{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/t14th8cb7f/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Bern, Mina"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/115/original/Boxed_Milken_Center_logo.png?1628711583","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eBern, Mina. 1998. Interview by Neil W. Levin. Milken Archive Oral History Project. February 26.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Milken Family Foundation"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003e© Milken Family Foundation. Unauthorized use is prohibited. For inquiries, please contact info@milkenarchive.org.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Bern, Mina (Performer)","Levin, Neil W. (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["1998-02-26"]}},{"label":{"en":["Coverage"]},"value":{"en":["New York, NY (Place of Recording)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (Primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eOral history interview with Mina Bern focuses on the trajectory of her life as a Yiddish theater performer throughout the twentieth century. It brings to light the impact of her husband, Ben Bonus (1920-1984), on the development of her career in the U.S., in particular, and Yiddish Theater, in general.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["Beta SP"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["Theater, Yiddish--United States (Topical Term)","Jews--Music (Topical Term)","Cantor (Topical Term)","Oral History (Genre/Form)","Adler, Bruce, 1944-2008 (Person or Corporate Body)","Sholem Aleichem, 1859-1916 (Person or Corporate Body)","Fibich, Felix, 1917-2014 (Person or Corporate Body)","Finkel, Fyvush, 1922-2016 (Person or Corporate Body)","Rosenberg, Israel, 1875-1956 (Person or Corporate Body)","Secunda, Sholom, 1894-1974 (Person or Corporate Body)","Schwartz, Maurice, 1890-1960 (Person or Corporate Body)","Rechtzeit, Seymour, 1908-2002 (Person or Corporate Body)","Screen Actors Guild (Person or Corporate Body)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Aaron Lebedeff (1873-1960), Abraham Ellstein (1907-1963), Ararat Theatre, Ashkenazi, Avalon Theater, Barry Levinson (1942-Present), Belasco Theater, Ben Bonus (1920-1984), Ben-Zion Witler (1907-1961), Bialystock, Bielsk Podlaski, Boiberik, Broadway, Bronx, Brooks Atkinson Theater, Bruce Adler (1944-2008), Bunyoro (Uganada), Cantor, Chayale Ash (1922-2012), Chayela Luxembourg, Chayele Shiffer, Columbia University, Concentration camp, David Beigelman (1888-1945), Dos groyse gevins, Eleanor Chana Mlotek (1922-2013), Eleanor Reissa, Felix Fibich (1917-2014), Florida, Fyvush Finkel (1922-2016), Hazzan, Hebrew Actors’ Union (U.S.), Hebrew, “Hershele,” I’m Not Rappaport (1996), Israel Rosenberg (1875-1956), Israel Shumacher (1908-1961), Israel, It Could Happen to You (1994), Joseph Rumshinsky (1881-1956), Joseph Shimen Goldstein, Judith Berg Fibich (1912-1992), Kenya, Le La Lo theater, Leningrad, Leon Liebgold (1910-1993), Lili Lilyana (1913-1989), Little Odessa (1994), Luba Kadison (1906-2006), Maiden of Ludmir, Mark Mlotek, Maurice Schwartz (1890-1960), Max Bozyk (1899-1970), Menasha Skulnik (1890-1970), Miami, Mina Bernholtz (Mina Bern; 1911-2010),Mirele Efros, Miriam Kressyn (1910-1996), Moishe Broderzon (1890-1956), Moishe Rosenfeld, Molly Picon (1898-1992), Mordkhe Gebirtig (1877-1942), Moscow, Moshe Wilensky (1910-1997), Moyshe Nudelman (1905-1967), Murray Rumshinsky, “My Little Country,” Nairobi, Nathan Alterman (1910-1970), National Theater, National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene, New York, Odessa, Palestine, Peretz Hirschbein (1880-1948), Philadephia, Poland, Rehovot, Israel, Reizl Bozyk (1914-1993), Robert Abelson, Russia, Screen Actors Guild (SAG), Second Avenue Theater, Seymour Rechtzeit (1908-2002), Shifra Lerer (1915-2011), Shimʻon Dz'igan [Simon Dzigan] (1905-1980), Shmulik Goldstein (1908-1978), Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916),  Sholom Secunda (1894-1974), Shoshana Ron, Siberia, Stempenyu, Tehran, Tel Aviv, Tenement (1985), The Dybbuk, The Golden Land, Those Were the Days (1991), Uganda, Unzer Camp, Vera Rosanka (1889-1960), Vilna, Warsaw, Winnipeg, Woody Allen (1935-Present), Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring, Yiddish Artists and Friends [Actors’ Club], Yiddish films, Yiddish theater, Yiddish Village Theater, Yiddish, Yitzhak Perloff, Zalmen Mlotek (1951-Present), “Zing shtil,” Zionist Verband, Zypora Spaisman (1916-2002)"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eOral history interview with Mina Bern focuses on the trajectory of her life as a Yiddish theater performer throughout the twentieth century. It brings to light the impact of her husband, Ben Bonus (1920-1984), on the development of her career in the U.S., in particular, and Yiddish Theater, in general.\u003c/p\u003e"]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003e\u0026copy; Milken Family Foundation. Unauthorized use is prohibited. For inquiries, please contact info@milkenarchive.org.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/115/original/Boxed_Milken_Center_logo.png?1628711583","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/112/008/small/Bern.jpg?1621870246","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - L1911_MA_Oral_History_Bern_1_Fixed.mp4"]},"duration":3459.92533,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/112/008/small/Bern.jpg?1621870246","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-milken.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/112/008/original/L1911_MA_Oral_History_Bern_1_Fixed.mp4?1619862624","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":3459.92533,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["AUTO_TRINT_Mina Bern [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Miss Bern, I want to welcome you to this little discussion we’re having.  I haven’t seen you in several years.  As I told you just a little while ago, the last time I saw you was in Those Were the Days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Mmm-hmmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But this is already kind of after the fact of the, of the real heyday of Yiddish theater.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I understand you came, you had a very interesting trip to this country.  And your first voyage here, as a young lady.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou were born where?  You were born in Europe, yes?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Mmm.  Are you speaking about the, Those Were the Days?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.  About you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  About me.  Where do you want me to start?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In the beginning, where you…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=16.0,60.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eBERN:\u003c/strong\u003e I started when I was seven years old.  At school.  In my little town in Poland.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd the teachers predicted already that I would be an actress.  Why?  Because, it’s usual, in school, you know, they make certain performances with the children.  So they performed Adam, Eve, and the Snake.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, at that time, I already was the snake.  But they had forgotten to give me the apple, which is the main, the most important thing.  And they were, the teachers, they were hysterical.  “What’s going to be?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I nonchalantly so made believe that I had my apple in my hand, and I danced out backstage and I grabbed the apple and I came back, and everything was said.  So they said, “She is going to be an actress.”  So and, so it was.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=60.0,127.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I went to Lodz when I was on vacation.  There was a little theater, amateur theater, Adorat.  And Moshe Broderson, a very well-known poet, he was the director.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo — I had a beautiful voice.  And I was that, what they say.  I was a pretty girl.  Once upon a time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSEROTA:  You’re still pretty.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You’re more pretty now than ever.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  So….  I’m not asking for compliments.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Okay, we’ll take it out.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=127.0,168.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eBERN:\u003c/strong\u003e I know my score.  Anyway, and he said, “While you are here, why would you, didn’t you join the, the group?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “Why not?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, my name is Mina Bern.  Actually, my name is Mina Bernholtz.  So Moshe Broderson said like this — “You are not a Holtz — bish nisht kin Holtz.  So we’ll cut off the grut — the Holtz — and it will remain Mina Bern.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo that’s what — but actually, it’s Bernholtz.  And I don’t want people should know my real name.  Because I don’t have anybody of my family anymore.  Just one sister in Israel.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=168.0,219.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So, from there, we received a letter from the union from Warsaw that if we intend to continue and play the Adorat, we should come and we have to go through an examination.  So, I had an aunt in Warsaw.  So what can I lose?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI went to Warsaw.  My hometown was Biriskbodlovsky.  It’s between Bialystock and Breznitovsk, Poland, from my time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=219.0,258.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I came to the union, I wanted to see what is the union?  I was very young at that time.  So I came in, and Yeintiv Part, if you know the name, there is Dr. Emma Part, her father.  He was the one in the committee to decide who can be a performer, who cannot.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=258.0,287.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"As I was going to a Yiddish volks shulen, I knew Yiddish very well.  So sure enough, that I went through and made the examination to perfection.  And then, he wrote a review.  “The best who put up the examination, a hundred percent, was a young, blonde girl from Biriskbodlovsky.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo they came with me, between, they wanted to engage me.  But I was too young, and I had to go to school.  My mother wanted me to come back.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=287.0,325.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But they gave me immediately to play an old lady.  So I didn’t play it.  I went back to school.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd then, they — somehow, with, as life goes on, it came to 1939.  I married before, in Vilna, a young man.  I have a beautiful child, a doctor.  She’s in Israel.  She has two daughters.  One is a lawyer.  The other one is a physiotherapist.  And I’m a very, very happy grandmother.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=325.0,378.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But life was very difficult.  When the war broke out, I was in Vilna.  So I decided to go back to Bialystock, to my hometown to Birisk, to see my mother.  And my husband remained in Vilna.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the time he was ready to come out, there was the typhus in, in Vilna, an epidemic.  And they didn’t let him out, and I’ve never seen him again.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=378.0,416.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"In Bialystock, they came from Russia to engage people to come to Russia and play Yiddish theater.  And mark who those people were.  Jiginish Shumacker, Shmoolie Goldstein, Lola Forman, Yitzhak Perloff, Moshe Noodleman, Joseph Shimen Goldstein — they used to call him the Lustika Pesimiste — and Chayela Luxemborg, Chayela Shiffer.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=416.0,456.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"From all the people remained Mina Bern, Chayela Shiffer, in Toronto, and Felix Fibia.  At that time, he was a dancer.  His wife, Judith Fibia — Judith Berg Fibia.  She was the dancer.  She had two girls and Felix was also, the, three, and she was the main.  We went to Russia.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=456.0,492.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When I was in Adorat — to begin with, I go back.  Moshe Broderson and the composer, Beibelman — David Beibelman — they wrote a song for me.  Se Dafis Assis Rein.  The same song I sang in Russia, but it was translated into Russian language.  Because we had to play for people that did not speak Yiddish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd at one point, I stopped the show.  And I didn’t have another song.  So I sang the same song twice and three times.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=492.0,540.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Then they came, they wanted to engage me to, to play in the movies.  But if you were in a company, you couldn’t leave the place.  So I stayed on with them until the German attacked Russia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo we were in Russia, playing all over — Moscow, Leningrad, Botkoo, Nepapitrovsk, Harkov — you name it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In Russian?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  All over, in Russia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In Russian language, or in Yiddish language?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  It’s not an amateur.  It was already, at that time, it was already a theater from Bialystock.  They selected the people.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=540.0,582.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  No, but Russian language?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  In Yiddish.  And in Russian.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yiddish and Russian.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  In Yiddish and Russian.  Mostly Yiddish, but also translated, like you make here now.  Yiddish, and a little bit of English, or you have the earphones.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=582.0,605.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Anyway, I am a Yiddish performer.  Through and through.  I love it.  I’m still performing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut when — I’m jumping from one to the other.  But there’s so much to tell, you know.  So when the, it broke out, the war among the German and the Russian people, the theater dissolved.  What I’ll be doing?  And I had my little baby with me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo they said like this — I was also, also, I had my Polish passport yet.  I had two — the Russian passport and the Polish passport.  So they said, there was an agreement among the English government and the Polish government.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=605.0,662.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The people that cannot go and serve the army — because I had a tiny little baby — they will send to Uganda, to build a colony there.  For the English people.  For the English government.  And for this, we’ll get food.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was like a concentration camp.  Because it’s a jungle.  It was nothing there.  You had to dig the earth in order to make it should grow something.  There was a, a big forest with monkeys.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=662.0,709.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And we were 20 people — strangers — in a little house made out of straw.  And at night, you could hear the snakes — ssh! — you know.  And the, the people, the Black people, they used to burn our houses.  And we remained at night without anything, like under the sky.  This was going on, I was there six months.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile we were going to Uganda — we didn’t fly by plane, God forbid, by train, by — what do you call a fracht, a fracht ship?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  A ferry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  A fracht.  It’s made out of…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  A ferry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  A ferry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  A ferry, yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=709.0,766.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eBERN:\u003c/strong\u003e And we stopped in Nairobi.  In Nairobi, there were ladies that used to bring food for the so-called “refugees.”  Three ladies — Jewish ladies — came over, they looked at me, and one of the ladies, Mrs. Dorman, she gave me her address in my hand, nobody should know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen we came to this place, Bunyura Forest, they called it, I took the children — there were many other children.  Yes.  On the way we stopped also in Teheran.  I went, they gave us two hours to stretch the feet, the legs, go out.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=766.0,829.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I had a sister.  My sister now is in Israel.  She was sent to Siberia.  Because her husband was a wealthy man in Warsaw.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile I was, went with my child in Teheran, just to go around and see, suddenly, I met my sister there.  It, it doesn’t sound real.  Right?  It doesn’t.  But it’s real.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI gave you the book, I think.  It’s mentioned there, everything, right?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSEROTA:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  All we could do, my sister went together with us.  She joined us, and we went together to Bunyura Forest, to the jungles.  In Uganda.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=829.0,889.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Being in Uganda, except that I was digging the earth and doing everything, in order to get food.  So I also took children and I made a little theater with the kids.  And I’d let them perform the same way as I performed when I was seven years old.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe queen comes out — they are dolls.  Nobody should move.  The queen, at midnight, the queen, boom!  Boom!  They all start to move.  And they dance.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=889.0,934.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I remember when I was there, as a little child, I was a, a Russian Cossack.  They made me for a Russian Cossack, and they put such a mask, you know.  And the mask, it itches me.  It, you know, and I, and I understood that I shouldn’t touch it, because I’m not alive.  So I made like this.  You know?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is also, they said, a sign of a performer.  How she could, a seven-year-old child, could understand she’s not supposed to touch anything, she’s not supposed to move.  So I made just, to help myself, it shouldn’t itch.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=934.0,978.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, it came the consul from Nairobi, which is the capital of Kenya, and he said that my class he liked very much.  So I would go with the children to show the Polish education for the English government in Nairobi.  Okay?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut there was not enough, not to give me my child.  And my sister.  They remained there, and I went to Nairobi.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=978.0,1017.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When I came to Nairobi, I had the little telephone, the address of the lady, Mrs. Dorman.  I called her.  She and another lady, Mrs. Maldicks, they went to the government, they put up a bond, I should remain in Nairobi to work in a store for one of these ladies, for Mrs. Maldicks.  She had a store from a needle, material, clothes — everything. It wasn’t easy.  I had to do everything.  So I did everything in their house.  They had a villa.  They had two shvartzes, you know.  Well-off.  In Kenya.  Nairobi, which is the capital, of course.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1017.0,1078.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I started, what, what can I do?  I’m not a seamstress. So there was pieces of material, very colorful.  So I learned how to put up in the window the material, it should look nice, people should come in. I didn’t know the language.  They were speaking English, at that time.  So at night, I was studying with my lady English, and the daytime, I was in the office.  Then I came home, and I cooked for them.  I did everything possible.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1078.0,1128.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, she had this store, Mrs. Maldicks.  Next to the store, there was a French restaurant.  And they needed a cashier who knew French.  My sister knew French from university. So he sent a, what do you call it?  A, he sent for her that she would be working for him.  And she brought the baby.  So we were already all of us three together.  We didn’t live together.  I had the baby.  She was separately, my sister.  She worked for the man, but we were already in Nairobi.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1128.0,1174.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"In Israel — it was at that time Palestine — we had a cousin.  And he went from one place to the other to look, if he’ll find the names.  And he did.  So after being in Nairobi a year-and-a-half, we received the certificate to come to Palestine.  In 1944, we came together, the three of us, to Rehovot, Israel. And there, I started to play theater.  In Tel Aviv.  There was such a garden, a big one, by the name Hooberman.  Hooberman Groben, in Yiddish.  It was Al Sefart Ayam, near the sea.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1174.0,1239.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We were a couple of performers.  One lady, she was from Rumania, Jenya Lovich, Yahalome Alexander, who is now in Israel.  There was a, a lady, Frieda Shaffer.  She’s not alive anymore.  Vilensky was the pianist — Moshe Vilensky — who later wrote for me the songs which became very popular in Palestine, in Israel.  And it was a Harvey Gold was the, played the violin.  There were three or four people orchestra. They gave us, more or less, a short time to perform Yiddish.  And I don’t blame them, because they had to establish the Hebrew language in Israel.  And Yiddish was pretty in competition.  The people loved Yiddish.  Until this day.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1239.0,1305.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So, after being about not, not even a year, I joined the theater Le La Lo.  In Hebrew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You learned Hebrew quickly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Beg pardon?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You learned the Hebrew language quickly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes.  Why?  Because in my hometown, my grandfather, he used to sit with me and teach me in the morning the prayer, at night the prayer.  Moyda ana lefen achem melachai.  So, I remembered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut this is completely different.  This is Ashkenazi, and this is something.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1305.0,1354.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So I learned very quickly, because I speak five languages — Russian, Polish, Hebrew, Yiddish, English, with an accent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSEROTA:  I didn’t notice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  And a little German, which I don’t need.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo here we are, in Israel.  It, I’m such a, a modest person that I, I hate to talk how I became immediately a big star.  In Israel.  And they started to wrote, songs for me that became through all the world.  Atsaynu Hackton Telma — My Little Country, in Yiddish and in Hebrew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I sang in Hebrew to begin with there.   Tongo Kwa Sava.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1354.0,1413.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"You named ones that you heard something about.  The Tongo I sang, right?  That’s Tongo Kwa Sava.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have the music, the original music, I have with me yet.  Which is from Tango Kwa Sava.  I sang it in 1947.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Who made that song?  Who wrote it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Who wrote?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Vilensky…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Vilensky.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  …the music; Alterman — Nathan Alterman, the lyrics.  And it’s written there.  Mushar Depris Mina Bern.  The same Mina Bern.  With, with a little caricature of me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1413.0,1455.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I really became a big star.  All the songs, until these days, you can hear in Israel on the radio, or maybe cassettes, they have.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1949, after the establishment of Israel, came from the States a man by the name Rothman.  He was the manager of the theater, the National Theater on Houston Street.  The director was Rosenberg.  His wife, Mira Rosanka.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd this man came to choose people to bring to the States.  Shall I — in an Israeli revue, but in Yiddish.  I knew the both languages already.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1455.0,1525.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"He came to a concert where about 50 people sang.  And among those 50 people he had chosen me to come to the States.  In the beginning, I didn’t believe, as they said to me, On namra kana bloffer — it’s not true.  He will never send — sure enough, he did send a ticket.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd the writer was Joseph Shimmen Goldstein.  And the two of us, and Matta Tower Rosen, who, unfortunately, he passed away in the States.  He was about 35 years old.  And here I am.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s, it, to tell the story, it’s a jumping, one-two-three.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s fine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  And it, it’s impossible even for me, you know?  To go so fluently.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1525.0,1587.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e But tell me about some of the movies, some of the films that you made here.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1587.0,1645.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  The films?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  They’re all Yiddish films.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yiddish?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I didn’t make any Yiddish films.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, not Yiddish films.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  No.  I started here.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What — so English-language films\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  No.  I spoke in Yiddish one film.  Little Odessa.  I, I played the grandmother, and I spoke Yiddish.  I have a video.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes, I have.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I’d like to see it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I was in Avalon, with the great director, Barry Levinson.  Little Odessa, It Could Happen to You.  Then I made I’m Not Rappaport, and made — now, it didn’t come out yet, with Woody Allen.  And I work in the Yiddish theater.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI do a lot — a lot — of social work.  And we have a organization, we call it Yiddish Artists and Friends.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1645.0,1706.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e Now, tell me about…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1706.0,1757.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eBERN:\u003c/strong\u003e Do you know, when I came to this country — I haven’t finished yet.  You want, you want to interrupt me?  No.  I wouldn’t let you.  As a guest artist, in the cast…I was lucky enough to have Mr. Fyvesh Finkel in the cast.  We're very good friends until now and Ben Bonus was there. And as soon as he saw me he didn't let me go.  He was handsome. He was nice. He was happy go lucky.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1757.0,1804.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eBERN:\u003c/strong\u003e And he was a beautiful singer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1951, we married.  Thirty-three years, we were together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was a go-getter.  He could make Yiddish theater in a corner.  That nobody would believe.  When he took the, the Yiddish Village Theater on Second Avenue and Sixth Street, 1800 seats! — so everybody said, “He’s a crazy man!”  Where would he get so many Jews to, to fill up the, the theater?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1804.0,1850.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"They came from nowhere.  And we played the first year in 1964, 39 weeks, every weekend, seven performances.  Every weekend, a different show.  With, and he brought back the classic, the movies.  The classic Yiddish movies.  Peppe the Milicher, and Mamale — all of them.  People came.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd we used to get letters from the parents, how grateful they are to us, because the young people started to attend, and look, and they want to know Yiddish yet.  You know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1850.0,1900.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Then, also, we used to play summertime here.  Wintertime, Florida.  He used to bring the same company, with the orchestra, with everything, to Florida.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSometimes, even, it wasn’t in the cards.  But he didn’t look.  “I have to do it.  My father, my mother, my family, they went to the gas chamber.  Six million Jews went to the gas chamber.  I have to do it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s a Sholem Aleichem — he has to play Sholem Aleichem.  It’s a, a Peretz Hirschmann — he has to do Peretz Hirschmann.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1900.0,1945.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But sometimes, it was a losing proposition.  But he didn’t care.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 19 — we went on tour for the Workmen’s Circle and for the Zionist Far Band.  From coast to coast, in every city, we brought Yiddish culture.  Yes.  On a high level.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy mobile.  We didn’t fly.  Ben drove the car.  We took about ourselves — two — he used to take another three, and a pianist — about six people, seven people, throughout the country.  From one place to the other.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSometimes — they used to say we had to reach Winnipeg.  Wintertime, Winnipeg — it’s terrible.  “Don’t go.”  “It’s a risk.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1945.0,2005.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"He said, “You see?  Here, it’s snow,” he used to say.  “But there, the sun is shining.”  Such an optimist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd we came just a minute before the show.  And immediately, the Lipcote went with us, Lydiana went with us.  They, they are the lead of The Dybbuk, you know.  Seymour went with us.  And Miriam Kressyn, should rest in peace.  And Raisel Borshik, and Max Borshik, and Shiffren Leder, and Bension Vitler.  I cannot tell you each and every one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd then, summertime, we used to come here.  Festivals all over.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn, in 1984, we finished a season in Florida.  And we are packed to go back home.  So we went to friends in Miami.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2005.0,2075.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We had a little condominium there.  Because we used to stay six months here, six months there.  So we went to say goodbye. Lucky me.  At that time, that evening, Ben didn’t take the car.  We made up to meet half the way.  They will come with us, and we will come.  He didn’t take the car.  It was before the Passover.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo he said — the name is, was, Sandahl Weissman from Florida.  His wife is alive — Mindel Weissman.  So we were sitting there, saying goodbye, and then, he said, “Well, Mina, time to go home.  Hotmen a guten nacht.  Good night.  Alben koppen lush.”  Because he used to sing Mangel’s, the Nemecht meden Koppen Lushes Zugga Guten Nacht.  So he said, “Honishken koppen lush, hotmen a guten nacht, have a good night, without death.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2075.0,2145.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We walk.  He didn’t take the car.  Not far, before our condominium.  Ben says, “I would like to sit…”.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe didn’t the phrase “to sit down.”  And he was gone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI remained.  You people can understand how I remained.  Needless to tell you.  Every human being will understand.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2145.0,2188.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"After 33 years being together, working together, everything together, and, in five seconds!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYeah, and the ambulance came.  I called my friends immediately.  They came.  We went to the hospital, and the doctor gave me his jacket, his golden watch, his wallet.  “Mrs. Bonus, your husband is gone.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was that night alone, in my little apartment.  In the morning, I picked myself up, I went to New York, and I arranged the funeral, to bring the body to New York.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2188.0,2249.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Such a funeral nobody had yet in the history.  People were coming to me, crying, “Who is going to sing for us about the Taylors?  About the, the Shusters?  About the this?  Who?  Who?  Where is….  What?  Ben!”  He was the idol of the Yiddish population.  They loved him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd Mina started alone, from the beginning.  Zalman Mlotek and Moshe Rosenfeld, they gave me a chance.  I gave them the office.  And the, at Workmen’s Circle, we had an office.  I gave them everything I had — the scissors, the books, and I helped them get contact with all the benefits.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2249.0,2312.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I was left without a penny.  They paid me a hundred and a quarter.  A week.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd then, I was, I wasn’t yet in the union of SAG — Screen Actors Guild.  But I was called for an audition to play a widow.  Friday night, she’s a widow, and she has to light the candles, to pray.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt came out beautiful.  The movie, I, I saw, but nobody else.  Because they sold it to a different country.  They called it Tenement.  It was done in the Bronx.  But because I wasn’t in the union, I got paid a, a hundred dollars a day.  You know what it means for me, a hundred dollars a day, at that time?  My God!","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2312.0,2385.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Then, I started on my own.  I got together with a young singer, a young lady, Shoshanna Rohm.  We made performances.  I taught her how to play theater, to make sketches.  I played with her Agate, I made my, the mother that you saw in Those Were the Days.  I became very popular again.And here I am, now, with you, and telling you this story.  I’m fine.  People like me very much.  I play all over. I will be in June in Massachusetts.  One-woman show.  I, with songs, with poems.  My heart.  I do the best I can.  Everything on a high level.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2385.0,2457.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I keep up Ben’s wish. The sixth of April will be 14 years. I have a gorgeous, beautiful daughter in Israel, at Rama Tran, and two granddaughters.  Sometimes, I go there.  Sometimes, she comes here.  I have an apartment on Grand Street.  And this is my life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs much as the people, they’ll want to listen to me, that much, I’ll be here, doing everything possible for them, with them.  And I thank you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2457.0,2500.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What are some of the, some of the, your favorite shows that you did?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Of my favorite…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In Yiddish, in Yiddish, Yiddish shows.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Oh, I have so many.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What are some of the favorite ones?  Your favorite ones.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I, I cannot.  I need the piano.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, no.  Just to tell me about it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  To, to, to recite?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.  To name the show.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Name the shows?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Mirele Efros, De Shvartzes und da Yid — no, that’s a — oh, my God.  Sholem Aleichem’s.  De Goyse, De Grose Givens, Des Grose Givens.  I played two parts.  I played in Mirele Efros, I told you.  Then, Stampinyu.  Then I played the Maiden of Ludmilla.  And this year, Yankel the Shmid.  I played The Shacht Kunter.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2500.0,2567.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I translate songs from Hebrew into Yiddish.  From Russian to Yiddish.  I write a little bit.  If it’s necessary — an opening, or whatever it is, or if I have to add something to my part.  I want it should be more, more, what to do, I do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I love the Yiddish literature.  I read nights.  I get all the magazines — The Zukoff, and the, and the Professor Richard Goldberg’s journal.  Books.  You can come, you, have you seen the library?  Please come, and you’ll see my library.  I’ve given a lot of books to the Massachusetts the, to the book store.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2567.0,2628.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Oh, to the Yiddish Book Center.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yeah.  In the Book Center.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  And that’s where I’m going, in June.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did you, in the shows that you played, the Yiddish shows in America, you toured other cities besides — like you went to Philadelphia, ever?  Or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  They did, we used to go.  In, in Philadelphia, I used to go for a concert, myself.  Lately.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  For a concert.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Concert, yes.  Some of the men, Chayele Asch, I was there.  I go all over.  If you want to engage me, I’m ready to go.  I’m funny, heh?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSEROTA:  Absolutely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Because I’m changed, now.  I don’t, I’m not the, the popular singer.  I’m the character actress with, more in comedy style.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2628.0,2673.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But you sang all kinds of Yiddish songs, in the, in the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I have a big, big repertoire.  And I have Ben’s cassettes.  Ben has five long discs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did you ever sing together with Ben?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I have with, together with Ben, too.  And I have one song that on Ben’s record.  Beautiful.  Di Butek Hirshele, I sing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I sing, and I do, and I — you name it, and I do it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You just did a show at the Folksbinne this year, this year, with Yankele Shmidt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yeah, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Is there another one coming, next year, for, for the Folksbinne?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I hope so.  I’m sure.  Because Ziponish Peisman is a go-getter.  She will see to it that it should be.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2673.0,2725.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  And what about some of the, some of the other people with whom you worked?  Other actors you… did you ever work with Menashe Skolnick?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Where?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Menashe Skolnick?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Menashe Skolnick, no.  But he was a good friend.  He used to come to me to eat gefilte fish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Who made the fish?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I made.  I can’t, I, I cooked.  Okay?  I don’t like to eat in restaurants.  I cook.  I entertain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDidn’t he eat herring in, when, in Bialystock, at Vladstock, at my house?  Didn’t you eat?  Huh?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSEROTA:  Definitely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I don’t know.  You served herring in the, in Those Were the Days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Those Were the Days?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  You saw what I did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But you ran out of the herring.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yeah.  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And what about people like Morris Schwartz?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I was too young.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You were too young.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Of course.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And Skolnick was still going in the ‘60s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I’m here, you see.  I was too young.  I always was the youngest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You knew Miriam Kressyn well.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2725.0,2786.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  Oh, I loved, I adored Miriam Kressyn.  Every morning, we used to talk to each other.  I used to call up.  I used to call her Mayamel.  Mayamel.  And we used to speak Yiddish.  “Mayamel, vus machts dit?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd she used to say, “Shkoshe.  Shkoshe.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOh, yeah.  I, I loved her.  She was one, one of million.  A good, good lady.  And talent, and knowledgeable.  I adore her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How about Molly?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Who?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Molly Picon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Molly Picon I didn’t have in common.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMiriam played with us on Broadway.  We had three major revues on Broadway, Yiddishes.  Ben brought to the Belasco Theater, to the Brooks Atkinson Theater.  It was Let’s Sing Yiddish.  There is the record.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  And Like Lively in Yiddish, and Sing, Israel, Sing!  Three major.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2786.0,2849.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then they, the police used to stand on their horses and keep the people, they should stand in the line and be able to come over and buy tickets.  Without any benefits.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat’s Ben.  Okay?  What he did.  He, he couldn’t here, so he went to Brooklyn.  He couldn’t in Brooklyn, so he went another place.  He made, if Ben would be alive, I, I think, I’m, I’m almost sure, there would be yet more Yiddish theater.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  More Yiddish theater, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat about, there was a, the, in Those Were the Days, that was like a revue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  A combination of things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And it wasn’t a play.  Then there was another one before that.  Were you in that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  The Golden Land.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The Golden Land.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You were in it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I wasn’t in it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, you weren’t in that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  No.  It was very nice.  Everything they do, the, the guys, they’re very nice.  Zalman is a very good musician, and together, we worked, and I love him.  I know Zalman when he was five years old.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2849.0,2910.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  So you know, did you know his parents?  You know their…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Oh, yeah.  Chamba?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Did they — just recently made a new book of songs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  And I sang there, I performed for them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’m a very close friend with Yossel and with Chamba, with Zalman.  And Moshe, now, is going to be — not Moshe — for the big Seder.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The, the third Seder?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  The, the fifth of April.  He is the president of the Workmen’s Circle.  The, Mark Mlotek.  The younger.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, I see.  And, and the Yiddish Actors Alliance, or the Hebrew Actors Alliance — the union.  Were you, are you, were you active in that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I am in the executive.  I am all over.  You name it, and I’m there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And the Friends, the Friends Organization — that’s different from the union?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2910.0,2965.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  Yeah, the Yiddish Artisan Friends?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s upstairs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Work upstairs, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s the one?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  And you, you want to come up and see it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I’ve been.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  You’ll see what we go.  And we’ll have a seder, too, the sixth of April.  If you want to come, you’re welcome to it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Thank you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Okay?  We make a seder, we’ll have a hazzan.  And Moshe Bird — do you know a young man, a cantor?  Moshe Bird?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I, I know him, yes, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  He comes for nothing to us.  Everybody comes for nothing.  I make them come for nothing.  Because I do it also for nothing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Your, when you were a little girl, when you sang, this was theatrical music, or was only, or did you sing other things, aside from Yiddish?  When you were a little, when you were seven years old, ten years old, 11 years old.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You sang.  On the stage.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I had a beautiful voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  All Yiddish?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2965.0,3018.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  Yiddish and Polish and Russian.  Everything.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I, and I wrote on the, on the wall.  You know, we had the little, a little house.  And it was painted white, you know.  Like in a klein shtetl, in a little town.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I used to — and I said that I’m writing poetry.  In Yiddish.  Dur boint hana baden holtz mit ira kinder, lazer del elster, mishin ov hem, Mina de mittitstay, and Mary de musinke.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat was poetry.  And that’s a whole day.  And my mother used to say, “Minale, it’s a, shayn kan nuk, kan nuk — that’s enough, enough.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(Sings) Dur boint hana baden holtz mit ira kinder, lazer del elster — the, the, the music — my own composition.  And I remember.  Look at my memory!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  If I asked you which did you enjoy more, singing or acting?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3018.0,3090.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  Everything together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Everything together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  It doesn’t go separately.  I have, I love this number, Der Spiegel, from Spiegelman.  What I do, when I see the Spiegel, and what I sing, and how my grandmother looked in the mirror, how my grandfather looked, how my mother looked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNobody — I have no, nobody.  Just my sister in Israel and my daughter.  Otherwise, here in the States, nobody.  I have the Jewish people.  That’s all.  All.  I have a lease.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  When you, before the war, before you came to the United States, you, you did, it seems to me, a more classic kind of, a more serious kind of theater.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  No.  Le La Lo — no.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did you do…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I was one of the singers satire.  (Sings) Le sa benna to bomen…  Fest!  Fest!  Abren.  You know what abren?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Mmm.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3090.0,3151.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  Yah?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Mmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Fire.  That was a….\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlso, in lyrics.  In lyric.  A tranocht on tolnet — there was a song, with words, with coloratura.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And you never studied voice?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Oh, no.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You never took lessons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  They didn’t want, they said it’s better I shouldn’t study.  The natural voice was more than I would study.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So nobody, you, no voice teacher ruined your voice?  Right?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I guess so.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  And you, you worked with a lot of great conductors and important pianists and so forth in the theater?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  In the theater?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  It was steady pianist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Who were some of the — like in the ‘50s, in the 1950s, who were some of the con…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  In the 1950s, I was here already.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah, here.  Who was conducting?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3151.0,3208.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  There was a, an orchestra.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Who conducted that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  What’s his name?  I don’t remember.  I, I remember better, you know…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  …from the years before than a…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How about Secunda?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Who?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Secunda.  Did you know Secunda?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes, yes.  Secunda.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFirst of all, I was summertime in Unzer Camp.  Which belongs to the Zionist organization.  And Secunda was the conductor, and there was an orchestra.  And I was on the, in, in the ensemble.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  On the stage?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You, you…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …you were in the, you performed in the camp?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes.  For the summer.  Sure.  I was in, in Boybrecht.  Luba Caddison’s sister was the pianist.  Look up, I have — and all over.  Sure.  With an orchestra, pianist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How about Rumshinsky?  Did you know Rumshinsky?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  They, the old Rumshinsky?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The old one, the, the son — either one.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3208.0,3268.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  I knew the old one, but I didn’t work with him.  The, the younger one made the record with us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Murray.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Let’s Sing Yiddish.  Murray.  A bissel meshuga, but what can I tell you?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSEROTA:  See, even when he was young, he was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Rumsey, Murray Rumsey, yeah.  But he was Rumshinsky, yeah, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yeah.  Rumsey.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  So you knew all of the people in that world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Oh, yes.  Oh, yeah.  They know me, I know them, and when, I know of them, about them, everything.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3268.0,3299.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN: Abe Elstein.  Did you know Abe Elstein?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Elstein?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I knew, I know of him.  I didn’t know him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You didn’t…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  No, no.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …sing with him conducting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  No, no.  Secunda I knew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Secunda, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Secunda wrote a, a song specially for me.  Zing Shtil.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He wrote that specially for you?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes.  I have the music with my picture.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And you sang it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  It’s the Zing Shtil.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  My picture.  And the lyrics wrote about union.  I have it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did you ever sing that song in a concert?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I sang…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3299.0,3333.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  What a question!  It’s a good song, a nice song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now, but you told me, just a little while ago, that this was not everything.  There were many other things to tell.  In the remaining few minutes, what would you like to tell us about either your life in Yiddish theater or what you think about Yiddish theater for the future?  Whatever you want to…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  What I think?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Listen.  Don’t ask me.  I am also an optimist, when it comes to Yiddish.  If there will be one Jew, there will be Yiddish theater.  I’m telling you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou know how many years already I go they said Yiddish theater died?  It never will.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3333.0,3374.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I will die — there will be others.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey’re going, now.  People study Yiddish, I want you to know.  And you, you do know.  Columbia University and all over.  And de Hasidishe kinder.  They study Yiddish.  They will be the future, you’ll see.  They, they talk, they speak it, they, they read it, and, and that’s that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere will be Yiddish.  How good?  How bad?  Maybe even better than it was.  Who knows?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3374.0,3409.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/25047/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"You go ahead.  You don’t go back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s the definition of an optimist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I went to, to Columbia University for the students, and I told them my life story.  Everything what I told you.  I was there, and I spoke there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s been a wonderful experience, to have you with us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Thank you.  I’m glad you liked it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And I’m glad — well, it isn’t a question if I liked it, but I’m glad that you feel that there will be continuation of Yiddish theater.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Thank you very much.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And Yiddish music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And maybe this will help.  Thank you so much.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Thank you, sir.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3409.0,3459.92533"}]},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Interview with Mina Bern_Edited [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Miss Bern, I want to welcome you to this little discussion we’re having.  I haven’t seen you in several years.  As I told you just a little while ago, the last time I saw you was in Those Were the Days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Mmm-hmmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: But this is already kind of after the fact of the, of the real heyday of Yiddish theater.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I understand you came, you had a very interesting trip to this country.  And your first voyage here, as a young lady.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou were born where?  You were born in Europe, yes?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN: Mmm.  Are you speaking about the, Those Were the Days?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.  About you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  About me.  Where do you want me to start?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In the beginning, where you…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=16.0,60.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eBERN:\u003c/strong\u003e I started when I was seven years old.  At school.  In my little town in Poland.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd the teachers predicted already that I would be an actress.  Why? Because, it’s usual, in school, you know, they make certain performances with the children.  So they performed Adam, Eve, and the Snake.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, at that time, I already was the snake. But they had forgotten to give me the apple, which is the main, the most important thing.  And they were, the teachers, they were hysterical.  “What’s going to be?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I nonchalantly so made believe that I had my apple in my hand, and I danced out backstage and I grabbed the apple and I came back, and everything was said. So they said, “She is going to be an actress.”  So and, so it was.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=60.0,127.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I went to Lodz when I was on vacation. There was a little theater, amateur theater, Ararat. And Moishe Broderzon, a very well-known poet, he was the director.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo — I had a beautiful voice.  And I was that, what they say.  I was a pretty girl.  Once upon a time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSEROTA:  You’re still pretty.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You’re more pretty now than ever.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  So….  I’m not asking for compliments.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Okay, we’ll take it out.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=127.0,168.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eBERN:\u003c/strong\u003e I know my score.  Anyway, and he said, “While you are here, why would you, didn’t you join the, the group?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “Why not?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, my name is Mina Bern.  Actually, my name is Mina Bernholtz. So Moishe Broderzon said like this — “You are not a Holtz — bish nisht kin Holtz [bist nisht keyn holts].  So we’ll cut off the wood — the Holtz — and it will remain Mina Bern.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo that’s what — but actually, it’s Bernholtz.  And I don’t want people should know my real name.  Because I don’t have anybody of my family anymore. Just one sister in Israel.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=168.0,219.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So, from there, we received a letter from the union from Warsaw that if we intend to continue and play the Ararat, we should come and we have to go through an examination. So, I had an aunt in Warsaw.  So what can I lose?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI went to Warsaw.  My hometown was Biriskbodlovsky Bielsk Podlaski.  It’s between Bialystock and Brest-Litovsk, Poland, from my time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=219.0,258.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I came to the union, I wanted to see what is the union? I was very young at that time.  So I came in, and Yeintiv Part [Yankif Pad (?)], if you know the name, there is Dr. Emma Part, her father.  He was the one in the committee to decide who can be a performer, who cannot.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=258.0,287.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"As I was going to a Yiddish Volksschule, I knew Yiddish very well.  So sure enough, that I went through and made the examination to perfection.  And then, he wrote a review. “The best who put up the examination, a hundred percent, was a young, blonde girl from Bielsk Podlaski.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo they came with me, between, they wanted to engage me.  But I was too young, and I had to go to school. My mother wanted me to come back.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=287.0,325.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But they gave me immediately to play an old lady. So I didn’t play it.  I went back to school.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd then, they—somehow, with, as life goes on, it came to 1939. I married before, in Vilna, a young man. I have a beautiful child, a doctor. She’s in Israel.  She has two daughters.  One is a lawyer. The other one is a physiotherapist.  And I’m a very, very happy grandmother.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=325.0,378.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But life was very difficult. When the war broke out, I was in Vilna.  So I decided to go back to Bialystock, to my hometown to Bielsk, to see my mother.  And my husband remained in Vilna.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the time he was ready to come out, there was the typhus in, in Vilna, an epidemic. And they didn’t let him out, and I’ve never seen him again.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=378.0,416.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"In Bialystock, they came from Russia to engage people to come to Russia and play Yiddish theater.  And mark who those people were. Dzigan and Shumacher, Shmulik Goldstein, Lola Forman, Yitzhak Perloff, Moyshe Nudelman, Joseph Shimen Goldstein — they used to call him the Lustika Pesimiste [Lustica Pessimist (?)]— and Chayele Luxembourg, Chayele Shiffer.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=416.0,456.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"From all the people remained Mina Bern, Chayele Shiffer, in Toronto, and Felix Fibich.  At that time, he was a dancer. His wife, Judith Fibich — Judith Berg Fibich.  She was the dancer.  She had two girls and Felix Fibich was also, the, three, and she was the main.  We went to Russia.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=456.0,492.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/78","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When I was in Ararat — to begin with, I go back. Moishe Broderzon and the composer, Beigelman— David Beigelman— they wrote a song for me.  Sie Darf es also Sein.  The same song I sang in Russia, but it was translated into Russian language. Because we had to play for people that did not speak Yiddish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd at one point, I stopped the show.  And I didn’t have another song.  So I sang the same song twice and three times.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=492.0,540.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/79","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Then they came, they wanted to engage me to, to play in the movies. But if you were in a company, you couldn’t leave the place. So I stayed on with them until the German attacked Russia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo we were in Russia, playing all over — Moscow, Leningrad, Baku, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv— you name it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In Russian?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  All over, in Russia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In Russian language, or in Yiddish language?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  It’s not an amateur.  It was already, at that time, it was already a theater from Bialystock.  They selected the people.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=540.0,582.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/80","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  No, but Russian language?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  In Yiddish.  And in Russian.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yiddish and Russian.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  In Yiddish and Russian. Mostly Yiddish, but also translated, like you make here now. Yiddish, and a little bit of English, or you have the earphones.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=582.0,605.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/81","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Anyway, I am a Yiddish performer. Through and through. I love it. I’m still performing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut when — I’m jumping from one to the other.  But there’s so much to tell, you know. So when the, it broke out, the war among the German and the Russian people, the theater dissolved.  What I’ll be doing?  And I had my little baby with me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo they said like this — I was also, also, I had my Polish passport yet.  I had two — the Russian passport and the Polish passport.  So they said, there was an agreement among the English government and the Polish government.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=605.0,662.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/82","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The people that cannot go and serve the army — because I had a tiny little baby — they will send to Uganda, to build a colony there.  For the English people. For the English government. And for this, we’ll get food.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was like a concentration camp.  Because it’s a jungle.  It was nothing there.  You had to dig the earth in order to make it should grow something.  There was a, a big forest with monkeys.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=662.0,709.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/83","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And we were 20 people — strangers — in a little house made out of straw.  And at night, you could hear the snakes — ssh! — you know.  And the, the people, the Black people, they used to burn our houses.  And we remained at night without anything, like under the sky.  This was going on, I was there six months.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile we were going to Uganda — we didn’t fly by plane, God forbid, by train, by — what do you call a fracht, a fracht ship?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  A ferry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  A fracht.  It’s made out of…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  A ferry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  A ferry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  A ferry, yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=709.0,766.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/84","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eBERN:\u003c/strong\u003e And we stopped in Nairobi.  In Nairobi, there were ladies that used to bring food for the so-called “refugees.”  Three ladies — Jewish ladies — came over, they looked at me, and one of the ladies, Mrs. Dorman, she gave me her address in my hand, nobody should know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen we came to this place, Bunyoro Forest, they called it, I took the children — there were many other children.  Yes.  On the way we stopped also in Tehran.  I went, they gave us two hours to stretch the feet, the legs, go out.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=766.0,829.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/85","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I had a sister.  My sister now is in Israel.  She was sent to Siberia.  Because her husband was a wealthy man in Warsaw.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile I was, went with my child in Tehran, just to go around and see, suddenly, I met my sister there.  It, it doesn’t sound real.  Right?  It doesn’t.  But it’s real.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI gave you the book, I think. It’s mentioned there, everything, right?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSEROTA:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  All we could do, my sister went together with us.  She joined us, and we went together to Bunyoro Forest, to the jungles. In Uganda.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=829.0,889.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/86","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Being in Uganda, except that I was digging the earth and doing everything, in order to get food.  So I also took children and I made a little theater with the kids.  And I’d let them perform the same way as I performed when I was seven years old.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe queen comes out — they are dolls. Nobody should move. The queen, [twelve O’clock]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=889.0,720.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/87","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"at night, the queen, boom! Boom! They all start to move.  And they dance.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=720.0,934.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/88","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I remember when I was there, as a little child, I was a, a Russian Cossack.  They made me for a Russian Cossack, and they put such a mask, you know.  And the mask, it itches me.  It, you know, and I, and I understood that I shouldn’t touch it, because I’m not alive.  So I made like this.  You know?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is also, they said, a sign of a performer.  How she could, a seven-year-old child, could understand she’s not supposed to touch anything, she’s not supposed to move.  So I made just, to help myself, it shouldn’t itch.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=934.0,978.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/89","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, it came the consul from Nairobi, which is the capital of Kenya, and he said that my class he liked very much.  So I would go with the children to show the Polish education for the English government in Nairobi.  Okay?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut there was not enough, not to give me my child. And my sister. They remained there, and I went to Nairobi.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=978.0,1017.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/90","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When I came to Nairobi, I had the little telephone, the address of the lady, Mrs. Dorman.  I called her.  She and another lady, Mrs. Maldicks, they went to the government, they put up a bond, I should remain in Nairobi to work in a store for one of these ladies, for Mrs. Maldicks.  She had a store from a needle, material, clothes — everything. It wasn’t easy. I had to do everything.  So I did everything in their house.  They had a villa.  They had two Shvartse, you know.  Well-off.  In Kenya.  Nairobi, which is the capital, of course.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1017.0,1078.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/91","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I started, what, what can I do?  I’m not a seamstress. So there was pieces of material, very colorful.  So I learned how to put up in the window the material, it should look nice, people should come in. I didn’t know the language.  They were speaking English, at that time.  So at night, I was studying with my lady English, and the daytime, I was in the office. Then I came home, and I cooked for them.  I did everything possible.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1078.0,1128.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/92","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, she had this store, Mrs. Maldicks. Next to the store, there was a French restaurant.  And they needed a cashier who knew French. My sister knew French from university. So he sent a, what do you call it?  A, he sent for her that she would be working for him.  And she brought the baby. So we were already all of us three together. We didn’t live together. I had the baby. She was separately, my sister. She worked for the man, but we were already in Nairobi.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1128.0,1174.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/93","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"In Israel — it was at that time Palestine — we had a cousin.  And he went from one place to the other to look, if he’ll find the names.  And he did. So after being in Nairobi a year-and-a-half, we received the certificate to come to Palestine. In 1944, we came together, the three of us, to Rehovot, Israel. And there, I started to play theater. In Tel Aviv. There was such a garden, a big one, by the name Huberman. Huberman gortn [Garten], in Yiddish. It was Al Sefart Ayam, near the sea.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1174.0,1239.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/94","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We were a couple of performers.  One lady, she was from Rumania, Jenya Lovich, Yahalome Alexander, who is now in Israel. There was a, a lady, Frieda Shaffer. She’s not alive anymore. Wilensky was the pianist — Moshe Wilensky — who later wrote for me the songs which became very popular in Palestine, in Israel. And it was a Harvey [Zahavi?] Gold was the, played the violin. There were three or four people orchestra. They gave us, more or less, a short time to perform Yiddish.  And I don’t blame them, because they had to establish the Hebrew language in Israel.  And Yiddish was pretty in competition.  The people loved Yiddish. Until this day.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1239.0,1305.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/95","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So, after being about not, not even a year, I joined the theater Le La Lo.  In Hebrew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You learned Hebrew quickly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Beg pardon?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You learned the Hebrew language quickly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes.  Why?  Because in my hometown, my grandfather, he used to sit with me and teach me in the morning the prayer, at night the prayer.  Moyda ana lefen achem melachai.  So, I remembered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut this is completely different.  This is Ashkenazi, and this is something.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1305.0,1354.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/96","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So I learned very quickly, because I speak five languages — Russian, Polish, Hebrew, Yiddish, English, with an accent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSEROTA:  I didn’t notice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  And a little German, which I don’t need.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo here we are, in Israel.  It, I’m such a, a modest person that I, I hate to talk how I became immediately a big star.  In Israel.  And they started to wrote, songs for me that became through all the world.  Atsaynu Hackton Telma — My Little Country, in Yiddish and in Hebrew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I sang in Hebrew to begin with there. Tongo Kwa Sava.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1354.0,1413.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/97","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"You named ones that you heard something about.  The Tongo I sang, right?  That’s Tongo Kwa Sava.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have the music, the original music, I have with me yet.  Which is from Tango Kwa Sava.  I sang it in 1947.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Who made that song?  Who wrote it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Who wrote?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Wilensky…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Wilensky.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  …the music; Alterman — Nathan Alterman, the lyrics.  And it’s written there.  Mushar Depris Mina Bern.  The same Mina Bern.  With, with a little caricature of me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1413.0,1455.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/98","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I really became a big star.  All the songs, until these days, you can hear in Israel on the radio, or maybe cassettes, they have.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1949, after the establishment of Israel, came from the States a man by the name Rothman. He was the manager of the theater, the National Theater on Houston Street.  The director was Rosenberg.  His wife, Vera Rosanka.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd this man came to choose people to bring to the States.  Shall I — in an Israeli revue, but in Yiddish.  I knew the both languages already.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1455.0,1525.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/99","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"He came to a concert where about 50 people sang.  And among those 50 people he had chosen me to come to the States. In the beginning, I didn’t believe, as they said to me, An Amerikaner bloffer — it’s not true.  He will never send — sure enough, he did send a ticket.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd the writer was Joseph Shimmen Goldstein.  And the two of us, and Matta Tower Rosen, who, unfortunately, he passed away in the States. He was about 35 years old.  And here I am.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s, it, to tell the story, it’s a jumping, one-two-three.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s fine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  And it, it’s impossible even for me, you know?  To go so fluently.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1525.0,1587.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/100","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e But tell me about some of the movies, some of the films that you made here.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1587.0,1645.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/101","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  The films?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  They’re all Yiddish films.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yiddish?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I didn’t make any Yiddish films.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: Oh, not Yiddish films.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  No.  I started here.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What — so English-language films\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  No.  I spoke in Yiddish one film.  Little Odessa.  I, I played the grandmother, and I spoke Yiddish.  I have a video.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes, I have.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I’d like to see it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I was in Avalon, with the great director, Barry Levinson.  Little Odessa, It Could Happen to You.  Then I made I’m Not Rappaport, and made — now, it didn’t come out yet, with Woody Allen.  And I work in the Yiddish theater.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI do a lot — a lot — of social work.  And we have a organization, we call it Yiddish Artists and Friends.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1645.0,1706.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/102","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e Now, tell me about…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1706.0,1757.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/103","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eBERN:\u003c/strong\u003e Do you know, when I came to this country — I haven’t finished yet.  You want, you want to interrupt me?  No.  I wouldn’t let you.  As a guest artist, in the cast…I was lucky enough to have Mr. Fyvush Finkel in the cast.  We're very good friends until now and Ben Bonus was there. And as soon as he saw me he didn't let me go.  He was handsome. He was nice. He was happy go lucky.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1757.0,1804.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/104","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eBERN:\u003c/strong\u003e And he was a beautiful singer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1951, we married. Thirty-three years, we were together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was a go-getter.  He could make Yiddish theater in a corner.  That nobody would believe. When he took the, the Yiddish Village Theater on Second Avenue and Sixth Street, 1800 seats! — so everybody said, “He’s a crazy man!”  Where would he get so many Jews to, to fill up the, the theater?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1804.0,1850.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/105","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"They came from nowhere. And we played the first year in 1964, 39 weeks, every weekend, seven performances.  Every weekend, a different show.  With, and he brought back the classic, the movies.  The classic Yiddish movies.  Peppe the Milicher, and Mamale — all of them.  People came.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd we used to get letters from the parents, how grateful they are to us, because the young people started to attend, and look, and they want to know Yiddish yet. You know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1850.0,1900.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/106","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Then, also, we used to play summertime here. Wintertime, Florida. He used to bring the same company, with the orchestra, with everything, to Florida.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSometimes, even, it wasn’t in the cards. But he didn’t look.  “I have to do it.  My father, my mother, my family, they went to the gas chamber. Six million Jews went to the gas chamber.  I have to do it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s a Sholem Aleichem — he has to play Sholem Aleichem.  It’s a, a Peretz Hirschbein— he has to do Peretz Hirschmann.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1900.0,1945.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/107","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But sometimes, it was a losing proposition.  But he didn’t care.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 19 — we went on tour for the Workmen’s Circle and for the Zionist Verband.  From coast to coast, in every city, we brought Yiddish culture.  Yes.  On a high level.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy mobile.  We didn’t fly.  Ben drove the car.  We took about ourselves — two — he used to take another three, and a pianist — about six people, seven people, throughout the country.  From one place to the other.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSometimes — they used to say we had to reach Winnipeg.  Wintertime, Winnipeg — it’s terrible.  “Don’t go.”  “It’s a risk.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=1945.0,2005.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/108","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"He said, “You see?  Here, it’s snow,” he used to say.  “But there, the sun is shining.”  Such an optimist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd we came just a minute before the show.  And immediately, the Liebgold went with us, Lilyana went with us.  They, they are the lead of The Dybbuk, you know.  Seymour went with us.  And Miriam Kressyn, should rest in peace.  And Reizl Bozyk, and Max Bozyk, and Shifra Lerer, and Ben-Zion Witler.  I cannot tell you each and every one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd then, summertime, we used to come here.  Festivals all over.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn, in 1984, we finished a season in Florida.  And we are packed to go back home.  So we went to friends in Miami.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2005.0,2075.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/109","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We had a little condominium there.  Because we used to stay six months here, six months there.  So we went to say goodbye. Lucky me.  At that time, that evening, Ben didn’t take the car.  We made up to meet half the way.  They will come with us, and we will come.  He didn’t take the car.  It was before the Passover.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo he said — the name is, was, Sandahl Weissman (sp?) from Florida.  His wife is alive — Mindel Weissman (sp?).  So we were sitting there, saying goodbye, and then, he said, “Well, Mina, time to go home.  Hotmen a guten nacht.  Good night.  Alben koppen lush.”  Because he used to sing Mangel’s, the Nemecht meden Koppen Lushes Zugga Guten Nacht.  So he said, “Honishken koppen lush, hotmen a guten nacht, have a good night, without death.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2075.0,2145.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/110","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We walk.  He didn’t take the car.  Not far, before our condominium.  Ben says, “I would like to sit…”.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe didn’t the phrase “to sit down.”  And he was gone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI remained.  You people can understand how I remained. Needless to tell you. Every human being will understand.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2145.0,2188.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/111","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"After 33 years being together, working together, everything together, and, in five seconds!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYeah, and the ambulance came. I called my friends immediately. They came. We went to the hospital, and the doctor gave me his jacket, his golden watch, his wallet.  “Mrs. Bonus, your husband is gone.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was that night alone, in my little apartment. In the morning, I picked myself up, I went to New York, and I arranged the funeral, to bring the body to New York.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2188.0,2249.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/112","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Such a funeral nobody had yet in the history.  People were coming to me, crying, “Who is going to sing for us about the Taylors?  About the, the Shusters?  About the this?  Who?  Who?  Where is….  What?  Ben!”  He was the idol of the Yiddish population.  They loved him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd Mina started alone, from the beginning. Zalman Mlotek and Moishe Rosenfeld, they gave me a chance.  I gave them the office.  And the, at Workmen’s Circle, we had an office.  I gave them everything I had — the scissors, the books, and I helped them get contact with all the benefits.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2249.0,2312.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/113","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I was left without a penny.  They paid me a hundred and a quarter.  A week.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd then, I was, I wasn’t yet in the union of SAG — Screen Actors Guild.  But I was called for an audition to play a widow.  Friday night, she’s a widow, and she has to light the candles, to pray.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt came out beautiful. The movie, I, I saw, but nobody else.  Because they sold it to a different country.  They called it Tenement.  It was done in the Bronx.  But because I wasn’t in the union, I got paid a, a hundred dollars a day.  You know what it means for me, a hundred dollars a day, at that time?  My God!","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2312.0,2385.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/114","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Then, I started on my own. I got together with a young singer, a young lady, Shoshanna Ron.  We made performances.  I taught her how to play theater, to make sketches.  I played with her Agate, I made my, the mother that you saw in Those Were the Days.  I became very popular again.And here I am, now, with you, and telling you this story.  I’m fine.  People like me very much.  I play all over. I will be in June in Massachusetts.  One-woman show.  I, with songs, with poems.  My heart.  I do the best I can.  Everything on a high level.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2385.0,2457.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/115","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I keep up Ben’s wish. The sixth of April will be 14 years. I have a gorgeous, beautiful daughter in Israel, at Rama Tran, and two granddaughters.  Sometimes, I go there.  Sometimes, she comes here.  I have an apartment on Grand Street.  And this is my life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs much as the people, they’ll want to listen to me, that much, I’ll be here, doing everything possible for them, with them.  And I thank you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2457.0,2500.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/116","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What are some of the, some of the, your favorite shows that you did?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Of my favorite…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In Yiddish, in Yiddish, Yiddish shows.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Oh, I have so many.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What are some of the favorite ones?  Your favorite ones.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I, I cannot.  I need the piano.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, no.  Just to tell me about it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  To, to, to recite?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.  To name the show.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Name the shows?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Mirele Efros, De Shvartzes und da Yid — no, that’s a — oh, my God.  Sholem Aleichem’s.  De Goyse, De Groyse Givens, Dos groyse gevins.  I played two parts.  I played in Mirele Efros, I told you. Then, Stempenyu.  Then I played the Maiden of Ludmir.  And this year, Yankel the Shmid [Yankl der Schmid].  I played The Shacht Kunter (?).","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2500.0,2567.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/117","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I translate songs from Hebrew into Yiddish.  From Russian to Yiddish. I write a little bit.  If it’s necessary — an opening, or whatever it is, or if I have to add something to my part. I want it should be more, more, what to do, I do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I love the Yiddish literature. I read nights. I get all the magazines — Die Zukunft, and the, and the Professor Richard Goldberg’s journal.  Books. You can come, you, have you seen the library? Please come, and you’ll see my library.  I’ve given a lot of books to the Massachusetts the, to the book store.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2567.0,2628.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/118","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Oh, to the Yiddish Book Center.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yeah.  In the Book Center.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  And that’s where I’m going, in June.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did you, in the shows that you played, the Yiddish shows in America, you toured other cities besides — like you went to Philadelphia, ever?  Or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN: They did, we used to go.  In, in Philadelphia, I used to go for a concert, myself.  Lately.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  For a concert.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Concert, yes. Someone said, Chayale Ash, I was there.  I go all over.  If you want to engage me, I’m ready to go.  I’m funny, heh?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSEROTA:  Absolutely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Because I’m changed, now.  I don’t, I’m not the, the popular singer.  I’m the character actress with, more in comedy style.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2628.0,2673.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/119","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But you sang all kinds of Yiddish songs, in the, in the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I have a big, big repertoire.  And I have Ben’s cassettes.  Ben has five long discs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did you ever sing together with Ben?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I have with, together with Ben, too.  And I have one song that on Ben’s record.  Beautiful. Gebirtig’s Hirshele, I sing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I sing, and I do, and I — you name it, and I do it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You just did a show at the Folksbinne this year, this year, with Yankele [Yankel der Schmidt] Shmidt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yeah, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Is there another one coming, next year, for, for the Folksbinne?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I hope so.  I’m sure.  Because Zypora Spaisman is a go-getter.  She will see to it that it should be.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2673.0,2725.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/120","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  And what about some of the, some of the other people with whom you worked?  Other actors you… did you ever work with Menasha Skulnik?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Where?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: Menasha Skulnik?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Menasha Skulnik, no.  But he was a good friend.  He used to come to me to eat gefilte fish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Who made the fish?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I made.  I can’t, I, I cooked.  Okay?  I don’t like to eat in restaurants.  I cook.  I entertain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDidn’t he eat herring in, when, in Bialystock, at Vladstock, at my house?  Didn’t you eat?  Huh?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSEROTA:  Definitely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I don’t know.  You served herring in the, in Those Were the Days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Those Were the Days?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  You saw what I did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But you ran out of the herring.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yeah.  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And what about people like Maurice Schwartz?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I was too young.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You were too young.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Of course.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And Skulnik was still going in the ‘60s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I’m here, you see.  I was too young.  I always was the youngest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You knew Miriam Kressyn well.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2725.0,2786.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/121","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  Oh, I loved, I adored Miriam Kressyn.  Every morning, we used to talk to each other.  I used to call up.  I used to call her Mariemont. Mariemont.  And we used to speak Yiddish.  “Mariemont, vus machts dit?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd she used to say, “Shkoshe.  Shkoshe.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOh, yeah.  I, I loved her.  She was one, one of million.  A good, good lady.  And talent, and knowledgeable.  I adore her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How about Molly?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Who?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Molly Picon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Molly Picon I didn’t have in common.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMiriam played with us on Broadway.  We had three major revues on Broadway, Yiddishes.  Ben brought to the Belasco Theater, to the Brooks Atkinson Theater.  It was Let’s Sing Yiddish.  There is the record.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  And Like Lively in Yiddish, and Sing, Israel, Sing!  Three major.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2786.0,2849.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/122","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then they, the police used to stand on their horses and keep the people, they should stand in the line and be able to come over and buy tickets.  Without any benefits.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat’s Ben. Okay?  What he did.  He, he couldn’t here, so he went to Brooklyn.  He couldn’t in Brooklyn, so he went another place.  He made, if Ben would be alive, I, I think, I’m, I’m almost sure, there would be yet more Yiddish theater.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  More Yiddish theater, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat about, there was a, the, in Those Were the Days, that was like a revue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  A combination of things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And it wasn’t a play.  Then there was another one before that.  Were you in that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  The Golden Land.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The Golden Land.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You were in it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I wasn’t in it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, you weren’t in that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  No.  It was very nice.  Everything they do, the, the guys, they’re very nice.  Zalman is a very good musician, and together, we worked, and I love him.  I know Zalman when he was five years old.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2849.0,2910.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/123","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  So you know, did you know his parents?  You know their…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Oh, yeah.  Chana?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Did they — just recently made a new book of songs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  And I sang there, I performed for them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’m a very close friend with Yossel and with Chamba [Chana], with Zalman.  And Moshe, now, is going to be — not Moshe — for the big Seder.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The, the third Seder?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  The, the fifth of April.  He is the president of the Workmen’s Circle.  The, Mark Mlotek.  The younger.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, I see.  And, and the Yiddish Actors Alliance, or the Hebrew Actors Alliance — the union.  Were you, are you, were you active in that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I am in the executive.  I am all over.  You name it, and I’m there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And the Friends, the Friends Organization — that’s different from the union?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2910.0,2965.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/124","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  Yeah, the Yiddish Artisan Friends?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s upstairs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Work upstairs, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s the one?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  And you, you want to come up and see it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I’ve been.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  You’ll see what we go.  And we’ll have a seder, too, the sixth of April.  If you want to come, you’re welcome to it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Thank you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Okay?  We make a seder, we’ll have a hazzan.  And Moshe Bird — do you know a young man, a cantor?  Moshe Bird?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I, I know him, yes, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  He comes for nothing to us.  Everybody comes for nothing.  I make them come for nothing.  Because I do it also for nothing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Your, when you were a little girl, when you sang, this was theatrical music, or was only, or did you sing other things, aside from Yiddish?  When you were a little, when you were seven years old, ten years old, 11 years old.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You sang.  On the stage.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I had a beautiful voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  All Yiddish?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=2965.0,3018.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/125","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  Yiddish and Polish and Russian.  Everything.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I, and I wrote on the, on the wall. You know, we had the little, a little house.  And it was painted white, you know.  Like in a klein shtetl, in a little town.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I used to — and I said that I’m writing poetry.  In Yiddish.  Dur boint hana Bernholz mit ihre kinder, Leisa der eltster, mishin ov hem, Mina der mittelste and Mary de musinke.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat was poetry.  And that’s a whole day.  And my mother used to say, “Minale, it’s a, shayn kan nuk, schon genug, genug— that’s enough, enough.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(Sings) Dur boint hana Bernholz mit ira kinder, lazer del elster — the, the, the music — my own composition.  And I remember.  Look at my memory!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  If I asked you which did you enjoy more, singing or acting?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3018.0,3090.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/126","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  Everything together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Everything together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  It doesn’t go separately.  I have, I love this number, Der Spiegel, from Spiegelman.  What I do, when I see the Spiegel, and what I sing, and how my grandmother looked in the mirror, how my grandfather looked, how my mother looked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNobody — I have no, nobody.  Just my sister in Israel and my daughter.  Otherwise, here in the States, nobody.  I have the Jewish people.  That’s all.  All.  I have a lease.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  When you, before the war, before you came to the United States, you, you did, it seems to me, a more classic kind of, a more serious kind of theater.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  No.  Le La Lo — no.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did you do…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I was one of the singers satire.  (Sings) Le sa benna to bomen…  Fest!  Fest!  Abren.  You know what abren?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Mmm.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3090.0,3151.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/127","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  Yah?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Mmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Fire.  That was a….\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlso, in lyrics.  In lyric.  A tranocht on tolnet — there was a song, with words, with coloratura.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And you never studied voice?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Oh, no.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You never took lessons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  They didn’t want, they said it’s better I shouldn’t study.  The natural voice was more than I would study.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So nobody, you, no voice teacher ruined your voice?  Right?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I guess so.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  And you, you worked with a lot of great conductors and important pianists and so forth in the theater?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  In the theater?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  It was steady pianist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Who were some of the — like in the ‘50s, in the 1950s, who were some of the con…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  In the 1950s, I was here already.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah, here.  Who was conducting?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3151.0,3208.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/128","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  There was a, an orchestra.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Who conducted that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  What’s his name?  I don’t remember.  I, I remember better, you know…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  …from the years before than a…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How about Secunda?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Who?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Secunda.  Did you know Secunda?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes, yes.  Secunda.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFirst of all, I was summertime in Unzer Camp.  Which belongs to the Zionist organization.  And Secunda was the conductor, and there was an orchestra.  And I was on the, in, in the ensemble.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  On the stage?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You, you…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …you were in the, you performed in the camp?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes.  For the summer.  Sure. I was in, in Boiberik.  Luba Caddison’s sister was the pianist.  Look up, I have — and all over.  Sure.  With an orchestra, pianist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How about Rumshinsky?  Did you know Rumshinsky?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  They, the old Rumshinsky?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The old one, the, the son — either one.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3208.0,3268.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/129","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  I knew the old one, but I didn’t work with him.  The, the younger one made the record with us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Murray.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Let’s Sing Yiddish.  Murray.  A bissel meshuga, but what can I tell you?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSEROTA:  See, even when he was young, he was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Rumsey, Murray Rumsey, yeah.  But he was Rumshinsky, yeah, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yeah.  Rumsey.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  So you knew all of the people in that world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Oh, yes.  Oh, yeah.  They know me, I know them, and when, I know of them, about them, everything.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3268.0,3299.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/130","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN: Abe Elstein.  Did you know Abe Elstein?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Elstein?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I knew, I know of him.  I didn’t know him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You didn’t…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  No, no.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …sing with him conducting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  No, no.  Secunda I knew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Secunda, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Secunda wrote a, a song specially for me.  Zing Shtil.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He wrote that specially for you?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yes.  I have the music with my picture.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And you sang it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  It’s the Zing Shtil.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  My picture.  And the lyrics wrote about union.  I have it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did you ever sing that song in a concert?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I sang…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3299.0,3333.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/131","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BERN:  What a question!  It’s a good song, a nice song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now, but you told me, just a little while ago, that this was not everything.  There were many other things to tell.  In the remaining few minutes, what would you like to tell us about either your life in Yiddish theater or what you think about Yiddish theater for the future?  Whatever you want to…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  What I think?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Listen. Don’t ask me. I am also an optimist, when it comes to Yiddish. If there will be one Jew, there will be Yiddish theater.  I’m telling you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou know how many years already I go they said Yiddish theater died? It never will.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3333.0,3374.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/132","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I will die — there will be others.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey’re going, now.  People study Yiddish, I want you to know.  And you, you do know.  Columbia University and all over.  And de Hasidishe kinder. They study Yiddish. They will be the future, you’ll see. They, they talk, they speak it, they, they read it, and, and that’s that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere will be Yiddish. How good? How bad? Maybe even better than it was. Who knows?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3374.0,3409.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008/transcript/32023/annotation/133","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"You go ahead.  You don’t go back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s the definition of an optimist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  I went to, to Columbia University for the students, and I told them my life story.  Everything what I told you. I was there, and I spoke there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s been a wonderful experience, to have you with us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Thank you.  I’m glad you liked it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And I’m glad — well, it isn’t a question if I liked it, but I’m glad that you feel that there will be continuation of Yiddish theater.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Thank you very much.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And Yiddish music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And maybe this will help.  Thank you so much.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBERN:  Thank you, sir.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40375/file/112008#t=3409.0,3459.92533"}]}]}]}