Bernice “Sis” Kazis Transcript

Phyllis Katz: It is now June 3rd. It is a Thursday, and this is Phyllis Katz. I'm interviewing Bernice Gondelman Kazis at her lovely home in Swampscott, with a beautiful view of the ocean, and it is sunny out. And we are participating in the Congregation Mishkan Tefila Oral History Project, and we're testing. [Recording paused.] And we're back. So, I am interviewing Bernice Gondelman Goldstein Kazis, correct? 

Bernice Kazis: Yes.

PK: Otherwise known as Sis. And I must ask you: how did you get the nickname?

BK: I think my brother gave it to me. My mother thought it was adorable. And when I went to college, he even – you know how you got three initials or three letters for nothing on dickies and things like that when I went to college, and she would put S-I-S. She thought that was really terrific. 

PK: [laughter] That’s great.

BK: My brother couldn't say my name, Bernice.

PK: Oh, okay. 
BK: So, he called me sister. As I grew older, I thought sister wasn't really very good.

PK: Right.

BK: But my mother really continued it, and when we moved and came here, as I came across the bridge, I decided I would be Bernice.

PK: Oh, really?

BK: Because it wasn't the time for Mrs. anybody. If you were going to work –

PK: When was this?

BK: We moved out here twenty years ago, and no one was saying “Mrs.” anybody. 

PK: You were who you were.

BK: And “Sis Kazis,” if I called, always sounded like “Mrs. Kazis.” So, as I came across the bridge, I decided this is a whole new community. I never lived here or came here before, and that I would be [inaudible]. So, when people call me from out here, I know exactly where they're from.

PK: If they call you “Sis,” they’re from the other side of the bridge.

BK: Yes.

PK: Oh, that's very funny.

BK: And I have just a few friends that I knew before I came out here who call me sis. But everybody out here knows me as Bernice.

PK: Oh, that’s wild. Well, I'll be happy to call you whichever you like. 

BK: You may call me “Sis.”

PK: There you go. Oh, that's very interesting. Anyway, I want to – I'm very excited about today. I really am because, first of all, I've heard a lot about you. I've heard a lot about your husband, and I look forward to meeting you. 

BK: There you are.

PK: There you are. Is that your wedding picture? 

BK: Yes.

PK: Oh, that's fabulous. What a great picture. I'll have to take a picture of the picture later on. Great picture. I've heard a lot about you, and everyone says, "Oh, you're going to have such a good time, and she's such a wonderful person.” 

BK: Oh, we hope.

PK: Oh, yeah, I was talking with Nancy [inaudible]. I called her [inaudible] to make the connection. This morning – she's a neighbor – I mentioned where I was going. “Oh, she's great.” So anyway, I’m really delighted.

BK: I have a few really good stories to tell about [inaudible] you did in the temple. 

PK: Good, I look forward to that.

BK: Not such traditional things that some of the women and I did. 

PK: Well, that’s exciting. I want to go over a little bit of your early history. You were born June 12, 1924. So, you're approaching your birthday. 

BK: That’s right.

PK: That’s exciting. 

BK: [inaudible] birthday.

PK: Your mom was originally from England. Is that correct? Or her relatives were from England.

BK: No, she was just very – we used to say that she was born in England because she was very fancy. But her mother – I guess the family stopped in England on the way and had a few of the children in England before they got to Roxbury or something like that. 

PK: So, she was born –

BK: Here.

PK: – here. Okay.

BK: Her mother was born here.

PK: Her name was Jeanette.

BK: Yes, Jeanette Hannah.

PK: Jeanette Anna Marcus. 

BK: Hannah. 

PK: Hannah. Excuse me. And she was born in September of 1897 and passed away in April of 1983. 

BK: Yes.

PK: Correct? She lived a nice long life. 

BK: Yeah, she was. Yeah, she was really great. Very flamboyant dresser, and to the day she died wore this great big green and red plaid cape and hat. 

PK: Is that so? Well, she was in the retail business. 

BK: Yeah, she was in the retail business. 

PK: Now, did she go into that before she met your father?

BK: I think she was in it when she met my father. She was the secretary in such an establishment when she met my father. But she always worked side by side with him all his life. She bought the dresses for the store. My father had a store called Morton's. It was named after my brother.

PK: I got the connection now because I know who your brother is. Okay.

BK: Yeah. So, the stores were named after him. And when my father died, he had about four stores.

PK: Really? So, your dad was Hyman Gondelman.

BK: Yes.

PK: Born in July of 1893. He was born in Russia.

BK: Yes.

PK: Okay. And when did he come to this country?

BK: He came the first year of – just before the First World War, and he went into the Navy. He was put into the Navy about a year after he arrived. 

PK: Really? Did he come with his family? 

BK: No, he came alone. 

PK: Alone. That's a big journey.

BK: Yes. Well, he left home early. He really understood that Russia was too small for him.

PK: Really?

BK: His little shtetl was too small for him, and so he left home and wandered and worked and learned the fur trade while he was roaming around and coming to the United States. [inaudible]

PK: So, he didn’t come directly? 

BK: He left home, and he was in Russia for about [inaudible].

PK: I see. Isn't that interesting? And then he came to this country. He went into the Army. 

BK: Went to the Navy.

PK: Went into the Navy, excuse me.

BK: Came out, and he worked for a cousin who was in the leather business for a little while, and then he decided to open up his own stores.

PK: That was a big endeavor to get the capital, I assume.

BK: Well, in those days, I think it was a lot easier than it was now. And also, there was not one price in those days. People came in, and they haggled, and they tried to get a better price, and you gave them a better price. He did that for a while, and then one day he decided he would try to be very American and have everything marked in the store because his [inaudible] –

PK: Oh, before there weren't prices on the garments? 

BK: There were no prices.

PK: Aha.

BK: [laughter] So, he did. He made that big step, and I remember [inaudible] that his accountant thought he was doomed forever. But he really became a very successful merchant.

PK: His accountant felt he was doomed because he put prices on them [inaudible].

BK: Yeah, because he wasn't going to do it the way the Jews – his clientele were mostly immigrants. 

PK: So, that's great. So, your mom was working –

BK: With my dad. 

PK: Was she in another establishment? 

BK: No.

PK: Or she was in the same –?

BK: Same one. 

PK: I see. And then he started his own stores.

BK: Oh, no. When they first met – 

PK: Yeah. 

BK: Oh, when they were young, she was working somewhere else as a secretary. By the time they were married and my father established his own business, once we were maybe six or seven, she went to work, and she worked right by his side forever.

PK: Now was that unusual? 

BK: I think so. 

PK: For a woman to be working alongside and not there –

BK: Oh, yes, she was the only one of all my friends' mothers that ever worked. Nobody worked.

PK: She was working for – were you in school at the time? I assume – I shouldn't assume.

BK: I had a maid. We had a maid, and my mother went to work in the day.

PK: You came home from school to the maid.

BK: Yes. And I used to have to call my mother and tell her where I was going and where I would be, and I didn't like that at all. 

PK: Why?

BK: Oh, I felt too confined to have to report to somebody. My friends didn't have to report; their mothers were home. 

PK: Oh, that makes sense. That makes sense. Was no different today, except that the kids don't report it. 

BK: [laughter] That's true. That was unusual for my mother to be a working woman.

PK: I assume that was an inspiration to you then to be able to – 

BK: No, I didn't like it. I didn't want to work. 

PK: You didn't want to work. 

BK: No. 

PK: You felt that when you got married you would stay home, you would not work at that point.

BK: When I was younger, and I had to report to her all the time, I thought I’ll never make my kids do this. 

PK: But now you feel that it was good or bad that she was working?

BK: Do I feel it was good or bad? I think she had a great life. I think she really enjoyed everything she did, and she loved her work. I don't think I suffered at all. 

PK: Did she do it for financial reasons? Because she needed to do it for herself? 

BK: I think finance. I think just to help my father. I don't think there was any idea in those days, certainly; the winds of society weren't that a woman needed to fulfill herself. We all felt we were fulfilled just by doing what we did and be married, and we all felt that way.

PK: But it sounds like she was a very dynamic woman –

BK: Very, very.

PK: And this was something that she needed to do to keep herself that way.

BK: Maybe. I never thought of it that way. Maybe. Yeah, she was a very dynamic and very clever businesswoman. She would sell a dollar pair of earrings the same as she would sell a thousand-dollar mink coat, with the same enthusiasm and the same excitement.

PK: Do you think your father would have been as successful as he was without her?

BK: No, no.

PK: Was she a stronger business person than me?

BK: No. He was a softer man. He was very soft, and my mother was very dynamic and very forceful.

PK: Sounds like it was a good match. They complemented each other.

BK: It was great. It was a great match. They loved each other always. Just always. I remember once my mother got a ticket for parking on a bridge. We were all young. My mother said there was no bridge, and my father said, “If Mama says there's no bridge, there's no bridge.” And I said, “I know there was a bridge, if they say there was a bridge,” and my father put us all in the car to prove to us there was no bridge, but there was a bridge. 

PK: Oh, that's great. And did she still deny there was no bridge after that? 

BK: No. We all laughed so hard. 

PK: Now, how old were how old were you with this?

BK: I don't remember how old I was. I don't remember too many stories about my childhood. My brother said that's why I'm psychologically healthy. I have no baggage because I don't remember anything. 

PK: Well, there are many of us that way.

BK: I don't remember how old.

PK: But she was driving. 

BK: Oh, my mother drove. My mother had a red convertible until she was seventy-two, I think.

PK: Isn’t that fabulous? That's fabulous.

BK: Yeah, she was a fabulous gal.

PK: You were a child. You were still living at home when she was driving.

BK: Oh, yeah.

PK: So, that was unusual as well, I assume, for a woman to be driving. Did she have her own car?

BK: No, actually it was much later because we didn't have enough money for a car. We used to ride around in my father's truck until I was a junior in college. 

PK: So, she was driving the truck when this happened?

BK: No, she was driving the car after we moved to Brookline and my father made some money.

PK: So, at that point, when you were first born and your brother Morton – right? He was about –?

BK: Fifteen months, sixteen months older than I.

PK: You were living in –?

BK: We were living in Dorchester.

PK: In Dorchester.

BK: We didn't move to Brookline until my junior year of high school.

PK: Of high school. And where was their store?

BK: The first one and mother's store, so to speak, was at North Station.

PK: Oh, really? 

BK: Yes. On the corner of Causeway Street.

PK: And that was a big –?

BK:  Causeway and Portland Street.

PK: That was an area where mostly immigrants were living. 

BK: Yes.

PK: So, did your mom go into work with your father at the same time, or did she take the –?

BK: Yeah, she went into work with him. I don’t remember how they all got into work when we were younger. But as we were older, she always went into work with him. Came home with them.

PK: Now, did she encourage you as you were younger to look for a career? 

BK: No.

PK: Did she discourage you? 

BK: No.

PK: It was just: this is the way it is. 

BK: Yeah. I don't ever remember her expecting anything, except that she wanted me to find a nice husband and get married and have kids, and I think she wanted me to be more traditional. I was not a traditional kind of a kid. I didn't like clothes, and she was in the clothing business. I guess I was a little more democratic than my mother wanted me to be.

PK: Really? In what sense?

BK: In the small D – I think I always was very active with those less fortunate, and I never cared about – even when I got married, I never cared about furnishing in a fancy way. She loved antiques. She loved everything. And I was very plain compared to her.

PK: Was your brother similar to you in temperament and in likes and dislikes?

BK: No. He was more like my mother.

PK: He was? Did he go into the retail business? 

BK: He went into the business –

PK: With your parents?

BK: When he came out as a service.

PK: I see.

BK: But he never really liked it.

PK: No. So, you say that you were different from the way – from what your mother was looking for you to be like? 

BK: Yes.

PK: And you weren't interested in clothing. What were you interested in?

BK: What was I interested in? Friends. I always worked for the blind or the cerebral palsy or things like that. When my kids were little, I used to get a sitter, and I’d take a cerebral palsy woman that I became friendly with and spend a day with her and take her places.

PK: Were you that way when you were younger as well? When you were in high school, were you helping other –? 

BK: Yeah. 

PK: I’m sorry, I'm looking at my notes. 

BK: All the time. Yeah, that's okay. All the time.

PK: Yeah.

BK: I like to go to museums. I don't know exactly what I liked to do, but I know I didn't want to be all dressed up all the time.

PK: You just wanted to be you and enjoy yourself. Were your friends also Jewish and from the –? 

BK: My friends were all Jewish. I went to Hebrew school, Mishkan Tefila Hebrew School, when I was a kid.

PK: [inaudible] And that was in –

BK: Roxbury.

PK: – Roxbury at the time.

BK: We got on a bus, and we went to Hebrew school. I was in Dorchester, and there was a bus that took everybody that went to Mishkan Tefila. And I went to Hebrew school. 

PK: Your parents were members of Mishkan Tefila. 

BK: Yeah, from the day they were married [inaudible].

PK: Isn’t that fabulous? Well, you've got some history with this. 

BK: It was really very funny when I married the rabbi of Mishkan Tefila. Nobody knew exactly what to do with me. [laughter]

PK: Or what to think. That's very interesting. Who was the rabbi at the time when your parents were –?

BK: Rabbi [Herman H.] Rubenovitz.

PK: I’ve heard things about him, too.

BK: Yeah, me too. I had a lot to do with them.

PK: So, you had great Jewish identity.

BK: Did I have a great Jewish –? Yeah, we always celebrated the holidays as a kid. My father worked on Saturday, of course, was the big retail guy. But he came home on Friday night, and Friday night was the night that I knew he would be home. The store was closed on Friday night, not because he was an observant man, but because he just felt that Friday night was a good night for all of us to eat dinner together. 

PK: It was family night more than Shabbos.

BK: [inaudible] Yeah, it was family night.

PK: Were you kosher?

BK: My mother was kosher until – I think that there was one point when she – when the maid got it all mixed up, and she decided that she shouldn't really be kosher and go to work because it got all mixed up. But we never had any treif in the house, like lobster and things like that. 

PK: But that's interesting. The commitment was – it sounds like you said that she gave up being kosher because – not that it was inconvenient, but it just wasn't working. [inaudible]

BK: The maid was making mistakes, and it wasn't really real.

PK: And she didn't want to find another maid that could understand it. 

BK: No, and I think also the parents probably died by that time. That might have been – 

PK: She was doing it because of her parents.

BK: Might have been. But we knew we were Jewish, and we were always very involved – my parents, my father was a big bond buyer and always was giving my kids bonds for college. My father was a tremendous – he didn't have a lot of money, but he always used to say, “Okay, give a lot of money away, and you have a certain status in the community, and you help people, and that's important.” And he gave far in excess of what his income was, but he believed in it. From as long as I remember, he was supporting Jewish causes. The rabbis of Temple Mishkan Tefila always knew that if they were in trouble, they could [inaudible]. And he was just a very valued member of the Jewish community.

PK: Were there other people who are still members or involved in Mishkan Tefila  that you were friendly with as a child or that your parents – they were family friends?

BK: Well, there used to be. When I was a teenager or a young adult, there were many, many people. We always had a signal. One of us would stand up, and then we’d all stand up, and then we’d all walk out and go to Franklin Park and have a wonderful time.

PK: During Hebrew School?

BK: No, during holidays. [laughter]

PK: Oh, that’s interesting. Did you celebrate other than the High Holidays at home? 

BK: Yes. 

PK: [inaudible] or you didn’t go to –?

BK: I don't remember. I know we always celebrated all holidays, but I think mostly at home because my father never closed the store. 

PK: Was it open seven days? 

BK: It wasn't open on Sunday, and it wasn't open Friday night. It was open every night. 

PK: Oh, really?

BK: He was very in advance of his time. The other stores were always fighting him; they always wanted him to close. 

PK: Because they wouldn't stay open?

BK: Yeah, right. He died before they all began to stay open. Always got a kick out of it when I heard how he was [inaudible] because they used to fight with him all the time.

PK: Those stores, they were smaller stores at the time. 

BK: Well, they were smaller but bigger than he was certainly. But he was a big – he was a thorn in their side because he gave free alterations and free delivery and all that sort of thing. 

PK: Really? He really was ahead of his time. 

BK: Yeah, he was.

PK: Isn't that interesting? 

BK: He was. He was a brilliant, self-educated man. Never went to school.

PK: Never went to high school? 

BK: He went to [inaudible] when he was in Russia. He learned to write when I went to college.

PK: Is that so?

BK: He learned to dance when I got married.

PK: [laughter] Well, that's critical.

BK: [laughter] He was a great, great guy. Great guy. Sweet, solid psychologically. Great guy.

PK: Nothing was too much for him [inaudible]

BK: No, he was just [inaudible].

PK: Was it because he believed in himself or because he had to do it for his family.

BK: No, I think he believed in himself. I think he believed he could do everything he wanted, and his family was paramount.

PK: Did that extend to you and your brother? That feeling that you can do whatever you want to try right now? Do you think you got inspiration [inaudible]?

BK: I don't know about my brother, but I always felt very, very strong because of his love for me.

PK: And your mother is [inaudible].

BK: My mother and I, we had a little more tension, I would say, than my father and I. 

PK: I see. Well, because you weren't in the clothing. You weren't interested in clothing and the kinds of things she wanted.

BK: Right. But my father was willing to accept me just as I was and think I was the greatest. I mean, he really thought I was great. 

PK: Could do no wrong. 

BK: So, I thought I was the greatest. 

PK: Well, that's wonderful. I mean, that's what kids need as they grow up.

BK: Yeah, I really think that a strong father – father's love, particularly for women, very important. 

PK: And encouragement.

BK: Yeah.

PK: Because they can get it from their mother, but it is a different [inaudible]. Okay, I'm looking at my notes again. [laughter] Did your father ever –? Was he in touch at all, or ever see his parents again? His family that he left in Russia?

BK: His parents were gone. His father died, I think, before he even left Russia. He brought his family over. He brought his brother. He brought his nephew. He brought his niece.

PK: After he came here?

BK: After he came here and went to work. He used to wear cellophane collars, so he didn't have to go to the laundry. He could just wipe off the collars. And he used to buy half a loaf of bread with a friend so that he could save his pennies. And as soon as he got money, he would bring some of his family. 

PK: Did they come and work with him? 

BK: They worked. They worked.

PK: So, his stores, were they primarily staffed by family?

BK: And old ladies and men. I mean, he would get help and never fire them. He kept them until they were very old. There was no social security in those days. They were working all the time until they died, I think. That's what it seemed like to me, anyhow.

PK: So as long as they were committed to [inaudible], he was committed to [inaudible].

BK: Yeah.

PK: That's interesting.

BK: And also, during the war, he bought a bond for every person in his store who would match a war bond. 

PK: So, it sounds like you also developed this interest in helping people from your dad. 

BK: Yes. My mother was also caring about people. Yeah, it was that kind of a Jewish family.

PK: Did you have any disappointments that you [inaudible] or great tragedies or sadnesses as a child?

BK: Yes, I wanted to go to Smith, and I didn't get in.

PK: So, you went to Goucher. Was that the –?

BK: It was the only school I applied to.

PK: But you went to Goucher.

BK: Yes, because [inaudible]. 

PK: But you said you didn't apply there.

BK: I didn't apply there until I was refused at Smith, and then I just applied and got in.

PK: So, was that for the same year?

BK: Same year. Things were looser then.

PK: I'm sure they were. It was not the [inaudible] –

BK: [inaudible]

PK: – kids go through these days.

BK: I’ll be seventy-five next week, so big difference.

PK: Was that unusual for a woman to be going to school away from home, not a commuter school?

BK: No, it wasn't unusual. All my friends went away. 

PK: They did? And do you think that your going to Goucher was –? Do you think you would have been better off at Smith after your experience at Goucher?

BK: I don't know because it really didn't matter because I was involved with Lenny at the time, and he was a prisoner of war. 

PK: That was your first husband?

BK: He was a prisoner of war, and I did college in three years. I don't know if I could have done that at Smith.

PK: Okay, now we've just introduced your first husband, whose name was Leonard Goldstein, Lenny Goldstein. When did you meet him? 

BK: I was a junior in high school when we moved to Brookline.

PK: Did he live in Brookline at the time?

BK: Yes. [inaudible] 

PK: And he was at Brookline High?

BK: He was at Brookline High. 

PK: And that's where you went to [inaudible]. 

BK: And that's where I went [inaudible].

PK: So, you were involved with him. He went into –?

BK: He went to Penn.

PK: He went to Penn. Okay. And you went to Goucher.

BK: Two years later. 

PK: Two years later.

BK: He was older than I. 

PK: Did he complete Penn?

BK: Yes, completed Penn.

PK: And then he went –?

BK: Went into the army and joined – he went into the Air Corps and became a bombardier. 

PK: And what happened with him in the war? 

BK: He was shot down over Ploiesti oil field in Romania, and he wandered around in the woods for some time, and then he was caught and sent to a civil – I don't know what it was called – prison for a while, and then finally, they sent him to a prison of war camp with other Army men.

PK: And how long was he a prison of war?

BK: Almost two years.

PK: And when was he freed?

BK: 1945. 

PK: At the end of the war.

BK: I think [inaudible] men came on. Yeah, I guess [inaudible] –

PK: It was before the war ended. 

BK: Yeah, I guess so. A little before that.

PK: Were you able to stay in touch with him during that time when he was a prisoner of war?

BK: Well, for a while he was reported missing in action, and then they couldn't find him, and they didn't know what happened to him, and then they reported that he was a prisoner, and we received some prisoner of war letters from him. [inaudible]

PK: So, you were at Goucher at that point.

BK: I was at Goucher. I graduated in three years. I went every summer to a different college. I went to Tufts one summer. I went to Connecticut College for Women that summer.

PK: Because you wanted to finish early. You wanted to get out. 

BK: I wanted to finish early so that when he came home, I would be through college.

PK: And you could get married. 

BK: Yes. Because we were going to get married before he was shipped out, but didn’t.

PK: I see. So, you were still at Goucher when he was a prisoner of war.

BK: Yes.

PK: How did that affect your studies, knowing that he was in trouble?

BK: No, I think it was okay.

PK: Was it unusual for people at that point for women to have –? 

BK: I had a few friends at Goucher who lost their boyfriends or their husbands during the war because all of us were all tied in with the war. It wasn't unusual at all. Almost everybody had somebody in the war.

PK: So, it was really a part of life, and you were bonded together. 

BK: Yeah, and we all went out together. Instead of dating, we all did whatever –

PK: The men weren't there. 

BK: Yeah. So, it changed, I suppose, social life, but that wasn't our concern. We didn't care about that.

PK: Were your friends all Jewish in Goucher?

BK: Yes.

PK: Was it a primarily Jewish school?

BK: There was forty percent Jews.

PK: Really?

BK: Yes, from Baltimore itself, from the town of Baltimore.

PK: And it wasn't unusual for a woman to be going to school and living at school away, out of town from her parents?

BK: No, some of my friends went to Bryn Mawr, some went to Brown, some went –

PK: You got a good education. You were happy with your education at Goucher.

BK: I majored mostly in psychology. I loved my psych professor. I really can't say that I was tremendously educated. I had a lot of holes that I keep filling up at Harvard.

PK: Oh, really?

BK: Yeah. Philosophy I didn't know very much about. Literature I couldn't really quote. Things like that.

PK: But that's not unusual. 

BK: No. 

PK: When someone goes to college, they major in something. There's a lot they can do, that they can study,

BK: But doing it now – I've been at Harvard Institute of Learning in Retirement for the last four years.

PK: Isn't that wonderful?

BK: So, I learn it there.

PK: That's great. Is that where there are a lot of courses by –? Where there are older students, [inaudible]?

BK: We’re all older students. We have to be fifty-five or older, and it's peer-directed, and I taught a course in Russian short stories. And if you have some kind of thing you know about, you can teach a course. Otherwise, you just study.

PK: Fabulous.

BK: Yeah, it is. It's a lot of fun.

PK: Let me stop the tape for a second. [Recording paused.] We're back. Just taking a break for a drink. 

BK: For a drink.

PK: [laughter] Okay. We were talking about your first husband, Lenny. He came back from the war. You finished at Goucher. He came back.

BK: No, he came back two days before I finished at Goucher.

PK: Oh, okay. So, you were really able to focus on the end of your education the moment [inaudible].

BK: And then two days later we were married.

PK: Two days after you graduated. 

BK: Two days after I graduated, I turned twenty-one, and then we were married. 

PK: That was in 1945. 

BK: Yes.

PK: Okay. Big wedding? Small wedding. 

BK: Yeah, big wedding. [laughter] Big wedding at the –

PK: How was it planned?

BK: – Statler Hotel.

PK: How was it planned? So, if he was –

BK: My mother did it in four days.

PK: Really? 

BK: Yes.

PK: Well, sounds like she'd be more than capable of doing that.

BK: Oh yeah, she was. Everything, everything was done.

PK: And you got married at the Statler Hotel. 

BK: Yeah.

PK: That was in Boston.

BK: Yes.

PK: It's not there any longer. Yes? No? 

BK: Well, yeah, it's there on the corner of Copley Square.

PK: Oh, really?

BK: Yes. I don't think it's called the Statler, though. Called something else.

PK: Okay. Gotcha. Your husband, Lenny, then went into what business?

BK: Well, first he was de-processed by the Army for several months. And then he went to work for my father.

PK: He did? 

BK: Yes.

PK: Was that something he had been interested in before?

BK: He went to the Wharton School of Business.

PK: I see.

BK: So, he was very happy to be a businessman.

PK: Right. Okay, so that was in 1945. He got married. He went into business with your father. Did he help your father to expand the business?

BK: Yeah, that was great. They were great together.

PK: Yeah. And at that point, how many stores did your dad have?

BK: I think it was – my father only had one, and I think after Lenny came, then my father had – well, he opened up a store. It was called the Continental, and it was a cash and carry. He went to the supermarket. He went to his friend (Rab?), and he got some of those carts, but he didn't have it in the right place. It was in the heart of the town. There was no way in which people could drive up and park. But he had a great idea.

PK: Was this still –? It was a clothing store.

BK: Yeah, it was Morton's still. It was called Continental, and it was right –

PK: But he wanted them to be able to use shopping carts within the store and take the stuff home.

BK: Well, like Stop & Shop now, you know. 

PK: That's the (Rab?) you're talking about. 

BK: Yeah.

PK: Who happens to be a long relative of mine, a long-distance relative.

BK: Oh, my father went to him and said, “Listen, I got this great idea. We're going to do this,” and so he lent him some of his carts, but it didn't work because there was no way to park. It was on the corner of – I don't know if you remember – you're not from Boston, right? 

PK: No. 

BK: Right near Boylston Street, when you come out from underground in Boylston Street, that's where it was. 

PK: I see.

BK: So, that was a very bad place, but that's what he did. Yeah.

PK: So, what happened with the store after that?

BK: Well, when my husband died [inaudible]. 

PK: So, after you were married, did you want to work, or you got pregnant [inaudible]? 

BK: I wanted to work. When I graduated college, I had a wonderful job with Kurt Lewin, the psychologist. He was doing a study on Jewish kids in the Newton school system.

PK: Really? What was he studying?

BK: What was he studying? I think he was studying antisemitism in the Newton school system. In conjunction with that, I had a job at the Judge Baker Foundation, which takes troubled kids, and you have to go to court. So, I had planned in this job – I didn't know when Lenny would come home, and so I had gotten this job. 

PK: This was while you were finishing up at Goucher; you got that job.

BK: Yes. But Lenny was upset because he was in prison camp for two years, and he was in the Army, and he thought, Oh, I'm coming home, and we'll have a great life together. So, he asked me really not to go to work because I would have to leave before he did. In those days, your own career was not something you –

PK: As a woman.

BK: – think about.

PK: Right.

BK: So, I said, “Fine,” and I didn't mind actually at all. I had a very fine life. We had a good life. I was always available to – and we wanted a lot of kids. So, I had three kids and two miscarriages in the eight years that we were married.

PK: You were pregnant constantly.

BK: Yeah. [laughter]

PK: Pregnant for eight years with a breather in between. I see. Your first child is Amy, and she was Amy Sarah. And what's her last name? 

BK: Her name is Avgar, A-V-G-A-R.

PK: Obviously, married an Israeli.

BK: Yes.

PK: And she was born January 4, 1947. So that was two years after you were married.

BK: Yes.

PK: And she's currently living in Israel.

BK: Right [inaudible] twenty-eight years. She was a Zionist, and we had a Zionist household. We were really great Zionists [inaudible].

PK: Who began as a Zionist? 

BK: My husband, Rabbi Kazis. 

PK: Rabbi Kazis. Okay. 

BK: [inaudible]. Although, to really make the story real, one of the most distressing aspects of prison camp for Lenny was that the other men from the United States Army were not very nice to him and claimed that this was his war and they wouldn't be in prison camp if it weren't for the Jews and the Jews' war. 

PK: So, they were antisemitic.

BK: And that was very distressing. They were all in prison camp, and they were Americans from different parts. And when he came out, he decided that we should live in Israel. 

PK: Lenny said this? 

BK: Yes, and that we shouldn't raise our kids in the United States because it's antisemitic, particularly when – we rode horses a lot. He and I loved to go horseback riding, and on our honeymoon, we were riding horses when they were really going into the stable at a very fast clip. When we were getting off, the owner of the stable turned to us and said, “I wouldn’t have known you Jews would do something like that.” And he had just gone through camps, and he had a [inaudible] time in the Army, so he decided that at some point we would – we would go to Israel and [inaudible] our lives in Israel. We decided to do it. Amy was then fourteen months old. Now, why Amy went to Israel, I don't know. I never told her that story, but somehow, she did that.

PK: So, you had decided at some point you would go to Israel when she was fourteen months old. 

BK: When she was about fourteen months old, we decided that we would do that. We found out what we could do in Israel and we started to study Hebrew.

PK: Did you travel to Israel to investigate?

BK: No, we did it all through the Aliyah office. And then, of course, we told the parents that we were doing this, and they went [inaudible], and they were very distressed, very sad, and very sad that we would think to leave them and leave – 

PK: To take their grandchild with them.

BK: And us. They liked us.

PK: Right. I’m sure they did.

BK: So, we didn’t go. 

PK: Did you think about doing it later? Do you think you would have done it later if your husband had not passed away? 

BK: I think so. I think it was always something I wanted to do. I always thought we would do it. I never expected to be in Swampscott. I always thought I'd be in Israel. 

PK: So, Amy was born in January '47, and then you had Toby, and her last name is Vogel, V-O-G-E-L.

BK: Yes.

PK: Could you spell Amy's last name for me? 

BK: A-V-G-A-R.

PK: And you didn't give me Toby's date of birth?

BK: July 22. Two and a half years after Amy, so ‘49. She’s going to be fifty this year.

PK: So, Toby was born in '49. You weren't working at the time.

BK: No. I was doing volunteer work. I was really a volunteer in the synagogues. I became a Braillist. I worked with cerebral palsy. I was doing a lot of that sort of thing.

PK: What synagogue did you belong to?

BK: Mishkan Tefila and Temple Emeth.

PK: Why is that?

BK: Temple Emeth was on the corner of our street.

PK: So, you could walk there.

BK: Where we lived. Well, actually, we didn't live there while – just Toby and Amy were born. We were just members – I don’t know. We were members of  Mishkan Tefila and KI [Kehillath Israel]. His parents were at KI, and my folks at Mishkan Tefila. 

PK: [inaudible]?

BK: Yes, they moved down in ’50-something.

PK: Right. Where did you go to services? Back and forth?

BK: Before I married a rabbi?

PK: Yeah, when you were married to Lenny. 

BK: When I was married to Lenny, we went to Temple Emeth.

PK: Wait a second, you were members of Mishkan Tefila. You were members of KI, but you went to Temple Emeth because it was convenient.

BK: [inaudible] No, on the holidays we went with our parents. We went to Mishkan Tefila and to KI. It was only when the kids began to go to play school and nursery school that we sent them to Emeth because it was on the corner of our street.

PK: I see. So, they went to nursery school at Emeth.

BK: Yes.

PK: And Richard was born on June 8^th in what year?

BK: Oh, it’s his birthday. The 8^th. 

PK: [inaudible]

BK: Yeah, [inaudible]. ’53. Yeah, ’53. He was a year when Lenny died. So, ’52. He was born in ’52.

PK: So, you were home raising your children, doing volunteer work. You said you became a Braillist. Where'd that come from?

BK: [inaudible] and I learned how to do braille.

PK: How did you learn that? Where did you learn it?

BK: Braille Institute in Boston, on St. Stephen Street.

PK: How long did it take you to learn? 

BK: Not long. As a matter of fact, after I married Rabbi, I went around teaching – setting up Braille classes all over the New England conservative movement.

PK: For blind Jewish people?

BK: Yes. 

PK: And have you continued with your interest in working with the blind through today or recently?

BK: No, I don't braille anymore. Probably stopped just before I [inaudible].

PK: Was it unusual for a woman to be doing all that volunteer work at that time? Were your friends doing that? Or were they staying home [inaudible]?

BK: No, we were all doing volunteer work. Not as much, probably. My kids always thought I worked. My grandchildren – I mean, everybody always thought I worked. 

PK: They didn't think it was anything – they just thought it was [inaudible]. This was not volunteer. 

BK: It was not even a question of pay. I mean, nobody ever thought that way. They just knew that I went places and worked.

PK: And you also worked with victims – people affected by cerebral palsy.

BK: Yes.

PK: When did that start?

BK: I think I had a friend, and we did it together. I think about ’49 or ’50, I did that.

PK: Why people affected by cerebral palsy [inaudible]?

BK: I think it was just a social thing. A lot of my friends were very interested in the cause. I met this very intelligent woman who could barely walk, and we became friendly. We used to go out to the movies together and stuff like that. I used to, once a week, take her out. She married a lawyer. She had kids of her own. Then when I moved out here, I lost contact. My whole life [inaudible].

PK: So, she was your primary [inaudible]?

BK: [inaudible] a couple of friends of mine were very active. It was sort of like a lot of Jewish women were very active with cerebral palsy, like they are now in art. There are some – I think it's Ileitis now is big Jewish –

PK: Yes, and colitis and all [inaudible].

BK: Yeah, right. So, that was sort of the thing. It was a lot of Jewish women doing this thing in cerebral palsy.

PK: But there was no one other than this woman in your life that was affected by cerebral palsy [inaudible].

BK: No, I didn't know anybody with cerebral palsy when I started. 

PK: I see. Well, it sounds like you were very busy. 

BK: I had a good time in life. 

PK: Did this tape finish? Nope. We're still cooking. Okay. What happened with your husband, Lenny? Did he get sick? Was this an accident? He passed away in 1953.

BK: Well, I took him to Forest Hills, and he took the train, and he left me the car. We had one car. He left me the car because he was going to New York on business with my father. I took him to Forest Hills, and he went into work. I think, when he was getting dressed, he said he felt kind of cold. I said, “I hope you're not getting a cold. Take it easy when you're in New York.” And said goodbye to him. And he went to New York that night with my father. Then they were in the Christian Dior showroom. My father had ulcers, and everyone knew he had ulcers, so they always were sending out for milk. So, the fellow who was waiting on them said, “Hymie, do you want some milk?” And they turned to Lenny, and said, “Lenny, do you want some milk?” He said, “Yeah, I’ll have some milk.” With that, he let out a gasp, and he did. 

PK: Was this a heart attack? What he die of?

BK: Well, we don't know because his father was putting up a tremendous fuss and didn't want an autopsy, and so [inaudible] autopsy. But I would assume it was some kind of clot that went to his heart.

PK: Did not win the autopsy because of Jewish law?

BK: Yes.

PK: And you wanted it.

BK: Yes, I wanted it. I had three kids.

PK: So, your life fell apart. Yes? No?

BK: Yeah. I could say it fell apart in many ways. I had a really good friend. She's a member of Mishkan Tefila. She was very, very helpful. [inaudible] We were good friends. She was really very helpful. Subsequently, I went to work, and I worked for my father, and I learned how to buy dresses and be a merchant. 

PK: You did this for financial reasons? You did this because you needed something to do to get your mind off of having lost your husband? I mean, if you weren't interested in doing it before – certainly you weren't interested in the retail business.

BK: No. But I went in, and I learned it from the – I went in while my father and mother were in Florida one year, and learned it from the receiving room all the way up, and that was pretty successful. So, I worked there.

PK: How did your children deal with their father's death? 

BK: Richard, of course –

PK: So, Richard had just been born. He was a newborn.

BK: Yeah, really, he was a year. He was born on the 8^th, and Lenny died June 16^th.

PK: I have Richard being born in June of ’53, but you said that –

BK: I think it was – it had to be ’52.

PK: ’52. 

BK: Lenny died in ’53.

PK: So, he was a year old. And Toby was –

BK: Three and a half.

PK: Right. And then Amy was probably the only one [inaudible] her father.

BK: Yeah, when this was happening – when my granddaughter was making the exhibit, she asked her mother, “What do you remember about your father?” And Amy said she only remembered him coming out of the bathroom with the towel wrapped around him. And that was the only image she had of him.

PK: Well, she was six years old when he died. 

BK: Five. 

PK: Five. It's a long time back to remember, too. But she's said your current husband, Rabbi Kazis, really is her father. 

BK: Oh, yeah. So, that was all she remembered.

PK: Well, that must have been a real shock to be a young widow.

BK: [inaudible] for all his friends. It was really shocking. All his friends ran to the doctor.

[Recording paused.]

PK: Phyllis Katz interviewing Bernice Kazis, and we are at her home. We are testing. [Recording paused.] Anyway, we are back to go over what was side B of tape one, which Sis felt that we didn't do completely, and I completely erased it. [laughter] So, we're back to go into greater depth, and I'm delighted to be back. We, as we ended the first side, we talked about – we had reached the point in June 1953 when your first husband, Lenny, had passed away, and we were at the point – I wanted to ask you, what was your life like after he passed away? Who was there to help you?

BK: Oh, yes, I had a lot of support. I had Anita Kurland, who was living behind me and is a member of Mishkan Tefila, and she was really very helpful. We had kids the same age then, and we were very close. My parents, of course, were there, and just lots of friends. Lenny and I had a whole group of friends, and they were very distressed by this death, because he was so young, and he was a friend of theirs from grammar school all the way through. It was that kind of a social group, with everybody being friendly for many, many years. And as a matter of fact, the women whom they married had to really fit into the group of men. So that was a little different than –

PK: These are people who've known Lenny a lot longer than you.

BK: Yes, they knew Lenny for many years from grammar school, and so they were very distressed, and we were members of Temple Mishkan Tefila and Temple Kehillath Israel because those were the synagogues our parents belonged to. And Lenny had an uncle who was very active and very influential at Mishkan Tefila, and he decided because I did not want the rabbi of KI – I didn't know him that well – and the uncle decided that the rabbi of Mishkan Tefila should be the officiating rabbi.

PK: Excuse me, at that point, did you know Rabbi Kazis?

BK: Yes, we knew each other only because my children used to go with my parents sometimes, and he was my parents' rabbi, and I knew him in that way.

PK: How long had he been at Mishkan Tefila at that point?

BK: He came in the late – I think he came shortly after Lenny and I were married. I think he came in in ’46.

PK: So, he'd already been there seven years –

BK: I think in ’46. Yes.

PK: – basically. 

BK: He was there at the time – and as a matter of fact, when we first married, he was there at the time that Mishkan Tefila was moving from Roxbury to Newton, and that was a very interesting, complicated, and sad but happy time.

PK: Had he had his training? I mean, had he grown up at Mishkan?

BK: No, he grew up in Cambridge, and he had gone to Cambridge synagogues.

PK: Okay. So, this wasn't a return as Rabbi [inaudible].

BK: No.

PK: Okay, okay. 

BK: Those were very stormy times. The people who were being left behind in Roxbury were very angry that the synagogue was moving away. But most of the members had moved away over the last ten years anyhow, had left Roxbury and Dorchester areas, and the synagogue was really following them.

PK: Did the synagogue make an effort to bring the people who were still in Roxbury out to Newton? In other words, did they provide any kind of a shuttle on Shabbat? Well, I guess you shouldn't be doing that. Or to programs or anything like that to continue to reach out to those people?

BK: I think that they were willing to make concessions as far as monetary concessions if they joined Mishkan Tefila when it came out. But that wasn't really possible because most of the people who were really sort of trapped at that time – the CJP [Combined Jewish Philanthropies], the Federation, had been working very hard to make the Ulin House and that whole section in Wallingford Road.

PK: I don't know it. Yeah,

BK: There's a lot of Jewish housing there. And they had built that hoping to bring the elderly Jews from Roxbury and Dorchester to Brighton, where they built the housing. That was a whole transitional period when Jewish Family Service – politically. Jewish Family Service was very insistent that the Jewish people get used to living with Blacks and that they keep the community where it was, and the Jews were very distressed. As a matter of fact, I at that time was teaching in the ghetto.

PK: Right. We has talked about it.

BK: As I went back and forth, I noticed that the Jewish people who were walking the streets – they had no more drugstores, no more newspaper stands, and life was very [inaudible].

PK: So, the community left without them.

BK: The community left without them, and CJP didn't do enough within the community to keep it. I think nobody knew what to do. I don't think that it was really a case – although a lot of Jewish people felt that it was really the case of Mishkan Tefila following the rich and leaving the poor. 

PK: I want to stop for a moment. [Recording paused.] And we're back. Okay, so – 

BK: Let's see. You started by asking a question.

PK: There was societal change here. 

BK: Who was helping? And then I sort of got off onto what was going on at Mishkan Tefila. 

PK: That's okay.

BK: But the young friends of Lenny's were really very interested in everything that happened. So, after the funeral, they really always were asking me to invite Rabbi Kazis so that he could talk to them. They were all tied into death and life and all that.

PK: Was this during the Shiva period or beyond the Shiva period? 

BK: Oh, this was beyond the Shiva period.

PK: Okay, all right.

BK: Shiva period was the Shiva period, and you know my friends were all there.

PK: But it just went by. You were probably in such a state of shock.

BK: Yes, I think Anita was really very helpful. In those days, you didn't take kids to the cemetery, and you didn't take kids to a funeral parlor.

PK: And you sat on hard black chairs.

BK: Probably, yeah. Yeah, probably. But what I really think about a lot is how young kids go today. Families don't say, “You can't go.” My kids were, what, one, three, and five. But nobody wanted them to be there. 

PK: Did you regret that? 

BK: I think afterward I did.

PK: Yeah.

BK: Yes. I think that kids understand it on a certain level if they're there.

PK: Yeah. Well, they understand on different levels at different points in their lives, too.

BK: Yeah. But they weren't there.

PK: Right.

BK: So, they were suddenly taken off somewhere, and then we all went.

PK: And Daddy's not there anymore. That's that.

BK: I can't really remember. I remember just a lot of friends and a lot of support. My mother and father wanting to come in and to have me move in with them and live with them and all of that. I decided, no, that's just not what I was really going to do.

PK: Right. Were you worried at the time more about yourself or about your kids and what was going to happen?

BK: Oh, I think I was worried about my kids. I think I was worried about my kids. 

PK: And were people saying to you? “They'll be okay. They’re children.” 

BK: No, everybody was saying, “What a tragedy.” I mean, it's like John-John, right? Like, “What a tragedy. This is a tragedy. How could this happen? Maybe it was the war experience. Maybe it was his time in camp.”

PK: Really?

BK: Everybody was saying maybe it was some reason for that.

PK: Right. Well, they're probably also saying that because how do you explain a man thirty years of age dying like that. I mean, there's no explanation for it.

BK: Except that his mother died in her sleep at forty-eight, which was also a shock for her friends at forty-eight.

PK: Right. But you have to rationalize it. Somehow, you’ve got to come up with some explanation that you want to sit well with you so you can sleep at night. 

BK: Yeah, right. Well, and also my husband's father didn't want to have an autopsy.

PK: Yes, we talked about that. 

BK: Yeah, so that was hard for me.

PK: But you couldn't argue with him, I assume.

BK: Well, I should have. I would not.

PK: You would now, but you're a different person now, and the world is different. 

BK: I certainly gave great respect to parents.

PK: But as a young widow –

BK: You didn't do anything except what people told you to do.

PK: Right. Right. Exactly. 

BK: That's exactly how you functioned. 

PK: Right. I'm sure. And you functioned. You didn't live. You functioned.

BK: Yeah, that's how you functioned. Whatever people tell you – yes, you have to go to the funeral parlor. Yes, you have to do this, and you do it. But I don't really remember how it progressed.

PK: Okay. So, Lenny's friends really felt the need to talk to the rabbi and try and sort some things out in their mind.

BK: Yes. 

PK: So, they asked you to please invite the rabbi over. They had nothing in the back of their mind.

BK: I don’t think so. I think they were horrified when it happened. [laughter]

PK: Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. And the rabbi was willing to come.

BK: Yes, he was willing to come. He came, and I remember some very, very nice discussions that we all had. It was a very intelligent group of people. We had some very nice discussions. Then he went away. He took a group from the temple to Israel, and you know, and time went on. He wasn't there a lot. Maybe twice he came.

PK: He came to your home within the first six months after Lenny passed away.

BK: Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. 

PK: And then he went to Israel for a period of time,

BK: And then when he came back, he called, and he said he had found out that Amy had her tonsils out and could he come and visit. He came, and I think I invited my friends back again when he came. Then he began to drop over, like to say, “I'm at Temple Emeth. I have a wedding tonight at Temple Emeth. Rabbi Nelson isn't here, and I'm right down at the end of your street. So maybe I'll drop in if you're going to be home.”

PK: Were you suspecting anything? 

BK: Not a thing.

PK: Not a thing.

BK: Oh no. 

PK: You just thought he was being a wonderful rabbi. 

BK: He brought me books to read. He always left me –

PK: General books? Not books about death. 

BK: Yeah, books about death. Literature on life. 

PK: Did you find that helpful? All of the discussions that you had, did it help you resolve things in your mind?

BK: Oh, I think it was good. Yeah, I think that accepting – the more you hear, and the more support you get for accepting whatever life gives you is excellent.

PK: Yeah, yeah.

BK: I had majored in psychology, and I always felt that whatever – it's not what happens to your life; it's what you do with what happens to you. So, I think that all the religious propping up is very helpful.

PK: Prior to your marrying the rabbi, and we're going to get to that shortly, had you had much of a connection with the synagogues, other than the High Holidays? Had there been much Judaism in your life? Certainly as an adult –

BK: Holidays for the children. 

PK: Holidays for the children.

BK: Holidays always for the children. Yeah.

PK: But otherwise, I mean, did you keep Shabbat? 

BK: No, I didn't keep Shabbat. Now I laugh because I kept Passover with one set of dishes. 

PK: Were they [inaudible]. 

BK: No, and they were down in the basement, and I used to bring them up. It's funny because after I married a rabbi, I didn't have to do anything differently from the way I had always done it. I scrubbed, I cleaned, I did everything. Only I brought up one set of dishes, and now it just seems so funny. 

PK: Okay, what else is there to bring up, right? 

BK: It seems so silly now. But to me, I thought I was really doing something –

PK: You were.

BK: – very good.

PK: As long as you only ate meat or dairy, you were okay. Okay. So, Rabbi came back from Israel.

BK: Came over. 

PK: Amy had her tonsils out.

BK: Yes, he came to visit.

PK: Came to visit.

BK: Then periodically he would call and say he was in the neighborhood. Could he come over? 

PK: Well, he wasn't that far away to begin with.

BK: No, he lived on the corner of St. Paul and Beacon Street in that hotel apartment. And then one day he called me, and he told me he had a tooth pulled, and – I don't know. He began to talk to me about his – I remember his tooth being pulled, and he felt so bad because it was pulled. I can't remember whether he asked me to come over or I said I would go over. Anyhow – 

PK: To nurse him?

BK: To walk him. He wanted to go for a walk. I don’t know. I remember that. I don't know exactly how it happened, but it happened.

PK: And you were still not suspecting anything. Do you think he was working on this, or do you think he was trying to develop just a friendship?

BK: Oh, no, I think that he really wanted to get married. Yeah, I think so. 

PK: Well, he was already how old at the time?

BK: He was forty, forty-five. Yeah. Something like that.

PK: Yeah. Okay. So, how many months did this progress over? That he would call you, like, every two weeks or something?

BK: Yeah, something like that. I'm not really sure, but every once in a while, he'd pop in, and we'd have some salmon salad, which he's still eating. 

PK: But it was never dating.

BK: No, no, we never dated.

PK: Just visited. 

BK: And then one –

PK: Would you have considered dating?

BK: Pardon me?

PK: Would you have considered dating as a young widow?

BK: No, not then. It was much too early. I had really no desire to date.

PK: Right. Okay.

BK: Friends of my mother were always calling me and telling me they had somebody. I just really –

PK: Had no interest.

BK: Yeah, my loss was too fresh.

PK: Sure.

BK: But I always used to joke and say, “Under the rabbinic cloak, you came into my life.”

PK: Whatever works. 

BK: But yeah, I think then he – I guess towards the summer. I guess as summer was approaching –

PK: So, this was a full year after Lenny passed away. 

BK: Yes. Actually, it was after the –

PK: At the unveiling?

BK: Yeah. Actually, it was after the unveiling. Then he began to come more often. And Toby was the one who asked him, “Why do you come so much? Do you want to marry my mother?” And he said, “Yes, I do.” 

PK: And your eyes popped out of your head. 

BK: That's not my plan. [laughter]

PK: And what did you do?

BK: I told him no. That if that's what he really thought, that he shouldn't come anymore because that's something I could never do.

PK: Because he was a rabbi?

BK: Yeah.

PK: Not just because you were a relatively new widow, but because he was a rabbi.

BK: I think only because he was – I didn't even think of myself involved in this at all in a way.

PK: Right. 

BK: It just was like, “Are you mad? Are you mad, man?” [laughter]

PK: What was his reaction to you when you sent him away? I mean, was he surprised or disappointed or crushed? “How could you do –?” Was he talking to you as a man at that point? I mean, you obviously –

BK: I never thought about these things.

PK: – didn’t see him really as a man. You saw him as a rabbi, correct? Maybe not.

BK: I saw him as – I don't know – rabbi man. I don't know how I [inaudible].

PK: But not as a potential husband?

BK: Oh no, I never saw him as a potential husband. I saw him as a very good-looking, pleasant, brilliant, religious leader.

PK: Okay. Who was there to help you?

BK: Who was there to help me, who had become good friends with my friends, and we all were a very nice, friendly group. If he was coming over, I would invite my friends, and they would come over, and we all had a very intellectual time. 

[Telephone rings.]

PK: Do you want me to stop? 

BK: No, I think we'll just stop, if you don't mind the ringing on this.

PK: Not at all. Did he have his own group of friends at that point that you started to get involved with at all?

BK: No, I asked him that when it came sort of close, and I was thinking, “Well, maybe.” I sort of missed him when he wasn't around.

PK: This was after you sent him away. 

BK: After I said goodbye.

[Recording paused.]

PK: Okay, sorry about that.

BK: That's okay.

PK: So, you sent him away, and then you started to miss his visits.

BK: Yeah, they were very pleasant, and I didn't have any male companionship at the time.

PK: Okay. And what was his reaction when you sent him away?

BK: He went. 

PK: Well, did he –? “Okay, fine,” or “You sure about this?” 

BK: I don't even remember. I don't remember that. 

PK: Okay. All right. So, you sent them away. This was in the summer. 

BK: Yes, and my friends were wonderful. They were always inviting me. I had some friends who had a place down the Cape and had a place in Connecticut. And I put the kids in the car, and I’d go for the weekends. By that time, I was already working. I went into my father's business. Even though I said I would never go to work, this was a different situation, so I went to work. 

PK: You had gone back into your dad's business shortly after Lenny's passed away.

BK: Yes. So, I was working, and then on weekends going to visit my friends. But at night, when he would be popping over, I began to miss that. However, that's the way it was. But then a couple of times when I came home from my weekend, he was in his car in the driveway.

PK: Did he know you had gone away?

BK: Yes. Well, I don't know whether he knew or not.

PK: I mean, he wasn't just sitting there all day, waiting. 

BK: We didn't have answering services. [laughter]

PK: I mean, would he have been sitting here for three hours?

BK: I don't know. He was just there when I got home. 

PK: Was he worried?

BK: No, he said he came to help me because it's hard to take three kids up to bed.

PK: So, somehow, he knew you had gone away.

BK: Yeah, maybe he drove by and saw no lights. I don't know.

PK: Okay, all right.

BK: I just –

PK: Just took it –

BK: Whatever.

PK – for what it was.

BK: Whatever.

PK: Okay, all right.

BK: Then he started to come around. Every weekend, he was waiting for me when I came.

PK: Really?

BK: And helped to put the kids to bed.

PK: And they were fond of him at the time. Yes? No?

BK: Oh, sure. After all, he was a rabbi.

PK: Yeah, but you don't have to be fond of a rabbi as a child. If he's a nice person, and he plays with them.

BK: I think most kids had awe of a rabbi. 

PK: Well, being in awe of a rabbi is different from being fond of them.

BK: Of course, when he became their father, they were like kids having a new father – a stepfather or something. Right. But that didn't last very long. He’s a very gentle man. Very gentle. Always. Never angry. Absolutely never angry. The kids never saw him angry. I mean, he actually never disciplined.

PK: Really? You were the disciplinarian. 

BK: Yes.

PK: Did he mind your disciplining the children? 

BK: No, he didn't want to discipline.

PK: But he agreed with most of your decisions for disciplining the kids?

BK: Well, we would stay up quite late at night. As a matter of fact, I remember discussing, like, when Amy wanted to go to Tanglewood with three young men.

PK: How old was she?

BK: She was maybe a freshman at Brandeis. He, of course, would think that that was just horrible, and I would not think it was so terrible. So, we would sit up and talk and talk and talk about it until I convinced him that she should go.

PK: In situations like that – and we are jumping ahead, but in situations like that, were either or both of you concerned about how would it look? This is the rabbi's child behaving in a certain way. 

BK: No.

PK: It was really what's good for Amy. 

BK: Yeah. 

PK: Okay.

BK: I never really worried about that sort of thing.

PK: Did he? Was he concerned with impressions in the community?

BK: With the kids?

PK: Yeah, [inaudible].

BK: I don't know. Maybe he thought it didn't – I mean, I really don't know whether he was – no, I think he was concerned about certain things, like Toby wearing a very short skirt to temple. I think –

PK: Perfectly legitimate.

BK: – dress was more than action.

PK: Yes. Well, maybe because many people who don't know and don't get details about action, all they see is there's the rabbi's child. They see her once a year or twice a year, and she comes in a short skirt. How could he do that? As opposed to knowing what's going on in their lives.

BK: I don't know. Maybe it's because I always felt, and conveyed this to him, that it didn't really matter what a kid did, what a rabbi's kid did, because there would be half the people in the congregation who thought it was good and half thought it was bad.

PK: Right.

BK: Like I always used to say, look, if the kids are sitting very quietly in temple, they're going to say, “Oh, look at the poor rabbi's kids; they're so miserable.” And if they're running around, somebody's going to say, “Oh, look at the rabbi's kids; they're going to run around. They're too wild,” or something. I said, “So, we really don't have to bother with that sort of thing. But dress because Toby loved to wear short skirts. Well, she still loves that.

PK: Well, if you’ve got the legs.

BK: Now it's hats. [laughter]

PK: Yeah?

BK: She loves to wear hats at temple with something big in the back, so that people can see something pretty on the back of her head.

PK: Well, that's very nice of her. She’s very considerate.

BK: But I think that it was only as Toby grew up and loved to wear short skirts that we used to have a temple wardrobe for Toby.

PK: Oh, well, you know what? I mean, I do the same with my daughter. I say there's certain places you have to look like a lady. Certain places you don't, and certain places you do. When you're with me, and you're going to some kind of a family function or synagogue or out to dinner, those are the rules.

BK: Yeah. When you go with your friends, you can do what you want.

PK: Right.

BK: So, it's the same thing. It's just a reasonable way to try and bring up a kid.

PK: Right. You have to give them some leeway.

BK: Yeah. Some leeway and some structure.

PK: Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, so here we are. It's the summer, and the rabbi's starting to come back to visit. He shows up in the driveway.

BK: And I got very used to him because he came every day.

PK: You got very used to him. He came every day to see you. To see the kids.

BK: Yeah, to see me. He began to take me to Worcester for ice cream.

PK: So now you did start to do a little dating.

BK: Yeah, but far away. 

PK: Okay, nothing that anyone would ever know who you were.

BK: Right. [laughter] 

PK: Did he wear a kippah all the time?

BK: No, he never did.

PK: Never did. 

BK: No.

PK: Not outside of shul.

BK: Or in the house. Eating and studying.

PK: Eating and studying, he did?

BK: Yes.

PK: Okay.

BK: But never when we walked around. As a matter of fact, there was a period when Amy was in Israel that she met us at the airport, and she said, “Now remember, I want you to wear your kippah the whole time you're in Israel.” And he said, “Amy, I never wear my kippah in the streets.” And she said, “Well, you will here, Daddy.” [laughter]

PK: But when he would take the trips to Israel with members of the congregation, he did not wear a kippah the whole time.

BK: No.

PK: I just I've been to Israel. We were there last year, and my kids – the moment we got there, the boys bought kippahs and wore them the whole time. Loved it. They loved it.

BK: That's interesting.

PK: Yeah. I mean, when they came home, they didn't wear it, but they decided they'd wear them. So, I don't know. 

BK: It's like here I drive to temple, but in Israel I won't.

PK: Yeah.

BK: I won't do that in Israel. Just for the same reason your kids put on the kippah, just out of respect to Israel itself. 

PK: Exactly, exactly.

BK: Which is becoming very secular and nationalistic. 

PK: Well, that’s a whole other tape. 

BK: So, we have to move on, or we'll be here another day. 

PK: Exactly. All right. So finally, what does the rabbi say? “I've been seeing you every day.”

BK: Yeah. So finally, he asked. And of course, we became intimate. He was coming all the time.

PK: Something was bound to happen.

BK: Yeah. So, we became intimate. Listen, there was nothing not to like about him. He was really quite a very special guy, and I think that I was overwhelmed by the fact that he even thought about marrying me. I never thought of myself in any way that that would be something that would be considered by him. I was really quite – my ego was flying very high, and all of that. And then he said it was time that we should let people know that we were caring about each other and that we were thinking about getting married and that. I said I wanted to wait and meet his friends. But he really had [inaudible]. He had a lot of friends from Cambridge when he was growing up, and they were very nice guys. They've all since died. He's the only one left. But maybe there were three [inaudible]. Actually, mostly it was rabbis that he was friendly with. So, we went to the Statler Hotel one night and sat there, and we never saw a soul.

PK: [laughter] Was that a place where people –? There was a lot of comings and goings? 

BK: Sure. 

PK: It was a people-watching kind of place. 

BK: Yeah, a lot of Mishkan Tefila people.

PK: Not a soul. 

BK: Not a soul. 

PK: They must have known you were coming.

BK: Not a soul.

PK: Oh, that's a stitch. Were you disappointed?

BK: Oh, yes, I think both of us were very disappointed. Here we had made this great big move.

PK: You were probably laughing. That's really very funny.

BK: Yeah, and then I also told my mom and dad, and they were excited. 

PK: They were happy about it. Because they liked him –

BK: Oh, they liked him.

PK: – and they wanted you to remarry?

BK: Oh, they liked him. My father and Is kissed hello every time they saw each other, kissed goodbye, and became really very – well, my father was always available for him as a rabbi. This is one funny story. We were in temple, and it was High Holy Days. And rabbi gave a sermon about people who play tennis, wear mink coats, do all these things rather than give money to charity and to help others. He talked about mink coats, and my father was in the fur business. We came home, and at dinner, we always talked about the rabbi's sermon. And he said, “Yeah, did you hear the rabbi today? He ruined my business, and tomorrow he’ll ask me for money.”

PK: Absolutely. But your dad was a very charitable man. 

BK: He was. 

PK: He was very charitable.

BK: He was. 

PK: That's a good one. That’s a good one.

BK: So, we laughed about that a lot.

PK: Yeah. Oh, that's good. Did you go to Shabbat after you were married? Did you go to synagogue every Shabbat with the kids? 

BK: Yes, we did. 

PK: That was a change in your life.

BK: Oh, a lot of changes. A kosher home. We didn't go anywhere on Shabbat. There was a problem with my whole group of friends, who were very happy to be with the rabbi, but most of them were Reform from Reform synagogues, and they weren't about to spend–  to go out to dinner and eat fish, which nobody liked.

PK: At the time. Okay.

BK: Right. It wasn't the thing to do. I mean, meat was really what you ate when you went out.

PK: Went out and had a slab of beef.

BK: So, I understood that my husband was beginning to feel uncomfortable about all this. So that wasn't any longer a part of my life. I saw a couple of the women as friends. I think a lot of Lenny's friends felt that there was no need for me to do this, to marry the rabbi. 

PK: Really?

BK: Yeah. I think they –

PK: That they would find someone for you that would be – or you would eventually find someone.

BK: Yes.

PK: And your friends were primarily Lenny's friends, the wives of his friends.

BK: The wives of his friends, yes. But I'm close to two of them.

PK: So, your now being with the rabbi was interfering with what had been your established social life. 

BK: Yes, it changed my life, of course. His social life revolved around the people in Mishkan Tefila. He went to their parties, and he did their things. 

PK: How did you feel about that? Were you uncomfortable with new people? 

BK: But they weren't new. I grew up in Mishkan Tefila. I went to Hebrew school at Mishkan Tefila. 

PK: Right, right. 

BK: There were two girls in the class. I was one of the two girls in the Hebrew school. So, no, I never felt uncomfortable.

PK: Did you resent losing that part of your life? I mean, did you lose it, or did it just – you didn’t do it very often? 

BK: No, I lost it.

PK: And did you resent that?

BK: I was sad about it. Yeah, I was sad about it, but I didn't resent it. I felt, no, this is what I did. 

PK: “This is my choice.”

BK: So, things followed from it, of course. My whole life changed. I remember Anita Kurland saying to me, “What are you doing? You'll never be able to wear shorts [inaudible] anymore.”

PK: Didn't stop you?

BK: No, it didn't stop me.

PK: Now the children, obviously they loved him, but that changed their lives as well. 

BK: Of course.

PK: They had to go to services on Shabbat.

BK: They couldn't go to the movies on Saturday.

PK: And were they resentful? Did they complain? I mean, they were little when it first happened.

BK: I think they were too young. I think they got used to it, and they were too young to even remember –

PK: I see. [inaudible] better.

BK: – that anything was different. I don't think so. He wasn't a dictatorial religious man. Like some of his friends, the rabbis, if you moved an ashtray on Shabbat, it was like you had touched something that was terrible. 

PK: Oh, really?

BK: Really strict. He was never that way. So, what happened was our kids grew up and followed Judaism in their own prescribed way. Amy went to Israel. She was a real Zionist. Toby kept a kosher house and went to temple on Saturday. Richard was very different. He was the most knowledgeable. They had all gone to Hebrew College. They all were knowledgeable, but he was a universalist, and he was sort of leftist, and so his way of being Jewish was entirely different.

PK: And that was fine with the rabbi?

BK: Yeah, he really accepted the kids wherever they were all the way through. He was a great father. All he wanted to do was to teach them.

PK: Right. Right.

BK: He just wanted them to know things. And Toby, he just adored because she was – although even today she'll call up and she'll say, “Who's your favorite?” And he still says, “I have no favorites.” It's been a joke now. She's going to be fifty in two days, I think.

PK: Oh, that’s very funny. 

BK: He was very gentle, and that's why I felt that I really hadn't given him a [inaudible]. I was so busy talking about myself, and he was a very unique husband and father. 

PK: Well, he helped to make you where you are now. 

BK: Oh, absolutely.

PK: I mean, you were part of it, but he was [inaudible].

BK: Oh, absolutely. My whole life is different. My interests are different. I study at Harvard, and I go [to the] Harvard Institute of Learning in retirement, and I just gravitate to any course that's about God or Satan or anything like that. I mean, that's just part of me now.

PK: Where your interest has gone.

BK: And I like it. I think my life was enriched by it tremendously.

PK: Okay, we're at the Statler. Traveling back. We're at the Statler. Nobody shows up. Now what happens?

BK: Well, now we announced that we were getting married in August, and we got married in August.

PK: You mentioned at one point that the – excuse me, it’s been a long week. 

BK: How about some coffee now?

PK: That's not going to help me. My daughter called last night at twelve o'clock, and so it was – she woke me up, so maybe I lost a little.

BK: She called from camp?

[Recording paused.]

PK: Sorry about that; we’re back. 

BK: You can rewind that little bit if you want.

PK: I don’t want them to hear. You're not going to hear my story. Okay, when we talked before, you said that the rabbi wanted to get married by the High Holidays, so he could announce it from the bimah.

BK: Well, no.

PK: Is that so?

BK: So he could announce it by my presence.

PK: By your presence. Okay.

BK: Yes.

PK: You were not on the bimah. You were in the – were you on the bimah?

BK: In the congregation. 

PK: You were in the congregation, but you were in the congregation anyway.

BK: Yeah.

PK: But he kind of wanted it to be –?

BK: Oh, maybe he didn’t. I don't even remember.

PK: Where did you get married?

BK: We got married in my mother's house.

PK: Your mother's house. 

BK: In the room in my mom's home. Five rabbis.

PK: Five rabbis. Tell me, who were the rabbis? 

BK: Oh, let's see. His brother-in-law was a rabbi. His brother was a rabbi. His brother's wife's father was a rabbi. That's three. Rabbi Nelson from KI lived right down – was it Nelson? No, Rabbi [Judah] Nadich from KI lived two doors down from my mother, and she would never not invite him. So that was four, and the fifth one, Rabbi Rubenovitz was still alive, and he came.

PK: Okay. And they all did something during the ceremony?

BK: Oh, I don't know what they did. 

PK: “Your turn.” [inaudible]

BK: I was only worried about my kids being there, but they were all there. 

PK: [inaudible] –

BK: Professor [Harry Austryn] Wolfson from Harvard was there.

PK: Star-studded ceremony. 

BK: Oh yeah, it was.

PK: Were the kids overwhelmed by all of this?

BK: No, they had a good time. Their cousin was there. I don't think they were overwhelmed. And then we went away on our honeymoon for a week, and then we came back after a week. 

PK: The kids stay with your parents?

BK: They stayed with my parents, and we came back, and we took the kids to – where we’d take them? – Atlantic City for a week.

PK: Okay. Where'd you go on your honeymoon that was kosher? [inaudible] or one of those?

BK: We went to – not Grossinger's. The other one.

PK: Yeah. And when you took the kids, you said you went to Atlantic City. Were there kosher hotels there?

BK: Where did we go?

PK: There were a couple of Kosher restaurants. 

BK: I think there was a kosher hotel there in Atlantic City then. We took them there. Then we came home, and he moved into my house. I had a big house on West Roxbury Parkway. Then there were a whole lot of decisions. Mishkan Tefila was still in Roxbury, and he had been sleeping in the synagogue over Shabbat in Roxbury, and I didn't think that was a very good idea because I'd be in Brookline with my kids, and he'd be in Roxbury by himself. So that was a big decision because he had never ridden on the Shabbat.

PK: And what happened? He agreed to ride.

BK: Yeah, he came home. He spent Shabbat with us. I said, “This is silly. I'm not going to make Shabbat by myself. I won't know how to do that. You need to be there for Shabbat. So, if you want the kids to have a Shabbat experience, you need to be driven to Mishkan Tefila on Friday night and Saturdays.” 

PK: He did not drive –

BK: He did not drive.

PK: – himself. He had someone drive him.

BK: And so that's what happened because that was acceptable to the Conservative movement that you ride to a synagogue; that was acceptable.

PK: Someone would drive him Friday. 

BK: [inaudible] Kurland.

PK: Oh, there you go. It came in handy. Drive him to shul Friday night. He would do – what kind of service did they have at the time?

BK: Tremendous. 

PK: A big Friday night family service?

BK: Tremendous. No, he gave such marvelous sermons. There were thousands of people waiting.

PK: Friday night and Saturday. 

BK: Saturday was a different kind of service, but Friday night was tremendous. The balcony was filled.

PK: Is that so?

BK: As a matter of fact, Lenny and I used to go there to hear him on Friday night after we had dinner.

PK: Really? So, the service –? Was it a late service? 

BK: Yes. 

PK: How do you like that? 

BK: Mobbed. 

PK: How do you like that? And then Mandy drove him home.

BK: Yes. Well, I was usually there too. 

PK: You were there. Right. And did you take the kids Friday night?

BK: No.

PK: And then Saturday morning.

BK: Saturday, did the same thing.

PK: And did he come home after services, or did he stay there in the afternoon?

BK: No, no, he came back. So that was from ’54 to ’57 when –

PK: When they moved.

BK: – temple moved. Yeah.

PK: Okay, you were married in June –

BK: August.

PK: – August of ’54. Okay. Look at my notes again. These are my real cheat sheets here. Okay.

BK: All right.

PK: So, you got married, and it was an adjustment for you, not just because of your circle of friends, his circle of friends, but the whole adjusting to a new, much more Jewish life.

BK: Of course, and I didn't know enough really, so I went to Brandeis, and I studied.

PK: How old were the kids? I mean, the kids were still young. Richard was two when you got married. 

BK: Yes.

PK: So, you had someone watching the kids at this point in your life. 

BK: Well, I didn't go to Brandeis for a while. It took me a while just to get used to the fact that he was home every day for lunch, and the telephone always rang. 

PK: Married you [inaudible] lunch.

BK: There were people calling the house all the time, and it was very different. I went to every lecture he gave. I went to the Friday night. I went to Saturdays, so I didn't do any of that for a while, until I sort of fell into place.

PK: So, you became at least comfortable with your lifestyle, but you felt a need to learn more so that you could really understand a lot.

BK: Yeah, and I stopped working, of course, because that required weekend and Shabbat.

PK: Had you been working on Shabbat? Had you been working on Saturdays? 

BK: Yes.

PK: Okay, prior to getting married.

BK: Yes.

PK: Okay. So, you studied at Brandeis. What kinds of things did you study?

BK: Bible, Talmud. In English.

PK: In English. Are you conversant in Hebrew at this point?

BK: Very badly. I tried many times. I always went to ulpan, and now I’m not really linguistically –

PK: Inclined?

BK: Yeah, I took a lot of – I took Spanish. I took Latin. I took all of those. I can read a little bit. I can read and write Hebrew, but I talk like a fourth grader.

PK: Fourth grade Israeli or fourth grade American? [laughter] Okay. And you koshered your home. How long did you study at Brandeis?

BK: Oh, I think I went there. I had to be a special student because I had already –

PK: Non-matriculated. 

BK: Yeah. I think I did it for about three years.

PK: Did they know you were a rabbi's wife?

BK: Oh, yes.

PK: Did you get special treatment there, allowing you to take courses?

BK: No. I think maybe that was special, but I'm not sure about that. Not sure about that. Rabbi was writing a book, and he was going to Professor Wolfson's house after Professor Wolfson got through with the library, and I was driving him there.

PK: Tell me. I don't know who Professor Wolfson is. 

BK: He’s one of the greatest Jewish scholars that there was. He was a very, very good friend of mine.

PK: He was at Brandeis.

BK: He was at Harvard. 

PK: He was at Harvard. 

BK: Yeah, he was the first Jewish professor at Harvard. 

PK: I understand. 

BK: And there's a chair for him now, and he was really one of the most erudite professors at Harvard. And he wrote a lot – Church Fathers, and he wrote a lot about Jewish philosophy. He was a great Jewish philosopher, and very close. It was almost – he never married, and it was almost as though my husband was his son.

PK: I see.

BK: And they were very close. When my husband was writing his book on the Gests of Alexander of Macedon, he was the one who gave him the manuscript that came from the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. I would drive my husband over there, and I would clean Professor Wolfson’s apartment and stay there until about three in the morning, many mornings. 

PK: Really?

BK: Yes.

PK: Where were the kids at the time? 

BK: They were home. We would always have somebody staying over when we went to Professor Wolfson’s house.

PK: Because you knew it would be a long night. 

BK: Yeah. Actually, there was a book written, and Sophie Gould, who’s since passed away, was Professor Finkelstein from the seminary's daughter. She and I kept Professor Wolfson's socks darned and his apartment clean.

PK: That was another role you were filling.

BK: Yes, I used to take my husband all the time.

PK: Huh. Your husband, did he drive?

BK: Yeah, he drove, but he liked it when I drove.

PK: He liked it when you drove. Huh. Okay. Have we left anything out that you wanted to talk about so far?

BK: No. No, I just think that I'd like to go on record as saying that the one wonderful thing about my husband was that his ego was never bigger than anything that he was doing, and he never – I guess he was always receiving adulation because he was really so very special, but he never needed his ego to be flattered. It never got in his way of dealing with people.

PK: Did he accept criticism? 

BK: Oh, very well, very well. 

PK: Did he criticize? Except to educate. 

BK: Yeah, he used to say that he would never argue to the person, but rather to the issue. And that he would expect people to do that with him too.

PK: I see.

BK: He was really a peacemaker. Was always a peacemaker, peacemaker for other rabbis, a peacemaker for congregations. 

PK: Really?

BK: There very rarely was factions. I never heard of any.

PK: Within the shul, you mean?

BK: All the years that he was there. I have this wonderful tape I'm going to give with Temple that I did of Cantor and Rabbi two years ago. A wonderful tape. I asked them how it is that most cantors and rabbis don't get along the way you two did. My husband doesn't do very much now, but he makes sure to call Deborah [inaudible] every day to –

PK: Is that so?

BK: – find out how – and I take him there. I take him over to see the cantor. 

PK: You do?

BK: Yeah.

PK: Oh, that's nice.

BK: Yeah, and he blesses the cantor, and they cry together. And then I take him home.

PK: Well, they grew up together basically in the shul.

BK: Oh yes. Well, he hired the cantor when he first came from overseas.

PK: Oh, really? 

BK: From a concentration camp. He was the rabbi, and he hired the cantor.

PK: Cantor probably sees him sort of like his rescuer, in a sense.

BK: Oh, very close. They're very close. I have this wonderful tape with the cantor explaining how it happened and why.

[Recording paused.]

PK: We were just –

BK: Talking about the cantor.

PK: Talking about the rabbi's relationship with the –

BK: The cantor.

PK: – Cantor [inaudible] [Recording paused.] Do a couple of things briefly, which we had done in our first tape. The rabbi adopted your children.

BK: Yes, the rabbi adopted the children, and we really had quite a nice life on Shabbat. The children each had a different club. Amy had a Shakespeare club, and friends would come to our home, and they would read Shakespeare. And Toby had a Bible class, and they would come because we needed to do something –

PK: On Shabbat?

BK: – because our kids weren't doing anything on Shabbat with the other kids, so we brought all the other kids to our house, and then we had a baseball club for little Richard.

PK: On Shabbat.

BK: Yeah, we used to play in –

PK: [inaudible] 

BK: No, we played in the backyard. Rabbi – oh, he hit the ball.

PK: On Shabbat?

BK: Yes.

PK: So, you could play, but as long as it was at home.

BK: We were in our backyard.

PK: Right.

BK: So that was very nice. We set up a lot of nice things for the kids. 

PK: [inaudible] of accommodating the kids.

BK: Yeah. So that was very good. Yeah.

PK: And the rabbi did not want any more children.

BK: He didn't want any more children. He felt that three was actually –

PK: More than enough?

BK: – as an old bachelor taking care of three kids suddenly and having them in your life was really a lot for him.

PK: Sure.

BK: And I think it worked out very well just the kids because they're his and he's theirs, and that's how it's always been.

PK: I'm stopping to make sure we – [Recording paused.] Okay, all right. I understand that, after you married the rabbi, you were still your own woman. You still made your own decisions. I mean, you did follow – you did allow him into your life and changes in your life in terms of Shabbat and koshering and all that stuff, but you still had things that you felt were yours, you needed to do, and the rabbi allowed you [inaudible].

BK: Oh yeah. I also took care of everything. Up until the time he married me, his secretary took care of all his affairs. He never wrote a check. I mean, she wrote everything and took care of everything, and he said, “Just give me everything, and my secretary will take care of it.” And I had this big house and three kids, and I mean, he was just overwhelmed at the kind of money that that entailed. And I said, “Oh, no. No secretary is going to take care of my affairs. I take care of your affairs.” So, I did that, and I've been doing it forty-five years now.

PK: Okay, you mentioned you had a couple of stories to tell me about some antics of yours. [laughter]

BK: Just so that rabbinic life wouldn't get boring.

PK: Yes, why not? Right.

BK: Well, one of them involved – I don't know if you know them – (Bobby?) Richards and (Kay Jaffe?). Do you know who they are? 

PK: I know the names. I know the names.

BK: We didn't like the fake flowers, the greens that were on the bimah. They never grew. They were sort of static.

PK: Plastic? 

BK: We didn't like them at all. But there was a woman who came every week and dusted them, and everybody loved them. And somebody had paid a lot of money to have them there,

PK: And what was her name?

BK: Florence Levine.

PK: Right.

BK: She used to come, and she used to clean them, and so we finally decided, “Off with those plants.” We would take care of it. We would get them off the bimah. I remember (Bobby? Richards stayed outside the sanctuary and watched that nobody was coming. And (Kay Jaffe?) and I took all the plants off the bimah and put them in the rabbi's study in his closet because we figured he would never see them anyhow there.

PK: He would never look in his closet.

BK: Even if he saw them, he would never connect –

PK: Make the connection.

BK: – that they shouldn't be there, and nobody else would look in his closet. 

PK: And this was on a Friday. What day was it? Probably early in the week.

BK: Thursday. Well, I think it had to be sort of in the middle of the week, because we swore in blood that we wouldn't tell anybody that we had done it. 

PK: And she had to come and dust anyway before Shabbat.

BK: I came back to do something in the synagogue, and I heard everybody in the office screaming about the kids in the Hebrew school, vandalism, and the kids taking all the plants. And they were blaming it on the Hebrew school kids being wild, and I went home, and I called up my friends, and I said, “[inaudible] we can't do that to the kids. That's terrible. We know where they are, so we better just tell them.” 

PK: Tell them. 

BK: So, they decided, okay, you tell. So, I came home, and when Rabbi came home, I told him that we had stolen them. 

PK: Did you use that expression? 

BK: Stolen them? 

PK: Yes. 

BK: Yes. [laughter]

PK: Okay. Good. 

BK: We stole them.

PK: [inaudible] forthright about things.

BK: He was horrified and insisted that I call Mr. (Yeamans?), the president of the synagogue, and tell the president.

PK: He insisted.

BK: And I said, “I'm not going to tell the president.” I said, “We’ll just tell the office, so they won't yell at the kids.” But he thought that it demanded more than that, and so of course I did. I called the president, and then everybody got to know. But I think we – I don't know whether they got put back or not. I was just so angry that I had to call up like a little girl and say, “Oh, we did this.”

PK: What did Mr. (Yeamans?) say? I mean, here, you are the rabbi's wife calling. It wasn't like it was someone else.

BK: Well, I think Mr. (Yeamans?) thought that it was stupid.

PK: That you did that.

BK: Yeah. I mean, they were intact, and we didn't vandalize them, the leaves or anything. I think he just thought it was stupid.

PK: Well, what do men know about plants [inaudible].

BK: Like, why didn't you just tell somebody you didn't like them? 

PK: I see. I see. Take that step. 

BK: Yeah. Why did you have to do it that way? But anyhow, everybody got a big kick out of that. We did a lot of things. 

PK: [inaudible]

BK: We didn't like the bareness of the front. We didn't like the bareness of the front lobby.

PK: Yeah. This was in the new building. I'm sorry. 

BK: Yes. We called up [inaudible], and the women went into the Sisterhood meeting, and we had [inaudible] deliver all these plants.

PK: While they were in the meeting?

BK: Yes.

PK: And who was going to pay for them?

BK: Well, that was a problem with me. I did another thing too, and we didn't know how we were going to pay for it. When I came back from Israel, I had worked as a volunteer in a thrift shop, and I decided that we should send a lot of clothing to the thrift shop so that they would have a lot of things to sell. So, I put a call out for secondhand clothing, and it just came piling in, tables and tables and tables of clothing. We ironed them and cleaned them and got them all set and put them in boxes, and then, how do we get them to Israel?

PK: How do we get them to Israel? 

BK: Nobody knew. That's a lot of money. We had boxes, huge boxes full of secondhand clothing. They had to go on a ship.

PK: Oh my gosh.

BK: They had to get to the ship. 

PK: They had to get to the ship.

BK: Somebody had to pay for the shipment, and it was terrible. We had to raise money because there was no money. The system wasn't going to bail me out.

PK: Where was it all being held?

BK: In the synagogue.

PK: In a place where people were going to be going through for Shabbat.

BK: I think yeah, it was in the lobby, and we had to get it. 

PK: Had to get it out of there.

BK: The place between the –

PK: I can see that would not be a popular thing to do right now.

BK: It wasn't popular then, but everybody was very sympathetic. I had done a really good thing, and that's too bad. But that's how I am. I don't think things through all the way. I still don't. It's just the way I am. [laughter]

PK: That's okay. Good idea. 

BK: I have a rabbi who's my computer guru, and he helps me all the time. He's a retired rabbi from out here, and he always calls me a khaper. Khaper is somebody who grabs things. He says that's what I do when I'm at the computer. I just go, “Oh, I think I'll do that.” [laughter]

PK: Without thinking about what could happen later. Okay.

BK: So, that's just something that I accept about myself, I guess.

PK: Well, I mean, it's spontaneous. You can see it that way.

BK: Yes.

PK: So, you really were a different kind of person from the rabbi, and you did maintain your –

BK: Oh, very, very.

PK: – even though you had a role – what kinds of things did you do? Roles did you serve in the synagogue? You were in the Sisterhood.

BK: I never took a chairmanship. I really felt that if a woman in the congregation could take it, she should take it. But I was in advisory capacity all the time. Anybody, any president like Barbara –

PK: (Karis?).

BK: (Karis?). I became close to people naturally. Most of my husband's time was with the president of the synagogue, and so I became close to all those people who were in leadership in the synagogue and their wives. And [inaudible] was very nice. Was very nice.

PK: And you were also involved with the archives and the museum at Mishkan Tefila.

BK: Oh, yeah. When Rabbi Rubenovitz died, his will said that if there was a museum and archives, $80,000, which in those days was a lot of money and it was all that the rabbi had, would go to Temple Mishkan Tefila. And there were no archives at Mishkan Tefila, and the museum had been brought over. But Mrs. Rubenovitz had a fight with Mr. (Yeamans?), and all the things from the museum were thrown into boxes and put down in the basement,

PK: So, they couldn't be displayed. That was her decision.

BK: Yeah, well, she was kind of a volatile woman, and so was Mr. (Yeamans?), and they, in their move, had a little –

PK: Tiff? 

BK: Right. I went to Brandeis to the museum, the historical museum at Brandeis, and Dr. Wax taught me what was necessary to know.

PK: He was the director of that museum?

BK: Yes.

PK: Okay.

BK: And he taught me what you need to know to begin archives. Charlotte (Kates?) and I went every week, and we opened up these boxes, and we brought out all these things from the museum, and we put together a museum.

PK: Was Mrs. Rubenovitz alive at the time?

BK: Yes, I used to bring Mrs. Rubenovitz to the museum all the time. 

PK: So, she was happy to have you do that.

BK: Well. she would tell us about the people who gave it rather than the item itself. Then, Charlotte and I found out who to hire. We hired a rabbi who knew antiquities, and he would give us a description of what it was. And we worked very hard to establish and to bring back the museum because, at one time, Mishkan Tefila was the only Conservative synagogue, or even the only synagogue that had a museum.

PK: Is that so? 

BK: Yes. It was the first New England Conservative synagogue museum. So, Charlotte and I worked really together a lot.

PK: Have you worked on –? When was the last time you were –? Was that before you moved out to Swampscott? 

BK: Yes.

PK: You have not been involved with it since then. 

BK: Well, I speak to Charlotte a lot about it, and every once in a while, I go to a meeting and that sort of thing. But Charlotte did a very good job, and she took it over. And Rabbi and (Roz??) [inaudible] does a lot now.

PK: Very involved now. 

BK: So, that's good because it should keep going. I purposefully didn't want to do anything once my husband wasn't rabbi anymore. It just wasn't right.

PK: Right, right.

BK: Did it, and then it was time for me to move on, and that's why this move out here was so really wonderful for both of us. My husband wasn't well, isn't well, and didn't have the pressure of everyone who knew him when he was really functioning on a very high level.

PK: You moved out here in '78. 

BK: Yes.

PK: Is that correct?

BK: January ’79, I think it was. Yeah, it was January '79.

PK: Okay. What kinds of things do you now do? I mean, you indicated in your questionnaire that you enjoy photography.

BK: I became very active in the Jewish community out here.

PK: Yeah.

BK: I'm on the board of Federation, and I went to work at Jewish Family Service, and I worked there for fifteen years, and resettled Russians. I was on the board of the temple when we first moved out here. 

PK: What temple is that?

BK: Temple Israel out here. It's about a mile from here, and I participate in all the Jewish things. I take Jewish courses out here. I go to lectures out here. Now I'm writing up my fifteen years as a director of Russian resettlement, and have a lot of Russian friends, and we have a lot of Russian company, and that's very nice because my husband really enjoys them. And we have, once a month on Shabbat – once every month, every other month, depending on where my energy level is.

PK: I want to back up just for a couple of things from our previous conversation and from your notes. In 1968, you got a master's in education at Simmons College. Then you went to work.

BK: Yes, I taught second grade in the ghetto, Black ghetto.

PK: In Roxbury.

BK: Yes.

PK: And that lasted –?

BK: That lasted a year because I was bad.

PK: You were bad. Why were you bad?

BK: I think I was too middle-class, white, liberal, unstructured person.

PK: They needed more structure.

BK: Much more structure. I think that even though I intellectually understood their culture, I really didn't know their culture. I was in a special course to prepare me for such a culture, but I really didn't do a good job. 

PK: Were there other teachers who were able to work with their culture better? 

BK: No, I had a team. I did team teaching, and I had another woman with whom I'm very friendly now, who also got her master's at Simmons at the time. And neither one of us was very good, and we had kids walking all over, and we just were very bad. We just didn’t control them. We promised the kids – they fell in love with us, of course. We promised the kids that we would come back. And we came back just before the end of school when we left. We came back a couple of weeks later, and there was this young girl who had been to a Kansas City normal school, and she was standing there like this, and every kid was [inaudible].

PK: [inaudible]

BK: And we never could do that.

PK: Okay, well, there's a place for everyone. 

BK: Just couldn't do it. That's when I realized that the Jews of Roxbury were suffering, and that's when we arranged for the women of Mishkan Tefila to have a dance and song weekly session with them. We went into Roxbury all the time. We brought them yiddishkeit. We brought them songs. We danced. We sang. We had a wonderful time. 

PK: Was this under the auspices of the synagogue? 

BK: Yes. It was under our auspices.

PK: Under your auspices.

BK: All of us. 

PK: Was there funding for that program?

BK: No, we just did it. 

PK: Did you bring food?

BK: Yes, we brought food. I think the Sisterhood paid for the food.

PK: And how long did that go on?

BK: Oh, a long time.

PK: Years.

BK: And then Irene Gaffin took over, and she still does something with the nursing homes.

PK: Right, right. But this was really – where did you do this? Was there a community center?

BK: Opposite old Mishkan Tefila. The city had taken over and built a building, and they had a big meeting room, and it was there that we did it. We got permission from the city to go into that.

PK: And how did you publicize it? How did you let people know?

BK: It just got to be known that the people from the synagogue across the street were coming across the street to do things, and we had blacks, and we had Jews, and it was very nice for them because it was for the Jews who were really stuck there.

PK: Right. Were they mostly older people? 

BK: Yeah, who really couldn't get out and had no newspapers and they had no Jewish life left.

PK: And you had a good time doing that. 

BK: See, you should have had coffee.

PK: Well, anyway, let's see where we are. Just quickly, we talked about your time going to Roxbury. You indicated that in 1971, you wanted to do more with your life than your volunteer work and to go to all your husband's talks, so you became the director of the Massachusetts Children's Lobby.

BK: Yeah, a defunct little group.

PK: Now defunct. What did it do at the time?

BK: That's a good question. I really didn't know what to do. As a matter of fact, a friend of mine (Edith Shofar?) came, and she was the bookkeeper for me. I don't even think we got very much money. It was under Freda Rebelsky, who was a psychology professor at BU [Boston University], and I just liked that connection, and I thought that was good. But that [inaudible].

PK: But it was –

BK: But it was okay.

PK: – a state-funding something.

BK: Yes, and it worked with the organization that investigated children's daycare centers. Actually, it was a lobbying group to get more good daycare centers and more good this and that for kids. That's what it really was. But it was Freda Rebelsky and I, and that was it. 

PK: Did you go on inspections yourself?

BK: No.

PK: You just did paperwork.

BK: Yes, and we did sort of looking up things and giving people who were lobbying some information. It was really not very much as I remember. But it was the first time I had a job, a paying job, or a job that looked good in a resume, and it came in very handy afterward because I was building up a resume so that by the time I got here, I was able to go in as a bona fide person on my own without any attachment to rabbi and get a job.

PK: So, you did that for a year. It folded, and after that, you continued on with your work with the archives and your volunteer work. 

BK: Yes, we went to Israel for seven months.

PK: And did you have much interaction –? You indicated you were involved in a program that brought together the youth from Mishkan Tefila with Black youth in Roxbury. 

BK: Yes.

PK: And what did they bring them together to do?

BK: I think they used to just sit and talk, so that they would just visit with each other.

PK: Did you put this program together?

BK: Yeah, I put this program together.

PK: And how long did that go on?

BK: About eight months. During the main part of a year. We didn't do it the next year because I think the parents were very uncomfortable about the situation.

PK: Were you taking Mishkan’s kids to Roxbury? 

BK: Yes.

PK: Were you bringing the Black youth also, the Roxbury kids? 

BK: No, we were just going there to meet. [Telephone rings.] Should I take that so it doesn’t – 

[Recording paused.]

PK: Okay, we talked about the program you had intertwining the youth of Mishkan Tefila [inaudible].

BK: And it lasted about eight months. And then, because the parents were uncomfortable, it just sort of disintegrated.

PK: Since you moved here, your involvement with the Jewish community – you're on the boards of directors of different organizations. 

BK: Yes.

PK: Which are those?

BK: I'm on the board of the Jewish Federation of the North Shore. I sit on a wonderful committee. As a matter of fact, I was reading the notes of the Sisterhood, and I wanted to tell you about a mitzvah day that they do out here because I saw you were interested in the notes. So, remind me. I wanted to tell you about that. I sit on a wonderful committee. It's a lot of fun. It's called the Continuity Committee, and the chairperson is the man who funds everything. It's Bob Lappin, and he funds absolutely every idea that comes across, the focus of which is to keep kids Jewish.

PK: This is a part of Federation?

BK: Yes, it's part of Federation, but it's a special fund that he funds, and so it doesn't take away from any of the money of the Federation. It's called the Continuity Committee, and there are five of us on this committee, and I'm the only woman. People who have an idea of something exciting. I think I once told you about Rekindle Shabbat and how that works. He funds.

PK: That’s on another tape. 

BK: He funds. He paid for three hundred chicken dinners one night, and that's how many people are doing this. It’s geometrically progressive, and it's wonderful. That's a committee that I really enjoy because rabbis and people in the community send in proposals, and then we have to vote on whether we think that the proposals warrant his money. It's all his money. [inaudible] factory by the Hasidic rabbi, he funds.

PK: Really?

BK: We say yes, that's a good idea. 

PK: What a wonderful person.

BK: Oh, it's wonderful. He does wonderful things. The latest one –

PK: Do I need to move my car because I'm in the driveway next to you, next to your car?

BK: No, no. That’s fine.

PK: The rabbi will be okay getting out.

BK: The blue car.

PK: I'm next to the blue car. Okay.

BK: That's fine. His driver will come and take the blue car.

PK: Okay. All right. I'm sorry.

BK: That's okay. Yes, it's just wonderful.

PK: You're also on the board of Solomon Schechter.

BK: I was. 

PK: You were. 

BK: Yes. 

PK: And also Jewish Family Service. You were on that board. 

BK: Yes, and I was on the board of Temple Israel. But now, I'm not on those boards. My tenure –

PK: Expired.

BK: Yes, and that's okay because I'm now doing a lot of work and putting together my eighty-eight oral histories. 

PK: Good for you. Was there more you wanted to tell me about the Continuity Committee and the project that they're doing? Or the Sisterhood notes you just mentioned. 

BK: Well, there was one other. It's just a very interesting committee. He's decided that somehow there should be this large Torah that will be unfurled, and on it will be stars, and in the middle of each star will be the name of a Jew who has achieved. 

PK: Where is it going to be unfurled? 

BK: He's going to let the synagogue kids find the stars and get the biographies of all the people that are Jewish and that are achievers, and then put them on this big sort of roll –

PK: [inaudible] scroll. Right.

BK: Scroll. And it would go around, and it would spend some time in this synagogue and in that synagogue.

PK: Strictly on the North Shore?

BK: Strictly on the North Shore, and strictly Jews who have achieved, and so we have –

PK: From the North Shore.

BK: No, no, Jews –

PK: [inaudible] –

BK: – all over the world.

PK: – around the world.

BK: And we have these big discussions as to what to do with the Barbra Streisand. Is that a good thing or not a good thing? Is she Jewish? Is she a Jewish achiever? Is she not? 

PK: Do the children pick the people or do you pick the people? 

BK: He wants the committee to pick the people. But this is the kind of thing we're very busy arguing about.

PK: But that's a great project. I mean, it really gives the kids something different to do. The kids in the Hebrew school.

BK: Tremendous. 

PK: Great idea. They'll be very proud of their work being displayed in different places.

BK: He funded a contest – $10,000 he gave away in prizes – on why I should remain Jewish. 

PK: Is that also a part of –? There is a scholarship.

BK: He sends seventy-five kids to Israel free of charge, from their junior year of high school, if they are studying in some Jewish Hebrew school, day school, Sunday school.

PK: Is he at Temple Israel? Is that where he is? 

BK: No, he's a reform member.

PK: Really? 

BK: Yes.

PK: So, the child can be of [inaudible] can be Orthodox, Conservative –

BK: Can be anything. As long as he's doing something Jewish. He can go to Israel free of charge in his junior year, and they have a mini ulpan for the kids before they go.

PK: Is this again children from the North Shore? 

BK: North Shore. This is all on the North Shore. North Shore teachers who are teaching in Jewish kindergartens and preschool – he funds for them to take a course at Hebrew College so that they have a better understanding of how to teach Judaism.

PK: What's his reason for doing all of this?

BK: Keep people Jewish.

PK: But is there something from his background that he? 

BK: He's not very knowledgeable. He's not observant. He just loves being Jewish, and he wants everybody to be Jewish, and he doesn't this intermarriage.

PK: He was born Jewish.

BK: He was born Jewish. Married Jewish. His wife – Jewish. 

PK: Isn't that fabulous? 

BK: Yeah, he's a very wealthy guy, and he's very unusual. I mean, he has a ponytail. He rollerblades around. He's about seventy-two.

PK: Got to give him a lot of credit.

BK: Oh, I love – I mean, a lot of people make fun of him and call him God, but I just love that man.

PK: Does he do this for the prestige at all? I mean, does he get –?

BK: No.

PK: Some of it is anonymous, I assume. 

BK: There's nothing named after him ever in any of this. The butcher couldn't care less what his name was –

PK: As long as the money is green.

BK: As long as he pays for the three hundred meals.

PK: What a wonderful thing to do.

BK: I want to tell you about the mitzvah day too. 

PK: Yeah, that's what it was.

BK: But that's not his. That was set up by the Jewish Federation of the North Shore. I'll put it on tape if you'd like.

PK: Let me just see. [Recording paused.] We're going to interrupt for a moment and talk about one thing that will lead into the next tape.

BK: Okay. [laughter] 

PK: Which was in 1978, you became the director of the Russian Resettlement Program on the North Shore. Is that the correct title? 

BK: Yes.

PK: Okay, and that was a part of Jewish Family Service.

BK: Yes. 

PK: Just tell me how you got the job.

BK: Oh, when I came here, I didn't think I was going to work. I thought we'd have a wonderful time in retirement, but it didn't work out that way. And I realized that I would have to do something. And I read a book, What Color Is My Parachute? Terrific book. I never, I never went out to look for a job in my life. And here I was in my sixties – I was almost sixty. So, I read this book, and I took all the tests in the back, and it really showed me that I needed to work in the Jewish community. That that's where I belonged, and that one thing you do is you go out and you interview everybody that's here, you interview the executive directors of all of the organizations, find out who they are, what's going on – 

PK: For you to get an understanding of –

BK: Of the community.

PK: – and to let them know who you are.

BK: And also, to leave my resume, which I did. I made a resume, and I went, and I visited somebody at the Jewish Community Center here and somebody at the Jewish Historical Society.

PK: Under what auspices? I mean, when you went in, and you said, “I'd like to interview you,” or “I'd like to meet you” – 

BK: No, I called up, and I said, “I'm new in the community. Do you have a few minutes? I’d like to find out about what you do.” Nowhere in my resume did it say anything about rabbi or anything rabbe. 

PK: So, you just came in as Bernice Kazis. 

BK: Here I am, and these are my credentials. I had a wonderful time interviewing everybody. I got to know what was going on in the community. Then one day the executive director of the Jewish Community Center called me and said, “I just heard that there's an opening at Jewish Family Service, and you ought to go after it because I think you’d be terrific.”

PK: Was this one of the people you had gone and introduced yourself to? 

BK: Yes, never knew her before. So, I did that. I had an interview, and it seemed to go okay. But I waited and waited, and didn't hear anything. And one day my son came to visit, and I said, “Richard, I'm so good for that job. I know I'm good for that job.” He said, “So, call them up and find out what's happening,” which I did, and the executive director said, “Oh, I forgot all about you. Why don't you come in for an interview again?” Which I did, and he hired me that day. [laughter] So, that's how I got the job. 

PK: That shows you what a little persistence will do.

BK: That's how I got the job.

PK: That's great. And you were at that job for fifteen years.

BK: Yes.

PK: And we're going to talk about that on the next tape, so we don’t have to go through that now.

BK: That was very exciting and very productive. For me now, not working, and at my age, for friendship, for interest, they're a bright, eager, motivated, wonderful group of people, and they really –

PK: They've expanded your life.

BK: They have indeed. They really have. Yeah.

PK: That's great.

BK: Yeah, it was a good move.

PK: You want to talk about the mitzvah program? Whatever that is.

BK: I think I’ll tell you about it afterward without the tape.

PK: Okay. I'm not sure we – you did describe the children earlier on. Now we know that they're all grown. Amy's living – I'm just going to repeat it quickly. Amy is living in Israel. She married an Israeli. She's got how many children there?

BK: Three. 

PK: Three children. Toby is your second child. She married young. She got divorced, is now remarried and is working in the Belmont school system and has how many children?

BK: She has four: two of hers and two of Marty's. 

PK: Oh, wonderful. And Richard is your youngest child, who you said was brilliant. He went to Harvard, has two children – 

BK: Of course, all my children are brilliant. 

PK: Well, of course. Excuse me. Of course. He has two children. He also lives relatively local. 

BK: He lives in Brookline. His wife is the director of the ICA [Institute of Contemporary Art].

PK: Right.

[END OF INTERVIEW]