Penina Glazer

Item Information

Title:
Penina Glazer
Description:
Penina Glazer, long-time board member at the Yiddish Book Center and professor emerita of History at Hampshire College, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on June 16, 2010 at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. Penina begins by speaking about her family's life in Eastern Europe and their journey to the United States. Her mother, from Belarus, was the daughter of a shoykhet (kosher butcher). Penina tells the story of how her grandfather became a shoykhet by convincing the rabbonim (local rabbinical authorities) to certify him. During this review process, he ended up arguing with them for three hours that Zionism would provide a better future for the Jews. Her family stayed in Eastern Europe during World War I and then through the Bolshevik Revolution, until they were directly persecuted for Zionist organizing. In January of 1924, right before the United States shut down immigration, the family came to New York. Penina tells the story of her paternal grandmother, who after having many miscarriages before having Penina’s father, greatly feared losing him to the malekhamovis (angel of death). As a result, she didn't speak to her son for the first year of his life in an attempt to “trick” the angel of death. At age fifteen, Penina’s father left for New York where he immediately began working in his uncle’s seltzer factory. Penina describes him as an intelligent man, but notes that, like many immigrants, he did not have access to higher education. Her parents were married in 1933 and began their own family. Penina remembers that they were both well read and multilingual, even though neither had graduated high school. The family relocated to Roosevelt, New Jersey, and lived in a federally funded New Deal cooperative community, established in 1936. Penina describes in detail the layout of the neighborhood, its Bauhaus architecture and its famous “hitching corner.” She remembers the co-op as a warm and tightly knit Jewish community. Prior to the co-op’s closing, the family moved to Elizabeth, New Jersey. Penina compares the Jewish communities in Roosevelt and Elizabeth, explaining that she found the latter to be more religious than the culturally Jewish community at the co-op. Penina recalls the importance her parents placed on education and their encouragement of their daughters to pursue higher education. Penina attended Douglas College, then went on to receive her MA and PhD from Rutgers University. She taught American and Jewish history at Hampshire College for thirty-five years, eventually becoming the Dean of Faculty. She explains that it was at Hampshire College that she met Aaron Lansky, who would become the founder of the Yiddish Book Center. A long-time board member, she remembers the early days of the Yiddish Book Center, when it was sometimes necessary to take out loans in order to keep the Center running. Penina reflects on her career in higher education, from a feminist perspective, noting changes in women’s roles at the College since she first entered the workforce. Specifically, she looks back on the last forty years of Hampshire College’s history, noting changes in administration and the general climate of the experimental college. In reflecting on her own sense of Jewish history and identity over her lifetime, she notes that much of her understanding comes from her father, who collected and distributed Forward articles to his children for many years. Penina concludes the interview with words of wisdom, emphasizing the importance of engaging with the greater world. To cite this interview: Penina Glazer Oral History Interview, interviewed by Christa Whitney, Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project, Karmazin Recording Studio, Yiddish Book Center, June 16, 2010. Video recording, http://archive.org/details/PeninaGlazer16june2010YiddishBookCenter ( [date accessed] )
Date:
June 16, 2010
Format:
Film/Video
Location:
Yiddish Book Center
Collection (local):
Oral Histories
Subjects:
Brooklyn
Zionism
1930s
Depression
Aliyah
Farms
Kibbutz
Co-op
New Jersey
New Deal
Homesteads
Shokhet
Yiddishkeit
Hampshire College
Women in Academia
Northampton
Yiddish Book Center
Wexler Oral History Project
Link to Item:
https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/collections/oral-histories/interviews/woh-fi-0000025
Terms of Use:
Rights status not evaluated.
Contact host institution for more information.
Language:
English