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Speaker1: Family. Heldman Helene Nathan, she was the housekeeper of the
settlement. She knew the workers lived upstairs. They had beautiful
quarters up there on the top floor. She was very active there. She's gone
to Mrs. Teller lived there. And Mr. Teller, I used to eat supper there.
It's a very popular man worker there, too. A lot of water over the dam. Uh,
what do you think of intermarriage? Well, I'll tell you, I know of some
very successful ones, but I always say once you turn to the other, either
either I have a niece married to a Greek fella and neither one turned. But
they seem happy. They have three children. I don't know. But I think when
they turn, then I think I think it could be more. And what's going to
happen with the children when they're born if you don't, you know, the one
religion, if they're happy, that's all they council's got to be grateful if
they're all white not to. We had an intermarriage couple living here. Oh,
really? She was a teacher, too. There's still one living next door. Oh, you
mean racially or racially? Black and white? Oh, the other's common. You
know, the intermarriage, I think, gets a lot of it.
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Speaker2: How have your views.
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Speaker3: On Zionism changed over the years?
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Speaker1: Changed in what way?
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Speaker3: Oh, I don't know. I mean.
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Speaker1: I don't think.
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Speaker3: Are you more active or less active in, um.
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Speaker1: Well, I guess my age keeps me back on that. And because I don't
have a husband, I mean, it's hard for me to get to meetings. I contribute
what I can to it. So, you know, when you're not able to attend things, you
just can't help it. I can't go myself. I wouldn't go out at night alone.
You're free here, you know.
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Speaker3: Did you ever belong to an organization specifically for national
Jews? Like you said, your parents were from Poland. So like a Polish
Jewish. Do you know of any about any organizations like that at all that
have. Yeah, because I've heard there are.
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Speaker1: I think they were maybe in the olden days, but I think they
gradually would be fading out. I think I see there's something Romanian
belonging to an organization. I think they're called Bessarabians. That's
from Romania. But that would be the old generation and they would be dying
off soon unless the younger generation would continue it. You know what I
mean? I think they meet in Squirrel Hill there on Fourth Street. They have
a place up near Denison. Doesn't that I don't know of any. We never had
any. I couldn't tell you. There's a certain kinship, though, among people
who came from the old countries, you know, I mean, like little societies. I
know in Baltimore they have one my my in-laws belong to one, but we never
belong to any here. My mother, my parents fell off and I hear my mother
saying no. They come over to America on the same ship as I did. You know
what I mean? But we had no organization.
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Speaker3: Yeah, because, like, Germans have one called Los.
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Speaker1: Oh, yes, they have a big well, they're newer. It's newer. Then
there's still a Germany. Don't forget where these countries have been wiped
out a lot, too. Don't forget. Makes a big difference. They'll eventually
die out, too, because the new generation is off in this country, you know?
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Speaker3: In the 19 tens, the Jewish philanthropies became a federation.
Do you know about that?
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Speaker1: How about wasn't it later than that that they all joined up
combined?
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Speaker3: I don't know. It says here in the 19 tens.
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Speaker1: I know they all joined, but I thought it was major in the United
Federation. I know they joined up much later than that because at one time
the home for the aged and those things did not belong to the federation and
they joined up all much later than 1910. They're all under one heading.
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Speaker2: Uh huh. Mm Did did.
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Speaker3: That change affect you at all?
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Speaker1: No, they just. You don't have as many drives, so you only have
one drive now for money. This way every organization went out for
themselves. Just like now. You have muscular dystrophy, you have infantile
paralysis and all those. Well, but the federation, you don't go out for the
different things for the YMCA or for the home, for the aged. It's all under
one now. Mhm. And too bad I threw out my little magazine. It would have a
we get a Jewish chronicle every Thursday and that gives you all the
organizations. I just threw it out yesterday.
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Speaker2: Sorry.
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Speaker1: But it gets you all the organizations. Social, not alone,
society. Somebody there are. For instance, there's an organization that's
only for blind. It's called light. Something light. Light lighthouse. Yes,
I'm a bunch of women just contribute to people that are blind in Israel,
you know what I mean? But it has a lot of nice organizations in it. I know
there's another aid society from certain people from a foreign country. I
forget I never belonged to it. I don't know. And then, of course, there's
work now. Excuse me, Organization through rehabilitation called Ort. Oh,
right, right. Yes. See, that was never in my day that come up in later
years. And we have a council of Jewish women that's very active. Oh,
there's a lot of them.
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Speaker3: Um, I think I asked you this, but I guess I should repeat it
because it's on here. That seems important. What neighborhoods in
Pittsburgh have you lived in?
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Speaker1: Just Squirrel Hill, raised up on the Hill and Squirrel Hill. And
now, of course, this is Shady Side. Uh huh. Oh. I lived in Oakland for a
few years, not too many after I was married, but mostly Squirrel Hill. I'm
here 17 years in this apartment building.
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Speaker3: What other groups for Jewish people did you join besides the
ones that you named? Any other ones? You know, since you when you moved
from one community to another, did you change?
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Speaker1: No. No. There are no such organizations. I mean, you'd have to
change. You're not that small. Uh huh. You. Now we have chapters of adults
in my days that didn't even have chapters. You belong to Hadassah.
Everybody went to the same place for a meeting, but it became so big. Now
they had to form chapters. Oakland has one chapter. Squirrel Hill has
another. You don't have to change if you don't want to. If you've formed
associations that you don't desire to change, you don't have to. But people
that live in Squirrel Hill go to the Squirrel Hill chapter, People live in
Oakland, go to the Oakland chapter. South Hills has thereafter you couldn't
be running to South Hills. Don't forget, South Hills has a big Jewish
population now. They have temples and everything where they didn't in my
day they didn't even have a temple there. Now they've got a reform temple
there too. So they have their own organizations, their own chapters. Once
in a while, we get a meeting of all chapters put together, you know. But
you didn't change when you change to a neighbor unless it wasn't convenient
for you to go to that meeting.
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Speaker2: Um. Getting ready. What?
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Speaker3: Where are your parents buried? It's the question of Pittsburgh.
Uh huh.
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Speaker2: Carrick.
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Speaker3: Oh, yeah. That's what I was wondering.
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Speaker2: Yes. Uh huh.
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Speaker3: And that's where your. Your. My mother.
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Speaker1: And father. No, My husband is buried on the Beth Sholom
Cemetery. That's Millvale. And that's where my plot is. You happen to have
buy plot there? In the olden days, the Tree of Life is has two now
Sharpsburg and and way out in Anderson township there somewheres. But my
husband's buried on Beth Sholom Millville.
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Speaker3: Last question. Is there such a thing as a family club that you
know of?
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Speaker2: Yeah, there.
Speaker1: Are. We don't happen to have cousins clubs. They call them. Yes.
No, I don't have them because I don't have enough relatives.
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Speaker2: Uh huh.
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Speaker3: But you know something about that. Like, do you have any friends
that that have that?
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Speaker1: I've heard about them. I'm not too familiar with them. I know
there are cousin clubs, though. You see them advertised in this periodical
that I told you about. You know, they have meetings. It's very nice.
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Speaker2: Yeah.
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Speaker3: Can you can you think of any other things to talk about that I
didn't think of? I asked you mostly about organizations because that's
what, you know, mostly interested in how people have carried on their
heritage through community groups and stuff like that.
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Speaker1: There's so much intermingling in these last few years, you know
what I mean? Things have changed. So even like with intermarriage, you
know, in among the synagogues itself has sprung up. Other types like the
Hebrew Institute, they don't necessarily have a rabbi. And it's a different
religious aspect, you know what I mean? They have different customs, but
they're quite successful. And it has a couple of college professors out of
them. And I guess intermarriage wouldn't wouldn't interfere so much in
there. Don't forget, when a person dies, just like in the Catholic
religion, if you haven't turned Jewish, if you're intermarried and you
haven't turned or taken the course, you can't be buried as a Jew. If if a
Gentile person is married to a say, we had a clerk, a Jewish clerk was
married to a Gentile girl. She was an Australian war bride. Well, she
couldn't be buried on our cemetery unless she went to. She decided she
wanted to be buried as a Jew. She wanted to be Jew. She could have her
choice. Her husband didn't care. She decided to become a Jew. And she took
a course at the Tree of Life. And now she could be buried as a Jew when she
dies because she wanted to be buried where he would be buried. See what I
mean? And the Catholics have the same you don't turn Catholic. You can't be
buried as a Catholic and intermarriage. But see, those those things that
have all come up in recent years.
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Speaker1: I noticed in the paper this morning there's going to be a priest
ordained by the name of Goldberg. Now, that's definitely a real Jewish
name. Probably somebody in his parents were Jewish. That turned. But to
hear a priest with the name of Goldberg is just like you'd hear a name.
Cohen Sounds funny, doesn't it? I had a girlfriend in Mount Lebanon who was
married to a Catholic man. She was Jewish. She had turned Catholic. She was
buried as a Catholic. But that made a successful marriage. It went one way,
you know what I mean? There was no friction. So that's the way those things
happen. But this Hebrew Institute up in Squirrel Hill, it's not exactly a
synagogue. They run a school, it's accredited. You get credits in high
school for it. They teach subjects academic subjects, but they do run a
like a synagogue there. You know what I mean? I mean, to pray on Saturday.
And just as I said, they don't have a resident rabbi, they don't have a
cantor, but they have their services. It's a different type, I guess you
would call it more contemporary style. I don't know. I wouldn't know what
to say. It's popular in Squirrel Hill. Then we have a parochial Jewish
parochial school called Hillel Academy that's up in Squirrel Hill, too. I
mean, these things spring up all the time. No doubt you have them, too,
don't you think?
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I think so.
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Speaker3: Well.
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Speaker2: It doesn't look like a very.
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Speaker1: Nice day out, doesn't it?
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Speaker2: No. Cloudy.
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Speaker3: I don't know. I hope it doesn't rain.
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Speaker2: Did you drive?
