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Today is February 6th, 2023. It happens to be the Jewish holiday of Tu BiShvat, New Year for the trees, and I'm joined by my dear friend Janice Rubin. Janice, how are you today?

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Thank God I'm good. Great, great. I'm so excited to have the opportunity to chat with you about your family's history in Fort Worth, and your time at Rice, and your career as a photographer and as a musician and all that you've

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seen and accomplished. So why don't we start at the beginning and tell us, if you would, a little bit about your family's roots in Texas, how did they get here and how did they make a living in the early days?

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So my great, great grandmother, Rivka Rosner, arrived at the Port of Galveston in the fall of 1901. Uh, she came with five daughters, but with her husband, uh, Ben-Zion Rosner, who had passed away, and one son, uh,

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who was the son of her husband, David Berkowitz. David, her husband, had come before her in the fall of 1900. He'd arrived just after the Great Hurricane destroyed Galveston, and he was immediately put to work cleaning up after the

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hurricane. Um, after some time in Galveston, he made his way to Fort Worth, where he found some landsman, some countrymen who said they needed a bakery, a European bakery in Fort Worth. And, so, they gave him money to start a bakery.

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Then he sent for his wife, Rivka, and the children. And as I said, they arrived 1901. Uh, Rivka took her youngest daughter and her son with her to Fort Worth.

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But she farmed out her daughters, farmed out, as mother’s helpers in Jewish homes in Houston. My great grandmother was the oldest, Sarah, and she was, uh, put in the Gordon family home in Houston, um, as a mother's

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helper, basically an indentured servant. Um, and I'm sure that Rivka gave instructions to find Jewish husbands for her daughters, because she knew that, in Fort Worth, she would probably have a hard time finding Jewish husbands for her daughters.

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Um, some time after a year or so, uh, a traveling peddler named Oscar Rubin, uh, showed up in Texas from, uh, Connecticut with his brother. They were, um, traveling peddlers.

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They would, uh, go out to the countryside and get butter and eggs and and, all the things that were needed in the city. And then they would come to the city and get pots and pans and other kinds of hardware and take it out to the country.

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And they had a horse and wagon, and that's what they did until Oscar Rubin fell off the wagon and broke his leg. Uh, and he was left to recover in Houston. Uh, and during that time, a shidduch, a match was made

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between him and Sarah. Uh, Rosner. Um, Sarah was just a teenager at the time and really didn't want to marry, and particularly not marry a man who was almost twice her age. And, um, but that was that was the expectation.

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And, so, she, uh, married in this arranged marriage. And soon thereafter, my grandfather, Ben Rubin, was born in the Fifth Ward in Houston. Um, I think that they, uh, had a maybe a little store.

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And he was born in the back of the store. The location in the Fifth Ward is now Interstate 10, so the street doesn't even exist anymore. Um, and, uh, when Ben was two years old, uh, Sarah received

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a telegram from her mother in Fort Worth. Uh, Dave Berkowitz, her stepfather, had been driving the bread wagon delivering bread when a train whistle scared the horse and the it ran away with the bread wagon and turned over on top of him, killing him.

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Uh, Rivka decided she did not want to raise, uh, children, particularly sons. She was pregnant with her second son at the time her husband died. And she gave birth to a son and named him David after his recently deceased father.

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And Rivka didn't want to raise sons in Fort Worth. She wanted them to go to a proper yeshiva and have a Jewish education. And so in 1906, she decided that she would go back to Europe, to Austria-Hungary, where she had a vineyard, uh, and

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she could put her sons in yeshiva, uh, and, uh, so she contacted her daughter, Sarah, my great grandmother, and said, bring Oscar and baby Ben to Fort Worth and take over this bakery because I'm going back to Europe. So, um, that is how my family came to Texas.

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And, uh, my grandfather arrived in Fort Worth with his parents in 1906 and lived there his entire life. He was like a walking history book of the city of Fort Worth. He knew everyone. Uh, so that's how we got to Texas.

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That's great. Can you tell us where the bakery was? Do you know anything else about it? I believe it was on Crump Street in Fort Worth. Um, it originally was called the Fort Worth German Bakery.

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But during World War I, because of the anti-German sentiment, um, they changed the name of the bakery to the Fort Worth Bakery. They made old style European bread, not like the white bread that was getting so popular in the 20th century in the United States, because there were a lot

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of people that worked around the stockyards in Fort Worth who were immigrants, and they wanted that Old World style bread. I remember my grandfather telling me when he was, um, a child, he used to go with his father to deliver bread to the homes of the workers in the

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stockyards, and they would just go into the houses. No houses were locked in those days, and they would, um, leave the bread in the bread box, and most people would leave the money in the bread box to pay for the bread. So, then, people got home from work.

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They'd have fresh bread in their bread boxes at home. Okay, why don't we talk now a little bit more about your father, Sherwin. Tell us your memories of him when he was born and what were his experiences growing up?

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I know in previous conversations you'd mentioned that he had a difficult time with anti-Semitism in college and also in, um, the Air Force. I think it was. Well, no, actually. Um, so my father, Sherwin, uh, Rubin, was born in Fort Worth

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in 1932. His mother was Gertrude Steinberg Rubin and his father, Ben Rubin. And, um, he, uh, he used to tell me that his father taught him how to fight and be tough,

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because he felt that he would need to be tough, and he did encounter quite a bit of anti-Semitism at Lily B. Clayton Elementary School when he went to elementary school, and he used to tell me how he and his friend Marshall, uh, who was also

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Jewish, were, uh, subject to a lot of bullying because they were the Jewish students in the school. And he said we would stand back-to-back and we would fight with all of them. Marshall would take out some of them, and I would take out some of them.

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And I think that my father felt like he had to be tough. In order to, um, in order to to to stand up for himself at a time when, uh, he said that he remembers the time when the boys in his neighborhood, not Jewish,

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would chase a Black boy down the street throwing rocks at him, screaming, we don't want you in this neighborhood with the N-word. Um, he said that didn't happen to him as a Jew, but that they were always calling him dirty Jew or Jew boy when he was in school.

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And so when he got to high school, even in junior high, he became a star athlete. And he distinguished himself as an athlete. And I think that, because he wasn't allowed to be a part of the the clubs or

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the cliques, he found his own way into team sports, and he distinguished himself in that way so that he earned the respect of his peers. Um, and he was part of a, a respected body within the community of his junior high and high

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school. He went on to become track champion, archery state champion and swimming state champion, and, even later in college in the Air Force, he distinguished himself as a world class swimmer. So that was, uh, he's been a lifelong athlete,

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my father, uh, even at at 90, he still rides 75 miles a week on his bike. So I think that he felt that, um, athletics, uh, and and later, um, you know, he became an officer in BBYO, B'nai B'rith Youth Organization, gave him the

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community that the, uh, the sort of broader, um, secular community didn't offer him because he was Jewish. Um, and, um, through his work with BBYO, he met Harry Popkin, who had started Camp

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Bluestar in Hendersonville, North Carolina. It was a Jewish camp. And, um, Harry Popkin said, oh, you're, you know, you're you've excelled in archery.

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Why don't you come be the archery counselor at Camp Bluestar, and we'll hear a little bit more about Camp Bluestar later. Um, later, my father started, um, he spent about eight or nine years, uh, starting the Dan Danciger Jewish Community Center in

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Fort Worth. They didn't have a Jewish community center, and he felt that there needed to be one. And he used to tell me that during that time, and we're talking early 1960s, um, a lot of Jews that he approached about helping to start the Jewish Community Center said,

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uh, we don't need a Jewish community center with a pool. We have pools in our backyards. And or they said, um, you know, we just want to fit in. Jews with enough money could buy their way into Colonial Country Club, which was the

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only country club that, it didn't really allow Jews, but if you had enough money, you could get a membership. And so, the Jews that had the money in Fort Worth often, uh, were inclined to toward, to blend in with their non-Jewish

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neighbors. And so, uh, it was quite an uphill climb to start the Jewish community center, according to my father. But eventually it was built and opened, I think. End of the 1960s or around 1970.

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Wow. Thank you very much for sharing that. Why don't we talk now a little bit about your mother? So, um, my mother was a first generation American. Her parents were from Poland, and she was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and also in

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1932. And, um, she was, uh, her parents had a grocery store. All of her relatives had grocery stores in Knoxville. And, um, uh, she was, uh, very active

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with fellow Jewish students going through school. Um, sort of the Southern Jews kind of banded together like she was involved in Jewish organizations, uh, through high school and into college with Jews from, uh,

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Birmingham and Nashville and other Southern cities. And, um, she was, uh, I think from her parents, her parents were very progressive politically. They read the Jewish Forverts every day, uh, particularly her father.

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And, um, she also was very progressively minded. So, during her early college years, she secretly worked as a counselor at an integrated

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summer camp for Black and white children, which was illegal at the time. We're talking the 1940s. That was in Tennessee?

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in Knoxville. Wow. In Knoxville. Wow. Um, and, uh, you know, if anybody had found out about it, there would have been a lot of trouble. But she did that one summer.

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Um, she was active in Zionist youth organizations and, um, uh, during her senior year in college, she was hired as a, um, counselor at Camp Blue Star. And that's how my parents met.

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My father was a counselor, and my mother was a counselor at Camp Blue Star. And so, they, um, spent a lot of nights singing around the campfire or going out in a canoe or, uh, doing Israeli dancing.

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They were the stars on the Israeli dancing crew. And so that's how they met. Um, my my parents were both interested in community building and community action, a community service.

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And I think that, um, my mother and father sort of influenced each other in that way to serve in the community, and I think that's maybe one of the things that I inherited from them. I think so, Janice, I think so.

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Why don't we talk about, uh, you now tell us, uh, when you were born and, uh, where in Fort Worth you lived and some of the formative experiences from your childhood, school, holidays, clubs and activities that you were very involved in.

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So I was born in Fort Worth. Well, actually, I wasn't born in Fort Worth. My father was in the Air Force. Um, and so he was stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in, uh,

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Fairborn, Ohio. Uh, so I was born while he was in the Air Force. And I came along in 1955, just in time to keep him from having to go to Korea. Uh, because I guess they weren't, um, sending

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out, uh, uh, military who had recently had a child. I'm not sure how that worked in those days, but, um, so my father was in the Air Force, and I was not.

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I saved him from going to Korea. So, he came back to Texas when I was about nine months old, uh, in Fort Worth. And I grew up in Fort Worth. My sister and my brother were born there.

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Um, we lived in a part of Fort Worth, which was not the neighborhood where most of the Jews lived. We lived in a up on a hill, an area called South Hills, uh, which was a lovely area in that, you know, you could stand on the roof of our

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house and see downtown Fort Worth. And it was very cool because we were up on a hill. Um, it made getting home hard when I bicycled down the hill to get back up. Um, I was the only Jewish child in my grade going all the

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way through elementary school. Um, during that time, I, uh, I didn't have a lot of issue with being Jewish. There was one or two, uh, boys who would bully

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me about being Jewish. My father taught me how to fight them off, and, um, and when I did, they didn't bother me anymore. Um, there was a couple of times, one time in particular, I

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remember, uh, one of my classmates named Shirley asked if she, if I would go to church with her on Sunday because, if she if you bring someone to church, you get your own Bible. Uh, she wanted to get the Bible.

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So I wanted to help her out so she could get her Bible. So I went home and I asked my mother if I could go to church with Shirley so she could get a Bible. And my mother thought about it, and she said, “You know who you are. I think that this is a good thing for you because you will learn about

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other faith traditions. And so if you want to go, you can go.” So I went to church with Shirley, and I guess she got her Bible. Um, I didn't, I think my mother may have explained to me that, um,

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she may have explained to me that Christians might try to convert me. Um, and but it wasn't an issue, really, because I know who I am. Um, I did then.

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Your, your classmates or neighbors never said anything to you, like, “You're going to hell if you don't accept, you know, Christianity,” or you know, any of that. It was just a friendly gesture on Shirley's part, I think.

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You think? Um, I don't recall ever being threatened with going to hell if I didn't accept Christianity. Um, but I do think that, um, Shirley may not have even understood how she was being used as a sort of a,

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a tool of proselytization, you know? Um, and, uh. I don't think that I, I really comprehended until I became an adult, how much, um, trying to convert someone to Christianity

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was a part of the whole faith tradition of some, uh, of some, uh, denominations. Yeah. Uh, and so, uh, you know, I'm sure that people told me that and I just kind of it was I it never concerned me because I

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guess perhaps whatever my mother told me when I was in the third grade and, you know, invited to church was, uh, gave me the understanding that trying to convert me was just something that Christians would do. Yeah. Tell us about the the Jewish fabric of your childhood, whether holiday

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celebrations that stick out in your memory, involvement at synagogue youth groups. It must have been very isolating, in a sense, to have few Jewish peers at school. So where did your love for for Judaism and your attachment to Jewishness…How was that nurtured?

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Um, I think my earliest Jewish memories were that, uh, was probably sitting in services on high holidays with my grandparents. Um, I was—my sister and I were very close to our grandparents and my brother when he came along, nine years later.

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Our paternal grandparents, uh, Ben and Gertrude Rubin, were a huge influence on us. And, so every Friday night, uh, they would pick us up after Shabbat dinner, you know, we'd light the candles at home, they would swing by and pick up the kids and

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take us to, uh, uh, synagogue. So I, of course, learned the Friday night service by heart. Um, and there weren't a lot of kids coming to synagogue. I think, uh, there were a few, but we went to be

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with our grandparents and we went. And when we did go, of course, since we were some of the few kids who were in synagogue for Friday night, everyone would, uh, the adults would gather around us and and chat with us. And I learned how to have a firm handshake, uh, at

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the because at the end of the service, the rabbi and cantor, Adon Olam, would walk back and they would stand at the door and greet everyone like a receiving line as we walked out for the oneg and they said, “Here's how you have a really firm handshake.” And that's how I, I learned.

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I felt very at home in the synagogue. Which synagogue was this, Janice? This was Ahavath Sholom, and my father's cousin, Isadore Garsek, was the rabbi there.

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So, Isadore was married to Sadye Maye Carshon, and, uh, she was also one of the granddaughters of, uh, Rivka, uh, Rosner. So her mother was one of the other sisters who came in on the boat from

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Austria-Hungary. Anyway, Isadore Garsek was the rabbi. Um. And he had a huge influence on me. We we would have pesach with them every year. And although it was a kind of conservative style synagogue, the Garseks

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were Orthodox. And so I learned from our holidays together and from our relationship with the Garseks, a lot about Orthodox culture. And my mother, for instance, it was hard to get kosher

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meat in Fort Worth. Like you had to go to Dallas and it was expensive, and it was a long way. Um, there wasn't a kosher butcher in Fort Worth, and so, my mother had two sets of dishes. She had a, she kept a kosher style house, so we

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had milk dishes and we had meat dishes. But then she had another set of dishes that were kept over the kitchen sink in a high up cabinet that you had to get a ladder to get. And those were the real kosher dishes that we used when the

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Garseks came over for dinner. My mother wanted to make sure that everyone felt comfortable eating in her house. Yeah, that's a great story. So, um, the,

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the synagogue was a, they had a religious school. It was mostly a Sunday school. And then uh, once I was, uh, probably in grade school, I went, it was either Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday or

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Monday, Wednesday and Sunday, but it was three days a week. Um, uh, I was beginning to learn Hebrew and train and learn the prayers and trained for my bat mitzvah, which, of course, in those days, uh, girls were just starting to become bat mitzvah in a

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formal ceremony. And the ceremony was a Friday night service where we would lead a few prayers and recite part of the haftarah for the next day.

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And then we would, um, give a short d'var Torah. So that was the. The boys had a bar mitzvah on Shabbat morning, with the full Torah reading and the haftarah and everything else, but this was what they allowed girls to do, right?

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Right. Of course. Girls would, uh, it was like a, we’d have, like a court of other girls approximately our age, girls from our class. So whichever girl is having the bat mitzvah as we're

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beginning the Friday night service and we're singing Shalom Aleichem, we would walk in like a a little group to Shalom Aleichem. We were supposed to start when they started bar, we would start walking in, and, um, usually it was the

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bat mitzvah was in the front, and then all of her, the other girls would follow and, you know, four or six girls would follow in a group so that it was like the it was a girls club thing. I don't know what it was.

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It was something they did at our synagogue. A very formal procession, the choreography. I've heard people who are peers of yours talk about a very similar situation at Beth Yeshurun in Houston with the procession, you know,

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being escorted down by your friends. Yeah, that was my first time to be up in front of people in my life that I remember, uh, and I was very nervous. I was very nervous. I remember feeling very flushed and hot and

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scared. And I looked and saw my mother in the front row. And I was like, rubbing my neck because my hands were icy and my face was flushed. I was so nervous. Oh, Janice. And I looked in the front row and there was my mother, and she's going like this.

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She's taking deep breaths. She's just breathing deeply. And, um. And so I started to, to mirror her and breathe deeply and are calmed.

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And I think since that moment, whenever I feel anxious or afraid or nervous, I go back to that deep breathing. It's a wonderful, wonderful technique.

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I want to sidestep for a minute and just ask you if you grew up in a family that was very musical, that loved to sing together and perform, is that where that aspect of your life comes from? So my parents would sing all the time.

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I think maybe because they met at summer camp, um, where there was a lot of singing, or of course, in my mother's family there was a lot of singers. But my mother's family would write songs at the drop of a hat for any

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occasion or for birthdays, weddings, bar mitzvahs, I mean, uh, my mother came from a very theatrical family. Her aunts and uncles were all part of the Yiddish theater in Knoxville and Oak Ridge, so she had a

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very musical and theatrical family going back even to her grandparents’ generation. You know, there were musicians in the family. So my mother's very musical.

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She would wake us up every morning to go to school with a song. Every morning she would come into our bedroom, fling open the curtains and sing, “Oh, what a beautiful morning.” Or something. It was a different song for every day.

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I'll have to try that with my kids. So, um, I sometimes we'd be, we had a boat out at Eagle Mountain Lake and we'd be driving out to the lake, which was, you know, about a 30, 40-minute drive.

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And my dad would always start singing. He'd maybe turn on the radio and sing along with Johnny Cash, or my parents would sing around or something in harmony and, um, we had a lot of record albums that I listened to a lot.

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Um, I got, I had permission from an early age to use the record player, and Jewish groups would come in to town from time to time. I remember a group called the Shalom Trio, and we had their album and I learned all their songs, so I was definitely interested in singing.

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In fact, even when I was in college, I brought a friend home from college and, um, we were driving out to the lake in the car and my dad started singing along with the radio with Johnny Cash. He just burst out into song, and my friend turns to me in the back seat and says,

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“Does your dad always just, like, start singing? At any time?” And I went, “Well yeah. Doesn't everybody?” It was not it was not fathomable to me that all fathers didn't sing all the time.

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Sure. So music was really—And so I think, um, after my bat mitzvah, I was invited to join USY, United Synagogue Youth. Um. And there were there were three youth groups in Fort Worth.

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There was United Synagogue Youth for the shul, and then there was the other, the temple, with the Reform Temple. Um, and uh, Beth El. And they would have temple youth.

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So there was and the two groups didn't mix, except when you got to BBYO, B'nai B'rith Youth Organization. And so that's somewhere where the shul kids and the temple kids could get together at BBYO. And so, uh, I wasn't, I

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stayed in BBYO, uh, maybe a year or two, and, um, I didn't find it as meaningful to me as USY, United Synagogue Youth. Um, there was much more, BBYO seemed more like a social club to me.

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And USY had opportunities for, um, social action. Uh, I was involved in the student struggle for Soviet Jewry. Even at the time I was in USY, um, it it seemed more relevant to me.

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I came from a progressive involved family, and USY offered more opportunities. I remember my very first USY event was a Torah institute in Fort Worth and like maybe 1969

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and Jews came USY, uh. Members came from all over Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and even Mexico City, the southwest region, USY. Swoosie, we called it.

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And so we we had this convention called to our institute in, it was around Thanksgiving. I have a picture of it that I can share with you and, um. I was amazed, number one, to see so many Jewish

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kids my age. I'd never seen so many Jewish kids my age in one place. And, um, but I also was completely engaged at the way they pulled me in, you know, there they had these ruach sessions which were singing and dancing and, um, immediately, uh,

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it was actually Eric Rosenblum from Houston who grabbed my hand and pulled me in to the circle. I was about 14 at the time, and, uh, I just remember feeling like these are my people. And to this day now, how many years later?

00:32:15.220 - 00:32:33.380

Over 60, 50 years later, um, I'm still friends with these people from that I was friends with, from USY. In fact, we're having our fourth reunion in Houston this June. Uh, of people who were friends in USY in the 1960s and 70s.

00:32:34.340 - 00:32:52.310

It was really pivotal, I think, for me in, um, in grounding me in a Jewish community that I felt like I could grow in. Uh huh, uh huh. Great. Great.

00:32:53.290 - 00:33:04.380

Let's talk now about your time at Rice. What attracted you to Rice, first of all? And what did you go there to study? And what was it like as a Jewish student at Rice at that time?

00:33:06.000 - 00:33:24.810

So I didn't really know where I was going to apply to college. Um, I there was no internet in those days. And so we went to the book store or the library and got this big, thick book that had all the colleges in the United

00:33:24.810 - 00:33:40.320

States. And so I'm looking through to see, you know, what are my options? Most of the kids that I went to high school with were planning to go to UT in Austin. Um. And I thought, well, you know, probably I'll go to UT also.

00:33:41.150 - 00:33:56.180

But then I came across this school called Rice University and I said, It's in Houston. That's not very far from here. So I say to my parents like, what about Rice University? They went, “Huh? You could never get into Rice.”

00:33:58.210 - 00:34:11.850

So of course I'm sort of tenacious that way. So I applied and I was accepted. They sent us this, like, golden grave certificate that says you've been accepted to Rice University.

00:34:13.570 - 00:34:32.500

Um, I showed it to my parents and they're like, “Oh my gosh, you got into Rice.” I mean, for me it was like, see, I could get into Rice, but for them it was like, well, of course you're going to go. And I went, “No, I think I'll go to UT with all my

00:34:32.500 - 00:34:49.510

friends.” And they went, “You need to go to Rice. You've been accepted to Rice.” I said, “Well, I think I've decided I want to study architecture. And I didn't take the architectural school aptitude test that rice requires. So I'm just going to write Rice a letter and say, thank you very much

00:34:49.580 - 00:35:03.960

for offering me a place, but I want to go to architecture school. And so I didn't take the test. So please give my space to the next person on the waiting list.” So that's what I did. And I got a letter back from Rice saying, “We'll let you into the

00:35:03.980 - 00:35:20.320

architecture school.” So, at that point, I really didn't have an excuse not to go to Rice. So I went to Rice. Um, and when I got to Rice, what I found was, uh, a,

00:35:20.770 - 00:35:35.760

this college system where the dorms were colleges. And so they were these sort of insular communities within a larger community. Uh, and during my freshman year, I, I set out to try to find Jews at Rice.

00:35:36.580 - 00:35:45.110

I'd, I'd look down the list of all my classes to see. Does that look like a Jewish name? Does that look like a Jewish name? More than once, I made a mistake in asking somebody if they were Jewish and they

00:35:45.110 - 00:35:59.080

weren't, or assuming someone was Jewish and they weren't. I really wanted to find a Jewish community at Rice, and there wasn't really any Hillel, so to speak. There was a a faculty advisor.

00:35:59.660 - 00:36:15.320

There was a handful of other Jewish students, I think Sara Sissenwein Norris was there when I was there, and there were a few others. Danny Horwitz had been at Rice just before me. A couple of my USY friends had been at Rice, but they had just graduated.

00:36:15.810 - 00:36:33.220

So. It was hard when the handful maybe not more than 10, and maybe less, we'd get together for Friday night dinners. I had a little toaster oven in my, uh, dorm room, and I

00:36:33.600 - 00:36:50.410

would actually, like, make a lokshen kugel, a noodle kugel in the toaster oven and take it to these potlucks that we would have for Friday night. I mean, it was pretty innovative to be living in a dorm and figure out how to cook food for a potluck, but we managed.

00:36:51.660 - 00:37:06.450

So, um, it was it was thin. And I think in terms of opportunities for Jewish engagement, when I was at Rice, there just weren't many Jews. Um, there was a few Jewish professors.

00:37:06.770 - 00:37:26.760

Um, Max Appel was there when I was there. Um, and, uh, they sort of took us under their wing as well. Um, and but towards the end of my freshman year, maybe the middle. I got a, a

00:37:27.670 - 00:37:46.520

call from the faculty advisor for the Jewish students who said, “Debbie Ostroff at Brith Shalom needs a religious school teacher. Would you be interested in the job?” Well, I needed a job because Rice, even in those days, was expensive.

00:37:47.340 - 00:38:04.330

I mean, by the standards of the day. And I was supposed to be working to help pay my room and board. So. Um, I went and I interviewed, I got on a bus at Rice, and I went out to Brith Shalom in Bellaire, and I

00:38:04.390 - 00:38:24.150

interviewed with Debbie Ostroff, and I explained, you know, “I'm 18, I just got back from Israel and, um, I'm a freshman. I can come out here on the bus.” And what had happened was that. Rabbi Moshe Cahana, the rabbi of Brith Shalom, had had a heart attack,

00:38:25.140 - 00:38:41.800

and he was unable at that time to continue teaching the pre-bar mitzvah class. Uh, and so she wanted to know if I could take over teaching the bar mitzvah class until Rabbi Cahana could return.

00:38:43.150 - 00:39:00.380

Well, I really didn't know how I was going to do that, but she said, here are cassette tapes with all of our prayers. And here's the textbook with the Jewish history that you need to teach. And I took all that back and I just stayed one

00:39:00.950 - 00:39:17.440

day ahead of the kids in the class. I was only six or seven years older than them, and I just, I would learn it and then I would bring it in and teach it. She thought I was amazing teacher, and I thought,

00:39:19.250 - 00:39:30.420

all I'm doing is just transmitting what you've given me to them. But it worked out fine. A little bit ahead of the students. That's the trick. Well, and, you know, I think because I was so close to their age and

00:39:30.420 - 00:39:47.700

because I was so accustomed to working with people at camps and youth groups and things like that, it was, um, we we got along with each other very well. So that brought me to Brith Shalom and to a whole

00:39:48.370 - 00:40:05.770

new Jewish community that I could engage with. Um, I didn't become a formal member of Brith. I continued teaching at Brith, um, through the 70s. That was from 73 to, I

00:40:05.770 - 00:40:22.690

continued teaching until I started traveling on photojournalism assignments in the early 80s, and then I came back and joined Brith Shalom in about 1985 as a member and continued teaching at that point. So I taught, I had a break from about

00:40:23.340 - 00:40:43.070

79 to 85, 84. And then I came back teaching there. So I had a six year break and then I taught there continuously. Uh, I became the music specialist at Brith Shalom and taught there

00:40:43.070 - 00:40:57.830

continually until I sort of retired from that in 2010. Got it, got it. Very good. Um, let's go back to Rice. So you came in as an architecture student and you came out as a photographer.

00:40:57.830 - 00:41:15.840

So how did that happen? So, I was in the architecture school, which was kind of a community in and of itself. The “Archies,” they called us and we called ourselves, um, lived,

00:41:16.730 - 00:41:32.300

ate their meals, sometimes slept overnight on couches in the architecture building. I mean, we were there all the time. Uh, the architecture is kind of an open-ended process. You can keep refining and refining and refining.

00:41:33.400 - 00:41:45.190

Until it's the deadline. And that's pretty much what we did. We would have all kinds of all-nighters. Um, and at some point, I guess it

00:41:45.190 - 00:41:59.420

was maybe starting with our sophomore field trip to the Northeast to look at architecture. Um, I started taking photographs. I had been photographing since I was a child.

00:42:00.050 - 00:42:16.420

My father used to photograph and develop his own pictures. I had a friend in my neighborhood whose father was a professional photographer, and he taught me how to actually go in the darkroom and print pictures. So, I had a lot of

00:42:16.420 - 00:42:33.420

exposure to photography, but now I was interested in exploring the world with a camera more formally. And so I went into I found a darkroom in the basement of Fondren Library. It was just, there's a side door to Fondren

00:42:33.900 - 00:42:48.660

Library, off on the I think it's the north side. It was a little, that went down to the basement, and I found this darkroom down there, and I went up and asked around, and I found out, at the time, it was the darkroom for the architecture department.

00:42:48.660 - 00:43:05.940

Of course, nobody was using it, but all the equipment was there. So I asked one of my architecture professors, “How do you develop a roll of film? How do you get it on the reel?” You know, and I just taught myself how to develop and print photography in that darkroom in the basement of Fondren Library.

00:43:07.300 - 00:43:22.850

So, I put up all these prints on the walls of Anderson Hall, the architecture building. And people would come into my architecture studio and say, “Wow. You take great photographs!” Well, they never said that about the buildings I

00:43:22.850 - 00:43:36.040

designed. And I thought, maybe there's something to this. And so my junior year, I signed up for the photography class at Rice.

00:43:36.870 - 00:43:57.180

I learned how to use a four by five camera and a large format and medium format camera. Um, and I just became passionate about photography. Uh, in particularly, in particular, I really loved the way the camera brought me into people's lives.

00:43:58.530 - 00:44:16.410

I was really engaged with the idea of photographing people and what people are doing. Um, it was a it was a seeing the world with, through the camera just gave me an opportunity to engage in the world with the way that I found, um,

00:44:17.280 - 00:44:35.720

exciting. So, by the end of my junior year, I got an assignment photographing for Texas Monthly and, um, Texas Monthly Magazine. And they paid me a big whopping

00:44:36.490 - 00:44:53.030

$35 a picture for the pictures that they used in the magazine. They used quite a few and I thought, wow, I can make money taking pictures. So, I decided I think I want

00:44:55.780 - 00:45:13.300

to move more into the direction of photography and filmmaking. So I continued in the architecture program. But I thought, I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to graduate. I'm not going to do the internship.

00:45:13.300 - 00:45:32.510

They called it a preceptorship for architecture, and I'm not going to, uh, do that at this point. I'm just going to see if I can make a living as a photographer, and I can always come back to architecture if I decide I can't make a living as a photographer. Um, so I, I just kept that open.

00:45:32.900 - 00:45:49.020

So when I graduated, I had a bachelor's degree in fine arts with a major in architecture and fine arts. Um and, um, so I started photographing, uh. I worked for magazines.

00:45:49.020 - 00:46:02.040

I worked for, uh, political candidates. I took pictures for hospitals. Um, I worked on my own personal projects. I had just one project after another that allowed me to engage with people.

00:46:02.040 - 00:46:20.010

I did a project of portraits of sisters, siblings. Um, maybe because I was exploring my own relationship with my sister and I, I would sit with sisters, and I would ask them to tell me about what it was like to be in this relationship and what are, you know, what makes you proud of your sister and what makes

00:46:20.010 - 00:46:36.070

you ashamed of your sister? And, um, later, I did a series of portraits of all these local dignitaries and artists and politicians and judges who would come into Louise's Table, a restaurant that was down on Sunset that

00:46:36.480 - 00:46:51.700

was frequented by a lot of interesting local people. And, um, it was, I did hundreds of pictures and, and people bought them. I couldn't believe people bought them because I didn't do them to be flattering, I did them to be interesting.

00:46:52.910 - 00:47:11.670

Um, so, uh, pretty much all the way through, I went to Asia. I had, I was so successful doing magazine photography that by 1983, I had enough money to rent a large studio, which was what a lot of the photographers in Houston were doing.

00:47:12.510 - 00:47:31.600

And I thought, I really don't want to get that tied down right now. I really want to see cultures that open my eyes to things that I had never seen before. And, so, I bought a Pan Am Around the World ticket for $2,000, and

00:47:31.600 - 00:47:48.910

I set out with a backpack and a camera across Asia for six months. I wanted to be a National Geographic photographer, and I thought, the only way I'm going to do that is by going out looking for stories and showing them that I've got what it takes to be a National Geographic photographer.

00:47:50.160 - 00:48:02.540

Um, so, I went to India and Nepal. I hiked up to Everest, close to Everest Base Camp Ferris. And, uh, I went to Burma.

00:48:02.660 - 00:48:19.180

It was called Burma at the time. I went to Thailand and then I spent six weeks traveling around China. Um, so it was it was just, and, in 1983, was just a few years after China was even open to Westerners.

00:48:19.640 - 00:48:35.120

So I. I met this a lot of people who'd never even seen a Westerner. I was like some sort of freak. People would gather around me on the street just to, like, look at my clothes or,

00:48:36.100 - 00:48:50.000

you know, see what I was doing. If I'd stopped to change film in the park, everybody would gather around to see. So it was very interesting. And I learned a lot and I got quite a portfolio

00:48:50.640 - 00:49:11.440

of beautiful pictures and some wonderful stories. And, um, I came back and I as I had built up my portfolio, I started making, uh, regular trips to New York to walk around New York, meeting with art

00:49:11.440 - 00:49:23.870

directors at magazines, showing them my portfolio. I went to Washington. I met with Robert Gilka, the head of photography for National Geographic. I mean, it was so exciting, and I began to get magazine assignments and I worked for,

00:49:23.870 - 00:49:41.530

so, I mean, any magazine that you can name that was publishing in the 1980s, I probably worked for them. It was an exciting time and I really loved all the different assignments. I had all the different people I met, the stories I got to work on, the people I got to

00:49:41.530 - 00:50:04.100

work with. It was, it was, just it was exactly the life that I wanted. That's great. Tell us how your work in photography evolved to include, um, projects specifically related to the Jewish community and to Judaism, starting with your trip to the

00:50:04.100 - 00:50:18.690

Soviet Union. How did that come about? So, um, I had, as I mentioned earlier, I had been active in the student struggle for Soviet Jewry. And so, uh, we wrote letters, we lobbied legislators.

00:50:20.020 - 00:50:40.260

We did a lot of things, and I, I was always looking for ways to see how can I use the tools that I have to help. And so, at the time, there was an organization that was started by Rabbi Shaul Osadchey, Joyce Gilbert and Judy

00:50:40.260 - 00:50:53.350

Goldman here in Houston called Houston Action for Soviet Jewry. And I was good friends with all of them through Brith Shalom. They were all Brith Shalom. Rabbi Osadchey was the rabbi at Brith Shalom, and Judy and Joyce were members

00:50:53.350 - 00:51:12.090

there. And, um, I was sitting around with Judy one day and I said, “You know, if I could get to the Soviet Union, I could photograph some of these refuseniks, these people who have been trying to get out for years.

00:51:13.070 - 00:51:31.530

And I could bring their stories out and publicize them. And through that publicity, we may be able to make some progress in their cases.” At the time, there was a bill that was moving through the ranks of Congress,

00:51:33.200 - 00:51:51.400

uh, called the Jackson-Vanik amendment, and it basically linked trade to the status of human rights in a country. So, it was a bill that was designed to say, if

00:51:52.160 - 00:52:06.560

the Soviet Union is not going to allow free emigration of its citizens, then we can't do business with the Soviet Union. Imagine that. Um, so we were trying to move that forward.

00:52:06.560 - 00:52:22.080

And so all the publicity that we could get for that cause was important, and I felt like I could be helpful in that way. So, uh, Judy and Joyce said, “Yes, let's do it.” So they organized the funding.

00:52:22.130 - 00:52:38.710

They organized the trip. They organized, uh, a list of all the people who I would be meeting with. But I felt deficient in being able to photograph and interview, and I felt like I needed to go with a writer

00:52:39.050 - 00:52:57.480

and, also, I it just seemed like going alone would make me more vulnerable in a lot of ways. So I was looking around for just the right person to go with. And my friend Aaron Lansky in Amherst, who started the National Yiddish Book Center, knew of a writer in Toronto named Nomi Morris.

00:52:58.100 - 00:53:17.060

She was a journalist. And, um, she's about my same age. And she agreed to come along as a journalist, and Houston Action for Soviet Jewry was going to pay for our trip and, you know, make it possible for us to go. And her parents wanted to join us.

00:53:17.680 - 00:53:30.720

Well, I thought, well, this is good. We'll look like a tourist family, and we'll draw less attention to ourselves by going as a foursome that looks like a family. So that's what we did. And, um, we went to Moscow,

00:53:31.340 - 00:53:53.560

Leningrad, Tbilisi in Georgia, and, uh, Yerevan in Armenia. And we visited Jews in every place we visited like, 34 different families and individuals and, um, we heard their stories, I photographed

00:53:54.320 - 00:54:08.130

them. We were followed by the KGB repeatedly. We had to figure out our way out of some sticky situations several times. At one point, we were stopped and questioned. Um, it was scary.

00:54:08.810 - 00:54:26.780

It was scary. I mean, I, I didn't think that, uh, I didn't think that I would be jailed, but I thought, at the very least, they would take my film or my camera and they would kick us out of the country. So, it was scary.

00:54:27.060 - 00:54:44.330

I didn't want to get into trouble, but I wanted to get this stuff done. Um, and we brought these stories out. Uh, we turned it into an exhibition that toured 17 cities in North America called “Survival of the Spirit Jewish lives in the Soviet Union.”

00:54:46.400 - 00:55:04.490

And, um, we continued to lobby on behalf of these individuals and others. And what happened was a year later, Gorbachev came to power. He was just coming to power, actually, when I was there. But he started Glasnost, which signaled an opening up.

00:55:05.690 - 00:55:21.800

And the people whose stories we had publicized became the very first people to be able to leave the Soviet Union, so, after waiting 15 or more years to for exit visas. So I felt like we did a little part.

00:55:22.110 - 00:55:38.950

They when I later visited with some of them in the United States and Israel, they told me that, uh, they felt that the publicity that we generated on their behalf really did help them get out. And it, I'm happy to think it had some small part when I was in the

00:55:38.950 - 00:55:53.460

Soviet Union. I was amazed to see the lengths that people would go to to be Jewish. I grew up in a place where many of my classmates

00:55:54.000 - 00:56:08.700

from high school didn't even marry Jews. They didn't really care that much about being Jewish. Um, to see people who were willing to lose everything in order to affirm their Jewish identity, people willing to go to prison

00:56:09.540 - 00:56:27.070

for teaching Hebrew to their friends and their children. It was shocking to me, really. And, um, I'd say it, it had an effect on me of looking again at my own Jewish

00:56:27.490 - 00:56:44.520

commitments and my own Jewish, um, practices and it it it began, you know, it's like, you know, you've heard about people like Andy Statman who go off and play bluegrass and Appalachia.

00:56:44.520 - 00:57:03.820

And then somebody says, “Why don't you go play your own music?” And then he figures out, oh, I've got this whole tradition of Jewish and Klezmer music that I can play. It was like I went off to Asia and I met a lot of very beautiful Buddhist and Muslim people, and then I came back

00:57:04.530 - 00:57:19.190

through my work and photography to my own people, to my own culture. Right, right. That's wonderful. Why don't we talk about another of the photography

00:57:19.190 - 00:57:33.170

projects that you've been associated with? And that's the Mikvah Project. What was the genesis of the Mikvah Project? So mikvah was something that I knew about vaguely as a

00:57:33.170 - 00:57:49.350

child. I remember going back into the, uh, back room of the synagogue, you know, during, uh, Yizkor service on Yom Kippur, the memorial service, when they tell the children to leave because you don't have to say yes or your parents are still alive.

00:57:50.050 - 00:58:04.800

Um, and so I'd go explore the back of the synagogue, and I found the mikvah. It the back of the women's lounge. It was like this big, giant tiled bathtub. It was bigger than me, deeper than me.

00:58:05.870 - 00:58:26.280

And I went and I said, “Mom, there is a huge bathtub in the back of the synagogue.” And she said, “Brides bathe there.” There, I said, “Okay.” I later learned that it was something that Orthodox Jewish women did every month after their menstrual cycle, before they had sex with their husbands.

00:58:26.280 - 00:58:42.480

And I thought, well, this has no relevance for me as a modern feminist woman. So I just let it go. It just had no relevance for me. And then, years later,

00:58:46.090 - 00:59:02.720

I ran into a, I knew about mikvah, but I didn't think anything of it, and I ran into my friend Leah. Uh, I had known her since we we had met at a shabbaton when we were teenagers, like, we were 14 or 15, and we'd gone to this

00:59:03.950 - 00:59:22.750

Orthodox shabbaton in Dallas, and she had become Chabad. She'd become Orthodox, and she taught about mikvah, and she had written the short story about a woman who inadvertently helps another woman use mikvah as a tool for healing from sexual

00:59:22.750 - 00:59:36.400

abuse. And it was a very powerful story. And I thought, huh? Mikvah for healing. I'd never even.

00:59:36.460 - 00:59:47.990

It had never occurred to me that mikvah had any other use. So I decided I want to check out mikvah. I want to go to mikvah. I was kind of in a stuck place in my life and my career at that point, for various reasons.

00:59:47.990 - 01:00:03.240

And so I asked her to take me to mikvah. So I went to mikvah. And, um, I did find it a transformative experience. When you go in with an intention, this is going to be a transformative experience, you

01:00:03.350 - 01:00:22.870

know? And I decided I want to see if it's possible to take photographs that express that sense of transformation that I felt immersing in the water of the mikvah. And to keep them modest, because,

01:00:23.870 - 01:00:42.620

of course, it's a very private, you know, ritual. So I started by asking friends of mine who were at places of transition in their lives, if they would come and be my model in the mikvah. And I got an underwater camera and an underwater light, and I started

01:00:42.620 - 01:00:57.380

making these ethereal photographs underwater in the mikvah. And they were beautiful. And I displayed them in a show at DiverseWorks in Houston in about

01:01:01.280 - 01:01:16.420

1999 or 2000. It was 2000 because it was the same year Joan Morgenstern funded the Jewish Houston 2000 project, where she had photographers photograph Jewish Houston in the year 2000.

01:01:16.930 - 01:01:35.350

That was a big project that I was working on simultaneously with the mikvah project. And, um, and all these women would come up to me and tell me their little secret, whispered stories about how I've been to mikvah. And I thought, you know, she's wearing a cocktail dress and pearls.

01:01:35.350 - 01:01:52.710

It was not like the Orthodox lady who I would think about went to mikvah. Um, and yet there were stories, and so I decided I wanted to do another part of the project, which would involve how was mikvah used

01:01:56.020 - 01:02:12.010

in these women's lives, like, basically looking at different women's lives through the lens of mikvah. It was a huge project. I invited Leah to join me and help me write the captions and,

01:02:12.490 - 01:02:28.260

you know, conduct the interviews so that I could photograph. And, um, it became an exhibition. It is still touring after 20 years. It toured, it's toured 35 cities now in the United States

01:02:28.380 - 01:02:46.850

and Europe. Um, it. And it's been hugely transformational on so many levels. Um, for instance, in the United States. It has allowed people to see this ritual, sometimes for the first time,

01:02:47.380 - 01:03:04.400

and it's allowed Orthodox women to see the ritual with new eyes. In Europe, where they seem to want to have this show every time they uncover a medieval mikvah while they're digging for a construction project, and then they want to learn about it.

01:03:05.090 - 01:03:22.760

Um, in Europe, it was a catalyst for people discovering that they have Jewish roots themselves. And and there were several instances when it has been touring in Germany in particular, where women have showed up to shown up to see this

01:03:22.760 - 01:03:40.680

exhibit. And they are moved to tears. One woman I remember said. She was just standing in front of one of the pictures, just sobbing, and she said, “Now I understand why my grandmother had all those Jewish books in the library.

01:03:41.240 - 01:03:57.210

They told us we weren't Jewish, but we were.” Oh my gosh. So it was transformative for me personally in this way. So before I started this, I thought mikvah was irrelevant to me.

01:03:59.730 - 01:04:18.960

And it had no practical application in my life. But after talking to all these women, after experiencing this, and after writing all the things that I wrote and talking about it, I realize that all these women took this ritual and poured their

01:04:19.010 - 01:04:33.740

own meaning into it. It wasn't like, it was handed to them and they were told, “This is what you do.” Although for many women that is the case. But I found women a broad cross range of the population,

01:04:35.020 - 01:04:53.800

Jewish women's population, I found women who found a way to pour their meaning, their own meaning into this ritual. And I thought, you know, any ritual can become transformative if you're prepared to pour your own meaning into it, if you're prepared.

01:04:54.160 - 01:05:09.620

That's what ritual is. It's a tool for transforming from one state to another. And so, what's a ritual? If we are in mourning, we say the Mourner's Kaddish.

01:05:10.590 - 01:05:28.780

For some people, they look at the words on the page and they say, “These words have no meaning to me.” For some people, they look at the words on the page, and they immediately take in a deep connection to their ancestors that those words

01:05:28.780 - 01:05:47.940

represent. But if you can take the people for whom the words have no meaning and allow them to see the words through new eyes, either through a creative transliteration or a creative interpretation, then suddenly

01:05:48.780 - 01:06:08.600

it becomes transformative for them, too. And, so, what happened after I created the mikvah project, and is that I realized there were other things I wanted to explore. That's great. And the photography for the project was done locally

01:06:08.600 - 01:06:21.840

here in Houston. Is that right? Um, no, it was done, some of it was done here in Houston. Uh, we traveled to New York, to Los Angeles. I did some in Denver, uh, one from Chicago.

01:06:22.290 - 01:06:37.880

So, um, and Fort Worth. Mhm. Uh, so the, oh, I photographed them in Austin as well. I wanted to photograph in a lot of different mikvahs. Uh, I, I photographed in two mikva’ot in Houston, the, um,

01:06:38.220 - 01:06:53.090

United Orthodox and, um, Chabad. And it's to their credit that these rabbis trusted me, that I would keep the photographs modest and be respectful of the ritual, and allowed me to bring nude models into their mikvah to take photographs.

01:06:55.170 - 01:07:12.250

Right, right. Yeah. Rabbi Radinsky was the first rabbi who I approached about it, and he was completely open to me doing it. God bless him. He, um, he really understood what I was trying to do. And, so, then I took the photographs that I made in the United Orthodox

01:07:12.250 - 01:07:25.740

Mikvah, and I showed them to Rabbi Lazaroff at Chabad, and he allowed me as well to photograph there. And so, um, the interviews were conducted. I didn't want to confine it only to Houston.

01:07:25.740 - 01:07:44.640

I, and, so we went around the country and did interviews with a lot of people. Okay, let's come back to music now because you have a whole world of of music and performance that you've been involved with, um, for so long.

01:07:44.640 - 01:08:01.620

So, um, going back to your, to your days at Brith Shalom and taking over for Rabbi Cahana and then moving into your, um, exploration of the world of, of Yiddish music. Tell us about that. So, um, I came to Brith Shalom and, uh,

01:08:02.790 - 01:08:19.570

at one point when Rabbi Cahana came back after he recovered, he saw that I played the guitar with the children. He says, “Oh, you played Jewish music?” Well, you know, I played Jewish music to the extent that I hauled a guitar across Israel, and I learned a few Israeli songs and had

01:08:20.070 - 01:08:35.820

organized programs around Israel when I was in high school, but I didn't really play Jewish music. He said, “I want you to bring the guitar into synagogue and play.” Well, that was transgressive in the synagogue I grew up in. I mean, a guitar in the synagogue, really?

01:08:36.250 - 01:08:52.550

I mean, a woman playing the guitar in the synagogue. So, um, I was very excited by the possibility. And so of course, I was learning, um, all kinds of, um, liturgical-based songs.

01:08:53.250 - 01:09:10.810

And, uh, so Rabbi Cahana really brought me in to create an environment where my music was really a part of the Jewish education. He I guess he made me into the first music specialist at a synagogue

01:09:11.530 - 01:09:30.720

by encouraging me to learn music and share it. And so I would, after I graduated from college, I would take my guitar out to the Golden Age club at the JCC and to other places, and I would play these, um, Israeli, mostly

01:09:31.230 - 01:09:49.470

Israeli and some Shlomo Carlebach songs and things like that. And I got an invitation from Frieda Weiner to come and uh, uh, sing at the Yiddish Vinkel. So I came and I played my normal repertoire of Hebrew songs, and she goes, don't you

01:09:49.470 - 01:09:59.840

know any Yiddish songs? I said, well, I played Tumbalalaika. That was sung in my family. I had never thought that anybody would care about the Yiddish songs we're talking the

01:09:59.840 - 01:10:15.630

late 1970s. Um, those were songs that were sung in my family. So, um, the people in the Yiddish Vinkel started teaching me Yiddish songs, and then I went to my family and said, “Teach me the songs

01:10:15.630 - 01:10:29.730

that we've always sung in our family.” I never even paid attention to them because that was just what my mother's family sang. And, um, so, slowly, I began to get build quite a Yiddish repertoire.

01:10:30.580 - 01:10:46.250

At the same time I was doing this, I was playing music out in the Houston folk music scene with a band called The Gypsies. It was Greg Harbar’s group. Greg and Mary Ann Harbar were the leaders of this group of folk musicians that played.

01:10:47.180 - 01:11:07.050

He called it a polyethnic folk band, but it was we really, we played a lot of Eastern European music, um, and French and Spanish songs and things and um, so I was playing with some really wonderful musicians, Greg and Mary Ann Harbor, Dave

01:11:07.050 - 01:11:22.780

Peters on mandolin. He was a world class champion mandolin player, Kelly Lancaster on guitar, Barry Roberts and others musicians from all over the world. And um, it was a really powerful experience because

01:11:23.980 - 01:11:41.280

in the same way that Debbie Ostroff had turned me into a teacher, the Gypsies turned me into a musician because I was playing with some of the most skillful, talented, creative musicians in Houston at the time. Uh, improv.

01:11:42.180 - 01:11:59.550

I mean, they taught me how to improvise, and, um, it was just really wonderful. So, at some point, I decided I was going to make a recording of the Yiddish music that I, the Yiddish repertoire that I had built up between the people and the Vinkel and my family.

01:12:00.470 - 01:12:18.150

And I invited the musicians from the Gypsies to come in the studio with me and record “Azoy Mishpocha,” Feels Like Family in 1995. And, uh. As it happens, I became pregnant right after that, and during my pregnancy we were

01:12:18.150 - 01:12:35.350

touring around the country doing this music that we had recorded on the CD, and it was it was just wonderful. I really, um, I treasure those moments in my life that I had the opportunity to play these songs that seem

01:12:35.350 - 01:12:47.570

to carry through the generations with these really hot musicians. It was deeply satisfying. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it was. And I've had a chance to listen to some of that, that work.

01:12:47.570 - 01:13:06.580

And it is really, really quite special. Um. Wait, I mean, I remember once we played at Miller Outdoor Theater, I mean, what a high to be standing on that stage at Miller Outdoor Theatre. And the speakers are so big and they go way up out onto the hill and just

01:13:06.580 - 01:13:23.200

to stand there and and have it just feel such a sense of connection. I think it was one of my, we also played the Houston International Festival downtown, but Miller Outdoor Theatre, I think, remains probably one of my favorite performances ever. That's great.

01:13:23.890 - 01:13:33.390

Was that around that, that same time in the mid 1990s? Yeah, it was probably the early 90s. It was before I made the recording, I think. Uh, probably. Uh.

01:13:34.830 - 01:13:52.360

It could have been 91, 92, 93, something like that. I don't remember. Yeah. I want to turn now to the world of Jewish renewal, which is something that I think a lot of people, even people who are Jewish and

01:13:52.360 - 01:14:11.300

Jewishly-engaged and connected, don't know a whole lot about. So, if you could start by telling us a little bit about what Jewish Renewal is, and then tell us about how and why it has been so meaningful for you. So Jewish

01:14:11.300 - 01:14:32.090

Renewal is a trans-denominational mystical approach to Judaism. It combines a socially progressive, uh, ideas with the joy of classical Hasidism.

01:14:33.480 - 01:14:51.620

And for me, it offered opportunities for creating innovative prayer services that were, that that could be more meaningful to me and to others.

01:14:53.490 - 01:15:12.150

Um, and I think, feel like I could deepen my connection with the source of life, the mystery of the universe, whatever it is that you want to call God.

01:15:13.400 - 01:15:34.050

In the same way that the camera allowed me to see people's lives with different eyes, and the mikvah allowed me a lens to see a Jewish ritual through different eyes, I think that Jewish Renewal really brought me

01:15:34.050 - 01:15:52.860

to a sense of seeing God with different eyes. And, so, through the Jewish Renewal organization Olive, beginning in about, it was started by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, um, who I met, uh, personally

01:15:53.670 - 01:16:08.590

and maybe 1992 or 3. And through the Jewish Renewal Organization, I did a two-year training in Davvenen Leadership, DLTI. The Dominant Leadership Training Institute.

01:16:09.500 - 01:16:24.790

I did a two-year after that. I did a two-year training in chant leadership with Rabbi Shefa Gold called Kol Zimrah. And then finally I did a three-year training in a spiritual

01:16:24.790 - 01:16:41.410

direction or spiritual companioning. Uh, and I graduated with certification as a spiritual director in 2020, and I've, it all offers me this sort of national and international

01:16:42.320 - 01:17:01.680

extended community of like-minded people who enjoy sharing resources and have programs and gatherings and opportunities for engagement, which infuse my Judaism and my

01:17:01.680 - 01:17:19.860

Jewish practice with much more richness and meaning. Mhm. Very good. What are, I know that there's, um I don't know if it's a shabbaton or a, a conference or what the right terms is, but you were recently in, in Colorado

01:17:19.860 - 01:17:32.970

for such a gathering. Um, yeah. That was Ohalah, that is the organization of Jewish Renewal rabbis and cantors and chaplains. Um, it's only open for rabbis and cantors and chaplains, but it's, I got to

01:17:32.970 - 01:17:47.210

lead services on the last day. I got to lead a service there. And it's like the dream congregation for someone because you, uh, you just kind of start

01:17:47.950 - 01:18:02.520

the davening, and it just the room fills with spirit, and it's rich and delicious and wonderful. Um, I get to participate in that organization. I was actually the administrator for the organization for the last two years, but, um,

01:18:03.420 - 01:18:18.930

I get to participate. I am not a rabbi or a cantor, although sometimes I, I, I serve a liturgical role as a as a chaplain. Um, uh, but, uh, I, I as a as an

01:18:18.960 - 01:18:34.570

ordained mashpia or spiritual director through the organization, I'm allowed to come to the conference, which is a delight for me. They also have a summer gathering every other year called the Aleph Kola, which is going to be in Westchester, Pennsylvania this summer that I plan to attend.

01:18:34.570 - 01:18:50.240

I've been to quite a few of those, and they're just, uh, full of a lot of learning and wonderful, uh, davening, prayer opportunities, and music. And, um, it's rich.

01:18:50.550 - 01:19:07.050

It's very rich for me. It's a wonderful community as well. And it brings, you know, I think, I don't know if you want to talk about chaplaincy. I know we've been going on a long time. Um, I think I it brings me good things that I

01:19:07.170 - 01:19:26.220

can use, um, in my interfaith chaplaincy work, uh, both at Baylor Saint Luke's and in my hospice chaplaincy, because it's a, there is a focus on deep ecumenism, on learning from other faith traditions, and I've learned a lot

01:19:27.230 - 01:19:42.840

about other faith traditions. It was part of my training as well, and it allows me to feel more facile and comfortable in environments where, as a chaplain, I am accompanying someone or serving someone

01:19:42.930 - 01:19:58.580

of another faith tradition. Right. Yeah. Why don't we go ahead and talk about your journey into chaplaincy? What, what attracted you to, um, become a chaplain and to be with, with people and with

01:19:58.790 - 01:20:16.940

families in their most vulnerable and, and most private moments? That's not something that that all of us are equipped to be able to do. Tell us about that. So I want to say I, as you probably can see, I've always enjoyed connecting with people.

01:20:18.140 - 01:20:37.160

From my earliest age and, so any opportunity that I have to connect with people is, uh, is something I'm just going to jump at. Um, for me, photography was like a ticket into people's lives.

01:20:37.750 - 01:20:53.550

And I don't want to say that chaplaincy is that necessarily because I don't need a ticket into people's lives. But as long as I can remember, I've just been drawn to people who are in that place of, um, either being challenged by

01:20:53.610 - 01:21:11.690

illness or, um, emotional challenges or, um, people at the end of their life, and it doesn't, I think it's a much longer conversation. Why? It doesn't trouble me to accompany people

01:21:12.060 - 01:21:34.070

at the end of life, because I'm not troubled by the idea of the end of life, because I, I just feel like we're on this continuum, you know, and that's just part of life. Um, so I, without even realizing it for many years before I got involved in spiritual direction, I was

01:21:34.070 - 01:21:54.270

already being drawn to be with people who were doing the work of dying. I think, after I finished the mikvah project, I thought, I wonder if it's possible to learn something about the soul from

01:21:54.270 - 01:22:11.900

being present with people doing the work of dying, and maybe at births like, the edges of life. And so I thought, I'll do a photography project about that, so I made arrangements to be present with my friends who were giving birth.

01:22:11.940 - 01:22:24.860

I said, “I'll take pictures for you for free, and you can have the pictures.” And I did formal hospice training at Houston Hospice. Hospice volunteer training. This is like, you know, 2003 or something, 2004.

01:22:27.910 - 01:22:46.460

And I quickly realized that I wasn't going to learn anything about the soul or the movement of the soul if I had a camera between me and what was happening. If I was focused on trying to make something out of it instead of just being fully

01:22:46.460 - 01:23:06.800

present. And, so, I think that was the point. When I put my camera away and I turned towards beginning my training, uh, in how to be more fully present and to be of service to people who were

01:23:07.790 - 01:23:23.810

struggling with illness or doing the work of dying. So, I did my, uh, CPE, my clinical pastoral education at Saint Luke's, starting soon after my mother passed away in like 2014 or 15.

01:23:25.070 - 01:23:42.720

And when I finished my clinical pastoral education, Saint Luke's hired me as a PRN chaplain. And so I've had the opportunity, um, since 2015 now, to serve patients and to be present with patients who are walking difficult journeys.

01:23:43.410 - 01:23:58.970

And it's, I feel like I've learned how simple presence, simple compassionate presence can be really healing.

01:24:00.470 - 01:24:16.240

And I feel like I'm accompanying people on their journey. Whatever that journey is. And that extends into my work with the Houston Chevra Kadisha, the organization that provides, um, that prepares the bodies

01:24:16.240 - 01:24:33.910

for burial and, uh, washes and dresses the bodies. And that's also a ritual that I've been involved in now for about ten years. Um, I just feel like I'm serving a soul on their journey, and that gives me a great sense of meaning myself in my life.

01:24:35.200 - 01:24:52.140

Wow. Are there any insights or advice that you you feel that you can give us with regard to being, being better listeners, to the people that we're close to or being more fully present?

01:24:52.140 - 01:25:12.290

What are some of the skills or techniques that you've developed as a as a chaplain that you find to be most, most helpful? I think, um, one of the things that we tend to do is, uh, when we meet someone and they tell us their story, we're inclined to tell our story back.

01:25:13.310 - 01:25:25.090

Or they tell a story. And that reminds us of something that we have in common and we want to share. Um, which is a great way to converse. And it may be a great way to mutually get to know each other.

01:25:26.130 - 01:25:46.020

But I think what I have learned in all of my training now is to take myself out of the equation, is that is holding the boundary so that even when people say ask me personal questions about myself, I turn it back to them because I like to

01:25:46.020 - 01:26:03.230

think often when I'm walking into a patient's room, particularly if I know I'm going into a difficult situation, is that I just invite God to come in with me, and I feel like just work through me

01:26:03.990 - 01:26:23.330

and I try to push my ego out of the way. And I think, in terms of learning something about how to serve people best is to move myself out of the picture, really, and just become a channel, a channel for whatever it

01:26:23.330 - 01:26:41.770

is that needs to come through. I hope that doesn't sound too, um, ephemeral. No. No, no, not at all. Not at all. I want to end now by talking about

01:26:42.780 - 01:26:58.400

Covid and the pandemic in the last couple of years. You know, Janice, so much of this conversation has been about connection. It's been about being with people. And for the better part of the last two or three years, we we

01:26:58.400 - 01:27:18.060

weren't able to be physically present with people for so long and, and experience, you know, so much trauma and dislocation and, and um, uh, a break really with, with life as we, as we knew

01:27:18.100 - 01:27:35.560

it and, and even now as it's, you know, early 2023 and we've sort of mostly moved on. Um, there are some things that, you know, that we've, we've learned how to do during Covid that maybe haven't, um, gone away, but that seem to be continuing to blossom.

01:27:35.560 - 01:27:53.310

And I'm so curious to hear you talk about creating spiritual space, um, online during Covid. And I know that there's a Zoom-agogue that you're a very, uh, involved with. So I'm looking forward to hearing you tell us a little bit about that.

01:27:54.460 - 01:28:08.470

So, um, I think I already knew how to use Zoom before the pandemic started. And of course, you know, I was still after the first, I don't know, half a year of Covid. I was going back in the hospital with a mask on. And, so, I was still seeing patients.

01:28:08.470 - 01:28:27.680

But the online things that we created—We, myself and my colleagues, particularly in the Jewish Renewal community, have been hugely helpful in keeping us connected. Um. You know, most synagogues

01:28:27.990 - 01:28:44.060

went online during the pandemic. Uh, you know, not Orthodox necessarily, but conservative and reform synagogues, so that there were online live streams and there were online, uh, you know, Facebook Live.

01:28:44.850 - 01:29:02.810

Um, but those were kind of one sided. And, so, what I've found over the course of the last three years was that, um, people need community to feel seen and heard,

01:29:03.890 - 01:29:20.880

as well as to hear. And the person who has, I think, been quite skillful, not by any stretch the only one, but one of the few in the United States who continues to conduct his Zoom-agogue only online is Mark Novak in

01:29:20.950 - 01:29:37.750

Washington, DC, Rabbi Mark Novak, and he's, uh, extraordinarily talented and creative and gregarious and musical. So, he has a lot of skills that he brings to, uh, you know, creating community.

01:29:38.160 - 01:29:58.110

But that in and of itself is not the only thing because he acknowledges each person as they come into the Zoom room. Um, there are many opportunities during the service for people to bring forth sharing, particularly during Birchot Hashachar, when we're talking about what

01:29:58.110 - 01:30:13.440

we're grateful for or during the healing prayer or, and we have a, a, uh, sometimes when Mark is out of town, I lead the service as well. And it's, he's created such a beautiful structure and a

01:30:13.440 - 01:30:33.330

beautiful template that it's very easy because everybody comes every week and we have maybe 50 or more people coming weekly who participate with their cameras on. Towards the end of the service, after the D'var Torah, we have a

01:30:33.720 - 01:30:49.210

prompt or several prompts based on the, uh, parshah of the week. The Torah portion. And we go off into breakout rooms, but we call them breakthrough rooms with these prompts.

01:30:49.580 - 01:31:07.820

And we share in groups of two and three and sometimes four people based on the prompts. So, it's creating an environment where people can actually engage in big talk instead of small talk, which is which is which can go very deep.

01:31:08.300 - 01:31:24.610

And then we come back and a few people will share what they personally gleaned from the experience. And, uh, it's, it's a real community. We're actually having a in-person, our first in-person retreat in April of

01:31:24.610 - 01:31:42.850

this year, uh, where we're going to all gather at a retreat center near Washington, DC. But, uh, from the beginning of the pandemic, Mark was perfectly suited to go online with this community and empower others to lead parts of the service and engage in the service.

01:31:42.850 - 01:31:58.590

And I think what's made that so successful and what sustained it is the community, the sense of community and the engagement of all of the people there. So no one gets left out, is that people feel connected, even

01:31:58.590 - 01:32:13.310

from their homes in such faraway places as California and New Mexico, or Washington or New York or New England or Florida and and, all the places in between. And it's, uh, it's very powerful.

01:32:13.620 - 01:32:30.160

I think it is possible to have community online with people that you've never met face to face, if it's structured in a way that allows engagement of people. Wow. Um, it's going to be very interesting, I'm sure, to have this

01:32:30.240 - 01:32:47.800

in-person gathering in the spring. And you'll, you'll be face to face with people that I'm sure you feel like you know them very well. You see them on a regular basis and you pray together and you, you know, have these very deep philosophical conversations and sharing.

01:32:48.230 - 01:33:02.780

Uh, but it'll be a whole new dynamic. Yeah, I'm excited about it. Mark and I have been together, um, for vacations twice during the last three years where we've actually gotten to broadcast from a

01:33:02.780 - 01:33:17.100

place together and with harmonies in person. Um, but this will be the first time that we've had the whole community together. Uh, and, you know, and we'll have more than two harmonies. We'll have lots of harmonies.

01:33:17.130 - 01:33:31.470

And it'll be, you know, may our prayers rise higher, higher. Of course, of course. Well, do do give Mark my best when you see him. Because he, uh, was the bandleader at our wedding, so he's, uh, very near and dear

01:33:31.470 - 01:33:48.510

to us as well. And it's always fun to see worlds intersecting. Janice, thank you so much for taking the time to to talk to me today and to do this interview for the Joan and Stanford Alexander South Texas Jewish Archives. It has been such a, a privilege and a pleasure

01:33:50.030 - 01:34:00.600

and a real treat to to be with you here and and to listen and to be able to record your your wonderful story. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you very much,

01:34:05.160 - 01:34:05.440

Josh.