JORY MILLER ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney.  Wait, before we start, how do I -- is it Jory?

JORY MILLER:   It's Jory.

CW:  Okay.  So, this is Christa Whitney.  Today is March 16th, 2017.  I'm here at the Yiddish Book Center with Jory Miller.  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?

JM:  Yes, you do.

CW:  Great.  So, let's jump right in.  We're mostly going to be talking about your grandmother today.  So, could you start by telling me her name?

JM:  Anna Beck.

CW:  And --

JM:  That was her name, the name that she took during her life from her second husband.  She was born Anna Traub.

CW:  Right.  And when and where was she born?

JM:  She was born in Odessa, which I believe was part of Russia at the time.  I know the history is that it was back and forth among various countries.  I believe it was part of Russia, Ukraine in 1899.

CW:  And do you know anything about her family, her parents or --

JM:  Her father -- the family lore is that her father was an actor, part of a traveling troupe of Yiddish actors in the area of Odessa, Ukraine.  Her mother had several husbands, I know, and her mother ended up in the US.  I don't know a lot of the details other than she had a number of husbands.  Maybe like five.  (laughs) But --

CW:  Not at once.

JM:  Not at once, no, no.  One following the other.  And I think a lot of them were kind of in old age.  And my grandmother had two to three husbands.  (laughs) Two official husbands.  I understand there was another one there, as well.

CW:  So, do you have a sense of what her life would have been in her early life in Odessa?

JM:  I really -- what I said about her father being this traveling actor is really the only detail I have.  I don't know how -- what level, if they were wealthy, poor.  I don't imagine they had much money given his profession in those days.  There were a number of children.  I don't even know exactly how many.  But that's really about all I know.

CW:  Do you know if it was a -- observant family, a religious family?

JM:  She was not and I think probably not an observant family.  She was not at the point where I knew her, during my lifetime, and I would say probably not -- I would think, given the family business, acting, probably didn't lend itself to highly observant Jews.

CW:  So, then, when -- at what point did she come here, to America?

JM:  She came to the US in 1912.  She was thirteen years old. Again, the family lore is that she was put in a coffin -- she was a young woman, and somehow transported across the border.  But whether that's true or not -- I 4:00know these kinds of stories get passed down and -- but that's what I've heard.  But I think it is true that she came here in 1912 by herself.  Also, part of the story is that there were pogroms.  The history -- I know something about some earlier period -- 1905 pogroms and earlier than that.  But  the story is, in any event, that there was some danger of pogroms and that was the reason she left.  And she was also an independent person who wanted to start a life here.  And she came in 1912 and lived in either the Lower East Side or Brooklyn with some relatives.  I don't know who or what relation they were.

CW:  Do you know if she had any formal education?

JM:  Wow, good question!  I don't know.  But I can tell you that she was very 5:00well-spoken.  She spoke, when I knew her in her later years, she spoke English without an accent.  She spoke beautiful English without an accent.  She spoke Russian and Yiddish, which -- I guess the two languages would be fairly typical for a Jew from Odessa.  But she spoke English beautifully, without an accent and just very -- like an educated person.  But I doubt that she had much formal education.

CW:  And then, do you know much about her early years in the States?

JM:  Only that at age -- it's kind of a blank.  Between age thirteen and 6:00seventeen, she met my grandfather, who was her first husband, Samuel Manheim, at age seventeen, which would have been about 1916, and married him soon after.  I think she was fairly young when she married, so maybe she was eighteen or so when she got married.  Then I have fair knowledge of her life starting at that point.

CW:  So, they moved out of New York at that point, right?

JM:  Yeah, well, I believed that they lived in Brooklyn for some period of time.  And my grandfather, who was -- he was eventually fairly -- quite wealthy garment industrialist in the garment industry, owner of a factory.  And he started a business at around that time and within -- I think maybe by 1919, 7:001920, he found a location in Elizabeth, New Jersey and moved the family out there.  And so, my mother was born in 1919, so that would have made Anna Beck, my grandmother, my bobe [grandmother], that would have made her twenty years old.  And my uncle, there was only one other child, was born about -- I think a year and a half later, 1920, '21.  Probably 1921.  It was a difficult marriage, and I can tell that for a fact because I know that they were divorced.  So, the marriage only lasted, I believe, five years or so.  And she 8:00left, whether she was thrown out or left, but she went back to New York, I think where she was more comfortable, and left her children and her husband in Elizabeth and she moved back to New York.

CW:  So, does your mother have early memories of her?  Were they in touch?

JM:  They always remained -- yeah, I mean, I think my mother was not happy that her mother left.  And I don't know why, I don't know who was to blame if it matters at this point.  But I know that my mother was not happy, perhaps, that her mother wasn't with her.  But I think she always maintained her ties with her throughout.  But I believe that once Anna got back to New York, which would 9:00-- we're probably talking about 1923 or '24, in that era, she -- I believe she became then probably involved with what was her passion in life, which was acting, and started to make contacts.  And I don't know how it happened, exactly, with the -- I guess it probably wasn't that difficult through the bohemian, left-wing community in New York.

CW:  Do you have a mental image of that scene that you just described?  (laughter) The bohemian left?

JM:  Yeah.

CW:  Jewish left?

JM:  Yeah.  Well, I don't think she had a great interest in politics.  But, 10:00to back up a step, she was married to a factory owner in her first marriage.  So, I don't know if that contributed to the friction in this marriage, if her sympathies were with the poor and the artistic and he was -- I mean, she was beautiful.  My guess is -- he was very religious, that I haven't mentioned.  He was very religious.  He belonged to what is now actually very well known Orthodox community in Elizabeth, a guy named Rabbi Teitz.  And his descendant rabbis are still there to this day and they're very -- I mean, they've attracted a very big Orth-- so, he was very religious.  She was not religious.  He was 11:00wealthy.  She was from a poor-slash-acting family.  So, it was an interesting match to begin with.  So, I think she went back to New York and gravitated towards the kind of people that really she wanted to be around, whether she was -- how she felt about having children that she wasn't living with, I just don't know.  But I know she began to frequent places like -- the Café Royal?

CW:  Royale, I think.

JM:  Royale on the Lower East Side where the artists and the bohemians hung out.  And she eventually -- and I don't know the timing of this but I think the 12:00Workmen's Circle became a big -- the Arbeter Ring became a big part of her life, and that -- and through, I get my -- putting the pieces together, she was interested in acting and she became active in the Workmen's Circle, maybe for social reasons, maybe for political reasons, and then through them, their acting branch was the Folksbiene Theatre.  And at some point, and I don't know the exact date, she began acting with them and maybe doing other acting, as well.

CW:  I want to sidetrack from the biography for a second to ask you about what did she look like?

JM:  She was beautiful.  (laughs) Yes, and people have seen her pictures today 13:00tell me that.  Yeah, she was beautiful.  And by the way, she's -- the reason that I'm here this week, besides doing this interview with you, is I'm here for the Yiddish school at the Yiddish Book Center.  And this beautiful, then older woman would put me to sleep at night singing Yiddish songs.  And that's one of the best memories of my childhood, so -- and I've always remembered it and I'm here to try to rekindle that part of my life.

CW:  Do you remember what she would sing to you?

JM:  The two songs that stand out to me are "Oyfn pripetshik [By the hearth]" and "Tumbalalaika [Play the balalaika]."  Up here (places his hands around his head) I have a recording of her singing.

CW:  So, what was your relationship with her?  Can you tell me more about that?

JM:  Give me a sec.  (laughs)

CW:  Yeah, of course.

JM:  Sorry.

CW:  No, it's fine.

JM:  When I was about five or six years old -- we lived in, my family, my immediate family, lived in various places around the New York area and New York City -- Brooklyn, Long Island.  But when I was about -- actually, when I was three, 1953, we moved to Elizabeth.  In 1956 -- so, we moved to Elizabeth to what was almost like a family compound.  My grandfather, who she had divorced, 15:00had a house.  My uncle, who worked with him in the factory, lived around there, and my grandfather built this house, which sort of got passed down to my family.  And my father was a teacher.  We didn't have much money and basically said -- he wanted his family around him -- "Here's a house.  You live by us."  So, we moved, in 1953, to Elizabeth.  And my uncle brought his mother, in 1956, to a house just around the corner.  So, there was my grandfather, her ex-husband over here, my uncle over here, us over here, my grandmother, Anna Beck here, all within three blocks of each other.  And from there on, she was part of our life that was --

CW:  This is in Elizabeth, right?

JM:  Yeah, yeah.

CW:  New Jersey?

JM:  Yeah, yeah.

CW:  Yeah.

JM:  Yeah, starting then, she was -- and you asked about my relationship, but I'll give a little --

CW:  Sure.

JM:  -- background to lead up to that.  She was -- well, I don't know how far off to go on this tangent, but I would like to get back to your question --

CW:  Okay.  (laughs)

JM:  -- then I'll go back and --

CW:  Okay.

JM:  So, 1920s, 1930s, she became an actress.  I guess she was an amateur actress.  I don't know if she made any money at it.  She was involved with this left-wing-slash-bohemian crowd.  She had some serious relationship with another man who I -- you heard about all I know about him.  And then, she eventually met Louis Beck, who was the love of her life.  I believe that was something like the mid-to-late 1930s.  He was also wealthy and he also, I 17:00think, found this beautiful woman who was thirty-five years old, whatever, (laughs) whatever she was when he met her.  And they got married, but he was wealthy -- I think he was also in the garment industry, but my understanding is he was hanging out in the same crowd, the Café Royale, the theater crowd, the left-wing, the bohemians.  I don't know how this happens but he was part of this scene.  And I think that he did a lot maybe to help promote her career.  (laughs) You know.  He had some money and connections and whatever.  That's my impression.  And she lived that lifestyle and I think that -- I believe that was, in some ways, probably the happiest part of her life.  (chokes up) [BREAK 18:00IN RECORDING] She lived that life until -- he died in 1947, I believe.  And my brother was born in 1946, so he -- and maybe it was '48 or something.  I think it was enough time that he has vague recollections of Lou Beck and this -- but they lived this life, he died, and she's still forty-eight years old or something like that.  And so, she lost him.  She lived, at that time -- we 19:00visited her a few years later but I know she lived in Greenwich Village, living like a bohemian lifestyle.  So, she lost her husband.  She lost the love of her life and I believe -- my theory is she continued -- I know she continued acting because we saw her in at least one or more plays that I saw.  But I think the Yiddish stage was starting to -- it was getting way past its prime and starting to fade away.  And she was getting, then -- so, now we're talking about the early to mid-1950s.  Now she's a woman who, in that era, was considered getting older.  The life that she loved was sort of maybe disappearing.  The person she loved was gone and maybe she was not happy.  And my uncle brought her to Elizabeth, where we lived.  And I knew her -- I learned 20:00all this later, but then she was my grandmother.

CW:  Yeah.

JM:  Then she was like my loving grandmother.  She wasn't this bohemian actress, whatever.  So, she babysat for us, she was always around.  We were always around.  We walked back and forth to her house; she took care of us.  She wanted to know what was going on in my family.  She was very much part of it.  One thing I was thinking about earlier today was that she, when she'd babysit for me -- so, I would have been five, six, seven years old -- she'd watch soap operas and she'd say, "Come, you have to watch!  You have to watch this with me!"  "Young Doctor Malone," I think, was one.  She loved these soap operas.  It just occurred to me, that was -- the Yiddish stage was like soap operas and she was watching these soap operas.  I'm thinking, wow, this is -- 21:00she could relive -- watch -- the Yiddish stage through the miracle of television. 

CW:  Yeah.  I'm curious, when you mention her bohemian lifestyle, what does that mean to you?

JM:  Well, I can just tell you we visited her -- a recollection I have is we visited her on -- I think it's called King Street, near -- in an apartment.  This would have been -- I was old enough to remember, so I was born in 1950.  So, it was maybe 1954, '55.  It was before she moved, '54 or '55.  She was living in an apartment in Greenwich Village with a roommate, a young woman who 22:00played guitar, (laughs) which, I don't know, I didn't know.  Was a little strange to me but [BREAK IN RECORDING] -- so, yeah, so she was living -- so, at that time, this was the end of her bohemian lifestyle, I guess.  But she still was hanging on to it.  At age fifty-three, fifty-four, she was living with a roommate in Greenwich Village who was playing the guitar.  And I remember her sitting on the floor and whatever, the roommate.  But the bohemian lifestyle earlier is more like what I have heard about that: the Café Royale, what I've read about that sort of history.  And I can picture her.  Well, she was just a 23:00very lively and beautiful person.  I can just kind of picture her with this crowd and in sophisticated parties smoking.  She smoked.  She died of some kind of a stroke or something and I think it was related to her smoking, yeah.  And I can see her in the sophisticated Jewish left-wing bohemian crowd smoking and laughing and singing and singing.

CW:  Yeah.  So, I wanted to return to that question of what she looked like, 'cause -- did she have any defining features when you think about her face or her presence?

JM:  I'm not very good with describing that.  I mean, she had a beautiful sort of -- she was beautiful.  That's all I can say.  Defining features, I guess she had high cheekbones, which I think -- they tell me I have, I don't know.  24:00But you've seen the pictures.  You'll probably be able to describe them better than I.  But very stylish in her dress and everything.  Was very sophisticated, stylish.  We have movies, too, of her.  And let me add another sort of element to her life: she was an actress, as I said.  And an amateur actress.  As I said, I don't think she was making money, but she was definitely in the Yiddish stage scene.  But she was also -- and I don't know if this is the appropriate word but it's a word I know, tumler [stage manager], right?  I think of those as men who would be at resorts in the Catskills and such places and were in charge of entertainment and playing game-- she did that.  She did 25:00that, I know, as early as -- in a place called the Harmony Country Club, where my parents -- she introduced my parents.  My father was working there as a busboy.  He was probably nineteen, twenty, something like that, and my mother would have been seventeen, eighteen.  So, that's -- if she was eighteen, 1936, something like that.  So, my grandmother was working in the Harmony Country Club as social director.  That's kind of the way it was described to me and I don't know if that's the same as the term that's used, the tumler.  But I do know -- and we visited her at other hotels where she worked over the years and I saw what she did.  And I actually observed her leading games and just being 26:00kind of the life of the party for these places.  So, there was that Harmony Country Club, which was in the Catskills.  Not related to the Harmony Club, the very famous Jewish social club in New York, as far as -- well, maybe it was related, but it was -- this place was in the Catskills.  She also worked and we visited her in Belle Harbor, I believe it's called, in -- which to this day is still a Jewish community in the Rockaways in New York City.  And I believe we have a movie of her there.

CW:  So, what is in these movies?

JM:  In that movie is people, family and other people playing -- acting and playing a game and marching onto this set.  I can't even -- I can just describe 27:00sort of what I see.  They're silent (laughs) for one thing.  And people are fooling around and posing for the camera, and yeah.  We have one which -- I'm quite sure that is at Belle Harbor.  We also have a movie of her -- and here's another element to her life -- in Shrub Oak, New York.  Now, I don't know if you know about the Peekskill left wi-- I mean, I guess, I don't know, it probably has a name, the countryside around Peekskill which attracted the left-wing bohemians from New York.  And I think, to a great extent, the political left-wing gravitated towards that area.  I know the Workmen's Circle still has their Camp Kinder Ring in that area.  But there were many of these 28:00communities and Shrub Oak, I think, was one of them.  It was one of these communities where Jews -- I guess, for the most part, left-wing artists, political, bohemian people -- summered or lived and she lived up there.  And we have movies similar to the way I describe but this was not at a hotel.  This was just at -- this was Louie Beck, Louis Beck.  I believe he bought this house and they spent much of their time up there.  And we have movies of, again -- they're posing and acting and doing -- they're almost putting on a play in this one movie that I recall.  They're doing -- they're hamming it up for the camera. 

CW:  Do you -- oh --

JM:  Yeah.

CW:  -- do you --

JM:  And there's one more -- and I will just say there's one more place where she was a -- if the right word is tumler -- and that's in Lakewood, New Jersey, 29:00which also, to this day, has -- at that time, it was a resort.  When we visited her, it was a resort.  Again, mid '50s or so, '55, '56, maybe after -- I'm not sure if it was after she moved to Elizabeth but she was there doing the same thing in a resort hotel.  We visited her.  I remember there were horse-drawn carriages, even though this is the 1950s.  But I guess part of the resort scene, you could take a ride in a horse-drawn carriage.  Horse-drawn carriages with rubber tires, I remember.  And we visited her there and she was doing the same thing.  She was like the social director, one of the Jewish hotels in Lakewood.

CW:  And that performance that you saw her in, you saw one performance or --

JM:  The actual play, I only -- I may have seen others but I only have a specific recollection of one performance.  I'm old enough to remember that 30:00clearly, so it would have been -- I don't think any earlier than 1954, but in that range.  And I believe it was in a school.  I believe it was in the Lower East Side.  It may have been the Folksbiene, it may have -- I just assume it was because I know for a fact she was in it and we have a poster of her in the Folksbiene.  So, whether this particular play was in -- maybe at that point they didn't really have a home, because I feel pretty strongly it was in a school.  The schools in New York have these grand auditoriums where -- and the play was, while I didn't understand any of the words, it was in Yiddish -- she was a nurse in a white, at that time, white uniform with a nurse's hat.  And I 31:00quite -- fairly certain it took place during the war, during World War II.  May have had a Holocaust-related theme.  I don't know.  I remember a lot of crying and wailing (laughs) from my grandmother and other people on the stage.  And I could probably -- if you wanted me to set up the scene right now, I could say she was standing there and there were these people sitting around a table.  I know exactly -- but what really was going on, what was really the plot, I couldn't tell you that.  That's the only one that I remember.  I may have been taken to others, but probably at an age too young to remember.

CW:  (coughs) Sorry.  So, we're going to come back to her but I just want to 32:00ask a couple questions about yourself.  What languages did you hear growing up?

JM:  We heard Yiddish, really from my parents and from all of the grandparents.  But mostly, most of the Yiddish I remember is from my parents and from my grandmother, Anna Beck.  It's the typical story that -- you can walk down the hall here and twenty people tell you the same thing.  Yeah, they grew up in a Jewish household and they spoke Yiddish but they didn't teach their children.  But we absorbed the words of endearment that were spoken to us.

CW:  For example?

JM:  My daughter -- my sister, sheynele meydele [pretty little girl].  I don't 33:00know, pupele tutele [my dear little bellybutton], whatever it was, it ended with a diminutive and (laughs) those words we remember.  But my parents spoke, I think, fairly fluently because I remember they had conversations with each other.  My grandmother also spoke Russian and she considered -- in speaking to my older siblings and cousins, I think they agree, she very much considered herself Russian.  She considered herself Jewish; she also considered herself Russian.  Now, why, given her history, she would feel this strongly about it -- but she spoke Russian and she wanted -- my older brother and an older cousin, say, she tried to teach them Russian.  "I want you to learn Russian!"  Not 34:00Yiddish.  "I want you to learn Russian."  And one of my cousins did eventually learn Russian on her own, but they tell me they were, like, No.  They were too busy playing baseball or whatever was they were doing, so that didn't happen.  I think that she did also -- I remember her showing me objects in her house that brought up recollections of her life in Europe and in Russia.  So, I think she was very attached to and proud of her history, her languages, her ethnicity.  Really, I think it was very much part of her.

CW:  Do you remember any specific objects that she would have had from the old country?

JM:  Yes.  The tea -- samovar.

CW:  Samovar?

JM:  And the statue of a little boy peeing.  (laughs) Now, I think there's all kinds of stories about that that I don't know.  I do know that Marc Chagall, if you were in the -- did a drawing of a boy peeing on a pig.  (laughs) And I remember her telling me stories about this picture of this little boy peeing but I don't remember what the explanation was.  But I think it's maybe a famous, what, folk story in the Jewish Eastern European community or Odessa?  I don't know, but those are the two objects that I remember.  Oh, I will say that my sister and an older female cousin of mine say she taught them cooking.  This 36:00was when she was living in our neighborhood.  She gave them recipes for Russian borscht.  That was part of the wonderful thing about visiting her house.  What else?  The food that she would make us, just these really heavy meat borschts.  And my sister, I only know this recently, and my cousin both have said, Yeah, she gave us the recipe.  I don't know if she actually took them through it but she taught them how to cook that and probably other things, as well.  But I know my sister still cooks that borscht.  That's kind of like that's symbolic of our family, of her, that Russian, heavy borscht with meat and vegetables.  When you think of her, that comes up.  (laughs)

CW:  Oh.  So, were there regular times when you would see her throughout the 37:00week, for example?

JM:  Well, once she was living in our area, that was really only -- it was really a period of four years or so because we moved out of Elizabeth in 1960.  She moved in around '56, around '60, and those -- my mother would go into New York to do things, go -- other things -- she babysat for us several times a week.  And, oh, I remember she babysat for other -- I remember she had other children, too.  She was actually earning some money babysitting -- who were sometimes there with us, now that I think about it.  So, we'd see her at least two, three times a week, four times a week.  She'd walk over, sometimes just to say hello.  So, I don't think I saw her every day, but on a very regular 38:00basis.  And that was a wonderful, really, period of time, those four years.  And I only now realize how short a period of time -- we moved then, into New York City and she remained there.  And after that, I saw her very occasionally, very little.  I guess we visited her back in Elizabeth, maybe she visited us in New York for a couple of years.  But she moved, I believe -- probably about 1963, she moved to Miami Beach where -- at that time, Miami was really where, I think, probably most of the Jews who were moving to Florida were, at that time, 39:00moving into Miami.  It hadn't spread to all the other communities that eventually kind of took hold.  So, really, after 1960, I started seeing very little of her and I'm very sad to kind of realize that for those last seven years, I saw little of her.  We kept in touch.  I remember writing to her; she wrote to me.  Writing in snail mail.  (laughs) And I remember seeing her, coming visit -- she visited probably '65, '66, maybe.  She visited my uncle in New Jersey.  She was in Florida.  But we saw her -- she was very much a part of our life until 1960.  And after that, it became very rare event to see her.

CW:  And when you would see her, would she ever talk about her days in the theater?

JM:  I don't know that she -- yes, I feel like she did.  I feel like that she did, but I can't tell you what she said.  I think I said earlier in this interview that when she would put me to sleep at night, she would sing Yiddish songs.  And I think she would tell me stories, too, related to that life.  I think that was part of it, as well.  I was probably too young to even really fully understand that.  One thing, yes, she would talk about Lou Beck, as I said, the love of her life.  That's something she talked about, and Shrub Oak, 41:00where they lived.  And she may have, I'm speculating, but she may have -- this little seven, eight, nine-year-old boy, what does he care about the Yiddish theater?  But she talked about Shrub Oak where they lived and Lou Beck, who she was -- I think she kind of said it was too bad he never got to meet me.  He did meet my brother.  She talked about that.  That was maybe more appropriate, she felt like.  This is guesswork, but --

CW:  So, how did you get interested in her Yiddish theater?  How did you find out what you do know now?

JM:  Yeah, I felt -- I mean, I've always been -- the family, my family, my cultural history is something that's always been a part of me for reasons I 42:00can't really explain.  And I've always asked a lot of questions of everybody in my family.  And so, I think I've, maybe more than others, I've collected the stories from people in my family about my grandmother.  My sister, also, was very interested in her and she's the one who found, I believe, after my grandmother died, this picture of her, this poster from the Folksbiene Theatre, which actually is -- I think it says on it it's maybe the forty-fifth anniversary.  Let's see, I think it was 1914, '24, '34, '44, probably 43:00thirty-fifth anniversary season of the Folksbiene Theatre.  But my sister got that.  My sister and my mother went when my grandmother died in 1967, went to her -- cleaned out her apartment, got that and I think some other things.  And I think I've learned a fair amount of this through her, through my sister.  My sister's told me, for example, story that my grandmother -- this is from my mother, who told my sister, who told me.  How true it is, this is a game of telephone, right?  If you look in the picture of the Folksbiene Theatre, first of all you see in the middle of the picture are clearly the stars of the -- 44:00there are about maybe eight actors.  And then, on the sides are probably the supporting actors, my grandmother among them.  When you look at that poster, you see my grandmother.  And two pictures above her, another woman looks -- also beautiful, very -- same age range.  And my sister says, "This was her competition.  They were competing for roles" (laughs) --these two women.  And I gather from what my sister tells me, it wasn't that friendly of a competition.  But, again, this is -- I'm hearing this third or fourth hand.  So, that's actually a story I know about that traces, really, back to her years as an actress on the Yiddish stage.

CW:  And earlier, you said that you're here this week for YiddishSchool, partly 45:00because of her.  Can you tell me a little bit about your motivation to be here this week to learn some Yiddish?

JM:  Yeah, well, I would say that my memories of her sitting by my bedside singing me, "Tumbalalaika" and "Oyfn pripetshik," that sort of put it over, that's really the -- put it over the top.  That's just one of my great memories.  But I'm always interested in my family history and my culture.  And I now have more time.  I'm working part-time.  I retired from my full-time job, I'm working part-time, so I have the time to pursue it.  And I wanted to immerse myself.  I've been studying, just for the last few months, I've been 46:00studying Yiddish, since October, at the YIVO Institute in New York.  But this was just an opportunity to get immersed in this culture and spend some time here.  I actually know of the Yiddish Book Center through my mother, daughter of Anna Beck, who, in the last years of her life came to know about this place.  She and her husband -- my parents were divorced, as well.  Kind of runs in the family.  Well, not me.  They lived in Maine and they would stop here.  I guess this was founded in about, what, late '80s or something in that range?

CW:  In 1980, yeah.

JM:  Nineteen eighty.  So, okay, so probably they moved up to Maine in the late '80s.  So, at that time, she got to know the Yiddish Book Center and they 47:00stopped and stayed here and became somewhat involved.  Actually we have some of her -- my mother was something of an artist and we have some of her drawings of the Yiddish Book Center, people out on the book terrace reading and so forth.  So, that's another -- something else that drew me here.  My mother's connection with this place drew me here in addition to learning the language.

CW:  Well, are there other stories or aspects of her life, of your bobe's life that you want to be sure to include here?

JM:  Yeah, well, I think I said something about this but I think it's worth focusing on.  It's interesting to me to look back and see that her life kind of 48:00coincided with the Yiddish theater.  She was born in 1899, which, by the way, I learned this weekend was the year that "Oyfn pripetshik" was written, in 1899, by Mark Warshawsky of Odessa, where she was born.  And, of course, the song, which I never knew when she was -- how just deep that song is and how much it's a story of the Jewish people.  But her life kind of follows the Yiddish culture and the Yiddish theater and she was kind of born into the Yiddish theater and she kind of died with the Yiddish theater in 1967, when -- well, fortunately, it 49:00didn't die completely, but when it was fading out and as she became older and she lost her husband.  And she, I believe -- again, I'm putting pieces together -- and it was probably harder and harder to find audiences and to find plays to act in in the 1950s, although it still was going on, I know.  But it was probably this life, this lifestyle that she part of was fading away.  The people were getting older, were moving away, I presume.  And she eventually probably saw that it was not, there was nothing -- I'm not sure if this is really the best way to put this -- nothing there really for her anymore.  She couldn't live that way.  She was getting older.  This life was changing, 50:00evolving.  People were moving to the suburbs.  People were not speaking Yiddish anymore and probably those few people she knew who were speaking Russian were not speaking Russian anymore.  And so, she made the best of it.  She moved to where her family was.  But she died at a young age.  She died sort of, of kind of -- she died of that lifestyle.  She probably smoked too much, maybe led a little bit too much of a fast life, but in a beautiful way.  Sorry.  (cries) Her life, sort of tracked the life of the Yiddish theater.  51:00Her life kind of followed the pattern of the Yiddish theater.

CW:  Yeah.  And is there anything you want to add about what you learned from her?

JM:  (long pause, chokes up) [BREAK IN RECORDING] Yeah, I'll start off by saying what I didn't -- I lived a much more conventional -- interestingly enough, she lived in a prior age but lived a much more interesting alternative kind of lifestyle.  I lived a much more conventional lifestyle and --

CW:  How so? 

JM:  Well, I'm a --

CW:  Can you just tell me briefly?  (laughs)

JM:  Yeah, I mean, I got married, although I've had my (laughs) aspects of my life that were more interesting.  But, in fact, I got married, I had kids, I stayed married.  And this was almost like a deliberate plan because I could've gone in a very different direction.  I became a lawyer, although I had at first -- did a lot of things.  And I was a teacher and whatever.  But I became a lawyer and I stuck with that and I have a nice house in the suburbs and I lived a very conventional life, unlike her.  But I did learn from her the love of my culture and of Jewish culture and tradition and Jewish -- the language and the 53:00theater and that, this sort of deep love, I know that I got from her.  (cries)

CW:  Yeah.

JM:  So --

CW:  Yeah.  What do you love about Yiddish?  What does it mean to you?

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

JM:  That's a hard one.  I only came prepared to talk about my grandmother, not about me.

CW:  Sorry, sorry.  (laughter)

JM:  I don't know, but it obviously means something.  (laughter) I mean, something really, something that's like -- there are many layers there that you 54:00can't even really explain.

CW:  Yeah.

JM:  I guess I would say I think when Mark Warshawsky wrote that song, he was, like, That's what Yiddish means to me, I think.  Kind of my history, my family's history is engraved in this language, embedded in this language.

CW:  Yeah.  Well, a sheynem dank [thank you very much].

JM:  It's -- zeyer, zeyer dank, a sheynem dank [thank you very, very much, thank you very much].  (laughs)

CW:  Yeah, thanks so much for taking the time to share this about your grandmother and your own stories, as well.  I appreciate you taking the time.

JM:  Yeah, yeah, thank you.  Thank you, it was a pleasure.  It was a great opportunity.

[END OF INTERVIEW]