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

Page 11

Betsy Bamberger Lesser 1-27-83 p.lO L When was that. BL I'm trying to remember [clipping with Everett CooHey]. I don't remember. I just know he ran. He was always very active. And he worked with the Highway Commission always. Ve ry much interested in the roads. And the Chamber of Commerce. And he was alwdys very much interested in the community . Very Active. He was on the Board of St. Holy Cross Hosp1t al , I know, when he died. L LEt me ask you this. At the same time in the 1930s , especially I guess in the mid 1930s there were two--three Jewi s h communities here. But two large ones. A lot of people tha t I 've interviewed have talked about the split BL between the communi ties .. · I didn't know a nybody--I didn 't know any Jewish people who were not ~eform Jewish. I hardly knew. "Knew" that there was another synagogue, but I really didn know very much about . And I knew some of the people who had come over to our temple. But, I r~ally didn't know anybody~ We didn't socialize with them. ~ .J. Wa<) And of course,~brought up. My mother was very snobbish about the fact that the German Jews were superior and th a t we shouldn't have anything to do with non-German Jews. L What was a non-German Jew like, ln her opinion . BL: A kike. I mean, she used the word herself. And I just didn't really know --know very many of them. And it was only when I got away and I went away to school and began to meet other Jewish people that I realised you know a little bit more about it. Because I had never really known very much. And I became somewhat in teres ted in the differences and in the background. And of course, in recent years, I've learned something about s c httel life and about the Eastern European Jew. And I knew absolutely nothing about any of that. L That's a startling thing, isn't it? You know, my family urn who of course are not wealthy -- but the Hungarians, of course, you know --- thought of themselves atleast a certain branch of them, as being more affiliated with German Jews. And so the same sort of condescention exists in my family. BL And you know the interesting thing is as I studied, I realised that it's the Jews who carne later, who came from eastern Europe, who were the aggressive ones who really accomplished a great deal. The German Jews, alot of them be­carne rather l a zy. I mea n, they occomplished a certain amount, but alot of them I think sat back on their laurels. And these Russian and Polish and Eastern European Jews that carne over "really" fought for their lives and accomplished a grea t deal. And of course, I've been extremely in teres ted in the Jewish histor) and have learned alot. I took courses. I'm a member of a Jewish community. I 'm not very active, but when I got murried, my husband was a founding membel