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I am Katie Weber. I am a project archivist with the Houston jewish history archive. Today is august 19th of 2020. And I am talking to Michael moore, who among other things is the current president of Cash It Houston. How are you doing? I'm doing very well.

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Thank you. So I wanted to know if we could start by you telling me a little bit about uh your story, Where did you grow up? Um and what was your jewish background like growing up? Um well, I was born and raised in el paso texas,

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lived there all the way up until after college. Um, I, uh, I was raised in a secular home, um did not have a bar mitzvah was not raised religiously other than uh the belief in God and the knowledge that I'm jewish. Uh you know, a little

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bit of Hanukkah here and there. Um, and uh that was, that was pretty much my, my upbringing as far as my jewish background. Okay, wonderful. Um, and could you tell me the story of, how did you first come to Houston? What first brought you here? Well,

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my first, I've been to Houston twice, the first time around was for college going to Rice. Um and then after I graduated from Rice, I, I didn't come back until uh several years later after I went to law school um was living in Dallas and got

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a job here with Harris County District Attorney's Office right out of law school. And so my husband and I moved from Dallas to Houston and we've been here ever since. And when was that approximately? Uh, so college was between 1985 and 89 and then we moved

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here in the summer of 2001. Okay. Um and could you, so let's start with when you came to Houston for Rice, can you? Sorry, there's a cat here that doesn't usually happen. Um can you tell me about how you were involved in gay and lesbian organizations

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at rice and what it was like to be a part of those while you're a student? Yeah. So um, let's see. My, my freshman year of college, I was pretty much closeted and um, to myself and others, but dealing with it on my own. Um, and

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over that summer I essentially acknowledged to myself and came out, um came out to my parents. Um and uh, so my sophomore year at Rice, I did a lot of exploring and and trying to figure out what the, what the community was about and like and

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um didn't have any openly gay friends at the time. Um, so that was done a lot of my own and eventually either in the thresher, uh, there was every so often there was an ad for the gay and lesbian student group, um which I don't recall

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it that time what it was called. It was. Um, but it's, it's morphed a lot and changed names very frequently over time, but anyway that the group at that time would meet uh once, maybe once a month I think. Uh and they would meet in a

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classroom somewhere on campus and there was no phone, you could call and talk to anybody. It was very slightly secretive. And so you just had to show up on that sunday afternoon to that classroom in Sewell Hall or whatever. And so I ventured and I walked

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by one time and was not comfortable going in. I tried a second time and went and found some really neat people and and made a lot of friends and became involved in one of their activities. That was pretty much the extent of gay and lesbian life

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for me on campus other than uh dating. And when you say got involved with their activities, is that mostly just those meetings or would you venture outside of the hedges and be, I don't know, in Montrose or other places. Yeah. So at the time they would

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have, I think these meetings that were on campus were just a way to have a place where it was easy for people in safe, maybe uh to meet up. But most of our activities at the time were off campus. Uh we for instance, I can remember

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going to a picnic at Hermann Park, we would have movie nights at somebody's apartment. Um the because uh Pride was in the summer we didn't um when I was involved, we never marched in Pride and there were a lot of folks who are very closeted or

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concerned about other people's privacy. And so the group didn't uh really venture out publicly other than to take a yearbook picture once a year where everybody's faces were covered and their names were not listed. So um it was it was mostly social stuff. We had, we

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had, I remember we had a couple of get togethers that were together with the University of Houston group. Um And uh yeah I think we had um we probably had some bar nights where everybody went out as a group to the to the bars in Montrose.

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Um so that was and you know uh I wasn't a huge bar person but at the time when that was one of the few options for people to go be, be themselves. I would go out some and go out dancing, that sort of thing. Wonderful. Thank

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you for sharing as a rice student. Were you involved in jewish life on campus or were you aware of jewish happenings on campus? I was aware I had um I had jewish roommates here and there. Um and who were involved in Hillel. I believe I went

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to Hillel activity once, maybe twice. Um but at the time I was still not very uh uh active in in jewish life and had not really started exploring my jewish identity and that that kind of happened probably during my senior year and then uh kind of

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grew after that. Let's talk about that next. So can you tell me how and why you got more interested in exploring your jewish identity? Um a number of reasons. Um part was I was inspired partly by my grandfather, who when we were growing up, he lived

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in a different city, but we saw him once or twice a year and he uh he was always very, there was always a time um it didn't seem like a big thing to me, but looking back on it and seeing that I've done it with my

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niece, that he would take us aside and say, you know, remember you're jewish and here are some of the things we believe, he was not religious either. He and my grandmother were both raised in kind of secular homes, but he felt very important that we understand

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that this is our identity and there's a lot more there um and then he started exploring more and and becoming more religious and and learning and studying with the rabbi um that he worked with, and so that inspired me. Um and I made more jewish friends

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and became that was a time when, you know, as a teenager, a lot of times you're you're looking for your identity and and maybe that changes, and for me that was a part of saying, you know, I've had this identity, this ideal identity who I want

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to be and what I want to do and that sort of thing, but now it's time to look at who I really am and embrace that, so that's that kind of, is what inspired me, and insofar as exploring your identity, getting involved in formal jewish life

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and institutions, did this start happening mostly in Dallas when you moved to Dallas, or was it uh when you came back to Houston? Um initially in Dallas? Um was when I started doing a lot of learning on my own, um and uh kind of sharing a

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little bit with my grandfather and then exploring, you know, what is Judaism, what what, what do we believe in that sort of thing? Um and I got more involved organizationally, such as joining a congregation and that sort of thing, um more when we, when we moved

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right about the time we moved here to Houston, and I've been very active in the jewish community since then. Great, can you tell me about a little bit about becoming active and jewish life in Houston? Where did you go, what did you do? Certainly, So, um

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I spent a lot of time exploring, because since my family, I didn't get from my family really much of an identity as far as uh movement and and part of part of this is, you know, being gay and, and saying, where am I going to find

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a community that I feel comfortable and accepted because I had decided long before that that I would not, I would one not hide who I am to anybody ever unless my life was in danger. Um and of course I didn't want to be in a place

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where I had to um to be secretive or feel that people were judging me. So my natural inclination was to explore within reform Judaism. Um and and at the same time, I also became aware of uh gay and lesbian jewish organizations here in Houston. So I

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went through them, but a lot of my exploration involved getting to know um pretty much the entire spectrum of the jewish community and religiously I shoulda stopped and went to uh synagogues all over the area and all over the spectrum from Orthodox to Reconstructionist and reform.

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Um I spent a lot of time in Habad, because that's that's what Habad is out there for, they're looking for somebody who was like me um to bring and and they I credit them a lot for helping me along that along that road. And uh ultimately

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I felt most comfortable in conservative Judaism um and found that uh and especially as the years went along, that conservative Judaism, especially here in Houston was becoming more and more accepting um of of its gay and lesbian members. And we've I've seen that developed just incredibly

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over time. That's wonderful. Do you think you could talk a little bit more about uh I would love to hear you talk a little bit more about how you think that has developed and how people's understandings have developed of course. Um so you know, at that

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time reform Judaism had already dealt with a lot of these issues other than the marriage issue they had accepted um you know, relationships and and um openly gay clergy. Um this is where you would find a lot of very liberal progressive jews. Um and at the

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time the organization gay and lesbian jewish organizations that were here in Houston, we're doing things in conjunction with um reform synagogues, especially Emmanuel and Beth Israel. Um and So that's I saw that and you know that that's kind of yeah, but I'm not comfortably comfortable religiously

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in in that environment, 100%, I feel felt more um an attachment to tradition um to the hebrew language um and uh and more uh comfortable with adherence to Halacha and so I felt religiously more comfortable at Orthodox and conservative services. Um and and the wonderful thing

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is that then about the time that I got involved um and and then when we founded keisha Houston um is when the conservative movement started making huge progress in uh accepting openly gay clergy um in accepting openly gay members and uh recognizing their relationships not as

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marriages but relationships. Um and eventually to reach the point where just a few short years ago, um they gave conservative congregations the option of recognizing same sex marriages, it's amazing um development and and I've also seen small cracks um in Orthodoxy modern orthodoxy. Um and I

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will say that Habad being uh being very traditional Orthodox um is not uh accepting of gay marriage or necessarily uh a lot of the issues that um the other movements have accepted, however, um as an outreach organization, um they I was open, they knew I was

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gay and they still accepted me as a jew and encouraged me to um to become a more observant jew. Um and and I didn't feel judgment now if I wanted to become um and put on a black coat and grow my pace out, that might be

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an issue. Um but as just a jew who uh even there, I felt welcome. Um and in modern Orthodoxy, you're starting to see. Um for instance, uh Rabbi gellman uh wrote a newspaper editorial years ago um in favor of recognizing civil gay marriage. Um so it's

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been a lot of changes since I've lived in Houston. Wonderful. Uh and could you, so you mentioned being part of these gay and lesbian jewish organizations. Could you tell me a little bit about those and how you got involved in what you did together? Certainly. So

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the first one that um I guess maybe around the same time I discovered um there was which had been around for a long time before I moved here. Um and then there was an organization that I think formally was called the jewish community center, lesbian and

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gay support group or interest group. I think it was nothing, nothing clever. Um, and uh, team has a history that I've heard about, but I wouldn't, I'm not really authoritative to say where they were until I joined at the time. They were a small camera that

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would meet uh, principally, uh, once a month on a friday evening, they would get together in baby barnaby's over on Fairview, uh, on the side that's closed for dinner. Um, they would get together there, have a service for friday evening, um, little kid ish. Um, and

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then usually go next door for dinner or go somewhere else for dinner as a group. Uh, we would have, Yeah, at the most, maybe 15 people when I, when I was there. Um, and it was all lay led. Um, Richard L. Bine and his partner Jerry

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Pepperoni, we're running it at the time. Their mother was involved in helping organize and get everything together. Um, it was a really nice group. Um, mostly older folks I think. Of course at the time I was Mid 30s, early 30s and my husband and I would

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have been the youngest people usually attending. Um, and that group just kind of fizzled out and stop the meeting. Um, Around that time though, the JCC group had come about. Um, and they were very active kind of in a different realm. Um, they would have more

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social event. In fact, I think everything they did was social, it might be connected to a jewish Holiday for instance Hanukkah. They had a big party every year. They would do Shabbos dinners. I remember going a couple of times to Emmanuel where have a shabbas dinner

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after their service. Um And they had they had a lot of folks and they had a lot of a younger crowd. Um Team had a very diverse crowd as far as gender. Probably 50 50 men and women. Um And like you said they were focused on

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social things parties parties and dinners. Um And uh they, right well probably right about the time that we formed uh Houston. We did that because of them. They they were organized by some folks at the JCC. Because it was a JCC group employees of the JCC.

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So they did the emails and they had good marketing. They put put out ads and that sort of thing. Um But I think those folks kind of lost interest because they weren't necessarily members of the group. Uh And so nobody stepped in to take over which

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continues the next chapter to catch at Houston. Great. So let's talk about then. So the J. C. C. Group has uh sort of ended or wound down uh tell me how you were involved in the founding and also when this was happening. More so um in

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2010 we uh my husband and I went to one of the last um I guess it was probably the last activity of the JCC group. they had a potluck dinner um at Suzuka Rod's house. Um good, good number of people, maybe 20 people, It was a

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friday night dinner. Really nice. And uh we met a gentleman named Mark Levine who is uh he's a cantor, he's director of education at bristol, um and he had just moved to Houston from California and just gotten this job. So this was his first time coming

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out and we just happened to sit by him while eating dinner and got to talking. And and at this time the JCC group had not done very much at all. Um recently this dinner was probably the first thing we've been to in maybe a year, I

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don't know. Um and so we we became friends and we then we talked about, you know, we could, there's a lot more look at all these people, we could be doing a lot more in the community. And so um we wanted to get involved with the

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JCC group, but it kind of officially, or maybe unofficially disbanded. Um and so we said, well let's let's pick this up and let's do it. Um you know, before it was run by some employees of the JCC, let's run, let's do this and have it run

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by people who were involved in the group and have a passion for it. Uh we um we were given the email list for the JCC group, um that's all I'll say on record. Um and so we reached out to everybody um said we're interested in uh

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in starting a group and if you're interested in helping out, we'd like to, we'd like you to join us, we met with two or three people who had been active in in the other group and uh they were a little bit skeptical um and said, you

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know, you all it's a lot of work um you all do, it will support you, but but we've we've put a lot of work into this and it's kind of fizzled a little bit. So Mark and I did um kind of took it on, this is

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2010 and we uh we decided to go ahead and have um give it a name and put out some publicity. Uh And we scheduled a picnic that year. We got together with a few people and met um decided okay this we're gonna have this group and

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let's kind of see where it goes. Put out flyers. And we had a picnic at memorial park and had a good number of people show up for that and it just kind of went from there. Our first official activity was July 11th of 2010. Um and

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so since July 11, 2010, what sorts of things uh discuss it do together annually? You know monthly, those sorts of things. Um We've tried to keep it to be uh kind of a mixture of of things to appeal to different people. Um, as you know, one

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thing we saw is that, um, you didn't have many people in who were also in the JCC group. There were two kind of distinct groups and people have different interests. Um, and so we wanted to make sure that we tried to appeal to a broader group

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as possible. Um, so we've, over time, uh, we have had um regular friday night shabbat dinners usually potluck um, a few times a year. We um, at the time when we got together, there was a lot of very um people who are not affiliated and who

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are also looking for congregations and we found a lot of interest in um, in going out and usually Fridays occasionally saturday mornings, but we'd go out to services at different synagogues and part of part of that. And part, I mean, it's still part of our, our

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uh focus is to not, we didn't want to create a congregation. Um, we didn't want to be separate from the rest of the jewish community. We wanted to be out there because part of our goal is to be visible and and and uh and promote inclusiveness.

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So we would schedule almost every friday night a different synagogue to go and meet up at and either do something with them for dinner or most times just go out to dinner somewhere there after that. We visit all of the reform synagogues, all of the conservative

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synagogues um, in the Houston area and then some out in the suburbs. Um, and we would even go to the Orthodox shul. But um, for that, we would always let them know in advance and and if they wanted to welcome us or have somebody get up

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or sometimes they'd invite, you know, our members to come and light the candles, you know, be participating. Uh, We never got a we never got a positive response from any of the Orthodox synagogues. Um, except for, we got two responses. Most were ignored. One um, from

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us was, thank you, you're welcome in our synagogue anytime. Um, another one on the far, far right of the spectrum, um, basically said, you're not welcome in our synagogue. Please don't come. Um, and we didn't, and we haven't uh, so we've done that. We don't haven't

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done that as much as as we used to, but we we do have, we have an outreach program where we have community partners, um, and that are a lot of the reform and conservative schools. Um, We do, we've participated in pride parades almost every year since

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we were founded, um, in the beginning, it was just getting together as a group to go watch for a couple of years. And then we then we said after that, we wanna, we wanna march, we don't want to watch. So a couple of years we marched

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and carried flag. We walked and carried flags and, and, and a banner. Um in 2015. Uh well uh 2014 we were approached um by Rabbi Scott Houseman Weiss of and he said, I forgot where we were when we talked, but he said, you know what? Um

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I know some people that build floats. Um they're involved in the art car parades and that sort of thing and they've built floats and I would love to help you all um put together a really first class entry in the pride parade next year. Um and

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we said okay, but this is gonna take a lot of time and money and he said let's let's explore it. And so we met with some of these people um who were some were part of his congregation. Um and uh and they said, yeah, that sounds,

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that sounds like a lot of fun, let's do it. And we talked about designs and that sort of thing. Um and that was also the time um that uh um in Austin the first it was probably a few months after the first same sex marriage legally

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performed in texas took place. It was kind of a fluke. Um it was a lesbian couple in Austin who got married. A judge said you can get married. One of them was was ill and they needed to marry for um for their benefits and he said

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you can get married and I think everybody expected that the attorney general would fight it and take it as high as he could to get their marriage and old, but the state didn't fight it. And so they're they're married to this state, that was before any

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of the Supreme Court cases dealt with uh same sex marriage. And so um Rabbi scott said let's get them, I I have a contact with them and we'll get them and they'll march with us as well. And so we met and we ended up after a

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lot of work and a lot of fundraising. And I'm gonna say the fundraising, we got thousands of dollars from local congregations for the most part rabbis reform and conservative reached out and said yeah let's put some money into this, we want to participate. We ended up

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with a float that could have been in the Macy's Day parade, beautiful um in the shape of a wedding cake. On top of it was a copa. Um And up there was Rabbi Scott. Um And uh and we also had a um so they did it

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as if they were um having their marriage so it was like pretend he's standing there with with a couple there. Um And then we also had um we were pulling a trailer that was all decorated up with a Klezmer band um playing music. Um And uh

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so that was and and as it turned out just uh I would say 23 days before the pride parade that year. Um The Supreme Court came out with its Obergefell decision um overturning the ban on gay marriage. And so uh it was too late for the

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pride parade to make that their theme, but it turned out we had the perfect perfectly themed entry. Um so we uh so we had that, so we've participated in the pride parade every year except this year. It didn't happen um and um with a lot and

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we've our focus has been on bringing together the jewish community to march and Pride with us. Um It's not just cash it, it's we've gotten a lot of our community partners encourage their members to come out and march with us. And so it's it's basically a

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jewish uh entry in in the pride parade. We have other things we do, we do picnics and movie nights and game nights. Um and uh we've had some study sessions for different holidays. We have a dinner in the Sukha for circus every year. Um We we

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go to for the past several years, we've gone to Galveston's in the fall um for kind of a retreat for a weekend. Um We won't be doing that this year unfortunately, but um that's been a big activity. Um The really neat thing about that is we've

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also involved the two synagogues in Galveston's with that. And they've always been very um inviting and very very open um and inviting to us and we've participated in their services. Um Beth Jacob which is a very small conservative, you know after after ICG um a lot

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of jews moved off the island and Beth Jacob lost a lot of their membership. Um so whenever we go down there and we participate in saturday morning services um we also help make their minion. Um and so they're, they're doubly thrilled to have us there because

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they can have a minion and do some say Scottish and that sort of thing. So all kinds of, we have a Hanukkah party every year and stuff like that. That's wonderful. Yes, the fried story, I hadn't heard that but just tickles my oh it was amazing.

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Um yeah, there's, if we've got some videos on facebook and stuff and um that was, we got a lot of attention that year. Um so you mentioned you're not having your fall retreat this year uh because it's august 19th 2020 and it's still covid times, can

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you talk a little bit about how has shifted during covid too? Stay engaged in any way. Absolutely. So um by our nature, almost all all of our activities have always been things in person. Um people's homes and synagogues, that sort of thing, so that's not been

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our normal activities have not been possible. Um we informally unofficially would get together most friday nights if we didn't have something already planned, We get together Friday nights after services to meet up for dinner whether people went to services together somewhere else, we'd have a designated

00:32:05.100 - 00:32:18.720

place to meet up for dinner. We have a we usually have, you know, 6 to 12 people show up on Friday nights for that. Um and so then that uh that was something people could count on and you have a lot of people, you know show

00:32:18.720 - 00:32:33.580

up once a month, that sort of thing. So we decided that's something that we could we could kind of continue. And so we meet up on friday nights on zoom um and everybody, you know, fixes their own dinner and they get their glass of wine and

00:32:33.580 - 00:32:52.550

they're hollow and everything and we meet up friday evening um Make kid ish, same artsy and then uh have dinner in our respective homes and and visit and schmooze and stuff for a couple hours of hours on zoom. Um We're also uh hoping to in instead

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of our october trip to Galveston's, we're hoping to put together um a little bit of an online retreat with some speakers and uh social activities and that sort of thing for a day or two uh for Pride this year because Pride was canceled. The other big

00:33:10.760 - 00:33:29.770

thing about Pride um is that in previous years we would have a big shabbas dinner hosted by Betty Sharon. Um We've had, I want to say as many as 70 people for that dinner in the past um that got canceled this year obviously and so we

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did our friday night zoom dinner, but made it a little bit more formal and we had a few rabbis attend and speak um and did a little a little bit more pro programming um along the um theme of pride. I do want to say something about

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going back to the things we've done. Um I think other than the in 2015 are big entry in the pride parade um last so we've been doing these dinners the night before the pride parade, the friday night before Pride um for the past few years at

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Beth You Sharon and our focus, we've always tried to invite people from outside and tell people to come. This isn't a Beth Fischer an event, although we're very grateful to Beth Fischer into opening up the dining room and sponsoring and all of that. We want this

00:34:22.980 - 00:34:40.310

to be a community event and bring as much of the jewish community and for that and and that's kind of grown over the years to the point where last year we had four different congregations come together at Beth E Shuren and have their friday night service

00:34:40.310 - 00:35:10.170

together um brush shalom Schmeichel a new um Beth you sure in and um I know I'm leaving somebody out, I'll correct that later, but anyway, we brought and they canceled their friday evening services and said let's all go to Turin for pride. Um Rabbi Strauss was

00:35:10.180 - 00:35:26.230

had all of the rabbis up there on the bima and everybody did a little part of the service. Um and then a lot of people, so a lot of people came for that and then stayed for dinner. Um and in addition to being, you know, a

00:35:26.230 - 00:35:40.330

great thing for pride and for Kesha is, it's a wonderful thing for the jewish community, have events like this, were not in our over in our own separate buildings, do are doing our own thing, but coming together and doing the same thing we'd be doing separately,

00:35:40.340 - 00:36:00.380

but all together. And so this was, it was just amazing and we packed um the freedmen levitt sanctuary there with people. Um and then had a lot of people for dinner afterwards. That was really neat. That's really wonderful. Thank you. I mean, I think you are

00:36:00.380 - 00:36:25.400

so right that there's very few times that everyone is together and it's kind of amazing how seems to be able to incorporate so many different congregations. That's that's been a big, big wonderful. Um so thank you for sharing all of that about cash. It. I wanted

00:36:25.400 - 00:36:52.680

to also ask if we could talk a little bit more about other ways you've been involved in jewish life in Houston maybe about uh congregational boards. Um and then maybe we can talk a little bit about Yiddish. Absolutely. So um when I finally uh after shopping

00:36:52.680 - 00:37:12.970

around and getting to know a lot of different synagogues and Rabbis and all. I became a member of Betty Suren um and was a member there for quite some time um and got involved uh eventually was invited to join the board and so I spent two

00:37:12.970 - 00:37:33.310

terms on the board of trustees at Beth You Sure in uh worked on some projects uh including, well I I did some stuff, you know, working with the rabbis on uh same sex marriage issues and and making sure that uh that Beth you Sharon was at

00:37:33.310 - 00:37:53.840

the forefront of making sure that people felt welcome um if they were lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender. Um And and working on some technology things, helping, I was on the technology committee and helping kind of move the synagogue into the 21st century as far as social media

00:37:53.850 - 00:38:11.720

um and that sort of thing, so I was very much involved in those things when I was there um and uh after my time on the board um I felt that I found that I was uh spending a lot of time with friends who are members

00:38:11.730 - 00:38:32.890

of Shalom and going to services there. Um there are a lot of people in Kesha who have ended up going to shalom becoming members of shalom. Um and I found that a small, the smaller size uh kind of fit me a little bit better. Um I

00:38:32.890 - 00:38:51.260

said a lot of friends there. Uh and so eventually I got a dual membership and then eventually kind of moved my membership over to bristle. Um The other the other thing about Jerusalem was they um my husband is not jewish and so a lot of conservative

00:38:51.260 - 00:39:08.670

synagogues would not consider him a member. He'd be welcome to everything, but not a member and brush shalom. Um he's he's a non jewish member of the synagogue um and well that's not a big deal for him, it is for me. Um and I've I've gotten

00:39:08.670 - 00:39:29.420

very involved in shalom on different committees. Um I'm on the leadership development committee, I'm on the um in the covid 19 reopening committee. Uh and I've uh I've helped out with the zoom services. Um I've become a Torah reader um all kinds of stuff there as

00:39:29.420 - 00:39:57.270

well. Wonderful, thank you for sharing that. Yes. Uh and so I know that your zoom skills have also good important to the Yiddish Finkel here in Houston. Uh but I wanted to ask you a little bit about Yiddish and Yiddish been act and how you came

00:39:57.270 - 00:40:19.830

to know Yiddish and be involved with teaching it. Um so I years ago at the time that I was, you know, exploring my jewish identity, I also um uh that I did so linguistically. Um and I was becoming more aware of my family background and that

00:40:19.830 - 00:40:38.300

sort of thing, learning that my great grandparents, I have no memory of, but they all spoke Yiddish um in fact I recently found a recording of um my great grandparents and some of the family um speaking at a party in Yiddish passing the microphone around, it

00:40:38.300 - 00:40:53.850

was wonderful anyway, um so I um in looking for my own identity, one of the things that I felt that it was lacking was was linguistically, you know, I speak a few other languages, but they're not they're languages I was interested in, I love, but they're

00:40:53.850 - 00:41:11.430

not, they're not in my in my kiss kiss. Um and Yiddish is the language that my uh my people spoke. Um and so I I decided okay, I want to learn something about this. It's a language that at the time I thought was dying thankfully, uh

00:41:11.440 - 00:41:29.620

it's making a resurgence and more Children are being raised speaking Yiddish, that sort of thing. Um so I became interested in, it, started studying on my own um and uh reading books and there was less on the internet at the time that I started studying, but

00:41:29.620 - 00:41:46.770

I bought textbooks and did what I could to teach myself. Um and part of that, the reason for that was that here in Houston there used to be Yiddish classes at the JCC um and the lady who was very much involved in the Yiddish Dinko, one

00:41:46.770 - 00:42:04.730

of its founders, Susan Gant, um she moved to florida and so she was no longer teaching there, there are no longer classes available, so I kind of had to do that on my own. Um the which has been around a long time meets almost every week

00:42:04.730 - 00:42:23.010

on Tuesday mornings with my work schedule that was not possible for me to to ever make. Um and uh so I studied on my own, and eventually the workers circle in the arbiter ring in new york started putting on online classes, and I signed up for

00:42:23.010 - 00:42:40.650

that when I heard about that, I was one of the first, I've been a student of theirs since the day they started online classes, it's been a few years. Um So I've been studying there um and uh I came across met a couple of people and

00:42:40.650 - 00:42:59.620

one I've become very good friends with a few years ago who we all felt like, you know, a city the size of Houston with the, with the jewish community, our size um needs to have Yiddish classes and um we're willing to do the work to make

00:42:59.620 - 00:43:13.040

that happen. And we got together, my friend Zach share and I did a lot of, we made a lot of phone calls to people to say, do you want to teach Yiddish here, do you want to teach Yiddish? Uh and at the same time started making

00:43:13.040 - 00:43:30.520

contacts and getting the word out about um that we were trying to do this. Um So we decided we started a group um and we call it Yiddish, which means Yiddish at night or Yiddish in the evening, and the reason for that was we were looking

00:43:30.520 - 00:43:49.440

for to do something for people who couldn't participate in the Yiddish Finkel stuff because whatever obligations work or school during the day. Um and that kind of stuck and we eventually found a teacher and we found people who wanted to learn and uh we've been doing

00:43:49.440 - 00:44:08.050

that ever since now, That's another thing that got affected by um uh by Covid. Um What we were, what we've been doing over the two years that we've had classes is we couldn't, we didn't find a local teacher, there are a few people who can teach

00:44:08.050 - 00:44:23.190

but weren't available. So we branched out and we found a teacher, his name is Noah Barrera, um at the time he lived in new york now, he lives in California. Um but we said, okay, well that's not a problem, we will get people together in a

00:44:23.190 - 00:44:44.370

classroom here and we'll connect by internet. Um the camera that I'm using right now. Um and uh we spoke to um uh folks at Shalom about using their space, um and they were very much open to it. And so we started our classes um started off

00:44:44.370 - 00:45:00.680

with about 89 people sitting around a table in a room with no uh projected up on the screen and a camera so he could, and a microphone, so he can hear everybody and everybody can hear him. Um And so we've been doing that until Covid hit,

00:45:00.910 - 00:45:15.720

and we said, well um I I was probably one of the first people I know to have even heard of zoom because we were using zoom long before Covid for our classes. We said, well that's that's fine, we'll just shift over and people can do it

00:45:15.720 - 00:45:34.700

at home and uh so we still meet on Tuesday evenings um by zoom Noah teaches from his home in California. Everybody else is in their home and uh and we had better attendance that way. Uh and people are really avid. We're in the process of registering

00:45:34.700 - 00:45:48.930

for the fall and doing great. We also do other things with the group. With, the idea would was not just to have classes but have other activities in the evenings. And so we've had movie nights, we have a movie night tonight, we show a Yiddish film.

00:45:48.940 - 00:46:08.450

Um now it's online. Um but before we would be in person and show it on a big screen with popcorn and drinks. Um and we've done stuff together with the Yiddish Finkel as well. Yeah, so that's that's going strong, that's so wonderful. You, you know, using

00:46:08.450 - 00:46:29.260

zoom before zoom was, I guess that's that's what how it turns out that uh the Yiddish benefited from, that was when they said, okay, it's not, we don't have people who are comfortable getting together in person is back in late february, early March, we're just gonna

00:46:29.260 - 00:46:41.430

have to cancel until this goes away. And of course back then people thought it would be a couple of months and I said um why not continue? I'm going to be, I was that's at the time I was going to be at home and free on

00:46:41.430 - 00:47:01.070

Tuesday mornings. So I said let's try and let's try and do it online and I had to teach a lot of people who were not very computer savvy how to use uh something that's very 2020 and uh eventually people caught on and with the vehicle on

00:47:01.070 - 00:47:18.400

Tuesday mornings we get Uh around 40 people um like a few, a few from out of town they've heard about it and why not? Um so they're getting double or triple the attendance on Zoom. They're loving it. They're saying well when COVID goes away we need

00:47:18.400 - 00:47:45.850

to somehow incorporate this and continue doing it because it brings a lot of people together. Yes, that's wonderful. And some more of this uh intergroup enter congregational stuff that you're doing to keep people connected. What a thing. Um just out of curiosity, do you also speak

00:47:45.860 - 00:48:06.130

Hebrew? Like did you learn modern Israeli Hebrew? I can get along um I can get directions and ask very simple things if I'm in Israel. Um and I've tried, that's that's one thing um One of my goals is to become conversational in modern hebrew, most of

00:48:06.130 - 00:48:26.030

my hebrew study has been biblical hebrew for you know the side door and being able to read Torah. Wonderful. Um so I I mean I want to give you space if you think of anything else, but I kind of wanted to and with having with asking

00:48:26.040 - 00:48:49.170

uh, about Kesha and the importance of Kesha, like if you could speak a little bit about why you think a group like Kesha is important and what sort of role it feels in your life, you know, outside of what you get from your congregation or outside

00:48:49.170 - 00:49:07.710

of what you could get from a secular LGBT organization. Oh, absolutely. So one person said, and I think it's a, it's a good observation, you know, almost every synagogue has a sisterhood and a brotherhood or men's group and women's group, that sort of thing. Um, and

00:49:07.720 - 00:49:26.760

within our community and within any community, you have people are interested in in socializing and doing things together with people who are like them, whether it's by gender or age group or some kind of interest. Um and this is just one of them and it's something

00:49:26.760 - 00:49:43.310

that we, you know, Beth Israel had and I don't think it's officially there anymore. At one time they had a gay and lesbian group. Um, I don't know if it's responsible for that. Not not doing much anymore because we kind of did the things they were

00:49:43.310 - 00:50:01.540

doing, but anyway, Um, so you have, you have that uh, that tendency for people to want to um, to associate with people who are like them and have something in common. Um, but more importantly than that, I found um that we have a lot of people

00:50:01.540 - 00:50:26.630

who come to us because they're still in 2020, not comfortably being open um in an open in the synagogue. Um even though, you know, all every reform and conservative shul in the Houston area has made made it very clear that they um they welcome and embrace

00:50:26.630 - 00:50:43.970

their gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender members. Um people, some people have grown up to feel like this is just not something we do in in my jewish community. And so a lot of, we've had a lot of people who feel more comfortable being jewish,

00:50:43.980 - 00:50:58.900

I want to say I don't want to go this far, but we have a similar role to Habad, we're reaching out to jews who maybe this affect did or not um didn't for one reason or another not feel comfortable being part of the jewish community and

00:50:58.900 - 00:51:16.320

that's part of why we like to be um kind of interlaced with the rest of the community to be out there and people feel comfortable to go back to school or participate in other jewish organizations. Um I think that we've also had played an important role

00:51:16.320 - 00:51:39.110

in the conservative movement in Houston, the conservative congregations um embracing what their movement has said was okay to do um because we've been out there were a face where human beings that they see sitting in um in the pews participating, learning Torah whatever and so I

00:51:39.110 - 00:51:58.400

think I I know that these rabbis and and presidents of the congregation have seen us and said yes, there these are, this is something that's important to our congregation in our membership. And Kesha has, we've done what we can to support them in that and also

00:51:58.400 - 00:52:21.210

to make them aware of uh that you can be just as welcoming as reform uh congregations and and not lose people from this movement to reform or to secular life. Um, and I I look forward to the day that modern Orthodox synagogues take the same path

00:52:21.210 - 00:52:36.290

that it's gonna be a little bit harder path to take. But bit by bit, they are trying to at least be more welcoming and less less hostile. Wonderful! Thank you so much for sharing all of that.