Eric Bymel: An Introduction

Eric, born to Rita and Felix Bymel and the younger brother of Dian, was raised in El Salvador. Now living in Haifa, Israel, he is also husband to Dassi and father to Maayan, Ofer, and Yuval. In this excerpt, Eric describes the transition from life in El Salvador to Israel.
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(So by the time you were seventeen, you had Hebrew, German, Spanish, and English?)

When I came to Israel, I came before university started and I went to Ulpan. It was like a deluge, all these memories of Hebrew just washed came awash in my mind. It was fantastic. I knew the language! And I wasn’t a good student. Perla said I didn’t do my homework and all that. But it was all there, sitting there. So Ulpan was like a breeze, just fantastic. Everything came out. I could read the signs. I could talk to people. I could understand. I could watch television, within a couple of weeks. It was great! The same thing when I went to Germany. I was in Germany for half a year. I worked in a restaurant on the highway. So everything was there, available. It was great. Great.

(How was being in Germany? How old were you?)

I was twenty-four, sort of in between degrees. I took a year off and traveled a while. It was a lot of fun. I was always worried about who’s a Nazi and who’s not, who’s an ex-Nazi. I had awkward moments, when, (I worked with a whole staff of people at this restaurant), with some of them who were pretty old, maybe between fifty and sixty at the time. I remember one woman said to me, “Aren’t you going to pray?” I don’t remember, it was some holiday coming up. “No, I’m not Christian.” “What are you?” “I’m Jewish.” “Oh!” she said. She jumped, you know. I always—it was a very embarrassing moment in the way she jumped, probably because she thought, “Oh, it’s lucky I didn’t say anything anti-Semitic.” It seemed like that, because she immediately closed her mouth and then she said, “Oh, we helped a lot of Jews in World War II.” And it seemed false, that she was just covering up something. But since I was not the boss and I didn’t want to have any trouble there, any conflict, I just let it go.

(But it’s interesting you didn’t stop yourself from saying, “I’m Jewish.” That was a natural response for you.)

Oh, yes. I said to myself, “Whenever it comes up, I’m going to deal with it. I don’t care.”

(Were you ever resentful of the fact that you were Jewish? Like, “Oh, this is such a difficult identity to deal with in the world?”)

No. I remember at one point in my teenage-hood, I said to myself, “This is part of my personality, my being Jewish. And I don’t have to deal with it. I don’t have to show it off. I don’t have to go to synagogue and I don’t have to pray and I don’t have to wear a kippah and I don’t have to do all these external things—
to prove that I’m Jewish. It’s just part of me and that’s it. I’m not going to deal with it.” Maybe it was a way of rationalizing my behavior, but I didn’t want to do all these things that are done, like pray and go to synagogue and keep all these rules. I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t identify with that. So that was my way of dealing with it. I don’t want to (pause) be told what to do, and I’m not going to give it away, either. I’m not going to say I’m not Jewish. I just am, and that’s it. Next. That’s how I dealt with it. And when I came to Israel, I was—it suddenly hit me of course that so many people here are Jewish, you know. That is when I said to myself, “That’s it. I don’t have to do all these external things to deal with my Judaism. I just am. That’s it. Next.”

(You were seventeen when you finished high school? And you came directly to Israel?)

Almost directly. About a month later.

(You didn’t want to go to the States?)

I was accepted in the States, in fact. I was accepted in U of Penn. My parents wanted me very much to go. “Oh,” they said, “Ivy League, go there, it’s the best! Go!” And of course the more they said they want me to go, the more I didn’t want to go. And they didn’t get it, of course. The more they didn’t want me to come to Israel, the more I wanted to come to Israel. It was a way to spite them, but yes—although looking back, it’s too bad. Maybe I should have gone, missed out on something. But I wanted very much to come to Israel.

(Had you visited before?)

No, just heard a lot, read a lot.

(You were ready to taste it. So you came here when you were seventeen, and you did the Ulpan for—?)

A couple of months.

(And then—?)

And then started studying biology at the Hebrew University.

(In Jerusalem?)

In Jerusalem.

(And you were studying for how long there?)

I was there for—I studied for about eight years. I did a degree in biology and then another degree in psychology and then a second degree in psychology.

(Wow. So—eight years.)

More or less.

(Did they ever say, “Oh, you have to go to the army?” Did they ever summon you?)

Not at that point, because I was always a potential immigrant. First I was a student, then a potential—I was never a real resident. When I finally became a resident, yes, I got summoned.

(And you—?)

I went. I went for—it was a short while, because I was then already married with kids, so I was there for four months, maybe. Basic training and another short time, a period of service.

(But you stay active for a certain amount of time? You can always be called, right?)

Yes.

(So where did you meet your wife?)

At the university. I met her at one of the cafeterias. That was in ’72 or ’73. It’s not clear in my mind. We always have arguments about that, because she said that she—I was with a mutual friend, and she said to him, “Oh, introduce me!” And he said to her, “You don’t have a chance. He has a girlfriend.” “Introduce me anyway!” So finally he did. And then she came to look for me at the dorms. She came to knock at my door. She doesn’t remember that. She always says, “It’s not true. I didn’t come look for you. I didn’t.” And I always remember that. I have this memory of her coming and this disagreement about that.

(Fight.)

(So you met there and you were dating someone else, though, at the time?)

Yes. She always saw me as a kid. She was going out with older guys, and “He’s just a kid,” you know. It was ’72 or ’73. I was eighteen, nineteen, maybe. She’s older than me. She was then twenty-one, twenty-two, so of course she saw me as a kid. So we only got together much later, a few years later when our paths crossed again. There was a click. She somehow rediscovered me, in a way. She always says that she was too busy talking about herself and suddenly she asked me some questions and discovered me.

(And what is her story? She was born in Israel?)

She was born in Israel. Her parents are Yemenite. They’re from Yemen.

(So that’s very different from your childhood.)

Oh, yeah.

(Did that cause any—not conflict, but I’m sure it made your lives interesting. How was that?)

It wasn’t an issue when we met. It came up somehow. For me, it didn’t play much of a role. I think I was trying to be—like, I always tried to break with conventions, so I also thought, “What does it matter, the background? It’s important who you are and what you do and what you are, not where your parents came from.”

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.

Ricardo Rosenberg: On Becoming American

In this final installment, Ricardo remembers, amongst other events, the day he became an American citizen----and why.
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(After you’re married, you’re working for the IMF. You’re living here in Washington. How long do you stay in Washington?)

We stayed a little over two years. We were young and reckless in those days, so when our daughter Carin was born in July, we were already scheduled to go to Bolivia as soon as we could get ourselves together. We went to Bolivia in September of 1975, just about—I guess almost three years after arriving in Washington, but two and a half years after we got married. Carin was nine weeks old.

(You lived in La Paz?)

It was an adventure. It was going back in time a little bit. I sort of imagined that being in La Paz in 1975 was very similar to being in El Salvador forty or fifty years earlier, because things were a lot more primitive. You had to boil the water. There was no bottled water. Electricity went on and off. Water supply went on and off. I think electricity was not great. There were zero, none, supermarkets. We had one maid, and she went to the market once a week and she brought home a side of beef and somehow she was able to do the butcher work herself, to break up the side of beef into the different cuts of meat that would end up on the table. Everything was fresh. I mean, it was just like going back in time in every which way.

(Did you enjoy that change?)

Oh, I mean, I think we both were glad, both Nancy and I were glad, that if we were gonna go somewhere, that we would go to somewhere interesting, rather than going to another big city with a lot of traffic and not much to see. Bolivia had so much to see, in the area as well, in terms of the culture, and the surroundings were incredible. Nancy accused me of taking far too many pictures of the mountains. Being in the Andes was just incredible, the altitude, the sites around there, it was just remarkable. What a place!

(I actually have studied a little bit about the Jewish community in Bolivia. Did you contact them?)

Well, we were in touch—we had some contact with a few of them, and we had the impression that they also were like the community must have been in El Salvador forty years before. People dressed like the pictures that you might have in your mind about the way the Jews dressed when they were in the ‘30s and the ‘40s in Europe. We went to temple once or twice and it was sort of Orthodox, too. That’s about the only contact we had.

(Did you see a lot of similarities between the community in Bolivia and Salvador?)

I’m not sure. One thing that was different was that the handful that we met then, we got the impression that when the kids were born, the first language the kids learned was Yiddish, then German, and then Spanish. And I don’t think that was ever the case in Salvador. In Salvador, there was a lot of multilingual households. But Spanish was not relegated to a low place as it was in Bolivia at the time. And just as a sidelight, one of the interesting things that happened in Bolivia was that the there was an important Nazi there at the time, Barbie was his name, and it was an open secret. I mean, the government knew he was there. Everybody knew he was there. To the point that one of our Bolivian friends said that he was walking down the street with somebody from the US and he happened to see Barbie, and he said, “Hey, look, there’s Barbie.” And he got a phone call about two or three days later not ever to do that again, by probably Barbie’s henchmen. So that was Bolivia in the mid-‘70s.

But it was a fun time, and I was lucky. The IMF representative there had a lot of prestige, and it was almost an ambassadorial position. I was only twenty-nine when I went there. And because of the position of the IMF—not because of me—the IMF had all the key economic data that nobody else had because the country was not stable enough to have developed that kind of thing. So I met with the ambassadors a lot, because they were interested in hearing what we had to say, and routinely met with the attachés from the US, Germany, France, England and all the other countries that had economic interests there. About twice a year I had a one-on-one session with the President of Bolivia, and no other foreigner would have that. So it was a fun and challenging time in that sense, and also with none of the downside. Because luckily, we had just gotten the first oil crisis and Bolivia had a lot of oil and gas, so there was no need for IMF credit. I had a pretty easy time for that reason. Of course, there was hell to pay later on, because their policies were so poor that two or three years after I left they were in dismal shape.

Well, we did have contact with from Jews in Cochabamba and I think that we were a little surprised by the customs. I think they were Sephardic. When we arrived there, there were Egyptian Jews who had left in the ‘30s who had gone to Japan and to their good fortune, they had done some business with some Bolivians who didn’t pay. So they came to Bolivia to try to collect on their debts and that way avoided being in Japan during the war. They had a custom we had never seen before. When we got there for—I think we went for Rosh Hashanah—when they cut the challah, they threw the pieces of bread to everybody around the table, and our understanding was that that was a custom because you hand bread to a beggar, but to others, this is the way it’s distributed. Somehow, that stayed with me. So that was the other contact with the Jewish community down there.

(Your daughter Carin was born in 1975, July 12th?)

Exactly.

(And Adam was born—?)

May 10th, 1978. He was kind enough to wait an hour after my birthday, so we have back-to-back birthdays, and we both love it.

(It’s obvious that you’re very close to both of your children. How did/do they identify with that part of your identity? Do they enjoy it there? Do they feel like it’s a part of who they are?)

I think they enjoy knowing that I have that background. They’ve always been interested in it. I think Adam in particular likes that part of our heritage and has identified with it much more than Carin has. He just seems to be more drawn to it. I think he’s had better experiences just by luck. Carin spent a summer in Spain when she was fifteen and she spent junior semester abroad in Spain again, junior year in college. Adam spent the summer after his junior year in Chile and junior year, or junior semester abroad in Argentina. And Adam had a fantastic time, mostly due to luck, and with Carin, it was the opposite. So I think that probably had some influence.

The second thing is that Adam has a tremendous ear for languages, or almost anything else, to the point that he can imitate just about any accent out there. He’s got to be more comfortable with the language and I think has been more drawn to it.

(How does that make you feel as a parent? Is that an extra plus for you? Is that something you wanted for your children? Was it something that was just a nice surprise?)

Oh, certainly, that’s certainly an extra plus. And I think they consider it, too, a plus.

(Where does the name Carin—?)

“Carin,” with a “C.” Because she was named after Nancy’s mother Charlotte. Actually, her middle name had been Liebes, but I think with her married name she’s Carin Rosenberg Levine. And then Adam was Adam Eugene, still is. That was for my grandfather.

(Right. Of course. Now, you haven’t been to Salvador in a while, but you’ve visited and your sister lives there. Do you feel strong ties now to Salvador?)

No. I mean, I feel it’s part of my background, but I think since I left so early and I was never—I never really lived there as an adult. As time went on, when I was in graduate school, I would come down less and less because if I came down for two weeks, let’s say, my friends worked, so Monday through Friday I had absolutely nothing to do. I could play golf by myself or something like that, but my visits became shorter and shorter, and I’ve never actually lived there. I’ve never had my own place. I never had my own life. I never had a permanent job. So I became more and more distant from it. At the same time, my roots in the US became firmer and firmer, and I eventually became an American citizen.

Becoming an American citizen, I think, had a particular significance. The timing was unintended in the sense that I could not get US residence while I was at the IMF. So when I left the IMF, I became a resident. Then I had to wait—I couldn’t become a US citizen right away. I never was really thinking of it. But I think what really changed my mind was—or not changed my mind, what really accelerated the thought was that Nancy became involved with a gathering of Holocaust survivors that was pretty amazing. She was doing oral histories at the time, and she volunteered—this was before the Holocaust Museum was even an idea—no, it was an idea, but before it was in existence, and so she went down to the hotel where the conference was being held, and just by chance, she was interviewing a man who had the last name of Ain, which is not a common name, A-i-n. And Nancy said, “I grew up with somebody named Ain.” And this man, to his knowledge, had no family. So Nancy called me at the office so that she could get the—to get in touch with one of the Ains who was in town and she put them together, I think kind of reunited that family.

(So they were related?)

They were related, because they came from the same village in Russia, blah-blah-blah, the whole thing. And as a result of that participation, we went to the closing ceremonies of the conference. It really made an impression when—and it still sort of chokes me up—when the head of the convention spoke and told this story about how he had fought as a young man in the ghetto in Warsaw. So he said, spoke about how he fought in World War II, and then he said, “Never did I expect that I would be introducing the President of the US.” Reagan was the invited speaker, and Reagan spoke. That really moved me. It made me put together being Jewish and how welcoming the US was, and that was a very powerful impression it made on me. I think by then I was into probably the third or fourth year. So, I decided that I wanted to become a US citizen. Something funny happened. I went to take my test. You have to study all these things I’m sure that you have to study, too, questions about the Constitution, you have to name all your government officials, who was Governor, who was Senator. Congressmen and all that.

So I went ahead and had my test, and typically, at least then, it took, I don’t know, a month, two months, three months, something like that, to get your citizenship papers. And they said—this was in Baltimore—“You can either go to Rockville (near our home) and get your papers in two months or three months or whatever, or actually on Sunday, we’re having an ‘I-Am-an-American’ Day. There will be parades and speeches and all kinds of things. We’re also going to swear in about twenty or thirty people. Do you want to be part of that group?” And I said, “Sure!” So that’s what we did. We went to Baltimore and there was a handful of us who were sworn in and there were parades and all kinds of nice things.

One of the things that really made an impression on me was how moved people get to hear that, to hear—people gave me gifts. At work they had something with cakes and other people gave me mugs with something on it, all I think because they remembered their relatives, ancestors, who had become Americans. I didn’t expect that.

(Did you have to renounce your Salvadoran citizenship?)

No.

(Do you still have a Salvadoran passport?)

Yeah.

(So you still have—you do have a foot, sort of, not a foot, but you have that piece, still.)

Yeah. It’s still part of me.

(Do you feel Salvadoran?)

I feel more American.

(Why is that?)

The US is a very welcoming country. Its lifeblood has always been people from other parts of the world, and I think I’ve felt that, felt welcome here in just about every sense of the word. I think there was more in common that I felt with the values and the direction of the country and more—you know, I like the feeling of sort of common feelings and values at a certain level with the rest of the population. Not that I have the same values of each and every segment of the population, but I feel that I have—I feel more in common with what this country is about than in Salvador, for a number of reasons. Partly is, I think the Jewish community here is much larger and much more of a factor than it is in Salvador in terms of the community at large. But also, you are invited to feel as an American almost immediately, and I don’t think that’s the case in Salvador. I think that other people, my own friends, don’t always feel the way I do, but I think with a name like Rosenberg, there would always be a feeling that I’m not entirely Salvadoran, that I’m somewhat foreign. That doesn’t happen here.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.

Ricardo Rosenberg Part IV: Setting Records

If it were not for his adoring family, Ricardo would never have told me that he was the first Salvadoran to earn a PhD in the United States. In this excerpt he discusses his glorious childhood and his reasons for making the United States a permanent home.
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I want to backtrack a little bit, because I want to tell you from somebody who chose to leave—I think that I had a wonderful childhood in El Salvador. Sometimes it was sort of like a Tom Sawyer-Huckleberry Finn-like kind of existence. I mean, it was just great. You know where our house is, and just how much the city has grown is incredible. When we moved to our house was pretty far from downtown, and there was nothing going on in that part of the city. The Colonia Escalón ended only about two blocks up where Plaza Beethoven is now. That was the end. The rest was absolute farmland or brush or whatever. My best friend was Ricardo Poma--we were buddies, he lived across the street when we were born and then later on two or three blocks away and we’d see each other all the time, we were in the same grade. He lived only two or three blocks away. If I remember correctly, I think the Sagregras, Fernando and Eduardo Sagrera lived up the block. And they had horses there. I remember the Sagrera guys riding horses bareback to the American school and hitching them at the American school and riding back home. That’s just incredible. In a place where the climate was wonderful like that, we were always outside playing soccer, baseball, etc or swimming in a pool, a lake or an ocean.

I think another terrific memory was my father’s farm not far from the city, maybe 20 to 30 minutes of so at the time. We would go out there and ride horses every Saturday, take friends, often play cowboys and Indians with real horses. What a great time particularly for a boy to be having that kind of experience. This was fifty years ago, but it sounds like a hundred years ago. I remember the train tracks went through the property, and most of the farm was on one side, but there were five or ten acres on the other side of the train track. And once or twice we took something called the Bala de Plata--the silver bullet. It was a single railcar. It was sort of squared up. It wasn’t kind of a sleek car like they are today. It was one car. I guess it was some kind of electric power. It was like taking a bus on rails. On weekends my parents had rented a house at Ilopango. So we would go to the lake every Sunday and water ski. It was just fabulous. So when we came back during high school and college, it was like instant good times. You’d go to the lake, you’d go to the ocean. It was great fun.

So the idea of leaving, before we get into the idea of leaving, I want to say that it was just a—I mean, what a place to grow up in. Fun!

(Did that ever—I’m just trying to think, it’s so different from life in the US, how people are so divided in Salvador, and life here in the US. Is that something you thought about a lot when you were growing up?)

I’m sure—I mean, I don’t know how I would articulate it, but I certainly would notice a difference, particularly because the difference was very marked when you went to the rural areas in particular and to the farm that my father had. Along the way you saw poverty that is pretty extreme, kids barefoot, barely clothed, not healthy. It was—and then I guess as time went by, you become more aware of it.

(Did it ever bother you, or it was part of the landscape?)

It was part of the landscape. It’s part of what I said earlier, that you sort of absorb these things and later on you start thinking about how things might be different, but not as a very, very young child.

(I have a question about the family business. Was it assumed that you would go into the family business, or were your parents very supportive of you pursuing this other track?)

I think it was sort of expected, but not in a pressured way. I would say there was space waiting for me. I was welcome, but there was no insistence on it. I think as time went on, one thing I remember is my father saying that if I was going to study economics, I better get a Ph.D. It was sort of like, “All right, if you’re not returning to El Salvador, then you better—” It wasn’t in a threatened or any kind of way, which there was no way my father was like that, but in a way of encouraging me to go through with it.

(So your parents were supportive. What about other people in Salvador? What did they think of you getting not just a Master’s but a Ph.D.? How did people react?)

It wasn’t so much to that. I think people were surprised that I would want to leave El Salvador and live in the US full-time. They didn’t understand what it was that I couldn’t find in El Salvador and what it was that drew me to want to be in the US.

(What was it? Can you put a finger on it?)

I think I liked the idea of—I liked what the US had to offer in terms of the environment, in terms of how interesting life was here. It’s probable that as time went on, it became more emphasized because—OK, Putney was an interesting experience. Then I went to Wisconsin, which was a good educational experience. I made good friends. It was such an interesting environment. And then I went to Columbia, and once again, you sort of felt that you were where things were happening, where important things were—you sort of had a front-row seat to what was happening of importance to the world, and that kind of appealed to me, I guess.

(And I understand that you defended your dissertation?)

Actually, I had already come to Washington to start work with the IMF. I was finishing my thesis in ’73. We planned our wedding for a Sunday. I came to New York and defended my thesis on a Friday and we got married on Sunday, so it was a busy weekend.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Ricardo Rosenberg Part III: Woodstock?

In this installment, Ricardo remembers his university days, the upheaval of Vietnam war protests, and the feeling of no one understanding exactly where he was from.
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(What did you study at Wisconsin?)

Economics. I guess I would add that in retrospect, the whole Wisconsin-Columbia experience was a little bit like the movie Forrest Gump. I mean, I ended up as a spectator of so many events and trends of the times. Wisconsin was the center of all kinds of political activity, I think second only to Berkeley, because Berkeley was really a hotbed of activity in the ‘60s in terms of protest and other new things going on, and Wisconsin was number two. I remember so many things that happened there of great significance. And then I went to Columbia, which became even more of a center and hotbed of anti-Vietnam War activity, to the point that the university was closed at the end of the first year I was there the first time ever that a US university had been closed. It was very interesting to observe all that and to be part of the experience that was happening in the US. The ‘60s was a tremendous upheaval of all kinds, so I really was glad to be able to observe it from up close.

(How did people react to you, your classmates, when they found out you were from El Salvador? Were they interested in knowing more about you?)

Well, they were ignorant. I have a couple of memories: one girl at Wisconsin who heard I was from Salvador and wanted to go out with me just just because of that, never having met me. I had started giving up on saying I was from El Salvador, because nobody knew anything and instead started saying I was from Central America, and until someone responded, “From where, Ohio?” So that made me want to go back to just saying I was from El Salvador. Back then people just had not a clue about El Salvador..

(When you were at boarding school and at college, did you feel the need to go to services on High Holidays or continue your Jewish life?)

Well, Putney was not very geared towards religion, so there was none of that. I also think—I’ve heard a saying that Jewish males more or less disappear from the religion from between their bar mitzvah and their late twenties. And I think I sort of fell in that category. What didn’t help is different experiences we had along the way. I had a roommate at Wisconsin who was Jewish and we decided that it’d be a good thing to go to High Holidays service one year. So somehow we ended up at some temple in Madison, I don’t remember what. I think we were in the first or second row. As often happens, the rabbis were chastising those people who only go for the High Holidays. My roommate and I sort of looked at each other and said, “Well, this is a fine reward!” So I think that was the last time either of us ever did anything. I don’t remember Hillel being that much of a force at Wisconsin. And that was it.

Well, I needed to go to Wisconsin because your mother went to Wisconsin. Then I needed to go to Columbia because your mother went to Columbia. And then I needed to go to Washington D.C.. because that’s where your mother went. So when I got to Columbia, I spent two years there doing coursework and then passed my orals, and then I came to Washington for a summer job which became an eight- or nine-month job. I came for the summer to work for the IMF, and I then the offer was made if I wanted to stay longer, and so I decided I would, because I was having a great time here, and I stayed till February and then went back to New York.

(Did you worry about marrying a Jewish girl?)

No, I didn’t—“worry” is the wrong word. I think the idea of marrying somebody was an issue in itself. I think I more or less gravitated to dating Jewish girls anyway, a lot of the time anyway.

(But that wasn’t a prerequisite for you?)

I think it was preferable. “Prerequisite” probably is a strong word. I wouldn’t have ruled it out, let’s say.

(So you meet Nancy. What year is that?)

1969.

(And then you’re married in—?)

’73.

(And when did you introduce her to the Salvador half of your—?)

Pretty quickly. We met in 1969. I think she came—it was Christmas of 1970. But just a brief detour of 1969: Nancy decided that for my birthday in ’69 that she would get—she got us tickets to a rock concert. So I get in the car and stop in New York and we kind of very casually get up the next morning to go to the rock concert. Well, this was Woodstock, and we were completely unprepared. There was no CNN, no 24-news of any kind. We get up in the morning and reliably Nancy had to stop to go to the bathroom, so we stopped at a gas station. She came out with these incredible stories which we were totally unaware of: twenty-mile backups in terms of traffic, pouring rain, no water, no food, no whatever. So we turned around and went back. Because Woodstock was happening, and by then it was completely out of control, and we just plainly were not aware of it. Somewhere in the attic or the basement are the tickets, which are probably worth of lot of money. But we never did make it.

(You never made it to Woodstock?)

Yeah. So she does owe me a birthday present.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.

Ricardo Rosenberg: Salvadoran Bar Mitzvahs and Skiing in Vermont

In this excerpt, Ricardo remembers his adolescence both in El Salvador and in the wilds of rural Vermont.
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(Was your grandfather very involved in the Jewish community?)

Regretfully, the Jewish Community has generally overlooked or has not recognized my grandfather’s tenure and it is something that has always puzzled me, because he seemed to well-like and respected, as I said before. While I have not lived in El Salvador since I left for school in the US, retrospectives I have seen about the Jewish Community’s past or collections of photographs which have been assembled for some reason rarely, if ever, include him despite his long tenure and what he contributed to the Community as its President during those many critical years—World War II, its growth with the arrival of many Jewish refugees and immigrants and the significant transition from a group of Jews in the 30s to an organized and structured Community which occurred during that period. I know my grandfather was a pretty hands-on kind of person, so it seems to be pretty difficult to overlook someone who was President for 25 years of the relatively short history of the Community, but that seems to happen with some regularity.

(What about your bar mitzvah? Did you have a bar mitzvah?)

Yes, I did. It was a cram course bar mitzvah! I guess this gets you into the type of religious education I had My memory is that at the American school there was religious education after school, I remember that there were priests waiting towards the exit just about every day, and occasionally the rabbi waiting for their students. But my recollection is it was very ad hoc, very stop-and-go. During the period that was important to me, the first rabbi, Alex Freund, was I think on his way out. And then another rabbi came that if I remember correctly, and maybe you can confirm it with somebody else, didn’t really work out. He was there only a couple years. And then came Alexander Granat, who was there for many years. Actually, I was the first to study with Rabbi Granat for a bar mitzvah. Granat taught me enough Hebrew to learn my bar mitzvah portion, and I had my bar mitzvah. It was very different from what you have in the US now in the sense that the only celebration was something at our house a gathering of maybe 50 people, but no dancing, no music, just something in the late afternoon to celebrate and that was that.


Well, I always identified, but I am not sure how much that added to the experience at that particular time—maybe later.

(How was being young and Jewish in a Catholic country? Was that difficult at times? Did you think about it?)

You know, I’ve come to the conclusion that as a child you mostly don’t know anything else except what you experience, and I think it was good because you understand that there are differences and you don’t develop the over-sensitivities in that area that perhaps some people may have here, particularly now that very often here in the US there’s a lot of political correctness, in the sense that people are so afraid to be offended by one thing or another. So you grow up and everybody else is Catholic and you’re Jewish and a lot of things happens that maybe give you momentarily discomfort, but that’s the way it is. I don’t think it’s anything that created any pressures in my mind.

(Do you have any distinct memories of anti-Semitism or comments that—?)

Yeah, I do, I remember little snippets and things, but only that things that sort of take you back for a moment, but nothing that created a very deep kind of sense of being disliked or unwelcome in the country. I mean, I remember going to a procession somewhere—down there they have processions for various religious holidays—and I remember hearing, “Look what the Jews did to Christ.” Or, “The Jews killed Christ.” This was before the Pope announced officially that the Jews were not at fault for the crucifixion of Jesus. So that was really important in these countries, when the Pope issued the directive, because there was that kind of undercurrent every so often. And there was a little bit of a feeling of being—“left out” is maybe too strong, but everybody else was having a First Communion and you weren’t. But later on you had a bar mitzvah.

(And how would you say overall—?)

And actually, the other thing that I remember is that you do feel a little left out because there’s some things that you don’t participate in. I mean, we would play soccer in all kinds of competitions, and of course everybody before jumping in the pool would take a little water and cross themselves, or take a little dirt from the soccer field and cross themselves, and these are are rituals that are kind of cool, especially for boys. And so you weren’t participating in that. But it not—it was almost trivial, but it was things that you observed as a young boy.

(Little things.)

Yeah.

(When did you leave Salvador for the first time for an extended amount of time?)

I left just a couple months after my bar mitzvah. My bar mitzvah was in June, and in September I was in boarding school at Putney—with your mother

(How did you feel prior to going? Were you excited about it?)

Oh, I couldn’t wait, I couldn’t wait, in part because I was the youngest and I’d seen my siblings go off, and now it was my turn. I thought it was pretty exciting. I looked forward to it.

(So you went to Putney, Vermont?)

Yeah.

(How was that adjustment? It’s quite a difference.)

Well, you know, adjusting wasn’t too hard. The first couple times when I came home, I really liked being home, so it was a little harder going back, a little lonely going back. But it wa not only was my brother there and your mother, but also Marion Liebes, so there was a little kind of familial group there. The other thing, it was just so much fun to go up and down—I mean, the plane, it was like a charter plane. Everybody went to school and came back more or less about the same time, so there were two or three or four days in January where everybody left. It was practically our plane, just a plane full of kids, thirteen to eighteen or so and it was great fun.

(Was there a part of you that felt more comfortable in one place, or was it just a totally different experience in the States and in Salvador?)

It was a completely different experience in each place. It was—I mean, it’s just two different worlds altogether.

(Were there certain things that were hard to get used to in the US that you found culturally difficult in the beginning?)

I don’t remember. I think probably being at the American school made me familiar with things I Putney being basically a working farm would be very different. As a starting freshman I ended up on the farm work job, which meant that two afternoons or so a week you’d work on the farm. So I arrived there over the weekend and by Tuesday I got to work on the farm for the first time. The first task that I was involved with was being on the assembly line of killing chickens which were to be served as meals in the dining room. It was an assembly line kind of thing, where some older student, probably junior or senior, sixteen or seventeen, got a hold of the poor chicken and axed its head off, and it got thrown into a barrel. It sort of fluttered for a while before it finally died. Our job was to make sure that it was completely clean, after others had done a preliminary cleaning. So that was different and unusual. That was also dinner a day or so later!The travel was actually very different. First of all, there were no jets. Second of all, the number of flights was far fewer.

And so what we ended up doing is, we flew from Salvador to Miami. I think often we overnighted in Miami and then went on to New York. Later on, we would go directly to New York and arrive late at night. We would overnight at the famous Salisbury Hotel and then take the train to Putney, which was another six hours or so. So it was quite a long trip, because it was much slower on the prop flights in the early years it took longer. And then the train was fun, because half or three-quarters of the school was on the train. The others came from Boston, which was a different line. Then once we got to Putney, which had a train station about as big as this room, there was a truck waiting for us. Even if it was early January, we’d just throw our bag on the truck and go up, about a ten-minute drive in the open truck, whether it was sixty degrees or ten degrees. So it was a shock in terms of leaving Salvador, that long trip, particularly in the winter, and then arriving at Putney. But I think one of my best memories of Vermont is the winter. I loved the winter there, and I still do. There’s a lot of pretty places with green grass and green trees, but in my mind I just have really good memories of Vermont in the winter, in the woods, skiing.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.

Ricardo Rosenberg: An Introduction

Featured this week is the interview of Ricardo Rosenberg, son of Margot and "Lico" Rosenberg, baby brother to Yolanda and Frank. Ricardo is married to Nancy and has two children, Carin and Adam plus a new son-in-law, Jason Levine. Ricardo and Nancy live in Bethesda, Maryland. I interviewed Ricardo in his own living room, Nancy by his side.
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(What is your earliest memory of childhood or life in Salvador?)

Well, I think the first thing that comes to mind is that we lived in a house that was basically across the way from the Salvador Del Mundo. I had the good fortune that my grandparents lived around the corner. As a result, we were always visiting, and I particularly remember that the three of us, my brother, my sister, and I, would routinely have breakfast at their house on Sunday morning. Actually, as a matter of fact---this was when we were very young, and it continued for number of years—I remember that we would have lunch there once a week, because the American school had a two-hour lunch breack. So, my brother, my sister and I would have lunch once a week at our grandparents’, and we were usually joined by your mother, Ruth. We had a great time, particularly because we all made my grandmother have laughing fits. So those are nice memories.

(This is the Liebes [maternal] grandparents?

Yes.

(How did your parents meet? Or, how did your father get to Salvador?)

My father was born in Dominican Republic but raised mostly in Germany, in Hamburg. His father was German, his mother was Dominican. He traveled frequently between the two countries when he was growing up. In the ‘30s he left Germany permanently, went to the Dominican Republic, and worked in a small town called Sanchez, which is where he was born. His job was to meet arriving ships and review the manifest and make sure that it matched up with the freight they were about to unload. This was a port town that fed goods to the capital, Santo Domingo. During the ‘30s two things happened. One is that a good road was built between the port and Santo Domingo, so the town was not as active or as prosperous as it had been in the past, and second, the Depression deepened. He was actually looking to go to Guatemala, where his brother was, and things were not panning out.

I don’t know if you know this little story, but he had already applied for a job in El Salvador with Casa Mugdan, but he then was informed that the job was taken by somebody else. That somebody else was José Baum. Apparently, José Baum was passing through on a ship, and the ship stopped in El Salvador. There weren’t any of the formalities then that we have now, and I’m not even sure you needed a visa. So José Baum got off the ship and stayed. I don’t know in those days how long the ships stayed at port. He liked Salvador, so he stayed and he took the job that my father had applied for.. Casa Mugdan was of course later on Schoening and Falkenstein. So he lost that opportunity, but he later got a job as a representative of foreign lines of business, mainly manufacturers (Gillette and Kellogs, among others) and insurance.

(Did he ever express disappointment in not living permanently in the Dominican Republic? Was there any part of him that wanted to stay there?)

You know, my first inclination is to think that my father rarely expressed disappointment. He was a very optimistic and positive person and not somebody who dwelled on what might have been and what could have been or what should have been. I think he was happy in Salvador and eventually established very profound links with the business community and became very successful as a businessman, not only in the direct activities that he had, but in outside activities: Chamber of Commerce, being on boards in different places. I’m not aware of him ever mentioning any reservations about that, no.

(So as a young child, you started at the American school immediately? Where did you go to kindergarten, the early grades?)

I guess when you get old, you remember the really insignificant factoids. And I do remember the nursery school, Echevers. It was near the old stadium, the soccer stadium, in Salvador, and I remember going there for pre-kindergarten. And then I went to kindergarten at the American school from the beginning.

(Who were some of your classmates that you keep in touch with today?)

Boris Gabay, later on Jack Davidson, Roby Salomon. In terms of staying in touch, I think that that is about it. There were others who were not in my class, but were schoolmates. I was one year behind my brother. So, one year ahead was Bobby Schoening. One year ahead of them was Edward Falkenstein. That was really the core of the friends I had, particularly later on. Then of course the Salomons, Hélène and Andrée, but they’re older. At the time you’re growing up, beyond two years difference, the age becomes just too significant. But later on we became friends.

(Right. So did you participate in any youth activities in the Jewish community? Was there a lot of—were there things going on for young people at that point?)

No.

(What was your relationship to the synagogue? Did the family attend services?)

Rarely. I think, certainly, later on for the High Holidays, but it was sporadic.

(Now, your parents were, I guess, officially a mixed marriage?)

Yeah.

(And that was—I don’t want to put words into your mouth, but I assume that was a bit complex for them at the time?)

I think it was more complex for the community, at least some members of the community.

(Did you feel a direct impact?)

No, not directly. But I later learned of incidents that clearly reflected a lack of approval by certain members of the community. My earliest memories of the community are that there were a lot of older people who emigrated during World War II to El Salvador, a lot of them were pretty Orthodox. I think I would characterize the community back then as equivalent to, in the US, Conservative leaning towards Orthodox. I’m sure you know that at least in those days women sat in the back, men in the front. It was just more Orthodox and Conservative in many ways.

The other side of the coin was that I have very good memories of my grandfather, Eugenio Liebes, participating in the life of the community. He was president of the community from early 1940s until his death in 1967. So it was some 25 years or so that he was head of the Community. I think he had a significant effect during those years. I think he was known as being a very kind and generous person. Also, I believe he was known as being a very intelligent and able person, well respected as a successful member of the business community at large and not only within the Jewish community. My memories of going to the synagogue have to do with going with him—occasionally on the spur of the moment, because maybe when I was ten or eleven or thereabouts I’d somehow find myself in town on Friday evening and in order to get a ride with him, it would involve going the synagogue on Friday evening. So those are the kind of the memories I have.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.

Lightbox

Recently, an incredible book was released publicly; "Lightbox," captures the photos and writings of girls in Kibera, Nairobi's largest slum.

Here is an overview from the organization's website: http://cfk.unc.edu

Established in 2001, Carolina for Kibera, Inc. (CFK) is a 501 (c)(3) international non-governmental organization based in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. CFK has an office and youth center in Kibera, as well as support services housed at the University Center for International Studies (UCIS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. CFK has established a youth sports program, girls' center, medical clinic, and waste management program.

Purpose

Run by Kenyans and advised by American and Kenyan volunteers, CFK's primary mission is to promote youth leadership and ethnic and gender cooperation in Kibera through sports, young women's empowerment, and community development. Additionally, CFK works to improve basic healthcare, sanitation, and education in Kibera.

Philosophy

CFK's philosophy is grounded in the concept of participatory development. Solutions to problems involving poverty are possible only if those affected by it drive development. Concerned outsiders can help by mobilizing communities, advising, networking, and providing resources. Ultimately, however, the community possesses the knowledge and motivation that are necessary to solve its own problems.

The New Jewish Media

In past postings, I introduced you to HEEB magazine as well as other Jewish media outlets. The Jewish culture boom in NYC leads to many developments in the area of media, journalism, music, museums, academia, and funding.

Today, I want to introduce you to an online magazine entitled: "Nextbook." With phenomenal daily digests on learning and living, Nextbook has become my second bible next to the ever-trusty Jon Kabat-Zinn meditation manual.

Check it out and let me know what you think at: www.nextbook.org

To Israel, with love.

It would be beyond awkward not to acknowledge the extreme and very real situation currently taking place in the Middle East. Not a politician or a student of international affairs, I do not claim to have any strategic insights.

Those individuals who you have read about on this blog: Perla, Ruth, Erich, and Werner Meissner. Judith Meissner de Assif, Ronit Meissner de Naor, Noemi Guttfreund de Segev, Eric Bymel, Inge and Carlitos Bernhard.....all are in Israel. They send us emails, sometimes layered with a humor that is characteristically Israeli--dry, real, survivor-like. Their children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins....many are in the army. Young people are fighting these battles--very young people. It is my hope that all can be resolved efficiently, quickly, and without great casualties.

In the meantime, we are thinking of you all. and we admire your spirit.....

Anniversary of AMIA Bombing

Twelve years ago today, the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires was bombed killing 85 and wounding more than 300. In the days after the attack, Israel sent Mossad agents to investigate the attack. Hezbollah was suspected and later a Lebanese terrorist organization, "Partisans of God," claimed responsibility. In the meantime, this claim has been discounted. In 2004, all those in connection with the attack were pronounced "not guilty." No one has yet to be punished for the act.

The following article (in Spanish) features words from President Kirchner of Argentina. For more information in English, check out the American Jewish Committee's website at: www.ajc.org
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De: Clarin.com

Clarin.com 19 de Julio de 2006


Kirchner replicó con dureza a los familiares que lo criticaron en el acto

Les pidió "autocrítica y humildad". Afirmó que la causa por el atentado a la mutual "estuvo entretenida durante años en un juicio que, como les había advertido Cristina, nunca iba a llegar a la verdad". Y puntualizó: "Ellos quisieron seguir con ese proceso". Ayer, en el acto a 12 años del ataque, le reclamaron avances en la investigación.

"Me cayeron lágrimas ayer", dijo en algún momento. Y la reacción que mostró hoy dejó claro que le había afectado hasta el punto de ajustarse el traje de pelea dialéctica que suele usar. El presidente Néstor Kirchner respondió con dureza a los cuestionamientos de familiares de víctimas de la AMIA. Un día después del acto por los 12 años del atentado, criticó la posición de las autoridades judías durante los comienzos de la investigación, durante el menemismo, y los lazos con el destituido juez Juan José Galeano. Y lanzó: "No me ato las manos ante ninguna impunidad".

"Los argentinos deben saber, todos, que la causa de la AMIA estuvo muchos años entretenida con un juicio", dijo en referencia al proceso contra la llamada "conexión local" del ataque terrorista, en el que no se encontraron culpables.

Luego aludió a la postura de la primera dama: "Cristina dijo que ese juicio era para entretener y no para llegar a la verdad. Ellos (por la comunidad judía) no escucharon lo que Cristina decía en la comisión bicameral. Los que siguieron ese juicio, el querer seguir con ese juicio sirvió para entretener, para que pase el tiempo y se tapen las pruebas". La senadora siempre fue una de las voces más críticas contra Galeano en esa comisión de seguimiento.

Ayer, en Pasteur al 600, donde se encontraba la sede de la AMIA hasta el fatídico 18 de julio de 1994, el más duro con Kirchner fue el representante de los familiares de víctimas Luis Czyzcewsky, quien perdió a su hija de 21 años en el atentado.

Czyzcewsky tomó una parte del discurso del Presidente del último 25 de Mayo: "Usted dijo que recuperamos el valor de la memoria y de la justicia. Nosotros queremos corregirlo. Si fuera como usted dice no estaríamos hablando de impunidad y falta de esclarecimiento", le espetó a distancia. Kirchner estaba en esos momentos momento en Paraguay , en una reunión con su par Nicanor Duarte Frutos. Fue la primera vez que ni él ni Cristina estuvieron en un acto del 18 de julio desde su asunción.

Esta mañana, durante un acto en Béccar, Kirchner respondió crudamente: "Me duele, yo dije eso y es cierto, pero llegar a la justicia a fondo después de 30 años de impunidad y 14 años de impunidad (por el atentado a la Embajada de Israel, en 1992) es difícil".

"Estoy tratando de ayudar a las Abuelas, estamos tratando de que haya justicia y se condenen a los que son terroristas de Estado. No soy mandrake, soy un tipo honesto y les puedo decir de corazón que no me ato las manos ante ninguna impunidad", descargó el Presidente. Fue en la Avenida Centenario, al inaugurar un paso bajo nivel de las vías del ex Ferrocarril Mitre.

Pero como suele suceder en las apariciones de Kirchner, el motivo original del acto quedó tapado por definiciones políticas que agitan aguas y plantean interrogantes sobre cómo será de aquí en más la relación, hasta ahora moderadamente buena, del Gobierno con la conducción judía. Entonces en su discurso se dedicó a dar cuenta de lo que, a su entender, habían sido errores de la conducción judía que contribuyeron a los 14 años de impunidad en el caso de la Embajada y los 12 en el caso de la mutual judía. "Yo no participé en ningún contubernio de (el ex titular de DAIA Rubén) Beraja con el menemismo. Ahí se encargaron de tapar pruebas y no participé", sentenció marcando diferencias.

El Presidente señala reiteradamente las que hay entre su gestión y lo que realizó el menemismo alrededor del caso AMIA. Aunque también es verdad que hay al menos un punto de contacto: el hoy ministro de Justicia, Alberto Iribarne, era secretario del Interior en el Ministerio que conducía Carlos Ruckauf cuando estalló la bomba. Y fue uno de los primeros funcionarios en enfrentar a la prensa en esa mañana aciaga.

Kirchner también resaltó las medidas que había tomado desde su llegada al poder. La eliminación del secreto de Estado para funcionarios que fueron convocados a declarar y la apertura de los archivos de la SIDE tuvieron un lugar destacado en el recuento. "Abrimos el Estado de par en par", fue la conclusión.

"Les pido humildad, solidaridad. Y le digo al pueblo que acepto con caridad cristiana críticas que considero injustas. No puedo encontrar lo que pasó totalmente hace 30 años como no lo podemos hacer ahora, porque se trabajó para borrar las pruebas. Dejemos de imputar a los que no tenemos y vayamos a las cuevas a buscar a los que tienen responsabilidad", concluyó.

Back in Full Effect

Dear Readers,
I am back after a brief vacation and wanted to update you on the latest happenings.

First of all, my work with the oral testimonies of the Jewish community continues and I am doing my best to locate additional funding to create an interactive website as well as finalize the community's electronic archival plan. I also hope to broadcast some of these brilliant testimonies via public radio here in the United States. That remains to be seen and any/all developments will be posted on the blog.

In the meantime, I will continue to contribute daily writings on this site and look forward to starting up communications with all of you again.

Hasta...

On Vacation: July 10-14th

Dear Readers,

I will be traveling from July 10-14th with limited access to the internet. I will be back posting and writing come Monday, July 17th.

Until then!
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Queridos Lectores,

Estare viajando entre el 10 de julio hasta el dia 14 con minimo aceso al internet. Favor de visitar el sitio cuando regrese el dia lunes 17 de julio.

Hasta pronto!

Being Jewish Abroad

In this final excerpt, I ask Paul if and how his Jewish identity changes each time he gets off the plane.
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(You belong to a Jewish congregation in Dallas and you belong to a Jewish congregation here. What are the differences that you feel or see or observe between the two places?)

Perhaps the most glaring difference is that in Dallas there are several congregations, and so one can pick and choose if they’re Reformed, Conservative, or Orthodox. You can pick and choose which congregation is most suitable to you. And then you can break it down into other choices. Do I want a smaller congregation, a bigger congregation? Is it closer to my house, not closer to my house? There’s other little things you can get very picky about. In Salvador, we have one congregation and a group of people that are a blend of Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox. There’s a choice: do we want to get along or do we not want to get along with our different personalities and religious needs? Gratefully, this congregation has decided that we’ll embrace everybody. “Just come to services. Do what you want. Do what you can. Just be part of the congregation.” And it works, because we all understand that all we have is each other.

(So you feel like an integral member of the Jewish community here?)

Oh, yes, yes. I always have. I was fortunate in that I came into a community where my father-in-law was a very active and beloved member. But I see that anyone that comes into the Jewish community that doesn’t know anybody is very much welcome. So it wasn’t because I had the happy accident of having my father-in-law being one of the old-timers here for the reason that I was feeling so well accepted. Everybody’s well accepted here, and that’s a very nice thing.

(What do you think of the conversion trend that’s happening right now in this Jewish community?)

Ruth and I happen to belong to a synagogue in Dallas whereby the rabbi welcomed and taught those in the community that didn’t feel very comfortable with the idea, he welcomed people who wanted to become Jewish. Never campaigned for people to become Jewish. But those that made a studied decision, conscious decision to want to throw in their lot as a Jew in a world where sometimes it’s not the handiest thing to be, he gave them all the help he could. And they became integral members of our community, sometimes even more involved religiously and more learned religiously than many who were born Jewish and just know how to eat bagels and lox. And they consider themselves Jewish.

Here, this community has a different personality. We wouldn’t be a community if we didn’t accept the converted Jews. I understand that during the war, if it wasn’t for the noble efforts of the converted Jews, we wouldn’t have even the Torahs that we have today. We wouldn’t have the community that we have today. And I have found that people who convert to Judaism find it more meaningful than many who are born Jewish and just take it for granted. So I don’t see any reason why any community would not accept its converted Jews.

(Any final words, anything else you’d like to add, any questions I haven’t asked or stories you’d like to tell?)

Probably just to add a little bit more color to what we’ve discussed before, our kids, when they come back for the few weeks they can spend each year here, and they try to spend part of their vacation each year here in Salvador, they bring their kids, our grandkids, and they throw them into the activities at the synagogue. They feel very much at home here, very much at home. In fact, our little grandson from San Diego, Joel, he was telling his mom last week that one of the reasons he likes Salvador is because he has so much family here. Sandra, his mom, asked, “We do? Who is your family there?” And he mentioned Ruth and I, mentioned the cook and her helper, he mentioned the people he comes into contact with from the Jewish community. This is part of his family. That’s a beautiful thing. He comes into Salvador and he feels very much at home. Still has a lot to learn with Spanish, but you know, you can say an awful lot without words. The heart can read an awful lot more—especially the heart of a child can read an awful lot more than we can.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Raising Salvadoran-Americans.

Three young children in El Salvador? An agrarian reform? What about the Civil War? Paul discusses these issues below.
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(So your three children are born here. They go to school here. Was it ever a concern to you that they weren’t in the States, that there were having such a different childhood?)

Actually, I was very happy that they were here. Because a lot of the values that I disliked in the States, such as the overimportance given to tests in schools in the States, the dependence on having things as opposed to development of the mind, and the quality of the education was always first in my thoughts. Because the education the kids were getting here was far superior to what was being given in the public schools at that same time in the States. I was from New York originally, and the New York public school system was excellent. But given even that, the quality and the level of education at the American school was superior. If there were any children with special needs here in Salvador, they were not pushed to the side because of the number of children that had to be taken care of. The number of kids in the classroom was very good. The teacher-student ratio was excellent. Our kids weren’t numbers. And they weren’t taking care of our kids any different than they were anybody else’s kids. It was just a very nice, personal, caring and—I thought it was a big plus coming to the American school here.

(Did you speak English with your kids?)

We spoke English most of the time at home. We might go into Spanglish occasionally. They got their Spanish, which is much better than mine, from school and from our cook. That’s where they spoke most of their Spanish.

(So what happened fifteen years after you arrived to make you have to leave the country?)

There was agrarian reform put into place here. The farm was sold to the government and I no longer had anything to keep me here. I didn’t have a job. I needed to earn a living. I had three children, and I realized that I had not worked in what I was trained to do for fifteen years in the States. And I imagined things had changed more than a little bit, and I guessed that it would take me a good three months to find a job. And having three kids and having to find where to live, the States is kind of big. My first impulse was to go back to New York, where I knew people. But then I began to think, where would it be more effective to go back? And I started doing some research at the consulate. In those days you go could into the consulate and use the library. So I found that the three places that had the best economic opportunities, the best growth pattern at that point were Denver, Colorado, Houston, Texas, and Dallas, Texas. That was in 1978.

And since Ruth’s sister was living in Dallas, Texas and we knew some people because Ruth had gone to SMU, which is in Dallas, we thought we would try there first. She came up—Ruth came up with Lisa to look for a house, spent about a week or so and came back with a house that she liked and she asked me to go up and take a look at it and if I liked it, to go ahead and put a deposit on it. She liked it because it had certain characteristics that we look for. It had all the bedrooms on one side that could be locked, still thinking of our life here in Salvador. It also had some tropical plants and it had a banana tree growing in the back yard.

So I came up and looked at it and it also was about six blocks away from where her sister Susie was living. So I thought, “This looks as good as any.” And we didn’t have a lot of time to think about it. So we put a deposit on that house. And while I was up there, during that brief, four-five day visit, thanks to a friend of Susie’s, I was able to have an interview arranged with the owner of an advertising agency in Dallas, ostensibly to see what was going on in advertising in that day and age, just to get some orientation. He promised me that he only had a half hour, but he’d give me a half hour free. I wound up speaking to him for close to two hours, and when I walked out he offered me the job of production manager of the agency. I said, “I’m really overwhelmed, didn’t expect a job offer from this. But I am committed at least for three more months in Salvador, because we’re closing up our affairs there, and I’m committed to my current boss.” I said, “If you’ll allow me to call him tonight and answer you tomorrow—” ‘cause he needed my—this advertising agency, he needed me at the beginning of the month, which was August 1978, and that was about three weeks away, and I couldn’t commit to it until I spoke to Ruth’s dad. And when I spoke with him and told him what the problem was, he said, “You’re relieved of any responsibility. If you need to be there on the 1st of August, be there.” And so it was.

That left poor Ruth to close the house down, this house, and to make any arrangements that needed to be made to bring the kids up here. She came August 18th with the three kids to our new home in Dallas. And during that time, I had started working. I had purchased the beds and had them installed in the bedrooms. We didn’t have a dining room table yet. We didn’t have a dinette table. We were eating off cardboard boxes. I was waiting for Ruth to come to pick out what she wanted. That’s how we started our adventure. We ate on suitcases for the first few days, (laughs) but we did it together. And we managed.

(You mentioned the agrarian reform, but the war was also really—the civil war had begun at that point.)

Right. And one of the things we did discuss was that we have three young kids. Our oldest then, Lisa, was eleven or twelve, and we had the two younger ones that were seven and five, respectively. And I told Ruth that, “If we want to stick around and see if we can find something to do here, that’s great. But we have three kids that we have a responsibility to be around for and to raise, and I think we’re better off going to the States.” So we decided to go to the States, at least until things calmed down, and we stayed fifteen years. No, I’m sorry, we stayed from ’78 until right now that we started spending more time here.

(So your kids, how did they adjust to the transition?)

They cried for about a year. They left everything. They left life as they knew it behind in Salvador. It was a tough time for them. They made a miraculous adjustment. Salvador’s still their home, and they consider it such. When they come back to this house and spend time here with us, you can see their minds reverting back to when they were kids here. And now they’re bringing their kids here. And the cook that we had, who’s not really the cook, she’s a member of the family at this point, she began with us when our oldest, Lisa, was just an infant, and she’s still here. She raised all of our kids. She lost fifteen pounds after we left. She never stopped letting us know that we took her kids away from her. She feels very maternal towards them. And it still moves me a lot when I think about it.

(Amazing. So you moved to Dallas. What did you miss the most from Salvador when you moved?)

I missed the people. From the first day that I was here, the people as they are always made me feel at home here. There wasn’t a day that I felt as a stranger here, not a day. The Salvadoran is a very different person, a very friendly person, from people in the States. We have many friends in the States, and it takes a while to have them warm up to you. But in Salvador, it’s immediate. People wear their emotions on their sleeves. They can’t do enough for you. Friendship means something much different here in Salvador. Friendship in the States in many cases means acquaintance, while here friendship has a much deeper meaning.

(OK. Tell me—now, when the land was being sold, was forcibly sold, did Don Chepe really want to sell the hacienda?)

If the agrarian reform had never happened, I’m sure the property would still be in the hands of the family. There were too many emotional ties to that land that this family could never have thought of selling it. It was a very emotional thing. Ruth grew up on the farm. Almost before she learned to walk, she was getting up at 4 or 5 in the morning and out with the cowboys on horseback, helping round up the cattle. It’s in her blood. Her sisters, I’m sure, feel the same way. Our kids—we recently went back, this year, and our kids, from the moment they got into the car to leave this house and go towards the farm, they were in tears, and that goes for my son and my two daughters. The fellow who was head of the dairy, he appointed himself as our guide. He was just—he just stepped down from being the mayor of the little town next to the farm. But he insisted on taking us around Talcualhuya. People there still remembered Ruth, remembered our kids, remembered me, and they came out. The tears were flowing on all sides. Hugs, tears, it was just a wonderful—a draining, but a very wonderful day.

(And is it still a working farm?)

No—parts of it. It’s not the same property it used to be. It was sectioned off as a cooperative, and it was given as parcels. Unfortunately, they gave them their piece of land with a mortgage. Very few of them understood what a mortgage was and the obligations that come with it, so they didn’t keep up with their payments. Some of them perhaps knew how to pay for their farm and keep it going, but others didn’t know that they had to keep planting corn and use the profits from the corn or whatever they wanted to plant to keep that property. So they lost it. And it was given back to whatever bank was holding the letters, and other people came in and bought those letters. So the property is in parcels. There are many owners of that property now. Now a large company’s been buying parts of it up, and they’re planting vegetables for export.

(I have sort of a more general question about you growing up in the States, especially in the urban United States, and coming here and seeing the abject poverty of El Salvador, yet the life of the middle class and the upper middle class and the upper class is totally different. Was that hard to adjust to at first?)

It’s always hard to adjust to. I don’t know that I’ve ever adjusted to it. Since coming here, I’ve recognized that for the lower class to build itself up, it needs jobs. I’ve never seen a more industrious group of people as the Salvadorans were when I first came here. Unfortunately now, since there has not been jobs for them, the best have figured out how to leave and find the jobs where they are, which is in the States. Many have entered as illegal aliens. I really don’t know how many countries there are that can say that a quarter of its population is living in another country, and most of them illegally. If I can get a little political now, the same US government that complains about people illegally coming into the States is forgetting the fact that by forcing agrarian reform on the agro-industrials of El Salvador, the farmers had no place to work. The property that we had, that produced five thousand bottles of milk a day and sent this top-quality milk to the capital city, within a year’s time, all the dairy cattle that we had was either eaten, stolen, or sold for some other use. That property doesn’t produce a drop of milk today. The property that was producing raw sugar from its own sugar and had its own sugar mill, had its sugar mill work only two weeks after the sale of the farm, and never worked again. And when you go to that property today, the only sign that there was ever a sugar mill there are some of the concrete bases that are still there from the heavy machinery that we had. And you have to look for them because they’re so overgrown with the weeds that grow around it. It’s very sad to see. And that’s just our property. Multiply that by the number of properties that went to agrarian reform. Just take the number of people that used to have employment from us, and think about where they’re finding employment today. No provision was made for this, so what can the US government say about these people coming to the States? Either they should help finance new industry here, or they should repair their immigration law. I’m not the one to tell them what to do, but one or the other has to be done, or maybe a little bit of both, just in the spirit of fairness.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.

Onward to the hacienda...

In this third excerpt, Paul remembers his years as a newlywed and his new,challenging job as a rancher.
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We were engaged in a year. I was in service and I was in the group that was sent to Georgia during the Cuban missile crisis. So we corresponded from Georgia. I was there just a short time, about a month, a month and a half. I was stationed at Fort Steward in Georgia. Once the crisis was settled, I was moved back to Texas, where I was at Fort Hood. But I was amazed that a whole division of over 17,000 men and all the tanks, trucks files and everything including the personnel were actually moved in seventy-two hours from Texas to Georgia. It was amazing. We had trained to do that, and we were called a STRAC unit, Strategic Army Command. But we had never done it before, and to my surprise we actually did it. All the troops went by chartered plane. It was amazing.

(You just stayed in Georgia? You never had to fly to Cuba?)

We never had to—the expression is, “the balloon going up.” If the balloon had gone up, we would have gone immediately. We imagined, but we were never told for sure, that the battalion guarding the equipment at the dock twenty-four hours a day would be required to be the first to board the first boat headed for Cuba the moment the balloon went up. So we never knew what the pick of the lottery had in store for us. We could have been the first or last to attack. We had no idea. We spent about five or six weeks engaged in extreme amphibious training, and to all of our surprise, we weren’t scared about going to war. We were kept so busy, and it was a matter-of-fact thing that I didn’t feel nervous. But I know I never smoked more than I did during those weeks in Georgia. I was smoking cigars at that point, and I was chain-smoking them, one after the other. And of course when the emergency was over, that came to an end. So I guess my nervousness showed itself in that way.

(So after this Cuban missile—after Georgia, you returned to Texas?)

Right.

(And then what took place?)

I discovered a little-known law that if you go back to college and the school term begins three months before your effective release from the military, then they can’t hold you back as long as you show proof that you are a matriculated student in a bone fide university. So on my leave, I went ahead and reregistered at the college I was attending, which was City College of New York, and brought back the documentation, and my company commander swore at me, in a friendly way, and said, “Dammit, Feldman! How’d you find out about this?” Because they don’t give this law any publicity. I was released three months—better said, after twenty-one months instead of the twenty-four months. And then, to my great luck, since Ruth and I married right after that and came to live in El Salvador, because I lived more than sixty miles away from any active reserve unit, my four-year active reserve obligation was nullified, and I got my good conduct release after only twenty-one months of active service.

(Now, before you married Ruth, was it understood that you would go to Salvador?)

No, no. We had talked about it, and her father had put the bee in my bonnet about it, but I hadn’t really considered it to be something I was going to do. I wanted to think about it, discuss it with my family. I didn’t speak Spanish but to me it would have been a grand adventure. And when I saw that my parents were of a mind to—well, they tried to make me feel that it was OK. They said, “If that’s what you want to do, go ahead and do it.” And so I thought long and hard about it and ultimately decided to give it a try. I was very foolish becauseI told Ruth’s dad, “I’ll give it a three months’ try.” And when I got here, I realized that you can’t give something as comprehensive and important as this, a three-months’ try. So I immediately told him, “Let’s be more sensible. Let’s make it a two-year try.” And we never discussed it again. (laughs) And I wound up being here fifteen years.

(Did you get married in the States or in Salvador?)

We came down here to marry.

(And your parents came as well?)

My parents came, and one of my brothers and his wife were able to come.

(And what did they think?)

Oh, I don’t know anyone that’s ever come to Salvador that hasn’t loved it. My parents through the years made many trips down here. They were here for the births of all of our children and they just loved it. As I always have.

(Could they communicate with Ruth’s parents?)

Ruth’s dad spoke a little bit more English than her mom , but they communicated as machetunim do. Speaking about the kids and about their hopes and dreams for us.

(So here you are, you’re newlyweds and you’ve moved here. What does your life look like?)

I was tossed right into work as soon as I got here. I was working in the hardware section of the company. We had Central Ferretera. Also on the weekends I was working on what the family called the farm. I had heard about the farm before leaving the States, and my mental picture of the farm was a few acres and a few things being planted. I had no idea that it was a hacienda the size of Talcualhuya, which was about fifteen square kilometers and was a major, major responsibility. So I was out there every weekend. Free weekends didn’t exist. And I had—the whole time that I was here was a learning process. I don’t think I ever stopped learning. For a kid from the Bronx, I really loved being out there. I loved the out of doors. I loved the people. The people always made me feel at home from the word go. I just loved being on—riding around on the Jeep and on horseback and learning about all the things that we did there, being part of it. It was really an adventure.

(Just for the record, Talcualhuya is T-a-l-c—)

—u-a-l-h-u-y-a. Talcualhuya. (laughs)

(I wanted to make sure we get that spelling correct.)

And it means, “Those who eat dirt.”

(In Nahuat)

I’m not sure what the correct name of the native tongue is, but apparently the land where Talcualhuya is located was very sacred for ceremonies of that Mayan group, and they would come from all over Central America to meet there. I don’t know how much of the earth they would be required to eat, but they did eat some of it as part of their ceremony. That’s where the name Talcualhuya came from. And that’s why, over the years, when we would make land usable by removing brush and boulders to make it ready for planting or pasture land, by just lifting the top layer of the land, we would find many Mayan artifacts that often dated back hundreds and hundreds of years. The Mayan custom back then was to come from all over Central America and bury all their clay utensils and make new ones. We uncovered so many beautiful small, big, medium-sized pieces, and the tools they used to work with leather and other things. We found little jade tools that still had their sharp edge on them after having been buried for so long.

(So what type of work did you do at Talcualhuya?)

It was a lot of learning. I helped in supervising the work in the cane fields, the handling of the cattle and all of the daily operations of a large industrial farm. We would plant corn and beans, mostly to feed the people. We had sometimes twelve hundred people on the payroll during the sugar season. We had a sugar mill on the property that we ran ourselves. It processed all of our sugar cane into crude sugar that we would ship off to the local refinery. At that time Salvador had a refinery, and we were members of the cooperative that ran it. We also had bees. Believe it or not, our little farm was the largest exporter of bee honey to Germany for many of the years that we were processing honey. And we also had—we were milking by hand twice daily between 450 and 500 head of cattle. Each cow had her own name and responded to it when her turn came and was called in to be milked. Every cow had her favorite milker and would respond to her name when called. It was amazing for this city kid to see all this.

(What kind of names did they give them?)

Gloria, Francesca—women’s names, typical women’s names. (laughs)

(And did you have a cow that you milked?)

I learned how to milk. Not as good as the milkers. I didn’t do any of the milking. I would receive the milk every afternoon. I was at the dairy at three when the milking began and we had this list that we used to show the cows production for the last two weeks. So I would quickly look up the name of the cow that was being milked when the milk was brought to the scale. If the milk production was below the cows average of what she was doing in that two-week period, I’d send the milker back telling him, “No, we need another two pounds. We need another pound at least.” We were able to keep a pretty good control that way.

(How many people worked at that ___?)

We had close to 50 people working full time in the dairy. During the sugar gathering season and the time when the mill was running, we’d have about twelve hundred people. It was a payroll paid by hand, with cash. There were no branch banks back then, so the money had to be divided up from cash that we’d bring in from the capital city of San Salvador and placed into their envelopes, for each and every employee.

(And did they live on the property?)

Most people did. They had homes that were built for them. We had a very elaborate irrigation system that was built by Ruth’s dad from bricks made on the farm. It was a very self-sufficient property. It was an amazing thing. To be able to milk five hundred lactating cows, we had to have about fifteen hundred head of cattle, being fed all the time, being herded, being put out to graze so that they could come into the lactation cycle. It was a large responsibility. We made all of our own food concentrate for the cattle. Truckloads of ingredients were brought in, and blended with the ingredients we would produce ourselves. Then we would mix it ourselves with molasses from our own sugar mill. Again, we were very self-sufficient.

(And how long did this go on? You were working in the hardware store and on the weekends at the hacienda?)

Right.

(So this went on for—?)

All the time I was here. Fifteen years.

(Fifteen years?)

Until we sold our share of the store to one of our partners in 1975. At that point my life changed and I became an exclusive farm worker. I’d leave for the farm on Monday morning and sometimes remain for five or six days.. so our life, Ruth’s and mine, turned topsy-turvy. I wouldn’t see the kids or Ruth for sometimes four or five days at a time. And during the sugar season, I was out there twelve days straight sometimes. I’d come in only to bring in my laundry and then go back out. And Ruth would come with the kids on the weekends. They had a beautiful life on the farm.

(Can you tell me about it a little?)

I’ll do my best. ‘Cause I wasn’t able to spend time with them when they were at the farm. What I would love to do with them was while going out on horseback to inspect the work, I’d sometimes take a pillow and put it in front of me on the saddle and put one of the kids, when they were small enough, in front of me, and we would ride together. When they got bigger, they would have their own horses and they’d ride alongside me. And since we didn’t go very fast and we had very tame horses for them, we felt confident that they wouldn’t have any trouble being on the horse by themselves. I would imagine for them it was a wonderful childhood, being on horseback, going through this beautiful property, manzana [?] after manzana of beautiful sugar fields and in season corn fields and bean fields and seeing all the operations, seeing the soil being tilled, seeing the people working, seeing the people having their lunch and having their breakfast.

In the morning on the farm, we’d have something like, just during the regular season, six hundred people lined up, each with their chengas, that’s what we called them, these very large tortillas covered with beans and cheese and salt, and they would eat the three tortillas beginning with the one on the bottom. By the time they got to the top they would have eaten all the beans and the other food with it. They ate breakfast before leaving for their assigned work and we would send lunch to where they were working in the fields We had a complete kitchen that prepared this food. There were three large vats cooking beans. With women working full-time making close to two thousand of these large tortillas for breakfast and the same amount for lunch. All of these were made by hand. That’s a lot of corn used daily and all of it was planted on the farm. It was incredible. When I think about it today, I really wonder how we did all that, with the primitive means we had at hand. When I think about Ruth’s dad having come here and starting all this, I’m just amazed. What tremendous capacities this guy had!

(And did he treat—how was the relationship with him? He was quite a personality in the sense that he was a huge—a very important man, not only in the Jewish community, but in El Salvador as a whole, very, very respected.)

He was very respected, and rightfully so. I’ve often said he was probably the most intelligent man I’ve ever been able to get close to. And I guess because of that, he had a very demanding, very difficult personality. Sometimes it was a joy to work with him, and other times it was very hard because he had such a very strong personality. Sometimes it was hard to get through to him.

(But all in all you would say it was a positive relationship?)

I would say so. I learned a lot from him, gained a lot working with him, and I hope I adopted a lot of his working habits, because he did so many things right.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.

The Salvadoran Sabra

In this second excerpt, Paul Feldman remembers his first months as a solider and his first encounters with anti-semitism. Most importantly, he reveals his first impressions of his future wife Ruth Baum---the woman who would introduce him to El Salvador.
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(So tell me about the army. When were you drafted?)

I was drafted during the Berlin crisis of 1961. I thought they’d help me make my first trip to Europe. It didn’t happen, because I was sent to Texas. Instead of meeting the Europeans, I met my wife. Which was a better deal. (laughs)

(How was the army? How was the experience?)

Uh, you know, I dreaded the army. I dreaded it because I don’t like all the vaccinations. I didn’t like the idea of losing control of what I was going to do and when. But I decided to make it a positive experience and try and get something out of it rather than just be complainer. So I turned it into a positive, and I learned a lot in the army. A lot of my free time was spent in the post dark room developing the photos I would take during the day. That was where my involvement in photography and film production began.
I became a soldier, and I was thrown amongst people from all walks of life and all educational levels. Some people had never worn shoes before coming in the army, which is almost impossible to think of in today’s world. But they were wearing their first pairs of shoes. Some had never been to the dentist. Many would come back from a call to the dentist with nine teeth having been being pulled out because their teeth had been so rotted.

So I really learned to appreciate all kinds of people for themselves, because I was living with them and I was seeing that they were from all walks of life with all levels of education and preparation, but most of them were decent folks. I got to really enjoy people for themselves.

(How did people react to you?)

There were some sergeants who loved to fool around with me and pick on me because I had a college background. They’d always say, “Oh, here comes the college boy!” But for the most part, with the other soldiers and everybody, I got along just fine. It was a broadening experience for me, and I learned that I could do certain physical things that I had never even thought of doing, and I could hold my own. Things I had never even thought of trying, and I thought, “Well, I can do this if I try,” and I did it.

(Were there other Jews in your company?)

There were about two other Jews in my particular company. They didn’t go to services. Pardon me, there were three, because there was one that I didn’t know was Jewish who revealed himself to me in a very private way after about a year after having been together in the same company. Shall I tell you about the experience with him?

He stopped me one day. We had never spoken. He was a fellow I knew that was from Hungary. Never thought of religion concerning him. He stopped me and said, “Feldman, do you mind if I ask you where you go on Friday nights? You go some place every Friday.” I said, “Well, I go to chapel every Friday night. I’m Jewish.” And he said, “If I tell you something, will you keep it to yourself? I just feel like I want to tell you.” And I said, “Well, sure.” And he said, “I’m Jewish. But we have suffered so much because we’re Jewish, my mother and I, that I never tell anybody.” And he told me about his life as a student in Hungary, first under the Nazis and then under the Russians, and it was not pleasant being Jewish. So, they suffered a lot, and they decided to not identify Jews any more.

They fled Hungary during the 1961 student uprising. He was involved in the student demonstrations, the anti-Russian demonstrations of 1961, and he had to escape or he would have been arrested. He and his mother escaped and they somehow found their way to the States. And as soon as he got to the States, he was drafted. We found ourselves in the same company. I tried to convince him that, “You’re living in the States now. You don’t have to worry about being Jewish. Why don’t you join me at chapel? I’ll take you with me.” I could never, never get him to feel comfortable enough to go to services. But he used to seek me out just to be with me. And I never told anybody his secret, until now.

(And what about anti-Semitism in the army?)

I didn’t feel that people were down on me because I was Jewish, but people who didn’t understand what being Jewish was would come to me occasionally. I had a sergeant who I had never spoken to before, but he stopped me in the company area one day and he asked me would I tell him what our secret is. And I didn’t know what he was talking about. So I asked him, “What secret are you talking about?” And he said, “Well, how do you guys make money?” And I thought a second, and I said, “Well, the reason we have money sometimes and some other people don’t is because some of us try to spend less than what we earn and we try to save some. But I don’t think that’s a trait that all Jewish people have. But if people do have more money than others, it’s because they try and spend less.” And he thought that was quite a concept. Never thought of it. (laughs)

I did have one guy that bothered me in the company area. Again, I didn’t him. We weren’t friends, I had nothing to do with him. He discovered that I was Jewish and he would yell across the company area every time we’d pass each other, “Hi, Feldman, the Jew.” That bothered me but I decided to ignore it. I expected and hoped that it would pass, but it went on for months, every time I saw him. And it was maybe two or three times a week that we’d pass each other. He’d say to me, “Hi, Feldman, the Jew” or “There goes Feldman the Jew.” I kept ignoring it and ignoring it, till one day, to my surprise, I snapped. I was walking with some friends and he yelled it again across the company area, “Hi, Feldman, the Jew.” And I just ran up to him and I pushed him up against the barracks wall and I grabbed him by the shirt here, and I told him, “I didn’t hear what you said. Would you please repeat it to me, and when you do it’ll be the last time that you say any words between those teeth?” And he said to me, “Gee, I didn’t know it bothered you.” And I said, “It bothers me.” And he apologized and just walked off, like every bully does. He was much bigger than me and could have easily beaten me under normal circumstances. But my strength at that moment and the fact that I even did it, surprised me because I’m not a physical person. I was really surprised. And he never bothered me again.

(Great story. Tell me how you met your wife.)

I was in Dallas a few weeks before the High Holidays and I saw that there was a B’nai Brith Southwest chapter dinner. And wanting to be around Jewish people, so I walked into the Hilton Hotel and there was the sign announcing the dinner. I walked up to the receiving desk. I had my uniform on that day and asked, “Do you have anybody from Dallas here? I’d like to meet them.” They asked me what I was doing there and I told them. They made me feel at home and sat me down at the table of the Dallas representatives. And in that group was a young couple who asked me what I was doing for the High Holidays, a few weeks away. They insisted that I be their house guest and bring a friend to spend the holidays with them and their family. And I said I couldn’t impose and tried to politely refuse, but they insisted. So I was their house guest, along with a friend.

The very first night of Rosh Hashanah, I saw this young fellow walking in with two attractive young ladies, Esther Miller and Ruth Baum. That night Ruth and I said hello and never said goodbye. This couple, the Radoffs, were very nice. They knew Ruth and I were interested in each other, and invited Ruth to join ther family for lunch at their home.

(And what did you think of this girl? I mean, she really came from a different background.)

I saw her olive colored skin to me she was a sabra. I thought that was terribly exciting, because I was always very pro-Israel, and I thought, “God, a sabra!”

(So Ruth looked like a sabra.)

Yes. And I resisted the temptation to ask her what part of Israel El Salvador was in. I never asked her that. (laughs)

(But when she said she was from El Salvador, what did you think?)

I thought, quickly, where on earth is El Salvador? I thought of San Salvador. I honestly had not heard of the country before.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.

Paul Feldman: An Introduction

Paul Feldman was born and raised in New York, the Bronx to be exact. A member of the armed services as a young man, Paul met his future wife Ruth in uniform....literally. In this first excerpt, Paul remembers his childhood.
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My name is Clarence Paul Feldman. F-e-l-d-m-a-n. People leave the D out quite often. I was born in the Bronx, New York, August 20th, 1938. I was born with the last name Ballin, and my father passed away from a coronary thrombosis at the age of 43 when I was four and a half. Mother remarried when I was just about to turn ten, and the very nice gentleman that became my new father was named Nash Feldman, who adopted me and my name became Feldman after that.

(Did they have children together, the Feldmans?)

Both of them had been beyond their childbearing years, but they came into the marriage, both of them, with two sons. So we became a family of four brothers, and we were close from the beginning. We are still close today, although we are only three right now, since my brother Bert passed away about eight or nine years ago, a victim of lung cancer. But the three of us are very close even though we live distant from each other.

(Tell me, where were your parents born?)

Samuel, my biological dad, was born in Georgia, Russia, just before 1900. And my mother was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Her mother came from a farm community in Hungary, where my grandfather was a teacher.

(Did you grow up in a particularly religious home?)

I was 41/2 when my father Samuel passed away but I still cherish a few of the memories I have of him. Some memories include sitting in synagogue with him on wooden folding chairs during the high holidays. I don’t know that he was particularly religious to the point of going weekly to services. But I know that our Jewishness was always important to my brother Morty and my mother.

(Did you live in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood?)

I lived in New York City. (laughs)

(Did you live in the Bronx?)

I lived in the Bronx.

(What part of the Bronx?)

I lived in the part of the Bronx that was crossed by the Fordham Road and Jerome Avenue, very close to NYU’s Hall of Fame. And then when I was almost 10, Mom and my second dad, Nash Feldman were married and the six of us moved to Queens, New York settling into a 3 story home in the town of St. Alban’s.

(Very familiar place. Right on the Long Island railroad.)

That’s right, yes.

(Very convenient. Can you describe your home as a child? What do you remember, everything from sounds and smells to what it was like being eventually one of four boys?)

I loved being part of our instant family of four boys. Up to that point, because my older brother was away at college when I was between the ages of five to nine and a half, and my Mom was working. So I was pretty much alone. My brother would visit on during vacations, and so when all of a sudden our family expanded to four boys, and the other two boys were still at home, I now had two new full-time brothers.

Mom was no longer working so her days were spent cooking large meals for her newly enlarged family. She was constantly baking and since that was before anyone knew about cholesterol, everything was heavy with butter, eggs and cream. I used to love coming home from school because there was always the delicious smell of a cake fresh from the oven to welcome me. Believe it or not, between my brothers and I, we would finish a large cake daily. Mom was famous on our street for her marble cakes and something she called an “orange kiss me cake”. The whole orange went into it.

My new brothers, Seibert and Melvin, were very generous with their time although always very busy. They were both going to college but they made time for me. They introduced me to opera, the theater, good music and took me to my first concerts. I just loved being around them. They were always doing the most interesting things and above all did what they could to make me feel part of our new family.

As far as our “Jewishness” was concerned, we were one of those families that did not regularly go to services. I remember when I was studying for my bar mitzvah, I had to be at services every Saturday and Friday evening, but felt like I was praying for the whole family because no one else in my family was going. I was going, and I felt that I was the one that was carrying the religious load for everybody in the family. I remember protesting to our Rabbi Spielman, that the Haftorah was in Hebrew with no English translation so I didn’t know what on earth I was reading. I wanted to understand, but the Rabbi was always too busy to translate it for me or provide an English translation, so I was left with the 78-rpm record he made for me in Hebrew and I was just memorizing his version, which I was able to do over a three-month period. I just gave back to him what he had given me on the record.

I was frustrated because I felt that I was just going through the motions. I really didn’t understand what it was all about and I felt disconnected from the main reason for having a Bar Mitzvah. I was missing the message and was frustrated because nobody was concerned for me know what it was about.

My new Dad (Nash) insisted on making a Bar Mitzvah celebration I could only have dreamed of before he met and married my mother. He was a wonderful man who always made sure my biological brother, Morty and I never felt there was any difference between us and his two sons from his first marriage.

As soon as my bar mitzvah was over I would only occasionally go to services, but my attendance fell off quite a bit until I went to college and went to services at college mostly to exercise my Jewish identity and meet other Jewish people. When I was drafted into the army, I went to services every Friday evening, mostly to be with Jewish people. I confess it wasn’t until later years that I began to be interested in the religious part of my Jewish life again mostly as a result of my conversations with Ruth’s father, Jose’ Baum. His religion was always an important part of who he was and he read and studied a lot. He was the only person I ever knew whose hobby was writing sermons. I had never bothered to read about Judaism. I had read biographical books about Jewish people and the Holocaust, but I had never gotten involved with books dedicated to religious or philosophical themes. It was not until later that I understood it is my responsibility, if I want to understand and enjoy the benefits of our rich religious heritage, to do my own studying and reading. I enjoy this although I know I am just scratching the surface and tend to be lax in this area. There is so much to learn and I know it is up to me to take responsibility for myself as a Jew.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.