Not too long ago, two Berkeley teenagers spent several hours interviewing 96-year-old Sadie Katz. With a tape recorder running, she described to them what it was like growing up on New York City’s Lower East Side at the turn of the century.
“There was no electricity in the streets. A lamplighter would come along and personally light each lamp,” she said. “There were no cars, only trolleys drawn by horses.”
Details about Italian ices, baked potatoes from heated pushcarts and challah that was made at home but baked in the bakery, all came forth from her memory.
And toilet paper? No such thing.
“Do you know what we had to use?” she asked. “Newspaper!”
Next week, Laelena Brooks, 15, one of the teens who interviewed Katz, will recite the 96-year-old’s lines in a play called “Playing Our Roots,” at the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center in Berkeley.
The play was conceived, written and directed by Ilan Vitemberg, an Oakland drama teacher. He is the recipient of a Ti-ke-a Fellowhip, awarded to educators of teens through the S.F.-based Bureau of Jewish Education and the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund.
To apply for the fellowship, applicants had to answer the question, “If you had $10,000, what would you do with it?” Vitemberg’s answer was based on a program that is widely done in his native Israel. In the seventh grade, Israeli kids participate in an educational program called Project Shorashim (Roots), in which they interview their grandparents and put together a family tree.
In the school where Vitemberg taught in Israel, students wanted to do a play, so he compiled a script from family stories the students brought in.
“I was amazed by the effect it had on families. Parents would come crying after the show. We did it for three years and it was always successful and moving.”
Once he got the fellowship, he decided to make use of the BRJCC, which has no existing teen programs. He began recruiting last September.
In his grant proposal, Vitemberg aimed for 10 teen participants and hoped he would get at least that many. He made a presentation at East Bay Midrashot, a high school program sponsored by synagogues and the Center for Jewish Living, as well as other Jewish venues. And when he held auditions, 35 teens showed up. He accepted 15, wishing he could have used more.
Their levels of acting experience varied, as did other skills, like singing and dancing. Vitemberg deliberately chose those from ages 14 through 18.
And after a series of team-building exercises, Vitemberg went off to Israel as part of the fellowship. While he was gone, the teens met with those experienced in the art of interviewing, receiving preparation for their meetings with elders.
Vitemberg chose participants in the BRJCC’s senior program. The interviews themselves did not always go well. Noah Stein, 14, of Berkeley, said that his subject was not always forthcoming, probably because he didn’t have a very happy life, Stein believes.
“It was really difficult. I felt like I almost had to trick him. He had trouble exposing himself,” Stein said.
Brooks, who interviewed Katz, said she was more prone to offering atmospheric details than telling stories.
But Jaya Senyak, 14, of Albany, had a different experience with her senior. “She just started telling us stories,” she said. “She said, ‘I’ve been thinking about my life, and here’s what happened.'”
Vitemberg took the best stories and turned them into a script. The teens take turns narrating episodes from the seniors’ lives while others act them out.
“Most of the lines are verbatim,” he said. “They’re saying these people’s lives.”
One subject described how her family left Poland for Cuba, where her stepmother was so miserable, she took a boat back to Poland in 1938. They never heard from her again.
Another was practically disowned by her family when she married a black man. Rachel Sanders, 16, said that story in particular surprised her.
“There were a lot of really similar situations,” said Sanders, a Richmond resident. “The person I interviewed went through an interracial relationship and marriage. That was interesting because that is such an issue now.”