Rabbi Hara Person

SULLIVAN: So if you would count to five.

PERSON: One, two, three, four, five.

SULLIVAN: OK. So we're rolling. Um, just to begin, today is December 10th, 2010. I'm Sady Sullivan, with the Brooklyn Historical Society. This interview is for the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue oral history project. And if you would introduce yourself to the recording.

PERSON: I am Rabbi Hara Person, from Brooklyn, New York, and a member of the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue since probably around 1972, roughly, something like that -- '72, '73. And I live in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. I grew up in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. And do I just go from there?

SULLIVAN: Well, a couple of things just for the archive.

PERSON: OK.

SULLIVAN: is Person your --?

PERSON: Person is the name I was born with.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. OK. And what's your date of birth?

PERSON: [date redacted for privacy] 64.

SULLIVAN: I'm also [date redacted for privacy]! [laughter]

PERSON: Oh! Happy birthday, then.

SULLIVAN: Yeah!

PERSON: Happy just half birthday, recently. [laughter]

SULLIVAN: And -- Oh, you might have said that. Were you born in Brooklyn?

PERSON: I was -- actual-- technically, I was born in Manhattan --

SULLIVAN: OK.

PERSON: -- at New York Hospital.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But my parents lived in Brooklyn and I came right home to Brooklyn.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. So tell me about your parents.

PERSON: my mother, Diane Goetz-Person, G-O-E-T-Z, is -- wa-- is alive. And she was born in Brooklyn in basically the Midwood area. Her father was a moving man. He co-owned a moving company out on what today is Borough Park, like 13th Avenue. I think he was on 38th or 39th Street. He had a warehouse. And it 2:00was him and his brothers. It was a family business. And they-- they started from the sort of pushcart model and then ultimately had trucks. And they were, you know, hardworking guys, not educated particularly. They were German Jews -- but not the rich German Jews. They were sort of more the working class German Jews, which were rare but-- and --and they were just -- they were hardworking guys, who, you know, really took care of this business. And there are all kinds of interesting stories that she could tell about some of the stuff that went on. Including, during Prohibition, there were some very interesting uses of the trucks --

SULLIVAN: [laughter]

PERSON: -- going up to Canada and coming back during the middle of the night and things like that. So she has some good stories.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But-- and my mother, herself -- Let's see. Well, she's-- she's a 3:00professor -- a retired professor of education. She was a children's librarian until she was pregnant with me. And then in New York City, in those days, you had to leave your job as soon as you were showing. And -- Yeah, can you imagine?

SULLIVAN: No, [laughter] I didn't know that.

PERSON: Yeah. So you couldn't be visibly pregnant in the workplace, at least if you worked in a city job, which -- which that was. So she worked at Brooklyn Public Library. And so, for many years, she wasn't really working, except for little things here and there. She went back to work probably in the late '70s or early '80s, as a school librarian at P.S. 29 [425 Henry Street] and at Poly Prep [9216 Seventh Avenue], both in Brooklyn, and then ultimately went back to school and got her PhD and became a professor. So that's my mother.

SULLIVAN: And where did she teach?

PERSON: And she taught at LIU [Long Island University] and Kingsborough 4:00Community College.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And my father, who's not alive any more, was actually born in the Bronx but moved to Brooklyn when he was a few months old and lived in I think what would be called like the Flatlands area -- I think. I'm not actually sure what it's called. Very different family than my mother's. My mother's family was sort of, you know, middle class family. My father's family was not. They were very, very poor. My grandfather was a watchmaker, who, from what I understand, really did not support the family -- you -- could -- could not support the family financially. Neither of those grandparents were particularly educated, although my grandfather was self-educated, and loved opera and so on. But my grandmother, supposedly, couldn't read. So, you know, they were -- they were poor. They were 5:00Russian immigrants. And my father was the youngest of five kids. So he was very at home on the street. That was sort of where he lived, to some extent. I mean, he lived at home but --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: -- home wasn't a -- a really nurturing place, from what I understand and he was often sort of neglected, as the fifth kid. So he grew up playing stickball. That was --stickball, baseball, football. He was an athlete. Um and pool. He became a pool shark in high school. And --

SULLIVAN: And what's his name?

PERSON: His name was Stanley. And he went to the Army and then went to college and -- and became a CPA, and was a very successful CPA. But -- but came from a really difficult background.

SULLIVAN: Mm-mm.

PERSON: And he went to college -- both my parents went to LIU. They met there. And my father was there after -- when he was a -- he was a vet. He came back on the G.I. Bill and went to school there.

SULLIVAN: And so you told me a little bit about your grandparents. But can you explain more where they came from in Germany and -- and Russia?

PERSON: My -- well, my mother's parents were actually both born here.

SULLIVAN: OK.

PERSON: My -- my maternal grandfather, Harry Goetz, was -- was of German descent but he was born here. They -- they were here for many generations already, actually. Even -- you know, his parents were born here and some of them go back even further. So I don't even know where they were from in Germany.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: My mother might know.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But I'm not sure. My grandmother, Augusta or Gussie Goetz, she was born here, on the Lower East Side. Her mother was from sort of the Poland, Austria 7:00area that went back and forth. She -- My great grandmother came here at 16 by herself, and met her husband, my great grandfather, who was from Alsace-Lorraine. And then they lived on the Lower East Side and had four kids. And my grandmother only moved to Brooklyn when she married my grandfather. And they also -- you know, sort of difficult immigrant story, you know. My grandfather -- My great grandfather died very young, left my great grandmother along with four kids and no means of support. So she took in sewing and she washed floors and she did what she could.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: My grandmother, who was the only girl in the family, was very smart and very ambitious. And she-- she got a scholarship to Hunter College [425 East 25th 8:00Street], which was a really big deal, you know, in the 1920s -- and ultimately couldn't go. She started but couldn't go, because she couldn't even afford the bus fare -- the trolley fare.

SULLIVAN: Oh.

PERSON: So -- Because she had to support her brothers, so that they could get through high school and so on. So that was always her big tragedy.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But she did go to college in her 70s and graduated in her early '80s. So.

SULLIVAN: That's so wonderful!

PERSON: Yeah. That was very cool.

SULLIVAN: [laughter]

PERSON: And she was a really, really smart woman. But -- so that's where they were from. And my -- She is the only one I know, of all my grandparents, actually.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: My father's parents, I don't know very much about them, other than that they came from Russia. I don't know where my grandmother came from. My grandfather has an interesting story, which I don't know -- None of it's ever been sort of researched. But he was very proud of being a Portuguese Jew. So, 9:00you know, when the Jews were forced out of Portugal in the 15th century, most of them went either south to North Africa or to lower Europe, like southern Europe, Greece, Romania, those areas. But somehow he wound up in Russia. And it was a whole community of Portuguese Jews. And they maintained their Portuguese identity for all those generations.

SULLIVAN: Wow!

PERSON: They were very proud of being Portuguese. Because there was a lot of pride in being Sephardic and not Ashkenazi. And they married within the community. And they spoke Ladino, which is the sort of Spanish -- Judeo-Spanish, as opposed to Yiddish. So he didn't know Yiddish until he came to the United States.

SULLIVAN: Wow!

PERSON: So that's kind of an interesting story. But where-- you know, he -- what I heard from my father is that he came from outside of St. Petersburg. But that could be almost anywhere. [laughter] So I don't really know.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: Yeah. My husband's a genealogist. But he's focused on his family mostly. [laughter] So.

SULLIVAN: That -- yeah, that will be an interesting one to track.

PERSON: Yeah.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So those are my grandparents.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm! And so tell me about your -- your growing up and -- and your education and --that kind of --

PERSON: So I had a very different childhood than my parents did, or certainly than my father did, but even than my mother, to a great extent. For my parents, the -- my parents really prioritized our educations above everything and , you know, made a lot of choices about what they were going to do to have a certain kind of life and -- and to be able to give us educations that they wanted to give us. So when I was born, we lived in Mill Basin, actually. And my parents 11:00found themselves not that at home in that neighborhood, in terms of like shared values and stuff like that. --

SULLIVAN: Can you -- what kind of --?

PERSON: I think that they were more -- th-- it's hard to say, without perpetuating just negative stereotypes [laughter] but --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: I think that the people there, for the most part, didn't have higher educations and didn't have the same sort of values about-- Well, remember, it was like -- it was the '60s. So I think there was a lack of sort of shared social values. My parents were certainly not hippies. They were too old, but they shared a lot of the values of the civil rights stuff. And I don't think that that was a -- a universally shared way of looking at the world in that part 12:00of Brooklyn --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: -- in those years.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So they were more liberal, I guess, politically and, you know, socially and wanted different -- a different environment for their kids. And that's probably the best way to put it.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So they moved to downtown Brooklyn in 1970, I believe, partly -- I mean, actually first they enrolled me in Saint Ann's [School], in Brooklyn Heights. And -- and only later did they move there. So I think they gravitated toward that neighborhood because of the school, originally.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But they also found people who were more -- they had more in common with there. And it was an easy commute to Manhattan for my father. And -- and that world -- I mean, Saint Ann's in 1970 -- I think I must have entered in '69.

SULLIVAN: So you -- that's where you started school --

PERSON: Yeah.

SULLIVAN: -- as like a kindergartener. --

PERSON: First grade.

SULLIVAN: Oh, wow!

PERSON: But, yeah. I was fi-- I started first grade at five. They didn't have kindergarten.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: That was also the year of the New York City teachers' strike [Ocean Hill -- Brownsville, 1968]. So there was a lot of turmoil about where your kid was going to go to school. And there was all of this Black-Jewish tension in New York. And so part of the reason that my parents would up sending me to private school is just to get out of the whole -- that whole battle going on in the city. It was really --

SULLIVAN: The Ocean Hill-Brownsville strike time?

PERSON: Right.

SULLIVAN: Oh!

PERSON: I mean, it was really tearing the city apart, in a lot of ways.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And, you know, there -- there was a lot of anti-Semitism in public, in a way that there hadn't been. So -- so they decided that private school would be a better option.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And also, I could read, so they didn't -- so they weren't sure that kindergarten would be that valuable. Anyway, so I wound up at Saint Ann's, and first grade, in '69.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And -- and then, I guess, a -- a little over a year later we moved to Cobble Hill. And Cobble Hill, in those years -- and -- Well, I mean, 14:00Saint Ann's, in those years, was totally, you know -- It was a new school still. It was very much a countercultural education, much more than it is today, and, I mean, purposely so. It was about being countercultural and alternative and all of that. And to some extent, living in downtown Brooklyn was like that too. I mean, you had -- Brooklyn Heights was more staid and established but it still had pockets of artists, in a way that it doesn't have any more today, writers and artists and different kinds of alternative people.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And Cobble Hill was like all over the place. It had, you know, hippie communes and it had -- Well, Park Slope did. I don't know if Cobble Hill actually did. But it had all kinds of different ethnicities mixed in together and then people like my parents, who were, I guess -- today we would -- would be called gentrifiers. But it was very mixed. And we --

SULLIVAN: And did they move into an apartment, your parents, or --?

PERSON: A house.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And they moved into a carriage house on Veranda Place.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And, you know, there were definitely tensions in the -- on the street, in the neighborhood about like the new people versus the old people. A lot of the people on the street were -- well, a lot of people in the neighborhood but some people on the street were Irish and Italian dockworkers' families.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And there was definitely tension about, you know, the Jewish family coming onto the block. And, at one point, when they had just been there not very long, a kid from down the block threw a brick in the window. And I don't remember if it was written on the brick or if he yelled it as he threw it but there were, you know, s-- not very pleasant words about Jews. The story actually 16:00has a good ending. Because he wound up -- He's just a few years older than I am. You know, his parents were mortified and very upset and whatever and they made him come and talk to my father, something like that. So there was this encounter where he had to apologize.

SULLIVAN: And what was his background? His heritage, I mean.

PERSON: Irish.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: Irish. And his father was, you know, a union member, a dockworker. And so he had to come apologize. And I think that as part of his like penance, he had to shovel my parents' -- you know, the snow on their walk or something. He had to do something. I don't remember exactly. But he had to do something where he wound up having to engage with them. And he wound up becoming a really close friend of the family and sort of getting mentored by my father.

SULLIVAN: Oh!

PERSON: So he -- he wound up working for my -- I think my -- my father hired him and for years he worked for him, doing like all different kinds of things in his office. He eventually went to college and became a CPA, worked for my father for 17:00a long time, and then went off and started his own business. So like there's a good ending to the story. [laughter]

SULLIVAN: That's a great ending!

PERSON: Yeah.

SULLIVAN: That's so -- yeah, what a good transformation! [laughter]

PERSON: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And he really -- I mean, he's a great guy. And, you know -- yeah. I mean, it was just good. His father died pretty early on in his life, you know, s-- probably not that long after the -- this incident. And my father was there for him, in a lot of ways. So.

SULLIVAN: Oh.

PERSON: Yeah. So, you know, [laughter] it's a good Brooklyn story.

SULLIVAN: Yeah!

PERSON: Yeah.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm!

PERSON: But it was definitely -- you know, it was an interesting time to be living in that neighborhood. Because the kids I played with, a lot of them were Catholic school kids. I mean, I went to Saint Ann's but Saint Ann's was not a Catholic school at all. You know.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And -- but a lot of the kids I would come home and play with in the afternoons were kids who went to Catholic school or kids who went public school. And we all had really different backgrounds, Irish, Lebanese, Italian, Puerto 18:00Rican. And it was really mixed, in a way that my -- my kids do not have that experience today, at all.

SULLIVAN: And do you still live in Cobble Hill?

PERSON: I live in Carroll Gardens --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: -- which is still pretty mixed but people don't talk to each other [laughter] --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: -- across those lines.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So. So it's very different. OK. What else can I tell you?

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. What did you do -- so did you do Saint Ann's all the way through --?

PERSON: Oh, right. Yeah. So, yeah, I went to Saint Ann's for 12 years. And then I went to college. And I went to Amherst College, in Massachusetts.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And then I moved to Israel for two years -- two and a half years. And I came back and I went to graduate school at NYU in fine arts. And then I went to rabbinic school after that.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So.

SULLIVAN: What did you major in in undergrad?

PERSON: I did -- they had an option called an interdisciplinary major. So it was 19:00art, anthropology, and American studies.

SULLIVAN: Wow! And then why -- why did you go to Israel for two years right after?

PERSON: I had been in Israel for a year during college. And I met someone who became my husband. So I wanted -- I mean, I loved living in Israel but I also wanted to be near him. So that's basically why.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: Yeah. So -- and then he came here in 1990. I met him in 1983 in Israel, moved back to Israel in '86. So I lived there '86 to '88. And then he came here in '90.

SULLIVAN: And he's originally from Israel?

PERSON: Yeah.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So he's been here since then.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And I -- I'm guessing because I see photographs, that you have children? [laughter]

PERSON: Yeah. You can tell.

SULLIVAN: Yes.

PERSON: Yeah. I have Leah, who's in -- who's 18 and she's a freshman in college -- Amherst College.

SULLIVAN: Oh, that's so nice! [laughter]

PERSON: Yeah. Not planned. But, yeah. And my son is 16. He's a sophomore at Saint Ann's. And Leah went to Saint Ann's also.

SULLIVAN: And do your kids see --? Is your mom still in the neighborhood?

PERSON: Yeah.

SULLIVAN: I mean, so they -- Mm-hmm.

PERSON: Yeah. She's in the house I grew up in.

SULLIVAN: Oh, that's nice.

PERSON: Yeah.

SULLIVAN: So now we can -- we can -- well, actually, we'll start with, more generally, your -- your religious education as a -- as a kid and then when that connected with the Synagogue, with Brooklyn Heights Synagogue.

PERSON: OK. So my parents, themselves, had different Jewish upbringings. My mother came from a background that she liked to just call Jewish, like no denominate-- It was just Jewish. That's what you were. That's what you did. I would call it, in practice, something like probably conservadox, as far as like 21:00where they went to synagogue --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: -- like a very mainstream, sort of modern, liberal-ish Orthodox synagogue -- which meant that she did not have much of a Jewish education, because she was a girl.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So -- And she always resented that. But --

SULLIVAN: What synagogue did she go to?

PERSON: I don't know.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: Actually, it might have been Flatbush Jewish Center.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But I'm not entirely sure. And I think that, for much of her childhood, her parents kept kosher. And they kind of observed like basic things but they were not what we would call an observant household, really. They were just Jewish, [laughter] as she said. But she grew up with a very po-- I mean, other than resenting that she didn't get a Jewish education, she grew up with a very positive Jewish identity and really steeped in Jewish culture. And whereas my 22:00father, whose parents were socialists, didn't get any religious background at all, did not have a bar mitzvah, which was more unusual, for boys not to, didn't ever go to Hebrew school. I don't know if he ever went to synagogue, even -- just grew up with nothing -- and, I mean, a little bit of a Jewish identity. I mean, he was a Jew but it didn't, I don't think, mean a whole lot to him. He had a lot of friends who weren't Jews. My mother didn't. And that was partly a reflection of where she lived and where she went to high school. She went to Midwood High School, which was like 99% Jewish in those years. She just didn't know a lot of non-Jewish. Whereas my father did. And my understanding is that it was really my mother who said, you know, "We have to belong to a synagogue. We have to send the kids to synagogue to school. And this is really important." And for -- my father didn't really care. So, you know, I went to religious school 23:00starting at a really young age. I don't even really remember starting. But, you know, I remember being in religious school. And when we lived in Mill Basin, we belonged to a synagogue out there that doesn't exist anymore. And then, when we moved to Cobble Hill, we joined the Kane Street Synagogue [236 Kane Street]. And that was a Conservative synagogue, still is. And I didn't really like it. [laughter] I mean, I was a kid. But I really -- we would have these new teachers like every month, these Israelis. And they would start all over again, with Genesis, like, "Oh, we're going to Genesis," you know. And I -- and I remember telling my mother like, "We just have done Genesis four times. I can't just keep doing Genesis."

SULLIVAN: [laughter] Even as -- You must have been very little.

PERSON: Yeah, I mean, I was --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: -- by that time I was probably seven or eight.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But I really hated it. And even though I was like such a good girl at regular school, I totally acted out in Hebrew school and was just annoying and 24:00obnoxious. And I'm sure I made the teachers crazy.

SULLIVAN: [laughter]

PERSON: And I was so bored. And so eventually the rabbi called my mother and suggested that they look at another option for me. [laughter] So.

SULLIVAN: Oh!

PERSON: You know. Yeah. So I was sort of thrown out of the synagogue -- the Hebrew school.

SULLIVAN: And were your parents going to service-- or were you going as a family?

PERSON: Occasionally --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: -- on holidays but not on a regular kind of basis.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And we -- we just weren't that connected to the community.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So I must have -- by the time this happened, I was probably nine or ten, something like that. And so the only other synagogue in the neighborhood was the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue, which was Reform. And my mother tells me that she had sort of mixed feelings about Reform Judaism, because she thought Reformed Jews were snobs and that they wouldn't fit in or whatever. But a lot of my 25:00friends went there, because it was around the corner from Saint Ann's. So I was perfectly happy to make the switch. And actually, I loved it. I totally fell in love when I got there. I fell in love with everything, the building, the rabbi, the people. I just loved it. And I felt totally at home right away.

SULLIVAN: Who was the rabbi then, when you did --?

PERSON: His name was Al Lowenberg. And, to me, at the time, I thought he was just the sweetest man. And he was somebody who I had never seen, which was someone who was proud to be a Jew all the time and not embarrassed by it. Because what I had come to understand, living in downtown Brooklyn in those years, was that it was OK to be proud of being Jewish but only inside your house and like privately but that actually being Jewish was something to be a little bit embarrassed about and you didn't really like talk about it in polite company. And you certainly didn't like show it outside your house. And sometimes 26:00that sounds weird to people, because Brooklyn is thought of as being like so Jewish. Except for Brooklyn Heights was not, in those years, at all. And the -- you know, Brooklyn Hei-- there was -- there was a sort of undercurrent of anti-Semitism that I experienced growing up, that wasn't -- It was very polite anti-Semitism. And it was class based. It was like Jews are new money and we're old money. And, you know, so Jews were sort of just not quite acceptable. We didn't really like understand how to behave ourselves, in a way. It was like there -- there were just these sort of class issues that were very clear. And, I mean, the Brooklyn Heights Casino was part of that world. There was like this whole sort of world where Jews weren't quite accepted. And actually, Jews really 27:00were not accepted at the Heights Casino for a while. That changed, I think in the '70s. But I remember going to the first bat mitzvah at the Casino and that was like this big deal. [laughter] And that was probably like 1977.

SULLIVAN: Wow!

PERSON: But, you know, there were like places that Jews just weren't really welcome. And it was understood. It was like, you know, we just smelled a little. But not really. But like there was just this kind of like we weren't on par with the WASPs of Brooklyn Heights. And it was just the way it was.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So there was this rabbi who like walked around Brooklyn Heights wearing a kippah on his head. And I just -- I couldn't believe it. It was amazing to me. And he didn't care. So that was really significant. And, yeah, I mean, there were a lot of Jews who were like -- they would say -- if they knew you were Jewish, they would say they were Jewish but they were trying really hard not to be Jewish. Like there were a lot of Jews who had Christmas trees and didn't celebrate Jewish holidays and were really trying to pass. And like it was this 28:00whole th-- It's very different today. It's actually kind of hard to imagine, even.

SULLIVAN: Yeah. [laughter]

PERSON: But-- but, yeah. No, it was really like -- it was just kind of embarrassing to be Jewish. So-- so I just really fell in love with the Synagogue. And I felt so at home there. And it really was like a home for me. I -- I wound up spending tons of time there, especially as I got older, in high school. And it would be like I would hang out there between c-- Because Saint Ann's has a schedule that's very open and kids can like go wander around Brooklyn Heights. [laughter] So I would often wind up at the Synagogue. Like it was a comfortable place to sit and do homework or chat with the rabbi or whatever. And then I -- I started teaching there when I was a junior in high school. So they actually like gave me a class of my own, [laughter] which is kind of insane. I was 15. But I loved it. So I had this class of first-graders. 29:00And then, the next year, I had a class of second-graders. And I was like on the teaching staff. And it was so cool.

SULLIVAN: Wow!

PERSON: And just it was really fun. And I think, in those years, I decided to be a rabbi, because I just thought -- You know, my rabbi was this great role model. And it was also the time when the first woman was ordained. So that was -- I don't know. I should know. But that was around those years. It was in the '70s. So -- Right. Forty -- maybe it's 40 years? No, it's not f-- Thirty-five years now, something like that? So I remember saying that I wanted to be a rabbi and not understanding that I couldn't be and then learning that the first woman had just been ordained. And it was like, OK, now I can do it. It was --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm!

PERSON: You know, that was a really big deal. And so it just was my home. And 30:00then, when I -- And -- and I started going to services a lot. And I got invol-- We -- my friends and I -- I had this whole group of friends who, we were all friends at Saint Ann's. And there were one or two kids who were not Saint Ann's kids but pretty much everybody was. And-- and then we were -- we went through, and bar and bat mitzvah and then like we didn't want to finish. We wanted to stay there. So then they created a post-bar mitzvah class for us, like a confirmation class. And we would go hang out with the rabbi. And the-- by then there was a different rabbi. And we would -- he lived in a loft on 28th Street and we would like go hang out at his loft and --

SULLIVAN: What ra-- what was his name?

PERSON: His name was David Glazer. And we just didn't want to leave. We started a youth group. There had never been a youth group before. So we just like -- There was, I don't know, six, seven, or eight of us, something like that. And we just kept going, until we graduated from high school. So then, when I was coming 31:00back to New York to go graduate school and I was living in Jerusalem, the rabbi at that time, who was Rick Jacobs, he stopped by to see me in Jerusalem and he asked me if I wanted a teaching job. And I figured like that's a great thing to do while I'm in graduate school, you know, make some money. So I said yes. And so I taught for probably two years then. So that was like '88 through '90. And then I was on my honeymoon, in California, and he called me to ask if I would take on, just as an interim, the director of the school position. Because the person who was supposed to have started like just backed out or something like that. So I said, "Sure." And then I wound up doing it for five years.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And during that time, I decided to go to rabbinic school. Because I had deci-- after high school, I had decided not to go to rabbinic school. But then 32:00it came back. So.

SULLIVAN: Wow! So going back a bit, when --when your group of -- of teen peers were creating new things at the Synagogue, were you aware --? H-- What was that process? Were you aware that they -- that you guys wanted to stay there and --and they wanted to make room for you to stay there? Or were you asking for the programs? Or how did that happen?

PERSON: It was a very -- things were very, very casual in those days, because it was a really small synagogue. I mean, it's -- it's much bigger and much more formalized today. But in those years it was like, "Oh, you guys want to do something? Great! No problem." Like I think they couldn't believe that there was this group of teenagers who wanted to be at the Synagogue.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So it was just very -- you know, it was all very informal.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And when you were teaching the -- the first- and second-graders, how did you -- how did you come up with the curriculum and -- or --?

PERSON: [laughter] It's like almost embarrassing, when I think of it now.

SULLIVAN: [laughter]

PERSON: But, no, I'd been a camp counselor, so I think I brought in some of 33:00those skills. And, you know, I mean, it was like an hour-and-- hour-and-a-half a week. S-- it wasn't a huge amount of time.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But -- And they -- and I got no curriculum. It's -- Like they didn't hand me something and say like, "OK, here's what you need to teach." So it was sort of like, all right, what -- what should first-graders be doing? And, you know, my mother was a children's librarian and our whole orientation had always been books and stories. So I thought, "OK, we'll do Bible stories." And so I think every week we had a different Bible story, which I would read to them and we'd act it out. And then we'd do art projects. So it was like always, you know, sort of centered around that. And then I guess we did holidays when holiday times came. But, you know, it was very like [laughter] just off the cuff.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But we had fun.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm! And so what was it like when you started in the -- in the -- was it director of the teaching?

PERSON: Mm-hmm.

SULLIVAN: What was that like, when you came back to do that?

PERSON: So first I taught for another two years. So I had like the two years in 34:00high school but then I had two years in graduate school --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: -- before I was the director. So then things were more formalized. I actually was given a curriculum.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And --

SULLIVAN: And what age were you teaching then?

PERSON: It was also first grade -- third grade. It might have also been second grade. I don't know. But it was definitely those younger grades. I think -- and then I think I also was teaching confirmation. Like I was teaching a high school group also --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: -- and -- and being the youth group advisor. So I had both age groups. Some of those kids are, you know -- well, they're all adults. [laughter]

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: It's really funny. And one of those first-graders is now in rabbinic school. [laughter]

SULLIVAN: Oh, wonderful!

PERSON: So, yeah. And I just did the wedding, this summer, of one of the kids who was in my youth group, you know, who's in his early 30s now. [laughter] It's so funny. But-- you know, but, i-- so, in those years, it was -- in those later years, it was definitely more formal. There was a curriculum. But there was 35:00still a lot of room to --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: You know, decide exactly what I was going to do. I think we still did Bible stories, actually. But--

SULLIVAN: And where did the curriculum come from?

PERSON: I think it came from the UR-- the -- what was then the UAHC, which is the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, which is the umbrella organization for Reform synagogues. I -- I'm pretty sure it was an adaptation of a curriculum that they had published called the Schuster curriculum -- Schuster or Schusterman. Sch-- "To See the World Through Jewish Eyes." I think -- I can't remember if it's Schuster or Schusterman.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And then -- and then, when I became the director, I slowly made just some changes here and there. But, I mean, that's what everybody does, over time, you know. But --

SULLIVAN: What kind of changes?

PERSON: And I don't even remember, specifically, any more. But, you know, there 36:00are places where I thought the curriculum didn't work well or it wasn't pitched right or, you know, was too -- I always believed in setting the bar high. And I think like a lot of Jewish education, or at least the -- it used to be that it sort of would dumb things down, in a way. And, you know, I was dealing with like this incredibly bright group of kids and it wasn't always appropriate. So, you know, I like to pitch things higher and, you know, give them goals to -- set goals that they can get to, you know --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: -- rather than assuming they can't. So those were the kind of changes. But it was -- I al-- you know, I always had this sense that the kids were going to -- the more of a camp environment we could create, the more fun they were going to have and like it better. So, you know -- And I also believe, and this might be because I went to Saint Ann's -- but I always believed in sort of like 37:00organized chaos is a good way to learn. It's actually not, for every kid. But for most kids -- You know, I don't believe in kids sitting still at their desks, especially after a full day of regular school. So people would come into the school and there would always be all this noise and movement. And, for me, that was like great. Like that was kids learning. It's not -- you know, some people would have a hard time [laughter] with the -- But that was sort of my philosophy, that it was fine to have them up and running around. And if -- you know, if you could teach something through drama, then do it that way, and, you know, whatever.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So.

SULLIVAN: How many -- what's the size of -- of the groups?

PERSON: You know, it's bigger today. I don't really know. I mean, I haven't been doing now for over ten years -- over 12 years -- over probably 15 years, [laughter] actually. Yeah, I think I stopped when my son Yanni [phonetic] was like one or two and he's 16. So it's been a long time.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So it's a much bigger school. And I think, you know, it's very different today. But we had about 200 kids when I left, something like that.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And did you also teach --? Someone, I think, was telling me that you also taught adult classes?

PERSON: Unh-h. I started doing that probably when I was in rabbinic school. And I'm still doing that today. So I do -- What I've been doing for, I think probably almost 20 years is Shabbat morning Torah study. So -- And I don't do it every week any more. But-- but we get together on Saturday morning. We sit around a big table. There's a little bit of prayer. And then we study the weekly Torah portion. And it's really fun. It's a -- an amazing group of people. And, you know, they've changed over the years. Different people have left and come in and whatever. But it's a great group.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And so that's one thing I do. And then I do different things, depending 39:00on what my -- what my interests are or what-- what the Synagogue's needs are. So I started -- when -- when my daughter was preparing to become bat mitzvah, I started teaching a class about -- for parents about the bar mitzvah process and, you know, what to expect and some of the sort of psychosocial aspects to it and things like that, as well as a component for the kids about doing service projects, mitzvah projects. And so I've been doing that since that time, so probably five or six years now. And I'm probably ready to start phasing out of that, because both my kids are beyond it and it's not as much of an interest any more as it was then. [laughter]

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But -- but that's just an example of like I saw a need for something, I offered to do it, and -- you know, and it worked for everyone, to have me do it. So I do like a lot of the supplemental things that the rabbi doesn't have time 40:00for or that are more my areas of interest than his or things like that.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm!

PERSON: And we -- we have a great relationship. I feel very lucky about that. He's -- Serge Lippe is the rabbi now. And he's really wonderful and very welcoming to me and lets me do things there. We just have a great collegial relationship.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Can we go back to -- and -- and talk about your-- the process of how you decided to become a rabbi?

PERSON: Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Well, like I said, when I was a kid, I wanted to do it because I just thought my rabbi was so cool. And I wanted to -- it was the only way that I understood to like lead a fulfilling Jewish life. And then, when I lived in Israel, I realized that I could lead a fulfilling Jewish life and not 41:00have to do it professionally, which was a good and healthy realization to have. And plus I really -- I got to know a lot of rabbinic students and I really didn't like them. [laughter] So. I mean, I just thought they were arrogant and just I couldn't stand them. So I decided, "OK, that's not for me." And so then I decided to focus on art. And I got the degree in Art and -- But while I was in art school-- This was a really heady time in the art world. So it was like in the late '80s, into the early '90s. And I just -- I remember feeling like there's no -- none of this is based on values -- or values that mean anything to me. and the things that were -- the things that really matter to me are the things going on in the Synagogue and the concerns there and -- you know, it was 42:00a time when a lot of artists were doing art about homelessness or about AIDS. And then I would go back to the Synagogue and, you know, the youth group kids had to be responsible for shopping for the homeless shelter. And if they didn't, it was a really big problem, because then there was no food there, which happened once in a while. And -- you know, and then I'd have to take care of it and get on the phone with them and -- You know, it wasn't always fun. But-- but I realized like that's really doing something about homelessness. And-- you know, and the same thing with AIDS. Like I don't want to put down the art that was happening, because it was important art. But like then I'd go back to the Synagogue and teach kids about safe sex or like, you know, how to put a condom on a banana and all that stuff that we were doing then. And like that was really important. So I just began to see that like my values really were at the Synagogue and not so much in the art world and that it was too -- it was really 43:00frustrating to me to be part of the -- the values there. So that's when I decided to rethink going to rabbinic school. And Rick Jacobs, who was the rabbi at that time, was really inspiring to me, and encouraging.

SULLIVAN: Tell me more about that.

PERSON: Well, he's an amazing rabbi. He -- So I worked really closely with him, because I was running the school by that time. So, you know, I got to see him in action like every day and not just sort of once in a while, up on the bimah, like being a rock star, but like actually working with him and, you know, seeing his decision-making process and his struggles with, you know, annoying people or, you know, balancing the different things in his own life. And I -- and it became much more real to -- like the idea of becoming a rabbi became much more real, and seeing like what he was actually faced with thinking about every day 44:00and what he did every day, and just the way he did it. I mean, he was very creative. He also had an art background. He was a dancer. So he saw the world in a way that made a lot of sense to me. And he was a great mentor.

SULLIVAN: Mm-mm. And then tell me about rabbinic school.

PERSON: Rabbinic school. Not the -- not the best years of my life. [laughter] --

SULLIVAN: Where did you go?

PERSON: I went to Hebrew Union College, which is in the Village, like looks like it's part of the NYU campus. Rabbinic school was something to get through. When I entered, I had a one-year-old. And-- and then I had my second child the 45:00beginning of the next year. So my whole experience was really framed by having two very young kids. And it's not the best way to go to rabbinic school. [laughter] So, you know, I got through it. It wasn't the best experience in the world.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: Not a whole lot to say. [laughter] I mean, it ju-- it wasn't a great experience.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: Well, it was an experience of being completely exhausted and overworked and infantilized and feeling dumb all the time and -- Yeah, not great. [laughter]

SULLIVAN: And so, when you finished, were you-- what were you doing at the Synagogue, at that point?

PERSON: I was -- so when I started rabbinic school, I was still running the religious school at the Synagogue.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So I did that for two years, until my son was born -- until a little after my son was born. And then -- and then I stopped. And I s-- I kept certain 46:00pieces, like the Shabbat morning Torah study. I think, at that time, I was doing some parenting classes and some early childhood programming. And then that's just continued but shifted in these 16 or so years, you know, like I said, I mean, as my interests have changed and as the Synagogues needs have changed.

SULLIVAN:Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And can you tell me about your work here?

PERSON: Yeah. This is the Central Conference of American Rabbis, which is the membership organization for Reform rabbis in North America, but also even broader than that, throughout the world. And I'm the publisher and the director of the press. So we publish books, liturgical books and other kinds of resources for rabbis, congregations, anybody who wants them.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm!

PERSON: And that's what I've been doing most -- I haven't been doing it here but that -- that kind of work is what I've been doing since I was ordained.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So I used to work for the URJ, which is the Union for Reformed Judaism --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: -- what formerly was the UAHC [Union of American Hebrew Congregations]. And I did the same thing there.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So it's been -- It's a niche. [laughter]

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But it's been great. I love what I do.

SULLIVAN: And how long have you been here, exactly?

PERSON: I've been here about -- a little over two years.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And wha-- is there -- is there a book that you're working on right now?

PERSON: There are about 12.

SULLIVAN: Oh! [laughter]

PERSON: Yeah. That's my --

SULLIVAN: Oh!

PERSON: -- all those -- Yeah. I mean, you never work on one book at a time.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But, yeah. So there are different books in different phases.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Is there a theme at all to what --? I mean, how does that --kind of publishing work?

PERSON: We do mostly liturgical books of different sorts, things for the Reform community -- I mean, they're for anybody but they're really aimed at the Reform community -- and other kinds of resource books. I mean, it's a very narrow niche but --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And we publish a quarterly journal.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. So back to BHS. Are there turning points that you've experienced in your course of knowing the Synagogue, that you can talk about?

PERSON: Yeah. There -- there's -- You know, people who study some of this stuff have come up with this kind of set of paradigms about the growth of synagogues.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And -- and this -- BHS definitely fits into that. So there's this -- there are like certain moments of transition. And one of those is going from like a mom and pop shop to like a bigger, corporate kind of structure. And I think Brooklyn Heights has definitely made that transition. You know, when I was a kid, it was definitely the mom and pop shop. Like everybody came and pitched in, did what they could. There wasn't a lot of full-time sta-- In fact, there may have been no full-time staff. The office person was a volunteer. The -- You know, everybody was a volunteer. The rabbi was part-time. It was very, you know, 49:00informal in that way. And today it's this big institution -- I mean, relatively big -- with a lot of full-time staff, a lot of part-time staff, and a lot of rules. Because that's what you need when you get big. So it's made a huge transition. But I think that it continues to meet the needs of the community, and a ver-- you know, a fairly diverse community. One of things that's always been nice about it is that it draws from not just Brooklyn Heights but it draws from, you know, neighboring communities and -- and different kinds of people. So that's always, I think, been one of the strengths. --

SULLIVAN: Do you mean in terms of like neighborhood and -- and what people are doing for a living --

PERSON: Yeah.

SULLIVAN: -- and that kind of stuff? Mm-hmm.

PERSON: Yeah. And, you know, I'm -- I'm such an insider, in a way, that I can't 50:00really look it as an outsider and say, you know -- Like everyone likes to say their synagogue's welcoming. You go to any synagogue in the country and they're going to say one of the top things about the s-- their syn-- that makes their synagogue special is that it's welcoming.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. [laughter]

PERSON: Well, e-- you know, everyone says that. And the reality is most synagogues, if you go to as a guest, don't feel welcoming.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And that's probably true at Brooklyn Heights too. Just I think it's just the nature of the beast. But -- but I do think that, when people make an attempt to get involved and do something, that they're welcomed in. And, you know, people sometime-- people who are new sometimes say to me that it feels like there's an in group. I had a whole group of friends who -- who really were very upset about this, some years back, when they first joined and their kids were young. And I kept saying like, "Just wait. Like you will be the in group in five 51:00years," you know. As soon as you just come and you get involved and you do stuff and your kids are here, like you will soon be the in group. And that's just kind of the way it works. It's not like anyone's choosing an in group or, you know, an out group. But -- but I think communities function like that.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: I think that Serge has done a lot to grow the community in really positive ways. Like the preschool, which didn't exist when my kids were little, is a really, really positive change, on so many levels. I mean, it's just -- it's great to have a Jewish structure like that for kids that age. It's great for membership development. So, you know, it's a really good thing. And I think that -- I don't think we're funky in the way that we were at -- at one point. Like I think we're not -- at some -- at one point we were kind of cutting edge. And we're not any more. But that's OK.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: It's still a warm place. And there's a dynamism, I think. But, you know, again, I'm not objective.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. By cutting edge, do you mean --? What do -- how do you mean?

PERSON: I think that there was a lot more experimentation and sort of pushing the envelope, in certain ways, both ritually but also programming. And -- But that was a certain moment in time. It was with a certain outlook. And I think today we're sor-- we're sort of too big and too established to be that any more.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: I think -- I mean, that was -- Rick Jacobs brought a lot of that cutting edge-ness to it. And he -- he pushed people, you know, to think about prayer 53:00differently and to think about ritual differently, to think about the integration of art into Judaism differently. And, you know, in terms of the kind of people he brought to speak or the things he himself spoke about or the -- the events that he planned. And in those years, there were a lot of people coming from downtown Manhattan, like where there were not synagogues at that time, or no liberal synagogues. And so he was kind of pulling this group of very -- people who themselves were like cutting edge artists and -- so there was a lot of interesting thinking going on. But that moment in time passed, first of all, I think. And -- and it's just a different place. I mean, you know, it's just natural growth, I think. But -- And it's hard to stay cutting edge when you're the size that we are today.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Have there been changes in the ritual practice?

PERSON: Yeah, I think it's less experimental.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But it's lovely. I mean, it's -- it's really -- So it's gotten more standardized. But it's -- but even within that, I mean, there -- there are still innovations all the time. We have student cantors. And so we'll have them for like a year, two years, three years. But so they always bring something new. And -- and then we're always changed for that. So -- And that's a nice thing.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. You've mentioned some of the -- the key people. But are there other people that you think of immediately when you think of the Synagogue, that are central for you?

PERSON: There are so many people. Because, to -- to me, it really is the 55:00community. You know, I can walk in at any time and there are people I know. There are a lot of people today I don't know. But, you know, there are people I know. And people want to know how you're doing and -- I was there last night teaching a class and -- My husband's grandfather died on Sunday night.

SULLIVAN: Oh.

PERSON: So, you know, an email went out to everybody. And, I mean, I think I must have bumped into five people last night who said, you know, "I'm so sorry to hear. How are you doing? What's go--?" you know. And it's just like nice to feel enveloped in a community in that way, you know? I think we also got probably about ten cards at home from people, with condolence notes, you know. And it's -- it's just -- I think, you know, that's one of the nice things about being part of a community, that you're not sort of floating out there by yourself.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: You know, and my son was in the room with other youth group kids and, you know, I peeked in. And they're just so cute, like all these kids who I've 56:00known since they were babies, like sitting around on the floor and being cool teenagers with each other. But like -- you know. And they're doing it at the Synagogue. It's like such a ni-- It gives them a place to -- to be and be with each other and it's safe and -- you know, and they can be a little obnoxious and yell a little bit, and it's OK. Like no one's going to tell them, "Be quiet," or -- you know. And -- and their youth group advisor is somebody who -- she's younger -- considerably younger than I am but she's, obviously, older than they are. And she's, herself, a product of the Synagogue. And it's -- it's really nice, to see like the -- sort of the continuity of generations.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm! Do you think that those younger generations are still aware that it -- in terms of Synagogues, it has a rather new history, being only 50 years old?

PERSON: I don't know. You know, for them, 50 probably sounds really old.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So I don't know.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: That's hard to gauge. I mean, for me, everything felt new, be-- You 57:00know, the Synagogue felt new. Saint Ann's was -- I mean, they're pretty much the same age, I think.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And, you know, everything -- it was like I was part of all these institutions that were new.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm!

PERSON: And it was -- and it made sense. Because like everything was new in the '60s, you know? It was like this whole new world that we were going to be part of. Well, you know, that's not the world that they live in.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And I don't know what it means to them that the Synagogue's 50 years old.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: I mean, that would be an interesting question to ask.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: I don't know.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: Although these kids know the founders. The founders aren't alive any more.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But they knew them.

SULLIVAN: The Huffmans?

PERSON: Yeah.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: Like my kids, in particular, really knew the Huffmans.

SULLIVAN: Ah!

PERSON: And so that does mean something. Like that they knew the people who started the Synagogue, I think, makes it more understandable to them that like people actually did this. Like, you know, a group of people sat together in a living room and decided to start a synagogue, and --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: -- And, you know, not such ancient history that they couldn't have known these -- you know, that they actually knew these people. I think that that does mean something.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And is that story, the founding story, is that -- is that told in the Synagogue?

PERSON: Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't know, you know -- It may not mean as much to some families. But Belle was -- Belle, in particular, was such a presence. And, you know, she used to come stand up at every kid's bar or bat mitzvah, and make her little speech, which I could still do, probably. Because we always used to imitate her. [laughter]

SULLIVAN: Oh, will you? Because I've actually -- I've heard this but I've not -- no one has told me more about her. They just say that she was always there. [laughter]

PERSON: She was always there. Yeah. I mean, she was this little pitsel of a thing, with that really like deep smoker's voice, which I don't think I could actually do. But let me see. She -- [laughter] because she would always say the same thing at the start of her speech. She was very dramatic. And she would say 59:00-- she would come up, this little, little woman and she would say, "Friends --!" Oh, God. Then what would she do? She would just go on -- The -- and part of the joke was that the list was really long. So she would say, "Friends, family of the bar mitzvah--". I can't do the voice.

SULLIVAN: [laughter]

PERSON: You know, she would pick, you know, the -- she would like point out everyone she could. And then she would always end by saying, "Rabbi." And then she would launch into her speech about, you know, how special the kid was and how wonderful the family was and how much they meant to the Synagogue and -- you know. [laughter]

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And she would go on and on and on.

SULLIVAN: [laughter]

PERSON: I guess I can't really imitate her the way I used to be --

SULLIVAN: Mm.

PERSON: When we were kids, I mean, we could all just do her.

SULLIVAN: [laughter]

PERSON: And -- you know, but my kids saw that. She died before my daughter -- just a few months before my daughter's bat mitzvah. My daughter was really upset.

SULLIVAN: Oh!

PERSON: Because she -- they had a nice relationship and she really wanted her to do her thing at her bat mitzvah.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But they -- you know, they used to see her do it. And then there was Marion Cohen, who -- Have you heard about Marion, also?

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So Marion just died more recently. But Marion also -- then, for the last so many years, Marion's been the one doing the speech. And she also had her thing. And she would [laughter] always like hug, kiss, or like pat on the tush the boy, the bar mitzvah boy.

SULLIVAN: [laughter]

PERSON: And like they did not like it. You know, 13-year-old boys don't want to be touched by like an 80-something-year-old woman, who just was a little too touchy. [laughter] And so, you know, the kids had a whole thing about her also.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But -- You know, there was -- there was that kind of continuity. And a lot of the kids who are there today still remember these women --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: -- But not for that much longer. You know, there is nobody else now like them.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Do you know more about --? Because I actually don't know much about, besides their life at the Synagogue, the Huffmans or the Cohens.

PERSON: You know, it's amazing how much I don't know. It seemed like the Huffmans' whole life was the Synagogue.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: I probably only knew them once they were already retired. Well, actually, that's not true, because I think Rueben worked, you know, until he was almost dead. But, you know, their -- their life was the Synagogue.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And he would show up with a bottle of schnapps at any occasion that he could get away with it, [laughter] pass it around and -- they were so proud of the Synagogue. I mean, it wa-- they had no children and it was their child. It was just amazing to see.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: The Cohens --Well, Jack Cohen's still alive.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And they -- I mean, it -- it was a little different with them. Because 62:00Marion had a sister, for one, and who was also involved. And they had a child and they have a grandchild. So it wasn't quite their life. But it almost was. [laughter]

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And, you know, there were just certain people like that. Like they were the Synagogue.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: You would come to services and there they'd be, you know --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: -- any event, every -- you know. Everyone would always invite them to anything that they had. Belle and Rueben came, quite a few times, to our Seder at Passover and --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: You know. And I think a lot of people di-- a lot of people would invite them to things.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm!

PERSON: Because they were sort of like everybody's family. Yeah.

SULLIVAN: Do you know --? This is -- and this is just -- I've been curious about it. Do you know why Belle and Rueben Huffman didn't have children?

PERSON: I don't know.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: My guess is it wasn't a choice.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But I don't really know.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: Although they actually married late. I think that one of them might have been married before, if I remember the stories correctly. So it's possible, by the time they got married, they just were too old. I don't know.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But I do believe that they only were married like in their 40s.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: Yeah.

SULLIVAN: Let's see. And you did spea-- you spoke a bit about this but can you talk about the Synagogue's relationship to other synagogues, other religious institutions?

PERSON: Yeah, I'm probably not the best person to talk about that, because that hasn't been my involvement. But I know that Serge is very invested in that and works really hard with -- There's like a local clergy group. And he works a lo-- He was the president of it for a while. So he works really hard on developing 64:00good relationships with the different churches and the mosque and -- and the other synagogues, and, you know, trying to both like create a sense of collegiality between everybody -- they study together -- but also, you know, for good community relations between the institutions as a whole. I know that he takes the kids to visit the different churches and the mosque and to talk to the people there.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: This Sunday I think the ki-- the youth group is doing some kind of a dinner where they're inviting their counterparts from different synagogues and from the mosque -- I mean, churches and the mosque. So, you know, it's definitely a value. I think it's a great thing that Serge has brought into the community.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But it's not something I've done a whole lot of myself.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. What about Jewish organizations?

PERSON: Also, I mean, I really am not so sure today, to tell you the truth. 65:00Because my involvement -- you know, my -- my involvement with it is not really as a rabbi of the Synagogue but more as a congregant.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So I know, you know, they're involved with various -- They're certainly involved with the URJ. But I know that they do work closely with some organizations. But I'm not the best person to answer that.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And I'm curious about your husband's religious background, growing up in Israel, and --

PERSON: Mm-hmm.

SULLIVAN: -- how he finds life here and --

PERSON: I will just say, back to the question of -- about the other religious institutions --

SULLIVAN: Unh-h.

PERSON: -- I guess, a year or two ago, there was in incident of -- of some anti-Semitism in the neighborhood, that -- So somebody spray-painted -- I forget exactly. But somebody spray-painted swastikas or some, you know, offensive words or something on the Synagogue --

SULLIVAN: Oh! I didn't hear about this.

PERSON: -- or like in front of the Synagogue. And all of the local syna-- churches -- Well, I guess there's one -- there a few synagogues. But so all of the local institutions came together. And they created a banner that said something -- I can't remember what it said but something about God's house being -- I can't remember. But it was some really nice message about, you know, [laughter] peace and love or whatever.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But it was a really nice community effort to kind of stand together and unite against hate. And -- and it was a really great outpouring of support from the non-Jewish community.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So, you know, I think, luckily, whe-- Things like that don't happen very often. But when they do, the c-- the relationships between the different 67:00institutions are positive.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And the Synagogue often borrow-- not often but sometimes borrows space from local churches. So we have High Holiday services every year at Plymouth Church.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And there's a study weekend once a year with Grace Church, where there's a shared speaker. And so Grace Church will come to the Synagogue to hear the speaker and then the Synagogue will go to hear the speaker there. And so the -- you know, there -- there are some formalized relationships there. And the homeless shelter -- The Synagogue runs -- runs a homeless shelter, which it's very proud of.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And -- Not proud that there's homelessness but proud that they can help. And so it's, I think, pretty standard today that different synagogues and churches take a week and v-- you know, volunteer people from the community -- from their own community to come and be there.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So. What was your ques--? Sorry. After that -- Yes.

SULLIVAN: Your husband's experience and -- and your experience as -- as a couple, of his religious education in Israel and living here.

PERSON: Very different. I think, for him, one of the -- one of the things he had to learn about being a Jew here was the whole synagogue culture and synagogue life. It's very different in Israel, because in Israel the assumption is everyone's Jewish. And you don't have to work at it in the same way that you do here. You're not a minority. So it's really different. And he grew up on a kibbutz which is anti-religious. So he didn't have -- He had a bar mitzvah but it was a -- it's not what we would call a bar mitzvah here. It was like a cultural bar mitzvah. And so he didn't really know from a lot of the religious 69:00stuff, although he had a great education in -- in Bible, because they use the Bible as like a text, a textbook. So, you know, he -- he's very well educated Jewishly, in certain ways -- obviously, he knows Hebrew -- and, in other ways, not as much. But he really fit right into Jewish community life. Like he just loved it. And it made a lot of sense to him to have a way to come together and be a community. So right away he just like got it. And he always says that Cohen comes to Synagogue to talk to God but he comes to Synagogue to ca-- to talk to Cohen.

SULLIVAN: [laughter]

PERSON: Like that's kind of his thing. So he's not -- he wouldn't call himself religious, necessarily, but Jewish community is really important to him.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: He's on the board now of the Synagogue. So he's very invo-- And he's always been very involved.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So it really met a need for him. And, you know -- yeah, it's just been 70:00very positive.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Does he still have family in Israel?

PERSON: Everybody.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: Yeah.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. So do you guys go there?

PERSON: Yeah, when we can.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And we -- we've spoken of some of these. But is there a moment that stands out to you that you felt most connected to the Synagogue?

PERSON: Let's see. It's hard to say. I mean, I think so many of the really important moments in our family life have had to do with the Synagogue. So both my kids were named at the Synagogue -- you know, their bar and bat mitzvahs, our wedding. Well, our wedding wasn't physically at the Synagogue but -- but Rick 71:00Jacobs married us, at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens.

SULLIVAN: Oh!

PERSON: [laughter] So the Synagogue was just sort of always part of important moments in our lives -- you know, other things too. I mean, when my grandmother died, the Synagogue was part of that, in the sense that Serge was invo-- you know, he was involved. He was helpful. And the Synagogue, you know, sort of took care of us sitting shi-- when were sitting shiva, like with sending food and making sure people came over, ev-- much more so, even, when my father died. My father, himself, had been an involved member of the Synagogue. Serge was amazing with that, with the funeral, with all the arrangements. And people made sure that -- you know, that we had food and that people were at our house every night 72:00for the service. And it was really -- it really felt like we were taken care of. To those are lifecycle events. But -- Yeah, I mean, it's sort of woven in through the fabric of our lives. Like not everything is about the Synagogue [laughter] but it's definitely -- You know, we've met -- we've gotten to know friends through the Synagogue. So it's been important. And yet, in other ways, it's not. Like we don't socialize at the Synagogue in the way that some people do.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But, you know, it's there if we wanted that. I mean, there are things that we don't participate in, just because we're really busy or we have other social venues. But -- but we could socialize more, if we wanted to.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: Yeah. I mean, I think -- Yeah. Yeah. So, yes, it's definitely been a 73:00part of our lives --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: -- in significant ways. Actually, you know, getting back to my husband, when he -- when he came here, he was very much alone. I mean, he had me and he had my family but that was all he had. And he came here with like one suitcase. I mean, he -- he had nothing. But because we were getting married, he got a green card right away and he had a job and -- I mean, he was lucky, you know, when you think about immigrants in general. He was lucky and he was very aware of that. So the Synagogue, at that time -- so this was 1990 -- they were doing a lot of work with Russian immigrants because there were these huge waves of Russian Jews coming over. And so they asked if anybody would volunteer to spend time with new Russian immigrants and help them learn English and just get 74:00oriented. So he volunteered to do that, which is kind of funny, in retrospect -- right? -- because he was like brand new himself. But he felt like he had opportunities that other people didn't have. And he had English skills also. So -- so he volunteered. So he got matched up with this guy, Yephim [phonetic]. And Yephim [phonetic] had, you know, less than the nothing that my husband had. He came here totally alone, and, you know, had to make his way. And my husband sort of like mentored him. I mean, they were friends. But he helped him figure out all kinds of things along the way, like, you know, how to -- how to do so many different things. And -- and like at each moment along the way, Yephim [phonetic] would turn to him and ask like, "What do I do?" you know, "How do I do this? How do I achieve this next goal?" Because he had like this list of all the goals he [laughter] wanted to achieve. Like, you know, he wanted to make 75:00money and then find a place to live and then buy a car. And once he did that, he could look for a wife. And once he had a wife, then they would have a child. And, you know, [laughter] it was like very -- you know. And he's actually achieved all of those things. And -- you know, and my husband helped him with a lot of it, certainly at the beginning, I mean, now not so much. But I think it was a really helpful way for him to get acclimated himself, actually. And to feel like he could help somebody else was like a positive way for him to experience being new.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So sort of a funny thing. But it was -- I think there's something very Brooklyn about that.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Was there a moment that you found being part of the community of the Synagogue challenging?

PERSON: Yes, absolutely. This brings up history that I do-- [laughter] I don't really want to deal with, because it's sort of old and buried, at this point, but -- when I was going into my fifth year of rabbinic school -- when you're in 76:00rabbinic school, there are different kinds of jobs you can have but it's really good if you ha-- I think you might even need to have an internship. And so I was doing all these different things at the Synagogue. So I -- I came to them and I said, "Look. Can we just put all of these things together? They're -- I mean, I'm already doing all of them. It's not going to cost you any more money. And can we just call it an internship?" And I expected that they would say, "Of course!" But they didn't. [laughter] And the rabbi at the time -- And we've since talked it all out and we're friends again and it's fine. But it was not fine at the time. And she basically said, "let--"you know, "I'll take it to the Board and we'll see what they say." The -- And what she should have said, in my opinion, was, "Of course. And I'll just work on it. We'll make it happen."

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And instead, she kind of let the Board do their thing with it. And then they -- they reacted to this idea of having an intern, like, "Oh! Huh! We could actually have an intern. That's really interesting. Let's look at this." So then they -- they asked me to write up a job description. [laughter] It's -- you know, you can sort of see where the story's going. But in the end --

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: -- I had to apply for my own job and didn't get it.

SULLIVAN: Oh!

PERSON: So -- [laughter] Right. So it was pretty awful. And I was really, really angry and really hurt. And, you know, the good thing about it is that it actually kind of gave me a little kick on the ass that I needed, because it got me out of the Synagogue.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And I wound up going and getting an internship somewhere else, which was an amazing experience. And it was really good to get a different kind of experience. So in the end, it was all fine. But it was not fine at the time.

SULLIVAN: Yeah.

PERSON: It was very painful.

SULLIVAN: Mm.

PERSON: Yeah.

SULLIVAN: Well, I'm glad that you were able to --

PERSON: [laughter]

SULLIVAN: -- stay within, you know, the community and keep working there despite that.

PERSON: Yeah.

SULLIVAN: That sounds [laughter] --

PERSON: Yeah. And actually -- and, ever since then, they've had an intern. [laughter] Yeah.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But that's life.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Which actually brings me to my last question, which is -- it's a big one -- how has being a member of the Synagogue affected your life?

PERSON: [laughter] I feel really privileged that I have a -- a community. I don't always need it. I don't always want it. But it's there. And I -- I know a lot of people who don't have a community. And I -- and so I feel really lucky that I have that. I -- I think, especially -- You know, I live in like this 79:00crazed, you know, fast-paced sort of life and things are always running really quickly around me -- and juggling lots of things. And sometimes, even though it's busy, it could -- it could wind up feeling isolating too. Because it's so much just like being in your own little bubble, and especially, you know, in a city kind of setting, where you don't have to even know your neighbor, necessarily, and -- you know. And I think the Synagogue kind of pulls me out of that and grounds me, in a way that is really important. And there's a continuity seeing people, you know, week after week, knowing what's going on in people's lives, you know, like I said, about people saying something about my husband's grandfather. You know, or I'll talk to them about, you know, the new baby that their daughter just had or the new job or whatever the thing is. And so we kind of -- we're not necessarily like close friends but we know about each other's lives. And there's a sense of being connected and being there for each other. So 80:00when there is something like a death or -- or a good thing, you know, we can celebrate it together, we can mourn together, we can support each other. And I think it just gives a sense of rootedness that's really important. So I think, in the broadest strokes, you know, that's what it is for me.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Is there anything else that I should ask about that -- that we haven't talked about?

PERSON: Mm, let's see. I think one thing that a lot of people of my era feel really proud about is that it's not -- we -- we always used to have this sense, and I think it's still true today, that it's not just like your cookie-cutter 81:00Reform synagogue. Or forget even the word Reform. Just it's not your cookie-cutter synagogue. Like we always used to take a lot of pride in the fact that our Synagogue wasn't a brownstone, when it was down the street, when it was at 117 Remsen, which is really a brownstone, as opposed to where we are today, which is -- I guess it's a brownstone but not -- it doesn't have the same brownstone feel that 117 had. But we always, when we were kid-- you know, we were in high school and then in college and we would talk about our home synagogue, like we always felt really lucky, like we had this cool synagogue that we were part of, that didn't look like a synagogue and it didn't have, you know, the parking lot and like all the sort of things that a suburban synagogue has. We always thought that that was so cool, and, you know, that we had a cool rabbi and like our Synagogue was just different. And I don't know if kids feel that way in the same way today, exactly, because it's -- it's probably not as different from other synagogues as it was at that time. But -- but I think there 82:00is still a sense of pride, that there is something special about the community. I mean, whether it's in a brownstone or not is not so critical today. But like I think people are very proud that we still are running a homeless shelter, like how terrible that we still need to but that -- that we're a-- we're able to respond to like a real-world issue. And -- and that's just one example. I mean, over the years there's been other things the Synagogue's done, whether it's been welcoming the Russian immigrants or whether it was -- There used to be a whole outreach to people with AIDS, and, you know, in the early '90s. So as different issues have hit the city in different ways, the Synagogue's responded. And people, I think, take a lot of pride in that. So that's, I think, one of the special things about the Synagogue.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: But --

SULLIVAN: Are there many other people who, like you, grew up in the Synagogue and then now have children growing up?

PERSON: Not so many but there are a couple.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: Yeah. You know, one of the big challenges is -- Well, that's a whole other discussion. But of -- of all of my friends who I grew up with, my kids are the oldest of -- you know, of all of our kids. So a lot of them have much younger kids. And they're just at the age now where they have to decide if they're going to become a member or not.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And some -- and they're -- some of them are struggling with it for financial reasons. That's a whole other discussion, because that's really a challenge.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: Even though the Synagogue has sliding-scale fees and you can -- you know, all kinds of exceptions can be made if you don't have the money -- No one's going to get turned away. But it's -- still asks something of you.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: And for some people, that's a big challenge.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: So. But there are -- there are definitely kids at the Synagogue whose parents grew up there.

SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

PERSON: Yeah. Anything else?

SULLIVAN: Not that I can think of.

PERSON: [laughter]

SULLIVAN: Is there anything else that --?

PERSON: I need to drink some water.

SULLIVAN: Oh! [laughter]

PERSON: Un no, I can't think of anything else.

SULLIVAN: Great. Well, this has been great. Thank you.

PERSON: Thank you. Thanks for coming up here.

SULLIVAN: Mm-mm. So.

PERSON: All right. So what time is it?