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[Singing in Hebrew]

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Downloaded from
YTS.MX

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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

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The Great Train Robbery was
a silent film released in 1903,

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considered to be the first American Western.

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Bronco Billy Anderson,
also known as Gilbert Anderson,

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born Maxwell Aaronson.

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He was a Jewish actor
and he played four roles.

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Bronco Billy was the first celebrity cowboy,

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a Jewish man whose parents
came from Russia and Germany,

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and he eventually starred
in 300 Western films.

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There's a belief that, well, East
Coast is the only place to be Jewish.

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How can you be Jewish in a place
where you can't get good bagels?

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Interestingly, 1903 was also the year
that Emma Lazarus' the New Colossus

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was inscribed onto the Statue of Liberty.

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"Give me your tired, your poor,

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your huddled masses,
yearning to breathe free. "

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Emma Lazarus was a writer,
a poet, an American Jew.

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Her family were Sephardic Jews originally.

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My name is Scott Gerber,
but my Jewish name is Shoyle Baer.

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My great grandfather who I'm named
from, they were in Ukraine.

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Jews weren't allowed to own land.

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It was a bad deal.

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There was a lot of segregation.

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The oppression that Jews
have been experiencing

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in Europe had been taking place
for over a thousand years.

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They were leaving behind Europe,

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the Old World,
and going to America, the New World.

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My grandfather, when he was of age
to serve in the Tsarist's army,

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he had to serve or they would have taken
the family's possessions.

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He somehow got a furlough,

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which was really rare for Jews
and he was supposedly a good marksman.

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So that was his chance.

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The United States as a whole represented
freedom, liberty, hope.

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Many Jews who arrived
in New York City realized

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they were still experiencing
hate, prejudice oppression,

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so the opportunity to go westwards
to these new communities,

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represented the American Dream.

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It would have represented
the myth of the West.

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We know that there is a much
darker kind of tone

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to the story with Manifest Destiny.

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But at that time, to Jews
going to the United States,

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going westward, and settling new towns,

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would have represented
better futures for your children.

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They'd come either through Galveston,

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or New Orleans, or New York,
and they would move west

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when they saw the opportunity.
They would become peddlers.

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They'd come to a small town
that didn't have a store.

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They'd say, "Ah, here's a place to settle. "

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I've worked here probably about 34 years.

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A lot of horseback work,
as a ranch hand. It means a lot.

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You know, I raised my kids here.

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Antisemitism, was not, it was present,

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but it wasn't a huge issue as it was
in other places in America.

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You had something to offer.

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It was a pioneer spirit, it was welcomed.

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For Jewish people who had been
living in legalized, systemic,

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genocidal oppression for hundreds
and hundreds of years,

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the idea that they could help build
somewhere was incredibly profound.

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There was a woman at the O. K. Corral.

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She never wanted you to hear about her.

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More important for her was that you knew

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about her much more
famous husband, Wyatt Earp.

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Josephine Marcus Earp was born in 1860.

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Her parents were Jewish immigrants

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who had come to New York in the '40s or so,

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and had settled in the Lower East Side.

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The Marcus family were sort
of struggling in New York,

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and so they did what many other Jews did,

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which was make a second hop,
the first hop from Prussia to New York,

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and then the second hop
from New York to San Francisco.

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San Francisco was the center of the Gold Rush.

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Things were happening fast and furious.

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From a Jewish perspective,
it had been settled pretty early.

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There were already several synagogues there.

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You know the old joke
about two Jewish families

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and there have to be two Jewish synagogues.

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It was such an important community
that on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur,

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the steamer service,

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which connected San Francisco
to the rest of the world, was suspended.

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No one told more tall tales
about their past than Josephine.

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She was full of whoppers.

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She told everybody that her father
was a wealthy German merchant

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and that she was from this very affluent,

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successful family in San Francisco.

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Uh, wrong. Not true.

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She was from a very poor family.

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Josephine fell in love with the theater.

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Of course, theater was huge
in San Francisco in this era.

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She ran away from home to become an actress.

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She wasn't a particularly good actress,

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but they were so hard up for people
that they were literally taking

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people off the street
to bring them to Tombstone.

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The young Josephine was a showstopper.

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She would come into a room

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and would light up the room
with her personality,

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her feistiness, small tumbling curls.

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Tombstone was one of the biggest
of the mining towns.

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A Jewish city girl
in the territories was very unusual.

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I think it was part of the way in

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which Josephine would stand
out in a place like Tombstone.

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Wyatt was drop-dead handsome.

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Tall and straight and serious-looking,
and that bushy mustache.

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Really, there was a reason that he became
known as the "Lion of Tombstone"

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He was just gorgeous.

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I think chemistry ruled.

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Chemistry brought them together

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and chemistry kept them
together for nearly 50 years.

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I imagine because we don't know for sure

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that they met at Sol Israel's newspaper stand,

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because that's where everybody went.

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Wyatt Earp and his brothers
were prominent at the time.

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He was the federal marshal.

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Josephine was the apex of a love triangle.

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On the one hand, you had her former lover,

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her former fiancé, Johnny Behan,

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who was allied with the cowboys
and the ranchers of Tombstone

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and was the local Cochise County Sheriff.

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And then, on the other hand,

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you had Josephine's current
lover allied with the miners

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and the townspeople.

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So they were both lawmen
but with different jurisdictions

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and very different political leanings.

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The day of the O. K. Corral,

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many of the participants
have been out drinking

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and carousing the night before.

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There were a number of robberies
leading up to that moment.

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You had Johnny Behan
and his supporters on one side,

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although Johnny himself
was not in the shootout.

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And then you had Wyatt and his brothers
and Doc Holliday on the other side.

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Gunshots started, no one knew
exactly who fired the first one.

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And the only person who was
standing, the only person

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who had not been hit by bullets
at the end of this was Wyatt Earp.

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The aftermath of the gunfight at the O. K.

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Corral went on for months,

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as Wyatt and Johnny circled each
other seeking revenge for the people

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who had been hurt or killed.

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Josephine visits with her parents,

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who must have been
so confused about this daughter of theirs.

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Wyatt shows up in San Francisco,

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introduces himself to Mr. and Mrs. Marcus,

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and takes Josephine off to start
their life together.

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They had a lifetime of adventure
that just never ended.

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They followed the frontier
wherever the frontier took them.

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It took them eventually
to the frontier of Alaska,

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which in 1899, was the center
of excitement in the whole world.

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You've probably heard
the expression "The Frozen Chosen,"

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these were the Jews of Alaska
who were absolutely front and center.

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Then towards the end
of their life, Hollywood beckoned,

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because Hollywood was the new frontier.

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Frontiers can be defined
in lots of different ways.

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Underneath it all was a sense of adventure,

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of change, of entrepreneurial energy,

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which, after all, are very Jewish traits.

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Josephine never hid that she was Jewish.

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I think the best way to describe
it is she was indifferent.

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Wyatt had more Jewish friends than Josephine.

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Henry Fonda played the role of Wyatt
Earp in My Darling Clementine.

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And when he was prepping for the role,

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he met someone who actually had been
at the Seder for the Marcus family

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and reported to him
how Wyatt put his guns down

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and put a kippah on his head.

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Wyatt was famous for the rest of his life.

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Josephine was
very, very good at public relations

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and understood celebrity
in a very contemporary way.

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When Wyatt died, it was
a front-page news story.

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No one knew where Wyatt was
buried for almost 30 years,

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but at the end of the day, she buried
Wyatt in a Jewish cemetery.

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And there they are in the Hills
of Eternity in Colma, California.

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And why did she do that?

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I think at the end of his life,

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and then towards the end of hers,
Josephine, as all of us do,

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began taking stock and being Jewish
was part of her taking stock.

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Some came by land and some by sea
to seek their fortunes and fame,

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and one merchantman from Bavaria
was Levi Strauss by name,

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was Levi Strauss by name.

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When people think of Levi Strauss,

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of course, they always think about the jeans.

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Levi Strauss was born Löb Strauss

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in Buttenheim which is in the Franconian
region of Bavaria in Germany.

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There had been this really draconian
law passed called the Judenedikt.

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It specified that Jewish men could

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not engage in their traditional occupations,

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which was basically cattle
trading and peddling.

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They were expected to become
farmers or small merchants,

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soap makers, you know, whatever.

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So it was very difficult for young
Jewish men to make a living

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and make a life and a lot
of them began to emigrate.

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Levi's father died in 1846 and his mother
had no choice, but to emigrate.

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There was not only no job
for Levi as a young man,

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there was another thing that happened

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under this Judenedikt called the matrikel.

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Young Levi, who was still named Löb
at this point, and his two sisters

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and his mother moved to the Lower
East Side of New York.

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His brothers were already there.

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It's 1848 by now.

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They might have had a storefront,

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but most likely, they were urban peddlers.

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And they had retail customers in New York
City, maybe down at the docks.

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In late 1849, 1850, news
of the California Gold Rush was

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beginning to filter back to New York City,

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and a lot of Jewish men went to California

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because they knew there
would be amazing opportunities,

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mercantile opportunities for these young men.

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These men did not go to sit
in a freezing river and pan gold.

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They went to either open wholesale
businesses in San Francisco

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or retail businesses
in the California Gold Country.

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I like to imagine there was this dinner

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table conversation among the Strausses,
and the brothers are saying,

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"We need to take advantage
of the opportunities in California.

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You're the youngest. You're not married.

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You're going to California,"

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But they had to wait for one
important thing to happen,

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and that was for Levi
to become an American citizen,

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which he became on January 31st, 1853.

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And on February 5th, 1853,

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he got on a boat from New York
which went down to the Isthmus of Panama.

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He crossed the Isthmus of Panama,

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went up the California coast on a steamer

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and arrived in San Francisco
on March 14th, 1853.

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The Gold Rush not only
changed California forever,

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it changed the whole country forever.

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For one thing, it was disastrous
to the Indigenous people

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that were here in California, of course.
Whole cultures were disrupted,

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many whole cultures were destroyed.

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There was, of course,

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environmental devastation
because of the way the gold was mined.

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Also it brought so many different people

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from so many different cultures
into California and really began what,

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I think one of California's
greatest strengths is its diversity.

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Among those were Jews,

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who came to San Francisco
and found a lot less antisemitism

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than they had experienced in New York City.

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Levi Strauss came to San Francisco

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to open up a wholesale dry goods business.

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His brothers would put shiploads
of dry goods into clipper ships.

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Dry goods were blankets, clothing,

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handkerchiefs, boots, you know, soft goods.

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00:14:51,025 --> 00:14:54,835
By the 1860s, he had
customers all over California,

240
00:14:55,075 --> 00:14:58,555
the Pacific Northwest, Hawaii, and Mexico.

241
00:15:00,025 --> 00:15:05,365
Jacob Davis was born Jacob Youphes
in Riga, which is now Latvia.

242
00:15:05,515 --> 00:15:07,651
He came to the United States
when he was a teenager,

243
00:15:07,735 --> 00:15:10,501
worked on the East Coast
for a while, trained as a tailor.

244
00:15:10,585 --> 00:15:16,495
By 1868, he was living in the literally
brand new town of Reno, Nevada.

245
00:15:17,245 --> 00:15:22,531
In late 1870, early 1871, a woman
came into a shop and said,

246
00:15:22,615 --> 00:15:25,993
"Can you make a pair of pants
for my husband that don't fall apart?"

247
00:15:26,077 --> 00:15:31,105
Pants, pants, strong sturdy pants,
that's what we need to survive.

248
00:15:32,905 --> 00:15:36,181
Jacob was making a pair of pants
out of a fabric called white duck,

249
00:15:36,265 --> 00:15:37,831
duck is like canvas.

250
00:15:37,915 --> 00:15:40,290
He also made horse blankets and tents,

251
00:15:40,375 --> 00:15:44,455
and he used little metal rivets
to strengthen the points of strains.

252
00:15:44,665 --> 00:15:48,121
And I like to imagine he looked
over at the table and he thought,

253
00:15:48,205 --> 00:15:49,561
"Huh, there's some rivets over there.

254
00:15:49,645 --> 00:15:51,882
I wonder if I put them in these pants

255
00:15:51,966 --> 00:15:54,151
if that will make them stronger?" So he did.

256
00:15:54,235 --> 00:15:58,975
You can see on the front is pretty
much the same as day one in 1873.

257
00:15:59,515 --> 00:16:04,315
There were rivets on the corners
of the front pockets.

258
00:16:05,245 --> 00:16:08,485
Also from the beginning was
this little watch pocket.

259
00:16:08,845 --> 00:16:11,965
A 19th Century pocket watch
fits perfectly in there.

260
00:16:12,535 --> 00:16:14,131
The woman comes to pick up her pants.

261
00:16:14,215 --> 00:16:16,653
They were $3 which was a premium price,

262
00:16:17,035 --> 00:16:19,535
takes them away and comes back and says,

263
00:16:19,764 --> 00:16:22,855
"My husband loves
the pants," and word got out.

264
00:16:23,845 --> 00:16:27,631
Jacob knew about Levi Strauss's
reputation for integrity,

265
00:16:27,715 --> 00:16:28,441
so what does he do?

266
00:16:28,525 --> 00:16:32,905
He writes him a letter and says,
"I've created this new kind of pants.

267
00:16:33,805 --> 00:16:35,863
And I want to take a patent out on this

268
00:16:35,947 --> 00:16:37,561
but I really need a business partner.

269
00:16:37,645 --> 00:16:38,401
What do you think?"

270
00:16:38,485 --> 00:16:41,185
He includes a few examples of these pants.

271
00:16:41,455 --> 00:16:43,435
On May 20th, 1873,

272
00:16:43,795 --> 00:16:48,331
patent number 139121 was issued
to Jacob Davis as an individual

273
00:16:48,415 --> 00:16:49,741
and Levi Strauss and Co,

274
00:16:49,825 --> 00:16:53,935
the corporation for an improvement
in fastening pocket openings,

275
00:16:54,355 --> 00:16:57,475
which was basically
the invention of the blue jean.

276
00:16:58,825 --> 00:17:00,841
Levi Strauss had a number of strengths.

277
00:17:00,925 --> 00:17:03,601
One of them was the way he dealt with people.

278
00:17:03,685 --> 00:17:06,661
He also was willing to work
really, really hard.

279
00:17:06,745 --> 00:17:07,831
He never married.

280
00:17:07,915 --> 00:17:10,585
He devoted everything to his business.

281
00:17:11,005 --> 00:17:12,841
The most American of garments,

282
00:17:12,925 --> 00:17:15,811
one of the greatest American
inventions of all came

283
00:17:15,895 --> 00:17:19,615
about because of the collaboration
between two immigrants.

284
00:17:19,790 --> 00:17:23,035
They were good and bad, and hardy, and brave,

285
00:17:23,365 --> 00:17:26,671
those rough and toughing old miners,

286
00:17:26,755 --> 00:17:29,068
those rough and toughing old miners.

287
00:17:34,092 --> 00:17:36,625
When I came up here in the early 1980s,

288
00:17:36,895 --> 00:17:39,841
a fellow I ran into who was
Jewish took me down and showed me

289
00:17:39,925 --> 00:17:41,551
where the Jewish cemetery was.

290
00:17:41,635 --> 00:17:45,625
And at that time, had been
completely captured by the forest.

291
00:17:46,795 --> 00:17:49,257
But there were about 60 tombstones still there

292
00:17:49,341 --> 00:17:51,385
that were clearly recognizable.

293
00:17:52,375 --> 00:17:54,625
None of them are especially famous,

294
00:17:54,955 --> 00:17:58,285
but each one of them contributed
to the community here.

295
00:17:58,465 --> 00:18:00,241
Dr. Kahn here, for example,

296
00:18:00,325 --> 00:18:03,361
was one of the few professionals
in that generation.

297
00:18:03,445 --> 00:18:07,345
Most of the Jews who came here
then were fairly recent immigrants

298
00:18:07,705 --> 00:18:10,261
and not members of the professional classes.

299
00:18:10,345 --> 00:18:12,783
Most of the Jews up here were merchants

300
00:18:13,075 --> 00:18:17,515
and I had a nagging notion that somebody
ought to do something about this.

301
00:18:18,955 --> 00:18:21,325
Leadville in its glory days,

302
00:18:21,445 --> 00:18:26,305
in the late 1870s
up till about 1893 was the largest

303
00:18:26,395 --> 00:18:30,775
and most prosperous, wealthiest
mining community in Colorado.

304
00:18:31,945 --> 00:18:34,711
Well in the very first years
of the Silver Rush,

305
00:18:34,795 --> 00:18:37,411
there was enormous influx
of people into this area.

306
00:18:37,495 --> 00:18:40,735
The numbers might have ranged
as high as 30,000 or so.

307
00:18:41,155 --> 00:18:42,481
It was common, for example,

308
00:18:42,565 --> 00:18:49,030
for the prospectors to sleep on the floors
of the bars for 25 or 50 cents a night.

309
00:18:49,795 --> 00:18:52,975
Leadville was such
an important city in its era.

310
00:18:53,875 --> 00:18:59,455
That in 1882, Oscar Wilde passed
through here and proceeded to a bar.

311
00:18:59,635 --> 00:19:04,315
And he noticed the sign on the wall
above the piano asking the patrons to,

312
00:19:04,495 --> 00:19:08,575
"Please, not shoot the piano
player. He's doing his best. "

313
00:19:11,065 --> 00:19:15,025
Jews lived all over town,
although they did tend to concentrate

314
00:19:15,325 --> 00:19:19,405
around the main avenue, Harrison
Avenue, where their businesses were.

315
00:19:19,765 --> 00:19:22,351
One of the most interesting
things that we've discovered

316
00:19:22,435 --> 00:19:24,805
was a series of Purim Balls up here.

317
00:19:25,105 --> 00:19:27,205
They went on for 18 or 19 years,

318
00:19:27,625 --> 00:19:31,921
and they're one of the highlights
of the social season for the whole town.

319
00:19:32,005 --> 00:19:35,605
In many ways, this was an extremely
good place to be Jewish.

320
00:19:36,295 --> 00:19:38,233
Maurice Mankowitz was a tailor.

321
00:19:39,415 --> 00:19:41,845
The family's plot here.

322
00:19:42,415 --> 00:19:44,245
We have the Shayers.

323
00:19:44,665 --> 00:19:47,635
Shayers were whiskey wholesalers.

324
00:19:48,085 --> 00:19:50,995
These are the Janowitzes,
also whiskey merchants.

325
00:19:51,593 --> 00:19:53,389
[music]

326
00:19:53,473 --> 00:19:56,281
Jews dominated the wholesale
liquor business up here.

327
00:19:56,365 --> 00:19:59,160
They sold groceries. One fellow ran

328
00:19:59,244 --> 00:20:02,114
a fairly large successful laundry for awhile.

329
00:20:02,454 --> 00:20:05,575
There were, of course, pawnbrokers, jewelers.

330
00:20:05,755 --> 00:20:08,665
Quite a few Jews had bars.

331
00:20:08,965 --> 00:20:11,611
David May and the May Corporation

332
00:20:11,695 --> 00:20:14,821
which over time became one of the largest

333
00:20:14,905 --> 00:20:16,981
department store chains in America.

334
00:20:17,065 --> 00:20:20,245
He opened up a store on the avenue here.

335
00:20:22,225 --> 00:20:26,245
The most famous name associated
with Leadville would be Guggenheim.

336
00:20:26,335 --> 00:20:29,941
The Guggenheims, of course,
are famous now for their museums,

337
00:20:30,025 --> 00:20:32,775
but their beginnings were much less exalted.

338
00:20:33,175 --> 00:20:37,525
Meyer Guggenheim had been
born in Switzerland in 1827,

339
00:20:38,275 --> 00:20:40,795
came to America in the late 1840s.

340
00:20:41,155 --> 00:20:44,055
And he came with, at least,
two of his brothers.

341
00:20:44,545 --> 00:20:46,858
And they set up shop in Philadelphia.

342
00:20:47,815 --> 00:20:53,041
In 1880, he was offered the chance
to buy a quarter interest in a pair

343
00:20:53,125 --> 00:20:56,245
of mines a little bit
to the Southeast of Leadville.

344
00:20:57,145 --> 00:21:00,045
The mine itself proved
to be extremely valuable.

345
00:21:00,625 --> 00:21:03,625
Producing originally gold,
but then mostly silver.

346
00:21:03,955 --> 00:21:07,171
Over time, they were taking
out some tens of thousands

347
00:21:07,255 --> 00:21:09,331
of dollars a month from this mine.

348
00:21:09,415 --> 00:21:11,395
He begins to expand.

349
00:21:12,025 --> 00:21:16,285
Now, part of this expansion
includes his seven sons.

350
00:21:17,845 --> 00:21:23,071
By 1900, they have established
themselves as the American Smelting

351
00:21:23,155 --> 00:21:25,105
and Refining Company, ASARCO.

352
00:21:25,855 --> 00:21:27,091
They become enormously

353
00:21:27,175 --> 00:21:30,050
important in the industrialization of America,

354
00:21:30,235 --> 00:21:32,641
and Leadville itself is a very good example

355
00:21:32,725 --> 00:21:35,600
of the industrialization of the American West.

356
00:21:35,965 --> 00:21:39,955
You have literally millions
of people moving to the west,

357
00:21:40,405 --> 00:21:43,885
and most of them are looking
for this elusive opportunity.

358
00:21:45,175 --> 00:21:47,011
And most of them do not strike it rich.

359
00:21:47,095 --> 00:21:49,201
Most of the people who came out here led,

360
00:21:49,285 --> 00:21:51,271
what we would see is very normal lives.

361
00:21:51,355 --> 00:21:55,045
They worked, they had families,
they prospered moderately.

362
00:21:55,345 --> 00:21:57,219
Meyer Guggenheim was a little bit lucky

363
00:21:57,303 --> 00:22:00,363
that his first investment
up here was so successful.

364
00:22:04,495 --> 00:22:08,485
We're in a fully restored
1884 Reform synagogue.

365
00:22:09,205 --> 00:22:12,121
There are no Jews here
now that are related to people

366
00:22:12,205 --> 00:22:15,085
who were here back in the pioneer days.

367
00:22:16,915 --> 00:22:20,245
My family didn't get
this far until my generation,

368
00:22:20,575 --> 00:22:26,071
but these people were very similar
to the people that were my ancestors.

369
00:22:26,155 --> 00:22:30,745
And I felt I owed them some obligation
to not let this be lost.

370
00:22:37,975 --> 00:22:40,435
"Now I hear a mighty voice proclaim

371
00:22:40,555 --> 00:22:42,811
that each in the world is for the other.

372
00:22:42,895 --> 00:22:45,583
That for thee is not for one, but for all. "

373
00:22:46,765 --> 00:22:49,921
Ray Frank was the first woman to preach

374
00:22:50,005 --> 00:22:52,651
from a synagogue pulpit in the United States

375
00:22:52,735 --> 00:22:54,423
and probably in the world.

376
00:22:54,655 --> 00:22:57,955
Moreover, she just had a voice
that people listened to.

377
00:22:58,825 --> 00:23:00,511
She was born in San Francisco.

378
00:23:00,595 --> 00:23:03,541
Her parents were Polish
immigrants who were Orthodox.

379
00:23:03,625 --> 00:23:08,095
She was educated quite well
in Oakland, California.

380
00:23:08,305 --> 00:23:09,601
And she became a teacher.

381
00:23:09,685 --> 00:23:10,685
She wrote.

382
00:23:11,215 --> 00:23:14,875
She was traveling and writing
to different towns in the West.

383
00:23:16,585 --> 00:23:19,705
We are right now in the sanctuary
of Temple Sinai.

384
00:23:20,305 --> 00:23:23,118
It's the oldest Jewish community in Oakland.

385
00:23:23,605 --> 00:23:25,285
I'm the Senior Rabbi.

386
00:23:25,885 --> 00:23:28,945
This synagogue was founded in 1875,

387
00:23:29,095 --> 00:23:32,941
and at the time was called the First
Hebrew Congregation of Oakland.

388
00:23:33,025 --> 00:23:37,921
Ray Frank, one of the first teaching
jobs that she had as a Judaic

389
00:23:38,005 --> 00:23:40,915
studies teacher was here
at our Sabbath School.

390
00:23:41,785 --> 00:23:44,941
She was traveling in 1890
and ends up in Spokane,

391
00:23:45,025 --> 00:23:48,031
Washington right before the High Holy Days.

392
00:23:48,115 --> 00:23:50,641
It's right before Rosh
Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

393
00:23:50,725 --> 00:23:52,921
And she asks the community,
"Where's the synagogue?

394
00:23:53,005 --> 00:23:54,421
Where are services going to be?"

395
00:23:54,505 --> 00:23:57,322
A man said, "Look,
if you can get everyone together

396
00:23:57,406 --> 00:24:00,751
and if you will preach, we'll make
sure that you a congregation. "

397
00:24:00,835 --> 00:24:01,981
And she said, "Okay. "

398
00:24:02,065 --> 00:24:06,481
And she did and she got up, and she gave
a talk that was essentially about

399
00:24:06,565 --> 00:24:09,205
the importance of Jews coming together.

400
00:24:11,935 --> 00:24:14,251
"But, of course, Jewish matters
have a special attraction

401
00:24:14,335 --> 00:24:16,773
for me for am I not of the Jewish race?

402
00:24:16,945 --> 00:24:20,221
Am I not bound by all
the deepest ties of blood, honor,

403
00:24:20,305 --> 00:24:24,625
and affection to be loyal to them
and to do my little all to help them?"

404
00:24:25,465 --> 00:24:27,631
People heard about this, the girl preacher,

405
00:24:27,715 --> 00:24:31,171
and she became known as the "Golden
Girl Rabbi of the West"

406
00:24:31,255 --> 00:24:33,781
Never became a rabbi, was never ordained,

407
00:24:33,865 --> 00:24:37,825
but spoke about religion
and spoke about morals.

408
00:24:38,185 --> 00:24:39,865
She became quite popular.

409
00:24:41,335 --> 00:24:45,775
I am Chinese and Jewish,
the first Chinese American rabbi.

410
00:24:45,925 --> 00:24:48,061
Having two firsts coming
out of the same synagogue,

411
00:24:48,145 --> 00:24:49,051
I think that's Oakland.

412
00:24:49,135 --> 00:24:50,011
I think that's the East Bay.

413
00:24:50,095 --> 00:24:52,158
I think that that's California.

414
00:24:52,915 --> 00:24:55,945
My Chinese family came here in the 1880s.

415
00:24:56,215 --> 00:25:00,295
My great, great grandfather
first came in 1888.

416
00:25:01,045 --> 00:25:05,281
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was meant

417
00:25:05,365 --> 00:25:10,135
to put a moratorium on immigration
from China, specifically for laborers.

418
00:25:10,345 --> 00:25:13,771
My great grandfather took him
five years from the first time

419
00:25:13,855 --> 00:25:17,395
that he applied for an exemption
until he was able to come.

420
00:25:19,225 --> 00:25:20,551
The opportunities were not equal.

421
00:25:20,635 --> 00:25:23,161
Chinese people
were from certain kinds of jobs,

422
00:25:23,245 --> 00:25:24,841
from living in certain places.

423
00:25:24,925 --> 00:25:27,541
So my father's side
of the family were from Vienna,

424
00:25:27,625 --> 00:25:30,655
Austria, and they came
to this country in 1938.

425
00:25:31,345 --> 00:25:33,025
So they fled Nazi Europe.

426
00:25:34,015 --> 00:25:35,311
In some ways the challenges are similar.

427
00:25:35,395 --> 00:25:37,381
I think just being in a new country,

428
00:25:37,465 --> 00:25:40,365
learning a new language,
learning a new system.

429
00:25:41,845 --> 00:25:44,371
Ray Frank had this opportunity
in the Wild West

430
00:25:44,455 --> 00:25:46,411
where she might not have had in other ways

431
00:25:46,495 --> 00:25:49,981
because things were not as established
because roots were not laid

432
00:25:50,065 --> 00:25:52,753
down because things were still starting up.

433
00:25:53,395 --> 00:25:56,575
And out of necessity, she was
the one who could do it.

434
00:25:57,355 --> 00:26:00,091
I imagine that Ray Frank's biggest challenges

435
00:26:00,175 --> 00:26:03,961
were in the interpersonal
interactions that she had,

436
00:26:04,045 --> 00:26:08,815
where people would probably dismiss
her or would be condescending to her.

437
00:26:09,355 --> 00:26:11,041
When is it okay to be bold?

438
00:26:11,125 --> 00:26:12,938
When is it okay to be quiet?

439
00:26:13,045 --> 00:26:15,170
That's about testing boundaries.

440
00:26:15,505 --> 00:26:20,161
Ray Frank's work changed how people
understand the possibilities,

441
00:26:20,245 --> 00:26:22,870
how people understand who can teach Torah.

442
00:26:23,515 --> 00:26:28,951
It took another 80 some odd years
for the first woman to be ordained

443
00:26:29,035 --> 00:26:32,131
as a rabbi in the United States
in the Reform Movement.

444
00:26:32,215 --> 00:26:33,241
But there has to be a first.

445
00:26:33,325 --> 00:26:36,805
Had she not started to change
the story and the narrative,

446
00:26:37,105 --> 00:26:39,168
it wouldn't be where it is now.

447
00:26:40,105 --> 00:26:42,811
Women have always been
leaders in Jewish history,

448
00:26:42,895 --> 00:26:44,221
and that starts with Eve.

449
00:26:44,305 --> 00:26:48,241
From the very beginning, we see
the tension between women's leadership

450
00:26:48,325 --> 00:26:52,375
and women's drive to move forward
and to choose their own destiny.

451
00:26:53,275 --> 00:26:55,291
Ray Frank was often called
the Deborah of the West,

452
00:26:55,375 --> 00:26:57,721
and I think it is a fantastic comparison.

453
00:26:57,805 --> 00:26:59,131
Deborah was a judge.

454
00:26:59,215 --> 00:27:01,171
We find her story in the Book of Judges

455
00:27:01,255 --> 00:27:04,111
and people sought her wisdom that they came

456
00:27:04,195 --> 00:27:06,151
from all around to speak with her.

457
00:27:06,235 --> 00:27:10,075
I think that Ray Frank,
it's a very similar kind of a story.

458
00:27:11,215 --> 00:27:12,691
"Men must learn from nature

459
00:27:12,775 --> 00:27:15,655
that she is the greatest of God's preachers.

460
00:27:15,865 --> 00:27:18,931
That sky, ocean, nations, recs, babes,

461
00:27:19,015 --> 00:27:22,795
worms preached ages ago
and continue to preach.

462
00:27:23,335 --> 00:27:27,535
I, knowing this, feel I must
wherever and whenever I can,

463
00:27:27,745 --> 00:27:29,245
preach my message. "

464
00:27:34,810 --> 00:27:37,585
Where we are is at the White Rock Overlook.

465
00:27:37,855 --> 00:27:40,195
It looks down to the Rio Grande.

466
00:27:40,645 --> 00:27:46,645
When I first made daguerreotype
and was looking for landscape scenery,

467
00:27:46,795 --> 00:27:49,483
it's very close to the first place I came.

468
00:27:50,095 --> 00:27:54,115
Daguerreotype was the first practical
form of photography.

469
00:27:54,415 --> 00:27:59,515
It was introduced to the public
in 1839 by a Frenchman named

470
00:28:00,025 --> 00:28:02,185
Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre.

471
00:28:02,515 --> 00:28:08,635
As soon as it was made public,
it became a craze, a fanatic activity.

472
00:28:09,055 --> 00:28:13,915
Most of the daguerreotypes that were made
were portraits done in studios.

473
00:28:14,305 --> 00:28:16,430
Outdoors was much more difficult.

474
00:28:18,475 --> 00:28:23,035
Solomon Nunes Carvalho,
so that's a Portuguese name.

475
00:28:23,275 --> 00:28:25,585
He began as a painter.

476
00:28:25,735 --> 00:28:27,511
Then he took up the daguerreotypy.

477
00:28:27,595 --> 00:28:30,025
He was a Sephardic Jew.

478
00:28:30,415 --> 00:28:33,265
He grew up in Charleston, South Carolina,

479
00:28:33,925 --> 00:28:36,488
where there was a large Jewish community.

480
00:28:38,845 --> 00:28:43,291
Colonel John Charles Fremont
was the most romantically,

481
00:28:43,375 --> 00:28:48,745
heroic explorer of that time,
of the mid-19th Century.

482
00:28:49,345 --> 00:28:51,658
Everyone would've known who he was.

483
00:28:52,435 --> 00:28:54,955
He was part of Manifest Destiny.

484
00:28:55,225 --> 00:28:58,111
This way of thinking that the continent

485
00:28:58,195 --> 00:29:00,775
really belonged to the white invaders.

486
00:29:01,135 --> 00:29:03,805
Fremont helped enable that sort of thing.

487
00:29:05,605 --> 00:29:09,985
In 1853, Fremont began
looking for a daguerreotypist.

488
00:29:10,525 --> 00:29:13,261
The plan was to go through the Rocky Mountains

489
00:29:13,345 --> 00:29:17,095
in the winter before heavy snowfall,

490
00:29:17,425 --> 00:29:22,321
and then to return
after the winter was basically over

491
00:29:22,405 --> 00:29:26,311
and document the snowpack to see if the snow

492
00:29:26,395 --> 00:29:29,270
was going to be an impediment to a railroad.

493
00:29:29,455 --> 00:29:32,330
The idea was to create a photographic document

494
00:29:32,455 --> 00:29:35,305
so that the naysayers would be silenced.

495
00:29:35,605 --> 00:29:39,271
Carvalho immediately took up the offer to come

496
00:29:39,355 --> 00:29:42,535
on the Fifth Expedition as daguerreotypist.

497
00:29:43,375 --> 00:29:46,291
It was something completely
outside his experience.

498
00:29:46,375 --> 00:29:50,905
Something, obviously,
very dangerous entering the unknown

499
00:29:51,415 --> 00:29:54,115
and an adventure of the first magnitude.

500
00:29:55,975 --> 00:29:58,885
They launched in the fall of 1853.

501
00:29:59,005 --> 00:30:02,215
He says he made daguerreotypes
almost every day

502
00:30:02,665 --> 00:30:05,478
until he was forced to abandon his equipment.

503
00:30:06,505 --> 00:30:09,445
It's hard to try
to reconstruct how he did that.

504
00:30:09,955 --> 00:30:13,795
With all these equipment
being borne on three mules,

505
00:30:14,125 --> 00:30:17,995
weighing 150 pounds and having to unpack it,

506
00:30:18,355 --> 00:30:20,905
make the exposures, pack it up again,

507
00:30:21,265 --> 00:30:25,675
and the result being well
behind the expedition on the trail.

508
00:30:27,565 --> 00:30:31,525
We don't have any but one
of his original daguerreotype.

509
00:30:31,915 --> 00:30:34,441
One of the pictures shows three

510
00:30:34,525 --> 00:30:41,305
or four tipis and probably two
or three standing men in it,

511
00:30:41,485 --> 00:30:43,405
but it's severely damaged.

512
00:30:44,215 --> 00:30:47,035
Carvalho made portraits of the Cheyenne.

513
00:30:47,875 --> 00:30:52,165
The ones that are the best images
are steel engravings.

514
00:30:52,585 --> 00:30:55,225
They were created from his daguerreotype.

515
00:30:56,935 --> 00:30:58,921
Which made me think it would be a good idea

516
00:30:59,005 --> 00:31:03,271
to try to reconstruct
the expedition, so I did that.

517
00:31:03,355 --> 00:31:07,045
I followed, as far as I could
determine, Fremont's route.

518
00:31:07,225 --> 00:31:11,575
I made daguerreotypes first when I could find

519
00:31:11,935 --> 00:31:15,055
where the source of the engravings were,

520
00:31:15,295 --> 00:31:17,401
which I found all of them in the end.

521
00:31:17,485 --> 00:31:19,051
Alright, here's one of them.

522
00:31:19,135 --> 00:31:23,215
This is a daguerreotype
photograph that I made.

523
00:31:23,365 --> 00:31:27,625
The scene is the Upper
Little Cimarron Drainage.

524
00:31:28,045 --> 00:31:29,620
It's looking south.

525
00:31:31,975 --> 00:31:37,705
The weather was remarkably mild
until they crossed the Continental Divide

526
00:31:37,795 --> 00:31:41,815
and they became burdened with deepening snows

527
00:31:42,175 --> 00:31:45,075
for the rest of the trip
until they got to Utah.

528
00:31:45,865 --> 00:31:51,385
They kept butchering their mules
and their horses as the animals failed.

529
00:31:52,135 --> 00:31:54,135
And, of course, it's not kosher.

530
00:31:54,355 --> 00:31:56,035
Horses and mules are not.

531
00:31:56,305 --> 00:32:00,655
And Carvalho was
anxious about having to eat them,

532
00:32:01,075 --> 00:32:05,425
but justified it as an extreme
emergency to support life.

533
00:32:06,415 --> 00:32:08,521
They were near-death before they reached

534
00:32:08,605 --> 00:32:10,945
a town of Parowan in the Great Basin.

535
00:32:11,125 --> 00:32:14,025
It was a Mormon settlement,
just four years old.

536
00:32:14,275 --> 00:32:17,731
He becomes an acquaintance of Brigham Young,

537
00:32:17,815 --> 00:32:21,565
who is very interested in having
a Jew visit the community.

538
00:32:22,015 --> 00:32:24,915
He may have been the first Jew
to show up there.

539
00:32:26,335 --> 00:32:29,515
I think it satisfied
his yearning for adventure.

540
00:32:29,875 --> 00:32:31,555
He never went west again.

541
00:32:31,735 --> 00:32:34,945
He never indulged in adventures again.

542
00:32:36,175 --> 00:32:41,365
When he described his astonishment
of the magnificent views,

543
00:32:41,515 --> 00:32:43,861
one of his favorite words was "sublime"

544
00:32:43,945 --> 00:32:46,629
which is really in the 19th Century

545
00:32:46,713 --> 00:32:49,889
meant a combination of beauty and terror.

546
00:32:50,655 --> 00:32:54,920
[singing]

547
00:32:55,004 --> 00:32:58,465
It's 1882 when the first railroad
came through.

548
00:32:59,125 --> 00:33:01,171
And the old men used to tell stories

549
00:33:01,255 --> 00:33:05,281
about how the old people
would lay down on the ground

550
00:33:05,365 --> 00:33:07,928
and listen with their ears to the ground.

551
00:33:08,425 --> 00:33:12,805
And the Mother Earth was telling them,
"Hey, something's coming your way. "

552
00:33:13,165 --> 00:33:16,795
"It's thundering
and it's not going to be rain. "

553
00:33:18,385 --> 00:33:22,435
Acoma is situated west
of Albuquerque about 70 miles.

554
00:33:23,635 --> 00:33:25,831
The railroad made a huge difference.

555
00:33:25,915 --> 00:33:28,375
It expanded their economy to

556
00:33:28,645 --> 00:33:32,815
the Acoma woman, you know,
they're well known for their pottery.

557
00:33:33,775 --> 00:33:37,555
And they started marketing
their pottery at the railroad tracks.

558
00:33:38,486 --> 00:33:42,445
This is my grandma Lucy Lewis's pot.

559
00:33:42,685 --> 00:33:44,941
My grandma was a mathematical genius.

560
00:33:45,025 --> 00:33:48,925
She could take a pot and just start painting

561
00:33:49,105 --> 00:33:51,605
so that everything lined up symmetrical.

562
00:33:52,615 --> 00:33:58,111
Also, the men got jobs with the railroad,
which took them off Acoma lands.

563
00:33:58,195 --> 00:34:00,715
A lot of people wound up in Arizona,

564
00:34:00,805 --> 00:34:04,735
California, even down to Texas, Oklahoma.

565
00:34:05,455 --> 00:34:07,471
It has always been Haak'u

566
00:34:07,555 --> 00:34:11,275
It referred to Acoma
as Haak'ume or Haak'umetra.

567
00:34:11,605 --> 00:34:16,375
The old Acoma folks, our ancestors,
referred to that as "The People"

568
00:34:17,095 --> 00:34:21,835
Acoma is considered to be the oldest
inhabited city in the country.

569
00:34:22,165 --> 00:34:27,331
Historians have mentioned
that there were approximately six

570
00:34:27,415 --> 00:34:30,865
to seven thousand people
that lived on the Mesa.

571
00:34:31,315 --> 00:34:35,185
They lived in structures
that were three to four stories high.

572
00:34:35,365 --> 00:34:39,145
Kind of like New York City at a smaller scale.

573
00:34:39,985 --> 00:34:43,825
The Spanish killed a lot
of Acoma people on the Mesa.

574
00:34:44,725 --> 00:34:46,591
They took it by force.

575
00:34:46,675 --> 00:34:50,875
Some seven hundred people were killed
both men, women, and children.

576
00:34:51,445 --> 00:34:55,855
A lot of them held captive
and taken to Mexico and Spain.

577
00:34:56,605 --> 00:34:59,641
With the Europeans came
different kinds of illnesses

578
00:34:59,725 --> 00:35:06,151
and a lot of our people were devastated
by the smallpox, other infections.

579
00:35:06,235 --> 00:35:10,085
By the mid-1850s, I believe, their population

580
00:35:10,169 --> 00:35:16,014
was somewhere around 350, 360
at the most, maybe, at that time.

581
00:35:16,342 --> 00:35:23,342
[music]

582
00:35:37,195 --> 00:35:41,341
Solomon Bibo came
to the United States mainly because

583
00:35:41,425 --> 00:35:44,185
he had been told stories in Prussia

584
00:35:44,335 --> 00:35:47,245
and joined his brothers
out here in New Mexico,

585
00:35:47,515 --> 00:35:50,635
who were already established
in mercantile business.

586
00:35:51,355 --> 00:35:53,281
He had started trading with the Acoma.

587
00:35:53,365 --> 00:35:57,841
Not only the Acoma,
but also other tribes close by.

588
00:35:57,925 --> 00:36:01,375
The Laguna people, as well as the US Calvary.

589
00:36:02,755 --> 00:36:05,155
He was a good friend of the Acoma.

590
00:36:05,695 --> 00:36:07,351
And he learned the language even.

591
00:36:07,435 --> 00:36:10,335
He was the least proficient
in English, [laughs]

592
00:36:10,525 --> 00:36:13,555
but he could speak Acoma and Spanish well.

593
00:36:13,675 --> 00:36:15,571
The Acoma started calling Don.

594
00:36:15,655 --> 00:36:16,705
Don Solomono.

595
00:36:24,235 --> 00:36:27,211
There isn't much written about Juana Valle.

596
00:36:27,295 --> 00:36:32,155
I found about her trying to find
out about my dad's relatives.

597
00:36:32,275 --> 00:36:38,485
My dad's mom was cousins
of Juana's mom and grandmother.

598
00:36:39,085 --> 00:36:43,435
Juana's grandfather was
the Governor for several years.

599
00:36:43,585 --> 00:36:46,485
He became friends with Solomon through trading

600
00:36:46,885 --> 00:36:49,198
and Solomon was introduced to Juana.

601
00:36:49,735 --> 00:36:53,155
If he had a trading post here,

602
00:36:53,365 --> 00:36:58,381
then they probably would have struck
up a conversation and just talked.

603
00:36:59,385 --> 00:37:01,635
He asked permission to marry Juana.

604
00:37:02,845 --> 00:37:06,625
Don Solomono sent Juana
back East to learn English,

605
00:37:06,805 --> 00:37:09,481
and to learn a little bit
about the Jewish faith.

606
00:37:09,565 --> 00:37:11,253
I believe it was New York.

607
00:37:12,355 --> 00:37:15,295
And so few months passed and she came back.

608
00:37:15,475 --> 00:37:16,975
It was very unique.

609
00:37:17,125 --> 00:37:20,095
At that point, I don't think
there was any Acomas

610
00:37:20,695 --> 00:37:23,365
and other ethnic groups intermarrying.

611
00:37:24,355 --> 00:37:28,345
Don Solomono passed away in 1934.

612
00:37:28,495 --> 00:37:32,575
Their marriage lasted
that long and Juana passed away in 1941.

613
00:37:33,325 --> 00:37:36,075
So they had a good number of years together.

614
00:37:36,235 --> 00:37:38,005
Juana learned the business.

615
00:37:38,245 --> 00:37:40,433
Apparently she was the money gal.

616
00:37:40,555 --> 00:37:42,511
She was a very good businesswoman.

617
00:37:42,595 --> 00:37:45,055
She was pretty savvy with the money.

618
00:37:46,015 --> 00:37:47,821
Our people are matriarchal.

619
00:37:47,905 --> 00:37:50,671
So it doesn't surprise me
at all that she stepped

620
00:37:50,755 --> 00:37:53,635
into this role to help her husband.

621
00:37:54,906 --> 00:37:59,425
He had like 20,000 head of sheep
that he grazed on Acoma lands.

622
00:37:59,605 --> 00:38:02,665
It was a very profitable business for him.

623
00:38:03,265 --> 00:38:06,601
Don Solomono was involved
with helping the Acoma

624
00:38:06,685 --> 00:38:08,725
in keeping their lands intact.

625
00:38:09,265 --> 00:38:11,761
Because at the time there
was a lot of homesteaders

626
00:38:11,845 --> 00:38:15,625
that were coming on the Indian
lands, just settling wherever.

627
00:38:15,955 --> 00:38:18,415
He was trying to safeguard their lands.

628
00:38:18,835 --> 00:38:23,491
The President of United States had
authority to assign Indian agents

629
00:38:23,575 --> 00:38:25,709
to just basically, kind of,

630
00:38:25,793 --> 00:38:29,455
watch the native Indigenous
people in the region.

631
00:38:30,175 --> 00:38:31,741
They were not Indian.

632
00:38:31,825 --> 00:38:34,013
There was a time there was an agent

633
00:38:34,225 --> 00:38:38,455
during Don Solomono's time
here at Acoma, Peter Sanchez.

634
00:38:39,205 --> 00:38:41,518
The Indian agents that were out here,

635
00:38:41,815 --> 00:38:44,911
they were all favorable
to the squatters at the time,

636
00:38:44,995 --> 00:38:47,335
or the land grabbers as we call them.

637
00:38:47,635 --> 00:38:52,501
Sanchez was trying to get rid
of Don Solomono because he was,

638
00:38:52,585 --> 00:38:56,005
I think jealous of the way
the Acoma treated Don Solomono.

639
00:38:56,365 --> 00:38:59,095
Sanchez thought it was a scam.

640
00:38:59,245 --> 00:39:02,755
He always calling him "the Rich Jew. "

641
00:39:03,475 --> 00:39:05,401
The gentleman didn't like each other.

642
00:39:05,485 --> 00:39:10,825
Eventually, Sanchez was the one
to be booted out of office.

643
00:39:11,605 --> 00:39:14,965
Don Solomono, he had
the confidence of the Acoma people.

644
00:39:15,475 --> 00:39:18,961
And so it was shortly
thereafter that there was another Indian

645
00:39:19,045 --> 00:39:22,225
agent that appointed him as Governor of Acoma.

646
00:39:22,885 --> 00:39:27,751
What that group of leaders said
about Don Solomono was that he was

647
00:39:27,835 --> 00:39:33,805
instrumental in writing out a map
on a piece of deerskin or buffalo skin.

648
00:39:34,315 --> 00:39:39,181
He had marked where the lands
were regarding Acoma land,

649
00:39:39,265 --> 00:39:40,945
the boundaries of those.

650
00:39:41,545 --> 00:39:45,895
The Acoma were never taken
off elsewhere away from their lands.

651
00:39:46,165 --> 00:39:48,040
We always had that land base.

652
00:39:49,375 --> 00:39:52,615
Even though some of our Acoma
people are professionals

653
00:39:52,705 --> 00:39:57,145
in various fields throughout
the country they still come home.

654
00:39:58,338 --> 00:40:01,711
We live and breathe
our Native American culture

655
00:40:01,795 --> 00:40:04,982
everyday. We take that strength and resilience

656
00:40:05,066 --> 00:40:07,129
and apply it to everything we do.

657
00:40:07,615 --> 00:40:09,001
You have the Spanish government,

658
00:40:09,085 --> 00:40:11,371
then the Mexican government,
then the US government.

659
00:40:11,455 --> 00:40:15,271
All these different governments
have come in to try to take our lands.

660
00:40:15,355 --> 00:40:17,191
If you have somebody who comes in,

661
00:40:17,275 --> 00:40:20,821
who is an outsider, wanting
to protect the land then,

662
00:40:20,905 --> 00:40:24,535
of course, you are going to hold
them in a deep respect.

663
00:40:24,865 --> 00:40:28,825
When I go up to the old place,
it's kind of nostalgic feeling.

664
00:40:29,005 --> 00:40:33,061
Sometimes, we pull over and just
look out throughout the valley

665
00:40:33,145 --> 00:40:35,395
and think about the ancestors.

666
00:40:39,895 --> 00:40:44,275
What happened here, there
would often be a gathering of young,

667
00:40:44,965 --> 00:40:48,085
smart Jews who were immigrants to America.

668
00:40:49,045 --> 00:40:51,504
And they would sit around the table debating.

669
00:40:51,588 --> 00:40:58,588
[music]

670
00:41:03,149 --> 00:41:04,321
You shouldn't believe that.

671
00:41:04,405 --> 00:41:06,961
This is what you should believe.

672
00:41:07,045 --> 00:41:10,081
And a lot of it is centered
around ideas of socialism

673
00:41:10,165 --> 00:41:13,040
because those were very prominent at the time.

674
00:41:13,945 --> 00:41:17,605
Golda would always look for excuses
to hang around the table,

675
00:41:18,085 --> 00:41:20,695
including washing the cups.

676
00:41:20,875 --> 00:41:24,301
Disinfecting the teacups
because of the illness

677
00:41:24,385 --> 00:41:26,135
because of tuberculosis.

678
00:41:27,355 --> 00:41:31,885
Golda Meir was one of the early Prime
Ministers of Israel.

679
00:41:32,095 --> 00:41:37,045
She was the first woman in the 20th
Century to lead a country

680
00:41:37,525 --> 00:41:42,445
who had no connection
to any male family members.

681
00:41:42,955 --> 00:41:45,025
She was truly an independent.

682
00:41:46,525 --> 00:41:52,915
Born 1898, end of the 19th Century
into the beginning of the 20th Century,

683
00:41:53,425 --> 00:41:56,035
while she was living in, then Russia,

684
00:41:56,155 --> 00:41:59,011
she witnessed what political violence

685
00:41:59,095 --> 00:42:02,815
can do to a country because of her Jewish,

686
00:42:02,995 --> 00:42:06,535
her religion, culture, she was
a target with their family.

687
00:42:07,375 --> 00:42:10,705
The first memory of many, many Jews.

688
00:42:10,825 --> 00:42:13,081
The first thing they remember like I,

689
00:42:13,165 --> 00:42:16,088
is when my father and the upstairs neighbors

690
00:42:16,172 --> 00:42:19,151
were nailing up the doors
because the rumors were that

691
00:42:19,235 --> 00:42:21,923
there's going to be another pogrom in Kiev.

692
00:42:22,375 --> 00:42:25,292
It was lasting impact, had a lasting impact.

693
00:42:25,376 --> 00:42:32,376
[music]

694
00:42:45,673 --> 00:42:48,985
She came to the United States
when she was eight.

695
00:42:49,255 --> 00:42:51,415
The family went to Milwaukee.

696
00:42:51,715 --> 00:42:56,635
She became an American citizen
on her father's citizenship papers.

697
00:42:57,145 --> 00:43:01,801
She developed a strong sense of,

698
00:43:02,324 --> 00:43:06,925
if you knew in your mind that something
was right, that's what you did.

699
00:43:08,365 --> 00:43:11,845
Ultimately, what counts, are actions.

700
00:43:13,705 --> 00:43:15,385
She was never a theorist.

701
00:43:16,345 --> 00:43:20,755
She's in school and sees kids
have to buy their textbooks.

702
00:43:21,385 --> 00:43:23,875
Free school, not free textbooks.

703
00:43:24,115 --> 00:43:28,375
She starts a group,
a committee, with a good friend

704
00:43:28,465 --> 00:43:32,185
who are the only two members
of that committee to raise money

705
00:43:32,575 --> 00:43:34,645
to buy textbooks for poor kids.

706
00:43:35,125 --> 00:43:37,171
That's pretty impressive for a young kid.

707
00:43:37,255 --> 00:43:41,341
So she has a real sense
of duty and responsibility,

708
00:43:41,425 --> 00:43:43,425
which is with her all her life.

709
00:43:43,585 --> 00:43:47,095
Much of it is centered on her Jewish identity.

710
00:43:47,815 --> 00:43:49,390
She loves education.

711
00:43:49,855 --> 00:43:53,485
She finishes her early years of education.

712
00:43:53,875 --> 00:43:55,231
Time to go on to high school.

713
00:43:55,315 --> 00:43:57,301
Her parents aren't thrilled with that.

714
00:43:57,385 --> 00:43:59,881
Why does a girl have to go to high school for?

715
00:43:59,965 --> 00:44:03,625
She had feminist views before there
was modern day feminism.

716
00:44:04,015 --> 00:44:08,155
And her view is she wants an education.

717
00:44:08,335 --> 00:44:12,355
That's where this split
in the family kind of takes place

718
00:44:12,835 --> 00:44:16,825
and that's where Denver
emerges from that division.

719
00:44:19,075 --> 00:44:23,125
Lots of people come to Denver
for lung rehabilitation.

720
00:44:23,425 --> 00:44:28,915
Her sister ends up here
with tuberculosis, older sister.

721
00:44:29,305 --> 00:44:33,925
They write to each other about Golda
running away, essentially.

722
00:44:34,165 --> 00:44:37,285
Because she knows if she says,
"Can I go to Denver?"

723
00:44:37,795 --> 00:44:40,201
It's not going to be a positive reception.

724
00:44:40,285 --> 00:44:43,165
She knew what she wanted
and she went after it.

725
00:44:43,645 --> 00:44:48,025
She comes to Denver in 1913, February.

726
00:44:48,265 --> 00:44:50,491
It's probably just about two years she's here.

727
00:44:50,575 --> 00:44:55,165
This was a fairly new building
when she lived here with her sister.

728
00:44:55,555 --> 00:44:59,281
So if you look, there was just a couple
of rooms and there was husband,

729
00:44:59,365 --> 00:45:02,005
wife, young daughter and Golda.

730
00:45:02,695 --> 00:45:05,035
Here's one of local interest.

731
00:45:05,365 --> 00:45:07,891
People in Denver will know North High School

732
00:45:07,975 --> 00:45:13,321
and that's the North High School class
that Golda was part of. Her sister

733
00:45:13,405 --> 00:45:17,185
who was the activist
hosted lots of people here.

734
00:45:17,605 --> 00:45:22,435
Now you have to, again, understand
because of tuberculosis,

735
00:45:22,825 --> 00:45:27,325
this house was kind of a meeting
place for a lot of younger,

736
00:45:27,475 --> 00:45:31,705
starting off intellectuals
who were interested in ideas,

737
00:45:32,185 --> 00:45:33,745
political concepts.

738
00:45:35,185 --> 00:45:40,945
She was forming those ideas
and all of this discussion was her education.

739
00:45:41,485 --> 00:45:45,205
That's why she was a lifelong,
never varied from this,

740
00:45:45,535 --> 00:45:48,085
Socialist Zionist was her belief system.

741
00:45:48,805 --> 00:45:55,405
And that system always has an element
of flexibility, right? Of realism.

742
00:45:55,615 --> 00:46:01,711
One of her big disappointments
in life was, as Israel, over time,

743
00:46:01,795 --> 00:46:06,745
fell into hard times in the eyes
of other people in the world,

744
00:46:06,925 --> 00:46:10,555
other countries, she felt,
"We're the democratic socialists

745
00:46:10,825 --> 00:46:15,421
and you are siding
with the authoritarians and the dictators.

746
00:46:15,505 --> 00:46:17,821
We are the people who believe
what you believe. "

747
00:46:17,905 --> 00:46:20,641
That was something
that bothered her enormously.

748
00:46:20,725 --> 00:46:24,175
One of the people that hung
out for these discussions,

749
00:46:24,385 --> 00:46:28,651
usually evening discussions,
was Morris Meyerson,

750
00:46:28,735 --> 00:46:30,625
who she eventually marries.

751
00:46:30,895 --> 00:46:32,761
He's part of all these discussions.

752
00:46:32,845 --> 00:46:38,095
She said it's really
where her education in many ways began.

753
00:46:38,545 --> 00:46:43,591
Those late nights sitting
by washing teacups from people

754
00:46:43,675 --> 00:46:45,325
who had tuberculosis.

755
00:46:47,762 --> 00:46:50,401
They must have talked to one another to pick

756
00:46:50,485 --> 00:46:54,133
this place because they all
came here. [chuckles]

757
00:46:54,217 --> 00:46:56,041
Well, they originally went to New York.

758
00:46:56,125 --> 00:46:58,831
They spent several years
in New York and moved here.

759
00:46:58,915 --> 00:47:02,442
They said tuberculosis was one of the reasons.

760
00:47:03,204 --> 00:47:06,838
My father, Louis Dinner and mother

761
00:47:07,165 --> 00:47:10,405
came from Vilna, Gubernia

762
00:47:10,945 --> 00:47:14,485
which is the southern
most province of the Ukraine.

763
00:47:14,665 --> 00:47:16,111
They had half-brothers.

764
00:47:16,195 --> 00:47:17,215
My dad did.

765
00:47:17,695 --> 00:47:23,485
They came over earlier and were located
in Denver and Greeley, Colorado.

766
00:47:24,051 --> 00:47:26,951
They left Europe
because I'm sure of the pogroms.

767
00:47:28,005 --> 00:47:31,675
It seems like a billion people
came out at that little county.

768
00:47:32,649 --> 00:47:35,274
Our great-grandfather was a dairy farmer.

769
00:47:35,900 --> 00:47:41,425
Louis Robinson came to New York
in probably 1883, and then to Colorado.

770
00:47:41,605 --> 00:47:43,855
Hard to raise cows on Fifth Avenue.

771
00:47:45,595 --> 00:47:48,475
There were a number of Jewish families here.

772
00:47:48,595 --> 00:47:55,075
He came here and lived in Denver
for a couple years on Federal Boulevard,

773
00:47:55,255 --> 00:47:58,495
right near the home where Golda Meir is.

774
00:47:59,335 --> 00:48:02,875
And he would pedal with a horse and buggy.

775
00:48:03,175 --> 00:48:05,461
Then they moved to Greeley

776
00:48:05,545 --> 00:48:08,635
where the other half-brothers already lived.

777
00:48:09,055 --> 00:48:12,325
All the brothers were in the cattle business.

778
00:48:12,655 --> 00:48:16,075
They started at Orthodox Synagogue.

779
00:48:16,435 --> 00:48:19,435
It was Mechitza-type synagogue.

780
00:48:20,875 --> 00:48:26,485
He bought some real estate
and started dealing in cattle.

781
00:48:26,725 --> 00:48:29,305
They would buy cattle.

782
00:48:29,395 --> 00:48:32,941
Then they would bring 'em
back into the corrals,

783
00:48:33,025 --> 00:48:37,795
feed 'em over the winter
and sell them at the stockyards.

784
00:48:38,005 --> 00:48:42,211
He and other visionaries in the field saw

785
00:48:42,295 --> 00:48:46,735
that you could build a larger feed
lot and feed year round,

786
00:48:47,395 --> 00:48:50,875
and that evolved into major feed lots.

787
00:48:51,265 --> 00:48:53,665
That's how the stockyard grew.

788
00:48:54,025 --> 00:48:59,755
This area of the country, Greeley
in particular, became the hub

789
00:49:00,265 --> 00:49:03,625
of cattle feeding almost in the nation.

790
00:49:04,585 --> 00:49:06,781
If you bought at the Denver stockyards,

791
00:49:06,865 --> 00:49:10,105
you'd go every Monday,
we'd go there and buy cattle.

792
00:49:10,435 --> 00:49:15,055
Well, it's still one
of the major stockyards in the country.

793
00:49:16,075 --> 00:49:17,755
They called us a Cow Town.

794
00:49:18,805 --> 00:49:20,485
We were called a Cow Town.

795
00:49:22,666 --> 00:49:28,405
His great-grandfather, Lazar,
was a dear friend of my father.

796
00:49:28,915 --> 00:49:34,945
Lazar came up with his black horse,
black suit, and bowler hat,

797
00:49:35,965 --> 00:49:38,965
and stopped and said [in Yiddish]?

798
00:49:39,505 --> 00:49:44,035
Which to the uninitiated is,
"How are you doing young man?

799
00:49:45,715 --> 00:49:48,901
I used to remember,
as a kid, when I'd see him,

800
00:49:48,985 --> 00:49:54,685
he'd kiss me and that beard,
his beard was something else.

801
00:49:54,955 --> 00:49:57,031
He spoke very little English.

802
00:49:57,115 --> 00:49:58,651
He was well thought of.

803
00:49:58,735 --> 00:50:01,255
He was a very respected cattle buyer.

804
00:50:02,335 --> 00:50:06,715
Imagine seeing Fiddler
on the Roof with cowboy boots.

805
00:50:07,255 --> 00:50:09,119
Everybody looked up to him.

806
00:50:09,203 --> 00:50:10,439
[music]

807
00:50:10,523 --> 00:50:14,251
To haul a whole load or so from the railhead,

808
00:50:14,335 --> 00:50:19,375
which was the dominant source
of transportation, to the feedlot

809
00:50:19,645 --> 00:50:25,015
we would have to drive him by horse
from the railhead to the feedlot.

810
00:50:25,585 --> 00:50:28,525
We became pretty good horsemen no matter what.

811
00:50:28,825 --> 00:50:34,615
We rode horses bareback,
saddle, standing on top almost.

812
00:50:35,635 --> 00:50:40,315
The cowboy fashion design
had nothing to do with them.

813
00:50:40,495 --> 00:50:44,791
A lot of the cattle industry in this area

814
00:50:44,875 --> 00:50:48,205
came from areas like Cincinnati, Ohio,

815
00:50:48,685 --> 00:50:51,841
where the original German Jews started it,

816
00:50:51,925 --> 00:50:58,075
or upper New York, in the dairy
farms. Suits, ties, and hats.

817
00:50:58,498 --> 00:51:01,324
No, it wasn't even cowboy hats then.

818
00:51:01,408 --> 00:51:06,027
Louis wore this hat is not a Western hat.

819
00:51:06,745 --> 00:51:12,055
It's a Borsalino, an Italian-made Western hat.

820
00:51:15,655 --> 00:51:19,681
The first cattle trip I was sent
on that was really major,

821
00:51:19,765 --> 00:51:23,395
2,000 head of cattle in Alliance, Nebraska,

822
00:51:23,575 --> 00:51:26,575
Dad sent me with the broker.

823
00:51:26,755 --> 00:51:31,465
He came back and told my father
that I did an excellent job.

824
00:51:31,585 --> 00:51:34,735
My excellent job was I kept my mouth shut.

825
00:51:35,575 --> 00:51:39,295
One day, I counted
up how many states I bought cattle in

826
00:51:39,475 --> 00:51:44,065
and there were 27 states and two countries

827
00:51:44,395 --> 00:51:46,864
and a loaded cattle from Hawaii even.

828
00:51:46,948 --> 00:51:47,948
[music]

829
00:51:48,265 --> 00:51:51,055
"The solitary man pulls on his long beard

830
00:51:51,655 --> 00:51:56,425
and looks upon this scene
so wonderful and unexpected. "

831
00:51:56,905 --> 00:51:58,555
Shall I do it again?

832
00:51:59,575 --> 00:52:00,850
Let me see this.

833
00:52:02,155 --> 00:52:03,968
I couldn't see the periods.

834
00:52:04,405 --> 00:52:09,265
"Here stands this pioneer out of the heart
of the great American West. "

835
00:52:09,895 --> 00:52:12,571
"He looks upon his head of grazing cows,

836
00:52:12,655 --> 00:52:15,835
scratches his head under his yarmulke,

837
00:52:16,075 --> 00:52:20,515
and tugs on his long beard in wonder
at life's twists and turns.

838
00:52:21,175 --> 00:52:24,595
He takes a puff on his clay pipe and smiles. "

839
00:52:25,285 --> 00:52:31,165
Not being persecuted, not being
maligned, he was free.

840
00:52:31,825 --> 00:52:33,901
That's why they all came to this country.

841
00:52:33,985 --> 00:52:38,125
Mother had one sister who came over with her.

842
00:52:38,305 --> 00:52:40,015
Her father went back

843
00:52:40,675 --> 00:52:44,515
and then the rest of the family
was all lost in the Holocaust.

844
00:52:45,835 --> 00:52:48,751
For me, as a Jewish cowboy,

845
00:52:48,835 --> 00:52:52,152
if my parents hadn't come
here, I wouldn't be here.

846
00:52:52,931 --> 00:52:55,968
[music]

847
00:52:56,403 --> 00:53:00,625
Really starting in 1881 and progressing
over the next few decades,

848
00:53:00,715 --> 00:53:04,471
you have a stream of Jews
from Eastern Europe coming.

849
00:53:04,555 --> 00:53:08,611
That stops in about 1924 with the passage

850
00:53:08,695 --> 00:53:12,126
of the Johnson Anti-Immigration Act.

851
00:53:12,210 --> 00:53:14,353
[music]

852
00:53:14,437 --> 00:53:17,731
For the most part, Eastern
European Jews are going to cities.

853
00:53:17,815 --> 00:53:20,190
New York is their primary destination,

854
00:53:20,335 --> 00:53:24,175
and then they're going to specific
neighborhoods within cities.

855
00:53:24,535 --> 00:53:26,701
And the fear of the established Jews,

856
00:53:26,785 --> 00:53:30,361
the Jews that tended to be of Central
European background was that,

857
00:53:30,445 --> 00:53:33,195
"Oh no, they're never going to assimilate. "

858
00:53:34,675 --> 00:53:38,253
The German Jews, I would say,
felt a great sense

859
00:53:38,337 --> 00:53:41,461
of responsibility
for these Eastern European Jews,

860
00:53:41,545 --> 00:53:47,605
most of them who had been fleeing
extreme poverty and persecution.

861
00:53:48,513 --> 00:53:51,751
"If they're living on Hester
Street, in the tenement district,

862
00:53:51,835 --> 00:53:55,021
they're all going to become radicals
living in concentrated areas,

863
00:53:55,105 --> 00:53:59,341
speaking Yiddish, working in the garments
trades, protesting this, that.

864
00:53:59,425 --> 00:54:02,974
They also might make Jews,
as a class, look bad. "

865
00:54:03,204 --> 00:54:04,204
[music]

866
00:54:04,568 --> 00:54:07,825
Jacob Schiff was a German
Jewish financier, a banker,

867
00:54:07,945 --> 00:54:11,395
who becomes a really prominent Jewish leader.

868
00:54:11,935 --> 00:54:14,821
He lives uptown. He's a reformed Jew.

869
00:54:14,905 --> 00:54:16,645
He becomes very involved.

870
00:54:16,885 --> 00:54:19,861
His voice and his leadership
was really important

871
00:54:19,945 --> 00:54:22,885
to responding to this wave
of East European Jews.

872
00:54:23,635 --> 00:54:24,871
What Jacob Schiff thought

873
00:54:24,955 --> 00:54:27,661
is that it doesn't matter where you come from,

874
00:54:27,745 --> 00:54:28,951
it doesn't matter what your religion

875
00:54:29,035 --> 00:54:32,815
is as long as you really love American ideals,

876
00:54:33,025 --> 00:54:34,981
then you're the best American.

877
00:54:35,065 --> 00:54:36,901
The way that this manifests itself

878
00:54:36,985 --> 00:54:39,091
is through the Industrial Removal Office

879
00:54:39,175 --> 00:54:41,071
which would end up sending upwards

880
00:54:41,155 --> 00:54:46,735
of 75,000 Jews to the West
between 1901 and 1922.

881
00:54:47,035 --> 00:54:50,221
They organized to send Jews to Galveston,

882
00:54:50,305 --> 00:54:53,611
Texas, where a new port
was opening up, thinking,

883
00:54:53,695 --> 00:54:56,445
reasoning that if they bypass New York City,

884
00:54:56,575 --> 00:54:59,461
they're going to really send
these Jews out into the West.

885
00:54:59,545 --> 00:55:02,071
The Galveston Movement resettled upwards

886
00:55:02,155 --> 00:55:05,515
of 10,000 Jews to different parts of the West.

887
00:55:06,685 --> 00:55:09,091
We have the letters
that some of those immigrants

888
00:55:09,175 --> 00:55:14,191
wrote back to the office and some of them
are saying, "Thank you so much.

889
00:55:14,275 --> 00:55:17,281
I love it here in Colorado. "

890
00:55:17,365 --> 00:55:19,795
or, "I love it here in Texas.

891
00:55:20,335 --> 00:55:22,621
Thank you so much for giving
me this opportunity. "

892
00:55:22,705 --> 00:55:23,905
Others writing,

893
00:55:24,055 --> 00:55:27,241
"The ground should open up and swallow
you for all the tzores,

894
00:55:27,325 --> 00:55:31,465
all the sorrow you have caused me
because I'm in the middle of nowhere

895
00:55:33,581 --> 00:55:36,991
and I have no one who understands
my culture and what am I doing here?"

896
00:55:37,075 --> 00:55:42,595
Cotopaxi is a small town in Colorado
about 30 miles from Canyon City.

897
00:55:42,865 --> 00:55:45,841
It was the site of a brief Jewish

898
00:55:45,925 --> 00:55:50,875
agricultural colony
that lasted from 1882 to 1884.

899
00:55:51,985 --> 00:55:54,511
One of the residents there,
a prominant resident,

900
00:55:54,595 --> 00:55:58,135
was Emmanuel Saltiel, a Sephardic Jew,

901
00:55:58,555 --> 00:56:02,215
and he owned a great deal of land in Cotopaxi.

902
00:56:02,545 --> 00:56:06,955
And he connected with the Hebrew
Immigrant Aid Society, HIAS.

903
00:56:07,585 --> 00:56:10,741
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society tried to work

904
00:56:10,825 --> 00:56:13,921
with resettling some of the Eastern
European immigrants

905
00:56:14,005 --> 00:56:16,411
and dispersing them
throughout the United States.

906
00:56:16,495 --> 00:56:18,901
And Saltiel came to them with the plan.

907
00:56:18,985 --> 00:56:20,821
In exchange for $10,000,

908
00:56:20,905 --> 00:56:25,790
he was going to provide tracts
of land for the settlers,

909
00:56:25,874 --> 00:56:28,224
housing, farming implements.

910
00:56:28,467 --> 00:56:29,313
[music]

911
00:56:29,397 --> 00:56:31,471
We're here at the Jewish Colony site

912
00:56:31,555 --> 00:56:34,081
or what I've always known
as the Jewish Colony site.

913
00:56:34,165 --> 00:56:37,105
When I was younger, I used
to ride horses up here

914
00:56:37,195 --> 00:56:40,375
and the houses were actually
still standing then.

915
00:56:41,665 --> 00:56:45,091
We get in 1882, a group of originally 50,

916
00:56:45,175 --> 00:56:49,075
then grew to about 63
Russian Jewish immigrants.

917
00:56:49,285 --> 00:56:52,921
To their great disappointment,
when they got to Cotopaxi,

918
00:56:53,005 --> 00:56:57,715
all they found were really crudely
constructed, very small cabins.

919
00:56:57,865 --> 00:57:00,223
They were challenged from the beginning

920
00:57:00,307 --> 00:57:03,211
with the lack of irrigation,
the lack of water.

921
00:57:03,295 --> 00:57:06,595
The weather was a big factor
in why they didn't stay.

922
00:57:07,225 --> 00:57:11,911
They got frozen out. Early
frost the first summer.

923
00:57:11,995 --> 00:57:15,061
Then the second year, they planted early,

924
00:57:15,145 --> 00:57:18,535
and then they got an early spring snowstorm.

925
00:57:18,985 --> 00:57:23,191
While the farming was very, very difficult,

926
00:57:23,275 --> 00:57:25,713
their religious life really flourished.

927
00:57:27,025 --> 00:57:32,185
The families together worked
as a unit and for Passover,

928
00:57:32,455 --> 00:57:34,951
one group walked to Salida to get

929
00:57:35,035 --> 00:57:37,861
flour so they could bake their own matzos.

930
00:57:37,945 --> 00:57:41,545
They celebrated the Sabbath
together and religious holidays.

931
00:57:42,655 --> 00:57:46,261
Whether Saltiel was the villain in the story,

932
00:57:46,345 --> 00:57:48,220
is somewhat controversial.

933
00:57:48,415 --> 00:57:52,351
He had to know that this would've
been a challenge to the farmers

934
00:57:52,435 --> 00:57:55,381
but some of his descendants
feel that he was helpful.

935
00:57:55,465 --> 00:57:57,465
He thought he was helping them.

936
00:57:57,745 --> 00:58:00,001
Most of them moved into Denver

937
00:58:00,085 --> 00:58:06,391
and they really, kind of, replicated
very close to the Lower East Side of New York,

938
00:58:06,475 --> 00:58:10,315
a Jewish neighborhood filled
with small synagogues,

939
00:58:10,555 --> 00:58:13,105
Jewish bakeries, meat markets.

940
00:58:14,455 --> 00:58:16,351
Their children would stay in the West.

941
00:58:16,435 --> 00:58:18,301
Maybe their grandchildren would and that led

942
00:58:18,385 --> 00:58:21,285
to the growth of Jewish
communities in the West.

943
00:58:22,694 --> 00:58:24,944
Well this song is called "Zhankoye. "

944
00:58:25,176 --> 00:58:26,677
It's a song. .

945
00:58:26,841 --> 00:58:30,893
Under the Tsar of Russia in those days,

946
00:58:30,977 --> 00:58:36,445
Jews couldn't own land so there
were very few Jewish farmers and ranchers.

947
00:58:36,565 --> 00:58:40,261
And this is a song that they sang
that really showed the pride

948
00:58:40,345 --> 00:58:41,821
and honor they felt to be able to get

949
00:58:41,905 --> 00:58:45,805
back to working the land
after centuries and centuries.

950
00:58:46,825 --> 00:58:47,971
This is "Zhankoye. "

951
00:58:48,055 --> 00:58:51,053
I'll do it first in Yiddish,
and then I'll do it in English.

952
00:58:51,137 --> 00:58:56,533
[Singing in Yiddish]

953
00:59:32,363 --> 00:59:36,023
From the people I come from,
this is the most important verse.

954
00:59:38,438 --> 00:59:40,885
Work together, all as brothers,

955
00:59:41,005 --> 00:59:45,985
in the fields and in the orchards
for the better world to come.

956
00:59:47,905 --> 00:59:51,925
All must work, for work is good,
in work we find brotherhood.

957
00:59:52,255 --> 00:59:55,015
[Singing in Yiddish]

958
01:00:25,307 --> 01:00:30,211
Abraham Jacob Zlabovsky was our first
ancestor here in the United States.

959
01:00:30,295 --> 01:00:31,975
He had come from Belarus.

960
01:00:32,395 --> 01:00:35,065
The area that they came from was Brahin.

961
01:00:35,695 --> 01:00:38,575
It was a founding place for Hasidism.

962
01:00:39,055 --> 01:00:43,945
The town's also famous, unfortunately,
for pogroms. By the early 1900s,

963
01:00:44,755 --> 01:00:47,251
so many people had left because of pogroms.

964
01:00:47,335 --> 01:00:51,355
It looks like the entire shtetl
was lifted and brought to Texas.

965
01:00:52,255 --> 01:00:57,991
It's crazy to me how many people
were interconnected in both San Antonio

966
01:00:58,075 --> 01:01:01,656
and then in El Paso
from the same places in Belarus.

967
01:01:01,978 --> 01:01:03,167
[music]

968
01:01:03,492 --> 01:01:07,711
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
used to stand like at the dock

969
01:01:07,795 --> 01:01:09,121
when people were getting off the boat

970
01:01:09,205 --> 01:01:11,761
and tell people to go to Texas
because it was unchartered

971
01:01:11,845 --> 01:01:14,941
and it was a great land
of opportunity out there in Texas.

972
01:01:15,025 --> 01:01:18,181
They started to plant seeds in San Antonio

973
01:01:18,265 --> 01:01:20,791
and really built the Jewish
community there and then from there,

974
01:01:20,875 --> 01:01:22,381
they went to El Paso.

975
01:01:22,465 --> 01:01:25,831
The patriarch on American side is Abraham.

976
01:01:25,915 --> 01:01:27,915
Abraham started a meat market.

977
01:01:29,215 --> 01:01:35,095
Abraham, he sold matzos
on Pesach in the synagogue.

978
01:01:35,605 --> 01:01:37,471
Abraham had nine children,

979
01:01:37,555 --> 01:01:41,575
one of whom died in Belarus,
but the other eight came.

980
01:01:41,755 --> 01:01:44,581
The children in EL Paso were founding

981
01:01:44,665 --> 01:01:47,215
fathers of the Orthodox synagogue there.

982
01:01:47,305 --> 01:01:49,993
Frank came a couple of years after his dad.

983
01:01:50,455 --> 01:01:53,545
Grandpa had a very decent store.

984
01:01:53,725 --> 01:01:58,405
He had connections with stores
throughout El Paso.

985
01:01:58,735 --> 01:02:01,201
El Paso was a burgeoning community

986
01:02:01,285 --> 01:02:05,605
and so it nurtured these large wholesalers

987
01:02:06,265 --> 01:02:08,890
and turns out the wholesalers were Jewish.

988
01:02:09,055 --> 01:02:12,865
The Jewish wholesalers were subsidizing him

989
01:02:13,555 --> 01:02:18,715
in a way so that he could
subsidize the campesinos,

990
01:02:18,865 --> 01:02:21,490
the people who were working in the fields.

991
01:02:21,745 --> 01:02:23,891
That was his clientele.

992
01:02:24,432 --> 01:02:31,432
[music]

993
01:02:53,016 --> 01:02:55,391
He sold them the necessities of life.

994
01:02:55,647 --> 01:03:00,175
And they would offer him a dollar
a week and he would accept it.

995
01:03:00,611 --> 01:03:04,245
And that's the way he made
his so-called living.

996
01:03:04,329 --> 01:03:05,376
[music]

997
01:03:05,460 --> 01:03:08,193
I heard that Frank sold Pancho Villa pants,

998
01:03:08,277 --> 01:03:10,097
and I am going to stick with that.

999
01:03:10,181 --> 01:03:11,640
I don't know what size they were

1000
01:03:11,724 --> 01:03:12,582
I wouldn't be surprised.

1001
01:03:12,666 --> 01:03:16,038
Or beige. Maybe they were beige,
I don't know. [chuckles]

1002
01:03:16,122 --> 01:03:17,791
Pancho Villa was the General,

1003
01:03:17,875 --> 01:03:20,785
the Generalissimo, of Juarez at the time.

1004
01:03:21,805 --> 01:03:26,191
And there were houses that had
giant porches that reached

1005
01:03:26,275 --> 01:03:28,651
out to Juarez so you could sit on the porch

1006
01:03:28,735 --> 01:03:31,135
and see the Revolution happening.

1007
01:03:31,585 --> 01:03:34,231
And you could see battles happening down there

1008
01:03:34,315 --> 01:03:37,045
and El Paso citizens would witness this.

1009
01:03:37,592 --> 01:03:39,916
I think life was very precarious at the time.

1010
01:03:40,000 --> 01:03:40,809
[music]

1011
01:03:40,893 --> 01:03:44,665
You come to Texas
in the late 1800s, early 1900s,

1012
01:03:45,115 --> 01:03:47,641
like, you have to have a tenacious personality

1013
01:03:47,725 --> 01:03:49,261
or you're just going to get crushed by it.

1014
01:03:49,345 --> 01:03:54,647
I like to imagine Frank was, kind of,
a little skinny, Jewish, Rough Rider

1015
01:03:54,731 --> 01:03:58,675
[laughs] kinda guy out there
scrapping for what he wants

1016
01:03:58,759 --> 01:04:02,881
and, like, fighting for what he thought
was right and taking down the bad guys.

1017
01:04:02,965 --> 01:04:07,021
I would go with him and he would stop
underneath the Cottonwood

1018
01:04:07,105 --> 01:04:10,225
trees along the road,
and we'd eat lunch together.

1019
01:04:10,435 --> 01:04:13,885
I have a picture. My brother
and I have chaps on.

1020
01:04:14,605 --> 01:04:19,470
He used to buy us uniforms
when we would come to visit him.

1021
01:04:19,554 --> 01:04:20,749
We were only this tall.

1022
01:04:20,833 --> 01:04:22,086
[music]

1023
01:04:22,170 --> 01:04:24,176
Sol didn't come with the rest of the family.

1024
01:04:24,260 --> 01:04:26,605
He had been in the Tzar's army.

1025
01:04:27,985 --> 01:04:30,865
And so after he served, he came to America.

1026
01:04:31,045 --> 01:04:34,435
This is Sol writing to Abraham, his father.

1027
01:04:34,885 --> 01:04:36,460
"How long ago was it?

1028
01:04:36,685 --> 01:04:38,695
Yet, not that long at all.

1029
01:04:39,025 --> 01:04:42,085
When I used to get up at 5:00 am in Brahin

1030
01:04:42,265 --> 01:04:45,061
and run to the synagogue to recite the Psalms,

1031
01:04:45,145 --> 01:04:48,055
the Hasidim thought
I would grow up to be a Rabbi

1032
01:04:48,265 --> 01:04:50,521
or a Torah scholar and perhaps. .

1033
01:04:50,605 --> 01:04:55,291
Yes, who knows. Ah, what would I lack,

1034
01:04:55,619 --> 01:04:57,983
if I'd grown up in Brahin,

1035
01:04:58,305 --> 01:05:02,995
not knowing the wide world
and the world not knowing of me?"

1036
01:05:03,535 --> 01:05:05,131
That's an interesting commentary.

1037
01:05:05,215 --> 01:05:06,925
Most of us are immigrants.

1038
01:05:07,165 --> 01:05:09,478
Most of us have some immigrant root.

1039
01:05:09,565 --> 01:05:12,151
These were people who came
out and were headstrong

1040
01:05:12,235 --> 01:05:15,619
and forged their own identity
in a whole new place.

1041
01:05:16,273 --> 01:05:23,273
[music]

1042
01:05:25,748 --> 01:05:28,051
I'm a fifth-generation Coloradan.

1043
01:05:28,135 --> 01:05:34,465
My great grandparents came from Russia
and all the way across country,

1044
01:05:34,675 --> 01:05:37,075
I'm sure in wagons and with horses.

1045
01:05:37,975 --> 01:05:41,215
Rachel Kobey was my great,
great, great grandmother.

1046
01:05:42,325 --> 01:05:44,905
She married Isaac Shwayder.

1047
01:05:45,205 --> 01:05:48,055
Young Rachel was supposedly very beautiful.

1048
01:05:48,835 --> 01:05:50,641
And she was also very strong

1049
01:05:50,725 --> 01:05:53,461
and had a lot of things
that she wanted for her family.

1050
01:05:53,545 --> 01:05:56,341
She wanted them
to have a better life than she did.

1051
01:05:56,425 --> 01:05:58,425
She wanted them to be more educated.

1052
01:05:58,509 --> 01:05:59,881
It was the 1800s.

1053
01:05:59,965 --> 01:06:03,265
It was hard for Jewish families
in Russia at that time.

1054
01:06:04,465 --> 01:06:09,625
Rachel had two uncles that came
to America before she did in Colorado.

1055
01:06:10,645 --> 01:06:13,520
They were able to bring over Rachel and Isaac.

1056
01:06:13,841 --> 01:06:16,321
[music]

1057
01:06:16,754 --> 01:06:20,431
I can't imagine how hard
it would've been to leave everything

1058
01:06:20,515 --> 01:06:22,675
and just step into the unknown.

1059
01:06:23,125 --> 01:06:24,601
They had a service business

1060
01:06:24,685 --> 01:06:26,791
and a store so people would order
things out of the store

1061
01:06:26,875 --> 01:06:29,049
and they would deliver them to various people

1062
01:06:29,133 --> 01:06:31,316
in Central City and Black Hawk.

1063
01:06:31,747 --> 01:06:34,550
Rachel and Isaac had 11 children.

1064
01:06:34,634 --> 01:06:39,085
Jesse Shwayder was born
in Black Hawk in the 1800s.

1065
01:06:39,169 --> 01:06:41,076
[music]

1066
01:06:41,160 --> 01:06:43,501
Black Hawk was a really small town.

1067
01:06:43,585 --> 01:06:45,721
Rachel really felt like there weren't

1068
01:06:45,805 --> 01:06:48,181
the opportunities that she had
hoped there would be.

1069
01:06:48,265 --> 01:06:50,155
The family moves to Denver.

1070
01:06:50,455 --> 01:06:51,781
Denver was a bigger city.

1071
01:06:51,865 --> 01:06:54,031
It had more people coming in and out of it

1072
01:06:54,115 --> 01:06:55,891
and they had a good school system

1073
01:06:55,975 --> 01:06:58,441
which was something that Rachel really valued.

1074
01:06:58,525 --> 01:07:00,121
When Jesse graduated from high school,

1075
01:07:00,205 --> 01:07:03,205
there wasn't enough money
to send him to college.

1076
01:07:03,355 --> 01:07:07,171
Isaac died, Rachel gave
the insurance money to Jesse

1077
01:07:07,255 --> 01:07:09,511
and she really encouraged
him to start a business.

1078
01:07:09,595 --> 01:07:12,901
One of the main reasons for this was
that she wanted to ensure

1079
01:07:12,985 --> 01:07:16,525
that every family member
would have a job waiting for them.

1080
01:07:17,665 --> 01:07:20,845
The little luggage company
becomes Samsonite luggage.

1081
01:07:21,565 --> 01:07:25,381
The name Samsonite comes
from the Bible and the story of Samson.

1082
01:07:25,465 --> 01:07:28,945
And the meaning behind that is that Samson
was very strong.

1083
01:07:29,534 --> 01:07:30,783
They used to advertise

1084
01:07:30,867 --> 01:07:34,231
because they were big
hefty guys, this is family.

1085
01:07:34,315 --> 01:07:37,795
They would stand on the luggage
strong enough to stand on.

1086
01:07:38,280 --> 01:07:44,995
I think it's really fun to look
at how they decorated these trunks.

1087
01:07:45,139 --> 01:07:48,707
Yes, there's wood and leather
and metal and studs.

1088
01:07:49,465 --> 01:07:51,271
Yes, it's beautiful.

1089
01:07:51,355 --> 01:07:54,785
I don't know how old this trunk
is, but it is really old.

1090
01:07:56,634 --> 01:07:58,322
This is all Emmett's stuff.

1091
01:07:59,038 --> 01:08:00,841
Emmett was my great-grandfather

1092
01:08:00,925 --> 01:08:03,811
and he took over Samsonite
luggage after Jesse.

1093
01:08:03,895 --> 01:08:07,998
I'm actually named after him and he really
took Samsonite to a new level.

1094
01:08:08,082 --> 01:08:09,391
[music]

1095
01:08:09,822 --> 01:08:13,201
Samsonite becomes famous for luggage
that's easy to carry around

1096
01:08:13,285 --> 01:08:17,665
and made of lightweight materials,
which is a big contrast to the trunks.

1097
01:08:17,995 --> 01:08:19,831
Everyone that worked at Samsonite,

1098
01:08:19,915 --> 01:08:22,471
carried a Golden Rule marble
that had written around it,

1099
01:08:22,555 --> 01:08:25,321
"Do unto others,
as you would have them do unto you. "

1100
01:08:25,405 --> 01:08:28,021
And I still carry mine with me in my backpack.

1101
01:08:28,105 --> 01:08:31,861
He told them, "Reach into your pocket
when you have a decision to make,

1102
01:08:31,945 --> 01:08:34,945
and this will tell
you how to make that decision. "

1103
01:08:36,145 --> 01:08:38,570
The lessons of hard work and generosity

1104
01:08:38,654 --> 01:08:41,041
have been very clearly
passed down in my family.

1105
01:08:41,125 --> 01:08:43,711
My great-grandfather and my great-grandmother

1106
01:08:43,795 --> 01:08:47,791
were very philanthropic
and very involved in the Denver community

1107
01:08:47,875 --> 01:08:50,671
and specifically the Denver Jewish community.

1108
01:08:50,755 --> 01:08:52,591
This family is very matriarchal,

1109
01:08:52,675 --> 01:08:55,921
even though I think Jesse
and Emmett get a lot of the credit,

1110
01:08:56,005 --> 01:08:57,685
but it was really Rachel.

1111
01:08:58,495 --> 01:09:02,641
This one's Rachel and her kids.

1112
01:09:02,725 --> 01:09:04,000
Some of the kids.

1113
01:09:04,283 --> 01:09:06,064
You could see why they thought
she was a force of nature.

1114
01:09:06,148 --> 01:09:07,566
Yes.

1115
01:09:08,001 --> 01:09:10,501
Rachel was determined to provide opportunities

1116
01:09:10,585 --> 01:09:13,081
that would be able to set
her children up for success.

1117
01:09:13,165 --> 01:09:14,649
They couldn't fail.

1118
01:09:14,733 --> 01:09:16,739
They had to make a success.

1119
01:09:16,823 --> 01:09:20,825
[music]

1120
01:09:20,909 --> 01:09:24,275
We're in Isaacs Hardware
in Clayton, New Mexico.

1121
01:09:24,432 --> 01:09:29,393
I was looking for a new charger
for my drills, the wall drills.

1122
01:09:29,477 --> 01:09:32,371
Okay. All right, let's go see what I've got.

1123
01:09:32,455 --> 01:09:34,945
Robert Isaacs was my grandfather.

1124
01:09:35,425 --> 01:09:36,811
They were in England.

1125
01:09:36,895 --> 01:09:37,891
They went to Australia.

1126
01:09:37,975 --> 01:09:40,435
Granddad came later from Australia.

1127
01:09:40,975 --> 01:09:42,001
When he got to Clayton,

1128
01:09:42,085 --> 01:09:45,541
he joined his brother-in-law
in the hardware business

1129
01:09:45,625 --> 01:09:48,475
and he took over the business here in 1898.

1130
01:09:49,465 --> 01:09:51,331
We were not big enough to have a synagogue,

1131
01:09:51,415 --> 01:09:53,851
or if you had any prayers, it was at home.

1132
01:09:53,935 --> 01:09:57,091
If I understand the Herzsteins
and my father and two

1133
01:09:57,175 --> 01:09:59,881
or three other families
would get together locally.

1134
01:09:59,965 --> 01:10:01,831
The first Herzsteins that we have recorded

1135
01:10:01,915 --> 01:10:05,485
in history were two brothers from Iberia

1136
01:10:05,635 --> 01:10:08,791
who left Spain to escape persecution.

1137
01:10:08,875 --> 01:10:13,825
Morris Herzstein was
the first Herzstein to move West.

1138
01:10:13,945 --> 01:10:18,265
He came from a small town in Germany, Tielen.

1139
01:10:18,355 --> 01:10:24,895
He moved west to the New Mexico
area in about 1886.

1140
01:10:25,555 --> 01:10:29,371
He first settled in Liberty, New Mexico,

1141
01:10:29,455 --> 01:10:35,035
where he began a store and soon
recruited his brother, Levi.

1142
01:10:35,215 --> 01:10:38,281
Morris was out of town on a shopping trip,

1143
01:10:38,365 --> 01:10:42,415
and Levi was left in charge of the store.

1144
01:10:43,105 --> 01:10:47,545
And there were some travelers
coming through who asked

1145
01:10:48,085 --> 01:10:53,875
or were offered a place to stay
in the store overnight to stay dry.

1146
01:10:55,075 --> 01:10:58,261
Black Jack Ketchum was a member,

1147
01:10:58,345 --> 01:11:01,405
and probably a leader,
of the Hole-in-the-Wall gang.

1148
01:11:01,765 --> 01:11:05,725
They were some of the most famous outlaws
in the West.

1149
01:11:06,145 --> 01:11:09,985
Unfortunately, Levi and the local
people didn't recognize them.

1150
01:11:10,855 --> 01:11:13,291
When they came to the store the next morning,

1151
01:11:13,375 --> 01:11:16,321
they realized that both the store

1152
01:11:16,405 --> 01:11:21,055
and the post office
that they also ran had been robbed.

1153
01:11:22,225 --> 01:11:25,735
And Levi quickly gathered up a posse

1154
01:11:26,155 --> 01:11:30,445
and went after Black Jack
Ketchum and his gang.

1155
01:11:31,735 --> 01:11:36,865
Black Jack opened fire and shot
all the members of the posse.

1156
01:11:37,165 --> 01:11:39,196
Levi was killed.

1157
01:11:39,280 --> 01:11:40,967
[music]

1158
01:11:41,051 --> 01:11:43,771
Black Jack was sought after for years

1159
01:11:43,855 --> 01:11:47,845
and brought to trial for a train robbery.

1160
01:11:48,025 --> 01:11:49,411
That was a capital offense.

1161
01:11:49,495 --> 01:11:51,183
He was sentenced to death

1162
01:11:51,445 --> 01:11:56,515
and they sent Black Jack Ketchum
back to Clayton to be hung.

1163
01:11:57,595 --> 01:12:02,251
Morris had left Liberty
after his brother Levi died.

1164
01:12:02,335 --> 01:12:07,675
He had moved to Clayton, where he had
started a very successful store,

1165
01:12:07,885 --> 01:12:11,785
and my great-grandfather, Simon,
was coming out to join him.

1166
01:12:12,115 --> 01:12:15,895
He arrived just
after the hanging of Black Jack.

1167
01:12:16,855 --> 01:12:21,925
Clayton is in the very northeast
corner of New Mexico,

1168
01:12:22,105 --> 01:12:24,625
even today considered pretty remote.

1169
01:12:25,435 --> 01:12:28,321
In terms of Clayton, and the whole Southwest,

1170
01:12:28,405 --> 01:12:30,181
there were very, very few Jews

1171
01:12:30,265 --> 01:12:34,435
and very little Jewish community
to hold yourselves together.

1172
01:12:35,275 --> 01:12:38,275
Simon helped him run this store.

1173
01:12:40,345 --> 01:12:46,201
And then in 1907, there was a fire
that burnt down this whole beautiful,

1174
01:12:46,285 --> 01:12:48,235
big organized store.

1175
01:12:48,925 --> 01:12:55,315
This is The Clayton Citizen,
published December 21, 1907.

1176
01:12:56,440 --> 01:13:01,061
In this newspaper, there are two-one-page ads

1177
01:13:01,145 --> 01:13:07,061
from M. Herzstein and Company
announcing, "Fire, fire, fire. "

1178
01:13:07,145 --> 01:13:08,914
[music]

1179
01:13:08,998 --> 01:13:14,575
Simon's plan was to develop
a ready-to-wear store.

1180
01:13:14,815 --> 01:13:20,461
His store then sold wedding
dresses and all the refineries.

1181
01:13:20,545 --> 01:13:25,945
He was one of the biggest Stetson hat
sales persons west of the Mississippi

1182
01:13:26,275 --> 01:13:29,755
and even had fashion shows at his store

1183
01:13:29,935 --> 01:13:32,821
where people from the community would come in

1184
01:13:32,905 --> 01:13:37,915
and parade around outside with hats and boots.

1185
01:13:38,185 --> 01:13:42,055
The slogan was, "If
it's from Herzstein's, it's correct. "

1186
01:13:42,295 --> 01:13:43,983
He was very proud of that.

1187
01:13:44,755 --> 01:13:47,711
I think Mr. Isaacs and Mr. Herzstein

1188
01:13:48,041 --> 01:13:49,721
were pretty good friends.

1189
01:13:53,950 --> 01:13:56,741
This is my mother-in-law much she older.

1190
01:13:56,825 --> 01:13:59,049
This is just before she got married.

1191
01:13:59,484 --> 01:14:06,484
[music]

1192
01:14:09,048 --> 01:14:11,344
She worked right over there,

1193
01:14:12,011 --> 01:14:14,197
as a maid at the hotel.

1194
01:14:14,647 --> 01:14:20,935
Mrs. Isaacs said that one time
she went out on the porch,

1195
01:14:21,535 --> 01:14:23,395
she heard this car drive up.

1196
01:14:23,965 --> 01:14:26,575
And these men in white gowns jumped out.

1197
01:14:27,745 --> 01:14:30,921
And she knew that it was KKK.

1198
01:14:31,005 --> 01:14:36,505
Mrs. Isaacs said she got her gun
and went out to the front porch and

1199
01:14:37,285 --> 01:14:40,621
told them to "Get out the yard,"
and they said, "No. "

1200
01:14:40,705 --> 01:14:42,794
They were coming to get Mr. Isaacs.

1201
01:14:42,878 --> 01:14:47,702
So she shot over her head
and they ran to the car and left.

1202
01:14:48,454 --> 01:14:51,407
They just kind of slithered away.

1203
01:14:51,668 --> 01:14:58,668
[music]

1204
01:15:07,434 --> 01:15:11,785
They didn't have a bunch of people
to help to back them up there.

1205
01:15:14,537 --> 01:15:19,658
I think it's concerning and has made me think

1206
01:15:19,742 --> 01:15:24,421
about the two times
that the store was burned down.

1207
01:15:24,505 --> 01:15:27,685
This enormous store was burned completely

1208
01:15:27,925 --> 01:15:31,561
and other places in Clayton were not burned.

1209
01:15:31,645 --> 01:15:33,395
My grandfather was Jewish.

1210
01:15:34,195 --> 01:15:35,821
and what little I could find about it,

1211
01:15:35,905 --> 01:15:39,001
he did try to go to synagogue in Amarillo,

1212
01:15:39,085 --> 01:15:42,181
Texas, at least once every
three to five months.

1213
01:15:42,265 --> 01:15:44,703
It was not a short trip going up there.

1214
01:15:45,205 --> 01:15:48,295
My father did not go as much.

1215
01:15:48,595 --> 01:15:53,461
By the time it came to me, I didn't know
what Jewish was until I was 15.

1216
01:15:53,545 --> 01:15:55,670
I went to a Methodist Church here.

1217
01:15:56,815 --> 01:15:59,191
They were in an outpost

1218
01:15:59,275 --> 01:16:04,111
where it was very difficult to talk
about or practice Judaism.

1219
01:16:04,195 --> 01:16:06,715
There weren't Jews around by and large.

1220
01:16:07,645 --> 01:16:13,831
The Herzstein family did manage
to hold the Jewish tradition together,

1221
01:16:13,915 --> 01:16:16,478
though, it must have been very difficult.

1222
01:16:17,155 --> 01:16:20,125
The Jews had been persecuted in the Old World,

1223
01:16:20,425 --> 01:16:23,641
and they were few and far between in the West.

1224
01:16:23,725 --> 01:16:28,921
But they were committed at the same time
to seeing a thriving community

1225
01:16:29,005 --> 01:16:34,051
and thriving businesses.
So they embraced the community,

1226
01:16:34,135 --> 01:16:38,881
They embraced the diversity,
through incredible challenges.

1227
01:16:39,927 --> 01:16:42,091
I think it's really important to remember

1228
01:16:42,175 --> 01:16:46,681
that this is a positive immigration
story because currently,

1229
01:16:46,765 --> 01:16:50,161
we're in a period where Jewish
American life is being threatened.

1230
01:16:50,245 --> 01:16:53,341
And there are attempts from both sides
of the political spectrum

1231
01:16:53,425 --> 01:16:56,411
to sever the Jewish connection
to the United States.

1232
01:16:56,495 --> 01:16:57,595
[music]

1233
01:16:58,027 --> 01:17:02,047
When they came here to the United States,
they wound up in Chicago.

1234
01:17:02,275 --> 01:17:05,545
My grandfather, he worked in a sweatshop.

1235
01:17:05,965 --> 01:17:09,775
Uncle Saul and Uncle Al,
they came out west to Petaluma,

1236
01:17:10,225 --> 01:17:12,061
and they got chicken ranches.

1237
01:17:12,145 --> 01:17:16,435
It was a way to get away
from the exploitation.

1238
01:17:16,975 --> 01:17:21,025
Jewish people are often told
by the non-Jewish world what we are,

1239
01:17:21,145 --> 01:17:23,791
what we're allowed to be,
what we shouldn't be.

1240
01:17:23,875 --> 01:17:26,063
I'm a Jew from Glasgow, Scotland.

1241
01:17:26,695 --> 01:17:28,111
I live in Hong Kong.

1242
01:17:28,195 --> 01:17:31,070
So there's huge diversity in the Jewish world.

1243
01:17:31,165 --> 01:17:35,755
But there are some historic truths
such as our indigeneity to the Levant,

1244
01:17:35,905 --> 01:17:38,530
to the Middle East, that cannot be erased.

1245
01:17:38,965 --> 01:17:41,911
The Jews of the Wild West,
they were able to integrate

1246
01:17:41,995 --> 01:17:45,631
but they also kept their Jewish
identity, which is incredible,

1247
01:17:45,715 --> 01:17:48,991
and it's a lesson for Jewish people
everywhere and also non-Jewish people,

1248
01:17:49,075 --> 01:17:51,655
non-Jewish migrants, non-Jewish refugees.

1249
01:17:52,255 --> 01:17:55,255
It is my family's experience
because I am a Jew

1250
01:17:55,555 --> 01:17:57,805
and the Jewish people are a family.

1251
01:17:59,097 --> 01:18:01,771
Everybody I knew were atheists.

1252
01:18:01,855 --> 01:18:04,855
To me, if you're born a Jew, you die a Jew.

1253
01:18:05,125 --> 01:18:07,525
You can choose how you want to live.

1254
01:18:08,335 --> 01:18:12,145
We have Israel and Judea,
the ancient Jewish kingdoms,

1255
01:18:12,235 --> 01:18:14,791
being invaded and colonized multiple times

1256
01:18:14,875 --> 01:18:17,101
and destroyed and Jewish
people being dispersed

1257
01:18:17,185 --> 01:18:20,101
and persecuted literally in every century,

1258
01:18:20,185 --> 01:18:23,665
in every place that they lived,
but we're still here.

1259
01:18:24,252 --> 01:18:28,435
It may be a small story,
but it is a quintessentially Jewish story.

1260
01:18:29,275 --> 01:18:31,891
It's a story that says how people with grit,

1261
01:18:31,975 --> 01:18:38,035
determination, drive, love,
humor, sweat, sometimes pain,

1262
01:18:38,575 --> 01:18:42,421
built a vibrant and thriving community.

1263
01:18:42,505 --> 01:18:45,655
And if you can do it, in the Wild West,

1264
01:18:45,865 --> 01:18:49,621
in the land of cowboys,
you can do it anywhere.

1265
01:18:50,543 --> 01:18:53,581
If we consider the long history
of the Jewish people,

1266
01:18:53,665 --> 01:18:56,605
this is something
that we have done continuously.

1267
01:18:57,025 --> 01:18:59,665
We are people who celebrate history.

1268
01:19:00,355 --> 01:19:04,165
You know, our main book, the Torah,
is seen as a history book.

1269
01:19:04,345 --> 01:19:06,211
We tell our stories over and over.

1270
01:19:06,295 --> 01:19:11,275
That's what I believe has kept
us alive for 4,000 years and thriving.

1271
01:19:12,225 --> 01:19:15,865
Thank goodness, my folks came
out because my uncles and,

1272
01:19:17,665 --> 01:19:20,011
dang, I really appreciate that.

1273
01:19:20,095 --> 01:19:22,869
That was our Wild West story.

1274
01:19:23,715 --> 01:19:30,715
[music]