“It don’t take much, but you gotta have some/ The old ways help the new ways come/ Just leave a little extra for the next in line/ They’re gonna need a little water from another time.”
Perhaps this song, “Water From Another Time” by Wisconsin-native songwriter and folk instrumentalist John McCutcheon, says it best, as it plays with the image of how “water” — i.e., knowledge — from the past “primes the pump” for the future.
“Though Grandpa’s hands have gone to dust/ Like Grandma’s pump, reduced to rust/ Their stories quench my soul and mind/ Like water from another time.”
The Milwaukee Jewish Historical Society, a program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, is working to amass a well of stories from within the local Jewish community.
Next month, it will hold two weeks of interviews with any members of the community who want to recount their experiences of living in the Milwaukee Jewish community for video-recorded oral histories to add to the MJHS collection.
“In my opinion, this is probably the most important project on our calendar,” said Marianne Lubar, chair of the society. “These verbal memoirs are what the Jewish community is all about.”
Moreover, “This will be announcing to the community how important the Jewish historical society is,” said Jayne Butlein, chair of the society’s program committee. “People now I think will become more aware of what we have.”
And as explained by MJHS director Kathleen E. Bernstein, the society’s staff “decided this would be a great way to celebrate” the 350th anniversary of the beginning of the U.S. Jewish community, “by capturing our own community on video.”
“We have such a fabulous community” and each individual in it “is a piece that makes up that puzzle,” Bernstein said.
On Oct. 11-14 and 18-21, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, volunteer interviewers, trained by Debra Katz and Linda Marcus, will speak to any members of the Jewish community who want their and their families’ stories to become part of the community’s historical record.
Subjects don’t have to come one individual at a time. Bernstein said she already has a family group — “father, daughter, grandson and great-granddaughter” — scheduled to be interviewed together.
Moreover, MJHS has hired two professional videographers to videotape these interviews to add them to the society’s collection of oral histories.
The MJHS is also looking for volunteer “note-takers,” not to transcribe interviews, but to help compile a kind of index, checking off subject areas that get touched upon in the interviews. And it is looking for volunteer registrars to greet the subjects, Bernstein said.
Co-chairs of the project are Barbie Blutstein and Tybie Taglin. Blutstein said she is interested in this both because she was a history major in college and because her family has lived “many generations” in the city and “enjoyed living in Milwaukee a lot.”
“I think it is important that these things be documented” and “important for my grandchildren and children to learn about it,” Blutstein said.
Taglin, for her part, has been conducting general historical and Jewish historical tours of Milwaukee with her husband, Max, as part of their firm, Access Milwaukee, for some 15 years.
“The Jews in Milwaukee have been important in the progress and production of this city” in all its “cultural, financial and political” aspects, Taglin said. “This history is so important not only to us as Jews, but to the development of this city and this country.”
All of the leaders in this project emphasized that every individual member of the community is important and can contribute to this record.
“People think, ‘I’m nobody, I’m not important.’ Everybody is important,” said Bernstein. “If you lived, worked or played in this Jewish community, you are part of the fabric.”
Butlein, a native of New Jersey who has lived in Milwaukee for almost 30 years, added that “even if you are not native to Milwaukee, you brought your gifts and talents to the community, and we need your stories as well.”
Eventually, MJHS leaders hope to put the raw footage to use in making a documentary about the community. They also hope to post excerpts of some of the interviews on the MJHS Web site.
Participants will pay $25, which covers the cost of a copy of their interview and membership in the historical society. Participants who don’t want a copy of their interview will not be charged.
The project is sponsored by a grant from the Helen Bader Foundation, with additional support from Miriam Miringoff, Nita Soref, and Joan and Jack Stein.
For more information or to volunteer as subject or worker, call Bernstein at 414-390-5730 or visit www.milwaukeejewishhistorical.org.
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