Arthur Zuckerman

Frankel: Let me ask you to start by stating your name, place, and date of birth.
ZUCKERMAN: My full name is Arthur Ira Zuckerman, born in Brooklyn, New York, on July 18th, 1953.

Frankel: Tell me a little bit about your family. Who lived in the household when you grew up.
ZUCKERMAN: In my household, I’m the youngest of two boys. My older brother is Jerome, better known as Jerry. My father Max, my mother Sylvia, and that was pretty much it.

Frankel: How far back did your family live in the United States? Who came here first?
ZUCKERMAN: My mother was born here, my mother was born in Brooklyn. My father came here at the age of 11. He got here just in time for the Depression. He didn’t want to miss it, so he got here in 1929.

Frankel: From?
ZUCKERMAN: Poland. 

Frankel: Did you know your grandparents?
ZUCKERMAN: I knew my grandparents. My grandparents moved here – my grandfather got here, arrived earlier —

Frankel: Your paternal grandfather?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, my paternal grandfather arrived here – his name was Alta Ben-Tzion, and his English name was Benjamin. He arrived here a little bit before my grandmother and my father and siblings.

Frankel: Alone, or with his wife?
ZUCKERMAN: Well, I’ll tell you, he arrived –

Frankel: Oh, before your grandmother –
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, before my grandmother.

Frankel: What about your maternal grandparents?
ZUCKERMAN: My maternal grandparents, my mother’s father, my grandfather, his name was Michael, Mechel.

Frankel: His last name?
ZUCKERMAN: Gedalowitz. And my grandmother, Tilly, it’s interesting, because coming from an Orthodox background 50 years ago, or 70 years ago, you didn’t hear about someone who was divorced. My grandparents were actually divorced before I was born, which is kind of interesting. So my grandmother’s name was Tilly Neadel. She had married a gentleman in Florida, and they were living there. When he passed away, when her second husband passed away, she moved to Israel. My mother’s father, Mechel, already remarried in Israel, he had moved to Israel.

Frankel: Interesting. So, where did they come from?
ZUCKERMAN: They came from the same city in the Czech Republic. One had a Hungarian passport, one had a Czech passport. Yes, figure that one out! I don’t know.

Frankel: And what languages were spoken in your house when you grew up?
ZUCKERMAN: My parents occasionally would speak Yiddish between each other, but mostly English. My mother didn’t know any Polish; my father pretty much forgot it.

Frankel: And, what did your father or your mother do?
ZUCKERMAN: Oh, this is interesting. My father was a painter at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He painted ships. On Sundays, he didn’t work on Shabbat, obviously. Although, that’s obvious to me; it’s not obvious to other people, coming from an Orthodox background. My father would do private houses, he would do private jobs on Sunday, in Brooklyn. And he worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard until it shut down. What year it shut down I don’t exactly remember. I know it was sometime in the ‘60s, and after that he was transferred to the VA Hospital in New York. So it was a government job; he went to the VA Hospital for the federal government. Which was interesting because he had different choices. One choice, he could have gone to Philadelphia to the shipyard there, or he could have gone to San Diego to the shipyard there. I could have been having sunshine in San Diego! My father chose to stay in New York and keep me in the yeshiva I was in, in New York. So I stayed in school in New York. 

Frankel: And so, when you say, of course he never worked on Saturday, did they not require that Saturday be a day of work?
ZUCKERMAN: No. Five days a week.

Frankel: Okay. And you said you grew up in an Orthodox home.
ZUCKERMAN: I grew up in an Orthodox home. I went to yeshiva for 12 years.

Frankel: What do you call yeshiva? How does it compare? Was it after school?
ZUCKERMAN: Oh, no, no, no. It was full day school. But the curriculum was more intense on Judaic studies than it was on secular studies.

Frankel: Was it boys and girls separate?
ZUCKERMAN: No, no girls. All boys’ school.

Frankel: What was the name of the yeshiva?
ZUCKERMAN: Toras Emes [spells it] on 43rd Street between 13th and 14th Avenue in Borough Park. There were 600 kids in my yeshiva.

Frankel: And did most of the kids who graduated go off to college?
ZUCKERMAN: The vast majority went off to college. — It was elementary school. They had a high school, but it only came in later and that was a separate entity.

Frankel: So you only went through sixth grade to that yeshiva?
ZUCKERMAN: No, I went through eighth grade at that yeshiva and then for high school I went to RJJ. Rabbi Jacob Joseph High School in Lower East Side Manhattan.

Frankel: Which was both Jewish and secular?
ZUCKERMAN: No. Well, they had Judaic studies and secular studies, yes.

Frankel: Right, right, combined. And your brother did the same thing?
ZUCKERMAN: Identical. He did everything that I did ten years before me.

Frankel: Okay. And what would you say were your activities, how did you spend your time?
ZUCKERMAN: Once I was a teenager my life revolved pretty much around B’nai Akiva, which is a religious Zionist youth movement. It took up the majority of my time, more so than high school.

Frankel: When were your meetings with the yeshiva?
ZUCKERMAN: Most of the meetings were on Shabbat. We would go to Snif, to the branch in Borough Park, and we would have a Shabbaton, we would have weekends –

Frankel: A Shabbatonim, where you would go away?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, yes. For a Shabbaton we had it in Borough Park – I was in Pittsburgh, we would have it in all over New York State. But that was my priority in high school. I spent more time doing that. It’s funny, because in my senior year of high school between B’nai Akiva and the demonstrations at the Soviet Mission, I think I had more days out of school than I had in school. 

Frankel: And yet you graduated?
ZUCKERMAN: They couldn’t wait for me to graduate fast enough in school because they knew I was going to Israel.

Frankel: And when you say, they knew you were going to Israel?
ZUCKERMAN: In the school, the administration.

Frankel: Was that under the influence of B’nai Akiva?
ZUCKERMAN: That was under the influence of B’nai Akiva. But it was also with the approval, high approval, of my parents.

Frankel: So, talking about your parents, and Zionism, did you grow up with that sense…?
ZUCKERMAN: My father was at the first Moshava, in Highstown, New Jersey in 1936.

Frankel: And, can you explain the purpose of that Moshava?
ZUCKERMAN: There were people there, the majority of those people that were going to kibbutz.

Frankel:  In other words, to train them.
ZUCKERMAN: To train them to go to kibbutz, to the agriculture.

Frankel: And, what happened?
ZUCKERMAN: What happened was he got married. And my mother said, I don’t want to go to kibbutz, and that was pretty much put a kabash on that one.

Frankel: And, you said you knew your grandparents. Did they live close to you? Did you celebrate holidays together?
ZUCKERMAN: My mother’s parents didn’t live close to us. My father’s parents lived in Brooklyn, also, off Kings Highway. And occasionally we would be there for a Shabbat or a chag. I remember one time, one year in high school I spent Pesach there, but for the most part we would get together at family circle meetings. It was rare my grandparents would come to our house; usually we would go over there.

Frankel: And, did your parents have siblings, or did you have an extended family?
ZUCKERMAN: My mother was the oldest. She had twin brothers, brothers that were twins, and she had one younger brother. So she had three siblings.

Frankel: All in New York?
ZUCKERMAN: All in New York, yes. And one, in 1947 – I think it was ’47 – moved to Israel because he wanted to go – he was rejected by the American military, and so he said, I’m going to go fight in Israel. And they didn’t reject him; they took him.

Frankel: And on your father’s side?
ZUCKERMAN: On my father’s side, he had — okay, let’s see, my uncle Marty and there were two siblings.

Frankel: So, were you a close family? In other words, were your cousins, if you had cousins –
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, there were cousins. But it was one of those – like, everybody else has dysfunctional families, so there was strife, and we would get together at certain times. But it was interesting because we were the only ones from my father’s side that were really observant.

Frankel: How so?
ZUCKERMAN: My aunt and uncle were not. Therefore their kids obviously were not, and kind of shifted away as years went on. I do have a connection with some of my cousins today, specifically from my father’s side. My mother’s side of the family, I have a connection with a couple of my cousins. One, we’re not sure. He kind of just went off.

Frankel: And so you spoke Hebrew as a result of your school years?
ZUCKERMAN: Ah, no. Got to Israel and needed to focus on it because it was a hodgepodge. It really wasn’t coherent.

Frankel: I see. And did you as a family go to services every week?
ZUCKERMAN: Pretty much. Up to the age of 13 I had to go with my father to services on Shabbat. Once I was 13, I was able to go off to B’nai Akiva and I would get together with one other friend. We would walk all the way. It was a fairly good walk. I mean it was almost a mile to shul, to the synagogue.

Frankel: That was with your friend or with your father?
ZUCKERMAN: With my friend. Depending on where my father was davening there was one synagogue that was six houses away from us when I was about six. On Sunday morning I would go there myself.

Frankel: What was there on Sunday morning?
ZUCKERMAN: Services.

Frankel: Oh. So you’d go both on Shabbat and on Sunday?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, I would go there myself. My father would be off at work. I would just walk over there myself. I received the nickname of the Klainer Kohen. I was the small Cohen.

Frankel: Are you a Cohen?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes. So I had the men, really it was funny, because I remember, up to the age of 13, I would always be under my father’s tallit, and you would hear the men’s voices, for the Birkat Kohanim, for the blessing and you would hear all the men [sings in deep voice] ‘Yevarechecha’, and my voice when I was little [sings in high voice] ‘Yevarech–’. But they really got a kick out of me growing up, so from the age of three to the age of 13, I missed Birkat Kohanim, you can count on one hand how many times I missed.

Frankel: Was your brother there too?
ZUCKERMAN: My brother’s almost ten years older.

Frankel: Oh, I see.
ZUCKERMAN: So we kind of grew up as individual kids. I mean, by the time he was off in college, I was still in elementary school.

Frankel: And so, it sounds like, unlike many other kids, you enjoyed going to services and you enjoyed being observant. Am I understanding correctly?
ZUCKERMAN: I didn’t know any other way of life. All my friends were. For all intents and purposes, if I knew any non-Jews they lived down my block. There were some Italian kids that lived down my block, so I knew who they were. But it’s hard to say they were friends, you know. We interacted occasionally. But for the most part, all my friends in the neighborhood were Jewish that went to my yeshiva or that just graduated.

Frankel: So, did you encounter any antisemitism growing up?
ZUCKERMAN: Occasionally in Borough Park, sometimes from Puerto Ricans that lived there.

Frankel: How did it manifest itself?
ZUCKERMAN: Water balloons on Friday night. We’d be walking back from a lilmud (we would have study sessions on Friday night) and all of a sudden we’d get pelted by water balloons. So we learned how to move through Borough Park in certain blocks. We learned how to move very quickly.

Frankel: But was it accompanied by some epithets? 
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, occasionally, but it was nothing. It wasn’t dangerous. It was never dangerous.

Frankel: Right. And so if Zionism was important, do you have memories of the Six Day War?
ZUCKERMAN: Of the Six Day War, very little, because I was still in elementary school. The yeshiva I went to was not a Zionist school, interestingly enough. There weren’t that many Zionist schools at that time, elementary schools. There might have been one. Lets see, Flatbrush Yeshivah would have been one. YCQ might have been a little bit more. But mine was more right-wing Orthodox; Israel was a priority, but from a religious perspective, not from a secular perspective.

Frankel: And you mentioned you spent a lot of time with the Soviet Mission rallying.
ZUCKERMAN: I have pictures from demonstrations. 

Frankel: How did it start? 
ZUCKERMAN: From B’nai Akiva. We’d said that there’s a rally going on for Israel, so we would go to outside Madison Square Garden and we would collect tzedakah that was being sent to Israel. 

Frankel: Was this after the Six Day War? No? You don’t recall?
ZUCKERMAN: That was after the Six Day War. No, no, it was before the Yom Kippur War. I was in the Yom Kippur War already. It was during the [khameiat asha] during the Suez Canal situation. But for Soviet Jewry there were demonstrations. I was a member of Student Activists for Soviet Jewry; I was a member of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. We would go down –

Frankel: Were you in college already at that time?
ZUCKERMAN: No, no, no. This was high school.

Frankel: This was in high school.
ZUCKERMAN: Yes. After high school I left for Israel.

Frankel: I see, right away.
ZUCKERMAN: Right away. 

Frankel: You didn’t go to college here.
ZUCKERMAN: I did go to college here when I was 26 and married, with a kid.

Frankel: Oh, after Israel. I see.
ZUCKERMAN: I was in Israel for eight years. I came back then.

Frankel: Yes. So any memories from those demonstrations?
ZUCKERMAN: I have pictures that remind me of everything. I’ll show you one picture. [background noise, shuffling] I’ve got a bunch of pictures.

Frankel: I’ll just look at one. Maybe at the end we can – maybe we’ll scan that.
ZUCKERMAN: This is 1969 at the Iraqi Mission to the U.N. when they hung people. They hung Jews in Iraq saying that they were spies for Israel. That’s me. You know who that is? That’s Yossi Klein Halevi.

Frankel: Oh, you’re kidding.
ZUCKERMAN: No. I showed him the picture. But in those days he was just Yossi Klein. The Halevi part came in later.

[shuffling] This one – that’s a better one. When Georges Pompidou from France – there was an embargo on in Israel? 100,000 Jews came out. That was my flag that my mother got from a synagogue that she was working at, they were changing flags, an Israeli flag. There’s a police officer here telling me to get off the fence. But he couldn’t get to me because all these people were here. This is how I spend my time. I got a boat-load of pictures.

Frankel: So, why and how did you decide that you weren’t going to college after high school, but straight to Israel?
ZUCKERMAN: My mother was happy I finished high school. I was ready to go to Israel in my sophomore year.

Frankel: Why?
ZUCKERMAN: I wanted to go to kibbutz. That’s what I wanted to do.

Frankel: And in the B’nai Akiva in those years, was it expected that kids would?
ZUCKERMAN: The format was Aliyah le’kibbutz. You’re making Aliyah, you’re going to kibbutz.

Frankel: Before college?
ZUCKERMAN: You go to college when you’re there. You can go to college. We went on a first year program Hachshara, which is a – you’re on kibbutz or you’re in yeshiva and kibbutz, you combine things, and you would come back to the States, go to college, and then move to kibbutz.

Frankel: I see.
ZUCKERMAN: I just took the shortcut.

Frankel: And were there many among your peers at B’nai Akiva who did the same?
ZUCKERMAN: Of the – this past December – in B’nai Akiva we have Shev’atim, you have a Shevet, right, and so for my Shevet, Moriah, we had a Shabboton for our our 60th birthday. There were 118 of us at the Shabboton outside of Jerusalem, outside of Yerushalayim. Of the 118, 105 live in Israel. What does that tell you? [laughs]

Frankel: So tell me what it was like. You left for Israel…?
ZUCKERMAN: Left for Israel, went to ulpan at Bar-Ilan, which was a waste of time. But it was a lot of fun running around Bar-Ilan. A lot of fun running around Tel-Aviv and Ramat-Gan. It was interesting being at Bar-Ilan for the month for the Ulpan because – not that I studied Hebrew there because everybody was talking English. It really was pointless. But my grandfather, zikhrono livrakha, lived in Bnei Brak, walking distance from Bar-Ilan. So on Shabbat I would walk over to my grandfather. I had not seen my grandfather in years.

Frankel: So, was that your first trip to Israel?
ZUCKERMAN: That was my first trip to Israel.

Frankel: Had your parents ever been to Israel?
ZUCKERMAN: They’d been there a number of times. When I finished high school, my parents moved to Israel.

Frankel: Oh, so your whole family moved to Israel.
ZUCKERMAN: No. I moved to kibbutz. They moved to the city.

Frankel: Right, but at the same time, same period.
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, same period, a month apart.

Frankel: And was that long planned ahead?
ZUCKERMAN: It was planned. My parents wanted me to finish high school before they moved. They knew they were going to move to Israel but they wanted me to finish high school here.

Frankel: What compelled them to move?
ZUCKERMAN: My father finally won out. He was retired and wanted to live in Israel. And my mother’s father was living there so there was an incentive.

Frankel:  So what part of Israel did they live?
ZUCKERMAN: There first moved there to a place – this is truly funny. Neveh Ephraim Monosson.

Frankel: Where is that?
ZUCKERMAN: It’s between Or Yehuda and Yehud. Near Tel Aviv. It’s near Savyon. Savyon is the nice neighborhood; this is the lesser nice neighborhood. It was a nice house; they had a beautiful house. Yes, they lived in Neveh Monosson.

Frankel: So, after the ulpan what happened?
ZUCKERMAN: After the ulpan I went to kibbutz Anu Natzive in the Bait Shan. I was there for a year in Hashara program.

Frankel: And with the intention of staying?
ZUCKERMAN: I already was sort of planning staying.

Frankel: What about the army?
ZUCKERMAN: Well that’s it. During that year I registered with the Tzavah and when I finished I joined the Garin Machal where again, you do part of your time in the army and part of the time on kibbutz. I joined the Garin Machal who was – those guys were a year younger than me, but also B’nai Akiva-diks. So I was with the same group –

Frankel: From all over?
ZUCKERMAN: The majority were from Netanya and Tel Aviv.

Frankel: Were there other Americans?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, there were five Americans in our garin, it was very funny. Sharon was American, Benji was American, myself. So there were three – no, there were four Americans.

Frankel: And was it a good experience?
ZUCKERMAN: Tzavah was a great experience. I left Anu Natzive, I joined the Garin, we went on to go into Kibbutz Aluumin, in the Negev, near Nahalovs, near the Gaza Strip. When I finished the army, I actually became a member of that kibbutz.

Frankel: What year was that?
ZUCKERMAN: I finished the army in ’75.

Frankel: So you were in the army three year?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes. I went in in ’72 and I got out in ’75.

Frankel: So, what were your experiences during the Yom Kippur War?
ZUCKERMAN: For me it was a breeze. 

Frankel: Where were you?
ZUCKERMAN: It started out in the Gaza Strip. We were in Hezud, we were in Outpost Havarom, near the city of Deir al-Balah, the city of dates. And during the war we were doing patrols, making sure that the train system going down to Al-Arīsh was still functional, that the terrorists didn’t try blowing it up. Because we had to ship tanks going down with supplies. So our responsibility was making sure specifically that the trains – the train literally went right next to our base, next to Ne’Hezud – so we had to make sure that that kept going. And then during the cease-fire, we were shipped down to Fhaid on the other side of the Suez Canal. 

Frankel: Doing what?
ZUCKERMAN: There was a bunker that was found at Kilometer 104. It was the largest bunker that was found. It was enormous, and we actually had an isur; we had permission from the Rabbinut, from the chief rabbis, to work on Shabbat because we knew we were giving back the other side of the Suez Canal. We were loading up stuff and bringing it back. I remember it was on Shabbat, specifically, that we were taking a break and we were sitting on this box that was written in Russian and in Arabic, and we were just taking a breather during the loading of these boxes of ammunition and stuff. And the guys said, “Let’s see what’s in the box.” And there were four or five of us sitting – it was long, big box. We were sitting on it, so we’re going, “No, come on, it’s hot, and it’s warm, we’re working, it’s midday and we’re out here in the sun,” and they said, “Come on, come on, get off the box.” We ended up – when we lifted up the cover, we were sitting on a land-to-air missile. [laughs] We got on the radio as quickly as we could and said, somebody come and pick this thing up. They came in a truck came and lifted it up. It was in Israel within hours.

Frankel: When the war started on Yom Kippur, were you on leave?
ZUCKERMAN: No, no. I was on base. I had come back from Alzan-Tzior that night, I was on patrol in the Gaza Strip that night on Yom Kippur. We had a ten-hour sior. It was ten or 11, I’m trying to remember; it was either ten or 11 hours. We came back in the afternoon, somewhere around lunchtime. Maybe about 11 o’clock in the morning and went to the Beit Knesset because we had a Beit Knesset at the outpost, finished up the tefilah that was there and I went to lie down. And all of a sudden we wake up at 2 o’clock in the afternoon – The war’s on and the ballgame changed. Actually we had with us that Shabbat the chief rabbi for the Nahal at our base for Shabbat, for Yom Kippur. He was with us. And I remember that. And yes, that shifted and Yom Kippur just kind of became secondary.

Frankel: Right. And so, after the Army, you said you joined the Garin Aluumin. Did you have a choice in it?
ZUCKERMAN: Oh yes, sure. Most of the guys did not stay on kibbutz, they left.

Frankel: But you chose –
ZUCKERMAN: Yes. I chose – I came back. I was working with [inarefet?]. I was working with the cows. Loved it. I volunteered for morning milking because I figured by the time I wake up, half my workday is over because you can milk when you’re sleeping. It was probably part of the best part of my life. It was the closest to a utopian society that I found.

Frankel: You mean, all of your kibbutz experience?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes.

Frankel: And so, how was Aluumin. That was a new kibbutz.
ZUCKERMAN: It was a relatively new one; it was founded just before the Six Day War. Just before the Six Day War, it was founded. It was funny because when I was 19, 20, the Vatikim, the old-timers were 36. I’m thinking, wow, boy are they old! [laughter] I was 20. 36 seemed like really old. Now at 60, 36 doesn’t seem that old.

Frankel: How big a kibbutz was it in terms of numbers?
ZUCKERMAN: I was the 90th person – no, excuse me, the 91st person to join.

Frankel: Were they mostly singles or families already?
ZUCKERMAN: They were mostly couples, families. Most of them had children. It was funny because your first commitment is you’re a [?] candidate and you have to be there for six months for candidacy. And then after your candidacy, you come in and you’re voted in. I got 89 out of 90 votes. And the reason I didn’t get 90 was because he was in Miluiim; he was in reserves. I would have had 100 percent!

Frankel: And did you work with the cows there?
ZUCKERMAN: I worked with the cows, yes.

Frankel: And so, did you think of college? Did you think beyond the kibbutz?
ZUCKERMAN: No.

Frankel: And so what happened?
ZUCKERMAN: That’s a good question. Sometimes I wonder, what did happen? I was at a wedding in Bnei Brak that I was invited to and I was with my friend Jerry who was in my Garin – oh, yes, that was the other American in the Garin. I knew there was four of us. I was with Jerry at this wedding in Bnei Brak and there were some young ladies. It was an Orthodox wedding, men in one room, women in another room. How do you meet girls? Anyway, outside getting some water during the dancing and that’s how I met my wife, Simie.

Frankel: Was she living in Israel?
ZUCKERMAN: She was registered at the Tel-Aviv University for the program. My father-in-law calls it the most expensive vacation she took. But we met at the wedding and five or six days later I was off to the Golan Heights for six months.

Frankel: For Miluiim?
ZUCKERMAN: No, I was finishing up my Tzadiir. I was coming back from kibbutz, I had been part of the time at my kibbutz. I was finishing up and I did six months up in the Golan in the wintertime. Delightful. Freezing.

Frankel: And so, you said she was enrolled at Tel-Aviv and was she just starting?
ZUCKERMAN: Well, that was it. She was supposed to be starting. That was the key. So she was a student in the one-year program. And we met there and when I had breaks I would come back down to Tel-Aviv. After that she went back to the States, after the program. I stayed on kibbutz and we communicated back and forth for a period of time and then I came back to the States to get engaged.

Frankel: Knowing that you would go back to Israel?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, I came back. We got engaged and I went back to kibbutz.

Frankel: And then what?
ZUCKERMAN: And then I came back a second time and we got married.

Frankel: Did your wife move with you to Israel?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, yes. Then Simie and I both moved to Israel, back to kibbutz. She tried it. It wasn’t her cup of tea at the time. Probably if she would have come there as an older person, a little bit more mature (she was 19 when we got married). Coming to kibbutz at 19 was a little bit of a shocker. Even though she had been to the kibbutz, it wasn’t the same thing as coming when you’re married. And so we were there for another year, left the kibbutz and moved to Mushaf Shitufii near Haifa and we moved to Nere Tzion. I didn’t feel that as my home. I always felt Aluumin to be my home. Even though we tried it. I didn’t even feel my parents’ home to be my home. When I was in the army and I would get off for Shabbat, I usually didn’t go to my parents’ house, I went to kibbutz. That was my home.

Frankel: So, what did you do in the kibbutz Adi Moshav Shitufi?
ZUCKERMAN: That was a rough time. They brought me on board, You have to be accepted into the moshav shitufi. The year that Simie and I moved there, only four families joined. Of the four families, three came from kibbutz. Because they weren’t going to take city people, per se, because they wanted people that really had a work ethics and if you’re coming from kibbutz, usually you have a work ethics.

Frankel: Right. And Nere Tzion is a long time, and well established.
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, Nere Tzion is from the people that remain from Kvar Tzion after the destruction.

Frankel: Right, but was it also primarily agricultural skill?
ZUCKERMAN: It was agricultural, but they did have a factory that produced food for companies in the Haifa area. So they were shipping out food, meals, that were sent to all the different companies in the area. And they also had a guest house, Et Margoah.

Frankel: And how long did you last there?
ZUCKERMAN: A year and a half.

Frankel: And what did your wife do?
ZUCKERMAN: She wasn’t required to work on the moshav. She wasn’t required to work at Moshav Shitufi. And she was pregnant. That’s when Nivoh was born, our first-born.

Frankel: He was born in Israel.
ZUCKERMAN: He was born in Israel; he was born in Haifa.

Frankel: And how soon did you decide that you’re not staying?
ZUCKERMAN: After a year and a half, I decided I needed to go to college, I wanted to leave the Moshav. There wasn’t an option of going back to kibbutz. Simie wasn’t interested at the time. You know, if you were to ask her now? She might jump at the opportunity, but at the time, no. So I looked at teaching agriculture at some of the schools, Mikveh Israel, which was the first agricultural school in Israel back in the 1800’s. I looked at the possibility of teaching there, and they basically said to me, “You know, you’re good in working with kids but you need to get a degree.” So I said okay. I came back and I looked at Rechovot, going there and getting my degree from Hebrew U. It came out cheaper to go to the States to get my degree than to stay in Israel and also since we just had a baby, my in-laws would be able to help with the baby and my parents were older.

Frankel: And they were in Israel.
ZUCKERMAN: My parents were in Israel but even so it would be difficult for my parents to take care of a baby. And so that kind of played itself out. So we came back to the States to do my duties in agriculture, which I did.

Frankel: Back to New York?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, I started out at the State University of New York at Farmingdale, my two-year degree, and then I transferred to the University of Maryland and I got my degree in Agriculture, specifically in Poultry Science. What do you want to know about chickens? [laughs]

Frankel: And, again, was that where the idea of going –
ZUCKERMAN: — going back to Israel.

Frankel: And then what happened?
ZUCKERMAN: Then Simie said, oh, I don’t know if I want to go back to Israel. And so, she pulled the plug on that one.

Frankel: Did she also finish her degree?
ZUCKERMAN: When she was back in the States before we got married, she went to Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School in Manhattan and got her secretarial degree and was a secretary. Today it would be considered an administrative assistant but back then you were a secretary. But she basically put me through college, and she’ll remind me of that all the time, too.

Frankel: And so, you got your degree.
ZUCKERMAN: I got my degree. I started a Masters program in Agriculture and then shifted to Agricultural Extension at the University of Maryland. And, once, Simie said that she wasn’t interested in going back to Israel. I mean, she said that a number of times. It took a while for it to sink in for me. Then I got to the point where I said, well, I had an opportunity. My in-laws had been visiting California and they came in contact with Chabad there, and Chabad was actually looking for a day school teacher. And my father-in-law (I’m not sure how this played itself out) met with a Chabad in San Diego, Rabbi Fratkin. One thing led to another, and I’m invited for an interview to teach. So I came out to San Diego for an interview to teach kids.

Frankel: At a Chabad school.
ZUCKERMAN: At a Chabad school. I got the job and was a teacher there for three years.

Frankel: Wow. Simie and her family, were they orthodox as well?
ZUCKERMAN: They were. They were very East Coast conservative, which is much more traditional than you have west of the Rockies. So, for all intents and purposes, yes. My father-in-law didn’t drive on Shabbat, and things of that nature.

Frankel: And so, you taught without having really a teacher certificate.
ZUCKERMAN: Right. The only teaching experience I had before that was I had designed a course, a laboratory, when I was at the university. I was a graduate student. I was teaching undergrads. That was my main teaching experience. When I was hired by Chabad, I came for the interview and I brought a bunch of baseball cards with me. When I was supposed to teach Chumash to the third grade (there were about 15 kids in the class) and I said to the kids, “If everyone is pointing in the Chumash to what we’re studying, I will put a baseball card under your Chumash. Please don’t look at it now.” Every single kid was like this: [sings]. The principal looked at me and said, you’ve got the job. And from there it had snowballed because I was asked to teach at the Hebrew High program when word got out.

Frankel: Which was not Chabad.
ZUCKERMAN: Which was not Chabad. It was a community high school in San Diego. And then Simie got a job as the administrative assistant for Rabbi Moshe Levin in San Diego at a Conservative synagogue. And interestingly, Rabbi Moshe went to the same yeshiva I did, although he shifted. Because he went to the Conservative movement and stepped away from Orthodoxy, from that perspective. But he was interested in me coming and joining him at shul. So I started teaching bar- and bat-mitzvah lessons there for b’nai-mitzvah. And then he said to me, I should get into a s’micha program, that I’d be able to work with him as an assistant. So I found this s’micha program back east that I would go and be tested. I would have to do studies –

Frankel: — On your own.
ZUCKERMAN: Right. Because my yeshiva background wasn’t that complex; it was basically code of Jewish law. I studied Choshen Mishpat, Yardaeh, and Or Hachaim and Mishna Brurah, and yes, Shulchan Aruch, and I had to go back and forth to be tested. It took me two years to finish. 

Frankel: Wow, that’s fast. And this s’micha program, was it affiliated with anything?
ZUCKERMAN: It was Orthodox. Yes, it was an Orthodox s’micha and it was fine. I had two positions before I was finished.

Frankel: Right. And as you went along, did you feel, “Yes, I want to become a rabbi?”
ZUCKERMAN: I kept thinking I want to go back to Israel. I wanted to go back to Israel, but the wife’s not letting me. But it gave me tremendous opportunity since I really enjoyed working with kids and I enjoy teaching. And then there were trips to Israel. So that kind of played into it a few times.

Frankel: But you could have been a teacher. You didn’t necessarily have to become a rabbi.
ZUCKERMAN: Yes. My mother-in-law, it’s her fault. My mother-in-law, may she rest in peace, she said to me, you should be a rabbi. I said to her, I don’t even like rabbis! I remember the rabbis I had in yeshiva and this was not a fun bunch. They were not fun people. They were a tough bunch. And I came to the conclusion that if I were going to be a rabbi, I would be different than the rabbis I had. And it was interesting because just last week I called a friend of mine, on Sunday, I called Rabbi Arie Weiss, who lives in Hebron, lives in Kiret Erbah, a good friend. We were on hac’shrah together. He’s originally from Chicago, from Skokie. And I called him – his nickname is Aikie, so it’s Aikie and Zuckie. I called Aikie I asked him about the three kids now that had been kidnapped, what the situation was. And he had an appreciation for how I became a rabbi and the stuff that I have done. I guess he sees the things that I’m able to do. I’ll give you an example. In the past year and a half, there’ve been a number of people from Portland that have made Aliya. The Shifmans moved to Israel. In this synagogue, four people in the past year have made Aliya. Ben Yablan made Aliya in the past year, and the Shifmans. So we had four people from this synagogue, which might be more than any other synagogue. I’m not sure, it might be more than most of the synagogues combined, in Portland. So, for me it’s been an important aspect of how I’m able to get points across on Israel, and why people relate to this synagogue, and relate to me and my relationship with Israel.

Frankel: And so, after you got your s’micha, you became the assistant?
ZUCKERMAN: At Ain Lehoyah.

Frankel:  Which was a Conservative synagogue. 
ZUCKERMAN: A Conservative synagogue, yes.

Frankel: And how long were you there?
ZUCKERMAN: I was there for two years. Then a position opened up in San Diego at Beth Am, which at that time was at Solana Beach.

Frankel: And what denomination was that?
ZUCKERMAN: Conservative.

Frankel: Also. Would your s’micha from an Orthodox rabbi serve in an Orthodox synagogue?
ZUCKERMAN: I could have. But it didn’t pull me because there really wasn’t much outreach. The Orthodox community in San Diego was very right wing. They weren’t anti-Israel by any means, but they were very right wing, black hat, not the kippah srugah, not the crochet kippah that I was used to.

Frankel: I see.
ZUCKERMAN: Not my style. I mean, I wear black when I have to go to funerals. These guys wear black all the time. I think they sleep in black. I don’t know. I just decided it didn’t do it for me. But going to Beth Am was also interesting because it was also a way of kind of working with the kids there, I came with a simple philosophy. If I worry about the kids, the parents worry about the building. In 13 years, we went from 187 families to 800. But it was the Dot-com era; it was San Diego, not Portland. So it’s not old school. A lot of people were relocated, had just moved into the area, so it was Carmel Valley blooming. There was a lot of money there. We built an $11 million dollar building.

Frankel: Wow. Wow!
ZUCKERMAN: During my time there. That building has my name on it on a plaque inside the lobby.

Frankel: Being a Conservative synagogue on the West coast, did your level of observance change?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes. No question about it. My level of observance changed. Not as much as people wanted it to change, I was still pretty machmir in certain things. But I realized that if I was going to accomplish what I needed to accomplish, I needed to shift my focus. So, yes, my Orthodox friends in Israel have some issues with me. In December when I was in Israel, they looked at my purple tallit from a different perspective. Some of the women said, where did you get it. I said, this is a Gabrielli. It’s a designer tallit, thank you. But most of the chevrah that I have understand why I do what I do. And there are things that I’m more machmir, that I’m rigid on and there are things that I’m very, very flexible about. I can be Gumby in flexibility. Synagogues have perfected the art of chasing people away. Really. And that needs to change. Because in synagogues always the focus is how much money is this person going to give us. It’s all about money. And somewhere along the line the ikar, the important aspect of Judaism gets lost. And so that’s where my focus has shifted.

Frankel: So, eight years, that’s a long time. Why did you decide to not stay?
ZUCKERMAN: Well, I came back to the States.

Frankel: No, no, no, eight years from San Diego.
ZUCKERMAN: Oh, from there. No, I spent 20 years in San Diego.

Frankel: 20 years in San Diego.
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, it was three years of Chabad.

Frankel: Right, but in that last synagogue.
ZUCKERMAN: I was there 13 years at Beth Am. Thirteen years at Beth Am. But there’s no one reason for leaving the synagogue. When you get to 800 families, you can be an alcoholic in no time. I was losing perspective of family because I was doing services – even though I had an assistant. By the time we reached 600 families, I was able to get an assistant, Rabbi David Kornberg, a delightful guy, great rabbi. But people still wanted me to do this, this. We were doing 50 b’nai-mitzvah a year. That’s a lot of Macarena’s to do at parties. The kids wanted me at their party because if I’m not at the party, it’s not a party, it’s not the same thing. And I remember something – my older son, who’s a rabbi – Orthodox – 

Frankel: The one who was born in Israel?
ZUCKERMAN: The one who was born in Israel, yes. I’m sorry to say, he does wear a black hat on Shabbat. It’s not a cowboy hat. Should be, but it’s not. 

Frankel: Does he live in the States?
ZUCKERMAN: No, he’s in Kitchener-Waterloo, Canada. He’s the rabbi at the Orthodox synagogue in Kitchener. His statement that he made to me when he got married – he got married at the age of 20 and went to study in Israel, in Effrat, got s’micha in Yerushalayim – he said to me, you need to put in more time with Amitai because you didn’t put it in with me. Which, if he would have stabbed me with my own little penknife, it wouldn’t have hurt as much.

Frankel: That’s the younger one?
ZUCKERMAN: Amitai is the younger one. Nivoh was the older one. And so, when Nivoh made that statement, I was like I guess he forgot all the other things we had done. It was an awareness that he made that statement. And I realized I was just — Some of the tefilot I would do on Friday night, I would get home at 10, 11 o’clock Friday night for Shabbat meal. And then I got to the point where I said, okay, I’m done. And left the pulpit, went into emergency management, worked on a project of counter-terrorism in LA for a year. While I was in San Diego, I became a chaplain with the sheriff’s department, and they have a number of courses that I was able to get through Homeland Security. Doing all these courses, pick up a course here, pick up a course there. So by the time I finished all these courses, I was an expert. I hate that term, expert. You know, when someone will introduce me if I’m speaking about terrorism or something, they’ll say, Rabbi Zuckerman who is an expert. Well, I’m just knowledgeable; I’m not an expert. There are very few experts around there, and also everybody becomes an expert. But I had an opportunity to do that for a year. It was a one-year contract. I was working on a mock anthrax attack on a train in LA. How would you get out sipro medication to so many people that thought they came in contact with the anthrax? And then Simie and I decided that the house looks good, so we’re going to sell the house. And it was a good thing I did; my house doubled in nine years in San Diego. If we would’ve waited, I would have lost a significant amount of money a year later because that’s when the market took a significant drop. And then we moved up to Oregon in 2006.

Frankel: Before you had a position here.
ZUCKERMAN: Yes.

Frankel: Why Oregon?
ZUCKERMAN: I just wanted a place where I would be able to start something up, something different away from California. The restrictions in California for everything, it’s just the Republic of California. It’s very rigid.

Frankel: But did you know anyone here?
ZUCKERMAN: No.

Frankel: You could have chosen anywhere.
ZUCKERMAN: Yes. Yes. We were looking around at different places and picked the Corvallis region because it was a college town. It’s a college town that had a synagogue. I didn’t need to be the rabbi; I would just go to daven and be a Jew in the pew. Just be there. So I went from one Beit Am to another Beit Am. But that didn’t work out.

Frankel: What didn’t work out?
ZUCKERMAN: In Corvallis. Just being there. It was too liberal. I’m a social liberal, fiscal conservative.

Frankel: Were you thinking of going back and possibly have a pulpit?
ZUCKERMAN: No. No, no. We moved up here because we just wanted to get away from Corvallis. We were living in Corvallis, Philomath. We were living actually on the Philomath side. You know the origin of the name Philomath? Philosophy and math.

Frankel: Oh.
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, that’s how they got Philomath. Philosophy and math. Most people don’t even know this. It’s very funny. Oregonians don’t know this. Anyway, so we moved, we came up to Portland.

Frankel: What did you do in Philomath?
ZUCKERMAN: Pretty much nothing. Moved up there; I was looking to work in emergency management, so I spoke to the police, I spoke to some other places. A friend of mine in San Diego had a business and he was marketing stuff around the country and he asked me if in Oregon – specifically in Oregon – if I could help him market stuff. I said, “I’m not familiar with the stuff, but okay, fine.” It was just for some travel opportunity. I needed to really be focused on what I wanted to do. I started a foundation for emergency responders where I was going to – in 2003, December 2003, I took four members of the sheriff’s department in San Diego to Israel to see how they do things in Israel. And we actually witnessed a mock gas attack on the Israeli parliament. And I had done a Power Point presentation. And that was the incentive. That was the catalyst for starting up the emergency response foundation. But I didn’t get the funding that I thought I would be able to get and get people to go to Israel or England to see terrorism that was taking place there and how to function, how to do counter-terrorism differently. And that didn’t pan out. I came up here thinking, “Maybe I can look at something in emergency management in Oregon, in the Portland area.” I came into a synagogue looking for a place for davening. And I got drafted.

Frankel: What do you mean?
ZUCKERMAN: I didn’t know they didn’t have a rabbi there. I just walked in. I was with Keith Bern, he said, I’ll meet you at a synagogue, because we had heard about Keith being a real estate agent. We came up here looking for a place to buy and he said, yes, I’ll meet you at a synagogue. Fine! So we meet at the synagogue, and he said, while you’re here, why don’t you come in and see the synagogue, and it’s his shul. So I came into the synagogue and we met Dorice and the next thing you know, she says, oh, we’re looking for a rabbi. I said, that’s very nice, keep looking. Leave me alone, not interested. Did it already. Did it for 15 years. I wasn’t interested.

Frankel: And what turned it around? Because – [laughter]
ZUCKERMAN: A couple of things. I think Bob Hornstien’s letter to me probably was the deciding factor. It was a really emotional letter. It was from the heart that he wrote the letter and I became very emotional reading the letter. And that was pretty much the deciding factor.

Frankel: Did they not have a search committee?
ZUCKERMAN: There was a search committee and I guess the people that had been here at the time, they didn’t — You either came from somewhere that was too far to the right Orthodoxy or too far to the left, and it didn’t pan out. And so when I got here, when I was here for that time, Barry Bensen who was the head of the search committee at the time, said, could you be a scholar in residence? So I said to him, I can do the residence part but I’m not sure about the scholar. I came for a Shabbat, and it clicked.

Frankel: David Rosenberg had left?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, he’d left already.

Frankel: Rabbi Geller was still alive.
ZUCKERMAN: Rabbi Geller was still alive, zikhron livrakha.

Frankel: Did you have a chance to meet with him?
ZUCKERMAN: Oh yes, sure. Yes, I officiated at his funeral.

Frankel: Right.
ZUCKERMAN: So he was sitting back, we got along great. I didn’t come here to make major changes knowing that he was, you know, the kavod, the respect, the rabbi who was here for 40 years. I knew changes had to happen and I knew they couldn’t happen while he’s sitting in the back.

Frankel:  So, how would you describe Shaarie Torah when you first stepped in here? In terms of philosophy, in terms of membership?
ZUCKERMAN: It was a hodgepodge. You know, when people said to me, it’s a traditional synagogue, I said that’s great. Could someone please explain to me how traditional it is when the majority of people do not observe the dietary laws, the majority of people do not observe Shabbat. What tradition exactly do you observe? What are we talking about here? Chaggim, you’re not showing up, if it’s Yizkor woo-hoo! people show up. So I said, what are we talking about here? And the focus had to shift because it made no sense to me.

Frankel: When you say you didn’t want to make changes while Rabbi Geller was sitting in the back, had David Rosenberg not made changes?
ZUCKERMAN: There were some changes. I’m not sure how well it went. My focus was to minimize the amount of changes. The first change I made was with the shulchan where the Torah is read. All right, instead of having it facing the ark, I turned it so it was facing the congregation. And I remember that first Shabbat when the sefer Torah came around, I walked around with the person carrying the sefer and when I got to Rabbi Geller, may he rest in peace, he looked at me and he goes, my father used to read the Torah that way. And I went, oh my God! [laughs] Because he could have, you know, if he wanted he could had busted me at the knees and I would have been sunk. But that was pretty much it at the time.

Frankel: Women were still not doing anything.
ZUCKERMAN: Women were not participating. Women didn’t come up on the bima, women were not doing tefilah, were not doing kriat haTorah.

Frankel: And bat mitzvah?
ZUCKERMAN: They were doing haftorah. And so I had to gradually make the shift and it took about another two to three years.

Frankel: And so, where did you shift and what were the changes made?
ZUCKERMAN: I went to the board and I said, let me get it straight. You’re not counting women. Why? You’re not getting a minyan! You’re not counting women. There’s no reason that you can’t count women. So that was the first shift, that women would be doing kriah. Women would be counted for a minyan.

Frankel: Was there a lot of objection?
ZUCKERMAN: Very few. Very few. It’s hard to object to a person who is more observant than the person who is “hocking mir a tchainik” [Yiddish, loosely, who is nattering on and on…]. Okay, it makes no sense. I mean, calling a woman up to the Torah is haRabbanan. You get hit with a wet noodle 40 times. Desecrating the Sabbath publicly is punishable by death. Let me get it straight. Which one outweighs which? Okay. There was really no argument from that perspective when someone gave me a hard time. 

Frankel: Other changes?
ZUCKERMAN: Those were the significant ones. I mean, there are three things: Women being counted for minyan, women reading kriah, and leading services.

Frankel: And then, how long did it take before you or the congregation, or together, decided to join the Conservative movement?
ZUCKERMAN: That was a push that happened a year and a half ago.

Frankel: How?
ZUCKERMAN: When Jordan was on the board, Jordan Schnitzer, his focus was to do something.

Frankel: Do something in order to?
ZUCKERMAN: Join a movement. If you want to join Orthodox, join Orthodox. If you want to join Conservative, do something. And I can’t say he was wrong. It hasn’t shifted. It’s taken a long time for people to get over the concept that this is not Orthodox. I mean, I lost count of how many people are saying, you mean it’s not Orthodox anymore? It hasn’t been Orthodox for 40 years! Forty years it wasn’t Orthodox, since the 1960’s. It had that misnomer. It was inbred in people and you just couldn’t get out of it.

Frankel: And what changes have you noticed, if any, as a result of joining?
ZUCKERMAN: Oh, there’s no question that we have more participation of women joining the synagogue, families joining the synagogue because of that.

Frankel: And in terms of from the movement itself, are you getting support?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, we get support from the movement, no question. Dorice has done a tremendous amount of work with the United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism. Morrie Shapiro has been very helpful from United Synagogue. And so from that perspective, there’s no question it was a good idea. It’s something that needed to happen. I mean, if you stop and think about it, if somebody moves to Portland, okay, they’ll look around. If they’re moving from wherever, they’ll go “where’s the Conservative synagogue, where’s the Reform.” No one goes, “where’s the traditional synagogue?” No, really, there’s no movement, ‘traditional’, so it makes no sense.

Frankel: Right. Tell me a little about the board of rabbis, your role in it, and what is its function.
ZUCKERMAN: It was funny. The first time I came to the Oregon Board of Rabbis, I remember asking somebody, is this b-o-a-r-d or b-o-r-e-d? I don’t think that was a big hit with some of the folks there. It was an honor. I mean, joining was a kick; it was really fun. But, being the president for two years was really an honor because I saw what a shift from the Orthodox community to their participation in the Oregon Board of Rabbis.

Frankel: They do sit on their board?
ZUCKERMAN: They sit as observers. They cannot sit as members, so they sit as observers.

Frankel: What makes you a member?
ZUCKERMAN: You’re paying dues and you can vote. Observers can’t vote. But, the biggest advantage, or the greatest advantage to this association has been the participation of a woman rabbi, Rabbi Ariel Stone, participating with Orthodox rabbis on the committee of the mikvah. I mean, just with that, the Mashiach should be coming, just that had to happen, okay, because that’s unprecedented in any synagogue, in any city I’ve lived in. Okay, in San Diego, you have two separate boards of rabbis. You have SDRA, the San Diego Rabbinical Association, and you have the Vada Rabbanan, the Orthodox. And never shall the two ends meet. I mean, they’ll talk, kind of cordial, but that’s about it. 

Frankel: Does it have to do with the fact that it’s the only community mikvah?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, it is the only community mikvah, but we have a community mikvah in other cities that the Orthodox will not participate in if the Reform are involved. They won’t even sit on the same board. In New York, you’ll have Orthodox rabbis sitting with Reform, okay. But you’ll have the majority of Orthodox – no. Then again, I don’t know how many different boards of rabbis you have in New York; they probably have a half dozen. There’s a bunch of ‘em for each, different organizations, for different associations. So the fact that we have an adherence to this, I feel comfortable that I was part of that, making that happen.

Frankel: You helped.
ZUCKERMAN: During my two years, that’s when it really came together.

Frankel: What other important issues would the Board of Rabbis deal with?
ZUCKERMAN: Anything that’s going to come on to the community. We try to have some input. When not, we try not to have political stands. Sometimes its kind of inevitable. We don’t want to have strife. Our function should be halacha, not politics. Okay, our function should be teaching; our function should be in presenting a Jewish community, not necessarily telling them where the political stuff.

Frankel: Also, what would you say have been changes from the time you first arrived, and not just at Shaarie Torah, but in the community at large?
ZUCKERMAN: I think one of the major shifts has been — You know with the conclusion of the period that Charlie Shifman was at the Federation and with Mark Blatner coming in. Charlie was a dynamite guy, and for the period that he was here, he did fantastic work. Mark comes from a younger generation that has a different focus and I think that he has tremendous ideas. I’m not sure how much he’s going to be able to do. I hope he’s able to do as much as he would like, because he has good ideas. He’s a solid leader and he brings people together, and he’s got support from the community. I would like to see more participation from the Oregon Board of Rabbis as far as a community religious school in the evening or a Hebrew High program. I think that would be more productive. The feedback that I’m getting is that most synagogues want to do their own, which I don’t see that as productive, but that’s my opinion. 

Frankel: And I know you’ve been involved as a chaplain for the police.
ZUCKERMAN: I had this sense of gratification. Yes, it’s been a kick.

Frankel: How did it come about?
ZUCKERMAN: Well, I was a chaplain in San Diego. After being here for a couple of years, I said, you know, I may as well do something here with law enforcement because I saw that there wasn’t anything happening from the Jewish community, and then when I found out, there has never been a rabbi involved in law enforcement in the state of Oregon.

Frankel: But are there non-Jewish chaplains?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, non-Jewish chaplains, yes. But rabbis? In 150 years no rabbi has ever joined the Portland police bureau. How can that be? Most cities have a Jewish chaplain.

Frankel: And Jewish policemen?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, sure. People that grew up in the synagogue. Becky Horenstein, her brother, they came out of this synagogue. I have a picture of her. But yes, that was one aspect, and then, just participating in the community and the going into Coffee Creek Correctional Facility.

Frankel: Right, and what is that like?
ZUCKERMAN: I got a phone call one time from the Jewish community, from someone, I guess it was from Sherry Cordova who called me and said that she had received a phone call, from I guess a chaplain in Coffee Creek, and there was a Jewish person there, wanting to speak to a rabbi. Oh, PS, that person from up at Coffee Creek just now graduated from Portland State, got her Bachelor’s Degree.

Frankel: While incarcerated?
ZUCKERMAN:  No, she already had her high school degree. She came out of Coffee Creek a number of years ago and went to Portland State, got her Bachelor’s degree. She was already set into the PhD program. She’s applied to a number of PhD programs. She’s been accepted. So that’s the person they got me, the first time, to go and meet with. She came from Queens. She’d gotten involved in whatever it was when she was living in Eugene, and gotten incarcerated. She was the first person that I met at Coffee Creek, and six years later has her Bachelor’s degree, ready to go on to graduate school. So I’ve been going out in Coffee Creek. I did six Passovers there, six Pesachim there. 

Frankel: Were there Jewish inmates attending?
ZUCKERMAN: Since I’ve been there, I’ve met three born Jews and people that have converted. Well, one of them is going through conversion and three that are studying, or want to study, Jewish ethics. And has it helped them while they’re incarcerated? No question in my mind, yes.

Frankel: So, besides celebrating Jewish holidays with them, do you also offer classes?
ZUCKERMAN: I’m there first and third Fridays of the month.

Frankel: And, you teach?
ZUCKERMAN: I teach classes and will have challah, so I do kiddush for them, I do motzi. They do their own motzi already. But we’ll have classes on Jewish ethics, on the chaggim, whatever I bring there. And it’s been a very gratifying. That’s been a real kick, going there. That’s one of the few places, I walk in and people applaud. I go home, nobody applauds. I don’t know. But then, I go to Robison. I’ve been going down to Rose Schnitzer Manor for five, six years.

Frankel: And what about, you mentioned briefly that you would like to see a community high school. Because that’s what seems to have brought you into the pulpit, working with the youth. How is it working here, with your influence, your Zionist influence. Do you encourage young people to go after high school. Do you feel that you have influence, for people who have made Aliyah?
ZUCKERMAN: I think that there are a number of students here that have gone to Israel, have studied there. A few kids are coming back now. Natan Hornstein was one, Jordan Runstein, Joseph Spectre was there.

Frankel: Would you say that NCSY has also played an important role, and how you see the competition, how do you view it?
ZUCKERMAN: I never see an organization or a synagogue being competition. I do what they do, okay. It may work together, and as far as the kid is concerned (because they’ll see it in one place and they’ll see it in another place) so I don’t see it as competition. I just see it as reinforcing, maybe, what the kid would see in the Jewish community. There’s no question the amount of kids that have gone. There was one student, coming form a synagogue, that wanted to go to study in Orthodox yeshiva, a girl, in Israel. And I was able to give her funding from my discretionary funds so she could go study, she wouldn’t have had the money otherwise. As a matter of fact, she did an art piece of work for my picture.

Frankel: And?
ZUCKERMAN: And now she’s studying at Stern College.

Frankel: Would you say that NCSY had a greater of influence on her? Do you work with the Maaira Spivah at all?
ZUCKERMAN: Not really. Not really. Most of the kids are more with Dorice or improvements that we do here, taking the kids to the Blanche house or going out and doing produce locally, feeding or coordinating the Food Bank, Sunshine Pantry, things of that nature. I’m hoping now, in the not too distant future, to do more camping with kids. I haven’t done any camping in awhile and I really enjoy doing it. My wife’s idea of camping is going to the Hilton. I would rather do camping. I’m hoping to do that over the next year or so.

Frankel: And so, one son is a rabbi in Canada. What about your younger son?
ZUCKERMAN: One son followed me into Rabbinate, the other one is following me into emergency management, doing that stuff.

Frankel: Living in Portland?
ZUCKERMAN: No. Right now he’s finishing up AmeriCorps, working with the Red Cross in Visalia, California. And, yes, so he’s done very well doing that. He would like to do something I think in the intelligence community, ultimately, so we’ll see where that heads. He’s also looking at graduate school and some different jobs.

Frankel: And, what’s the future for you?
ZUCKERMAN: Well, I leave the synagogue in another month. And I guess I have to wait before I come out publically on some of the things. It’s known I’m going to be doing part time work for Texas A&M as an adjunct instructor, some of their courses in Homeland Security. So that’s fun. And then there’ll be some other stuff I’ll be doing with the Jewish community here in Portland. So, we’re staying here.

Frankel: You are staying here.
ZUCKERMAN: We’re staying. I can’t say how long we’re going to stay here. 

Frankel: Is your wife working outside the home?
ZUCKERMAN: Actually, she has a business on Etsy, which is the artsy website. So she has her own website through Etsy and she’s shipping stuff out pretty much on a daily basis.

Frankel: Does she create her own art work?
ZUCKERMAN: No, she picks from different places, and some she does create, from things that she gets, so she modifies things. But it’s keeping her busy. Shipping things, ordering stuff from one place, shipping it to another place, different types of boxes, a lot of stuff has to do with party goods, for parties. So she’s keeping herself busy.

Frankel: Is Israel somewhere in the future?
ZUCKERMAN: Possibility. Possibility. I’d like to be doing tours to Israel. 

Frankel: Did you ever take tours with your congregation?
ZUCKERMAN: Not with this congregation. I did with Beth Am and with Beth El, but I haven’t done it here. We tried doing it one time but the economy just wasn’t there. And still, it’s expensive and I just don’t know that the economy will turn itself around to allow people to do that here. Some other cities have an easier time of doing that. But I’m hoping they’ll still be able to do that. I foresee within the next year or so getting back to Israel again, for another trip. My father’s buried there. So that’s one requirement, but just getting back to breathe some of the air there. Each time, getting on the plane coming back here, becomes harder and harder. I remember in 2004, I sponsored one of the bomb technicians here to go see the bomb unit in Tel Aviv. We were sitting at the gelato place at night, doing emails, and it was like a day and a half before I was supposed to come back to the States. And I sent an email to Simie and I said, I’m not sure I’m going to be on the plane. And within minutes, the next email was, you WILL be on the plane. Okay. Fine. 

Frankel: Any thoughts about the community in general, questions that I may have left out, anything you wish to say? 
ZUCKERMAN: I wish the community well in the years ahead. I think that people, the community, needs to get a handle a little bit on the assimilation that takes place in the Jewish community here, because it is significant. And our Jewish values are important; I think the relationship with Israel is important. And I’m hoping that that will fortify itself over the years to come. Thank you for the time.

Frankel: Thank you very much.
ZUCKERMAN: A pleasure.