JANICE MAYER ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney, and today is November 2nd, 2017. I am here in Kew Gardens, New York, with Janice Mayer. We are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Do I have your permission to record?

JANICE MAYER: Yes, you do.

CW:Thank you. So, I'd like to start by asking about your name. Do you know where your name comes from?

JM:Yes. (laughs) My Hebrew name was Shayna Rokhl. I'm named after my father's grandmother. And when I was born, my mother wanted a (UNCLEAR), she called me Jenny. Shayna sounds like Jenny. And my aunt said, "Hm, Jenny is really not a 1:00f-- the name Janice is much fancier." So, I'm Janice. And I was very glad of that. I always liked the name Janice. A lot of people hate their own names, but I always liked the name Janice. But my parents, they all called me Shayna Rokhl -- as one word. And I actually have relatives in Israel, and they call me Shayna Rokhl. (laughs) Nobody else does. Yeah.

CW:Do you know where your family came from?

JM:Yeah. My father came from Romania. Bukovina is the province; Bălăceana was the little town that he lived in. My mother came from -- it was called Austria Poland, but everything changed. They actually spoke Ukrainian there. When my mother -- when my grandmother and she had secrets, they would talk in Ukrainian. 2:00And she lived in a little town called Horodenka. Now it's spelled with a G, Gorodenka, if you look it up. And it's actually not far from where my father lived. Because their Yiddish accents were exactly the same: no difference. You would think they came from the same little town. Yeah.

CW:Did they meet here or --

JM:Yes. Yeah. My mother came -- my mother is the oldest of six -- was the oldest. And she and her father were sent -- steamship tickets. She was about seventeen, and the oldest of six children. So, they came here. My grandmother's brother had sent them the tickets. They were going to work here and save enough 3:00money to bring my grandmother and the other five children over. And then, the First World War interfered. But they met here -- just introduced by my -- an uncle who had met my father in shul, thought he was a nice young man. My mother thought, Ooh! He was very nice. (laughs) Likhtike punim [A bright face] -- I heard -- she -- well, she didn't say that, but my uncle said that when he would come -- so, "likht," which is like -- you know, a "likhtike punim" is like a bright face -- he was good-looking. (laughs)

CW:Did either of your parents talk about the Old Country much?

JM:We never asked, unfortunately. That's really -- I regret it very much. And I know that my father's great-nephew has -- after the Holocaust, some of my 4:00father's nieces got to Israel. And one of their children, who was -- that's my first cousin, twice removed -- as a high school project, they were asked to find out how their parents came -- happened -- you know, came -- or how -- what they -- what it was like. And at that point, I sat down with my father, who had a phenomenal memory. And he sat and he told me the entire -- what it was like growing up in Bălăceana. But I never thought to ask before. And we all -- my friends, all of us -- we're sorry we just got -- didn't ask. We just didn't ask. And I said, I really should sit down and write down my own history -- which, you 5:00know, children aren't interested in their parents; they're interested in themselves. So, I know that much about my father. And a few things came up suddenly. We had company for a seder and my mother happened to mention to the woman -- a friend of my daughter's -- the mother, who was here -- something that when she -- that there had been a fire in her house, that her little grocery store -- they were living, like, behind a little grocery store, and there was a fire, and she had to take the two children and run out. And she had never told me this. She had never told -- I don't know why. I don't know if they just were too busy shopping or cooking one day at a time, without freezers, without 6:00whatever. And all -- I'm sorry about that, I really am. I just learned a few little things. But --

CW:Was there anything from what your father told you that time that you remember about --

JM:Well he said -- again, times were very hard. I mean, food -- it was hard, you know, to feed -- they had thirteen children. And they actually sent the oldest child to live with the grandparents, who had a grocery store about fifty miles away, which is very, very far. Fifty miles was not -- I don't know if they saw them once a year or something. And his father also tried to sell whatever they could. My father used to go around to the peasants' wives, and the wives used to sell them eggs -- you know, used to sell my father eggs so that they could have a penny or a kopek or whatever it is -- pocket money, because their husbands, 7:00you know, did not give the wives any money. So, he mentioned that little incident -- about -- but food was just -- they were short of food, actually. And, you know, you ate whatever minimal -- you know.

CW:Do you know about the professions in either side of the family?

JM:Well, my father, actually, he knew seven generations back -- a lot of rabbis. They were very rabbinical, very -- one of them married into the Baal Shem Tov's family. And the grandmother that I'm named after is from the Hasam Sofer, which is also a famous rabbi -- a descendant of his, I don't know exactly how. I know 8:00that my grandfather -- I just happened to find this out the other day, 'cause I had taken notes and never remembered that I did -- this is my mother's father -- was going to do some -- be a furrier of some kind, where they had to stretch the skin, but he developed a cough, so he couldn't do that, so he taught Hebrew -- taught bar mitzvah lessons. He was a melamed [Jewish teacher in a traditional school] -- you know, just -- and then he became a bookbinder. I think he did that here when he came. He's the one that came -- with my mother. And my mother went to work in a factory, sewing -- you know, machines. Sewing ladies' clothing, children's, ladies' clothing. Yeah.

CW:Did you ever go with your mother to work? Do you know what that looked like?

JM:No. No. She stopped wor-- oh, you don't work when you're married! If you work when you're married, it's a shand [shame] that your husband can't take care of you. So, that was -- that's a definite no-no. She worked in a factory, you know, like the Triangle Shirt-- that kind of stuff. They were all over. There were a lot of factories like that. And I know she used to walk to work to save, I think, car fare -- it was either a penny or two cents -- because they were saving every penny to bring the family over. So that I know. And I had, like, two blouses -- one you washed and then wore for a week and the other one, you know, you'd switch. You don't have a lot of -- they never spent money on themselves, except for absolute necessities.

CW:And what did your father do for work?

JM:Well, he sewed men's neckties. Now, he was brilliant. He really -- you know, 10:00the Talmud --- what are there, twenty-seven -- I don't know how m-- he could have walked over to any page to mention a phrase. He'd walk over, he'd pull out the thing, turn it over, and it was there, and that's what (UNCLEAR). He had a photographic memory. He was really very, very bright. But you have to make a living, and not to work on the Sabbath -- he couldn't open a store, because stores had to be open on Saturday. And so, he sat and sewed men's neckties, and got paid by the dozen. It was piecework. If you don't show up -- well, he never not showed up. Whether he had a cold or whatever, he went to work. And that's what he had to do.

CW:So, he went into a factory --

JM:What?

CW:He went into a factory to do --

JM:He worked -- yeah, in a factory. Yeah. And just -- piecework.

CW:And where did you grow up?

JM:I grew up on the Lower East Side. I was born 34 Attorney Street. Walk down one block, moved one block away to 444 Grand, which is corner 'Ridge, and then we moved again, half a block up on 'Ridge, 29 'Ridge. (laughs) And I lived there, within -- around this one square block, until I was sixteen. My mother didn't like the friends that had started hanging around my block, and as soon as I graduated from Seward Park High School, we moved to Brooklyn, next to the -- to Williamsburg, or further up. I guess it's more like Bedford-Stuyvesant, which I had never -- a term I'd never heard before, but not -- right near the Williamsburg Bridge. And that's when I was --

CW:Can you describe the house that you remember from the Lower East Side?

JM:Well, there were three of them. I remember the one where my younger sister was born. I think we moved out when I was less than four. And I know they were -- like, one room led to the other, to the other. I remember the bedroom and the -- yeah, just one room leading to the next. And I know my sister's crib was here, and the bed with my -- I must have slept with my mother, I think. I guess. I didn't have a bed, you know? And then, when we moved to Grand Street, it was a little bit bigger. People used to move very often. First of all, you got a month's concession on rent -- you didn't have to pay one month's rent -- and 13:00also, you got -- you had to move 'cause you needed something a little bigger or better. But the main one on 'Ridge, where I -- I moved there when I was six -- it had -- you walked into a dining room, and then it had the front room facing the street. That was my parents' bedroom. And there were two small bedrooms. Yeah. (laughs) I'm trying to think, where did Broda sleep? Yeah. Anyway, there were two small bedrooms. And a kitchen. The bathroom was in the hall; two families shared one toilet. There was a big washtub in the kitchen with a metal cover, and that was a bathtub, and it was also a washtub, to wash the clothing 14:00on a washboard. So, we called it a washtub, not a bathtub. You know, high sides so that you can wash. Yeah. And the kitchen -- did we eat -- I guess -- we must have had breakfast in the kit-- there must have been -- yeah, a table in there. Yeah. But we didn't have a living room, and when company came, we sat around the dining room table. Company was mostly my mother's brothers -- her sister had passed away -- and sometimes old friends. My mother was not a very gregarious person. She didn't have -- well, you know, people just drop in and -- you don't have time for that, coffee, nothing like that. Yeah.

CW:What was Jewish about your home?

JM:Oh, we were strictly Orthodox, so everything was Jewish. That was the main -- 15:00what should I say -- not foc-- well, focus -- it was the main skeleton of, if you want to say, of our lives. We were strictly kosher. We observed Sabbath. Eighteen minutes before sunset, the candles were lit, and we -- and I went next-- well, no -- (laughs) when I was older, I used to run up to my grandmother's house. Friday night, right after candle lighting, I went up to my grandmother's house and -- she lived with my aunt, and we used to chat and get all kinds of stories.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW:Can you tell me a little bit about that grandmother?

JM:She was very nice. I think all grandmothers -- we called her bobe [grandmother]. She used to give us two cents' allowance, which was a lot of 16:00money. And we used to save it. We had a little bank, and we'd put the pennies in there. Because we -- times -- I mean, we were very, very conscious of costs. This was during the Depression, and even though milk might have been three cents a quart or whatever, but you had to have the three cents. Very few luxuries. My mother used to -- we'd go -- we lived on 'Ridge, near Broome. Then it goes Delancey, then Rivington. Rivington, on Sunday, was pushcarts -- used to -- you know, that was -- they were allowed to sell on Sundays, and they would be lined 17:00up. I don't know how f-- you know, how many blocks across. And I used to go shopping with my mother on Sundays. And she'd be -- she bought fabric. She'd buy remnants. They had small remnants for a penny apiece, and they had one, like, a big remnant that you could make a whole dress out of, and that was a nickel. But we never, ever had a nickel -- spent a nickel. Because my mother would buy two penny pieces and put them together to make the most -- we had the most beautiful dresses. She used to sew -- I mean, that was her profession, but she also made up her own patterns and styles. Like, I had a printed dress, white with little flowers, and some of them were blue. But we don't want a straight dress, so she made blue pleats -- like, box pleats -- inside. So, when you walked, the blue 18:00kicked out. And I've seen -- when I saw a dress like that, many years later, I said, Oh! My mother's design! You know. And I remember buying for -- this was -- it must have been a birthday or some real treat, but she bought little china dolls -- you know, this big a box, with two little dolls, one for me -- a set -- and a set for my sister. They were a nickel. And I remember that they were a nickel, because to spend a nickel was a big deal. (laughs) Yeah.

CW:So, what kind of things would they sell in the pushcarts?

JM:The only thing I paid attention to were (laughs) the dolls and the toys and the fabrics. I don't know. I'm sure they sold fruits and vegetables. I really don't remember. I remember just the look of the street, and I remember going and coming -- and seeing the fabrics -- whatever. But I'm sure they sold everything. 19:00Oh, I do have a picture -- if you want --

CW:We'll look at it later.

JM:We'll look at it later, okay. It was in the -- I was mentioning the rotogravure section of one of the Yiddish newspapers, and it was at a pushcart. The man was selling books -- Hebrew books -- you know, probably -- and he was -- kind of had something in his eye, and my grandfather had his back to the camera, but enough of his face showed that you could very easily see it was my grandfather, and he would not allow -- he would not take a picture for religious reasons. So, this was the only family -- other than passport pictures, which never were any (laughs) better than they are now. So, I know that they had sforim, you know, Jewish books. But I'm sure they had everything. Oh, in fact, I know my father-in-law -- (pauses) -- well, not my -- my father-in-law's father, 20:00actually, had a pushcart, and he sold fruits and vegetables. And my father-in-law had actually gotten permission for Orthodox peddlers to register -- you had to register to get a spot -- to register on a day other than the Sabbath. Usually, registration was on the Shabbos, and it wasn't fair, and my father-in-law, who was -- he was American-born, and very -- didn't let, you know (laughs) -- he got the city to allow Orthodox peddlers to sign up on a day other 21:00than the Sabbath. So, I know that they did sell fruits and vegetables, because I know my father-in-law's father sold -- and my father-in-law himself, as a young boy, would help his father take the pushcart. And eventually, they had a fruit store, and they used to -- I know they used to give food free to people that needed it. They were very, very charitable, and always -- they knew -- you know, knowing what it's like. Yeah.

CW:And what were the Jewish shops that you remember in that neighborhood?

JM:The only Jewish shop -- I mean, (UNCLEAR) -- but there was a -- there was a dairy called Whiteman's. It was on Pitt Street, which was one block away. And it smelled. You walked in -- they had these cheeses -- you know, I still don't like 22:00old cheeses. They're supposed to be -- well, I don't know, people like them, but I don't. (laughs) But they deliberately would have cheeses age, and so it smelled. It was kalekh kez [aged cheese, lit. "calcium cheese"]. I didn't like it. So, that I know. Because my father -- and the bakery -- well, my father used to come home from shul every morning. He went to shul very early, and he'd come home and bring fresh bread and rolls from the bakery. So, I never went to the bakery, because he always brought them. I don't even remember where the bakery was. I know there was a fruit and vegetable store on my block. There were stores all over: down the block, around the corner. My block itself mostly was residential. I think there was this one store on 'Ridge. Yeah.

CW:And who were the people in the neighborhood at the time?

JM:Mostly Jewish people. Not all, but mostly. Most of the -- probably the majority were -- came from kosher homes, and might still have had kosher homes. I know my friends -- I had three friends that lived on the block, and their homes were kosher. But they started going to the movies on Shabbos, which I didn't. My building, we were mostly Jewish people. In fact, somebody who lived in my building, we found her living right below this apartment. My husband met her husband in shul and he invited us down for tea on a Shabbos afternoon. And 24:00she showed me her wedding album -- we were both newlyweds -- and I see a picture of her parents, whom I knew. And this turned out to be my sister's friend, Thelma, who used to be blonde and had fat cheeks, and here she was, brunette and high cheek bones. And she lived right below this very room that we're in. And I spoke to her last week; we're still very good friends. But mostly -- I think mostly Jewish people in the building. I know there was one woman, I thought she was Italian, but now I realized, she used to yell at her child, "Mala muchacha [Spanish: Bad girl]!" So, she must have been Spanish. But we thought she was Italian. I mean, I know of her as an -- I remember she used to knit with the knitting needle, the way I think they did in Eur-- you know. Anyway, she was Spanish, really. But (laughs) I just discovered -- I just thought of her and 25:00mala muchacha is Spanish. Anyway. (laughs)

CW:So, can you describe what Friday night was like growing up?

JM:Well, we sat at the dining room table, and we had -- you know, it's typ-- the same as it is right now. We'd have kiddush. We'd have challah. My mother used to bake her own challah and make her own noodles and bake three or four very simple cakes. She made honey cake and sponge cake and kukhn, which was like a coffee cake, which I still love. And simple cookies. And I never had anything with icing. We once went to my uncle's house, and he served chocolate éclair, which was, like -- (laughs) a whole other animal.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

JM:Oh, we had to have fish first. Yeah, we had fish, then soup and chicken, because that's part of -- it says basar v'dagim [Hebrew: meat and fish], when you have meat -- fish and chick-- v'chol mattatim, all kinds of good stuff. Except I hated to eat anything: I was very skinny, which I'm glad of now, so (laughs) I don't get that -- (laughs) but whatever I ate, my -- my mother made me eat, you know? But it was basically boiled chicken; it had to be simple. There was no time. You had to buy your chicken and cook it that day, because -- no freezers and -- nothing ready-made or canned -- never -- in our house. Finally -- I mean, many, many years aft-- you know, we convinced my mother to buy canned peaches rather than cooked apples, you know. (laughs) Very, very 27:00simple. Very plain. Nothing prepared -- pre-prepared. Yeah.

CW:And do you remember, did you get the chickens plucked, or did you have to do that?

JM:We had to pluck 'em. You just reminded me -- I'm thinking of -- yeah. Underneath the Williamsburg Bridge, on Delancey Street, the bridge above, there was the chicken market, and the live chickens -- (makes sound of chicken clucking) -- there. And there was a shoykhet [ritual slaughterer] there. You'd pick out your chicken -- I used to go with my mother and my grandmother and pick out a chicken.

CW:How could you tell if it was a good one?

JM:Oh, I couldn't tell. I can't tell -- to this day, I can't tell -- I can't recognize, is a melon good, is a melon bad?

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

JM:I don't know how they knew, and I don't know if they knew. Maybe they just thought that -- I don't know. And they would buy, and the shoykhet would kill it, and then the -- you know, the blood has to get out, blah blah blah. And then we would take it home, and my mother and grandmother would sit and flick the chicken (UNCLEAR) and pluck the feathers, pluck the feathers. And then, when they'd open it, if they would see if there's anything -- any kind of boo-boo inside, they would have to take it to the rabbi to see if it was kosher or not, because certain things are okay -- if the bone looks like it had ever been broken and set, it wasn't kosher; if there was any kind of growth or a thing, it had to be looked at. Some were kosher, some were not. I don't know what -- if they weren't kosher, I guess they just had to throw them out and not have 29:00chicken, or -- yeah. But they used to -- yeah. They'd open it. They'd have to check -- they'd open the gizzard, take out the insides, and check if there's anything there. They had to check everything -- the intestines -- really, going through it. Manual, very manually. Yeah, (UNCLEAR). And sometimes there'd be little eggs inside, you know, in the -- not with the shell, you know, just little yolks -- which -- that was, like, a treat. Yeah. They were good. And then, they would kosher it themselves, soaking it and salting it and letting it sit, and then rinse it off -- so to make all the blood -- you know, blood is not permissible at all, so even -- the salt will just draw the blood out, and the water itself -- the soaking does that, too. Yeah, so it was a lot of work. I 30:00mean, I get mine pre-packaged -- all koshered, and someone else has taken care of all that. But that's why they really had no time to do anything. I know my mother used to sit and sew -- like, two in the morning, I'd get up sometimes for whatever, and she'd be sitting at the sewing machine -- I mean, making clothes for us, not her work. Because all day long -- we had four children. We were four children. I had an older brother, then me, and two younger sisters. And it was a busy -- it was not a -- really an easy life. We have it -- oh, I've got it easy, you know?

CW:Did you like growing up in that neighborhood?

JM:Yeah. It was the only neighborhood I knew. Yeah. We had friends -- well, we 31:00used to play games and -- up to a certain age. And then, when I was about thirteen, some group of friends came from another neighborhood and -- a little bit older, and they already had boys with them, and my mother didn't like the idea. (laughs) So, we used to have a lot of fights about, you know, where I could -- that I can't go here or I couldn't go there. And once -- I don't know, I might have been about -- what was I, fifteen? -- there was a street dance on Henry Street Settlement someplace, and I went, and my mother came with my brother and got me. And I happened to have been dancing -- someone asked me to 32:00dance -- I don't know why, because I was not -- I was skinny; I was not a popular, you know -- I don't know why he asked me to dance. It was someone that my friend liked, of all things. And then my mother came along and took me by the hand and walked me away. I did not like that very much, (laughs) I can tell you. (laughs) And then, as I say, once I graduated, off to Brooklyn.

CW:I'm curious, did you talk about politics at all at home?

JM:I might have heard. I didn't talk about it. I do remember when there were the elections -- Roosevelt, you know -- I know that my father liked Roosevelt. When I would hear them talking, they -- yes, they all were Democrats, they liked 33:00Roosevelt. Oh, what else? We were more interested if they would tell s-- you know, tell any stories about -- things that happened in the family, gossip or something, which I never -- wouldn't hear otherwise, 'cause my mother wasn't a gossip. So --

CW:Did you know what was going on in Europe?

JM:No. No. You mean, like, during --

CW:Leading up to the Second World War, yeah.

JM:Yeah. They were worried, I'm sure. I did not know until -- until our war broke out here. And no -- very few people knew -- I mean, about the concentration camps. Well, I know during the first war, my mother had not heard 34:00from her family. They went from -- to Czechoslovakia. They actually went on foot from -- to a few different countries. During the First World War, they were running away from the Russians at that time, and now -- like, it was on the other side. We did not really know what was going on, until --- till our war -- till December seventh. And I remember December seventh ex-- you know, I remember where I was sitting and heard the news on the radio. And then we started worrying and listening and watching. My father got the "Times" every day, and he'd watch the head-- read the headlines. But we did not know -- you know, you just didn't hear. They must have, but I -- like, we were interested, I guess, in 35:00school and stuff like that. Yeah.

CW:What languages did you hear growing up?

JM:Well, my mother and grandmother spoke goyish. It was Ukrainian, which I didn't know what it was -- Ukrainian -- a little bit. That's only if they had something that they didn't want us to know about. But that wasn't very much. But otherwise, in the house, my parents spoke Yiddish to each other. They knew English very well. My father -- I didn't even realize it until many, many, many years later, when he started reciting a Shakespearea-- something from "Henry V," the Cardinal Wolsey's soliloquy -- I -- what? (laughs) Well, he was very good at languages in general, but he liked Shakespearean words, and when I was sick, he 36:00would send a note: Please excuse the absence of my daughter, Janice. She had a sore throat, hence was unable to attend. And I said, "I'm not taking that note. I'm not -- 'hence' -- you cannot say 'hence'!" And I had -- I was sick a lot -- I had colds -- I've always had colds -- and I don't know how many "hence" fights we had. I don't remember, really, if he ever gave in, or I don't remember how they were resolved, but he was very -- he liked English language. And I've said "hence." I mean, I think I've kind of inherited that (laughs) tendency to -- you know. But that was -- I still remember those "hence" arguments. But at home, they would speak Yiddish. And someone asked --

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

JM:Well, my mother was -- she passed away in the '80s, so maybe -- when I had been married for a number of years -- What language do your mother and you 37:00speak? And I didn't know. I truly -- and I paid attention the next time we spoke on the phone. And it was half and half -- ikh bin gegangen tsum store, and s'iz nisht geven keyn epl [I went to the store, and there were no apples], so I decided to go over to so-and-so and I met so-and-so on the way, and zi hot mir gezogt, az keynem [she told me that no one] -- whatever. It was just -- it just flowed from one to the other to the other. I always spoke English. Once I learned English, my brother -- my brother went to -- I mentioned before, he was three years older than I, and he went into first grade not knowing a word of English, 'cause we only spoke Yiddish. Within six weeks, they promoted him into 1B, because his English was perfect and he could write. And we all s-- by then were speaking English, because he came home and started talking English. So, the 38:00house -- we always -- we spoke English, and my parents mostly spoke Yiddish to us, certainly back then. My grandmother was the one that I spoke Yiddish to -- as long as she was alive. I guess she must have known a lot of English, too, but she never spoke English. I think she felt embarrassed. And I think she must have known more, because she was a smart lady. But she was the one that I spoke Yiddish to. And my younger sister could still speak a little Yiddish. And my youngest sister, who was seven years younger than I, could not -- she didn't speak Yiddish. She could understand Yiddish, but she never spoke Yiddish. She really didn't speak Yiddish.

CW:Were you exposed to other -- outside of your home -- things in Yiddish, like theater or --

JM:Once only, I went to the Yiddish theater. It was the Second Avenue Theater, and they had "When the Sun Comes Up" -- (sings) "Ven di zin kumt oyf" -- and it was something -- some costume thing where they were spreading out their arms (laughs) like that. But, not really. I went to Hebrew school for just the two years while I was in junior high, to talme-toyre [Talmud Torah], after school. And I think -- I don't know if it was twice a week -- maybe three -- I don't remember how often -- how many times a week, but it was Hebrew, just to learn the la-- a little bit of the language and tran-- the khumesh [Pentateuch], 40:00translated khumesh. But it was more of the -- from the religious, not from the Yiddish, per se. We listened -- my mother occasionally listened to the Yiddish programs on the radio. And English -- we used to listen to soap operas in English. But there was Yiddish -- oh, there was -- I mean, the commercials were funny. There was one: (sings) "Shapiros vayn, shapiros vayn, tsi ken nisht zayn beser; shapiros vayn, shapiros vayn, m'shnaydt es mit a meser [Shapiro's wine, Shapiro's wine, it couldn't be better; Shapiro's wine, Shapiro's wine, you can cut it with a knife]." It was thick enough that you can cut it with a knife, and this apparently was something good. (laughs) And (laughs) another one: (sings) "Marshaks malted milk iz gut far kleyne kinder, planterz pinut oyl iz gut far heyse latkes [Marshak's Malted Milk is good for little children, Planter's Peanut Oil is good for hot latkes]." (laughs) And I don't know whether we just made up the combination, or it -- really, it could have been like that on the 41:00radio. It was kind of strange. But there was once "Tsores bay laytn" -- "Troubles by People" -- about terrible family tragedies. And the stories were -- oh, there was something where they -- two people almost got married, and then they find out that they're really brother and sister. All these -- I mean, just in time find out that somehow -- you know, they all have these -- I don't know, you know, stories. (pauses) And some Yiddish songs, I knew, you know --

CW:Where would you hear that?

JM:Well, I don't know if it was my aunt, but when we moved to Brooklyn, we lived next door to my aunt and grandmother together -- or maybe on the radio. I know 42:00there was one -- "Di grine kuzine [My Greenhorn cousin]" -- did you ever hear that song?

CW:Yeah. But what does -- how does it go? Do you remember?

JM:(pauses) Oy. (sings) "Gekimen iz nit lang tserik, grine [Arrived not long ago, green]" -- wait. My -- no. (sings) "Kuzine,/sheyn vi gold iz zi geveyn, di grine,/bekelekh vi royte pomerantsn [Cousin,/she was beautiful as gold, the Greenhorn,/cheeks were rosy like blood oranges]" -- do you know that one? (sings) "Fiselekh vos beytn zikh tsum tantsn [Feet were just begging to dance]." And then, she goes -- they tell what happened -- she gets a job, she works, and then things do not work out well for her. And at the end -- (sings) "Yetst ven ikh bagegn mayn kuzine,/freyg ikh zi, 'Vos makhste, Dine?'/Entfert zi mir mit a troyerik mine,/'Aza mazl af kolombuses medine!' [I see my cousin,/and I ask her, 'How are you, Dina?'/She answers me with a sad expression,/'Columbus's land can go to hell!']." Did you ever hear of that song? And they turned it into an English song, completely different, about, (sings) "Have you heard about my 43:00little cousin? She had boys proposing by the dozen. Now they have each one become a mourner, since she met the boy around the corner." And here's this sad song, and they're turning it into -- you know, a -- well, it was -- (laughs) -- and the other one, "My grine cousin, Motke" -- did you ever hear that?

CW:Unh-uh.

JM:I -- also don't remember. (sings) "Gekimen iz nisht lang tsurik mayn griner kuzin, Motke./Farlozt hot er a vayb in kinder dortn in zlabotke [My Greenhorn cousin, Motke, came over not long ago./He left a wife and children back in Zlabotke]" -- something, something, something -- something, something -- (sings) "a makher, a fardiner [a bigshot, a high earner]" -- (sings wordlessly) -- (sings) "er brent a velt, di griner [he raking it in, the Greenhorn]." You know what that means? He's burning -- he's really -- he's making money. And then, he meets a girl, something. And then, the last scene is, he's gonna get married, 44:00and -- (sings) "di muzik shpilt shoyn in der hal, s'iz lebedik in freylekh./Der khusn-bokher oyvn un er zitst dort vi a meylekh./Plitsling efn zikh [the music is already playing in the hall, it's lively and jolly./The bridegroom up there, sitting like a king./All of a sudden, opens]" -- something -- (sings) "efn zikh op di tirn./Di vayb, di grine, mit di kinder, brengt men im tsu firn [the doors open up./The Greenhorn wife, with the children, comes in to lead him away]." So, just as he's about to get married, they're bringing his wife and children, and -- and there's more -- you know, I -- those two -- kind of remember the beginning and that part of it. But I guess all these -- it's interesting, that all these -- same themes that you see a lot of now on the soap operas, but now they -- yeah. Anyway. (laughs) So, there were Yiddish songs. My grandmother read the "Morgen-zhurnal" Jewish newspaper. My father read the "Times," so we never 45:00had Yiddish. And I never learned to read Yiddish -- I mean, I learned how to read Hebrew and English from my parents. When I was, like, five, we were already reading. But Yiddish, we -- I never really saw written. I heard it and I knew it --

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

JM:But that's -- that feels real. That's the funny thing, is that Yiddish feels homey. Now, we learned to read -- to speak Hebrew, read Hebrew with a European accent, where instead of -- like, we'd say -- for a blessing, instead -- now, here, you would say, "Baruch ato, ad hashem elokeynu melekh [Hebrew: Blessed are you, God our lord the king] --" We'd say, "Burikh ato, ad hashem elokeynu melkhu oylem [Ashkenazi Hebrew: Blessed are you, God our lord the king of the world]" -- you know, that was European. And then, in talme-toyre, I learned, "Baruch 46:00ato, ad hashem elokeynu melekh ha'olam." Then, when Israel became a state, it's, "Baruch atah hashem elokeynu melekh ha'olam." And, I mean, there are three -- so (laughs) -- the one that feels closest to -- to God, or closest to fee-- where you really feel connected still is the original. And sometimes I hear people davening like that. It really brings back memories -- and feelings. Yeah.

CW:What was your shul like growing up?

JM:I didn't go to shul, except --

CW: You didn't?

JM:-- for holidays. We went -- women are not obligated, in the Jewish religion, for any -- any laws that have to do with time, that have to be done at a certain 47:00time, women are excused from. And davening, you have to daven at a certain -- by a certain time, but women, because, you know, you're gonna have children and have to take care -- and feed and nurse and whatever. So, women are not obligated. So, we went to shul on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur -- and Simchas Torah we'd go. I don't even know if I went on Pesach. But women -- you know, we'd -- Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. And then, on Tisha B'Av, my grandmother read it in the house and translated -- with the Yiddish translation -- there are siddurim that have Yiddish translation. And we did that at home. And even for Purim, my father brought the Megillah home, and he read the Megillah to us on Purim. So, I didn't -- now there was the Young Israel -- very close -- I mean, 48:00about three or four blocks away. My brother went. I didn't. My mother wanted me to go, and I did not want to go. I did not want to go to the Young Israel. That's not my crowd. My crowd was these girls that she didn't like. And I don't know why. I don't know what -- maybe I was just being rebellious or -- but I did not -- I didn't go. And I really never had any Orthodox friends until -- till I was, like, seventeen. And -- Oh! Hey! You know, fish like it better when they're in the water than when they're out. And all my friends -- here the girls on the block would go to the movies on Shabbos afternoon, and I'd have -- I'd be sitting home and reading. And they'd even eat in places that I -- which I didn't. And I wouldn't; I never did. I mean, not that I -- I just wouldn't do 49:00it, whether on my own or at home. (pauses) I discovered that it's much more comfortable to be (laughs) in your own milieu than to be a little bit of an outsider in any aspect. And it took a long time for me to -- I say that -- that's why, I guess, my mother wanted me to go to the Young Israel. All the girls there, you know, would be Orthodox, they'd be observant.

CW:I'm curious, when you were growing up, what was your feeling about America? Did you feel American growing up?

JM:Yeah. Yeah. In school, you know, very patriotic, very -- I mean, the idea of America, you know, that you learned -- and learning -- I really felt very 50:00American, very -- well, very patriotic. We had -- I mean, the songs in school -- even at Christmas -- like, they did not -- they didn't make it Christian. I mean, most of the kids were Jewish, but not -- but in school, not all. Like, I remember, they did "Silent Night," but they sang, (sings) "Silent night, peaceful night. All is calm, all is bright. Bells ring sweetly from the glen. Peace on earth, good will toward men. Sleep in heavenly peace." It didn't have anything Christian in it. So, it -- and other -- Thanksgiving songs, which are, you know, nondenominational. And I liked that. I liked school very much. You don't tell anybody -- I mean, you never admit it, but I was -- I liked school. 51:00But I -- yeah. So, I felt, really, more -- I felt American. And as I say, very proud of America for becoming a country that it's supposed to be. Now, I've -- okay, now I -- well (laughs) -- yeah.

CW:Do you remember when -- if any immigrant children were in your -- you know, newly arrived?

JM:No. No. In my Hebrew class, there was one girl -- a German girl -- this was in junior high, so it was -- when was that? Forty-three? Maybe she -- I don't know. But she just -- she spoke Hebrew with a German accent -- "au" instead of 52:00"o." Instead of, "Ha'olem," she'd say, "Ha'aulam." My father said, "Ha'oylem." Here we were learning "Ha'olem." And she said, "Ha'aulam." (laughs) But she was the only foreign-born girl that -- but we didn't have -- yeah, any -- immigrants. The parents were all immigrants.

CW:Looking back on that time, what do you think your -- what do you feel your parents were trying to pass on to you?

JM:Well, duties, first of all. The Torah, it -- you observe. These are the laws that Jewish people have to observe, and every single thing we did -- this was automatic, you know? This was how you lived. Honesty -- you know, that you're not allowed to tell a lie. You're not allowed to -- if you'd go and my mother 53:00would buy something and if they gave her too much change, she'd make sure to give back the change. And the other thing, also -- but the general attitude was about -- now, taking anything, even, like, money. Like, if some -- once somebody asked -- I don't know, a grownup asked me to go up to the third floor in my -- to someone in my building on the third floor and give them something or tell them something, and he gave me -- or she, whoever, gave me a penny or two cents. So, I went up and I told them, and I gave them the two cents -- or the penny. And they said, No, no, it's not -- and when I told my mother, and she said, "Oh! You can't -- don't take money!" It's like, it was beneath you to take money. It was like being beggarly. So, we couldn't take money from people. She wouldn't even like to babysit -- oh, that's not -- it's, like, being a nantsye [nanny], 54:00whatever a nantsye was. And for a woman to have to work after she was married, oy (clicks tongue) nebekh [poor thing], she has to work, because, like -- either she didn't have a husband, or -- so taking -- like, even though we were poor, but never, ever, God forbid, to have to take. And if the people went on home relief, oh! (clicks tongue) That's terrible. I mean, now people, you know, like to fake food stamps, whatever it is, and then it was really a shand, a real -- shameful to have to do that. And even to work -- I mean, you were supposed to work -- even, like, I wasn't going to be sent to college. When we got into high school, my parents had to sign whether I would take an academic or a commercial 55:00course, and my mother signed me up for a commercial course. And I said, "I want to college." And she said, "You can't. We can't -- when you graduate from high school, you'll have to go out and get a job, because we don't have enough -- you know, we're just barely subsisting." And I remember standing in the kitchen arguing. I said, "Look, I skipped four times. I'm going to be graduating -- I will just turn sixteen the month that I graduate. I'm entitled to go to school till I'm eighteen. If I hadn't skipped, you would have let me graduate from high school, even though I was eighteen." And she -- "Okay," I said. "Well, I'll take Accounting 101 at City College the way my brother did." He became an accountant and then an attorney. But he had to go to college because, you know, he'd have to get married and support a family. And I would just have to work until I got 56:00married -- but I had to work, because they needed the money. So, I did -- I mean, I remember definitely getting through to her. And she signed for academic, which was -- (laughs) lucky. No, she -- I'm sure I would have gotten my uncles to -- if I needed any as-- any help convincing, but no, there was -- I did convince my parents. And I did take Accounting 101 as a lower freshman. I was sixteen, and at sixteen and a half, I had a job that summer as a bookkeeper -- a full-charge bookkeeper at the same store that -- my brother had actually worked 57:00for that store. And interestingly enough, my sister -- my two -- second sister -- who became a bookkeeper and worked as a bookkeeper all her life, wound up working for that very same store as their bookkeeper. (laughs) It was like in the family. But -- oh yeah. That was -- I can't picture my life. And I had planned -- I did expect, once I graduated from college, I thought I would go out and be a bookkeeper, even though I majored in physics. And my department head -- I had switched to Brooklyn College, I had moved -- my department head said, "Well, what are you gonna plan to do?" I said, "Well, I have to go out and work. I have to get a job." And he offered me a job teaching at Brooklyn College. And 58:00I almost fainted on the spot. I mean, it was beyond any thought -- I never had a thought of having a career of any kind -- at all. And as it turned out, I didn't get that job at Brooklyn. Because all of the holidays came out on -- right after Labor Day, very early, and Monday and Tuesday for Rosh Hashanah and Sukkos and Simchas Torah, Wednesday for Yom Kippur, so the first four weeks I would have had to be out seven days; every week I would have had to be out. And he looked at the schedule and he said, No, it wouldn't work out. But he suggested getting in touch with Hunter College, maybe for the following semester, because he was gonna hire someone now. And I did get in touch with Hunter. They did hire me in February. And I got my master's at NYU while I was at Hunter. And then, I wanted 59:00a full-time job once I had my master's, and she only had the same three classes, so she suggested I go down to some company on Ninety-Second Street that sometimes hires their junior mathemat-- mathematics majors as junior mathema-- so I went down. I was interviewed on the second floor. And there was this young man who worked on the sixth floor who used to work on the second, and it was coffee break time, so he came down to have coffee. And when I left my interview, he went over and he got my CV, called me up, and I married him -- which could not happen nowadays. I'd be, you know -- (laughs) with the HR laws and all. So, the way things work out -- I sometimes think about that. There's this 60:00fifteen-minute window -- and I wasn't supposed to be at Hunter College to begin with. I could have been at Brooklyn, but the holidays worked -- so you never know how -- that's really -- I don't know.

CW:Bashert [predestined].

JM:It's either bashert -- yeah, it's nice to think it's bashert. Yeah. So, yeah.

CW:So, when --

JM:And we'd try to teach the children a little Yiddish. I thought -- so Friday nights -- when my children were, like -- the oldest might have been ten, eleven -- they're two or three years apart -- three. And my husband and I -- I mentioned before -- he had studied German in college, so -- German and Yiddish, very similar -- so on Friday nights, we would try to -- lomir redn yidish [let's 61:00speak Yiddish]. And my daughter actually did learn enough -- I'd say, like, thirty -- she probably would get a thirty percent if she took a test or something -- but she could make herself understood. And she likes it, too. She just has that nice feeling toward it.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW:Well, I wanted to ask you about -- I know you wrote some plays and songs.

JM:Yes.

CW:Can you tell me about that?

JM:Oh. Okay. I have actually -- okay. I've always -- I remember writing a song (laughs) when I was about five -- just -- I didn't -- I mean, it just -- I still remember it. It didn't -- it really --

CW:What was it?

JM:(sings) "Scrabby a skolie, buy all the rosie, Lucy make the Indian buy all the Indian, all fall down." Don't ask me where I got it from, why I made it up, 62:00and why I still remember it, but I still remember "Scrabby." (laughs) No, I always -- yeah. I had a terrible voice singing. I was always envious of the girls in school when the -- you know, they would have -- sometimes they'd have someone get up in front of the class and sing. There were two girls that had beautiful voices, and I never did. And when they went around -- okay, class would be singing, and they'd say, Okay, everybody sing this song. Everybody's all singing. Alto, alto, soprano, alto, listener. I was -- and the next semest-- like, that was 3B -- I was monotone, thank you very much. And if I had to sing, like, in front, I'd be moving my mouth. And really, the truth is, I wasn't that 63:00bad, but if anyone sang off, I'm very easy to throw off. And it wasn't until my friend, Shirley Cohen, the one that wrote those records, she was very -- my best friend -- and on Saturday afternoons, we'd sometimes just sit and sing in groups, and I'd say, "Well, I can't" -- "What are you talking about? You can sing. I hear you singing. You can sing." And she kind of gave me enough courage that I sang -- you know, in a group, although I can still get thrown off. And the new songs -- anything after the '50s, I can't pick up those. Very complicated. They don't go very regul-- anyway. So, I always -- I wrote a -- I remember -- oh, in high school, I wrote the senior song. It was just a takeoff 64:00on "Time Was" -- you know, and I just wrote different words to it. Following -- I always made sure there were -- you know, I had to follow the meter and follow the rhyme scheme, and I wouldn't allow an extra beat. You know, I'd be (UNCLEAR) -- like I straighten out pictures; same thing with the beats. And then, let's see, my real -- more serious -- serious -- they're all -- never serious; they were all funny. I guess when I went to -- no, before that. Around that time, a bungalow colony -- yeah -- when I started to -- I used to think bungalow colonies were terrible. Women were up -- they were away, and the husbands work in the city and just come up weekends. But one week -- one year, when my 65:00daughter was three and my son was a year and a half old, and we went to a hotel for two weeks and spent all the time -- one of us in the room, because the children developed sore throats and fever, so we would take turns going down to dinner in the dining room, and we said, That's the end of hotels. Bungalow colonies -- you know, necessity is the mother of convention, that's my own motto. And you do it because it's -- handy and there's a basic reason for doing it. So, I went to bungalow colonies.

CW:Where would you go?

JM:We'd go in the Catskills. The first one was in -- I think Hurleyville, Hammer's bungalow colony. Oh yes, it was interesting, not important. Should I 66:00tell you unimportant stuff that doesn't have to do with anything else?

CW:Sure, tell me about the Catskills.

JM:(laughs) No, this is just my son Robert. He had a very loud voice and very -- and when we had -- there was an eclipse that summer, and Mr. Hammer was the owner of the bungalow colony, about twenty little bungalows. And he was a handyman. He'd fix whatever -- it was his -- and there was an eclipse, and Robert comes and says, "Mr. Hammer turned off the sun!" (laughs) And they -- everyone liked the way he talked loud and -- I once said, "Go into the office" -- the little kit-- a little grocery in the office. I said, "Go, kid, get me mayonnaise. We need it for lunch." He goes into the office, and they were ready to announce -- the store was closing in five, so she said, "Do you want to announce the store is closing?" And he said, "Okay. The store is closing in five 67:00minutes! If you need anything for lunch, 'ayonnaise!" You know, he started making (UNCLEAR). (laughs) I don't know. Anyway, that has nothing to do with Yiddish. But it was all Orthodox people. So, it was -- you know, Shabbos, we had cholent and we ate. They davened in the social hall. And I made up -- and life in the bungalow colony was -- funny. Interesting. I mean, there are things to laugh at. So, I wrote "My Square Lady." I said, what did Eliza do after she -- after the play ends? She marries Freddy, and then they go to a bungalow colony. And the truth is, she does marry Freddy, according to George Bernard Shaw. He said obviously she marries Freddy. And so, I made up a "My Fair Lady" -- like, 68:00the seven songs from "My Fair Lady." And I did that every year at the -- and the last year, we had "Oklahammer's" -- it was on "Oklahoma." So, I always did that. In fact, I made -- last year when my son Robert got married, I wrote "My Fair Melanie." And it was a small wedding and we had fifty people in the restaurant, and my two grandsons, Robert's two boys. One played the part of Melanie, with a -- he's six-four -- with a veil, and the other -- his brother was Robert. So anyway, I had been doing that, and at the time, my daughter-in-law -- my ex-daughter-in-law -- was doing klezmer music for the Folksbiene, for Zalmen -- you know Zalmen Mlotek? Yeah. And she told him that I do this. And he asked me 69:00to write some things for "Kids and Yiddish," which they did in December, around Hanukkah time. In addition to the main Folksb-- you know, to the main theater play that they had for grownups, they had kid-- they did the -- programs for children, which were mostly skits, short skits. And I have a number of things that I wrote for them that were partly Yiddish -- a mixture of English and Yiddish, or some of the songs were more to teach -- to teach certain words or to teach the alef-beys [Hebrew alphabet]. I didn't make that one up; that ran along for years -- something to "Doe, A Deer," so they had alef--

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

JM:I did that for a number of years, for maybe five -- five years that I did that for them. And I have some of the songs there. And pictures.

CW:I'm curious, you mentioned before that you wanted to pass on a little bit of Yiddish to your children. Why was that important to you?

JM:Just not to have it be lost. First of all, when I went to Israel, I started talking Hebrew to a policeman -- whatever he stopped me for -- he answered (laughs) -- he answered me in Yiddish, 'cause he thought my Hebrew wasn't that good. It was our language. It was our -- the thread that kept us together in fifty, sixty different places. And you could walk in, you'd go to a shul, and -- 71:00I mean, now -- now it's more Hebrew, but it's -- it was very important to me. Because I'm Jewish, and -- just not to lose it. Just to -- so they get some of that flavor. And just to keep connected with -- and to be able to read letters my father had. There were letters that my father received from his parents that he -- been corresponding for years. I find it hard to read, because first of all, they're handwriting -- you know, it's script. And I never -- as I say -- before -- I said before -- I never really learned to read words at a time; I have to sound things out, which just takes very long.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

JM:We used to slightly, you know, kind of look down on Yiddish theater. It was 72:00not as -- you know. There's a joke, but it's true, that -- they want-- somebody wanted to do "King Lear" -- I mean, it was playing in Yiddish, and they were gonna play it in English. He says, "Oy, that won't go." You know, the Yiddish actor -- "Oh, come on, that wouldn't work in English." Which was funny. (laughs) But there is a certain -- that feeling is -- it's your native lingo.

CW:Nowadays, do you have any chance to speak Yiddish?

JM:Yes. I'm trying to remember when. Well, now, my grocery store -- they live in Borough Park, and they still speak Yiddish at home. And when I hear them -- 73:00speaking to even some of their suppliers of kosher food, let's say -- and they'd be talking in Yiddish, and I really enjoy -- and then I asked them, "So how do you say 'chin'?" Nobody knew how to say "chin" in Yiddish. None of these Yiddish -- and we finally rem-- somebody knew. And I don't remember what the answer is, but -- I forget what made me -- maybe I was thinking of a song and translating it and nobody knew how to say "chin." Do you know how to say "chin" in Yiddish?

CW:I don't remember.

JM:I don't know if -- yeah. I forgot what they -- what it was. It was a word I had never heard. But it's -- has a certain tam [flavor]. (laughs) And even "tam" 74:00isn't the same as "taste." It just (laughs) -- but I guess whatever -- what's your native -- what's your home language? English always? Or you had another -- foreign language at all? No?

CW:English.

JM:Oh, just English? Yeah.

CW:Well, what do you think is the place of Yiddish today?

JM:I know a lot of people are studying it just as a language. I was at -- where was this? -- at "Mame-Loshn" -- you know, there's the Workmen's Circle, and they run something -- I was there also once -- I did a program -- I wrote a play for them that my daughter-in-law put on with the children. It was about the -- the story about the goat and the mother-in-law, where the rabbi -- he's complaining, "My mother-in-law's come to live with us, and there's no room, and ---" So, the rabbi says, "Take in your chicken." Calls back to -- the following week, "It's 75:00terrible." "Okay, take in your duck," or whatever, "your goose." And next week, tells -- "Take in the cow," whatever. And at the end, "Take in your goat." And then, when it finally gets impossible, the rabbi says, "Okay, now let the animals out." "Oh, look how much room I have now!" You know, so that was -- you know that story. So, we made that into a -- it was a poem and song that I wrote for the "Mame-Loshn" weekend -- oh, I don't know, must be fifteen years ago or something like that. But the -- oh, the head of -- where was this? The head of somebody -- it was the head of something Yiddish, I forget what -- and he wasn't 76:00Jewish. He had just learnt it as a language, and he ran this -- not the "Mame-Loshn" -- he ran -- he was running something else, and he wasn't even Jewish. So, it is not really dying. And it is being used, I know, in the very Orthodox --

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

JM:They still consider Hebrew as loshn-koydesh, the holy language. And for everyday things like shining your shoes, you don't talk about that in Hebrew, you know, whatever. And so, they speak Yiddish at home. When I see little children speaking Yiddish, I think it's very cute. (laughs) But I'm -- it's cute. I mean, I'm very glad to see it. And they're keeping it alive; they're keeping the language. And it is making a little -- I don't know how much, but a 77:00comeback, in that -- well, here, what made you study Yiddish?

CW:I'll tell you after the interview. (laughs)

JM:Okay, okay.

CW:Well, before we look at your pictures and the things that you prepared, are there any other stories about Yiddish that you want to share?

JM:(pauses) No. Just the Israeli answers me in Yiddish -- not even in English. Let me see. (sighs) I might think of something --

CW:That's fine. We can add it in. Do you have a favorite Yiddish phrase or word or song?

JM:Well, there are some things that you can't say -- you can only say in Yiddish. I can't think for the moment of what, (laughs) but there are some things that you can only say --- a "mekhaye [delight]." (laughs) A pleasure? A delight? It's not a "mekhaye." A rejuvenation? A revi-- there's nothing that works. In fact, the song I wrote -- what I wrote for "Kids and Yiddish" -- one of the songs -- can I sing one song?

CW:Yes, please.

JM:Yeah. And there's a line in there that -- okay, it says -- now, the first two lines were already written, and they didn't -- the rest they had wrong, so I kinda -- so it goes, (sings) "Kids and Yiddish, kids and Yiddish" -- wait -- (sings) "go together just like wine and kiddush. Hert zikh tsu, just listen. 79:00There's a lot you may be missin'. Kids and Yiddish" -- wait -- (sings melody, without words) --

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

JM:(sings) "Hert zikh tsu, just listen. There's a lot you may be missin'. Kids and Yiddish, kids and Yiddish. It's so easy it is just a khidesh [delightful thing]. It's our native lingo. Hear it once or twice and, bingo! Why, why, why do -- try to -- why, why, try to separate us from our mame-loshn [mother tongue, i.e. Yiddish]. We've got words for which there simply is no substitution. Kids and Yiddish, kids and Yiddish. Hot nisht moyre [Have no fear], come on, don't be skittish. Soon, you'll see a vinde [window]. No more secrets from the kinder 80:00[children]." But that is true. There are words for which there is no substitution.

CW:Nice.

JM:Yeah.

CW:Do you want to show that photograph, since you have that out?

JM:Yeah. Oh, this was -- yeah, this was from the newspaper. And I see some of it broke off some more. Actually, the paper broke as I was putting it in this tissue. It's so b-- and my brother-in-law took -- so my brother-in-law photographed -- you know, worked -- yeah, just getting it -- yeah. And then, this is the important thing that -- okay, this is my grandfather at the right.

CW:Yeah. Wow.

JM:So, that's really the only good -- but you can really get his -- see what he 81:00looks like.

CW:So, this is your mother's father?

JM:My mother's father. This one -- the one at the right. Yeah. He's the one that -- oh, yeah, here's a piece of -- that got stuck from that paper. When I tried to get it into here. That's a piece that just broke off. Yeah.

CW:It's from the Yiddish paper.

JM:From --- yeah, either the "Morgen-zhurnal" or the "Forverts." I don't know which one. Not that it matters. But yeah, and that was the only real photograph that we have of him. And --

CW:So, what else in there would you like to highlight? From the things that you have, do you have anything else -- any other favorite bits?

JM:Well, I have the story -- the Chelm -- not Chelm, that's another one -- I did a Chelm mosaic, which was another story where -- I think -- did I do that at -- 82:00which one did I do at "Mame-Loshn"? I can't -- I think I did the goat at "Mame-Loshn." The Chelm mosaic -- oh, wait, that's a -- this was about a goat that they keep switching -- a nanny goat for a billy goat as he goes back and forth to another town. And they're all in songs. You know, like, this one starts -- oh, he sings, "Khelm, mayn shtetele khelm [Chelm, my little town of Chelm]" instead of, you know, "Belts, mayn shtetele belts [Belz, my little town of Belz]." (sings) "Khokhamim [Wise people] and sages have lived here for ages, throughout history. Oh, we're so proud to live in Chelm. When folks talk of Chelm, it's just 'cause they're jealous that there are such fellows as clever as we." 'Cause, you know, Chelm, they make off as really foolish and stupid. And so 83:00then I would have little bits -- like, it's in poetry, but the wife says, "Oh, my cousin has a goat you can buy in Boiberik." And so, he leaves -- he goes to the -- he goes in before he leaves, and the baby is crying, and he says, (sings) "Veyn nisht, beybele, in dayn vigele; ikh gey koyfn a tsigele [Don't cry, little baby, in your crib; I am going to buy a little goat]. Hush little baby, don't cry. A goat I am going to buy. I'll be back by and by. Bye-bye, baby, bye-bye." He does, you know, a little -- and then they -- you know, a couple of different --

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

JM:And, like, half Yiddish and half -- you know. (sings melody, without words) Anyway, there are different songs.

CW:Yeah. And these would be performed by whom?

JM:Children. Well, my grandsons were always in them, because they were (laughs) good actors. (laughs) No. And my daughter-in-law at the time was -- as I say, my then-daughter-in-law -- she played klezmer music, and she would -- the children -- at "Mame-Loshn," it was the children and their day camp. And the others -- the ones for the Folksbiene were actually -- the youngest children would be my grandchildren, who were six, seven, eight, at various years. And they had grownups -- I mean, adults -- as well, doing some of them. Yeah. What else? I didn't know, like I say, how much Yiddish I could put --

CW:That's fine. Are there some photographs you wanted to share?

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

JM:This is from the Folksbiene. Well, I have both, actually. From the "Mame-Loshn" -- or this was -- oh, I have a lot of them here. Oh, and some of them are -- there were only a couple that were worth looking at. Oh, from the "Mame-Loshn" -- I made props -- I mean, scenery -- out of the covers of cake boxes that my grocer got big sheet cakes in, and we had to -- because we had to transport scenery when we went up to Camp Kinder Ring. So, using the boxes and 86:00tying them together --

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

JM:So, the rabbi that's -- tells them to bring in a goat. So, this was his study. It was just made of three milk -- not milk -- three cake box covers -- and kind of sewn or wired together. And this was the kitchen where they lived. We're bringing in all the animals afterwards, where the little crowded -- or here, it's actually -- that was just the kitchen part. This was the whole room and -- with a kitchen with the beds. And here, this we had --

CW:And you made these?

JM:Yeah.

CW:Wow.

JM:And here we had -- these were the animals. The children were dressed up as animals. So, this is the stage. You know, one was a goat and one was the sheep, 87:00the chicken and the duck or whatever. So, that was from the -- from that play of -- you know, "Ales iz relativ [Everything is relative]." And the one from -- oh, here. For the "Kids in Yiddish," it was done as vaudeville: short skits, not a long play. And they had an easel on the stage with a sheet of oak tag -- you know, poster boards, full-sized poster boards. So, I made a frame for -- and then we slipped in the poster. So, there was one. This was all, like, full size. 88:00And then, we had this.

CW:Oh, nice!

JM:And then, we had different topics. She had one thing on baseball. And we had "Ale brider [All brothers]," which is -- "Fliendiker freser [Flying freeloader]." Oh, these were the costumes for -- oh, this was the "Maysterverk [Masterwork]" theater. "Kauboychik [Cowboy]." I don't remember what this was, may have been something with money, I'm guessing. I don't remember. This was "Kalypso." And this is "Bulbes [Potatoes] in space." And one program -- one thing was "the Yeatles." And this was "Di alte heym [The Old Country]." And I don't remember -- Mickey Mouse somehow was in it. And the December music that 89:00was for the Hanukkah -- (sings) "Zenen d'lekhtlekhe, zingen d'brukhe, zitsn bay tish, mit di gantse [The candles are out, we're singing the blessings, sitting at the table is the whole]" -- that was from "Sound of Music." And this was "Oyrobics," which was -- you know, di hants un fis [the hands and feet]. Da, da, da, da. Oh, and these were just costumes I made for the -- (sings) "My Favorite Things." So, I made -- what was it? A vest for the boys and -- I don't remember what these were.

CW:Wow, it's so creative.

JM:Well, it was fun. It was a lot of fun doing these. Yeah.

CW:Wow. Did you ever go to a summer camp yourself?

JM:I never went. I taught art in the summer for ten years -- summers. After I went to the bungalow for -- we went for about, I don't know, five years. And then, my daughter was old enough to go to camp, and the children -- my boys -- 90:00were not. And I wasn't gonna go to a bungalow with the children -- the boys, the little ones -- middle ones -- and send my daughter, so a friend suggested that I teach arts and crafts at camp. So then, the boys, who were four and six -- I'd be there. The four had -- they had a special group, three counselors for seven staff children. And so, that worked out very nicely, because I really did a lot of interesting craft programs.

CW:Which camp was that?

JM:First there was Camp Beaver Lake, which used to be Machanayim years before. And then, Camp Hillel -- or no, Camp -- what's the name? Hm, hm, hm. Raleigh in 91:00Swan Lake for two years, and then Hillel for five years. And, you know, we did things with -- we did electronics projects with the boys, because of my science background, so they -- we did woodwork-- we did every single craft. All kinds of -- I taught the girls how to sew on a sewing machine -- and, I mean, literally fifty different projects. So, it was very -- and it was a wonderful way to spend the summer. My husband -- instead -- he took off Fridays -- ten Fridays, instead of two weeks' vacation, and he'd come up on Thursday night and leave Monday morning, so he'd be home Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And it worked out very 92:00nicely. The children -- I had nothing to do. It was like being home and my mother taking care of everything, and all I had to do was, like, being at school. I had my job and I washed my underwear, and everything else was taken care of. It was wonderful. No cooking, no shopping, no cleaning -- well, you know, you have one little room; not much to clean. It was a very wonderful way to spend the summer. Really nice. And I wrote many plays. I did the -- we had to be referees at -- during color war -- so all of the staff were referees. It was like, Oy vey, I'm the referee. So, they had the gold team sing, the blue team sing. I wrote a referee sing. (laughs) Anyway -- which was fun. It really -- it 93:00was a very, very nice, very nice way to spend --

CW:Well, I'm curious, just to close here, if you have -- for the -- an eytse or a piece of advice for the younger generations?

JM:How younger? Children?

CW:Well, just the people coming up into the world now.

JM:Well, unfortunately, there's so much anti-Jewish feeling -- on campus, with anti-Israel, so that holds -- there's just anti-Semitism again. For the Jewish (UNCLEAR) people, it's important -- certainly, it's very important -- to strengthen our own view of ourselves, because a lot of Jewish people who are 94:00totally unaffiliated or uned-- you know, un-Jewish-educated, are actually buying into this anti-Israel propaganda. They have no idea of our history -- no idea of our connection to the land of Israel, which is older than anything else on earth. And whether Yiddish itself would help in any way -- well, sometimes songs. There are some Yiddish -- I think songs are helpful, but again, how much Yiddish you can get in them, I don't know. I don't know, smarter heads than I 95:00have been struggling with it. I don't know what -- I really don't know -- we should be able -- I mean, I think that -- when it comes to PR and things like that, we started that whole -- you know, PR and advertising -- except for ourselves. You know, it was for everyone else, but not for ourselves. I don't know. (pauses) I wish I had an answer, but I don't, really.

CW:That's okay. That's great.

JM:Yeah. But --

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

[END OF INTERVIEW]