A Conversation with Deborah Tannen

A I 7 WITH THEODORE BiKEt

Talking Theo A Conversation with Deborah Tannen

While Theodore Bikel may be best known Bikel became a prominent folk singer and co­ for his defining portrayal of Tevye in Fiddler founded the renowned Newport Folk Festival. on the Roof—a role he has played over 2,000 In 1963, he traveled with Bob Dylan and Pete times—the list of his accomplishments is Seeger to register black voters in the South. remarkably long. Born in Vienna in 1924 Later, he would go on to protest apartheid and forced to flee the Nazis, he studied and more recently, the genocide in Darfur. theater at London’s Royal Academy of At 84—he will celebrate his 85 th birthday Dramatic Art and made his West End debut at Carnegie Hall in June—he continues to in the premiere of Tennessee Williams’ A tirelessly campaign for a negotiated land- Streetcar Named Desire. He broke into film for-peace agreement between Israel and the in the 1951 classic The African Queen, and Palestinians as chairman ofMeretz USA. was nominated for an Academy Award for Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics his role as the beleagured Southern sheriff at Georgetown University and author of in Stanley Kramer’s 1958 The Defiant Ones. the New York Times bestseller, You Just Don’t The man with the trademark booming bass, Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, however, is more than an actor who speaks five sat down with Bikel on a day off from his languages fluently and has perfected accents most recent endeavor, the one-man show, in 23. After moving to New York in 1954, Sholem Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears.

32 MARCH/APRIL 2009 Deborah Tannen: I have always ad­ How did this early experience mundane things of the world. So while mired your activism, from the civil influence you? the spoken language might survive rights movement to labor unions. I keep asking myself, is it just an acci­ with Hasidim, Yiddish literature won’t. How did you become an activist? dent that I was spared? For what pur­ That is left to less religious and secular Thedore Bikel: I was a 13-year-old pose was I spared? I think I’m around Yiddishists who love the literature, love boy when the Nazis marched into for various purposes: I’m here to the poetry and love the songs. Austria. Within days, I saw people look out for my fellow worker, for that I knew dragged into the street my fellow human beings. I’m around Do you believe Yiddish has and subjected to great indignities. to preserve the Yiddish language and a future? And even if I didn’t know them, I the Jewish song. Yiddish has a future because many knew they were Jewish. The “J” was young people are attracted to it. Why written in red paint on storefronts. did klezmer music become so popular, Theodore Bikel warms up at the There were warnings not to buy from Hollywood Bowl during the 1960s. especially amongyoungjews? Because Jews. Jews were forbidden to go into it was mainly instrumental music, and a park and sit on the bench. Jewish they could love it without having to men were forced to clean the side­ learn a language. It was only later that walk with their toothbrushes; Jewish they started singing the songs, and women were forced to mop it up with then Yiddish was essential. That so their far coats. Later on, I saw people many young Jews love klezmer means being put in a truck and shipped off. there’s an emotional need. In a sense, When I saw injustices, I always they accuse their parents of having felt the grief of it hitting my people abandoned a legacy that was rightfully and puzzlement that people who theirs because they ran away from I thought were decent were doing i n their funny looking, funnily dressed nothing to prevent it. It became clear W r f grandparents with horrible accents to me later that non-action is an act who came over on the ship. and that silence speaks, sometimes “I never meant to be a louder than words. I was determined professional singer. I You have had astonishing careers I would not allow myself to engage in was an actor in Israel, in both theater and music, each of that kind of non-action. When I see which would be a singular achieve­ in Palestine, and I went 2 victims of acts of savagery, barbarism ment on its own. Am I right that you m CO r\j and discrimination—no matter who to England to study set out to be an actor, not a singer? o O c to they are—there’s a little switch that acting. I sang purely for I never meant to be a professional sing­ —I CO -c gets thrown in my head and they be­ er. I was an actor in Israel, in Palestine, o my own and my friends’ to o come Jews. and I went to England to study acting. > 70 enjoyment.” O The fact that I sang on the side was 0 70 © You lived in Vienna until you were purely for my own and my friends’ en­ CO ZK2 14, when you escaped with your joyment. Itwasn’tuntil I gotto America 70 > family to Palestine. How were you Your play Laughter Through Tears that it turned out to be another career, 2 1 able to get out? is very much about Sholem Ale- because in America they won’t tolerate Co 3 m The British gave out a very low number ichem’s love of Yiddish and his you doing anything well without forc­ O O cr of visas—they called them “certificates fears that it would not survive as a ing you to accept money for it. 30 co of entry”—into Palestine. Those were language. You revived Yiddish folk o turned over to the Jewish community songs in the United States. Who You were one of the leading figures IE O o in Vienna and they in turn distributed will keep the Yiddish language in the folk revival of the ’60s. How o m the visas to Palestine to people who alive for future generations? did that happen? TO

Z had been active Zionists according to Hasidim still speak it, but if Yiddish Jac Holzman, who at the time had o 5 seniority. My father was high on the were to survive only thanks to Hasidim, a small record company called Elek- 3 70> list of the Labor Zionist movement, so we would be poorer. To them Yiddish tra Records in a fifth-floor walkup in 70CD O o our being Zionists saved our lives. is the language in which they do the Tv Greenwich Village, heard me sing at CO

MARCH/APRIL 2009 / MOMENT 33 a couple of parties. He said, “I saw rhythm, and the actor allows the singer, What is your vision for Israel? you, and I heard you, and it’s very indeed in my case, forces the singer to Many people in and outside Israel pro­ impressive, but I don’t know how sing as if he were telling a story. To me, a fess to be Zionists and believe that the much of what you do is visual.” So song is a mini-drama, a mini-comedy. Jews are “the chosen people.” There’s he said, “If you would make a re­ even a Hebrew phrase am zegulah— cording for me and let me play it for You sing in 23 languages, but Yid­ people of distinction. But when Israel people who haven’t seen you...” He dish songs have a special place in commits acts that any nation would came back and said that he wanted your repertoire. When I was grow­ to defend itself—things that it feels it to make a record. ing up, my family, and every family must do—but acts that are not noble, I knew, had your recordings of Yid­ then those very same people say, what Do your singing and acting reside dish songs in their homes. do you want from us, we are no better in different spheres or do they af­ I don’t pick Jewish songs because I than any other people. Now you can’t fect each other? think they’re better than my neigh­ say that we are nobler than other peo­ They complement each other. The sing­ bor’s songs. I sing them because ple, and in the same breath say we’re er gives the actor a sense of timing and they’re mine. I sing my neighbor’s no better. We run into the danger of songs as well because I’m curious. becoming not only like other people MOONRISE OVER WASHINGTON but something like our enemies. I -November 11, 2008 What does Judaism mean to you? hope for a time when we get back to My Judaism is very important in the the vision of a people of distinction. For half my life I’ve walked by this river sense that it defines me as a cultural late in the afternoon, human being, not as a religious hu­ But you’re not a pacifist... man being. I’m not a religious Jew, I’m not naive. I’m not a pure paci­ evening coming on although I am well-versed in the reli­ fist who says violence must never like a dream of home gion. I can read the Bible as literature be used. If there were Nazis today I or a mirror and as poetry. would fight because I would need to. in which failure, already dark, There are certain evils that must be keeps darkening. What part does Jewish observance fought by violent means, but a gun play in your life? in one’s hands is a terrible weapon. Today, sycamores blaze I say prayers not necessarily to address Golda Meir once said, “We can for­ behind half-bare oaks, box elders, them to a deity but as an exercise of give the Arabs for killing our chil­ and the water’s silver surface solidarity with millions of other Jews dren. We cannot forgive them for runs orange, then rose, who say them at the same time. I like forcing us to kill their children. We then twilight blue. to be able to argue with Jews. Now will only have peace with the Arabs there are plenty of forums where you when they love their children more Twigs snap high on the hillside. can argue these days, but in the old than they hate us.” I’m proud of the I turn to see a stag days, in the shtetl, for example, there peace movement, and I’ve worked turning to see me, was always an atheist or two, but they for it all my life. It’s not easy to be and overhead—more astonishing— went to shul because they needed a fo­ a person of peace in these days of the full moon caught in branches. rum to argue atheism. If they didn’t go turmoil and upheaval. I don’t engage to shul, they’d have nobody to argue in group libel because I was the vic­ It’s five o’clock. with. I joke sometimes that in most tim of group libel myself. People tell Leaves sway and flare, countries you see a sign in the bus that me that it’s us against Muslims, and gathering on the towpath— says it is forbidden to talk to the driver it isn’t; it’s us against jihadists, it’s us each shape distinct, each color— while the bus is in motion. In Israel, it against terrorists. November’s moon lifting, now, says it’s forbidden to answer the driver. So we have this wondrous thing called Do you have any hopes for peace? above the treetops, the city, community. Sometimes I have whole Hopes, yes. Patience, less. Because the reclaimable world. segments of my community that I dis­ my hope has to be shared by millions agree with and who disagree with me, of people and, unfortunately, it’s only —Judy Bolz but they’re my people. shared by thousands, o

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