A I
7 WITH T H E O D O R E B i KE t
Talking
Theo
A Conversation with
Deborah Tannen
While Theodore Bikel may be best known
for his defining portrayal of Tevye in Fiddler
on the Roof— a role he has played over 2,000
times—the list of his accomplishments is
remarkably long. Born in Vienna in 1924
and forced to flee the Nazis, he studied
theater at London’s Royal Academy of
Dramatic Art and made his West End debut
in the premiere of Tennessee Williams’ A
Streetcar Named Desire. He broke into film
in the 1951 classic The African Queen, and
was nominated for an Academy Award for
his role as the beleagured Southern sheriff
in Stanley Kramer’s 1958 The Defiant Ones.
The man with the trademark booming bass,
however, is more than an actor who speaks five
languages fluently and has perfected accents
in 23. After moving to New York in 1954,
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Bikel became a prominent folk singer and co­
founded the renowned Newport Folk Festival.
In 1963, he traveled with Bob Dylan and Pete
Seeger to register black voters in the South.
Later, he would go on to protest apartheid
and more recently, the genocide in Darfur.
At 84—he will celebrate his 85th birthday
at Carnegie Hall in June—he continues to
tirelessly campaign for a negotiated landfor-peace agreement between Israel and the
Palestinians as chairman ofMeretz USA.
Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics
at Georgetown University and author of
the New York Times bestseller, You Just Don’t
Understand: Women and Men in Conversation,
sat down with Bikel on a day off from his
most recent endeavor, the one-man show,
Sholem Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears.
Deborah Tannen: I have always ad­
mired your activism, from the civil
rights movement to labor unions.
How did you become an activist?
Thedore Bikel: I was a 13-year-old
boy when the Nazis marched into
Austria. Within days, I saw people
that I knew dragged into the street
and subjected to great indignities.
And even if I didn’t know them, I
knew they were Jewish. The “J” was
written in red paint on storefronts.
There were warnings not to buy from
Jews. Jews were forbidden to go into
a park and sit on the bench. Jewish
men were forced to clean the side­
walk with their toothbrushes; Jewish
women were forced to mop it up with
their far coats. Later on, I saw people
being put in a truck and shipped off.
When I saw injustices, I always
felt the grief of it hitting my people
and puzzlement that people who
I thought were decent were doing
nothing to prevent it. It became clear
to me later that non-action is an act
and that silence speaks, sometimes
louder than words. I was determined
I would not allow myself to engage in
that kind of non-action. When I see
victims of acts of savagery, barbarism
and discrimination—no matter who
they are—there’s a little switch that
gets thrown in my head and they be­
come Jews.
You lived in Vienna until you were
14, when you escaped with your
family to Palestine. How were you
able to get out?
The British gave out a very low number
of visas—they called them “certificates
of entry”—into Palestine. Those were
turned over to the Jewish community
in Vienna and they in turn distributed
the visas to Palestine to people who
had been active Zionists according to
seniority. My father was high on the
list of the Labor Zionist movement, so
our being Zionists saved our lives.
How did this early experience
influence you?
mundane things of the world. So while
the spoken language might survive
with Hasidim, Yiddish literature won’t.
That is left to less religious and secular
Yiddishists who love the literature, love
the poetry and love the songs.
I keep asking myself, is it just an acci­
dent that I was spared? For what pur­
pose was I spared? I think I’m around
for various purposes: I’m here to
look out for my fellow worker, for
my fellow human beings. I’m around Do you believe Yiddish has
to preserve the Yiddish language and a future?
the Jewish song.
Yiddish has a future because many
young people are attracted to it. Why
did klezmer music become so popular,
Theodore Bikel warms up at the
especially amongyoungjews? Because
Hollywood Bowl during the 1960s.
it was mainly instrumental music, and
they could love it without having to
learn a language. It was only later that
they started singing the songs, and
then Yiddish was essential. That so
many young Jews love klezmer means
there’s an emotional need. In a sense,
they accuse their parents of having
abandoned a legacy that was rightfully
theirs because they ran away from
their funny looking, funnily dressed
grandparents
with horrible accents
W
r
f
who came over on the ship.
in
“I never meant to be a
professional singer. I
was an actor in Israel,
in Palestine, and I went
to England to study
acting. I sang purely for
my own and my friends’
enjoyment.”
You have had astonishing careers
in both theater and music, each of
which would be a singular achieve­
ment on its own. Am I right that you
set out to be an actor, not a singer?
I never meant to be a professional sing­
er. I was an actor in Israel, in Palestine,
and I went to England to study acting.
The fact that I sang on the side was
purely for my own and my friends’ en­
joyment. Itwasn’tuntil I gotto America
that it turned out to be another career,
because in America they won’t tolerate
you doing anything well without forc­
ing you to accept money for it.
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Your play Laughter Through Tears
is very much about Sholem Aleichem’s love of Yiddish and his
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fears that it would not survive as a
language. You revived Yiddish folk
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songs in the United States. Who You were one of the leading figures IE
will keep the Yiddish language in the folk revival of the ’60s. How o
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did that happen?
alive for future generations?
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Hasidim still speak it, but if Yiddish
were to survive only thanks to Hasidim,
we would be poorer. To them Yiddish
is the language in which they do the
Jac Holzman, who at the time had
a small record company called Elektra Records in a fifth-floor walkup in
Greenwich Village, heard me sing at
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rhythm, and the actor allows the singer, What is your vision for Israel?
indeed in my case, forces the singer to Many people in and outside Israel pro­
sing as if he were telling a story. To me, a fess to be Zionists and believe that the
song is a mini-drama, a mini-comedy. Jews are “the chosen people.” There’s
even a Hebrew phrase am zegulah—
You sing in 23 languages, but Yid­ people of distinction. But when Israel
dish songs have a special place in commits acts that any nation would
your repertoire. When I was grow­ to defend itself—things that it feels it
ing up, my family, and every family must do—but acts that are not noble,
I knew, had your recordings of Yid­ then those very same people say, what
do you want from us, we are no better
Do your singing and acting reside dish songs in their homes.
in different spheres or do they af­ I don’t pick Jewish songs because I than any other people. Now you can’t
think they’re better than my neigh­ say that we are nobler than other peo­
fect each other?
They complement each other. The sing­ bor’s songs. I sing them because ple, and in the same breath say we’re
er gives the actor a sense of timing and they’re mine. I sing my neighbor’s no better. We run into the danger of
becoming not only like other people
songs as well because I’m curious.
but something like our enemies. I
MOONRISE OVER WASHINGTON
-November 11, 2008
What does Judaism mean to you?
hope for a time when we get back to
My Judaism is very important in the the vision of a people of distinction.
For half my life
sense that it defines me as a cultural
I’ve walked by this river
human
being, not as a religious hu­ But you’re not a pacifist...
late in the afternoon,
man being. I’m not a religious Jew, I’m not naive. I’m not a pure paci­
evening coming on
although I am well-versed in the reli­ fist who says violence must never
like a dream of home
gion. I can read the Bible as literature be used. If there were Nazis today I
would fight because I would need to.
and as poetry.
or a mirror
There
are certain evils that must be
in which failure, already dark,
What part does Jewish observance fought by violent means, but a gun
keeps darkening.
in one’s hands is a terrible weapon.
play in your life?
Today, sycamores blaze
I say prayers not necessarily to address Golda Meir once said, “We can for­
behind half-bare oaks, box elders,
them to a deity but as an exercise of give the Arabs for killing our chil­
solidarity with millions of other Jews dren. We cannot forgive them for
and the water’s silver surface
who
say them at the same time. I like forcing us to kill their children. We
runs orange, then rose,
to
be
able to argue with Jews. Now will only have peace with the Arabs
then twilight blue.
there are plenty of forums where you when they love their children more
Twigs snap high on the hillside.
can argue these days, but in the old than they hate us.” I’m proud of the
I turn to see a stag
days, in the shtetl, for example, there peace movement, and I’ve worked
was always an atheist or two, but they for it all my life. It’s not easy to be
turning to see me,
went to shul because they needed a fo­ a person of peace in these days of
and overhead—more astonishing—
the full moon caught in branches.
rum to argue atheism. If they didn’t go turmoil and upheaval. I don’t engage
to shul, they’d have nobody to argue in group libel because I was the vic­
It’s five o’clock.
with.
I joke sometimes that in most tim of group libel myself. People tell
Leaves sway and flare,
countries you see a sign in the bus that me that it’s us against Muslims, and
says it is forbidden to talk to the driver it isn’t; it’s us against jihadists, it’s us
gathering on the towpath—
while the bus is in motion. In Israel, it against terrorists.
each shape distinct, each color—
November’s moon lifting, now,
says it’s forbidden to answer the driver.
So we have this wondrous thing called Do you have any hopes for peace?
above the treetops, the city,
community. Sometimes I have whole Hopes, yes. Patience, less. Because
the reclaimable world.
segments of my community that I dis­ my hope has to be shared by millions
agree with and who disagree with me, of people and, unfortunately, it’s only
—Judy Bolz
but they’re my people.
shared by thousands, o
a couple of parties. He said, “I saw
you, and I heard you, and it’s very
impressive, but I don’t know how
much of what you do is visual.” So
he said, “If you would make a re­
cording for me and let me play it for
people who haven’t seen you...” He
came back and said that he wanted
to make a record.
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