Bazil Freedman

Buckmaster: Would you please state the place and date of your birth?
FREEDMAN:  The place of my birth is Cape Town, South Africa. And the date is February 6, 1942.

Buckmaster: Could you tell me a little bit about the makeup of your household when you were growing up. Who lived with you?
FREEDMAN:  Yes, I was the youngest of three children (I still am) with a mom and dad. And that was our household. And it included a maid servant as well. Shouldn’t forget that.

Buckmaster: How long did you live there in Cape Town with your family?
FREEDMAN:  With my parents? At that location and at a different address until I emigrated from the country in 1973. But, I lived with my mother and father until 1953. My father passed away in 1953, when I was eleven. I continued to live in Cape Town, South Africa until I emigrated in 1973 to the United States.

Buckmaster: What was Jewish life like in your home?
FREEDMAN:  Well in my home, I lived in one of the many suburbs in Cape Town and each suburb had its own synagogue, or shul, or more than one. So, a Jewish life was very rich, very active. I went to shul sometimes on Erev Shabbat but almost always on Saturday mornings. We had a kosher home. We were by today’s standards fairly orthodox. 

Buckmaster: You celebrated Shabbat and the Holidays I gather?
FREEDMAN:  Yes.

Buckmaster: And what language was spoken?
FREEDMAN:  English.

Buckmaster: Did you ever speak anything else in your house?
FREEDMAN:  Yes, I spoke Afrikaans and some Hebrew. I went to cheder five days a week for many years.

Buckmaster: I think I have the names of your siblings, yes, and your parents?
FREEDMAN:  Michael and Bessie, and Cecille and Philip.

Buckmaster: What was your Jewish education like growing up?
FREEDMAN:  As I said after regular school, which was an all-boys, whites only of course, these are the days of old Apartheid South Africa. Dual-medium English/Afrikaans school. After school around 3:00 I’d walk a mile or two to the Wynberg Shul. There was a big cheder there. And I was in cheder until about 4:00 or 5:00. Then I’d walk home, maybe three miles home. That was my daily experience, five days a week. With a heavy satchel, too. In those days, backpacks were unheard of. It was a satchel. Like a big briefcase.

Buckmaster: It probably damaged many shoulders. 
FREEDMAN:  Probably.

Buckmaster: What Jewish institutions were part of your family’s life?
FREEDMAN:  There was the synagogue. It was Claremont Shul, as I lived mostly in the suburb of Claremont, though I learned in Wynberg, which was an adjourning suburb. My father belonged to the Bicha Cholim. I think he may have belonged to the Chevra Kadisha. And my mother belonged to the B’not Zion, which is something like Hadassah in this country. And other Jewish Institutions? That’s about it. But that was a lot.

Buckmaster: What do you remember about your early childhood in that neighborhood? What stands out for you?
FREEDMAN:  Yes, a few things. I was happy. We were on a street named Ravenswood Road. I’d have to say in retrospect it was surrounded by antisemites. I had various experiences as a child and being made to be aware of my Jewishness. Which didn’t upset me a great deal because I had a strong family and I was part of a strong community. In fact, even as a small boy, I felt sorry for and kind of pitied these people who seemed so ignorant. I remember that once a week the fish cart used to come by, a horse and cart, selling fresh fish. And It had a unique trumpet-like horn that was made usually out of flattened tins cans that the hawker, who was a colored man, would be selling. And sometimes there was an “empty bottle man” coming to buy bottles and rags. Very much like a shtetl one reads about in the old country, wherever that may be. Just something like that. Except it was South African flavor.

Buckmaster: What sort of antisemitism did you encounter as a child? What did people do or say?
FREEDMAN:  As a small child I remember having a circle of friends. And the one across the street from me, one day told me he could no longer play with me because I was Jewish. I forget his name. And when I asked for more details he said that was what his mother or parents told him. And on the other side of me was a boy named Charles who was more aggressive in his physical encounters. I generally did my best to avoid him. Though I would have liked to have been friends. And not too far from me in other streets were other Jewish families and I had some friends there too. I actually started public school at a large co-ed school, boys and girls, all white, that almost goes without saying. And at about six months I was moved to a more prestigious school called Wynberg Boys Junior. Which later became Wynberg Boys Senior as I passed through. I gained entry into that school, though I didn’t really want it, because my older brother Philip was one of these genius guys, I would call him. He finished school at 15 and because he had led such a star-studded track behind him academically they expected me to do the same. I was told I was allowed in on account of my brother’s performance even though the school was full. That’s what they told me, which I believed. But I’m not sure was true, looking back.

Buckmaster: Was it predominantly Jewish?
FREEDMAN:  The school? No. We were always a minority. Maybe 10 to 15% of any class were Jewish. The predominant religion was I guess a mix of Protestant with a small smattering of Dutch Reform. The school I went to was English Medium which meant English was the primary language and Afrikaans was taught as a secondary language. Other schools had it different from that. So now I learned Hebrew at cheder. And Yiddish was spoken but only to the extent that I could not understand it. It was the language my parents spoke so I would not understand. But you know there is strangely enough of an overlap between Afrikaans, which is Dutch/Germanic, and Yiddish, that actually a fair amount was understood. 

Buckmaster: Did you keep it quiet that you understood?
FREEDMAN:  I was just a little boy. I didn’t know any better.

Buckmaster: You attended grammar school there. Whatever they call elementary school in that place. What college?
FREEDMAN:  We didn’t use the word college because these words have so many different meanings. College usually meant somewhere a person went to say learn secretarial skills or something like that or mechanics. I went to University of Cape Town afterwards as a medical student. I should say that just after I turned 18 my mother and I traveled from Cape Town. By then of course my mother was a widow and had been so for some years, seven years, actually. We traveled by ocean liner to England and then to New York, where my mother’s brother, my Uncle Joe, lived in Great Neck, Long Island. And I spent about eight or nine months in New York at that stage, being 18. I was a jazz aficionado in my own young right. It was like being in heaven in many ways. Being able to travel into the city and go to jazz night clubs, ones that were famous. I used to stay over at my family’s place on Central Park West and so got to know Manhattan quite well, certain parts of it, as a boy, as a youngster. That was when a 15-cent token would get me a subway ride and a transfer onto a bus all the way to Little Neck which was a 30-minute walk to where I stayed on Great Neck. I could go in and out of the city for 15 cents each way.

Buckmaster: So how did it come about that she wanted to bring you to New York. And did she stay with you?
FREEDMAN:  Yes, we stayed in my uncle and aunt’s house. And my Aunt Osnass as well, is in her 80s and continues to lives there. My Uncle Joe died quite a few years back. He was a pediatrician.

Buckmaster: What was your father, by the way?
FREEDMAN:  My father Michael was what is loosely called a “business man.” What I learned about him later from one of my aunts was that he had been successful as a youngster and by age 21 was supporting his parents. This is regarded as a real… mitzvah, I suppose is the word. And I don’t know how far my father went in school. I really don’t know if he completed high school. I never thought to ask at the time. Also, he was a businessman. He owned a woman’s fashion store (we called it a dress shop) called Manfred’s. That’s Freedman backwards; it always amused me. He was in that rag trade and he liked to buy and sell properties that I think added to his very stressful life. High blood pressure, quick temper. He died at 53.

Buckmaster: But he left enough money so that your mom didn’t have to work. Is that correct?
FREEDMAN:  That is correct. The money was in trust until I turned 25. It was a long haul with my father’s brother, my Uncle Max and his sister as trustees. My mother remarried when we went to New York and stayed with her brother, my Uncle Joe. She met a man named Raphael, who came from Port Elizabeth, South Africa, which is a coastal city about 400 or 500 miles up the east coast. He was known to my mother. They knew each other. But he was a widower. He proposed marriage and they went to London, where they got married in a very kosher court. They had to prove their lineage for the rabbis. I wasn’t there; I just heard about it. I was left to my own devices to make my way back to South Africa by taking ships. So, I went to Europe on $5 a day.

Buckmaster: Did you travel around Europe at that point?
FREEDMAN:  I did. I was 18. I stayed in Paris and Rome and Venezia and Florence. It was easy traveling in those days. Didn’t need much. Came back to Britain and took a liner back to South Africa where I felt very disjointed. Nothing was the same. I lived with my sister and her husband and two young children then. As there was really no home for me. And I started University.

Buckmaster: Did your mother then stay in America?
FREEDMAN:  My mother and Raphael, my stepdad, who was a very dear man. I really loved him. He was a very frum Orthodox Jewish man. They lived in Port Elizabeth. And so as the years passed by when there was a vacation I would drive up. Because I had a car. I was gifted with a car. A little Mini Minor. I would drive up and spend a week or so with them and drive back again. Up and down.

Buckmaster: What business did you go to when you finished your education?
FREEDMAN:  When I finished Medical School? By then my mother had died. I think this is interesting so I am going to tell it. My then wife, Lucille, and our two very little children (I was still in my 20s then) had decided to emigrate to the US. At that time there was a quota so I waited five years for my number to come up. Then it came up and we sold everything including the house. And we had six weeks to go before leaving the country when I learned that my mother had metastatic breast cancer and it had infiltrated a lot of her body. Poor woman. She had a very, very rough time of it. So, I decided to stay. I had a residency lined up with Yale in Newtown, Connecticut. Fairfield, Newtown. But never went there. I decided to stay and that’s where I continued my medical practice. By then I had already graduated as a doctor, as an MD. So, by then I decided to do psychiatry. The residency at Yale was a psychiatry residency. Not medical school. So, I did my residency in psychiatry and further into child psychiatry in South Africa. 

My mother passed away. It was an agonizing process for her, and for us. A lot of suffering. She died in the Cape Town Jewish Home for the Aged, as it was called (The Old Folks Home), where she received care. And then I was free to go. We were free to go, in a sense. We left in March 1973. Actually, we went to Cyprus for a while because we had friends there. Then we went to Jerusalem for a while. Then we went to Cambridge, England, all visiting friends. And finally flew to New York. And halfway across the Atlantic, between Heathrow and JFK, (I don’t think it was called JKF in those days, was it?) both my children broke out with chickenpox. Which we kept quiet about because we were afraid of being quarantined or expelled or something horrible like that. 

It was fine. They got better, thank god. We stayed at my brother’s. By then he had himself emigrated, also in the late 1960s to the US. And he got married where he continues to live in New York. Then my wife, Lucille, and my first two children, Michael and Georgia. They were five and three respectively. We bought a 1968 VW bus. And we were hippies. Or we thought we were. This was post-Woodstock. Post-Kent State. Post-Vietnam. The movement affected the whole world’s youth. We were part of that. And we drove our way, eventually making it to Berkeley, California, where I continued to live off and on for the next few years before coming to Oregon. I came to Oregon mostly under the persuasion of a good friend whose name is Svevo. I think we’ve both been quite influential in each other’s lives. Svevo Brooks, also known as Larry Brooks. Whose parents lived here, Abe and Shirley Brooks. At that time, I owned a used Cadillac convertible. We had been living in Napa Valley and were friends with a dear older lady who wanted to sell the car so we bought it. And we basically drove up to Oregon. And I remember entering Oregon, entering Ashland and the car broke down. This was in the middle of the night. I think the water pump had broken. My first night was spent sleeping on the carpeted floor of a church in Ashland that was open to travelers who were in need, for which I was very grateful. That was my introduction to Oregon.

Buckmaster: And your children and your wife were there, too?
FREEDMAN:  No, they remained. By then I had separated. Separated from Lucille. The children remained in Berkeley and I got my first job as an MD. When I lived in Berkeley, I sat the exams to get my American credentials intact. I got my first job as a psychiatrist and was working for Douglas County in Roseburg (that was 1976) where I lived and worked for some years. Eventually I moved to some acreage, a farm it was called, in Creswell. And eventually to Eugene itself. And remarried and had two more children. So, there were four of mine and one from Meira, my second wife—Avi. And we lived as a household of five kids and a mom and dad here in Eugene for some years.

Buckmaster: I wonder if I have all those names.
FREEDMAN:  The children are in order: Michael, Georgia born in Cape Town. Then Rebekah who born on the farm in Creswell, a home birth, and Zoë. 

Buckmaster: Do I have Zoë? Yes, that looked like Zack, it should be Zoë.
FREEDMAN:  Michael’s middle name is Zack. Zoë with an untramen or an umlaut on the e. And Avi who is my stepson. Meira’s son.

Buckmaster: You never had military service?
FREEDMAN:  I managed to escape military service.

Buckmaster: And how did you raise the children? What kind of Jewish education did they have, if any?
FREEDMAN:  It was always important to observe Shabbos, at least by lighting Shabbos candles. But I was away from my family. My wife then and two children off and on, I became a traveler. I lived in New Mexico. I lived in different places. Wandering around. Trying to emulate Siddhartha. Which was important book for me in those days. It still is, a seeker. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. So, you asked to what extend did my family maintain Jewishness. There was a year or two of being single in Berkeley where I was spiritually seeking and spiritually lost. So, I lost touch to a large extent with my Jewishness, only to come back to it later. How do I explain? My son Michael was bar mitzvahed. It was an important event. My second marriage was officiated by the late Myron Kinberg, may his memory for a blessing. We were good friends. This was on the farm in Creswell. It was a very big gathering. It was part of the New Age, The Jewish New Age movement. The Aquarian Movement. There was a lot of that going on in the time. Zalman, in particular. Those people, also of blessed memory. And I was still so old-fashioned in the time that I regarded it as not necessary for my daughter Georgia to be bat mitzvahed. And I have apologized to Georgia in my late adult life because I think that was a terrible oversight. I wish Georgia had had a bat mitzvah. It would have been good for her and good for us. But it didn’t happen. 

Buckmaster: What about Rebekah and Zoë?
FREEDMAN:  They had bat mitzvahs. Their mother was strongly in support of that. Georgia’s mother, bless her, it didn’t really seem to be an important issue. And I was old-fashioned. Girls didn’t do those things. I was still stuck in that mode. I regret that terribly. That’s how it was. You know. What else can I say?

Buckmaster: Let’s go back to when you got to Lane County.
FREEDMAN:  After Douglas County. 

Buckmaster: When was that?
FREEDMAN:  1979.

Buckmaster: And what were your first impressions on arriving in Oregon?
FREEDMAN:  When I arrived in Roseburg, I lived in Roseburg on the North Umpqua in a beautiful setting in an old cabin. It was very graciously given to me for use by a dear friend who has for many years passed on. Her name was Florence. My first impressions, I actually lived on a farm in Umpqua, where a friend, David, had a very large, over a hundred acre, farm. Though he didn’t do farming; he raised goats. His partner raised goats. By the time I had my place in Roseburg and later Creswell I was already part of the Jewish identity in Eugene. As I would come to Eugene quite often. And make some attempt to have my kids attend Hebrew School and get some contact with Jewishness. And probably the main reason I was not interested in settling in Roseburg area, which I loved. Because, the climate was good. Farming, the earth is so good there. I really liked it there. You know it’s not in Willamette Valley, it’s out of the rain belt. It’s so much nicer. But the mindset is not conducive to having a Jewish family. That’s how it seemed at the time and so I gravitated towards Temple Beth Israel, which was the center of the Jewish activities as far as I knew at the time.  And met various members and their parents and so forth. So, by the time I moved to Lane county I was already, in a sense, a part of Jewish community in Eugene.

Buckmaster: You were commuting at that time.
FREEDMAN:  I was commuting, in my Cadillac convertible. 

Buckmaster: What did you notice about the Jewish communities here in general compared to where you had left?
FREEDMAN:  I grew up in a Jewish environment where if you were Jewish, you were Jewish. There weren’t any categorizations of Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist. I know those are more modern outcroppings. In fact, in Cape Town, Reform was unheard of until a very large German contingent arrived and started a Reform shul in a suburb called Seapoint, which is on the sea. And they caused great consternation and rumor when the news got out that they didn’t wear yarmulkes or hats on their heads. We were quite shocked. I mean I was still a kid. So, there was that polarization. 

Coming to Eugene. Eugene’s Shul seemed to be also a polarized situation between the old guard and the newcomers, of which I was a part. I must have arrived here either just before or just after the death of Rabbi Neimand. And was present when Rabbi Myron started. And was present when Yitzhak [Husbands-Hankin] and Aryeh [Hirschfield] arrived on the scene. These minstrels who were so good with Jewish enthusiasm and celebratory music and it infected all of us. And my second wife Meira was actually the former wife of another rabbi, Hanan Sills. So, that’s how things fit together or don’t fit together. It was a time of turbulence as always. It was Berkeley all over again, as a matter of fact, on a smaller scale. The first place I ever lived in I was  a guest for a week or so in the home of Abe and Shirley Brooks. Then Svevo and I teamed up. We bought the property together. And rented a cottage on Floral Hill Drive and would come up for the weekends and had that kind of life.

Buckmaster: So, the Jewish community here was more varied than what you had encountered before.
FREEDMAN:  Yes, that’s a good way of putting it. It was more varied. There were some pretty fine people. It was an honor to be around them. I always felt that. Mr. Brenner for example. Sara, what was his wife’s name. I can’t remember his first name. The old guard. Outstanding people.

Buckmaster: Where you say it was sort of like Berkeley, could you describe that ambience a little bit?
FREEDMAN:  Berkeley was a large center for alternative living, alternative thinking. Sort of an underground theme of anarchy. Of antiestablishmentarianism. Of scholarliness as well and learnedness and of protest. And Eugene had its own variety of that as well. So, it wasn’t a big item to move from Berkeley to Eugene. Many others did that as well. I learned there was kind of a circuit of such towns. Eugene, Berkeley, Boulder, Austin, Texas, Madison, Wisconsin. They all had these kinds of things in common. At least that’s what I learned. I went to a few of those places. New Age. And I should explain that once I arrived in Berkeley I became a student of a woman named Mildred Jackson who was by credentials an RN but was aged and would give lectures in her living room for a 25-cent donation into a box every Wednesday evening. And what she taught I would call botanical medicine, which I became very interested in. And that’s actually where I met Svevo. This man Svevo. He had the same interests. And we found a lot in common.

Buckmaster: What kind of work did he do?
FREEDMAN:  I hope you interview Svevo one day. He can give you his history. [Editor note: Svevo Brooks was interviewed by the Oral History Project in 2015.] I know he had a quite different background. For example, he was a university graduate and was a tennis professional and he also dropped out. And so we were comrades. I don’t mean in a Communist sense in that manner. What type of work did he do? That’s a darn good question. Whatever needed to be done. I don’t think he had a particular job anymore. And I didn’t have a medical license either during my time and years in Berkeley and traveling. So, I didn’t practice as a doctor.

Buckmaster: So, what kind of work did you do at that point?
FREEDMAN:  I created an income and made a living and helped out by doing such things as being a tree surgeon’s assistant, being a ground boy. I did life drawing poses as a model for the community college in Saint Helena in Napa Valley. In New Mexico, I worked for a women’s construction collective. They hired men. I learned to do adobe. I sort of traveled and did jobs.

Buckmaster: And at that point you weren’t supporting the children, any of them?
FREEDMAN:  You know we came to the US, my wife Lucille and the two little children, with a certain amount of money. Everything we had we sold. And we had about $20,000, which was not too bad in 1970 money. And the arrangement was that I gave everything to her for all their needs. With her agreement, I didn’t really contribute for some years. That all changed once I regained my license and got a job. In fact, my two children lived with me most of the time and much less of the time with their mother in Berkeley and Oakland, California. In the Bay Area. They would go there for vacations but most of their growing up was here in Oregon. Well, the two older ones but the two younger ones were born in Oregon, so it’s only been Oregon for them. Except for university. 

Buckmaster: It’s a little complex.
FREEDMAN:  It’s a blended family.

Buckmaster: So, you established some affiliations with other Jewish people and groups after you got here.
FREEDMAN:  Yes, that’s well put.

Buckmaster: Was there anything else you would like to say about that?
FREEDMAN:  No, not really. I worked as a psychiatrist. I had a part time job with Lane County. I worked at Lane County Adult Corrections in the jail as a consultant. And then I spent many decades as a part time psychiatrist for Lane County Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Clinic there on Centennial. I also went to what was then Skipworth [inaudible]. I had my own practice which I have since shut down, retired. And had these positions with the county.

Buckmaster: Just tell me if you feel like you have answered this already. I need to check off everything.  Which Jewish affiliations with individuals or groups did you feel had importance in your life?
FREEDMAN:  The synagogue itself. I did serve as its president for a few years which was a great surprise to me because I had had absolutely no experience in committees, which I did my best to avoid. And those kind of things. But suddenly I found myself as president. I was actively involved in the Chevra Kadisha. I am no longer, but I was. And like to believe I was a fairly good friend of the Kinbergs, Myron and Alise. Their children were close to mine; they were good friends. Their younger girl. Not Johanna, Mo as we called her and Oni. So was I a Ganza Macher? I hope I wasn’t a Ganza Macher. Do you know what I mean by that? Big deal, big guy on campus. But I also tried to play that down. I also had a booth at the Oregon Country Fair for a few years.

Buckmaster: What did you do at the booth?
FREEDMAN:  I told fortunes by doing handwriting analysis. Which I am very good at. I shouldn’t blow my own trumpet. But I am. So, I’ve struggled to be part of the straight establishment and also to be not part of the straight establishment. It’s been a personal endeavor, which I don’t know if I am able to pull off very well. Because I’m not sure where I am.

Buckmaster: How did your Jewish identity affect your life in the secular community?
FREEDMAN:  I tended to keep my Jewish identity quite insulated from the secular community. Partially because of my professional life and keeping that out of it. Though I did have one or two patients who came to me because I was Jewish and most of what we dealt with was Jewish. But apart from that, it was an important thing for me to keep insulated, I felt. I didn’t seek to represent the Jewish community in Eugene in any way.

Buckmaster: Even as the president?
FREEDMAN:  It didn’t really come up much. I think the week after I ended the presidency and the next one who took over was Susan Shmerer, the very next week was the shooting up of Temple Beth Israel. So, that was a huge event. And I was aware of the frustration of Myron, Rabbi Kinberg, as he interfaced with the religious community in Eugene, the non-Jewish religious community, and how much prejudice he encountered. Mostly in the well-meaning manner, but never-the-less prejudice.

Buckmaster: Can you give me an example?
FREEDMAN:  Yes, he would go to a monthly breakfast, early morning breakfast with the mayor and the big shots and other clergy. And was always very perturbed, unhappy that they insisted on grace and saying their savior’s name each time. There was no deference to others in the community. I didn’t feel much urge to try and correct things or represent the Jewish community in that manner. I’ve never ever had any sort of denying or pretending. I’m quite happy to be known as Jewish but I haven’t made it a point to let others know that I am Jewish. I think that is my upbringing. For example, my father would never allow lists of Jewish people to be made. Like we have a directory here–membership at TBI. That would be forbidden. Because he says if there are lists, then they know who to come after. This was the years, 1940s and 50s. 

Buckmaster: You were too young really for the 40s to be aware of what was going on.
FREEDMAN:  No, I was aware. I remember in 1948 I remember walking with my mother. We had just gotten off a local suburban train at our station. There was an election in progress and I remember there was a car with a big loud speaker on its roof blaring out the message from the Nationalist Government. Which in 1948 ousted the, it’s hard to call them liberal, but none-the-less, somewhat more to the left, United Party. And my mother saying to me, she was in tears, saying, “This is terrible. We Jews have to be more careful. We don’t know what is going to happen.” Because the Afrikaner Nationalists were seen as rather right wing. And some of them were known as Nazi sympathizers. And there were some really good people there too. Have you ever heard as General Smuts? He was the man who was defeated in that election. He was one of the founders of the United Nations. So [that was] in my early years, the late 1940s. But we never really encountered anything that I am aware of, actually. No it was only on a personal level from schoolmates here and there. I once, in Standard 5, which is seventh grade got stabbed in my left palm (The pencil broke off in my hand.) by a guy named David Watts. And he did that because, as he said, “You killed Jesus.” He did that to me. I thought it was ludicrous. That is why I felt sorry for these people. That’s what he had been taught, poor guy. David Watts.

Buckmaster: What did you do?
FREEDMAN:  I didn’t tell the teachers. It was just something personal on that level. I don’t think I even told my parents.

Buckmaster: Which issues inside the community had the biggest impact on the years you lived here? And how did the community discuss and deal with them? There are a whole bunch of possibilities. The establishment of an Orthodox congregation, the hiring of the rabbi, the changing affiliations. Boy, you name it, there is a lot of stuff. Just to get your view because you were here for a lot of this.
FREEDMAN:  Which had the greatest impact on me? Is that what your question was?

Buckmaster: Which had the biggest impact in the years you lived here? It doesn’t say necessarily on you yourself, from your point of view what were the most important to this community.
FREEDMAN:  Well, the polarization at Temple Beth Israel was a strange issue. Because it seems to me in my over-simplified view of the world, “We are all Jewish. What’s all this quibbling about?” But there were people who objected to Myron’s more liberal view on marriage, his willingness to officiate in a mixed marriage. As long as there was a promise for the children to be raised in a Jewish manner, he was willing to do it. There were mixed views about the kitchen at the synagogue. This was even before the new kitchen.

Buckmaster: Were they quarrelling about how kosher things had to be?
FREEDMAN: Yes, it was felt unnecessary to be…if I remember without wanting say bad about anybody. I think the issue was, “Why was the synagogue being so insistent on such a kosher kitchen?” Because it seemed to me, “Why is that question even coming up?” So, what else was there? The Hebrew school at that time, which affected me because of my children (now I am talking about the 70s into the early 80s), was very chaotic and not well run and unfortunately my children hated going. I didn’t make it into an issue and let it slide.

Buckmaster: Did you think their Hebrew education suffered because of how that went?
FREEDMAN: Yes, and my lack of involvement. I could have done more. The onus is on me more than anybody. For that I point that out. I was the parent. We were driving from Creswell and bringing the kids and they were reluctant to go and not happy about it. When I saw what was going on, they had a point. It was rather chaotic.

Buckmaster: You didn’t complain to the authorities?
FREEDMAN: I didn’t. I didn’t think it was worth complaining. But my son Michael had a very good bar mitzvah education because Yitzhak was a friend and there was a point of Michael going to see Yitzhak for private lessons, which I also attended, and learned a great deal. It was a good experience.

Buckmaster: So what about the girls with their bat mitzvahs? Were things any better by the time they came along?
FREEDMAN: You know unfortunately, on a personal basis, between the bat mitzvah of Rebekah who is the third born and Zoë who is the fourth born, their mom and I had separated. So, the first bat mitzvah was good, as was the second but by the time the second one happened there were all sorts of emotional family issues and injuries and things going on, which I regret deeply. However, the river has flowed, you know, it’s done. The bat mitzvah of Rebekah was meaningful to her but not as much as the bar mitzvah had been to the son. And the bat mitzvah of the last girl, Zoë, was I believe probably less meaningful to her because there was less grounding. 

Buckmaster: Grounding means what?
FREEDMAN: Hebrew school, family life, observance, the importance of our heritage. The things that I certainly would do with grandchildren now, if I had…

Buckmaster: Do you have grandchildren?
FREEDMAN: I have two grandsons, yes, and my stepson has three kids. They are a little bit more on the periphery, but they are there.

Buckmaster: Are they here?
FREEDMAN:  No, they are all in Los Angeles.

Buckmaster: So, hard to do much influencing.
FREEDMAN: Yes, exactly. My twelve-year-old grandson has just started learning the Shema. It’s a little late, but it’s something. I’ve made laminated copies of the Shema and I’ve asked him to learn it and I test him on it. It’s just the first steps so I am determined for he will have some meaning in his life when it comes to being Jewish.

Buckmaster: Is he involved with another religion?
FREEDMAN: No, well, his father is Buddhist. When he was here just a month ago he told me he doesn’t want to belong to any religion. He thinks they are all ridiculous. He’s learning the Shema out of respect for me because he knows I wanted him to. For which I thanked him. I think he is right on; he’s asking the right questions.

Buckmaster: Well, different questions for every era. Have you encountered any expressions of antisemitism in Eugene or in Oregon?
FREEDMAN: Actually, personally I don’t believe I have. I have heard others’ accounts of it and actions—for example, the shooting of the synagogue is an obvious one and the outlooks of the Christian leaders, like I mentioned Myron Kinberg’s experiences. But me personally no, I have not encountered anything like that. I have encountered ignorance but I don’t regard it as antisemitism. 

Buckmaster: Were you here for the skinhead attack, something about the skinhead attack on TBI?
FREEDMAN: That is the shooting, I believe. I think it is one and the same. Before that there was also theft of the silver crowns and other things that were recovered within a week. And that made national headlines. It was recovered from an apartment house that is one block from the synagogue, from where the old synagogue was on Portland Street. But I don’t think it was antisemitism, I think it was opportunistic from two really dumb youth, three actually. One of whom had a personal encounter of forgiveness from Myron himself. 

Buckmaster: When you travel outside Eugene in Oregon, how do you explain what it means to be Jewish here?
FREEDMAN: Gee. I’m not sure if that ever comes up. I’ve been asked what kind of community is here. I say there was a Conservative [synagogue]. Now it’s a Reconstructionist shul. There is a small Orthodox wing. There is Hillel and Chabad. I think Chabad is back here now. I don’t have too much to say about it. 

Buckmaster: So, you just mention the institutions and not what the ambiance of the community with regard to the Jews.
FREEDMAN: In the years past I may have spoken to New Age and that kind of thing, but I don’t think it is that anymore. It’s no longer New Age. We’ve all aged out of it.

Buckmaster: The era has changed. The last question is to discuss how the meaning of being Jewish has changed over time. I think you have covered that very well but I was wondering if you had more to say about it going from the New Age stuff to whatever we have now. Is there something more to it?
FREEDMAN: Is there something more to the meaning of being Jewish at the present time in this community? 

Buckmaster: To the change that’s happened over time.
FREEDMAN: My perception in a general way is that Jewishness is more widely known about and more widely accepted in the greater community, as a whole. And it’s impressed me that actually being Jewish is a matter for some that I have encountered much respect and amazement and admiration of Jewishness. I think the climate has improved regarding what I perceive the general community’s view of Jewishness. I don’t know about Judaism, but Jewishness in this community. And I would attribute that to an important extent to Myron Kinberg, who I believe did a lot of good including with the Palestinian community, such that it is. It is very small, but things have a ripple effect. For example, one of Myran’s best friends was Ibrahim. Do you know who I am taking about? He is also older now. He’s a Palestinian who owns some restaurants in Eugene. Café Soriah, yes that would be one. So, Ibrahim was an admirer and a friend and it would work both ways. 

I had the honor of going on a Witness for Peace in the Middle East Tour in 1991, I think it was. Between the First and Second Intifadas, between Myron and a whole contingent of clergy and laity, some ministers from Portland and Eugene. A Register-Guard reporter accompanied us on this trip. And there was a Palestinian man, whose name I forget, from Portland. And we as a group went to Israel and were guests of United Nations agency and went in white UN-marked busses to places like Gaza, Gaza City, Ramada and Nablus, which most Jewish people take their lives in their hands to go into. We went to Joseph’s Tomb, which is in the heart of Nablus, a very dangerous place. Through all that, the Jew who got the most respect and admiration from Palestinians no matter where we went was Myron Kinberg. He was that kind of man. So that rubbed off on me. And Aryeh Hirshfield. Do you know who that was? He and Yitzhak became rabbis. They were the singing duo. Aryeh died in a swimming accident about three or four years ago. He’s the author of some of the liturgy and melody we sing in our shul here. Aryeh was on the tour and he had his guitar and we were singing songs in various languages. It was a great experience for me in my life to go to Israel on that basis.

Buckmaster: Do you think it’s still held until now some of the effects of that?
FREEDMAN: Yes, I do think so. Connie Brown, she was a well-known woman. I don’t think she is alive any more. She was a Quaker activist, a very outspoken woman. Do you know who I am talking about? She must have died about two or three years ago. It was people like that. So, it was my good fortune to go on that tour.

Buckmaster: What do you think the future might bring for this place? I am thinking about our new Pres [Trump]. Just wondering how you think…
FREEDMAN: Oh, that Pres. First of all, I want to point out I might been seen as naïve and overly optimistic, but the Electoral College….These are very unusual times. No precedent. The Electoral College has yet to cast its vote. And the constitution allows certain contingencies for them to reject the candidate if they deem that necessary. So, having said that, I realize it’s unlikely but it’s possible. Trump was unlikely, so why not more unlikely. We are living in a very astrological age right now of the most unlikely things coming about. I can point to the city of Sheffield in England which won a world soccer tournament. The odds were 5000:1 with the bookies. The Cubs….The list goes on and on like this. The most unusual outcomes are happening. By all means, let that continue. I think we are in for a terrible fight. That’s what I think. I don’t think being Jewish is necessary. I don’t feel a great risk because I am Jewish. I don’t think those who are not Jews are at great risk. We are all at risk. Even those ignorant masses who voted for him in are at risk. They don’t yet know it. I don’t know. I can’t predict anything except to expect the worst and hope for the best. I learned that expression from my friend Susan Sygall. You know her? She’s part of the community. She started Mobility International. She uses a wheelchair. And when she woke up from an accident when she was 18 or 19, the neurosurgeon told her she had lost the use of her lower body, she writes this in her book, a very good book, “Expect the worst and hope for the best.” That’s a good slogan.

Buckmaster: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
FREEDMAN: I’ve had political feelings about the relatively large size, number of Jewish people who live in this area who do not participate in the support of the synagogue. I’d like to say to them, “Stop being freeloaders. You like the fact that there is a synagogue here but you don’t support it.” Particularly in the University orbit.
Buckmaster: We’d have to be threatened before something like that happens.