Esther Landa, Interviews with Jews in Utah, Accn 998

Page 70

Esther Landa 3.16 p.27 I mean the davening ~as mostly Hebrew. L [everytime I ask them about jewish community, they~t real nervous telling me there was no ghetto in salt lake.] EL Therewas no ghetto. L ~heir attitude was that Jews tried to distance themselves as much as they could •... EL ~a~~s- I ~ess that's so. I mean, people even in recent years when people . d would want to move out here. And they~y, where do you live, and where are the kosher butcher shops and stuff like this. Live anywhere you want. Whereveryou can afford, youcan live there. Right? So in that sense, they're right. ·= l'here was-a-~f'e~~-ef-~ee~~e-- were some groups of people that lived around the synagogue. The Bernsteins lived there. They lived on Custer Cod~or something like that ..... The G uss family t hey'lived on 7th or 8th south,about 3rd east. So they weren't-- you know, they didn't want to be too far away from the synagogue. but if you had a car and you didn't care if you drove m shabbus, why. I don't think my father ever quit work, I'm sure he worked on saturday as well as on any other day. Maybe my grandfather didn't but I bet my father did. L There was a big change between your grandfather and father as far as religiousuess. EL Couldbe. L assume that my father probably had to go to chder, but I never remember him reading Hebrew. ~ You know, there was very little Yiddish spoken in our family. To this day, I don't know Yiddish. I mean I can catch a couple of Yiddish jokes but that's about it. So in that sense, I guess would they were kind of distance from the past. 1 Was it important to your parents that you remain a jew .... EL Oh, I think so.