Interview with Joseph Kaplan, November 3, 1977

Herman Landau:

Now this is an interview with Joseph J. Kaplan at his home, 6351 Limewood circle, November the 3rd, 1977. Herman Landow interviewer. Now, lets-

Joseph Kaplan:

I was the oldest of six children. The marriage of Minnie Epsen, and Judius Kaplan. My father was born in Kaunas, Poland, and my mother was born in Bialystok, Poland. My father's family came to this country in the last years of 1:00the 19th century, and settled in Louisville, Kentucky by reason of that fact, that my grandmother, Kathlyn's, sister; Mrs. J.D. Walker was living here at that time with her husband and family. My mother's family came to Louisville because of relatives of my grandfather Epstein, who living... And came at their 2:00invitation, and worked with them for some time.

J.K.:

My father, after marrying my mother, moved to Sallis, Mississippi, a village near Kosciusko, Mississippi. He had been told that it was easier to make a living down there than it would be in Louisville, and, two: a friend of his, Louis Glazer, had a store in Louisville, Mississippi, which was near Sallis, Mississippi.

J.K.:

I was conceived, in Sallis, Mississippi, and my mother came back to Louisville, 3:00and I was born on January 22 1908 in the old Gray st. Hospital. The town of Sallis, Mississippi is best described as a village where there was a railroad track out about 50 yards in front of the line of stores which would go into the side of the hill, and then there was a train station there, and a man died on the post-office steps on a Monday, and became news in the town the following Saturday. This was the village of Sallis. Mississippi, where I spent the first 4:00four years of my life.

J.K.:

When I was four years old my family moved back to Louisville, and my father opened, built and opened up, a retail store, and 11th and Walnut Streets [inaudible 00:04:20]. My grandfather Kaplan had never moved from Louisville, and he and my grandmother lived on Walnut Street, near Preston Street on the second floor of a red brick house as I remember, and he was a very wonderful, maverick, religious man. He was the Shochet, and I remember many Friday afternoons watching him take in the nickles for killing the chickens for the Shabbat. My 5:00recollection of my grandfather is a beautiful memory because it was my grandfather Kaplan with whom I spent a good deal of time in my early years.

J.K.:

I was with them over most every weekend. He and my - and his brother in law, Mr. J.D. Walker, and Mr. J.D. Walker's son, Mr. Shaffit, very learned and erudite, beautiful man - beautiful young man, together with Mr. Garren, Rabbi [inaudible 6:0000:05:57], and I think Mr. Landow, and, if I'm not mistaken, I recall, it may have been Mr. Planberg, who was then a tailor, or perhaps Mr. Persky, who later became the town Lo-oh [phonetic 00:06:32]. Organized, got together, and decided that it was necessary to have a Hebrew school, an afternoon Hebrew school, rather than to leave the Hebrew education to a few men who gave personal, 7:00individual instruction.

H.L.:

What accounted for their liberal approach to this education business? They were far ahead of their times in education because they invited girls to learn, as well as boys.

J.K.:

I've often wondered about that, because after all we do know that the older members, and the more - and the orthodox members of our community sort of considered the girls and the women the, sort of second, inferior, and not entitled to the education that the men are... But it was the younger people of that time that felt that the girls needed the education just as much as the boys did, and that it was not improper for them to sit in the same class as-

H.L.:

Would you characterize your father as one of the younger peoples of that time?

J.K.:

Yes, my father was one of the younger members. And so the girls didn't go to the Hebrew school, it was organized in 1908. I do know that I was six years old when I was enrolled as a student at the Hebrew school, and the early teachers there was a man by the name of Mr. Beiber who was principal, and a man by the name of Mr. Kacks, who was a rather tall man with a flat finger, and he was one of my early teachers.

J.K.:

I went to this school at age six, when it was 1914, and Mr. Kacks was my first 9:00teacher. The school was up on Walnut Street, and I attended the afternoon classes at the Hebrew school until I was past age 15. I recall many an evening skating home on one skate, and booking Walnut Streets to - 11th and Walnut Streets in time for dinner, and as the years went by, and as we grew older our classes were scheduled for later in the afternoon so that after the age of 11 or 10:0012 I never got home in the evenings before 7:30 for dinner.

J.K.:

And in those days the classes lasted for two hours a session, and we went to classes seven days a week. On Saturdays we had services, devoted more time to services, but we used to play kickball with a sand bag, a little bag of sand, and we'd tie the lace around the shoe, and kick it, and then run to a base, and 11:00whoever got the sand bag if they hit you with it then you were out.

J.K.:

Then we always had our two cents in those days to buy a sour pickle every afternoon, and pick it out of Mr. Simon's barrel. He had the little grocery store at Brook and Walnut Streets, on the southeast corner of the street. He was Robert Simon's father, and the twins...

H.L.:

Harry and Elliot.

J.K.:

Harry and Elliot, and we had a real good class at the Hebrew school in those days. In my class there was two girls, there was Rose Klein, and the Walman girl 12:00who is now a Harris, what's her first name?

H.L.:

Bess.

J.K.:

Bess Harris, who's since become head of the Mizrahi organization in town, and there was Israel Linebaugh, there was Morris Planberg, who later became- the son of the tailor, he later became a rabbi. There was the Rosenthal boy, his older brother had earlier graduated from the school, and became a rabbi. The one in our class was named Helmer Rosenthal. I think his father was in the overall business. Later Helmer, I think, went to Detroit and became a social service- and went into the social service field.

J.K.:

Then there was a boy by the name of Goldstein, and there was Sydney Freedman, 13:00there was Robert Persky, and myself, and I don't know if I have left out one or two.

J.K.:

The bright lights, and the very fine students were: First, Israel Linebaugh, and then Morris Planberg, and then Sydney Freedman. Those were the three outstanding students, oh, Robert Persky was in that class, and Robert Persky was the fun guy, and he was always getting everybody else in trouble, and particularly me because he had a bean shooter andhe would sit in the back of the class and he had good aim and he'd hit you in the back of the head and I would shout out, and 14:00turn around and say something to Persky, but Rabbi Zolsken always thought that I was just interrupting his class, and I always had to stay after class [laughing 00:14:19]. But after Rabbi Zolsken was convinced that Persky was the culprit he made him sit up front, but that didn't deter Persky because whenever Rabbi Zolsken would be writing something on the black board Persky would turn around and shoot his pea shooter and managed to hit some bulls-eyes, but notwithstanding it was a good class.

J.K.:

We graduated as a class in 1922. As I say we continued after we were bar mitzvahed. I was bar mitzvahed at the B'nai Jacob congregation, I was a member of the choir there. I don't know how the cantor convinced my father that I had a good enough voice to be in his choir, because I didn't [inaudible 00:15:37] with any great quality...

H.L.:

Sound pretty great to me.

J.K.:

But... I even remember having a solo for one Friday evening service, and remember my voice cracking right in the middle of it, and it had to do with 16:00[inaudible 00:16:01] [laughing 00:16:03], but I did sing in the choir there for about three years, and enjoyed it.

J.K.:

My father, of course, my grandfather first became the collector for the Hebrew school. His job was to walk around the community, the Jewish community, and to present them with the dollar and a half, or two dollar bills for the education of their son or daughter at the Hebrew school, and later on a Mr. Klein, I think 17:00Nathan Klein, became the collector. My father became president of the Hebrew school in the early 20's, and continued his presidency at the Hebrew school until he died in March 1929, and he had some difficult situations to contend with during my time.

J.K.:

I can recall how he and Mr. Garren used to get together and get up 75 to 100 dollars which had to be gotten together to meet a pay-roll, and that was done many a time. The Garren that I'm talking about, Mr. Garren, was Max Garren's father, who's name was Heimanger in the grocery store on 7th Street. He, Papa, 18:00had a great interest in the Hebrew school. He devoted all of his spare time to it. He actually financed the operation for some little time. He found that his operation, or rather the school, was being undermined by Rabbi Mahtlebon, who would then become the rabbi of the merged congregation known as Keneseth Israel. Mahtlebon was a young man, and he was very much interested in establishing his 19:00own school, and went about doing it, and my father thought that this was going to upset the local Hebrew school, and he fought against it, and he was just about ready to win his fight when he took sick in nineteen- in the Fall of 1928, and...

J.K.:

These things finally worked out. Mahtlebon did, a year or so later, would withdraw some of his children from the school, established one or two grades within his synagogue, and then Rabbi Gettleman maintained it out of 20:00self-preservation. He had to do the same thing with his congregation, and the end result of it was that you had three afternoon Hebrew school operations in town for quite some time.

J.K.:

The ones with the congregations were not at all successful, and Rabbi Gettleman tried to get a good instructor, but there wasn't enough in the way of money to 21:00compensate a full time person, and there were other problems involved. A number of children didn't come to the class, and sort of thing, which he recognized at that time of being, he had, but he maintained the school, and so did Mahtlebon for some few years, after which Mahtlebon gave up the school, because the pressure and because of the lack of success that he had at his school. So that the Hebrew school then became a Hebrew school for just a few of the members of the conservative congregation. One of two members of the reformed congregation, 22:00but mostly members of the Anshei Asfard and Keneseth Israel.

J.K.:

In 1955 the Jewish community center, then known as YMHA was about to build it's building, and in planning it's building they asked the Hebrew school if they wanted to have their classes there, and one of the important things was the consideration of the having one Hebrew school for all of the Jewish children in 23:00the city, in other words, arranging for how to insure the children come back into the Hebrew school. The then president of the Hebrew school was a very dedicated and sincere person, he was only [inaudible 00:23:20]

H.L.:

Sescietser? Abe Sescietser?

J.K.:

Abe Sescietser. He asked me if I would undertake to preside over the meetings of the committee. It was to make some sort of decision about this, which included the rabbis, and the representative members of the separate congregations, and 24:00fortunately, they did work out a working situation acceptable to the rabbis so far as the teaching curriculum, so far as the hours and schedule at that time, so that Rabbi Gettleman, and Rabbi Redman, and Rabbi Goodman, they could work some of time [inaudible 00:24:36]. It was to make sure that they all subscribed to a working arrangement and asked that the Hebrew school would hold it's classes in the new building at the Jewish community center, which was opened in 25:00December of 1955 on Dutchmans Lane.

J.K.:

The building was completed, and finally occupied by the center, and opened on December the 10th or 11th 1955, and I gave just a little wrong, I became invested in the Jewish community center in July of 1955, so that when I held these meetings before, it's not the present time of this story.

J.K.:

A friend of [inaudible 00:25:56] in the center, and I was on the building 26:00committee center. So that the Hebrew school did open in September of 1955. The beginning of the school year the classrooms were finished, and we were able to start the Hebrew school there, in the building in September of 1955.

J.K.:

They had good enrollment, they had good classes, they had good interest in the school. I became president of the Hebrew school, I think, in 1960, and served for three years.

H.L.:

Lets hold 'em here a minute and-