`I Never Had As Much Fun'
Howard Simons talks about collecting
"bubbe mayses" for his book on the
American Jewish experience.
DONALD ALTSCHILLER
Special to The Jewish News
A
t the end of an ethnic press sym-
posium at Harvard last spring,
the moderator, Howard Simons,
asked one of the speakers to make some
brief concluding remarks. The man took
his time standing up and then placed his
hands in his pockets. As he began to
speak in a slow, plodding manner, Simons
shouted out, "Don't make me sorry I ask-
ed you."
Ostensibly, Howard Simons, the
curator of the prestigious Nieman Foun-
dation for Journalism at Harvard, does
not have much patience for longwinded-
ness. Yet, this former Washington Post
managing editor has spent a good part
of the last four years traveling across the
entire United States to collect, in his
words, bubbe mayses (grandmothers'
tales) for a book on the Jewish experience
in America. Simons interviewed 227 peo-
ple — young and old, professionals and
workers, the famous and unknown. After
editing these conversations for "continui-
ty, comprehensibility and readability, —
they are now published in Jewish Times:
The Voices of the American Jewish Ex-
perience. Kirkus Reviews has said the
book's "common thread of affectionate
humor" makes it a "valuable contribution
to our understanding of the American
Jewish experience."
"In all my years as a newsman," he
wrote in the epilogue, "I never had quite
as much sustained fun, been as con-
sumed, enjoyed as many people . . . The
worst moment in the preparation of the
book was when I came to the realization
that I would have to stop interviewing."
reviews for Women's Wear Daily. My wife
and I have written seven books.
I was brought up in a nonreligious home
in Chicago, a very ethical and moral home.
I went for many, many years to the
Arbeiter Ring, the Workmen's Circle, and
went to their high school for a while. The
center of my Jewish activity was the
Arbeiter Ring, which was a fraternal
organization. It offered insurance and
various medical care for the immigrant Jew
who came to the United States. It also was
the "Red Cross" to the labor movement. In
those days, the labor movement was poor
and needed financial help, and the Arbeiter
Ring was there always to help them.
Seated in a large room in the stately
19th-century Greek revival building
which houses the Nieman Foundation,
Howard Simons animatedly spoke about
the book, liberally spicing his conversa-
tion with Yiddish words and phrases.
"I submitted many more interviews to
my publisher," he said, "but I couldn't get
everybody in, no matter how rich the in-
terview was. Kierkegaard once said that
every decision involves a sacrifice. That's
what happens when you do 227 inter-
views."
Howard Simons: An ear for Jewish voices.
Simons does regret some omissions. "I
was dying to include a tummler [a
jokester] who worked in the Catskill.
Danny Kaye promised to help me, but un-
fortunately he died. Milton Berle said he
couldn't do it. Jackie Mason wished me
good luck, but he had his own book to do."
Throughout his travels, Simons again
and again heard about the travails of
first-generation immigrants. He never
ceased to marvel at their resilience. While
in Hanoi abort six years ago, he said, he
There was a little forum in Humboldt
Park — it was the anarchist forum called
the Free Society Forum. The audience was
predominantly Jewish. They would discuss
subjects such as "Is capitalism at its end?"
"Zionism versus socialism, where are we
going?" It was always exciting.
Then they had the Yiddish schools. In
the Yiddish schools we learned how to read,
write, talk Yiddish. We learned Jewish
history. We met Yiddish poets. We learned
the history of the Jews through the stories
of the Bible. We learned about the Jews
who were active in the revolutionary move-
ment here in the United States and also in
Europe.
kept thinking that he was in a totally
alien culture. " 'I don't understand the
language," he thought. "I can't make out
the street signs. My only skill is the
English language. What would happen if
I had to leave the U.S. all alone and end
up in Hanoi. How could I make a living?
and yet, my grandfather and other peo-
ple's grandfathers came to these shores."
A first-generation American born in
1929, Simons was raised in a predomi-
nantly Irish and Italian neighborhood in
Albany, New York. He attended cheder
and Jewish day and summer camps. He
wore tzitzis to his first day of junior high
school. Then, he had to undress for swim-
ming class.
"I was so embarrassed," he said, "that
I never wore them again."
Simons is quite comfortable talking
about his family and his own Jewish
background, but he says barely a word
about his career. One would assume that
as the man who had coordinated the
Washington Post's coverage of the
Watergate scandals, Simons would proud-
ly trumpet his own accomplishments. Yet,
Simons' colleagues have often remarked
on his unassuming manner. And
throughout his years at the Post, he was
respected for his rigorous journalistic
standards and his unflinching integrity.
Post reporters affectionately called him
"rabbi" and one Post staffer said, "You
can't afford a Ben Bradlee [editor of the
Post] unless you have a Howard Simons
to do the daily work."
In 1984, Howard Simons was ap-
pointed curator of the Nieman Founda-.
tion for Journalism, the nation's most
pre-eminent university program for mid-
career journalists. Simons was the
unanimous choice of the search commit-
tee which had interviewed more than 100
candidates.
Simons' wife, rIbd Simons (nee Katz)
was born in Baltimore and raised in
Atlantic City. Though delighted with the
book, she has one gnawing fear: Her hus-
band might want to spend another four
years writing a sequel, Jewish Times II.
We put out a little Yiddish magazine
every so often. We put on plays. Saturday
or Sunday the teacher would give us the
history of the Jews. Socialism would be
taught on Sundays. It would become part
of the whole social philosophy of the
school. There was a freedom there; there
was a questioning that we always were per-
mitted. The schools began disappearing in
the 1940s and 1950s.
My family came from Poland. My father
had to flee Poland on the day his father
was on his deathbed because the police
were looking for him. My father apparent-
ly was a lookout for something, and they
were after him. He came here when he was
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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