Betsy Anne Bamberger Lesser, Interviews with Jews in Utah, Accn 998

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Betsy Bambe r ger Less e r 1-27-83 p. S L Did you ever find out t he f t e o f your relatives there? BL No . And I didn't know w h i~.,.; h ones they were talking about. I have since fo und out a little bit becau s e I kn ow some of the o nes who escaped and I have kep t in touch with s ome of t hem. I have some d i stant relatives in Los Angelos . And I know s omething ab out them. And I know that most of them, of course , d i d not escape. L As a teenager growing up , what was the a tti tude , as you remember, of your parents and as 0- ~[)&_ ~ the people you were with t owa r ds the Jewis h c ommunity BL My father wus presiden t o f the t emp l e ut one t i me , here. Of course, his father had been. And then little by little L Your father wa s Julian. BL Julian. Yes. And he was President of the B'nai Israel Congregation. The reform congregation. And I remember we went to temple at that time. And, of course, Rabbi Samuel Gordon was the rabbi. And he was pretty well assimilated into the community. We lea rned practically no Hebrew. There was no such thing as a bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah. Any of that. And practically no Hebrew. And all we learned was +h~ ~~t~~ . And that was all. L Just Shmi.. Israel. BL Yes. L What would Rabbi Gordon t alk about, do you remember any speeches? BL Not very much. I ~:1~ went and I just didn't pay very much attention. It didn't have that much of an impact on me. L So it didnt compel any a ttention from you a t all. BL NO, I was really going j ust becous e it was o sense of obligation.And then later on, I did go with my grandrnothers,because they wanted to go to Temple. And I didn't really pay that much attention. It didn't have that much impact on me. Not at all. I didn't learn much about Judaism, I didn't learn much about the bible. Where I lea rned it was in Rowland Hall Bible School. L What kind of a girl were you. Wha t kind of a kid were you? How do you describe yourself. BL Very serious. I wa s serious. I was academic. L What did you enjoy looking into or reading. BL Oh, I read alot. I read a lot of novels. I was a good student in school. I liked math and history. And. I had a r ather difficult time. I was quite different from my parents and I had a very hard time with my mother, whose value system was quite different from mine. L How was that. BL Well, she wa s re a lly qu.ite i ntc r.c s ted in r.mcia l th i ngs. And material things.