00:00:00ELY: This is Carol Ely. I'm the Louisville liaison for the Jewish Heritage Fund
for Excellence, Jewish Kentucky Oral History project. Today is May 10th, 2017,
and it is my great honor and pleasure to interview Congressman John Yarmuth at
the Video Bred Studios here in Louisville, Kentucky as part of the Jewish Fund
for Excellence, Jewish Kentucky collection. Thank you so much for talking to me today.
YARMUTH: Pleasure to be here.
ELY: Great. And we're gonna ask you questions that you don't often get
asked--(laughter)--so that should be--
YARMUTH: --good--
ELY: --a relief and a pleasure, uh, because we're gonna talk about your family
first, your family background. So, um, I would like to know when members of your
family first came to America. I'm assuming they came from Europe, and what
brought them here. And maybe we could start with your father's side of the family.
YARMUTH: Right. Well, um, my father's father, Irving Yarmuth, came to the U.S.
around, I would say, 1911 or '12. And he came with three brothers and
00:01:00a sister. Uh, they came from Russia, uh, the Latvia area. And they, their name
was, uh, Yarmuck (??) And when they came to the States, they, uh, were told by
Immigration that they should change their name. So it was Americanized to
Yarmuth. But I had one great uncle who didn't have children. And he kept his
name, Yarmuck, until he died. So I had, uh, one great uncle named Yarmuck and
grandfather, and his two brothers and sister were Yarmuth.
ELY: So did they come straight to Kentucky? Or did they stop in New York first?
YARMUTH: No, they were all, they all lived in New York. Um, my, uh--they settled
in different places. I had, uh, two great uncles who lived on Long Island. And
then, uh, my grandfather grew up in the Br--or, lived in the Bronx, as did my
great uncle, whose name was Yarmuck. And they, um--he lived there
00:02:00until my father was eight years old, so that would have been 1933.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: And they moved to New Jersey.
ELY: So they came in the twenties, your family?YARMUTH: They, they came in
the--around 1910, '11, '12. Somewhere in that neighborhood.
ELY: And do you know anything about their life in Russia? What kinds of
occupations they had?
ELY: You know, they, my great uncles used to kid about being horse thieves. They
would say--(laughs)--they went out with ropes and came back with horses. I don't
think that was actually true. In--when they got to the States, my two great
uncles who lived on Long Island were in the fur business together.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: And then my grandfather was a, uh, kosher butcher. So I, I don't really
know what they did when they were in Russia, or whether--I don't think they were
probably old enough to actually have careers, because my grandfather was
born in, around 1900. So he would have only been, uh, eleven or
00:03:00twelve years old when he came over.
ELY: Um-hm. And so since there were kosher butchers in the family, I assume they
were on the observant side of the spectrum?
YARMUTH: They were on the observant side of the spectrum, right.
ELY: Okay. So orthodox?
YARMUTH: You know, I suspect that my grandfather was orthodox. I think he kind
of downgraded--(laughs)--as, as he got older. And his, both of his sons, my
father and my uncle, moved to Louisville and became much less observant. And so
I suspect he--well, I know he did, was not nearly as, as observant--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --later in his life.
ELY: Okay, do you know if they had any political involvement in Russia or New
York? A number of Jews from that area were, uh, Socialists, or do you know
anything about it?YARMUTH: I don't think so at all.
ELY: Okay.
YARMUTH: I don't think so at all.
ELY: And, uh, so then, it was your father and your uncle who came to Louisville?
YARMUTH: Um-hm.
ELY: And what drew them to Kentucky?
00:04:00
YARMUTH: First my father came, and he became, um--he was, uh, enlisted in 194--I
guess late 1943. Uh, came to Fort Knox to do his, uh, basic training.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: And at a USO dance, met my mother.
ELY: Ah.
YARMUTH: So he went to--went away to the war. And when he came back, he came
back to look for my mother. --(laughs)--
ELY: Ah.
YARMUTH: And married her and stayed here.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: My uncle was--came much later. And he was actually looking for business
opportunities that he thought my, my dad might make available to him--
ELY: --oh--
YARMUTH: --so he came down later for that.
ELY: And your father's name was Stanley?
YARMUTH: Stanley.
ELY: And your uncle was?
YARMUTH: Melvin.
ELY: Melvin. Okay.
YARMUTH: Right.
ELY: So, um, they were clearly oriented towards business. They--had they--
YARMUTH: --right--
ELY: --had schooling in that? Or that was just an interest?
YARMUTH: I, I think--well, my father, uh, went to NYU [New York
00:05:00University] for two years before he went away to the Army. And I think he did
study accounting.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: So that was his interest in, I guess, counting money.
ELY: Right.
YARMUTH: --(laughs)--and, uh, but, uh, I don't think he ever was exposed to
anything else. Of course, his father had been, uh, a small business man. And
that's probably all they knew.
ELY: Okay. Well, let's backtrack now and talk about your mother's side of the
family. So do you know where in Europe they were from, and when they came? What
brought them?
YARMUTH: Well, my--I know my grandmother's--my grandmother was not Jewish,
Hattie Klein. And she was--her maiden name was Brahm. And they--that family was
here for a long time, many generations. And matter of fact, I qualify for, uh,
Sons of the American Revolution status--
ELY: --congratulations--
YARMUTH: --through that side of the family. Uh, I figure I'm the Sons of the
American Revolution and the Russian Revolution.
00:06:00
ELY: Great.
YARMUTH: But, uh, and my grandfather, uh, I don't really know, Sam Klein, I
don't really know, um, exactly when his family came over, but it would have been
much earlier. I would say sometime in the 1880s--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --in that area. But also came from, uh, from somewhere in Russia.
ELY: Um-hm. Do you know anything about their religious and political background?
YARMUTH: Well, I don't think they had any political background.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: You know, Sam was somewhat politically engaged, but mostly through his business--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --his business, um, his business necessities. And, um, and I'm not
sure, um, about his religious background. Now, I know he was, um, he was a
reformed Jew, and belonged to Adath Israel.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: And so I don't know if his family had been more devout or
00:07:00not. But--
ELY: --okay--
YARMUTH: --he was, he was in the reform--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --reform area.
ELY: So, uh, when your parents met, it was somebody from a more orthodox
background, somebody from a more reformed background. Is that accurate?YARMUTH: Exactly.
ELY: So when you were growing up, it was you, and you have, I think, three
siblings?YARMUTH: Three siblings.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: Two brothers and a sister.
ELY: Okay. Are you the middle, oldest?
YARMUTH: I'm the oldest.
ELY: Oldest. Okay.
YARMUTH: Right.
ELY: And, uh, so what, what kind of religious household, or not, did, did your
parents create?
YARMUTH: Well, we were, I would say, much more cultural Jews, um, than
practicing Jews--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --although I did go to Sunday School. I was confirmed, again, at, at
Adath Israel, and actually was bar mitzvah'd, which is actually an interesting--
ELY: Unusual--
YARMUTH: --story.
ELY: --for reform. Tell the story.
YARMUTH: Well, when I was twelve and a half, again, I had gone to
00:08:00Sunday School but never gone to Hebrew school. Uh, so whatever Hebrew I knew, I
picked up from Sunday School and prayers, not from actually knowing how to read
it or, um--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --read it. So, uh, when I was twelve and a half, my grandfather said to
my father, "Uh, you know, I would like my oldest grandson to be bar mitzvah'd."
And my father said, "Well, he doesn't know how to read Hebrew. I don't know if
that's possible." So we went to see the rabbi, who was then Herbert Waller.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: And said, "Is this possible?" And he said, "Well, yeah, it's possible.
I can't teach him how to read Hebrew in six months, but he'd have to memorize
the Hebrew portions of the, uh, uh, ceremony. And if he can do that, he can be
bar, bar mitzvah'd." So I literally, I remem--never forget it, had one of those
tape recorders, the big reel to reel tape recorders, and I would sit
00:09:00there for hours, uh, fast forward and back, forward and back, playing my
Haftorah portion, and memorizing it. And so I, I, um, I kind of, I kind of call
it the, um, you know, the Cliff Notes bar mitzvah; that's what I had.
ELY: Right.
YARMUTH: And the day of the bar mitzvah, when I was, I was doing the, uh,
Haftorah--I can't call it "reading," it was the recitation, and at one point, I
couldn't remember what the next word was. And I paused. And to me it felt like
it was three minutes. But I--my grandfather said he never even noticed it. But
it sounded--it felt bad to me. Anyways, so the rabbi starts pointing at the
word, and I'm kind of, like, "You know I can't read it." --(laughter)--
ELY: Right.
YARMUTH: It doesn't matter whether you point, until I remember where we are, we
were stuck here. Anyway, I got through it, and, uh, had the party, and all the
gifts, and--
ELY: Do you still have it memorized?
YARMUTH: No, no, no. No.
00:10:00
ELY: Okay.
YARMUTH: I sure don't. But, um, I know that, that it was the portion of the, um,
Torah that I read had the--was from Micah. And it had the famous quote, "To love"--
ELY: The peace of the city? Right.
YARMUTH: Well, to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk calmly with our God,
yeah, I remember that part, it was in it.
ELY: Right.
YARMUTH: Yeah.
ELY: There's another great quote about how you should seek the peace of the city
that you reside in.
YARMUTH: Um-hm.
ELY: Which means, then, to be a good citizen. Be a Jew--
YARMUTH: --yeah, right--
ELY: --but be a good citizen. How did you feel about this bar mitzvah? Did it
feel like something you were doing to please your grandfather? Or did it feel
like an accomplishment that you, yourself wanted to do?
YARMUTH: Yeah, well, a little bit of both. I mean, I did take it seriously, and,
you know, I wanted to make my grandfather happy. I know my, my father--it made
my father happy, too--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --even though he had not, again, pushed me to do it.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: Uh, but I felt like it was an accomplishment and, um, you
00:11:00know, that, when you're that age, you end up going to all your contemporaries'
bar mitzvahs. And it was nice after that to be able to put the tallis on--
ELY: --mhmm--
YARMUTH: --and, uh, and be one of the club.
ELY: Right, to, to have that accomplishment--
YARMUTH: --right--
ELY: --like everybody else.
YARMUTH: And neither my brothers or my sister, um, were bar mitzvah'd at the time.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: My brother, Bob, who's the next in line was bar mitzvah'd at the age of 50--
ELY: --hmm--
YARMUTH: --in Jerusalem.
ELY: Mmm.
YARMUTH: He became very serious about Judaism later in his life. And, and, uh,
learned Hebrew. He did the full deal. And he was bar mitzvah'd, and my niece,
his daughter was bat mitzvah'd at the same time in Jerusalem.
ELY: Oh, nice. Nice. Um, I forgot to ask your mother's name. That's your mothers--
YARMUTH: Edna.
ELY: Edna, okay. And, uh, so when you were growing up, did you have Shabbat
dinners? Did you--uh, Passover Seders, I mean, what was the atmosphere?
00:12:00
YARMUTH: We did, we did Seders, uh, all throughout my childhood. Uh, we didn't
have, uh, Shabbat dinners. Uh, and we celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So----
ELY: --was that--
YARMUTH: --we got all the presents.
ELY: --at all controversial at that point as a Jewish family?
YARMUTH: No. No, what--the only time it got controversial was in--after the, uh,
1967 war in Israel, my father felt very Jewish and decided that year we were
only going to celebrate Hanukkah. And so we didn't have a tree, and we didn't do
Christmas. And he was probably the most miserable of all of us. --(laughter)--
So that was the last time we tried that, but, yeah.
ELY: Uh-huh. What neighborhoods did you live in, growing up?
YARMUTH: Um, well, I, my first memory of a house was near Lakeside, uh, Swimming Club--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --uh, Grasmere Drive.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: Lived there 'til I was six, I believe--
00:13:00
ELY: So the kind of Outer Highlands?
YARMUTH: --Outer Highlands. Then we moved, uh, when I was six to Seneca Valley
Road, which is, um, basically at the end of Woodbourne, and across the yard.
ELY: So another part of the Outer Highlands.
YARMUTH: Exactly. And across from the ninth hole at Seneca Golf Course. And
that's where we lived until my senior year in high school.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: So 196--late 1964.
ELY: And what was that neighborhood like then? Was it heavily Jewish? Were your
friends Jewish?
YARMUTH: Virtually everyone I knew, every Jewish kid I knew lived within a mile
of there. Now, there were some who lived--some--one of my best friends lived off
Zorn Avenue, one of my best friends lived in Cherokee Par--Cherokee Gardens. Uh,
and a couple lived out, uh, in Indian Hills.
ELY: Yeah.
YARMUTH: But most everybody that I knew lived relatively close by.
ELY: And then--
ELY: --up and down Woodbourne--
YARMUTH: --and, um--
YARMUTH: --and Douglas and those streets.
ELY: That's where I live. Uh, so Adath Israel was still downtown at
00:14:00that point?
YARMUTH: Um-hm.
ELY: But you were in an area with a couple of conservative synagogues.
YARMUTH: Right.
ELY: Did you ever attend or have friends who went to--
YARMUTH: Well, yeah, I was in Adath Jeshurun all the time, because--
ELY: --okay--
YARMUTH: --because my friends were getting bar mitzvah'd.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So I was there a lot. And, um, but basically for those events, not for
actual, just regular worship.
ELY: Um-hm. And you've mentioned, uh, spending time at the Jewish Community Center--
YARMUTH: --right--
ELY: --which at that point, I guess, was out at Dutchman's Lane.
YARMUTH: Um-hm.
ELY: Sports, and--
YARMUTH: Oh, yeah. I mean all the--everything--well, both sports and then, um,
social clubs. They, you know, the--most of the--I guess all of the Jewish clubs
at that point were oriented in some way with the center.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: As a matter of fact, I know that my high school fraternity was thrown
out of--I don't know if we were thrown out of the center or whatever, but we
actually disassociated from the center. And--
00:15:00
ELY: What did you do?
YARMUTH: --well, we had a problem with sports teams there.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: But, um, but again, uh, through social clubs and, and athletics. I
mean, I played Little League there, I played flag football there, played
basketball from the time I was, you know, Pee Wee basketball when I was in the
sixth, seventh grade.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So, uh, spent many, many hours there. And did until probably ten years
ago when I retired from basketball.
ELY: Huh. And golf, I think, is still huge in your life?
YARMUTH: I still play golf.
ELY: Right.
YARMUTH: Yes. Um, you went to Atherton High School. And I have been told, and
I'm, I'm looking for verification here, that one reason why Jewish youth tended
to affiliate with the social clubs at the Jewish Community Center was that the
high school club, were sort of segregated? Is that your experience?
YARMUTH: It was. I, I don't remember any Jewish kid being asked to join
any of the, uh--they called them "literary societies" in high school
00:16:00at the time. And there were a half dozen of them, I guess. I was actually asked
to join one when I was in high school, and it was highly unusual. And I would
have been the only Jewish member in any of those clubs at the time. So, uh, but
I was in Pi Tau Pi, and, uh, which was actually a national Jewish high school
fraternity. And I didn't want really to be the only Jew in--(laughs)--the other ones.
ELY: Was it something you thought about? Was it an injustice? Or did it just
seem like the way things were?
YARMUTH: It just seemed like the way things were. I mean, I never felt, uh,
really discriminated against. I can only remember a couple of instances growing
up where anybody even to my face made reference to my being different.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And so, you know, it was--I don't think any of us felt that
00:17:00we really wanted to be in those other clubs.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: We felt comfortable, because most of--you know, most of our friends
were Jewish, from--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --for whatever reason. And that's something I actually have to think
about. And I still think about that to a certain extent. My son, whom we'll get
to, I'm sure--
ELY: --right--
YARMUTH: --is, was not raised in any faith. And still, I would say that most of
his closer friends are Jewish.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So he didn't meet them through Sunday School, or any of those areas.
There was a natural gravitational pull, I guess.
ELY: Cultural Judaism. It, it persists. And maybe there's a Jewish way of
looking at the world that, that comes through. Um, were your grandparents
involved in your life when you were growing up? Were you close to them?
YARMUTH: Absolutely. Ah, I remember when I was real young, and they still
had--when you made a phone call, you actually picked up the phone, and the
operator ask for your, "number, please." And the only number I knew
00:18:00was their number, which was Highland 2421.
ELY: Uh-huh?
YARMUTH: And so I--and they lived on Village Drive, which was walking distance,
or biking distance--
ELY: --right--
YARMUTH: --from my house. And I would be there all the time. And sometimes just
to play in their backyard.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: But no, they, we were very much involved as a family.
ELY: And, uh, your grandfather and your uncles and father were all involved in,
um, I believe initially in the car business? And that transitioned into banking,
into a Fortune 500 company? Can you, can you tell that story?
YARMUTH: Well, when my father came back to Louisville and married my mother,
he--my grandfather, Sam, owned a car lot at the corner of Eighth and Broadway.
ELY: Sam Klein?
YARMUTH: Sam Klein.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And so my dad went to work for him as a salesman, and was a very
effective salesman. And at some point, my grandfather decided to go
00:19:00into the banking business. And my father bought--took over the car lot. I don't
know what kind of financial transaction ever took place, but he ended up owning
the car lot. And so Sam went on, founded something called the, the Royal Bank--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --uh, with some relatives and his brother, Isidore, primarily. And
that, ultimately, became the Bank of Louisville and went the Royal--it was the
Royal Bank, and then they merged with the Bank of Louisville. Became the Royal
Bank of Louisville, then they dropped Royal, and it became the Bank of Louisville.
ELY: Now it's BB&T.
YARMUTH: Now it's BB&T, after being Mid-America Bank Company. But, uh, anyway,
but Sam was the chairman of the board and, and CEO of the bank. And then--
ELY: Was it difficult raising capital to do that as a Jewish person in
Louisville? Were Jews investing in that bank, in a sense?
YARMUTH: I suspect, although I don't know, I was much too young to know how that
happened. But I, I do know that one thing that, that separated Sam
00:20:00from most bankers was that he was willing to take risks on people other banks wouldn't.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And so I think it was kind of a--he was more of an entrepreneurial
banker. And I think that's what made him successful. Uh, he was the original,
uh, funder of Humana.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: He loaned David Jones money when nobody else would. And David Jones to
this day will give my grandfather credit for getting him started.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: Uh, so I suspect that's why he--
ELY: --and they loaned to the African American community, too?
YARMUTH: They loaned to the African, African comm--American, comm--American
community, too.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So my dad, meanwhile, is, is, uh, running the car lot, and he's
successful in the car business. And to a large extent, he was selling cars to
the African American, uh, community and financing them himself.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: And he would--they'd take the car and they'd bring in $5.00 a week, and
I remember, 'cause my--I spent so many hours as a small child on that
00:21:00lot. And I remember people would come in, and he, dad, would have a three by
five card, and would write down the payment on the card. It was a very, very,
uh, basic business. And, uh, so he did very well. Opened a second car lot. Then
opened a auto parts business, and then opened a finance company to finance the
cars. Then opened another--I forget, another business. Then he merged that
company, which was called National Auto Sales, with a company called Kentucky
Industries Trust. And Kentucky Industries Trust owned the life--the major
stockholder in the company called Life Insurance of Kentucky. So that--then he
changed the name to National Industries, and started acquiring other companies.
He had what was known at the time as a classic conglomerate. Um, he
00:22:00bought unrelated businesses, and the central business did administration, they
did marketing for all the companies. They did legal, uh, accounting for--so you
basically took the basic business costs and centralized those. And, uh, so you
saved all the individual businesses that, that expense. So at a time, at the
time when he died, uh, National Industries owned about eighty-five different
companies. It was in the Fortune 500; it was the second-largest, publicly-traded
co--, uh, Kentucky company. And owned a dairy company, owned a railroad, owned a
stove manufacturing company, a soft drink manufacturing company.
ELY: Yeah.
YARMUTH: The TSC stores that still exist, the tractor supply company, uh, which
is still a national chain--they owned that at one time. Um, so it's just a wide
range of companies they owned. The Yellow Cab Company here in Louisville.
00:23:00
ELY: Did you ever work for the company?
ELY: Um, a brief period of time.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: Uh, and it was the saddest time, because I came back from Washington in
1975 and went to work for the company on a project that I had actually convinced
my dad to support, and, which was a publishing venture. And just about as soon
as I started there, he--well, he was already sick, but we found out he had brain cancer.
ELY: Oh.
YARMUTH: And he died in September of that year.
ELY: What year was--YARMUTH: So--it was '75.
ELY: Uh-huh.
YARMUTH: So nothing happened with that. But it was only that brief period of time.
ELY: Right.
YARMUTH: Now I had worked for him on the car lot, I had worked for his finance
company when I was little.
ELY: Uh-huh.
YARMUTH: He, he always made us work for a period of time during the summers. We
couldn't just goof off. So from the time I was ten, I worked, uh, several days a
week in his various businesses.
00:24:00
ELY: Did you ever feel like there was an expectation that you would take over
the business at some point?
YARMUTH: I, I think there was probably a hope that I would. Uh, I was never
really interested in business for business' sake. And I think that's one reason
why he had agreed to support the venture that I had that--first of all, I worked
like crazy to make a business analysis and presentation of the business plan, it
was--and, um, I don't think he would have said "Okay" to a crummy plan.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: Uh, anyway, I think that was part of his calculation that, well, if, if
that became part of the venture, that I might stay.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: But, um--I'm sorry, there was another time, I worked for a company of
his that was not part of National Industries.
ELY: Uh-huh?
YARMUTH: So he, he bought a company on his own that did two things; they grew
blueberries in Maine, and, and they had a company in Oak, Oak Ridge,
00:25:00Tennessee, which was called Oak Ridge Atom,--as in "atomic"-- Industries. And
they had developed a hybrid tomato seed that was, um, that each plant grew
bright, bigger tomatoes, and double the amount of tomatoes, and so forth. And
they did it by radiating the seed.
ELY: I knew there was gonna be a connection between the blueberries and the
atoms at some point.
YARMUTH: Yeah. Yeah. And--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --they, um, they--the problem was that even though there was nothing
radioactive about the tomato plants for the tomatoes, it was very difficult to
market it at the time, because people were very much afraid of radiation.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So that business didn't go too well. But I spent some time working for
those companies and trying to market their products.
ELY: Uh-huh. So when you were growing up, were your parents active in
00:26:00the Jewish community? Did they sit on boards or raise money? Where there was involved--
YARMUTH: Yeah, my dad was always a, um, uh, a very active member of--at the
Jewish Community Center, he was a consistent donor to the UJC [United Jewish
Communities], was, um, was very much involved in those campaigns. Um, he was
involved in the synagogue. And so yes, he was pretty involved.
ELY: Um-hm. I think he raised--
YARMUTH: --and at the Standard Club as well.
ELY: --ah, yes, the Standard Club. --(laughter)-- Um, what was your relationship
with the Standard Club? I've heard different things from different people.
YARMUTH: Yeah, well, I started, uh, I played golf. I actually played golf at the
Standard Club when it was at River Road.
ELY: Hmm.
YARMUTH: What ultimately became the River Road Country Club, and then
00:27:00now it's just Champion's Park.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: But at the time, this was when I was probably eight years old. And, uh,
that's when I started playing golf. So I lived across from Seneca Golf Course,
so I played there. But I also played a couple rounds at the Standard Club when
it was still at River Road.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And then we moved out on, on, uh, U.S. 20, on Kentucky 22.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: And that, where the present site is. And, you know, I was a member
there, virtually, forever.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And was a three-time club champion.
ELY: Ah, congratulations.
YARMUTH: But spent an awful lot of time out there.
ELY: Uh-huh?
YARMUTH: And the reason that, actually, that I played golf--neither of my
parents played golf. But I hated to swim. And on the weekends, they would take
us out there probably, most times, two days a week, Saturday and Sunday. And I
couldn't stand to swim, so I said, I'd better figure out something else I like
to do. And that's why I took up golf.
00:28:00
ELY: Um-hm. And so the Standard Club was where Jewish golfers could golf? Were
they--YARMUTH: --right--
ELY: --allowed--'cause Seneca is a public course.
YARMUTH: Right, yeah. You--
ELY: But were other golf clubs restricted?
YARMUTH: I think--yes. I don't think there was--I wasn't aware at the time that
there was a Jewish member at any of the other clubs. Some were--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --split, I mean, you couldn't get into Louisville Country Club, or Big
Spring. You know, there may have been some clubs that you possibly could have
gotten into, but I doubt it.
ELY: Um-hm. Right.
YARMUTH: There weren't that many then. You had Louisville Country Club, Big
Spring. Um, Audubon, and then Hunting Creek, and a couple of others came on
line. But--
ELY: Is--I know there's no formal restrictions, but is it still the case that
there tend to be places that Jews will play golf, or is there--
YARMUTH: --not anymore--
ELY: --any social divide?
YARMUTH: No, not anymore. I doubt if there--I don't know if there any Jewish
members at Big Spring. There probably aren't. I think there are at
00:29:00Louisville Country Club now. But I think you can join anywhere these days, and
certainly play anywhere.
ELY: And, uh, I think your family moved to Glenview at some point--
YARMUTH: --um-hm--
ELY: --during--was this your college years they moved there? Or earlier?
YARMUTH: It was, it was during my senior year. It was Christmas season of my
senior year in high school, 1964.
ELY: Uh-huh?
YARMUTH: And, uh, they interestingly had tried to buy a house, um, on River Hill
Road. That was the house they wanted, and that was redlined.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: We were not allowed to buy that house.
ELY: And how were you informed that you wouldn't be allowed? Was it--
YARMUTH: Oh, just my dad said, "They won't let us--"
ELY: Here's the line on the deed that--
YARMUTH: "They won't let us buy it."
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So but he bought the, uh, the house in Glenview. And of course, I don't
think there were any other Jews in that neighborhood. And one of the greatest
things that I would say about the Bingham family, who lived down the
00:30:00street is, when my parents moved in, uh, they walked up the hill to, uh, to
formerly greet and welcome my parents to the neighborhood.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: Which was just kind of, like, okay, we're cool.
ELY: And after that, it was all right with everybody else?
YARMUTH: It was all right with everybody else.
ELY: It was all right with the Binghams.
YARMUTH: Yeah.
ELY: I guess your family was among the few that could move into--that had the
wherewithal to move into--
YARMUTH: --um-hm--
ELY: --just 'cause your neighborhoods--
YARMUTH: --right--
ELY: --the Brandeis family had lived in that area too, I think?
YARMUTH: Yeah. I think that's right.
ELY: But they were kind of unto themselves, in a way. Aristocracy.
YARMUTH: Right.
ELY: Uh, so, uh, when you were growing up, were you really aware of racial
segregation in Louisville? And the Civil Rights movement was starting to happen?
YARMUTH: Um, yeah. And it was interesting, I went to Belknap Elementary, which
doesn't exist now, which was--
ELY: --condos--
YARMUTH: --right, condos. And then the Highland, then junior high,
00:31:00now Highland Middle School. And it seemed like every year there was one African
American child in the school. And but only one. --(laughs)-- I don't think that
was by design. Uh, but I remember there was a young, well, girl at the time,
named Connie Evans, who was in my class, uh, at Belknap. I can't remember who it
might have been in Highland, but then there was a guy named Bobby Waters who was
in my class at Atherton. And I don't think there was another, um, African
American student, at least in my class. And, uh, of course that's greatly
changed now, fortunately. But, uh, what we were aware of was that, uh, the teams
that we played on basically had no chance when they played a lot of other
schools who had black, black students and black athletes.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And, um, there was a little bit of --uh, I remember there
00:32:00would always be a little bit of, um, intimidation, uh, physical intimidation
which--the result of stereotypes, thinking that black kids were tougher kids
when we were, uh, with those schools. And that's really, really sad. But, um,
again, it was just no exposure to black kids. So yes, we were very much aware of
discrimination, and at least a separate--separation. I certainly saw and heard
examples of racism from multiple places.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: I mean, it was part of the culture, the white culture, where, you know,
you'd hear the Nword, you'd hear awful characterizations of blacks.
ELY: Do you feel within the Jewish community that they, uh, carried on the same
attitudes of the other white people in Louisville? Or was there any kind of
difference in the way these issues were talked about?
00:33:00
YARMUTH: Well, all I can say about is my own family. And my, my parents were
amazingly progressive on that score, and always talked about how, um, they, they
thought discrimination was wrong. I didn't even--my dad used all sorts of
horrible language, and I'm sure he used--oh, I know he did use the N-word a lot.
But it was almost always in a, in a kind of endearing way. For him, it was
almost a term, term of affection, which was strange.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: Ah, but he, again, he was, he was dealing with black people every day
as customers, and had a very different attitude about, about them. And my
mother, uh, was on one of the first, ah, members of the Human, Human Relations
Commission in the area. And we always were--
ELY: And Human Relations was sort of a Civil Rights organization?
YARMUTH: Um-hm. Right. To try and deal with, uh, overt discrimination
00:34:00in the community.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So again, I, I was fortunate in that I had that kind of a, um, influence.
ELY: And was your mother otherwise involved in the community? Did she belong to
Jewish organizations? Or National Council of Jewish Women? Or--
YARMUTH: Yeah, she did. Uh, she wasn't as active as my dad, but she did a lot of
the stuff with my dad. But she did a lot of the stuff with my dad. So, you know.
Um, but I think it's safe to say that she wasn't as active in Jewish activities
as he was.
ELY: She had four kids.
YARMUTH: Yes, she had four kids. --(laughter)--
ELY: Um, okay. Let's get to high school now.
YARMUTH: All right.
ELY: So, uh, so you went to Atherton. Did your family think about a private
school? Or was public schooling just clearly the way you were going to go?
YARMUTH: Oh yeah, never--you know, when--obviously we knew about the Catholic
schools, but we weren't going to go there.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And at the time, if you talked about Country Day, which was then what
Kentucky Country Day now--you talked about Country Day, that was where kids who
had behavioral problems went. --(laughter)-- That was our
00:35:00perspective, that they couldn't quite function right--
ELY: --didn't hack public school--
YARMUTH: --with public schools. And they--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --they isolated--and so they isolated them. And, uh, it's weird that
that's--and I read something, not too long ago, where somebody else made that
comment about their growing up, that, that those kind of private schools were
where problem kids went. Uh, but no, there was never any thought of it.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: Not a one.
ELY: And so in your high school years--
YARMUTH: Um-hm?
ELY: --you became student body president, I believe?
YARMUTH: Yes.
ELY: So--
YARMUTH: I was. I was, um, first elected to the--to vice president of Atherton
in the spring of my sophomore year for my junior year, and then ran and won as
president. And interestingly, and I don't know what the percentage of Jews at
Atherton was, but I would--I mean, it wasn't enormous. There were a lot of
Jewish students, but not--but and, um, in my-- when I was vice
00:36:00president, a guy named Gaby Gruber was president, and he was Jewish. And then in
my senior year, Janet Pearlman and Neal Banks were also, uh, elected office. So
we had--and there were only four officers elected. And we, so we had, um,
majority of the officers. And then my brother, Bob, was elected student council
president, and vice president and then president. And then, um, my brother,
Bill, at Atherton was treasurer. He was always the no--the money guy. So yeah,
it was interesting that--
ELY: --right--
YARMUTH: --so, so many Jewish students were--
ELY: --right--
YARMUTH: --and then just--
ELY: What was your platform? What did you run on?
YARMUTH: Oh, gosh. I mean, it was--(laughter)-- um, it was as generic a campaign
pitch as you could possibly have. It wasn't, like, free milk at
00:37:00lunch, or anything like that, but.
ELY: Um-hm. So, uh, then you left Louisville for a little while. You went to
college at, uh, Yale? Why Yale? How--what was your thinking?
YARMUTH: Oh, this is the best--one of the best stories of my life.
ELY: Go ahead.
YARMUTH: I didn't have a tradition of college in the family. As I said, my dad
went to NYU for two years. My mother had gone to one--spend one year at
Michigan, University of Michigan. She was valedictorian at Atherton, by the way--
ELY: --mmm--
YARMUTH: --I should mention. Um, and then got married. So she left college. So
I, I was, I didn't really give a lot of thought to where I was going to go to
college. And my parents didn't really push me in any particular direction.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So I had decided that I was going to go to the University of Wisconsin,
because my brothers had gone to a summer camp in Wisconsin across Lake Mendota
from Madison. And we used to visit 'em in the summertime. And, uh, it did look
like a beautiful place. Of course, that was summertime. So I applied
00:38:00to Wisconsin, uh, you know, they have a good fight song and so forth, and a good
academic reputation. So I applied to Wisconsin, was admitted to the honors
program, best dorm, so forth, like, in a week. So I'm all set. This is early in
my senior year. So then one night, a business associate of my father's came over
for dinner. And he started asking me about my record, and what I was going to
do. And I told him. And he said, "You know, I used to be the assistant dean at
Yale Law School. And I think with your record, you could get into Yale. And I'd
write you a letter of recommendation. Would that interest you?" I said, "Well, I
guess," I mean, "I don't know. I'm happy"--you know, I was kind of set on
Wisconsin. So I, I agreed to go up there and visit. And, uh, there were a couple
of kids from Louisville I knew there, and I loved it. The time I spent, loved
the guys I met. So I, I applied. Long story short, I get in. Um, the
00:39:00guy who, without whom, I would have never ended up at Yale because I would have
never thought of it, was a guy named J. Howard Marshall. And
J. Howard Marshall was Anna Nicole Smith's billionaire husband.
ELY: Ah.
YARMUTH: Not at the time. --(laughter)--
ELY: Uh-huh.
YARMUTH: Uh, at the time, he was an executive with Allied Chemical Company--
ELY: --huh--
YARMUTH: --and uh, and he wasn't a billionaire. But, you know, years later, I
read about this, this drooling, old pervert who marries his former stripper, and
I'm saying, "Oh my God, what's why I'm at Yale!" Why I went to Yale. So anyway,
that's where I--how I ended up there.
ELY: Hmm. So what years were you at Yale?
YARMUTH: I started in the fall of 1965 and graduated in '69.
ELY: Um-hm? And how did being, uh, in Connecticut compare to being in Kentucky?
What was--obviously, being in college is different from living with
00:40:00your family. But, uh--
YARMUTH: Well, um, I hated being in New England, and I hated being in New Haven.
New Haven at the time, uh, was just one of the worst places on Earth. And, I
mean, it was just a dilapidated city, and other than Yale, there was nothing
there. It was a very poor community. Um, so I didn't really--and during the
winter, it would get dark at 4:00. And when you lived in Louisville, at the end
of the Eastern time zone and had--you know, you're not used to that. So I wasn't
happy there at all. The only thing that made it tolerable for me was my friends.
And, uh, two of my friends from Yale are my two best friends now.
ELY: Hmm.
YARMUTH: And both Jewish.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: Both of 'em I, I had met before I went to Yale.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And, uh, well no, I'm sorry, that's not right. One I had met before I
went to Yale. And, uh, one I, I had known--this is through Pi Tau
00:41:00Pi--I met a guy named David Jacobson. David was, uh, came to Louisville for a Pi
convention--Pi Tau Pi convention--(laughs)--
ELY: --right, right--
YARMUTH: --and, uh, we stayed in touch. And he went to--he ended up going to
Yale. And so through him I met my friend, Jim Schweitzer, who's still my best
friend. And, uh, 'cause they had been--he had been in Pi Tau Pi in Washington--
ELY: --okay--
YARMUTH: --as well.
ELY: So was there strong Jewish life at Yale? Was there a fraternity was your
social circle, or--
YARMUTH: No.
ELY: No?
YARMUTH: There was not a strong Jewish, uh, social life at Yale. There was a
Hillel Society. Not many people paid much attention to it.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: I still think back as to how many Jews there, there were at Yale. I
know that at one time they talked about there being a quota on Jews at Yale--I
think that was eliminated before I got there, or roughly contemporaneously. But
I would suspect that Yale was maybe eight to ten percent Jewish. Uh,
00:42:00and, you know, we found ourselves in different ways. And, but, uh, most of the
social life there revolved around what our residential college is, so you're
assigned to a residential college, there are twelve of them, or there were then.
And all your social activities, all your intramural athletics all were--they
tried to, basically, um, create an alternative to fraternities by doing the
residential colleges. And there were only five fraternities at Yale when I was
there. There was the Fence Club, which was the really WASPy prep school club.
And then there was Beta, Beta Theta Pi, which I ultimately joined. Um, and then
I can't remember the other ones. Deke, which was the jocks, and which George
Bush was president of. And, uh, I forget the other two. But there
00:43:00were only five at that point. And, you know, I don't think Jews would have been
particularly comfortable in Fence Club. I don't, I don't know that any Jew I
knew was a member of that. But the, uh, the rest of the fraternities didn't,
didn't break down based on, um, religion at all. Although I think probably Beta
had more Jewish members than the others.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: Yeah.
ELY: And, uh, you majored, I think, in American Studies?
YARMUTH: Um-hm.
ELY: Were you thinking about a political career at all? Or you were--
YARMUTH: Oh, yeah.
ELY: Okay.
YARMUTH: Yeah, I, I started, uh, my academic career as a Political Science major.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: And then ran out of courses that I was really interested in, so then I
became a History major, then I became an English major. And then I was a junior,
and the only thing I could still major in and graduate on time was American Studies--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --because a lot of the courses were credits for that. So that's how I
ended up as an American Studies major.
ELY: Um-hm.
00:44:00
YARMUTH: Which turned out to be the best possible academic background for both
journalism and politics--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --uh, because you just had exposure to a wide range of the subjects
about the American experience.
ELY: Um-hm. Were there any professors you were particularly influenced by, or
anything that is your special interest?
YARMUTH: I had a Sociology professor named Bob Cook, Robert Cook. And while I
was in his--and this was a, a small seminar that was in my residential college,
so there were, like, fifteen of us in the seminar. And he was very politically
active. He ran as an Independent Socialist candidate for Congress in 1966.
ELY: Bold man.
YARMUTH: Bold man. So he was one who definitely, um, influenced me. Not
necessarily philosophically, but just in terms of political activism.
00:45:00And then another--he wasn't really my professor, but, ah, there's a guy named
Charlie Reich. And Charlie lived in our college. He was a resident of our
college. And he wrote a book called, The Greening of America, which was--
ELY: --sure, right--
YARMUTH: --one of the--one of the real kind of landmark books of, of that era in
environmentalism. And we used to--I was one of the only people who ever went to
breakfast at Yale. And Charlie was always at breakfast. And we had many, many
conversations. Uh, so he was not my--he was actually a Law professor.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: But he, he was not my professor. But he was a big influence on me.
ELY: Um-hm. So you were there during the height of the Vietnam War protests and--
YARMUTH: --yeah--
ELY: --campus activism. Were you involved at all in those movements?
YARMUTH: No. Interestingly enough, I was-- I went to--I was a
00:46:00Republican growing up. I was much more of an establishment person. Um, the
people who were involved in the protests were not people I could relate to, the
real activists at the time, on campus. And the year I was--my class, it's
strange, was kind of the cusp year that you had them--on the class before me,
you had George Bush. And in the class after me, you had Garry Trudeau. And the
people who were in my class, the people who--there were a lot of people who had
been involved in politics and who came from political families. Bill Scranton,
whose father was governor of Pennsylvania, he was in my class. Mark Dayton, who
is now the governor of Minnesota, he was in my class. But we were all kind of
still establishment type kids. And not, not activists. And we were probably
resisting the protests. We weren't necessarily in favor of the war,
00:47:00but we still respected the government. We still, uh, wanted to believe that the
government was going to do the right thing. That all changed probably in my
senior year. Much of it had to do with the fact that everybody was trying to
figure out a way to stay out of the draft. --(laughs)--
ELY: Uh-huh.
YARMUTH: And it was coming home very heavily that, uh, okay, this war is not an
academic thing now, it's, it's real for us. Uh, and the other thing I want to
say is, there were no drugs at all in up 'til 1969 class. After my class, they
were rampant. --(laughter)-- Uh, but drugs were still kind of, um, um, they were
underground. If you--like, I had a roommate from California, and he smoked
grass. But we had a deal that he never did it in the room--
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: --because I was uncomfortable with it. There was no
00:48:00discomfort later on in subsequent classes. But that year, '69, was a strange
year. William Sloane Coffin was the chaplain at Yale. And he opened up the Yale
chapel to draft evaders. Uh, a very famous episode. The other thing, the other
kind of one of the pivotal moments in my life at Yale was--and this is my
freshman year, again, and this is probably the beginning of my turning point
from being, basically, following my father's politics to becoming much more
left. Uh, there was a, a famous debate on campus, famous in the Yale world, in
1966, between William Sloane Coffin and William F. Buckley, Jr. Ah,
interestingly, it was the Yale Political Union held the debate. The
00:49:00president of the Yale Political Union that year was John Kerry. He was in his
senior year. And so I went to this debate rooting for William F. Buckley,
because I had read Buckley, and again, I was probably inclined to, to his
philosophical position. And I just said, well, Buckley's so smart, he's gonna
eat this guy up, this William Sloane Coffin guy, whom I didn't really know much
about. Well, it was--I mean, hundreds and hundreds of kids were there. And
Sloane Coffin destroyed Buckley. Even for somebody who went in thinking
that--wanting the other guy to win, it was not even close. Sloane was so, so
bright. And, uh, so that kind of opened my eyes a little bit--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --to a different perspective.
ELY: Just a personal story; I was, uh, I'm about eight, nine years younger than
you. But, um, I was all gung ho for the Vietnam War as a kid because,
00:50:00you know, domino theory, I mean, we have to stop it, until my mother said,
"Well, how do the Vietnamese people feel about it?" And lightbulbs went off, so--
YARMUTH: Yeah. Well, we all got educated. And that was--we all got educated
about a different perspective in that era.
ELY: Um-hm. But you did get involved in politics in Kentucky around that time.
So how did that come about?
YARMUTH: --(laughs)-- You want to bring that up? Um, well, first of all, when I,
when I left Yale, I spent, um, a year, it was kind of my lost year, as a stockbroker.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: Didn't work out very well. And in the late 1971--late 1970, I got a
call from a guy named Mitch McConnell. And I had worked with Mitch in the summer
of '68 on the campaign of a U.S. Senate candidate named Marlow Cook.
ELY: A Republican.
00:51:00
YARMUTH: A Republican.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And he was elected then. Mitch went on to work for him for a couple of
years. I went back to school for my senior year, then came back, I spent that
year as a stockbroker. And Mitch called me and asked me if I had any interest in
coming to Washington, ah, to fill the spot that would be created, because he was
coming back to Kentucky. So I said, "Yeah, get me out of this stockbroker job,"
and went to, uh--so I went to Washington. Started on February 1st, 1971. Spent
four years in Washington, started as a legislative assistant, ended up being
Senator Cook's top policy person, chief, chief legislative assistant at that
point. Did all of his speech writing for four years. And was there during
Vietnam, Roe v. Wade--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --uh, Watergate.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: It was an incredible time to be in Washington. So I left--
00:52:00
ELY: And he was a Republican.
YARMUTH: He was a Republican.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And at that time, you could--it was very comfortable to be a liberal
Republican. As a matter of fact, there were a lot of liberal Republicans. They
called them "Rockefeller Republicans" at that time. Marlow was not quite there,
but he was, he was certainly toward the left side of the Republican Party. And,
but you had people like Mark Hatfield from Oregon, Bob Packwood from Oregon,
Jacob Javits from New York, Ed Brooke from Massachusetts--you know, very liberal
people in the Republican Party. So it was not a stretch to be there. And, uh, of
course that changed. But when I came back--so Marlow lost in 1974, in the
Watergate year. Lost to Wendell Ford. I had an opportunity to stay in
Washington; a couple of opportunities. But I decided I'd come back. Again, I had
this idea for a publication that I'd been working on, uh. I was going
00:53:00to do that with my dad's company. And then when he got sick, um, and I knew that
wasn't going to happen, some people came to me and asked me to run for the
Louisville Board of Aldermen.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So at the time, uh, the City of Louisville was an entirely Democratic
city. There had been one Republican mayor in probably a hundred years; a guy
named Bill Cowger. And the, the Board of Aldermen then were elected citywide,
all twelve of them. So you ran in the primary in your own ward. Uh, but
everybody ran as a ticket. So I assembled the ticket. I was--how old was I? I
was--1975, I was twenty-eight.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: But I put the ticket together. And it was really an amazing ticket.
Just an example, we had a guy named Jim Segrest; uh, Jim has been an
00:54:00activist in the Butchertown area for his entire life, uh, you know, really,
really smart, involved guy. We had, uh, on our ticket Bob Graves, who was the
basketball coach at Central High School, who coached the state championship
team. So up and down the ticket, we had really quality, well-known people. And,
uh, we got slaughtered. --(laughs)--
ELY: And were you still a Republican at this point?
YARMUTH: I was still a Republican.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So, uh, after that I started a magazine called Louisville Today, which
was not the magazine I had intended to start, but started Louisville Today,
which was based on my experience of reading the Washingtonian in Washington.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: I did that 'til, um, 19--early 1982. But in 1981, Mitch McConnell once
again entered my life. He was county judge executive. And in '81, he was running
for a second term. He had a, ah, a fiscal court commissioner, a
00:55:00Democrat in the A-district, which was basically Eastern Jefferson County. He was
trying to unseat, because he had a two-two split, partisan-wise, on the fiscal
court. So he recruited me to run as, for a district commissioner, as a
Republican, of course. And he recruited John Heyburn, who became a federal
judge, who died two years ago. Oh, no telling when people are going to watch
this, but--
ELY: --right, in--
YARMUTH: --he died in nineteen--in 2015.
ELY: Uh-huh?
YARMUTH: And, um, so we ran as a ticket that fall. McConnell, Yarmuth, Heyburn.
We thought that Mitch's coattails were going to be longer than they were, and
they weren't long enough. So we, Mitch won, but by a slim margin over a guy
named Pop Malone.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And then, uh, John and I lost. And it was--that was, basically--that's
the year that Ronald Reagan became president, actually took the
00:56:00presiden--he was elected in '80. Uh, and I started to notice the, um, the
increasing influence of evangelicals in the White House; Pat Robertson and
Jerry Falwell, most notably. And that made me very antsy. That's when I started
to think about my Republican Party membership.
ELY: Um-hm. Well, let's just go take it back a little bit.
YARMUTH: Yeah.
ELY: You went to law school at some point in there in Georgetown?YARMUTH: Right.
I spent two years going to law school at night while I was working for Senator
Cook. And that was, uh, you know, it was something to do.
ELY: Okay. And you didn't finish your degree?
YARMUTH: I did not finish there.
ELY: Uh-huh.
YARMUTH: I had about forty hours there. Came back--when I came back to
Louisville, I enrolled at U of L Law School, spent one semester there, decided I
didn't have enough interest to finish, and--
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So I dropped out after.
00:57:00
ELY: Okay.
YARMUTH: I had fifty-four hours toward my eighty-something hours that I needed.
ELY: And when you were in Washington working for Marlow Cook, were you involved
with any Jewish issues at all? Israel or, uh, religious liberty issues? Did
anything come up that had to do with your, um, your background?
YARMUTH: No, I wouldn't--I don't remember any of those.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: Again, the era then was--it was the early '70s. Religion was, um, not
something that was prat of the public dialog, really.
ELY: Right.
YARMUTH: Closest that anything came to it was the, you know, the Catholic
influence of the abortion issue.
ELY: Um-hm. So then, um, in '84, you started to have a change of heart.
YARMUTH: A little bit before then, but in, uh--
ELY: --uh-huh, okay--
YARMUTH: --but as the Reagan administration went on, I grew increasingly, uh,
antagonistic toward the policies of, that, Reagan. And again, I was
00:58:00very concerned about how many times he deferred to evangelicals, and how that
was influencing the, his agenda. And then in 1985, Jerry Falwell took a trip
to, um, South Africa, and came back and made a speech in which he called Desmond
Tutu a "phony." And when I heard that, I said, "That's it. I've had it with
these people." And I walked in the next day and changed my registration.
ELY: Was there shock and dismay around you in your family?
YARMUTH: No, because I wasn't, ah--you know, my dad was already dead. He had
died in 1975. My mother was one of these, you know, whatever my kids do is great.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So there was, ah, absolutely no pushback at all. And, me and my
brothers had always been, um--particularly my brother, Bob, was a
00:59:00crazy '70s liberal. And so I think it was fine with him. I don't think my other
brother or sister cared much.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: But it wasn't--again, I wasn't, I wasn't involved in politics. I was
involved, at that point I was--
ELY: Journalist?
YARMUTH: No, actually at that point, I was working at the University of Louisville.
ELY: Okay.
YARMUTH: So, yeah, it's--I went to work in 1983 at the University of Louisville,
uh, as their--basically their top external communications person.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So I was head of the public, uh, Public Information Office, university
publications. Uh, they then had WUOL, that was part of my responsibility.
ELY: So your journalism background and your political background--
YARMUTH: --right--
ELY: --rolled over nicely into that position.
YARMUTH: Exactly. Exactly.
ELY: Uh-huh.
YARMUTH: So I spent three years there.
ELY: Uh-huh. And at what point in all this did you meet your wife, Cathy?
When was that?
01:00:00
YARMUTH: I met, well, there's a political connection there--
ELY: --okay--
YARMUTH: --because, um, when I was running, uh, for county commissioner in 1981,
my--I had a primary. Actually, I had a three-way primary. So the primary was in
late May. And right before the primary, I think it ended up being the weekend
before, was an event called the "Hardscuffle Steeplechase," which was a charity
event. I don't know whether it's still going on or not--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --I'm embarrassed to say. But, uh, at that time, it benefitted the, um,
the opera. And a friend of mine called me and asked me if, uh, I had any plans
for Hardscuffle, and if not, would I want to escort a friend of his who was
coming into town? And that was--I said, "Yeah," and the only reason I did,
because I was dating a couple of other people, was--you know, I figured, well,
if Republicans are going to be out anywhere this weekend, they're
01:01:00going to be at the Hardscuffle.
ELY: Uh-huh. --(laughs)--
YARMUTH: So I probably ought to be there, and thus be seen. So I agreed to do it.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And, uh, now--
ELY: And was Cathy a Republican?
YARMUTH: Cathy was, I would say, a Republican, yeah.
ELY: Uh-huh. Did she have a change of heart at any point?
YARMUTH: Oh, yeah, she has.
ELY: She has.
YARMUTH: But she was, uh, she's from a military family.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: Her father was a, uh, an Air Force general, and was very Republican.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: He tolerated, ultimately, a Democratic, uh, Congressman son-in-law.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: But, uh, yeah, I would say her politics were more, more Republican than
not. Although I don't think she was all that politically involved at, at the time.
ELY: And she's not Jewish, is that correct?
YARMUTH: She's not Jewish, right.
ELY: Was that ever something that you discussed? About, you know, how you would
set up your household? Or religious issues?
YARMUTH: We never really talked about it, just, you know, it'll work itself out.
ELY: Um-hm.
01:02:00
YARMUTH: I was, I was thirty-three. And I figured I could adjust to anything.
ELY: Right.
YARMUTH: She is Catholic, but not, not devout. And so, you know, we figured it
wouldn't be a problem.
ELY: Let's stick with the family theme for a minute.
YARMUTH: Yeah.
ELY: We'll get back to politics.
YARMUTH: Sure.
ELY: But, uh, so your son, uh, Aaron, was born mid-eighties?
YARMUTH: Nineteen eighty-three.
ELY: Um-hm? And did you raise him in a particular religion? Or, with the--what
holidays did you--
YARMUTH: No, we--you know, we tried to expose him to, um, to everything. And
ultimately, I--you know, you tend to make friends with the kids of your friends.
So he had Jewish and non-Jewish friends. Again, I think he probably has more,
uh, had more Jewish friends growing up than, than non-Jewish, but--and, and I
would-- I think he probably considers himself somewhat culturally Jewish.
01:03:00
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: But--
ELY: Christmas and Hanukkah? Or neither? Or both? One? Other?
YARMUTH: We never did--we really never--we did Hanukkah a couple of times,
mostly just had a Christmas tree, you know. And celebrated Christmas in a very,
um, unreligious way.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: A very generic, national holiday kind of way.
ELY: Right. And you were living, at this point, in, uh, East end, I think?
YARMUTH: Yeah. We were living on Travois Road off of Brownsboro.
ELY: Uh-huh. So have you been affiliated with the Jewish community, uh, with the
synagogue as it all--obviously, you're affiliated with the community, but with
the synagogue or temple? Are you members?
YARMUTH: Yeah, I 'm a member of the temple.
ELY: Okay.
YARMUTH: I'm actually also a member at Adath Jeshurun, uh, because my brother's
real, brother, Bill, is real active there.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And, uh, he thought it would be nice if I do that. So I do that
for him.
01:04:00
ELY: And do you sit on the boards of any other Jewish organizations here?
YARMUTH: No.
ELY: No. Um, and you obviously travel back and forth--we're going to talk about
politics again--
YARMUTH: --um-hm--
ELY: --but you travel back and forth between Washington and here. Um, do you
have any kind of affiliations in Washington with any Jewish organizations or groups?
YARMUTH: No, because, you know, the job that I have is basically like going on a
three-day business trip every week.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So I'm home every weekend. Uh, when, when I'm there, it's morning 'til
night hours. So there's really never an opportunity to do anything in, in the community.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: I'm embarrassed to tell you how few actual Washington touristy things
I've done in now my eleventh year there.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: Just because there's never any time to do it. And, uh, again I'm
home--we're generally in Washington three nights a week and home four nights a
week. So it's, uh, and the weekend's included. So there would really
01:05:00be no opportunity to do any organized activity there.
ELY: Right. Um, so--all right. Back, back to your work life.
YARMUTH: Yeah.
ELY: You founded another publication, the Louisville Eccentric Observer, known
as The LEO. How did that come about?
YARMUTH: Well, when I was doing, uh--while we were doing Louisville Today from
in the late '70s, um, I became aware of a publication in Baltimore called the
City Paper. And the City Paper was the alternative weekly for that community.
And I was intrigued by the idea of it, and thought that it would be interesting
to try in Louisville. And I was aware of what was happening around the country,
that these publications were, uh, spouting up everywhere. They're basically all
offshoots of Rolling Stone and the Village Voice.
ELY: Village Voice, right.
YARMUTH: Yeah. They all are purged from that.
ELY: In Boston there is the Real Paper, and the Boston Phoenix.
01:06:00
YARMUTH: Um-hm. The Boston Phoenix, The Reader in Chicago. And so I wanted to
try it. So we--there was a paper in old Louisville called the Manly Messenger.
--(laughter)-- The Manly Messenger was just this little, neighborhood tabloid
newspaper. But it was strictly what's going on in the neighborhood, basic--in
Louisville. And they were running into financial difficulties. And the guy came
to me, the guy who owned it, who was Jewish, by the way, and, named
Reiner Goldring, and asked for help. And I said, "Well, we'll take over the
paper if we can broaden the circulation and change the name, and change the concept."
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: So he didn't have any better offer, so we did it. So we, uh, took it
over. We changed the name to City Paper, and we made it citywide distribution.
It was a monthly. But it was tabloid. And we ended up with about forty-five
thousand circulation, which was enormous at the time, uh, citywide.
01:07:00We had some phenomenal journalism. It was--we had great writers. We won a number
of journalism awards, and published the first free personal ads in the community.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: Again, this is now, this is now 1979, '80. And then for some unknown
reason, but a terrible, terrible bad judgment, uh, we decided to stop it and
focus on our flagship publication, Louisville Today. Again, that was a real
mistake. And we thought we had a deal to buy that. And then that fell through,
so we stopped publishing that in nineteen--um, early 1982. So I was out of the
publishing business.
ELY: So you were the editor of Louisville Today, but you didn't own it?
YARMUTH: No, I owned it.
ELY: Okay.
YARMUTH: I owned it as well. It's a funny story, so I was editor and publisher.
And, uh, I once had an opportunity to--a friend of mine, when I was,
01:08:00at the very early days of Louisville Today, I had a, a meeting set up with me
with a guy named Clay Felker. Clay Felker started New York Magazine. He was
going to spend an hour consulting with me on the thing. So he--I'd take the
picture--the paper to him, and he opens to the masthead, and it says, "Oh, I see
you're editor and publisher." He said, "Do you think you're smart enough to do
that? Before you answer, I've never met anybody who was." --(laughs)-- Which was
a lesson to me. But anyway, so, um, we did that. And then, so but after I was
out of the publishing business, and I was waiting around for somebody to start
an alternative weekly, because I knew what was going on around the world, and
they're springing up--I mean, the country. They're springing up everywhere,
they're doing really well. Creative Loafing in Atlanta, uh, every, everywhere.
And nobody did it. So in 19--uh, '87, the Courier was sold to
01:09:00Gannett, which was the catalyst for my actually starting the plan to do LEO, uh,
because that meant two things; one was there was no longer going to be a
locally-owned editorial voice, and secondly, there were all these writers who
had reputations, who were leaving the Courier General and Louisville Times. And
I said if I could put together a publication and get some of those people
involved, it would give it instant credibility. And that's what--it took me
another couple years, but, uh, I finally got it together. And we put out a
prototype in July of 1990. Uh, the first regular issue in November, 1990. And we
had people like Bob Shillman and Mary Caldwell and Dudley Saunders, who had been
with the Daily. And it worked out pretty well.
01:10:00
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: You know, it's twenty-seven years later, it's still here.
ELY: Yeah. And, uh, you often took some stands about issues that affected the
community. Your editorials were often very strong, from a liberal and
progressive perspective.
YARMUTH: Um-hm.
ELY: What issues do you think really stand out from you from that time?
YARMUTH: Well, I think--you know, we were, um, we were probably the first
publication that really got involved in gay rights, and took very strong stands
against, uh, discrimination against gay and lesbians. Um, race was always--is
always a factor. Guns--
ELY: Uh-huh.
YARMUTH: I've always been a strong advocate of stronger gun laws. Um, I would
say those are the main ones. But you know, we never--we never ducked an issue.
ELY: Um-hm. Did you get a lot of pushback from the community?
01:11:00
YARMUTH: Oh, sure.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: That was, that was part of it. But what we always did, my whole concept
was to create a forum for a wide range of ideas and philosophies. So Mary
Caldwell was a very conservative person, and she was a regular writer in the
paper. I brought Bill Stone, a Jewish member of our community, a very outspoken
conservative Republican, he was a contributor, uh, in the early days of LEO. So
I was always trying to get disparate voices. And Ricky Jones--I gave Ricky Jones
his first publishing opportunity. Um, John David Dyche who--a conservative
columnist. I was the first person to give him a publishing opportunity. So I
think the fact that we were willing to entertain different voices mitigated a
certain amount of the criticism, because, you know, they could yell at me, but
they knew that the publication was actually open to different perspectives.
ELY: Um-hm. Were there any issues around Israel or the Jewish
01:12:00community, uh, that you remember from that period?
YARMUTH: Uh, I'd have to think back on that. I don't--nothing comes to mind
right away.
ELY: Does--I'm not fishing for anything in particular.
YARMUTH: Right, yeah. Yeah.
ELY: Just asking. So you decided to re-enter politics.
YARMUTH: Yep.
ELY: How did that decision come about?
YARMUTH: Well, it was, um, 197--198--I'm sorry. Early two, 2005. And I was
thinking about the fact that in the last election, 2004, we had a candidate for
Congress against Ann Northrop who was really a pretty poor candidate. Nice guy,
Tony Miller, but, um, and I said, "God, I hope we have somebody stronger running
in 2006." And I thought that Jack Conway was going to run that year.
01:13:00Jack had run in 2002, and then barely lost to Ann Northrop. Two thousand and six
was going to be a much better year for Democrats, we knew that. So I was hoping
he was going to run, and I was getting all excited about, you know, supporting
him. And then later in the year, he decided he wasn't--he wasn't going to run.
And my first thought was, Oh damn, she's going to get a free pass. And that's
when I started thinking about running. I said, because I thought at the time,
and a lot of people say this was bizarre, but I said, "I'm the only one who can
beat her." And the reason I thought that was because I had enough name
recognition in the community that she couldn't define me like she had some of
her other opponents. And so I, I mulled it over. I called the, uh, Jefferson
County Democratic chairman at the time and asked, that's it, you know, I may be
in, I may be interested in the third district race. And he said,
01:14:00"Well, that's great, but we already have identified a candidate, and we've
screened with the D-triple C, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and
they like him. And we're kind of behind him. And I said, "Oh, okay, well that's
great. I look forward to meeting him. I don't want to mess things up with the
primary. But I want to, you know, I'll be behind him." So the next week I got a
call from a guy named Marc Murphy. And Marc Murphy was a lawyer in town, and
he's now the Courier journal cartoonist, political cartoonist.
ELY: Oh, sure. Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And Marc said to me, "John, um, I heard you were interested in the
third district seat." Um, and the guy's name was Andrew Horne that got--they had identified.
ELY: Oh, right. Right, right.
YARMUTH: Who has become a good friend, and so forth.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: But and he said, "I know Andrew real well, he's a great guy. I
practiced law with him. Um, he's a great guy. But he's not nearly as
01:15:00progressive as you or I. And if you don't run, I'm going to." So then I said,
"Okay, well, there's going to be a primary one way or another, then." So then I
started talking to people, some of the prospective big donors and so forth, so,
"What do you think about this?" And virtually every one of them said, "No,
you're a much better candidate than Andrew." So, uh, I ultimately decided to
get--to do it. I had actually decided--I went back and forth for the next couple
of months. And it was basically saying at the time, I've got the perfect life.
I'd sold the paper. I was working about three to four hours a week. I had the TV
show, and I was writing a column for LEO, and I was playing all the golf I
wanted and was involved in numerous civic and charitable activities. I was on
the board of the JCC, for instance. Um, and I said, Do I really want to give
this up? Because I know if I run, I'm going to win. --(laughs)-- and
01:16:00that, so that was strange. And I told people this at the time, I said, "The only
reluctance I have is that I might win, is that I think I'm going to win." So I
went back and forth. A week before the filing deadline, which was in late
January, I decided not to. And I told Aaron that I had decided not to. And I
could tell that he was so disappointed, that I couldn't let him down.
ELY: Ah. So you did it for future generations.
YARMUTH: I did it for him, and the rest is history.
ELY: It, was it a tough campaign?
YARMUTH: It was a weird campaign. Yes, it was tough. I mean, you know, I had to
raise a lot of money, put a lot of my own money in it. Um, Ann Northrup was a
ten-year incumbent at that point; she had millions of dollars to spend. And, um,
it was--I had, I had probably-- well, we polled right up to--I won the
four--there was a four-way primary; Andrew Horne and two others. I
01:17:00won the primary with 54 percent of the vote. We polled right after it, and the
race was 47 to 46. And my pollster said, you know, I've done four hundred
Congressional races, I've never had a race like this. I've never had a race,
first of all, where the challenger had that much name recognition. I was at 60
percent. And secondly, where there were no undecideds in the race. He said there
are so few. He said, "First of all, your voters aren't going anywhere. Those 46
percent are with you. Her 47 percent are with her. And I can't even tell you who
the other 7 percent are."
ELY: Hmm.
YARMUTH: He said, "But I will say this; that if they haven't bought in to her
after ten years, you have a better chance of getting them than she does." So the
D-triple C, Rahm Emanuel was chairman at that time, Rahm never thought I could
win the race. He was not supportive, even after we had these polls that were so
close. Never helped me. And so it was a tough race.
01:18:00
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: Now, but something very strange happened in the middle of it, and that
was, Ann Northrop's son, uh, committed suicide.
ELY: Right. Right. I remember.
YARMUTH: And it--so she suspend--we both suspended our campaigns. And I think it
was probably in July, maybe, so for two months we didn't campaign. And that was
a real advantage for me, because what it did was, it, it equalized the money.
Because we ended up having to spend our money within a two-month period, so it
was basically from Labor Day 'til the election. Well, my disadvantage--if she
had been campaigning in the summer, she could have spent a lot of money
attacking me, and so forth. But as it turned out, we went on the air at the same
time. And the monetary disadvantage didn't show up as much.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So it was, um, again, a tough campaign, but a weird one
01:19:00because of that tragedy that happened to her. And, we, but the strange thing
was, every time we polled, she was at 47 or 48 percent, and I was either tied
with her or one back, every time. And on election day, she got 48 percent.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So she basically never picked up a vote during the campaign. But my
pollster was right. She had her vote, they were not going to leave her. But I
got most of the undecided.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: At any point in the campaign, was your Jewishness an issue? Either pro
or con? People supporting you because of that, or skeptical because of that?
YARMUTH: I don' think anybody was skeptical.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: You know, I'm not sure that the people who didn't--you know, I don't
think that a lot of people even thought about it, you know? The name is
not--those who didn't know me, the name is not particularly Jewish.
01:20:00
ELY: Right.
YARMUTH: And, so it just never became an issue that I'm aware of. I mean, it may
have been an issue with some of her voters. But they weren't going to vote for
me anyway.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: I think it was certainly a plus with, with Jewish members of the
community, who were certainly aware that I was on the ballot, and I think that
was a source of pride. But you know, Jerry Abramson was mayor.
ELY: Right. I know.
YARMUTH: So it was--
ELY: Louisville is not Kentucky, necessarily.
YARMUTH: Louisville is not Kentucky.
ELY: Right.
YARMUTH: So, you know, it was so amazing that after I was elected, and I would
say, you know, "I was the first Jew ever elected to Congress," but remember
we've got a Jewish--in Louisville we've got a Jewish Congressman, a Jewish mayor
and a Jewish school superintendent, because Shelley Berman was the--"
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: I said, and we're one percent of the population.
ELY: Right.
YARMUTH: And we got these three people in prominent positions.
ELY: Yeah. And, uh, it's--
YARMUTH: And it's never really been either. You know, I spent a ton of time in
black churches.
ELY: Um-hm?
YARMUTH: I go--a lot of Sundays I'm in black churches. And, you know,
01:21:00I feel as at home there, and people make me--I'm so warmly greeted in all the
black churches. And I don't know whether they know I'm Jewish or not--
ELY: --right--
YARMUTH: --but, you know, it's nice. And but Louisville's good in that way. We
do have a history of interfaith understanding.
ELY: Sure.
YARMUTH: And I, I found that to be true.
ELY: So, uh, while you've been in Congress, you've, uh, been particularly
involved with certain issues; one of them is healthcare.
YARMUTH: Um-hm.
ELY: Medicare, Medicaid, women's health. How did your interest in that evolve?
YARMUTH: I said it at the time I ran that there were three things I wanted to do
in Congress. One was to get money out of politics, one was to get cheap
universal healthcare, and the third one was to get started on gun laws. And, you know--
ELY: I think you're going to have to be in Congress for a while. --(laughter)--
01:22:00
YARMUTH: I know. Um, yeah, we certainly haven't done the money thing. And, but
we're on the way to universal healthcare, and the Affordable Care Act was a big
part of that. So I think we'll get there eventually. And I think we took an
important step. And I think that the debate that's going on now in Congress in
the spring of, uh, 2017 is going to be helpful to getting to a single payer
system, because I think the people are becoming more and more aware of what the
real alternatives in healthcare are, and that there are no good ones, except
maybe single payer.
ELY: We've tried everything else.
YARMUTH: We've tried everything--exactly right.
ELY: Except single payer. And, uh, the role of money in politics, fair
elections. Overturning Citizens United is another area you've been involved with.
YARMUTH: Right. And sadly, because of the Supreme Court, we're going in the
wrong direction.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And I don't think there's much opportunity to overturn Citizens
United, either now with, uh, Trump being able to, uh, fill his spot
01:23:00on the court. Although the new Supreme Court Justice might surprise us, if
another case gets here. But I think the marketplace is going to take care of
that, actually, because I think the whole paradigm of campaigning is changing.
And now social media has become the most important, uh, means of political
communication. And as fewer and fewer people are watching TV, certainly live TV,
and, um, I think almost 60 percent of TV viewing is now done on a recorded
basis, so they're not seeing political ads. Millennials don't even watch TV. So
I think there's not going to be the need for, for money as much. And people have
gotten so immune to political ads. I mean, as I say, people don't like 'em. Uh,
they don't believe them. And, uh, they don't watch them. Other than
01:24:00that, it's a perfect strategy. --(laughs)--
ELY: Right. So it goes online, it goes to social media. So you think that's kind
of a leveler?
YARMUTH: I think it's a leveler. Yeah, I think it's going to minimize the need
for raising these huge sums of money, although you look at the race and what's
right now going on in Georgia, uh, one Congressional race, they've already
got--they're already spending $30 million for a Congressional seat, which is
just absolutely outrageous. But that's become a proxy for the entire national
political battle right now. And, uh, I think that's going to be very much, um,
an outlier.
ELY: So, um, have you taken positions on religious freedom issues? We're seeing
renewed emphasis or influence by evangelical groups, and, and the far right.
Have you been involved at all in any pushback?
YARMUTH: Well, I certainly--anytime there is a vote or an issue
01:25:00involving, um, the practice of religion, we've got these issues now where the
questions become not just the freedom to practice religion, but the freedom to
discriminate based on your, um, religious conviction. And these, you know, if
your, if your, religious, uh, beliefs, for instance, don't support gay marriage,
then you have the right to discriminate against gay married couples. Well, that
to me is outrageous. If you're, if you're in business in public, if you're not a
religious institution and you're doing business with the public, you don't have
the right to discriminate. We've been through that with, with um, along the
basis of race.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So I'm constantly pushing back against those types of
01:26:00initiatives. And again, most of those are only up in the courts, and not so much
in the, in the legislature. In the Congress. But we talk about them a lot.
ELY: Are you part of a Jewish caucus in Congress?
YARMUTH: Yeah. Um-hm.
ELY: Uh-huh? And what kinds of things do you talk about when you get together?
Um, golf, and--
YARMUTH: Um, if--no no no no.
ELY: --(laughs)--
YARMUTH: --it's--I would say, um, Israel is the, by far, the number one topic
when we get together. And we have meetings basically to talk about Israel policy.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And, you know, there is a definite split on the national scene between
those who are prior to--are--uh, those who support AIPAC's [American Israel
Public Affairs Committee] positions versus J Street's positions. A lot of times,
the two match; J Street and, and AIPAC agree on a lot of things. But
01:27:00there's some very significant differences.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: Um, so we try to bridge--in our group, we try to bridge those to the
extent possible, because we, we certainly don't want to see rift in the Jewish
Congressional, uh, contingent, because there are not that many of us.
ELY: Right.
YARMUTH: Yeah.
ELY: And the numbers are going down, the number of Jews in Congress.
YARMUTH: Yeah, there were about thirty in the house when I, when I started, and
now it's about twenty. I don't know the exact number. I think there are maybe
eleven or twelve in the Senate. With a much--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --it's a bigger percentage of the Senate than the house.
ELY: Have your own views on Israeli issues evolved as Israel itself has changed?
Or are you influenced by some of the things that you're privy to as a
Congressman that the rest of us may not, may not see?
YARMUTH: Well, you know, I've been to Israel a couple of times as a Congressman,
and I've, I've been able to talk to a lot of people on both sides of
01:28:00some of the issues, particularly the issue of settlements. And I've seen what's
going on in East Jerusalem, and, uh, things that make me seriously question, um,
the Israeli administration. Though I would say, right now, that's, that's my
biggest concern, when I look at the Israeli situation; it's an administration
that is not, not honest with its own people, certainly not honest with us. I
mean, I've had people from the administration lie to my face, and I've called
them on it. And one of them was, uh, well, he wasn't prime minister then. But
Netanyahu, uh, before he became prime minister, just absolutely flat-out lied to
a bunch of us. Um, and--
ELY: I think you spoke out against his visit to, to our Congress.
YARMUTH: Right, his visit, when he came--
ELY: --uh-huh--
YARMUTH: --when he addressed Congress. I led the, um, the news conference, uh,
pushing back against his being there.
01:29:00
ELY: Did you get a lot of heat from that?
YARMUTH: A little bit. I got far more support, though, than I did heat.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: You know, I think Netanyahu has definitely changed American Jews'
attitudes toward the--towards Israel and their policies, and not for the better.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: I mean, he's cost Israel support over the last few years. And everybody
see--I shouldn't say that--a lot of people look at him, uh, and see somebody who
is primarily motivated by his own power, and his, his position, and not
necessarily acting in the best interest of, of the country, and certainly not in
the best interest of the American-Israeli relationship.
ELY: Do you hear a lot from your constituents about Israel issues? Is it
something that Louisville Jews talk to you about?
01:30:00
YARMUTH: Um, yeah. And for instance, after the Iran deal, I mean, I had a lot of
pushback from, um, Louisville Jews about supporting the Iran nuclear deal.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And I came back and I actually asked, um, the JCC if they would host a
town meeting. I mean, wouldn't be restricted to Jews, but primarily from the
Jewish community, for a meeting to come and talk about the deal and answer
questions. And I did that. And it was very productive. And it was a largely
hostile crowd at the beginning. But I explained it, I answered all their
questions, and I think I gave them a different perspective, because the one
thing I knew about that deal was that a lot of Jews were only hearing one side
of it. And they weren't hearing the, our administration side. They were hearing,
they listened to Netanyahu. And that's the only case they were
01:31:00hearing. And again, he was so dishonest about the way he characterized that
deal. I'm not sure he even actually knew what was in the deal. Uh, but you know,
here's a guy that went to the United Nations and said several years ago, several
years before the deal was actually done, and said they're three months from
having a nuclear weapon, which was, some very short period of time, which was
never the case. And, but, no matt--I was convinced that he was, first of all,
doing what every demagogue does, which is to, to incite fear among your own
people so that they, uh, they will let you do whatever you want to do.
ELY: We see that, yes.
YARMUTH: Yeah, and I think that he was trying to, uh, prod the U.S. into taking
Iran's nuclear capacity out.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: That may or may not have been true, but that's the way I felt. And but
so I and most of the Jewish members were briefed incessantly by the
01:32:00Obama administration.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: We--I mean, they were phenomenal in how they kept us apprised and how
they explained everything. And like in many other areas, the Obama
administration did a horrible job of messaging that deal. And I even talked to
the president about it once. I said--
ELY: --uh-huh--
YARMUTH: --you know, when you all talk about this deal, it's always one year,
five years, eight years, ten years, so forth. You know, and Netanyahu saying
this guarantees that Iran will have a nuclear weapon in ten years, which is
nonsense--but I said, "All these, throwing out all these dates confuse people. I
think your message ought to be, 'Under this deal, Iran is never allowed to have
a nuclear weapon. Never. And there's an unprecedented inspection regime in place
to guarantee that.'" And he--Barack says, "You know, that makes a lot
01:33:00of sense, we were worried about our messaging." Then two days later, he was on
the daily show, and he said just what I had said. But if you go to the third
line of the deal, it says, "Iran agrees it will never, ever have a nuclear
weapon, never acquire or manufacture one."
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: Now, does that guarantee that they won't? No. But the deal doesn't
allow them to. And people were actually trying to characterize it as saying,
"Well, they can build a nuclear weapon in ten years. They're allowed to under
this deal," which is not right.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So again, it was just the--so yeah, I got a lot of pushback. But I
think when I was able to explain it to people, they at least got a
different--got the other side of it.
ELY: Um-hm. You mentioned J Street before--
YARMUTH: --um-hm--
ELY: --which has been a sort of a liberal progressive alternative to some of the
old-line organizations. Have you been formally involved with them?
YARMUTH: Not formally. You know, I took a trip to Israel, the Middle East, that
I actually led a Congressional delegation with my friend, Steve Cohen, who
represents Memphis. Um, I did that for them. But I also went on an
01:34:00AIPAC trip before that. So I got both sides. I've never had any formal
involvement with J Street.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: But you know, the way I definitely--the way I characterize the
difference between J Street and AIPAC--and this is a little bit unfair, but, but
I think I can make a pretty good case that it's true--that AIPAC never--never,
ever indicates that they care about the Palestinian people, and that they
consider them people worth caring about. And J Street thinks of them as human
beings who are, um, who are deserving of respect in our policy.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And, you know, I've told the AIPAC people that as well. So--
ELY: The, the two organizations seem to just symbolize the divide in the
community. And some of that's generational. And on college campuses,
01:35:00a lot of students don't even want to identify as Jewish, for fear that they will
be then identified as Zionist, or vice versa.
It's--
YARMUTH: --right--
ELY: --it's complicated. How, how do you see the American Jewish community
through the relationship with Israel at this point?
YARMUTH: Well again, I think--I think there are a lot more questions about
Israel and their, and their actions now than there ever were. There's more
questioning of what Israel does, than there ever was before. I mean, I would say
twenty years ago and longer, whatever--you know, Israel can do no wrong--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --everything. And, you know, they're justified in doing whatever they
need to do to defend themselves.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And I think that' attitude's change. And I think, you know, the attacks
on, uh, um, Hamas and, and the Gaza strip a few years ago, where there was so
much damage and human carnage and so on, I think that--I think that
01:36:00changed a lot of--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --Americans' attitudes. Because while there is no question that Israel
is threatened and deserves to be concerned, justified in being concerned about
their survival and their citizens' safety, they have overwhelming military
advantage over everybody around them.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: So that's the equa--I think the equation's changed over twenty, thirty
years ago. Equation on the ground has changed there.
ELY: Right. So, um, in America, we've recently had a kind of resurgence in
anti-Semitic speech, anti-Semitic acts, um, from the high levels to the public
streets. How do you see this? Is this a blip? Is this something to be seriously
concerned about? What are--what is Washington doing to--Congress
01:37:00doing to deal with this?
YARMUTH: Yeah, I think it's a very serious thing. I think it is part of a much
bigger problem. And that is the frustration of a lot of Americans who believe
the world is changing to their disadvantage, and that they're pushing back
against that. And that manifests itself in attitudes about immigrants and, and
Jews, and a lot of other things, and was part of the reason Donald Trump is, is president.
ELY: Hmm.
YARMUTH: Um, and I think it's going to--I'm not sure what it's going to take to
kind of reverse this thing. But, um, the, the people who feel that way are going
to have to--we're going to have to figure out as a society a way to engage those
people in ways that they have some feeling of commonality with the
01:38:00rest of us. Because if they don't, then they'll continue to lash out at those
things that they think are threatening them. And Jews are always a handy scapegoat.
ELY: Um-hm. So just some wrapping up questions here--
YARMUTH: --um-hm--
ELY: --I'm sure you have other things you need to get to. Um, what do you see as
the biggest challenges today for the American Jewish community?
YARMUTH: Well, I think assimilation is, is definitely one. I don't, um, I don't
think--I think in a lot of ways, Jews have become like Unitarians, that they're
tending to not--they're tending to marry outside their religion, and to a
certain extent let their religion kind of fade away, or, um, not be as
significant a factor. I think what I think about this community and
01:39:00how important the JCC was, and the Standard Country Club was, to Jewish life--
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --and that there's so many different opportunities for recreation and
exercise, and they're so many good places to eat.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And those places become less and less important in bringing people
together. Uh, so Jews don't associate as much. I think there's um, that's always
a threat to--when you threaten the Jewish community, and I shouldn't say
"threaten," but when there is the risk of the Jewish community dissipating, um,
and not having that kind of commonality opportunity, then there's a risk
of the connections--
01:40:00
ELY: --um-hm--
YARMUTH: --uh, loosening. So I think that's probably modern society--modern life.
ELY: Right.
YARMUTH: You know, we're all becoming more and more isolated in so many ways,
social media and so forth. That's always a threat to retaining the sense of
community, Jewish community.
ELY: Um-hm. In Kentucky, we see people from the small towns move into the bigger
cities. And now people in the bigger cities like Louisville are leaving for Los
Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, New York. So, uh, it may be the canary and the
coalmine. It's more acute here, in a way, than, than you might if you were--
YARMUTH: --um-hm--
ELY: --a Congressman from Brooklyn.
YARMUTH: Yeah. I think that's probably true.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: Yeah. Kind of hard to avoid Jews in Brooklyn.
ELY: Right. So is there anything I've missed asking that you'd like to talk
about, whether it's a family story, or something about a mentor, or
01:41:00some sort of Jewish memory that you'd like to put on the record?
YARMUTH: Hmm. Well, we probably haven't spent as much time, as useful and
talking about, um, the fact that still, to this day, probably my best
friends--both--not just in Louisville, but in Washington and, uh, elsewhere,
remain Jewish.
ELY: Um-hm.
YARMUTH: And still friends from my childhood.
ELY: Right.
YARMUTH: And I--and that's--so in Louisville, you could say that's a Louisville
thing. But, um, my best friend in Congress is Steve Cohen from Memphis, my, and
I didn't know him until I got to Congress. My two best friends in the world are
Yale buddies, both happen to be Jewish. And so again, I think we started off
talking about whatever gravitational pull there is, uh, can last a
01:42:00long time.
ELY: Um-hm. Good. Well, thank you so much for speaking to me.
YARMUTH: Sure.
ELY: It's been a real privilege to talk with you.
YARMUTH: My pleasure. No, my, my honor.
[End of interview.]
