Cohen, Marla, undated

North End Project

Marla Cohen Interviewed by Barbara Klau 5/20/07 (??-08)

Summarized, transcribed and long quotes slightly edited by Betty Hoffman

Grandparents moved to Hartford 1940s from New York Mother went to Weaver

Born in Hartford Brother also

Raised in Bowles Park, low and middle income housing for returning GIs which father was Lived there for the first 12 years Moved to Cornwall Street where she still lives today

Yeshiva of Hartford, now Hebrew Academy, orthodox, but didn’t matter what religious affiliation was. Mother was a teacher so family needed a place for kids all day long. She went from kindergarten to 9th grade, brother from nursery school to 6th

Had already done first year of high school so started as sophomore to Weaver, graduated 25 years to the day after her mother did.

Grew up in normal Jewish family, grandparents belonged to Agudas Achim with Rabbi AvRutick “So, my earliest memory of synagogues in the area is Agudas which is on Greenfield Street. I remember it had a balcony. The women sat upstairs in the balcony. The men sat downstairs. It was very ornate, a beautiful bima in the front. I was a child, four or five years old, that I actually remember sitting with my grandfather downstairs with the men. Now I know it was a no-no, but in those days little girls could go in the front. Once you turned a certain age, upstairs with the women. It was a very, very dramatic place to worship because there was a cantor that had a magnificent voice. It was just very stirring even as a child. I remember standing in the hall. My grandfather was a cohain but—in his later years, he did work on Saturday—so he would not go inside when there were certain rituals for the cohanim that were Sabbath observers, so we used to stand outside and shmooze. On Sunday mornings, they had minyan with breakfast afterwards. I never developed a taste for lox or herring even though that was the fare on Sunday mornings. We, my brother and I, used to go with my grandfather all time.

Later on, my grandfather was one of the first people that actually got together to form a congregation farther into the North End where Beth Shalom synagogue originally stood. It was called, something, the Hebrew Congregation of Hartford, and it was a split off of younger families from the Agudas. When they decided to become a conservative synagogue, my grandfather remained at the Agudas and left his support of Beth Shalom which we, in turn later, became members of.”

This was her mother’s father. Her father’s parents were New Yorkers. Her fathers mother came from Lativia as a young child, but claimed to have been in the US. Her parternal grandfather was born in New Jersey and was served in World War I.

No other relatives here. Grandfather opened a floor covering business, Stately Floors, on the corner of Main and Trumbull which don’t meet today. Came for economic opportunities. Did have relatives in closer to New York.

Our neighborhood was still relatively Jewish. Actually, it was mixed. Polish catholic on one side, Yankee on the other, Ultra-orthodox across the street, one of her teachers at the Yeshiva.

Walking distance to Beth Shalom, Young Israel, Tifereth Israel, Tikvah Chadosha, Chevra Lomdei Misnayes—20-30 minutes walk to any synagogues in the 1050s

Yeshiva of Hartford

“The school was like a little world unto itself, and for most of my childhood, all my friends were from the Yeshiva. I’m still friendly with a few kids that I graduated with, and I do run into people in the community. Even if you were in first grade, you knew how the eighth graders were. The eighth graders looked out for the first graders. There are many prominent people in the community now that I know on a first name basis from the time I was little, and they were older. And then I was older, and there are people who are younger who see me. Recently someone said to me, ‘I used to look up to you when you were in school. You were my idol.’ I was shocked to hear something like that.

It was a very insulated growing up because everything we did was Jewish. One thing in particular, my senior year which was ninth grade. It was in the winter of ’65. There was a new addition that was built onto the Yeshiva. The building is physically on Cornwall Street where Cornwall meets, there’s a V, I don’t remember the cross street, Plainfield Street, I think. There was a small building. There was an addition added to it with a state-of-the-art auditorium, and we had science labs. It was a beautiful modern building that was added on. And, we came to school on Monday morning, and we couldn’t go back to school because there was a fire over the weekend that was deliberately set. There was a chapel in the new addition of the building, and the fire was set in the aron kodesh, and by some miracle the torahs that were in the aron kosdesh were not burned, but there was such extensive damage that plastic fixtures burned and melted, and the brand-new science labs were trashed, and the auditorium was unusable. So for the last of my schooling at the Yeshiva, we actually studied at the Agudas Achim. We went to class every day at the Agudas, and we were supposed to be the first graduating class from the new auditorium, and instead we graduated from the Mark Twain School in Hartford. But it was a very traumatic thing to realize that somebody would deliberately pick the most vulnerable part of the school to set a fire.

I think eventually they found who did it. They were teenagers who did it, but the damage was so extensive that classes could not be held in the building. There were at least eight classrooms there that were not usable for a year or two after I graduated. Eventually, the school did move to Bloomfield. It was a great place to grow up, but it was a very traumatic experience with the fire in the school.”

Weaver

“I went into public school. When you grow up in a public school system, you go from kindergarten all the way through the system to twelfth grade, and I jumped in tenth grade, and it was a very traumatic experience going from an insular Jewish education to public school. I had a horrible time at Weaver.

I had one teacher that was extremely anti-Semitic, and when I stayed out for the Jewish holidays, we were penalized if we skipped school for the holidays. After I graduated, there was a law passed that there could be no penalties, and tests couldn’t be given. Teachers would deliberately give tests while there was a Jewish holiday. If you stayed out for more than Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur—which we did on because we went to shul on Sukkot, Shavuot, on Passover—we were penalized for religious observances. It was just a terrible experience.

I was not happy in public school, but I got involved in band, orchestra, choir at school. In this time period I got involved in the JCC. I never had a reason to belong to a Jewish youth group until I was in high school. There was no reason to have Jewish clubs of any kind because I went to a Hebrew day school. We spoke Hebrew half the day. I speak Hebrew today because of the foundation from that school. Our classes were ivrit b’ivrit which meant that we learned our religious subjects in the Hebrew language. We never spoke English from first grade on in Hebrew class, and we had superior English education. We had this rich Jewish education.

We needed something to do so I got involved at the JCC. I was theater person at that time. I was going to be a Broadway star, I got involved in JCC teen theater program. The rest, as they say, is history, because here I am still working at the JCC forty some odd years later. But the JCC had already moved to West Hartford. It was no longer in Hartford at the time.”

She went to Confirmation class only for the comparative religion part because she knew more than her friends. She only went for the social aspects but was confirmed at Beth Shalom in Hartford. Belonged to USY and NCSY, neither of which suited her. Briefly a Girl Scout during her time at the Yeshiva and in high school. The troop met at Oak Hill School for the Blind.

Favorite teachers at the Yeshiva:

“Mr. Perkell (Spelling???) was the quintessential Hebrew teacher. He was a calligrapher. He was a perfectionist. He loved Jewish literature, and he had a great impact on my Hebrew-speaking life. When I lived in Israel, he had already made aliyah with his wife. I went to visit him and spoke to him in Hebrew. He just like flipped out because he was the one who gave me the foundation for the Hebrew language.

As far as the English part, Renee Cahn (SP???) was very much enamored with literature. We read Shakespeare in fourth grade because of her. My love for Shakespeare today is from Renee Cahn (SP???),

Ethel Lance (SP???) was our school librarian, and I still see her today. She also had tremendous impact on my life with books because I’m a book-a-holic, and it’s her fault. I keep telling her that every time I see her. She was also interested in art, and she gave us this love and appreciation for classical art that she did just on her own.

We had a music teacher, Mike (SP???) Newman. She gave me my love for music. All of these things, coupled with what I had at home because my parents were both school teachers—my father was a historian—so I teach Jewish history now. My mother was a home economics teacher. My love for Jewish foods comes from my mother and my grandparents. So, it’s all connected.”

The holidays:

“The holidays were very important. My maternal grandmother did not work. (My paternal grandmother did.) She’s the one I learned at her kitchen table—and I can still see that kitchen table on Blue Hills Avenue—I learned how to make hamantaschen. I’m the one that makes them today. I learned how to make kreplach from my grandmother. She used to let me mix the dough and fold things. I’m the one that does the real traditional Jewish things today. She and I learned to make challah together. When I was sixteen, I got a cookbook for my birthday, and I said, ‘Did you ever make challah?’ and she said, “No.” ‘Did you ever want to make challah?’ and she said, ‘Okay.’ I didn’t take to it, but my grandmother loved making challah, and she made it every Friday until her death, and I still have piece of my grandmother’s last challah in the freezer. We have no reason to eat it. She’s been gone about thirty years now, and I make challah once a week now. I use the bread machine, and every time I take the dough out the machine, I look up and say, ‘Grandma, look what you could have been doing now.’

Passover. I make things, and we got modern equipment. My grandmother died about ten days before Passover, and we decided that if we didn’t make Passover that year, we would never do it again. My mother said, ‘I can’t do it.” I said, ‘We have to.’ And we did. I still use my grandmother’s utensils. One of my special things is I have two of my great-grandmother’s wooden spoons that I claimed. I take them out every year, and I store them and my grandmother’s pots. It’s five generations of Jewish cooking, and it’s a very important thing to me.”

It was hard for her mother to prepare for the holidays, but it was difficult because she was teaching. They went to New York a few times, but her family is now the focal point for the holidays.

Summers

When she was small, her father liked the beach, but her mother didn’t. They would schlep to Ocean Beach in New London once in a while. They occasionally went to Stratton Brook [state park].

“My father joined a group of men who put up the money to dig the hole for Suburban Swim and Racket (SPELLING???) Club which now belongs to the JCC. The reason for that was that there were a number of swim clubs around the area, but there were no Jews allowed. So even in the ’50s, there were places where we weren’t wanted even in Connecticut. They put the money up, and they bought a piece of property in Bloomfield. They had the hole dug, and the first year, we used to drive up there to look at the hole because there was no water in the pool. There was no pool the first year. From the next year until I was about 25, we spent summers at Suburban Swim and Racket (SPELLING???) Club. From the Swim Club, I learned how to swim. I became a lifeguard. I worked at a few other swim clubs in the area. I was a waterfront director at summer camp. That’s all because my mother didn’t want to buy a cottage at the beach.

All though high school I was on the swim team. I coached the ten-and-under team. I eventually got my WSI when I was in college, and I’d come home in the summer, and that’s what we’d do. Then my parents started traveling in the summer. My brother was out of school. I was out of school, so we kind of let it go. It was a big part of my life. I loved to swim, but I haven’t done it in a million years now.

No Bat Mitzvah for girls, just didn’t happen except for Cantor Koret’s [from the conservative Emmanuel synagogue] to be Bat Mitzvahed.

“When I was 13, I was the first Girl Scout in Connecticut to receive the Menorah award which was similar to the Boy Scout Ner Tamid award. It was a two year project, in essence a Girl Scout badge with a pin. But you had to go through extensive requirements to get this award, and you had to demonstrate knowledge of Jewish history, the Bible, Jewish customs and traditions. You had to develop a family tree. There were all kinds of things. It had to be done under a rabbi’s supervision as well as your Girl Scout advisor. I was presented the award on a Girl Scout Sabbath, on a Friday night at Beth Hillel Synagogue, and my teachers at the Yeshiva go, ‘How can you do that? A girl on the bima, no, no.’ But I did. I remember it was a big deal because I did Alenu and Adon Olam. They allowed me to finish up the service, and that was unheard of in 1963. It was not done. I kind of like stirred up the Yeshiva because I made the mistake of inviting some of my teachers because we were within walking distance. Beth Shalom had no organ. The only difference between our synagogue and an orthodox synagogue was that men and women sat together. We used an orthodox prayer book in those days too. So, I do have a picture, a newspaper clipping, with Rabbi Lazowkski and Evelyn Alberts who was the head of the Girl Scout Council at that time, with everybody wearing their uniforms Friday night. It was very special because it was around my birthday.”

Jewish friends and fun Keney Park especially during the High Holidays: all the teenagers met there and all dressed up. Movies: Lennox Theater: saw Exodus with Paul Newman JCC Ruth and Dave’s Delicatessen The Library on Blue Hills Avenue Main library where she volunteered for a short time, also volunteered in the Weaver library

Weaver in the late 1960s Martin Luther King’s assassination: heard about it at school. White students were in the minority at Weaver. School was cancelled, and they were escorted off the school property. It wasn’t cool to be white. A lot of Jewish students left the school. She had a lot of black friends, grew up together in Bowles Park, but then white people were bad at Weaver. Made it through the of the year to graduation

Final “nail” for those Jews who hadn’t already moved, but her family couldn’t do it economically

College: Kent State etc. Went to school in Florida, very Jewish environment. Came home and half the synagogues in the neighborhood were gone. Had merged with Beth Hillel in Bloomfield and moved

Last one to go was Young Israel. List of synagogues and where they went. “The heart of the Jewish community was gone by 1970-71.” Only cemeteries remained.

Her family was one of those who stayed. Still live there. Well kept neighborhood with good neighbors. Parents now in their 80s. A lot of misconceptions about Hartford: black, don’t want to live there etc. Older neighbors, including blacks, are leaving, and younger ones coming in. Some fringes are not so nice, but you have that in other places as well.

Difference between growing up in the North End and kids growing up today? 50s was closer to the immigrant generation, tight-knit Jewish community then, not the same now, get together only in crisis. Not the same feeling of community.

Stories:

Fascination with John Kennedy. Was wearing her Girl Scout uniform. Was taking some kind of make-up test and sitting with a stern math teacher, Augusta Apter, Went of room, came back crying. Very strange. Pockets of teachers crying. Found out at Girl Scouts what had happened.

Yeshiva was a wonderful school to grow up in. Plays etc. were always is Hebrew and in English. Choir performances, all of those things are just special.

Also, remember Germora class, book took up whole desk top. Would read other books underneath. One teacher insisted that they couldn’t be diverted from Torah, wouldn’t let them turn on radio for the space shuttle.

Her oldest friend is from the Yeshiva, friend for life.

Later her papers always had Jewish themes: Shylock, Jewish music, composers etc. “All the Yeshiva influence that kept me Jewish today.” Also, from her family.

“Hartford was a very nice Jewish community to grow up in.”

North End transcript for Marla Cohen (interviewed by Barbara Klau)

My grandparents moved up to Hartford in the early 1940s. My grandmother was born in New York. My grandfather came from Lithuania as a very young child. My mother finished high school in Hartford. She went to Weaver High School. I was born in Hartford. I have one brother, who was also born in Hartford. We were raised first in Balls (sp?) Park, which was built after World War II as low and middle income housing for returning G.I.s, which my father was. So we lived in Balls Park for the first twelve years of my life and then we moved to Cornwall Street, where we still live today.

I went to The Yeshiva of Hartford, which is now called the Bess and Paul Sigel Hebrew Academy, but in those days it was the first Hebrew day school in this area and it didn’t matter what your religious affiliation was, even though it was an Orthodox day school, and since my parents were both school teachers, actually my father wasn’t a school teacher at the beginning, my mother was. They needed someplace for my brother and myself to go to school full-time and we were both sent to the Yeshiva. I started there in kindergarten. In those days, it went up to 9th grade. So, I went all the way from kindergarten to 9th grade. My brother went from nursery school to 6th grade.

Then I continued on and went as a sophomore to Weaver High School and I actually graduated 25 years to the day after my mother did. So, my mother’s celebrating her 65th high school reunion this year and I have my 40th.

I grew up a pretty normal Jewish family. My grandparents belonged to Agudas Achim. They came with Rabbi and Mrs. AvRutick. They were there the first years that the Rabbi was the spiritual leader of the congregation. So, my earliest memories of synagogues in the area is the Agudas which was on Greenfield St. I remember it had a balcony. The women sat upstairs in the balcony. The men sat downstairs. It was very ornate, with a beautiful bimah in the front. I was 4 or 5 years old and I remember sitting with my grandfather downstairs with the men, which now I know was a no-no, but in those days little girls could go in the front. Once you turned a certain age, it was upstairs with the women.

It was a very dramatic place to worship because there was a cantor that had a magnificent voice and it was just very stirring, even as a child. I remember standing in the hall because my grandfather was a Kohen, but in his later years he did work on Saturdays so he would not go inside when there were certain rituals for the Kohanim that were Sabbath observers. We used to stand outside and schmooze. On Sunday mornings they had minyan with breakfasts afterwards. I never developed a taste for lox or herring, even though it was the fare. My brother and I used to go with my grandfather all the time.

Later on, my grandfather was one of the first people that actually got together to try to form a congregation further into the North End, where Beth Sholom Synagogue originally stood. It was supposed to be called something like The Hebrew Congregation of Hartford, and it was a split off of younger families from the Agudas Achim and when they decided to become a Conservative synagogue, my grandfather remained at the Agudas and left his support of Beth Sholom, which we, in turn, later became members of.

This was my maternal grandfather. My father’s parents were New Yorkers. My paternal grandmother claimed to be born in New York, but I found out later that she was really born in Lavia My paternal grandfather was born in New Jersey, and served in the Navy in World War I. My father’s parents were not around here and we would go there for the holidays, but they had the New York mentality that it was too far to come to Hartford.

We had no relatives here. My grandfather opened a floor covering business and his store was called Stately Floors and it was on Main and Trumbull, which no longer meet. That’s why he came to Hartford—for economic opportunities.