Stuart Durkheimer

[recording begins in the middle of a story]
DURKHEIMER: We couldn’t figure out how my mother was able to determine that we hadn’t stopped eating them. It didn’t occur to us that our teeth and lips were stained from eating berries. We learned that as we got a little bit older. So, that was quite a funny incident, when we were young. But we did all kinds of things.

Weinstein: Can we talk about the Jewish component in your family life? How much of an influence was it?
DURKHEIMER: Well, yes, I would be pleased to tell you about it. Like almost all my friends, we had to go to Sunday School, and they would tell us little stories, Bible stories and all, and my mother, when I would come home from Sunday school, would say, “Well, now what did you learn today, Stuart?” And I would say, “Well, there was a flood and this happened..,” or whatever the stories were, but I always ended up by saying, “And I don’t believe it.” I was a skeptic and I’m still a skeptic. I consider myself to be a Jew, but not one that has great feelings of mysticism or feelings that God is hearing me. I don’t have that kind of attachment. I consider myself more an ethnic Jew and enjoy being with my Jewish friends, and I’ve chosen my friends primarily because they are Jewish. Unfortunately, now, my friends are dying off, and so I’m a little lonelier from that standpoint than I used to be. I feel very strongly that I must play a role in Judaism, but my ism is not necessarily feeling that God is watching over me or that I play a role to help support God. I think that my support for my fellow Jewish friends is the important aspect. I belong to Jewish organizations, including synagogue, and I’m very, very pleased with that connection. I’ve assumed responsibilities in both Temple affairs as well as the general Jewish community.

Weinstein: Well, that leaves me to another question, which has to do the fact that it is well known and much appreciated that you’re very philanthropic. What influenced you? Do you feel it was family influence?
DURKHEIMER: I must say my father was not what I would consider a very generous man, nor my grandfather. I discovered after becoming more involved in the Jewish community that there were needs, unmet needs, and it was a requirement to be participatory in helping to fulfill needs of people in our community and elsewhere. What really brought that to my attention was a gentlemen in our community who asked me if he could drop in on me. There were some things he wanted to talk about. I said, “Well, no, I have no objection to that, but why don’t you let me drop in to your office, and then you would not have to go to any special effort.” I did that. I dropped into his office and he proceeded to tell me where I should assume responsibilities in the community in contributing financially, and tell me of its importance. I was impressed. That started me on the road toward giving consideration to Jewish organizations as well as outside of our own religious affiliations.

Weinstein: Do you want to share the name of that person?
DURKHEIMER: It’s strange. I know exactly who it was. I can visualize him across from the table. I wish I could dig up his name for you. He had a couple of brothers in town and, I think, two of them were attorneys. If I could give you the name I would be pleased to, because, really, it was a wonderful thing that he did for me, in that sense.

Weinstein: That’s very well put, because it set a pattern in your own mind for what you felt you wanted to do.
DURKHEIMER: Actually, I kind of felt that there were certain people whom I knew very well, and I always felt that they should have, since they could have, been more participatory in fulfilling needs in the community. So I was sensitized. And I think this gentleman that I visited was largely responsible for sensitizing me to that. Then I recognized that there were some deficiencies in people I was very close to, people who were not doing anything material for the community. And I just cared to continue doing that sort of thing. I am so pleased that we have the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation. It’s fulfilling needs for our agencies, synagogues, and what have you, far better than each out trying to scrape up dollars in order to survive or to grow. I think this has been one of the better things that have happened in our community.

Weinstein: Could we talk a little bit about your education? Did you have any military experience?
DURKHEIMER: Well, I can tell you what occurred. I never had great self-confidence as a young person. I don’t know why, but I was quite shy. I certainly was shy of girls. I decided that I really felt I was just an average sort of person. My mother said to me one time, “I think you should try to go to Stanford University.” How she picked that out, I think, was because cousin Leland Lowenson went to Stanford. My mother’s sister, who had passed away with the flu, actually died at Stanford as a student. So she had strong feelings about the possibility of my going. And I said, “Oh, I don’t think I could ever go there.” As a matter of fact, I didn’t know that I even wanted to go to college. And she says, “You know, I think you should try.” I said, “Well, I’ll see.” And then I learned that I could take an aptitude test for Stanford, and I did take it and I was amazed I passed. So there I was, in a terrible fix. Once you pass, darn it all, you gotta go! And that was a very important experience. 

I had a prior experience that I think was very helping to me in building my own self-image and confidence. That was through the scouting movement. I have no desire to encourage anyone to go into scouting because of some of their present-day policies which I abhor. But I not only became an Eagle Scout, before graduating from Stanford, I came home for two reasons: 1) I wanted to get married, and 2) I wanted to become a scout master. A troop opened up for me at Ainsworth School, and that was a very wonderful experience for me, in giving me a feeling of responsibility. And I was giving back something that I had received. It was a very good experience for me to do that. And my marriage turned out to be very good, too.

Weinstein: How did you meet Leah?
DURKHEIMER: Oh, that’s a funny thing. I’ve told this many times. I was at an affair; I believe it was at Beth Israel. There was a dance. And I saw a girl dancing with Jack Berkowitz, the rabbi’s adopted son, and she had a big smile on her face. And I thought, “That’s strange.” Because we, as kids, really didn’t care much for Jack Berkowitz, and how in the world she would be smiling while dancing with him? And I said, “She might be of interest.” I told my sister, Eloise, “Do you know Leah Kinspel?” “Oh, yes. She was in our class at Sunday school. She’s a bright girl.” Hmmm. I found her! I had never dated a girl more than once and I found this a very good, comfortable area, in which to develop my interest. It didn’t take too long before we decided we would like to be married. But Leah’s mother said, “Well you have to wait until she’s had at least one year at the University of Washington.” And, okay, we did. And the minute that was over we were married. It is a good life experience.

Weinstein: You mention that you met her at a Beth Israel function.
DURKHEIMER: I didn’t meet her there. I saw her.

Weinstein: You saw her. Okay. Going back to the experience at Stanford and scouting, etc., was there any Jewish component to your college life? Were there other Jewish fellows in scouting when you were there? Was that even an issue for you?
DURKHEIMER: In scouting, my scout master, Mr. Arthur Markowitz, was a Jew. Some of my friends were; there was John Goldsmith, Amy and Arthur Goldsmith’s son. He and I were the same age and in the same Sunday school class. We were confirmed together and we became Eagle Scouts together. So there was some rub-off there, obviously. But basically, in our scout troop there were probably four or five other Jewish boys. It was not predominantly a Jewish troop. But even so, I found that among the Jewish boys I had more kinship than others. As far as Stanford is concerned, even though now they have some very strong Jewish activities on campus, when I was there we did not have any such association. As a matter of fact, one of my very good friends there tried to get me into his fraternity, and I said, “I don’t think they’ll accept me.” “Oh yes they will.” So I said, “Well, you don’t understand. I’m Jewish.” He said, “Well that doesn’t make any difference.” Well he found out it did make a difference and whereas I wasn’t interested at all in joining that fraternity or any other, for that matter, he never said that they were letting me come in.

Weinstein: Had you had previous experiences like that? Did you go to public schools, private schools?
DURKHEIMER: I went only to public schools.

Weinstein: Did you go to Lincoln High School?
DURKHEIMER: Lincoln High School, and prior to that, Chapman Grade School. Ossie Georges was one of my very close friends going to Lincoln. We had good experiences. He would complain that he always had the same lunch. I said, “Well why don’t you tell your grandmother (his grandmother was making it at that time) that you don’t want the same lunch every day?” Finally he did change her lunch-making habits, so that improved that situation. I did have quite a few Jewish friends at Lincoln High School.

Weinstein: As far as assimilating, or being active in the general community, do you recall anything that was uncomfortable? Or did you feel comfortable being Jewish?
DURKHEIMER: I definitely felt very, very comfortable being Jewish. I had no problem with it. And I knew what the prejudices were. I had plenty of opportunity to find out how that existed. But I was on the board of the Neighborhood House… no not the Neighborhood House… it was the equivalent institution in northwest Portland. Friendly House! It was Friendly House. It had religious affiliation, but it didn’t bother me. I sat on the board for a period of time there as a really young person, maybe 23 or 24 years of age. So, it was not a trouble. I was never sensitive about being Jewish, and any friend I have that isn’t Jewish, I feel very free to discuss any subject; and they are, too. I hope they’re comfortable doing so. No, I never had any really difficult times in that respect.

Weinstein: Was there much ritual practiced in your home?
DURKHEIMER: Very little. Friday nights we had a little ceremony which ended up going to my father’s seat at the table. We would stand around while he would say his little bit, read from a card that Beth Israel provided us with, and then we were ready to have dinner. That was one night when we had no meat. That was always fish night. So there was that. But we also had a Christmas tree and exchanged gifts. We thought that was perfectly fine until one time one of the children, I don’t remember which one, coming home from Sunday school said, “No more Christmas trees.”

Weinstein: One of your siblings, or one of your children?
DURKHEIMER: One of our children said that.

Weinstein: I was going to ask you if you and Leah had a tree. 
DURKHEIMER: Well, we did not, but we did have gifts that we distributed, and then we learned to stop that.

Weinstein: The children didn’t want it.
DURKHEIMER: Yes. So, it was okay.

Weinstein: The community has changed. Times have changed. Attitudes toward Jews have changed. Attitudes about being Jewish have changed, for whatever reasons. The establishment of the State of Israel, or just a greater assimilation of Jewish people into the general community. Have you seen a lot of that change in your own personal experience?
DURKHEIMER: Well, there was a period of time where there was, among the German Jews in Portland, antisemitism of a strange sort. And that was that, whereas some of them, most of them, were members of the Reform Movement, there was great resistance and difficulty for many to continue Jewish affiliation because of the Jewish people of other denominations. They were no longer mostly German Jews. We experienced quite a bit of intolerance there.

Weinstein: At Beth Israel?
DURKHEIMER: At Beth Israel and even within certain members of my family. They just didn’t understand. Of course, I had a lot of wonderful experiences being active at Temple Beth Israel and working with activities of other synagogues at the same time, developing broader knowledge of the different denominations in the community. And I bore no grievance or disrespect for others who were not of the German Jewish background. Most all of my early friends were German Jewish, and totally so. Today I don’t differentiate. Most of those, from those families, are no longer Jewish and have intermarried or they’re dead.

Weinstein: It’s not an issue any more.
DURKHEIMER: Not a bit. But we certainly had prejudice. There’s no doubt about that. They assisted in the settlement of Jewish people, but did not chose that they should be, or their children should be friends of your children, or what have you. But, I think for me, fortunately, I went to BB Camp and I became acquainted with a number of them and enjoyed them and didn’t find any reason to differentiate between German Jews and Jews from other origins. And of course all the organizational affiliation that I’ve had through the years with our own institutions totally dissolved…

Weinstein: Did you have any military experience?
DURKHEIMER: Oh, that was one thing I was going to mention. I took the first two years of ROTC at Stanford with full expectation that I would then be able to take advanced ROTC for my second two years there, only to learn that because of my visual problems, they weren’t going to take me in ROTC. So when the war came along, I decided that I better prepare for that because they would draft me. So, I took shorthand and typing, thinking that I could do secretarial work. But they wouldn’t take me either.

Weinstein: Because of your vision?
DURKHEIMER: Because of my eyes. So, that was why I did what I did. I busied myself to get married. I busied myself to become a scout master, and do my own thing since I couldn’t do military. Inwardly, I had mixed emotions. I think sometimes I was happy I wasn’t able to go but at the same time I was a little bit ashamed. Here I was home and interested in such things as marriage, of all things, and oh, my gosh. Anyway, I had no military experience.

Weinstein: Could we talk some about your business career?
DURKHEIMER: Yes, we can. I went into business when I left college. I left college early because I got all my credits and I got my degree without having to go back to school the last quarter, and without having to go back for graduation ceremonies, which didn’t mean anything to me. So, I got my diploma. I went into the wholesale grocery business.

Weinstein: Was that something that you had always intended to do, or was it just circumstantial?
DURKHEIMER: No, I wanted to be a doctor. That was where I was intrigued. I loved sciences and I thought that would be where I would get my biggest kicks and pleasure. Dr. Steiner, who was the ophthalmologist at the Portland Clinic, insisted that I should not go to graduate school. He said I had progressive myopia and I would end up blind, and I wouldn’t be of any use whatsoever. Well, that’s an old wives’ tale today. Everybody knows that you don’t go blind if you have progressive myopia. It settles down at some point or other, and you can do well, and it doesn’t get worse because you’re studying harder. So, I knew I couldn’t follow that pursuit. I was convinced that I must not. So I decided that I would go into the grocery business. I made that my career, and I became very successful at a very early age, in going up through the chairs of the company and becoming it’s chief executive officer. There were some trials and tribulations associated with that, because I was passing up my brother. And that is a terrible thing to do. But it was done. And we kind of put that in the background. That was not the best experience. My dad had to relinquish his responsibilities as he was becoming a little bit too old to continue, and I was able to take over. We went through a lot of expansion and development, and I did have good relations with staff. It was a good career. Very good.

Weinstein: Earlier today, when we were talking about an appointment time for me to come, I had made a joke about being union and you had said that you had a lot of experience working with unions.
DURKHEIMER: My dad said to me that if the union ever came to the warehouse, he would get out of business right away. Well, I happened to have been working a summer vacation job in what we called our “repack room”. Some grocers would buy less than a full-case lot. I got the wind that the union was in the building and they wanted to talk with the employees. I immediately went downstairs to let them know what was going on, but I came back and all was well. Then, a little later on I started meeting with the union officials and I found good rapport. They were out to protect their employees, and why not? We had very good union relationships as a result.

Weinstein: So you were in a position in the company to make decisions about working with the union?
DURKHEIMER: Oh, we had no problem whatsoever in working with the union. And I told my dad to lay off. The funny thing was, one of our competitors, Hudson House, which was a big operation…. Bob Hudson one day came over to our warehouse, in his own person, walked into our warehouse and told the employees in our warehouse they should leave the job. “We’re on strike at our place and you should be in sympathy with us. You get off. Go on out, and so forth.” Fortunately, our employees didn’t.

Weinstein: Well, you had been good to them. They were good to you.
DURKHEIMER: We had good relations with our employees. And as we grew we sustained it. They benefited same as we did.

Weinstein: You are a very good person. You have seemed to follow your own path, and you seem to have done the right thing. You’re related to people in your ethnic community, in the general community, in the business community. I’m very, very impressed with all the things you’ve told me. And I would like you to talk more about what you feel were the influences that led you to this kind of activity and life. That’s a pretty heavy question. Talk more about what were those strong influences.
DURKHEIMER: Some of the influences may not have been so strong. Maybe some of it is sensitivities. Maybe someone would say, “Well, you lacked strength. You don’t stand up for your own rights.” Well, I don’t know why I was more conciliatory and developed more understanding of the needs of others. I was sensitized. And why I might be and someone else might not have been, I don’t really know and I can’t put my finger on it. But I’ve learned, and I’ve expressed, even in recent days, why one should be knowledgeable and aware of other people’s needs and requirements, because they’re very similar to your own, and you have much more comfort and satisfaction in life if you recognize that other people have the very same needs that you have. I don’t know how and why it all evolved and why I should have had that sensitivity, but I’d much rather not argue with people. I’d much rather discuss and accept some of their views and maybe temper some of their views, but not engage in argumentative things, which only creates anger in the other party. So I think it’s your own sensitivity that you might have acquired. I think my mother was very much that way, and I think she was more my tutor than my father was in that respect. I had much higher regard for her and I enjoyed my grandfather greatly because of his manner. I think as you grow older from early childhood I think you pick up some of that. It’s unfortunate if some haven’t. But it’s available, if you keep your eyes and ears open.

Weinstein: I would guess, also, that the scouting experience played a part.
DURKHEIMER: Well, there’s something else in my nature and that is to bring something to a completion. I didn’t like to jump from one thing to another. So whatever I was doing I wanted to do it better.

Weinstein: You wanted to refine it.
DURKHEIMER: Yes. Not to jump to something else. It bothered me—my brother had girlfriends, every year a new girlfriend. I couldn’t understand that. It never appealed to me. In a sense, he taught me, because what he was doing, it wasn’t something that I could do. So I learned that I was different. I think you have to learn what your differences are. You have to know who you are. It takes a long time. I know in college it took me quite a while to figure out who I was in relationship to other people. Why I react the way I do.

Weinstein: But you reached an understanding of that.
DURKHEIMER: Oh, I became very comfortable and I did learn who I was; I think we all have to. We need to have confidence in getting along in this world, to understand who you are.

Weinstein: Well, and just to get on with life.
DURKHEIMER: But you also have to like yourself. And if you like yourself… well, you’re not always going to like yourself. You make mistakes, but generally speaking I think you have to have respect for yourself.

Weinstein: Can you tell me something about Leah’s family?
DURKHEIMER: Yes. I wasn’t around to know her father, because he had passed on. But her mother was a gem. She was a wonderful character. She came from a large family of girls, and their background was both German and Russian. The father was German, and her mother came from a Russian background family. It so happened that Leah was living in an apartment that was owned by my father, which I didn’t know when I first was dating Leah. Her mother really taught me a great deal. She was really a fine person. We had a meal in her home once a week, so she was fostering my relationship with her daughter. I think we had a mutual admiration society going. When we had our children.. our firstborn, Barbara, she [Leah’s mother] said, “I could never love another child. I love this one so much that I could never share that love with another child.” So, the next child comes along, and somehow or other she was able to do it very nicely. She was really a very, very choice, fine person. She often would say, “Don’t pay attention to any of my family.”

Weinstein: Where did they live?
DURKHEIMER: Their name was Weinstein, originally. Leah’s mother was a Weinstein. And her father was Kinspel. Kinnespel in German, it would have been, but when they came to this country it was changed to Kinspel. They lived on NE 12th, just three blocks north of Broadway.

Weinstein: Near where the Lloyd Center is. 
DURKHEIMER: Yes. Not too far from the Lloyd Center. She was a remarkable woman. She lost her husband, but she just loved her daughter.

Weinstein: Did Leah have any brothers or sisters?
DURKHEIMER: No. There was a son born, apparently, and died a stillborn and is buried here in Portland. Leah was an only child, and she was beautifully catered to and always had the nicest of clothes. Her mother worked initially in Meier & Frank’s basement selling groceries. Then she got into the coat and suit department and she was stellar on the floor.

Weinstein: She probably knew my husband’s aunt, Mary Claigman. She used to sell suits and coats in Meier & Frank.
DURKHEIMER: Well, I know she did. But I didn’t know there was a relationship. Because I remember the first name.

Weinstein: Mary. She and my father-in-law were brother and sister. And Ed Weinstein was their other brother, and he was at Meier & Frank. So that’s the connection. But I don’t believe that we are connected to Leah’s Weinsteins.
DURKHEIMER: No. I’m sure this is a different Weinstein. Sam Weinstein was a distant relation. He had a brother in Chicago, who I believe was a rabbi.

Weinstein: Was it a good time to be young and growing up in the general community in Portland? Did you have a lot of fun?
DURKHEIMER: Well, I had wonderful experiences in NW Portland. Halloween experiences, neighborhood experiences wonderful experiences.

Weinstein: Was there a lot of home entertaining? Did you congregate in people’s homes? Or did you go out to restaurants or clubs or dancing?
DURKHEIMER: At what stage in my life?

Weinstein: Well, I mean as a young adolescent…before you were married.
DURKHEIMER: I think that before we were married most of our dancing would be Jewishly sponsored. The Mittlemans loved to have children around their house, so they had lots of entertaining. The Georges had wonderful parties out at the pool and just loved to have children around.

Weinstein: And the third and fourth generations still do that out there.
DURKHEIMER: Yes. It’s wonderful that they did. There were other families that were very generous in that sort of thing. Of course, we had parties, too. Henry Berkowitz loved children and any time he could develop a party he was so enthused about it. So it was great. His spirit was so marvelous, although he had his problem. He was one who, like many rabbis, would cater to those people of means, and his own social life was with people of substance in the community.

Weinstein: I’ve interviewed other people, though, who were young people when he was rabbi, and I’ve heard the same stories about how wonderful he was with children; and he welcomed them into his home and was a very strong influence on young people.
DURKHEIMER: Oh, yes. “We have good food here, good food here.” And he would just shout it out, and he would wave his hands and he was having a jolly time himself. He just loved to have kids around. His Octagonal Club was so important. And then he had a Huddle Club later for the young married.

Weinstein: Tell me about the Octagonal Club.
DURKHEIMER: Well, there’s a lot I’ve forgotten about the club, but it provided us a wonderful social outlet, because it was separated from religious school totally, even though it was the same people. But your president of the club and staff would be different. Kids would have elected them. They had to be popular, of course. But I think that the Octagonal Club gave us a good feeling about being Jewish and being among Jewish people, and it was fun. In the summertime we’d go out picking berries or vegetables, peas or whatever it was. And some of the girls would have great hustle and would see how much they could pick competitively, and some of the fellows did likewise. It was more social, and yet we were doing wonderful things during the war when the fields were short-handed. We were performing a real service.

Weinstein: In Seattle, I read that we picked green beans.
DURKHEIMER: Yes. We picked beans and peas. Oh, there were several different opportunities to have fun picking.

Weinstein: So, you’re telling me these experiences and they sound very, very idyllic and naïve and innocent and sweet. I’m going to segue into today’s world. Give me your take on young people today… the changes that have taken place. What you’ve told me sounds so … idyllic… is the word that comes to mind.
DURKHEIMER: Well, it really was. I’m not sure whether we were just lucky. I think we were lucky that we had Rabbi Berkowitz, without any question in my mind and without any reservation, I think he did much for us as young people. He didn’t talk down to us. He had some successors that had altogether different approaches and I would not speak that favorably about them as far as the relationship with young people. I’m not sure. I’ve had some experience with young people now. With my dating with Rosemarie, I see her grandchildren with frequency. I think the kids are living in a much more serious world. I don’t think that they had the comfort that we had. It’s harder to have jollies today in families. There are too many concerns. There’s a lot of fear. There’s a lot of criticism and dissention. I think our society is terribly at odds with each other, and the world conditions are sick. It permeates all of our lives, terribly. I hate to open up my New York Times every day to see the headlines. It’s disturbing. 

Yet, that’s the real world we’re in right now. Population has increased. Competition has increased. Hatreds have been encouraged, I think. We learn to hate, rather than to love. I think it’s a very complex thing. So, if Papa comes home, he’s tired and he’s upset from all the stuff he’s learned, so how does he give to the kids? Well, I see a father who is just marvelous with the children, Eric Rosenfeld, for example. This man astounds me. Really. You look at him and you think he’s a kid, but you see him in action and you realize what he is. He is such a mature person, but the way he handles his children, with such love, and gives them confidence. His logical mind is something unbelievable. He is very well organized and orderly. But to look at him, he’s kind of an Abraham Lincoln type. Kind of awkward, his long arms… he’s not impressive in that sense, but I admire him, and I’m sure there are other young people who have assumed a major role of responsibility in their families, that try to screen them from what’s going on in this society of ours.

Weinstein: I think you’ve really encapsulated the situation. I asked you that question not knowing what I was going to hear, but I think you said it very, very well.
DURKHEIMER: I don’t know. Sometimes your reactions might be appropriate, and yet your delivery can be a little bit difficult to interpret. I just think that it takes extra effort today to rear a family.

Weinstein: There’s a lot more pulling at people. Plus the fact that you described early on in this interview, how you were taught not to question authority. Today, one of the mantras is question. You see bumper sticks that say, “Question Authority.”
DURKHEIMER: Yes. We’re learning to question, but well might we be. When you think of what’s been going on in the corporate world of deception; what’s going on even with those who were so righteous in helping to police the corporate world, people who give counsel and advice to corporations to keep them on the straight path, and how they’ve misled the public in their activities. And in the investment world, the same thing is going on.

Weinstein: And created such an attitude of cynicism in young people.
DURKHEIMER: Yes. To whom do you really place trust today? It’s inconceivable that you every institution that you know of, that you used to think was superior in so many ways… they’ve uncovered such terrible problems. The eleemosynary institutions, as well as the corporate institutions. It’s just awful. Awful. And here we are teaching values to children, and they get the contrary values that society is

Weinstein: Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s a tough job.
DURKHEIMER: And we have to keep expanding our penitentiaries and institutions to house people who don’t know how to behave. It’s difficult.

Weinstein: Stuart, we’ve been talking for almost an hour and a half.
DURKHEIMER: Isn’t that something? I’ve got to go walk the dog!

Weinstein: Rosemarie’s dog?
DURKHEIMER: Yeah!

Weinstein: I could go on listening. It is just fascinating to me. Some of the thing you’ve told me I had heard in different versions, because years ago I read an interview with your dad which he did in the original oral history project. But you have given me different insights and information that… This will all be transcribed, and it will be presented to you for review, and hopefully you’ll be willing to share all of your thoughts with the archives of the Oregon Jewish Museum.
DURKHEIMER: Oh, I’m always willing to do that. There’s nothing I need to really hold back. There are some things that maybe I wouldn’t want certain people to hear, but I tried to be a little bit careful. Just a little big. 

Weinstein: Thank you very much.
DURKHEIMER: Well, you’re entirely welcome, and I did welcome you here. I didn’t let you come into my home, though.

Weinstein: Oh, I should add for the sake of the recording that we are in the study. We’re in the separate guest quarters office. The executive chamber!
DURKHEIMER: Yes, that’s what it is. The executive chambers. Yes.