I think she had a secret thing she was going for.

CW:  And what about her poetry?

EG:  What about her poetry?  Yep, it's probably the thing of hers that I'm least familiar with.  Very autobiographical.  You recognize people you know.  40:00It's funny, she was so full of things to say she needed five mediums to say them in.  (laughs) She was drawing, she was painting, she was writing songs, she was writing plays, she was writing poetry.  And all of them were different expressions of different sorts of stories that she had to tell, stories that she felt like needed to be told.  And I think the poetry was the most autobiographical.  I'm thinking of poems about my aunt and about my -- her love of New York and -- but that was very auto-- that was her voice about her own life.

CW:  And did those -- did the different mediums (UNCLEAR) interact?  Were there connections between poems and sketches and paintings?

EG:  Yeah.  I mean, things -- I think that sometimes, things would be born in 41:00an unspecified medium and they would sort of develop in her brain.  And I thought maybe they -- she didn't really write music.  She didn't.  So, it was very organic.  I think sometimes things would -- I don't totally know her process.  But I think that sometimes things would develop into songs and sometimes they would turn into poems.  And, yeah, depended.

CW:  Did you see her working often on any of those things?

EG:  Yeah.  I think probably chronologically in her life it was more when I was younger.  She was always doing something and she was always drawing or writing or -- and she would.  I mean, she'd write stories and she'd just fill paper.  The house was, I mean, full of her work, her -- and she'd write a -- 42:00and especially would sort of become, I think -- as her memory faded or changed, more like it would sort of become a narrative for herself.  She'd write the same stories and tell them over and over again and write them and draw them over and over and over again.  And it was like a way of sort of holding on and processing and keeping things.

CW:  You mentioned that she felt -- I don't remember exactly how you said this, but that she felt sort of compelled to produce these things.  From what you know about her, why --

EG:  Why?  It's a great question.  Well, it depends on the thing.  I mean, I think with the Yiddish kid stuff, she wanted there to be -- she felt that there 43:00were gaps and she wanted to fill them.  It was very pragmatic.  And so -- or, at least in her framing, she was -- there was not enough Yiddish kids' music, so let's -- we wrote a Hanukkah operetta or something.  And then, the other things, I think it just felt sort of like a force, like a -- she needed to tell her stories, to remember, for other people to know so they were written somewhere but also, I think, mostly for her, for the process of telling her own stories.  And she always would say to me to keep a journal.  She was always telling me to keep a journal, just the -- that sort of knowing your story yourself and being able to -- and especially, I think, as her memory -- 'cause her memory, when it started fading at the end, that was very -- that was fundamental, her -- I mean, for most people, their memory is fundamental.  But 44:00her memory was a storehouse.  It was a library of every -- and so detailed and so -- you could see her reliving them as she told them.  And so, it was so primary for her experience of the world.  I mean, she lived in multiple times simultaneously.  And so, it was -- yeah, I think part of that was that -- especially to get moved around the world like that, I think it was a -- remembering of who she was and who -- yeah, sort of the sum total of her experiences.  And also, there -- her harder experiences she felt needed to be shared because there was this -- people needed to know what had happened to her community and -- yeah.

CW:  Do you -- from your perspective, was there a specific audience?  Was 45:00there any -- was it family, public --

EG:  Yeah.

CW:  -- Jews, non-Jews, what --

EG:  I don't think -- it's not my instinct that she wrote -- I mean, with the exception of the Yiddish kid stuff, which was super pragmatic, like I said before.  I think that she wrote for her.  (laughs) I mean, I think that she hoped other people might see it and enjoy it but I think primarily she wrote because she needed to and it was not -- it wasn't -- my dad was really one of the people who was -- started to publish her and was -- but that was not her -- I mean, and she was overjoyed when people enjoyed her -- overjoyed is not a word that I would ever -- (laughs) she was happy when people would enjoy her work and felt connected to her through her work.  But she, I think, wrote primarily for 46:00herself and for her memories.

CW:  More personally, what was your relationship with her?

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EG:  I loved her.  We loved each other.  We didn't -- we grew to understand each other.  And, yeah, I think that she showed me that she loved me and she would give me things.  She would give me jewelry that she had loved or -- and usually little -- like, her tchotchkes or just whatever, or --

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EG:  -- she would give me -- she would care for me and she would feed me.  And I loved her.

CW:  What would you do together?  Where were the meeting points?

EG:  I mean, her house, primarily.  But when I was in college, my dad would 47:00pick her up.  I went to college in Westchester and my dad would pick her up and they would come get me and we'd go to a coffee shop and we'd eat cannoli on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx.  Or just sharing meals.

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CW:  Can I ask about the paintings a little bit?

EG:  Sure.

CW:  We haven't talked about those much.

EG:  Yeah, I'd love to.

CW:  So, I know the living room, for example -- a ton of paintings.  What were they like?

EG:  They were all different.  She drew a lot of nature scenes and a lot of sort of village-y houses and people, portraits of people.  Watercolor and -- but a lot of nature scenes, a lot of paths and trees sort of branching and -- 48:00yeah.  Soft lines and lots of white space.  Or not in all of them, but I'm thinking of some where there was images in the middle and some where she would fill it with a road, lots of roads, lots of -- yeah.  And she would talk about that.  That was one of her -- I don't know, symbols or totems or something like the idea of a road.  She had a few sort of images that she closely identified with and the vague path was a big one.

CW:  Well, is there, just to get at this from a different angle, are there things that you would want people to know about her that they don't -- might not 49:00know about her?

EG:  The things I want people to know about her they might not know about her.  She gave of herself artistically very -- with little inhibition.  I think that you can find her in her poems and her songs, that she did a very good job of telling her own story.  The things that I would want people to know about her, they're almost sort of more sense memory than -- they're my things.  I don't think -- I don't know if other -- the smell of her house and --

CW:  What was it, the smell of her house?

EG:  Coffee and chicken broth, maybe.  And she didn't make -- it was -- she was a terrible cook, but -- (laughs) but coffee, primarily, and bread, toasting. 

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EG:  But she had bigger fish to fry, but no pun intended.  That was not her primary -- she was not a homemaker.  I mean, she was but she was not -- she didn't go in for knitting and I mean, she would try.  She did, but -- she would sew a little bit, but she was of the mind.  She was not interested in messing around with the kitchen or -- I mean, she provided food for her family and took care of everyone, as was her traditional role at that point.  But she was intellectual.

CW:  One thing that -- a random thing I want to ask you about was her jewelry.

EG:  Yeah.

CW:  You've mentioned that a couple of times and I (UNCLEAR).

EG:  It's -- yeah.  It's just something that I have a lot of of hers and that she, I think -- was an expression of care from her that she would give me jewelry, little bits and -- the things that she had.  And there were sometimes 51:00dollar store earrings.  It wasn't precious stuff.  But, yeah, she was kind of a magpie, too.  She'd be finding things and sort of -- she had collections everywhere.  When I lived with her in college, I had a dog, which I still have, and at one point, the dog got into a bag of burrs that she had.  She just had a bag of burrs from a tree.  (laughs) And yeah, she just had collections of things that she found and thought that were absolutely neces-- she needed, she'd use for a project sometime.  Or she'd just -- but thought were beautiful.

CW:  What is the -- when do you speak Yiddish nowadays in your life?

EG:  Good question.  I speak Yid-- so, when I was in college, I taught Yiddish.  But it's in a couple -- I taught it in a Workmen's Circle shule 52:00[secular Yiddish school] and I taught it at some friends' houses for their kids and that was primarily basic vocabulary and the alef-beys [alphabet] and stuff like that.  I speak it with my dad.  And I know ten thousand people in New York City who speak Yiddish and we usually speak primarily in English, but we'll drop some Yiddish in and -- or it sort of fluently will go from one to the other.  But really at this point, primarily with my dad, which concerns me, to be honest.  I don't speak enough Yiddish -- if I ever have kids, they have to speak -- they will.  I mean, I would like them to speak Yiddish fluently as their first language.  And so, I have some work to do because that has fallen a little bit out of use.  But my family, whenever my dad's family gets together, they -- the Schaechters, they'll all speak Yiddish.

CW:  And has --

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CW: -- you mentioned earlier on in your life feeling some misunderstanding about Beyle.  Since -- in the last few years, has -- what, if anything, has changed about your understanding of her?

EG:  Well, recently I was at a concert.  And I grew up with her songs. I know them very well.  And "Harbst lid [Autumn song]," which is a song of hers that a lot of people like and is a really beautiful song, people -- lot of people sing.  I -- I mean, it's sort of anthemic when I think about her music in terms of the one that was the most popular.  But recently, I was at a concert and I heard it, and this has happened sort of since she's died.  I'll hear things 54:00about her and I'll just start crying.  And that song, for me, which I sort -- it was beautiful.  It's a very beautiful song.  But it seems like a real expression of her, in her sort of later years.  And, I mean, that's what she wrote it about.  But now hearing it about her, I feel -- I miss her.  I feel like she is in the song.  I feel like her -- I hear her and I feel the things that I think she felt when she wrote it through her eyes.  So, my relationship with her music has certainly deepened.  And, I mean, that's the great thing about being related to somebody who recorded a lot of themselves, is that I hear her -- I sing a song in the kitchen while I'm cooking and I can't remember something about it and I have it and I can listen to her sing it.  Just the 55:00other day -- I live with a Yiddish musician, and just the other day she was preparing a song for some students, and I was suggesting a song and I couldn't remember it.  And I sang it to her and then I looked it up and I got to hear Beyle sing it.  And, yeah, I mean, her music -- there's a recording of hers where I'm -- well, you can hear me as a little kid, singing along and being onstage with her and -- yeah, I mean, I think that sometimes, it was hard for her to say things and it was much easier for her to sing things or it was much easier to hear what she meant and to feel close to her.  I mean, and that's still available, which I'm grateful for.

CW:  When do you think about her?

EG:  When do I think about her?  Often.  I forget that she has died, a lot.  56:00I think about her in -- when I talk to my dad because he took -- I mean, he and she were very close.  And I think about the way that my family has bonded and what that looks like for us and she's a big part of that.  When I think about her -- what I was saying, when I think about why Yiddish matters to me, I think about her.

CW:  And what do you see as her yerushe [legacy]?

EG:  What do I see as her yerushe -- in my own life or --

CW:  Sure, you can start with that, yeah.

EG:  Okay.  I think that she was a voice that sort of pressed people to be engaged, that she had a myriad of experiences in her life, positive and negative, and -- but she was fully conscious.  She was awake and she was documenting it and she was thinking about it.  And she was finding things to love.  She'd write about New York and talk about New York and how it was sort of terrible in hers -- and that was finding things that were beautiful, finding that kind of engagement in the world.  And in terms of sort of the Yiddish 58:00musical scene, I mean, I think that she inspired many pragmat-- I mean, in terms of what she -- her actual yerushe was, I think she inspired a lot of people to think about her experience and sort of have it add dimension to their understanding of what the experience of coming from -- after the war, I think that she had a very clear voice that people respond to and record and sort of think about themselves -- and also, I think, in her moment -- and this is -- what do I know?  But it -- I think that she was a voice that was not -- when 59:00the Yiddish revival was happening and klezmer revival, I think that she was an experience of continuity.  I think that that was sort of one of the things that is the sign of my -- or one of the -- my family -- people will say, How did you find Yiddish or how did you choose Yiddish?  And we never stopped and that never -- was never a choice. 

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EG:  I think that she showed, also, another perspective, which was the people who have stewarded Yiddish in her way and sort of lived with it in her home.  Yeah.

CW:  Yeah.  Would you mind talking about the levaye [funeral], the event?  I 60:00mean, that was kind of --

EG:  Yeah.  I have a thing where when I get sort of emotionally overstimulated, I forget things.  Do you have that?  So, I have a spotty memory of that because I was overwhelmed.  I have much more of a memory of the shiva [seven-day mourning period] and of her -- the tombstone stuff and --

CW:  Well, whatever you want to --

EG:  Yeah.

CW:  -- say about it.

EG:  Yeah.  Okay.  I'm trying to -- I mean, I think it was -- there was a lot of music, there was a lot of song.  It was people who are essentially family to us who were -- and her voice, I think, was represented in the -- in it very beautifully.  And then, the shiva was amazing.  I mean, very sad but it was a 61:00sort of overwhelming amount of stories and love for her and memories of her and people flew in from other countries.  And her family sort of -- she had created, through her music, on many continents and it sort of coalesced in her home, which was the right place for it to be.  And her last few days in the hospital were like that, too.  People were coming and it felt very true for her.  Yeah.  And there was -- I mean, so lots of song.  And I remember the -- when we unveiled the tombstone, that was also the family, and people had their 62:00arms around each other and we sang.  And I mean family broadly, you know what I mean?  Of all the family, biological, non-biological.

CW:  Is there anything special written on it?

EG:  I can't remember.  (laughs) Yeah, I can't remember.  I'm sure there is.  I think maybe one of -- a line from her poems.  I know my dad worked really hard on it, but I can't remember what it was. 

CW:  That's fine.  Well, Liz, I was wondering if you had any questions that I didn't ask that you wanted to ask?

ELIZABETH WALBER: I don't know.  (laughs) I mean, I love sort of the theme of collecting things that are beautiful and mean a lot --

EG:  Yeah.

EW:  -- that are sort of tactile or essential or --

EG:  Right.

EW:  -- difficult to find reasons --

EG:  Yeah.

EW:  -- but are just necessary to have.

EG:  Yeah, and I think that's true.  And I think one of the things, both in her tactile collecting and also her songs and sort of things that she collected -- is that they weren't always actually valuable.  They were --

EW:  Yeah.

EG:  -- special to her and sometimes for unknown reasons.  But she was a kind of -- yeah.

EW:  I just -- I think that sort of being in the space, in particular, just seeing shelves full of books and, I don't know, I'm just thinking of the current cut we have of it where it's a -- standing in front of a wall in the house on Bainbridge Avenue and the wall is just filled with frame after frame with a different image.  And I feel a similar sort of affect in this room.  And I 64:00don't want to draw -- but I just -- I don't know.  Do you feel that -- what do you feel you have in common with her?

EG:  What do I feel like I have in common with her?  Hoo!  Should have had something to drink before -- (laughter) well, I hope I have a lot in common with her.  I should be so lucky.  I can only hope that I have her -- a fraction of her tenacity.  I think that -- very different and through different generations, but I think she would be -- and it was very important to her that she know that I love Yiddish. 

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EG:  I share a love of gathering with her and of people.  I mean, I feel like she and my dad taught me how to make a family through the people that you meet 65:00and through sort of a musical community and a -- artistic community.  Yeah, I don't journal, which I think would really upset her.  (laughs) I don't have that in common with her.  I love children, which she did.  I love to work with children.  I think, in many ways, even though I'm not a religious person, I think that the idea of tradition and ritual and sort of the way that we mark our days and then the way that we -- is something we share.  Think we both try and fill our homes with beauty and with people that we care about.  We both love animals.  She really loves animals.  (dog barks) Aw, as if on cue, my dog barked!  And yeah, I mean, that -- I think, yeah, that care.  And family.  I 66:00mean, that was primary.  We loved the hell out of each other.  I mean, that -- we're a tribe.  I mean, not -- you know what I mean. 

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EG:  I mean, loving family and caring and the idea that your people are the most important thing.

CW:  Yeah. 

EG:  And Yiddish.  Yiddish is always the most important thing.  (laughs)

CW:  Is there -- I like to end by asking if there's anything else that you want to add about what you've learned from her.

EG:  What I've learned from her.  Wow.  I'm in the process of learning things 67:00from her.  I don't know if I'm fully cooked.  I think that she was really beautiful at transforming sorrow into beauty.  I think that she was really -- I mean, I think finding things, finding experiences and sort of amplifying them and finding the things that are more beautiful in them was something that she was good at.  And her --

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EG:  -- I mean, she was a force.  Her strength was astounding.  I guess I watched her and I hope to emulate her.  But her commitment to her community is something that is paramount.  I mean, is something that's really important to 68:00-- and, I mean, my dad is the same way.  Our house growing up, my own immediate family was full of people, always over, sleeping on the couch and singing.  And that's something that I have learned from her and from him, is that life is better with people.  Yeah.  I learned a lot of songs from her.

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CW:  Well, thank you so much.

EG:  Thank you.

[END OF INTERVIEW]