00:00:00ELY: Uh, it's September 16th, 2016. I'm Carol Ely, and I'm here with Suzy
Post for an interview for the Kentucky Jewish Oral History Project, sponsored by
the Jewish Heritage Fund for Excellence. So thank you, Suzy, for welcoming us
into your home to do this interview.
POST: My pleasure.
ELY: So I'll start roughly chronologically. We may go in many--
POST: --okay--
ELY: --directions, but, but we'll start with just the very basics. When and
where were you born?
POST: I was born here in Louisville, Kentucky in 1933, the depth of the Depression.
ELY: Hmm.
POST: And they didn't let me forget about that while I was growing up.
ELY: No?
POST: No.
ELY: No? Well, let's--before we get to the depths of the Depression, let's go
back a little bit, uh, through your family's history, and if you could just talk
a little bit about the experiences of your grandparents, who they were, and
their life in Europe, and how your family ended up in America.
POST: Well, both sets of grandparents, my mother's parents and my father's
00:01:00parents, were German Jews who immigrated to the United States sometime,
probably, I'd say, the nineteen teens. Uh, they'd been long settled by the time
I came around, and one set ended up in Terre Haute, Indiana, and my father's
father and mother ended up here in Louisville. So I became more familiar with
my father's parents than with my mother's. Uh, although we drove up to Terre
Haute fairly frequently, back in the days when cars weren't very good and the
tires were always exploding, and my father always had to stop at least once to
change a tire. And it took eight hours. Terre Haute's a hundred and sixty
miles. It took eight hours. It tells you how bad the roads were, and the cars.
ELY: Hmm.
POST: So I didn't have a unified, uh, set of grandparents, but I certainly was
00:02:00familiar with them.
ELY: Well, do you know when they lived in Germany and what kind of work they
did and what their circumstances--
POST: --I--
ELY: --were?
POST: --don't know that. I think they came over here as young men, the
two--the two grandfathers. And one of them went into a small business that he
started, and the other one worked for family in Terre Haute. And the
interesting thing about that is my parents, neither my mother nor my father,
ever talked about their roots.
ELY: Oh.
POST: In fact, they sort of brushed me off. It was as if it was--it wasn't
forbidden, but it certainly wasn't--it wasn't encouraged, which--
ELY: --do you have a sense of why that was so?
POST: I think it was part of that whole go to a new country and start a new
life thing, and you just left the old one behind, and you didn't really talk
00:03:00about it much, 'cause you were here, starting a new life. They didn't discuss
those things with us at all. And interestingly, I never heard my mother speak a
word of German.
ELY: Hmm.
POST: Unless she was trying to say something about her children that she didn't
want us to know, and used German phrases with my father. And I never heard him
speak any German. So it was almost as if you had to lose that old country life
and what it included as soon as you started a life in a new country. Which is a
shame, really.
ELY: Yes. Do you know what their Jewish life was like in Germany?
POST: No.
ELY: If they were--
POST: --no--
ELY: --identified or affiliated?
POST: They were all born over here.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: Mom was born in the US. Dad was born in the US, so.
ELY: But their parents didn't, uh, bring over particular religious traditions
or ethical--
POST: --just--
ELY: --traditions?
POST: Just, uh, Reform Judaism, basically. They were both Reform Jews.
00:04:00
ELY: So why don't we just--for the record, your parents' names were?
POST: Were, uh, Morris and Elizabeth Kling, and my mother, Elizabeth, was
Elizabeth Wolff, W-O-L-F-F, at the time she married dad.
ELY: And did they have any particular political beliefs that you're aware of--
POST: --progressive--
ELY: --that they discussed? Progressive?
POST: Just progressive.
ELY: In what sense? What did they talk about? What did they support?
POST: Well, my father always used to say when I objected to something that was
happening, "After the revolution." So he was, uh--he would egg me on. But they
were really, uh, just good, progressive Jews.
ELY: Not necessarily members of the Socialist Party--
POST: --no--
ELY: --or--
POST: --no. No, that was--
ELY: --no--
POST: --my job.
ELY: Okay.
POST: That's what I got to do.
ELY: So did you have brothers and sisters?
POST: I had a younger brother and sister, who were twins, who were born a
couple years after me.
ELY: That must have been interesting, having--
00:05:00
POST: --it was--
ELY: --twins in the family. They must have ganged up against you.
POST: Well, it was a tough time. We were all born in the depth of the
Depression, and it was really hard times for mom and dad. And I can remember
many, many times when men would come to the back door, and my mother would fix a
plate of food and hang it--hand it outdoors. And I don't think either my sister
or I wore anything that wasn't a hand-me-down from another relative. In fact, I
got to wear the dresses of a thirty-five-year-old cousin in Cincinnati. She
was--the--she was wealthy, so I had costume--designer clothes when I was twelve.
Totally--
ELY: --that must--
POST: --inappropriate--(Carol laughs)--but they were--you know, we wore them.
ELY: And what neighborhood did you live in? Where were you then?
POST: Uh, we lived over in Strathmoor Village, not very far from Bowman Field,
00:06:00off of, uh, Taylorsville Road.
ELY: That must have been just built then?
POST: Oh, yeah. It was so much fun. It was fun because there were still some
empty lots, and there were still houses going up, and I was such a
rough-and-tumble girl. I loved playing in those p--in those houses that were
going up, and these mountains of dirt that the excavators had piled up outside.
Played King of the Mountain with them, the neighborhood boys. It was really--it
was just--it was a lot of fun.
ELY: Um-hm. And did you go to school in the neighborhood?
POST: No, it was a county school out by the Melbourne Heights. A lot of farm
kids went there. Uh, it was a county school, not a city school. And went there
until the eighth grade, and there--they cut it off at the eighth grade, and then
I had to move over to Highland Junior High, the city schools.
ELY: So did you--um, what was the Jewish life like in your family? What was
00:07:00the role of tradition? Did you attend temple?
POST: Uh, we--I guess--it was pretty simple. We had Shabbat dinner every
Saturday night, or--a very minimal one. My mother always lit candles and said
the blessings over her children. And I think, but I'm not sure, that there was
a little better meal Friday night. Money was terribly scarce, so I'm not sure
about that. And, uh, we went to Sunday school when all the synagogues were
downtown, on Second Street, and, uh, that synagogue moved up to become Temple
Shalom when I was--it was before I was married, because I was married in the new
one, but all that happened in my teenage years, that the congregation shifted east.
00:08:00
ELY: An--and what was your feeling about being part of this Jewish community?
Was it something that really was part of your identity, or?
POST: Oh, very much so. Very much so. I never dated any boys but Jewish boys.
Of course, anything else was verboten. You just didn't do that. Intermarriage
was a horror. And the first non-Jewish boy I ever dated was at Indiana
University, when I was a student there. And it's, it's kind of--it was kind of
silly, but it was very protective. You know, it was the Jewish community
protecting itself.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: And what's happened since demonstrates why that was thought to be
important at the time.
ELY: So did you at all rebel against any--
POST: --no--
ELY: --of those traditions?
POST: --no, I was a good girl.
ELY: Good girl. (laughs) Okay.
POST: I was good girl.
ELY: Um-hm. And did you see yourself continuing this Jewish life that you were
00:09:00living as you--
POST: --I did, I--
ELY: --grew up?
POST: Uh, let's put it this way. I, I never assumed I wouldn't, but I never
sat down and saw any reason why it wasn't adequate for me. I wasn't that
challenging. And it was just--it was so easy. I just went the way of the easiness.
ELY: Um-hm. Were there youth groups back then? Were there any clubs you were
part of?
POST: Yeah, they were, but they were--they were all connected to the YMHA, and
I belonged to two or three of them. Uh, none of us dated non-Jewish boys. Uh,
there was a terrible fear back in those days that if girls dated non-Jews, we'd
have intermarriage, and that would affect the population, and it turned out to
be totally true. So we were the good girls.
ELY: (laughs) Um, I wonder if, back then, you noticed any kind of split in the
00:10:00community between the more recent Russian immigrants and the older German
immigrants who tended to be Reform. Did you feel like there was--
POST: --no--
ELY: --a social--
POST: --I didn't--
ELY: --difference?
POST: I didn't have enough contact with the latter group. Uh, with the Russian Jews.
ELY: Hmm.
POST: That came, really, later.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: So no, I didn't.
ELY: So, uh, were you aware of disparities in the community between the people
who were leaders and who tended to be wealthier?
POST: Well, the disparities I noticed were between the haves and the have-nots,
and that was pretty obvious to even a student my age who wasn't that discerning.
I mean, there were people who had a lot, and people like us who were fine, but
there was never a lot.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: And there were people who wore hand-me-downs, us, and the girls who
00:11:00didn't ever do that, as far as I know. And there were people who had two cars,
and us. So it was pretty obvious. I mean, the, the differences in, uh, class
was largely economic and pretty observable.
ELY: Did, uh, your father have any role in the Jewish community? Did he--
POST: --he, he was a member, and he was fairly active, but with age, it got to
be more and more so, and he got to be a, a real macher in the Jewish community.
But while I was growing up, that wasn't so, because I think most of his vital
juices were involved in keeping that business--
ELY: --hmm--
POST: --together, and he didn't have the--he didn't have the energy to expend
on anything except a livelihood.
ELY: So what kinds of things did he do, uh, to become a macher?
00:12:00
POST: Well, he served. Uh, he served. He became president of the
congregation. Then he became, uh, more involved in the general Jewish
community. He became president of the federation. And his older brother led
the way--he was a--my Uncle Arthur Kling was a real leader.
ELY: Ah, I didn't realize he was your uncle. Yes, I know.
POST: Yeah, my birth name was Kling.
ELY: Right.
POST: And so Arthur, you know, was the major deal, and dad, I think, always felt--
ELY: --and he was a Socialist, right?
POST: Oh, yeah, he was.
ELY: Yes.
POST: We used to sing Socialist songs at Passover at his house. Uh, yes, he was.
ELY: Let's describe Passover at, uh--with you and Arthur Kling.
POST: Oh, it--
ELY: --what was that like?
POST: --it was fun. I mean, we used the regular, ordinary Seder, but when the
service was over, we always had--we had, uh, several favorite movement songs
00:13:00that were originally Communist in, in their orientation. Or certainly
Socialist. And so--and I didn't realize that until I was a little older, but I
learned some good songs at Uncle--at Uncle Arthur's house.
ELY: Did you use them later in your own family?
POST: Oh, yeah, I still use them.
ELY: (laughs) Good.
POST: He was a fascinating man. He ran--he was a Socialist. He ran for mayor
on the Socialist ticket in '39, and, uh--with Norman Thomas. And I was told
when I ran for public office not--don't mention that. Shhh. It's just not
Communist, it's Social--don't mention that." So the curse.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: Too radical.
ELY: So did that, um, kind of Socialism that was in your family, did that feel
like a Jewish thing, or did it feel like something separate from--
00:14:00
POST: --it felt like a Jewish thing, yeah.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: It did. My father used to say all the time when I'd complain about
something that was happening, "After the revolution."
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: It was one of my favorite things he said, "After the revolution."
ELY: And did your mother take a public role in the community?
POST: Yes, she did, but in a very, uh--in a very Jewish way. She became
president of Hadassah, and really lived, worked, and died Hadassah. And, uh,
she was very devoted to the whole concept of helping Jews in Israel through
Hadassah Hospital.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: And it was a good outlet for her. I found out later that she didn't give
Council of Jewish Women, which I think is a wonderful organization, a tumble
00:15:00because her mother in Terre Haute had been a big macher in Council, but nobody
from Council came to visit her when she moved to Louisville.
ELY: Hmm.
POST: And she had her feelings hurt, so Hadassah got her all.
ELY: So do you remember, back then with Hadassah, what your feelings were about
Zionism in Israel and--
POST: --no, I just took it all for granted. I mean, it seemed perfectly
natural to me that we would be in favor of a homeland, given the history, and
especially after the Second World War. I mean.
ELY: Now, how old were you while the Holocaust was happening?
POST: I was thirteen when the war ended, and one of the thing--one of the
experiences I had then really had a lot to do with the way I led my life from
then on. I went up to a neighborhood movie house with my younger sister and
00:16:00brother on a Saturday, which we did on a lot of Saturdays. You saw a double
feature, you had a newsreel, you had a, a serial, you had a cartoon, you had
previews. Got the whole thing for eleven cents. (coughs) Excuse me. And on
this particular Saturday, in the newsreel, it showed the opening of the camps,
and my sister and brother, who were two and a half years younger than I, I don't
think it registered. It registered intensely with me. It--I mean, intensely.
I can see those pictures now. It was hard to believe that this had happened,
and that human beings had caused this to happen. And I've often said that my
00:17:00life led to social j--social justice work because of those movies that I saw,
the opening of the concentration camps, and what had been done to the people in
there, Jews, non-Jews, you know, gypsies, disabled people. Horrible, horrible
pictures. Just hard to believe that those had been done by other human beings.
And I can't--I went to the Holocaust Museum some years back, and I had to leave
after two and a half hours. I just could not integrate it anymore. It was just
too damning and too expensive and too exhausting. So I've never really gotten
over--I don't know if you should get over those pictures, but I certainly never
00:18:00have. And I've had an opportunity to see them, you know, repeatedly, and it
just horrifies me.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: So when a young girl, who's thirteen or so, I think--or young boy--is
exposed to something like that early--and we never talked about it. We didn't
talk about these things at home, and I think that was a terrible mistake. But
they couldn't. They just couldn't. And not to talk about it meant that it was
sort of this private little horror of, of my own. And even today, all these
years and years and years later, it just astounds me that these things happened
in my lifetime, and that people I know didn't do more than they did, and don't
00:19:00today, to avoid that kind of thing. I get very, very upset. And I know that,
about ten or twelve years ago, there was an Italian movie called The Garden of
the Finzi-Continis --wonderful movie--about the rise of Hitler and Mussolini in
an Italian town, and a very wealthy Italian family who lived in a huge mansion,
walled off around the rest of the city. Had tennis courts. Very, very
comfortable, rich Italians. And the movie takes place at the time that
Mussolini is just organizing, and they don't--they're not aware of it, because
they're protected by this law that encloses their garden. And they had
relationships with non-Jews, friends, and nobody was affected. At the very
00:20:00ending of, of that film, it shows the family, having packed their suitcases,
being herded onto a train, and you knew where the train was gonna go. And I've
had--I've asked every federation director that we've had since I saw that movie
to bring that movie back for the local Jewish community. It's the best appeal
for the un--United Jewish Appeal I could think of. Really, it's just great
propaganda for it. But I haven't had any success. It's a brilliant movie.
ELY: Hmm. Do, do you know anything about your family's experiences in the
Holocaust? Your relatives left--
POST: --no, everybody was--
ELY: --behind in Europe?
POST: --over here by then.
ELY: Everybody had come?
POST: Except an aunt. See this tapestry up here?
ELY: Yes.
POST: That was brought back by my--one of my mother's aunts, who was married to
00:21:00a Nazi in Germany. The rest of the family had come to the US. She was ready to
come over. He divorced her. She was taking care of a--of an upper-class family
in Germany--I don't know where--and put off getting over there until the very
last minute. When she finally was able to leave Germany and come to the
US--it's probably very late, probably '39--maybe, maybe '40--she took this
tapestry. It was booty. And it was meant to go on a bench. Oh, you can't even
see it from here, can you?
ELY: I can see it.
POST: Can it be seen on camera? No. I'm sorry, camera people. Audience.
(Carol laughs) It is quite beautiful.
ELY: Yes.
POST: And it ended up in Terre Haute, Indiana. I was up there one time and my
00:22:00aunt was going through stuff she had in her attic, and she pulled that out and
said nobody wanted it, and so I took it. And I had it hanging in my, uh, dining
room. My husband said, "That's not going in my house." I said, "Oh, yes, that
is." I was really proud of having it.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: It was sort of victory.
ELY: So thirteen, learning about the Holocaust, being exposed to these horrors,
did it make you feel vulnerable here in America?
POST: Sure. It had to. I mean, to the degree that you could even imagine such
a terrible thing going on. Sure.
ELY: And you said it motivated you, even at that age. Did you know what form
that wor--that work in the world was going to take for you?
POST: No.
ELY: No?
POST: No. Not at all. I mean, I had to put that together bit by bit over a
00:23:00period of a couple years.
ELY: Were there, uh, any people in your youth beside your parents who were an
influence on you? Your uncle, you mentioned.
POST: Mm-mm. Not really.
ELY: So what issues did you first take on? What injustices did you first start
to notice and--
POST: --well, it was pretty--
ELY: --work for?
POST: --easy, because I came of age at the time of the--of, of the rise of the
Civil Rights Movement, the very first beginnings back in the late forties and
fifties, early fifties. So I felt immediately--I felt, um, an affinity for that
campaign. I felt that I belonged with the people who were demonstrating then
for, uh, full participation--full, full citizenship. There were demonstrations
00:24:00here in Louisville. And I, I was just--I was with it. I was just with it from
the beginning when I left Louisville.
ELY: Now, you left to go to college, is that right?
POST: IU.
ELY: Where did you go?
POST: Bloomington, Indiana University. And I joined the NAACP at IU. Uh, it
wasn't very active. Later, I joined the NAACP here and became a friend of a man
named Lyman Johnson, who was a guru to the NAACP. Wonderful, wonderful man.
Uh, the grandson of slaves. And in fact, one night, it--I had an interesting
experience with him. He came to dinner one night, and after dinner he sat down
with the children, or some of them, and told them what it was like to be the
grandson of a slave. The next night, my father-in-law and my mother-in-law came
00:25:00to supper, and after dinner, he sat down with my children and told them what it
was like to be the son--to be a Russian Jew and get hidden, every Passover,
under the floorboards when the Cossacks rolled by their house in, in Russia. So
here my kids had, you know, both sides.
ELY: And you could see the parallel?
POST: Oh, yeah. But you know, I don't think it impacted them at all. I don't
know. I've never talked about it to them, but.
ELY: Well, back when you were in college and you were part of the NAACP, did
you feel like your understanding of the world was changing, and your place in it?
POST: No.
ELY: No?
POST: No.
ELY: Just--
POST: --I didn't-
ELY: --continuing the path you were--
POST: --yeah--
ELY: --on. Did you, uh, join any Jewish groups in college, or do any further study?
00:26:00
POST: No, no. I was really into boys, and just getting my degree.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: And then I got married very quickly.
ELY: So how and when did you meet your husband, and tell us--
POST: --he was--
ELY: --a little bit about him.
POST: --part of the Jewish community here in Louisville, and he was very smart,
and I thought, at the time, that's all that mattered, really.
ELY: Hmm.
POST: And, uh, we were co-chairs of the--of the student Jewish un--United
Jewish Appeal in high school and college for a time. But he left and took a
summer job at a camp somewhere, and left me holding all the, the, the bag,
cleaning up this--
ELY: --doing the work for the--
POST: --yeah--
ELY: --appeal.
POST: --which was a--it was a pattern that--(Carol laughs)--held true for many,
many years.
ELY: And what was your husband's name?
POST: Edward Post. He was very smart. In some regards.
00:27:00
ELY: So you got married, and did you find that he--
POST: --we got married very, very young. We got married in the way that
virgins used to get married; in a hurry so we wouldn't get pregnant if we
experimented. And that was not unreal.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: Uh, that was not unreal. It was very unhealthy. This was all pre-pill,
pre-reliable birth control, and Jewish mothers, just like mothers everywhere,
were very worried that their daughters were gonna mess around with some guy they
were crazy about and get pregnant. And it happened, and my mother let me know
that she was worried about that, which I didn't appreciate at all, because I
thought there was a veiled message here. Uh, but that was fairly common back in
the fifties. Not healthy at all. Not good.
ELY: So did your husband share your views about politics and religion?
POST: I thought he did. He said he did. But when push came to shove, uh,
00:28:00he--it, it was--
ELY: --is this a story you wanna tell, or?
POST: Oh, it's okay. He was a lovely guy. I just took it a lot more seriously
than he did. And, uh, he was--he was--he had the feed-the-family job, uh, after
we got married. We--
ELY: --and what did he do? What was his job?
POST: He was a lawyer.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: And we had five kids, and that wasn't a, a, a--that wasn't an easy job.
So he did more of the technical and the living stuff, and I did the more
let's-change-the-world stuff. And he, he really did--he supported me in all
that, until much later. And I think--I think that it--much later, it just
scared him that we seemed to deviate.
00:29:00
ELY: So you had five children? Tell, tell me about--
POST: --still have them.
ELY: Yes.
POST: Yeah.
ELY: I was thinking of the giving birth part. You had them, so. (laughs)
POST: Yeah, I did.
ELY: So tell me about your, your children and their, their child--we'll stay in
the childhood phase now. You can tell me how they ended up later.
POST: Well, I had these five kids according to plan, actually. Had four sons,
and then I had an accidental pregnancy, although all of my friends were sure
that I was still trying for a girl. Well, I'd given up that a long time ago.
And then the fifth one was--they were all two years apart. It was pretty tidy.
The fifth one was a girl. And I was--I, I was so--I was just so incredibly--it
was the first time in my life I had to take tranquilizers. I was so--(Carol
00:30:00laughs)--high. A girl. I didn't think I cared that much. And the entire
Jewish community in Louisville said, "Suzy Post finally did it. She finally got
that girl." It was a whoops, people. It was a whoops who turned out to be a
girl. So she's now a social worker in Portland, Oregon. And she did not walk
until she was two and a half.
ELY: Hmm.
POST: Why should she? She had four brothers. They could carry her.
ELY: So when your kids were little, were you aware of the gender differences
and trying to make sure that your daughter knew she had options, or--
POST: --I don't think--
ELY: --was that still--
POST: --I took that so--I was into--
ELY: --right--
POST: --survival--
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: --with five kids.
ELY: Yes, with five, I can see that. So did your children have a Jewish
education? Were you a part--
POST: --they did--
ELY: --of a synagogue--
POST: --they all did--
ELY: --at that point?
POST: And the boys all had Bar Mitzvahs. Rachel not. Uh, I must say it's
pretty superficial. I mean, Reform Judaism is--approaches these things, but
00:31:00it's pretty superficial in terms of the teaching and the studying.
ELY: Hmm. Were you at Beth Shalom?
POST: Yeah.
ELY: Yeah.
POST: And it was okay with me. I, I actually had a long debate with myself,
since I didn't believe in any of this stuff anymore. I didn't particularly
wanna bring them up in the Jewish tradition, because I think life is bigger than
that, generally speaking, and I finally concluded that if I exposed them to
Judaism and a Jewish--and they had a Jewish, uh, beginning, it would be easier
for them to reject it later than to acquire something that would really be
meaningful to them. So we did it--I did it such--that way.
ELY: So what had changed for you? Because you said you were a pretty good
00:32:00girl, and you went to--
POST: --well--
ELY: --temple.
POST: I value--I valued then, and I value now, any of the things that matter
to--that can matter to us and help us determine what kinds of choices we make in
life. And I think religion of any kind does that, and mine was Jewish. I mean,
it helps--it help--it helps you decide what's right and what's wrong, what's
good and what's evil. I mean, those are the things that religion gives you,
sort of signs along the way of which road you should take or follow. And when I
was very young, I started to realize that. Uh, and I still think that's true.
It's--I think it's easier to reject something in, in life than it is to
necessarily acquire it, because in acquiring it, you do it much later, and so
00:33:00you've missed all these particular, uh, year rings on the tree. So
rationalization, but it worked for me.
ELY: Do you feel that there are particular values within Judaism that you took
with you that made you the activist you became?
POST: No--
ELY: --as opposed to general religious values?
POST: No, I think the experience of being a Jew at the time of the Holocaust is
what determined where I went and how, 'cause I was sorely affected by the Second
World War and what happened to, to people then. It, it became my, uh, cause to
love, and I felt that--I felt then that knowing about it--
ELY: (coughs) I'm sorry, we're gonna need to do it again. So do you feel that
there were any particularly Jewish values as opposed to generally religious
00:34:00values that have motivated what you've done with your life?
POST: No, I can't say that. I think that I was always aware--one of the major
things that motivated me was I was always aware of my minority status as a Jew.
Very aware of that. And that's probably exactly what me made so--made me so
sensitive to the Civil Rights Movement, the attitude toward blacks in this
country at the time. Probably still. It was just like mother's milk. I'm a
Jew, I'm a tiny minority. You know. This is--this is what has happened to my
people over--this is what's happening to this other group of people. So it was
very easy to make an identification that way.
00:35:00
ELY: Um-hm. What--so what was the relationship between the Jewish community
and the African American community like in Louisville--
POST: --it didn't exist--
ELY: --at the time?
POST: It didn't exist. The relationship had to do with--the Jewish community
had black maids, and that was about it.
ELY: Some people have talked about how Jewish storekeepers were more likely to
serve African American customers than some of the big--
POST: --well, Byck's--
ELY: --department stores.
POST: --Byck's. Mary Helen Byck, who was a member of the Democratic State
Central Committee, did. I think that was the primary one. There were some
small, uh, department stores on side streets closer to where the black people
lived that had a clientele, but right downtown in the heart of Louisville, it
was only Byck's.
ELY: So you were unusual as a Jewish person to get involved with the NAACP in
Louisville, is that true?
00:36:00
POST: Yes.
ELY: Did you feel like you had support from the Jewish community, or--
POST: --I didn't care.
ELY: --not?
POST: No, I didn't think about that.
ELY: And was there opposition to what you were doing in--
POST: --no--
ELY: --the community?
POST: I mean, there were people who shrugged their shoulders and said, "Well,
she's crazy." And, uh, when I graduated from Atherton High School, in an
all-girls class, all-white-girls class, my, uh, future prediction was that I was
gonna be collecting money for the Louisville--for the Urban League in the Fiji
islands when I was older.
ELY: In the Fiji islands?
POST: In the Fiji islands. So the Urban League gave me an award about twenty
years ago, and I got up and I read this to them, and everybody was very tickled.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: I said, "I didn't get anything, folks. It's not my fault."
ELY: Yes. So, uh, did you--tell me about what it was like working with the
00:37:00NAACP in those early years when you were one of the few Jewish people. One of few--
POST: --um--
ELY: --white people, I guess.
POST: It was a porty--pretty--it was not anything that I could really remember
well, because it was pretty moribund then--
ELY: --um-hm--
POST: --as it is now. Um, the NAACP has never, in this part of the country, or
in--not--let me retract that--in Louisville, had a very vigorous membership.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: Very meaningful. Uh.
ELY: So who could you partner with to work on these issues of injustice? Is
that when the ACLU came into the picture?
POST: Uh, obliquely.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: Obliquely. It, it, it wasn't until I was married that the NAACP was in
the hands of one of my colleagues, uh, Lyman Johnson, that he was active enough
00:38:00to get it going that it became something that really mattered in terms of where
I put my energy. Although we had other experiences in Louisville with an open
housing law.
ELY: Right, and when, when was that? What was the open housing fight? Sixties?
POST: Yeah. It really divided the city. I mean, it got very, very--the city
became very volatile over this. There was a huge opposition to open housing,
which only means that people could move anywhere they wanted to move. And
obviously, there were those who didn't want that to happen.
ELY: Right. And did you--at, at that point, were Jewish leaders speaking out
on these--
POST: --some of us--
ELY: --issues?
POST: Some of us were. I know my husband got involved, and there were two or
three others. Yes.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: That was sort of the, the point in Louisville's Jewish history,
00:39:00Louisville and Jewish history and the black community, that something really
happened that mattered. It, it--then again, there were some Jews, not very
many, who got involved during school desegregation.
ELY: Right, and that was in the seventies?
POST: That was in eighty, 1980.
ELY: Huh, late.
POST: And, uh, I was one of the lead pl--I was the only white plaintiff with
children in public schools at that time. And so that gave me some legitimacy to
be able to speak to these things. It also lost me a lot of friends.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: No, not friends; people who I knew.
ELY: Was this a time when a lot of people were going to private schools--
POST: --yes--
ELY: --so that they could--
POST: --yes--
ELY: --avoid that?
POST: Yes.
ELY: So by keeping your children in the public schools, that was a statement?
POST: Yes.
ELY: How did your children feel about it?
POST: They didn't know they had a choice. I mean, I don't think any of them
00:40:00voiced any concern.
ELY: Hmm.
POST: It was just what you did.
ELY: Did you, um, feel exposed in a way because you were Jewish? Was that ever
used against you by the people who were opposed?
POST: Uh, no, but I did feel exposed, I've always felt exposed as a Jew, when I
worked with African Americans in large numbers. I've always been very, very
conscious--if I'm doing some organizing in the Louisville community that
attracts black participation, I've always been very certain to speak in front of
the group as a--as a--as an American Jewish woman. And I got that Jewish out
there as fast as I could, because I didn't want to encounter any anti-Semitism
in that movement, in that campaign, at that time. So it was a way of saying,
don't rub my nose in your anti-Semitism; I don't wanna hear about it.
00:41:00
ELY: Did you--
POST: --and I didn't.
ELY: --expect to hear anti-Semitism? Was that something--
POST: --oh, yeah--
ELY: --that was--
POST: --yeah.
ELY: --common?
POST: Oh, yeah.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: But I didn't once I got that message out, so. And I think--I like to
think--that my participation was welcome and had some effect on the African
Americans who might previously thought that all Jews washed our hands of any
participation in the minority community. I mean, I like to think that. I've
always had great relationships, outside of the Jewish community, with black
people. Uh, the fact that I was Jewish was never an issue, but of course I
wouldn't let it be.
ELY: (coughs) So you were allies in the same cause, so--
POST: --yeah.
ELY: Who were some of the people that you worked with?
POST: Well, Dr. Johnson, of course. John Johnson. I mean, there's just a
li--an endless list of names of people, most of them dead now, of course. And
00:42:00the young ones are still around, and I still see and work with some of them from
time to time.
ELY: And was the ACLU involved?
POST: No, not until I got involved, no.
ELY: You, uh, became involved in a lot of movements, not just--"just"--open
housing, school desegregation. You got involved in opposition to the Vietnam
War as well. That must have been, uh, a struggle.
POST: That was, uh, painful. It was painful. But I worked with another woman,
and in the end we were very, very effective at what we did. And Ben and I were
just recounting--my son and I were just recounting, uh, the day of his Bar
Mitzvah, I had to break away early from the celebration after it was over to
race downtown for a demonstration against the Cambodian bombings, and we had six
00:43:00thousand people, largest demonstration in Louisville's history, protesting that
move by our government. So it's impossible to--you don't get involved in social
justice and stick with one issue, because everything affects everything else, so
that was--that was interesting.
ELY: Did you find that you had different supporters and opponents when it came
to the anti-war movement than you--
POST: --uh--
ELY: --had had before?
POST: Only my--only my husband was not supportive at first. Uh, he, he used to
say he thought that the--he had to believe that they know what they're doing
there. But eventually, he came around and realized that the whole thing was a
ruse. So. I--you know, there were--we--I made a lot of enemies, there's no
question, especially in the Jewish community.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: Because I was pretty far ahead of them.
00:44:00
ELY: Wasn't there a rabbi who was fired because he was--
POST: --Rabbi Pearly, my rabbi.
ELY: Right. Ah.
POST: Because he, he was not spending enough time with his congregants. He had
gotten involved in the anti-war movement.
ELY: So you partnered with him in--
POST: --yeah--
ELY: --the move--
POST: --yeah.
ELY: What happened to him?
POST: Um, he died eventually.
ELY: Oh, oh.
POST: Very unusual. He--
ELY: --we all do.
POST: He took a job as the director of the Human Relations Commission.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: And later hired me to do women's stuff through the commission.
ELY: Well, that was my next question. You moved to the feminist movement then,
and I'm sure it felt like a seamless transition as you--
POST: --it did.
ELY: So how did you get involved there?
POST: Well, it was like mother's milk. I mean, you couldn't--you couldn't be
concerned about the inequities that occurred in this country to people of color
or poor people and not realize that we're talking about women here, too, kids.
00:45:00So yeah, it was--that was not a leap.
ELY: Was that something you worked on in the Jewish community? Because at that
point, there were some differences in the way women were treated--
POST: --oh, indeed--
ELY: --within--
POST: --there were.
ELY: --Judaism.
POST: I was not welcome in that community at that time, particularly. In fact,
I wasn't welcome--I had gone to it to ask it to support a group I started called
the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Whew, the committee chair
was horrified, and I really left there with a terribly negative feeling about
where the Jewish community was. That was a long time ago.
ELY: Well, in the Reform movement, women had had more e--equality--
POST: --right--
ELY: --than in the conservative and orthodox--
POST: --right, right--
ELY: --movements, obviously.
POST: But look how all that's come around.
ELY: Yes. It's changed a lot.
POST: Yeah.
ELY: So did you feel you were fighting it within your religious identity, or
00:46:00was it more a political thing in the--in the context of America?
POST: It was the latter. I never saw myself as only functioning within the
Jewish community, either the synagogue or anything else, so I didn't--I didn't
limit myself. So I just didn't pay any attention to that.
ELY: Did you, uh, ever sit on the boards of any of these Jewish organizations,
lead the community, or were you--
POST: --no--
ELY: --more in the--
POST: --no--
ELY: --general community?
POST: Right.
ELY: But you were on the Human Rights Commission?
POST: Human Relations Commission.
ELY: Human Relations.
POST: Yeah
ELY: Sorry. So you ended up working for the city?
POST: City county.
ELY: City county.
POST: Yes. And Rabbi Pearly was the director at that time. So I had a
wonderful professional life with the commission, and did some really great work
there. I did a lot of good work for women in prisons and jails, which had been
00:47:00neglected historically. And so I'm very happy for my eight years there.
ELY: So what are some things you've been involved with recently?
POST: And thinking of anything I've done from a feminist--in a feminist way,
nothing really. I mean, I'm just not involved in much of anything that I wasn't
previously involved in, and part of that's great, because there's so many
young--wonderful young women. They don't need me, really.
ELY: Well, do you feel there are people you've mentored who can carry on your work?
POST: Oh, yeah, I do. There's--
ELY: --um-hm--
POST: --especially in terms of housing and social justice stuff. Yes, I do.
And they're great.
ELY: And you've--some--you've been active with gay rights issues?
POST: Well, you say active. I mean, those are all part of a, a panoply of
00:48:00programs and issues that--it's like a big bre--bread.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: Braid of challah. Everything is really--leads to--
ELY: --a very Jewish metaphor there.
POST: Yeah, yeah.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: So they're all connected. So you know.
ELY: Are there times when you felt that being Jewish was really an asset
because you could speak in a different way about things?
POST: I don't think so, but I've never thought along those terms, and it's
possible that it--that there were times when it was. But I never felt it.
ELY: Well, the flip side is I'm going to say, were there any times when you
really felt it was a liability, that because of who you were, it was difficult
to speak up about something?
POST: No.
ELY: So just to turn back to the personal for a minute, um, where are your
00:49:00children and grandchildren now, and what kind of lives have they--
POST: --well--
ELY: --created?
POST: Except for the one who's sitting here with us in this room, who your--
ELY: --we might talk about him.
POST: --audience cannot see and doesn't know about, the eldest is a professor
at Penn State, in Pennsylvania. His brother Steven is a math professor in
Madison, Wisconsin. Ben is here, uh, working in Louisville. Daniel is a--an
attorney in California. And my only daughter, Rachel, is involved with the
homeless coalition in Portland, Oregon. So I have five children in five states,
and none of them is a non-stop flight away, and I am mad. (Carol laughs) I am
mad about that.
ELY: And have they continued to identify with Judaism? Have they--
POST: --I don't know the answer to that.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: I mean, I think the first one definitely has, and the fourth one, because
00:50:00they had Bat Mitzvahs, and Bar Mitzvahs. I don't know about the second. I
don't think they do. Uh, and I don't know what Rachel's gonna do. Her
daughter's only eight right now.
ELY: Hmm. Do you gather them all together for Seders and sing Socialist songs?
POST: I wish we could. I wish we could. No. They're too far away. It's too
hard for them to get away and--we gather them together when their mother has
lu--uh, lung cancer and may die. They all come running, so.
ELY: So that does it?
POST: Yeah, that'll do it.
ELY: That brings them--
POST: --that'll do it.
ELY: --together. Maybe a really good Seder with--
POST: --yeah, yeah.
ELY: --Socialist songs would do it.
POST: I would hope.
ELY: So, um, just some kind of global questions here. How, how have you seen
things change in the Jewish community in your lifetime as far as what people are
involved with, what they care about? What, um, what pulls people together as a community?
00:51:00
POST: Well, I think that this--the Louisville Jewish community, today, as I
know it, is so much more affluent than the community in which I grew up, that
the things it does programmatically are totally different. Um. I mean, there's
just no comparison. It, it can do almost anything it wants to do, and so there
are people in the Jewish community today who will go to Israel, you know, every
other year, because of the ties that it--that they have.
ELY: And have you traveled to Israel?
POST: No. I really regret it that I haven't.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: Really regret it.
ELY: Is, uh, Zionism anything that you've been involved with in any way, pro,
con, in--
POST: --uh, peripherally--
ELY: --this later part of your life?
POST: --peripherally. And I would love to go to Israel, but it's never
happened at the right time, or when I've had the money to be able to do it.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: But there's life in the old girl yet, so you can't tell.
00:52:00
ELY: Who knows. Yes. And what do you see as the big issues now facing this
community, Louisville? Obviously there's been progress, but what's the work ahead?
POST: I think it's, uh, to maintain some integrity as a--as a total community
at a time when there's so many other possibilities, and when finances are not
gonna restrict Jews from moving outside the mediate--immediate community.
ELY: Um-hm.
POST: So I think it's--it could be anything that people want it to be.
ELY: And do you feel that there are changes you're still working to create,
either through activist work or through your example, or do you feel that the
torch has been passed and you've--
POST: It's practically out. (laughs)
ELY: Done--well, you've done what--
POST: --it's been--
ELY: --you've come here to do.
POST: --passed, and it's about to go out.
00:53:00
ELY: Um-hm. Well, I know that many people have really been inspired by what
you've done, and you've really made a huge difference in the world, and there are--
POST: --well, thank you for saying that.
ELY: --very few people I think you can say that about, that--
POST: --well--
ELY: --they've inspired so many.
POST: -Nor can anyone who's doing this work say that that's all they have to
do, because it's never finished. Social justice work, never finished.
ELY: So is there anything I haven't asked you that you would like to say, or
any words that you want to put out there?
POST: Well, I would just like people to know that living and working as a Jew
in a larger community has been really enriching to me, because I've had my
Jewish heritage to draw from, but I've also had the larger, non-Jewish world to
draw from, and so I feel it's just all been a blessing, and that I'm very--I'm
very, very blessed for having had this experience as a Jew, and as a Jew who's
00:54:00worked in the larger community. It's been wonderful. I've met great people.
I've had some fabulous experiences. And not everybody can say that.
ELY: Well, thank you very much for sharing this--
POST: --you're welcome.
ELY: --with us.
POST: You did very good.
ELY: (laughs) Thank you.
[End of interview.]
4
