"Three's Company" - An Interview with the 3G Collective (Part 1) - Shebrew in the City

Episode Transcript
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Nicole Kelly (00:04):
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Hi, I'm Nicole Kelly and thisis Shebrew in the City, and

(00:35):
tonight we are going to talkabout two of my favorite things
theater and intergenerationaltrauma, which in this interview,
we'll find out they actually gohand in hand.
So this is my first interviewwith more than one guest, so I'm
really excited to see how thatturns out.
So tonight I have John, Janaand Shany with me, and they are

(00:55):
coming from all across thecountry, so we have multiple
time zones as well as multiplepeople.
So how is everybody doing today?

John Reed (01:03):
Very good, very good.
I know John and I had doubleshifts at the museum.

Today, john and I work at the Museum of Jewish
Heritage downtown together andit was a long day, so I
appreciate you taking the timeto talk with me after two tours.

John Reed (01:16):
I was gonna say I'm surprised we both still have a
voice.

I know I was thinking that about halfway
through the second tour.
I was like I have to talktonight.
So I drank some tea, came homeand read about transit camps for
class, and now I'm here talkingto you guys.

Jana Krumholtz (01:29):
I just love that you love intergenerational
trauma so much, because so do I.
It's awful to say that it's areal thing.
It's so, it's such a passion.
So I see you.

Yes, we're going to.
We're going to talk about that.
I come with my ownintergenerational trauma because
my family fled the pogroms andmy mother dealt with 20th
century antisemitism in America.
So I feel like there's remnantsof that and I've talked about
how my mom wouldn't say the wordHanukkah aloud in public and
I'd make fun of her, and now I'mlike that's valid, that is a
very valid thing, um, which youknow.

(02:02):
You know, we'll all talk abouthow we deal with our
intergenerational trauma, I'msure, on this episode.
So I always start off by askingeverybody what their Jewish
upbringing was like, where theygrew up, if they grew up with a
denomination, if they had a baror bat mitzvah.
So we'll go ahead.
We'll start alphabetically.

We'll start with Jana okay, yes, so I was like
am I first?

yes, you're first, I'm with you.

So I always characterize my upbringing as
being raised culturally Jewish.
Okay, I did go to a Jewish dayschool from kindergarten to
eighth grade, so that's my likereligious moment.
But we weren't really religiousin the house, but I wore
uniforms to school.
We ate kosher food in school.
We prayed in the morning, weprayed before we ate, we had

(02:49):
Hebrew and Judaics every day, um, but I didn't keep kosher in
the house and we would go totemple on the high holidays and
then once I got bat mitzvahed,it was like you were like that's
it.
I'm done.
They were like I didn't know,discussion was had it, just

(03:10):
religion was gone, like that wasit and how it was, like that
was that.
And I graduated middle schooland went to an arts high school
and that was that.
So the way that I feel Jewishin my upbringing is, you know,
the Holocaust was the main thing, that was like the center point
.
I was raised around Probablyimmediate.
I was raised around like 15Holocaust survivors that was my
socialization and then for bigevents it was like 60 of them.

(03:30):
So that's kind of all I knowabout Judaism is our Yiddish
speaking Polish Holocaustsurvivors.

And.

I deeply love it and I miss it, and so, yeah,
judaism to me is their language,it's our humor, it's how we
relate to each other, it'sunfiltered, it's honest, it's
pure, it's judgmental, it's youknow the love of food is and the
addiction to food is you know,everyone's love language.
So that's really.
And then, from Jewish schooland how I was raised, you know

(04:02):
the values which we've allspoken about the three of us is
really tikkun olam.

Shany Dagan-Kerem (04:07):
Like it's stuff.

It's how I was raised and it's how I was taught
in school what it meant to beJewish, and that's how that's
the most lasting thing I carrywith me in my life.
And where did you grow up?
Boca Raton, florida.

Oh, my goodness.

So I'm like the quintessential, I'm like the
anti, I'm the anti-Jap-Jap.

For those of you that don't know what Jap means
it is means Jewish Americanprincess.

Yeah.

It does not mean a Japanese person.

I didn't even know that it's a very American
thing.
Yes, terrible.

It's like a shiksa .
It's hard to explain, but youknow it when you see it.
There are a lot of moms at mydaughter's school who were Japs
and they're very clicky and I'mlike a borderline Jap when I
want to be so I don't roll intoschool looking like a Jap, so
I'm very isolated with that.
All right, John, I know alittle bit about your background

(05:06):
.
Can you share with my listenerswhere you grew up and about
your?

John Reed (05:10):
Jewish upbringing.
Yeah, I mean, usually whenpeople ask me you know where are
you from, I usually either sayit's a two-part answer or how
long do you have?
Because it's kind of weird.
I was born in Houston, texas,actually to a Presbyterian
father and a Jewish mother, soit was an interfaith marriage

(05:31):
but luckily it was not a shandafor the Jewish family, it was
not a dishonor or a scandal, butyeah.
So I actually grew up for thefirst 10 years of my life in a
town where we were the onlyJewish family in the town.
It was technically a very smalltown, about an hour and a half
outside of Houston, and we werethe only Jews in the town.

(05:53):
We did attend Sunday school ata synagogue in Houston called
Congregation Beth Israel, whichactually, at least when we were
there, was the largest reformcongregation in the United
States.
We, yeah, would go there forSunday school every Sunday We'd

(06:14):
drive an hour and a half intoHouston.
It was imperative to my motherand actually, weirdly, to my
father, that we were raisedfully Jewish.
So we were not.
We never had a Christmas treein the house, we never decorated
or celebrated Christmas orEaster.
We would go over to my father'sfamily's houses, sometimes for
Christmas dinners or we wouldgive them presents or exchange

(06:36):
presents, but they made itabundantly clear that we do not
celebrate that because we areJewish, which nothing will make
a person more into an artistthan being the only one in a
town who, you know, is um, isnot like everybody else, um, but
then we, uh, my mother isJewish and she's actually was

(06:57):
born in Australia and herparents are, uh, polish
Holocaust survivors, uh, thatimmigrated to Australia, um,
after the war, polish Holocaustsurvivors that immigrated to
Australia after the war, andtheir raising was actually also
kind of very more cultural.
They were definitely notreligious by any means, and
neither were we.
We were very much reformprimarily, but we actually then

(07:21):
moved back to Australia, andthat's a whole other story as to
why.
But when we moved to Australia,my mother was sort of very much
even more adamant that me andmy sister received a Jewish
education.
So we went to a Reform Hebrewday school and I actually was
there from fifth grade throughthe rest of high school.

(07:44):
It went K through 12.
And so I did my bar mitzvahthrough there.
I also sort of felt like it waskind of like after my bar
mitzvah, all bets were off.
I could kind of do whatever Iwanted.

I feel like we all felt free in some capacity.

John Reed (08:00):
A little bit.

Though I want to say and I don't know if I've
mentioned this before this saysa lot about my Jewish guilt.

A little bit Hebrew school.
Oh my gosh, you're at schoolfor the Holocaust.
You're good.

I am good.
I also went to Hebrew high twoyears after I had my mom's first
, so like the Jewish educationdid not end.

John Reed (08:32):
I mean, I still have the.

I've still definitely had the high school
nightmares where I'm feeling ohyeah, yeah, but like it's weird
being about specifically likeHebrew school, like I don't know
if I've ever met somebody elselike that.

John Reed (08:44):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
But yeah, I sort of felt likeit was a little bit sort of all
bets were off after that.
I always joke that like twodays after my bar mitzvah I
tried bacon for the first timeand unfortunately I've never
gone back.

How was the bacon?

John Reed (08:57):
It was delicious.

It was great.

John Reed (08:58):
Okay, yeah, it was, it was kind of extraordinary,
but yeah, so I then and it wassort of very interesting because
I sort of felt like actuallygoing through high school and
then into college I sort of feltlike I kind of retreated a
little bit from my Judaism,mainly, I think, because I was
in such an insular.
The Jewish community inMelbourne in particular is very
insular and very I mean, all theplaces that we live in the

(09:21):
ghetto, because literallyeverybody lives in, you know,
four mile radiuses of all of oneanother, so we.
So I felt like by the end ofhigh school I very much actually
wanted to get out of it.
I was very much wanting to sortof find out who I was outside
of all of it.
And when I went to drama school, to, you know, study musical

(09:41):
theater, I sort of was like, oh,these are, this is.
I felt like I finally kind offound my tribe, I kind of found
my people and I kind of wentaway from specifically Judaism
and like attending Seders andmissing, you know, rosh
Hashanahs and Yom Kippur andseeing my Jewish friends, just
because I thought I was like, no, the theater is my religion.

(10:03):
Now I sort of got a bit high andmighty about it.
But then actually I think COVIDwas an incredible coincidence,
but I actually really started.
Something changed and I don'tknow what, but it was trying to
find ways to actuallyreintroduce myself to it, just
even by just ingesting a lot ofJewish stories, a lot of Jewish

(10:24):
history and really then also, asmy grandfather was getting
older, really taking the time toreally spend as much time with
him as I could before heactually ended up passing away,
but very you know, nottragically at the age of 98.
So you know, he lived a longlife but I definitely felt I

(10:46):
almost kind of had a renewedappreciation and understanding.
I still don't necessarily callmyself very religious, but
culturally I've actuallyprobably never felt more Jewish
than now.

I had a similar experience after my daughter was
born.
Because I, like you, I was likethe theaters, these are my
people, because I was, I think,think a little burnt out.
And then, when we had ourdaughter, I was like, well, how,
what do I want my family?
You know, life to look like?
And I feel like, after COVID, Iwas looking for some sort of
connection.
So I found our synagogue inUpper West Side.
We moved to the neighborhood tobe close to the synagogue.

(11:19):
She goes to the school now andI feel like I have like tripled
down on the judaism, which islike what I was like when I was
a kid, because my mom wasconvinced I was gonna become a
cantor that's all they wanted meto do.

They were like, don't go into the arts, but just
be a cantor, and I was likewhat's singing?

there's no money in clergy work.
Um, I have discovered this,though there is a synagogue in
which is a conservativesynagogue in the san fernando
valley where, apparently I don'tknow if he's still there the
head rabbi made a milliondollars a year because someone
had left an endowment.
Wow, but that's not normal.
Um, that's not normal.

(11:56):
He won the lottery, I knowright.
Okay, shawnee, how about you?
Where did you grow up and whatwas your Jewish upbringing like?

All right.
So I'm originally from Israel.
So I would say I grew upsecular, very, very open.
We did celebrate all theholidays.
It was just kind of all aroundus.
So we don't really talk aboutour Judaism because most of us

(12:23):
are Jewish.
Talk about our Judaism becausemost of us are Jewish.
So it was just part of my life.
Nothing very, very specific.
We are not religious, but wedid do all of the traditions.
So all of the you know, seder,rosh Hashanah, the whole shebang

(12:43):
, but it's more family-rooted.
So we always went to family, wealways gathered together and
that's basically it In Israel,because most of the people are
Jewish.
It kind of.
You don't really go into it much.
You learn it in school, youlearn about your past and all of

(13:07):
that, but it's just obviousthat it's part of your life.
So I think that when I moved tothe States, that's when I felt
a little out of place in a way.
Yeah, some people celebrate Imean, we do have Jewish people
in America, right but it's acompletely different way to
celebrate.
Even the food is different.
The whole tradition around itis completely different.

(13:31):
And, to be honest, at first Itried to kind of take a step
back because I just didn't feellike I belonged to that Jewish
community and I didn't feel likeI'm.
It's not that I felt, but I'mnot part of the American culture
, that is not Jewish right.
And so I was kind of in themiddle so I kind of just did my

(13:56):
own thing doing holidays.
It just felt very lonelybecause I did move by myself but
, um, that that was kind of myexperience.
I didn't really get into it.
I'm very, um, jenna and johnknows me, but I'm very like,
particular, I do my work and Ijust, you know, very specific

(14:17):
I'm going to class, I'm taking,I'm work, I'm doing my auditions
, I create, I'm taking work, I'mdoing my auditions, I create my
work and I just focus on that.
Try not to fall into emotionstoo much, which is very much
probably part of my trauma,generational trauma, right?

(14:39):
Yeah, I'm more of a hard person.

The Israeli people I know are pretty no-nonsense.
I feel like that comes from notonly the intergenerational
trauma of a lot of Israelisbeing descendants of Holocaust
survivors, but living in an areathat's kind of fraught with a
lot of things going onconstantly.
Yeah, yeah.

All the time is just it's, it's part of who
we are.
Um, I don't know if it's goodor bad, it's part of who we are.
I don't know if it's good orbad, it just is.
Yeah, so I think that's kind ofmy background.
I moved to the States at 2013when I started IAMDA.
Actually, and from there.

(15:20):
I stayed during COVID, I met myhusband in Israel and we stayed
in Israel for about three yearsuntil we kind of found what we
want to do and we came backtogether and now we have our
daughter.
She's 10 weeks old and actuallyI really felt what you said

(15:40):
about like once you had yourdaughter you're like what am I
doing, you know?
So that's kind of what we'rethinking now.
I mean, she's 10 weeks old, butwe still think like, okay, how
are life going to look like,especially here in the States?
Like, are we going like JewishAmerican style?
Are we completely trying tolike open up to everything else,

(16:02):
especially with the years nowand and everything that is going
on with the anti-semitism thatis growing again?
Um, so it's it's a hugequestion and it's very
interesting and that's somethingthat we are working through
right now.

So it's very, very interesting one thing you'll
figure out as she's growing upand I never thought that I'd
have this emotional reaction,but because my daughter's in
jewish day school.
She's growing up and I neverthought that I'd have this
emotional reaction, but becausemy daughter's in Jewish day
school, she's learning thingsand so, like Purim just happened
and I was like who you know?
What do we do about?
But, poor, what did you know?
What was the deal with Haman?
She's like he wanted us to bowdown and I started crying

(16:45):
because cry over everything.
There was like this door thatwas unlocked in acting school
and now I just literally cry allthe time.

John Reed (16:49):
I cry at like the Yoavid loom, like I like lost it
yesterday I was like I can't,today I cannot.

There's this little girl who died when she
was was murdered when she wassix, and we use a toy as like a
device to talk about childrenmurdered in the Holocaust and,
like some days, I just I cannotdeal with it.

John Reed (17:05):
And especially seeing their reactions to some
people's reactions to it as well, is also really like.

That also breaks your heart as much as just
saying that happened to people,kind of having, especially
children, having thisrealization like wow, like I
would have been killed.
It's crazy.
But as, as she grows up, it'llbe interesting to see your
reaction to uh, her learningabout things because it and it
goes so quick.
Um, you're probably feelinglike you're never going to get

(17:31):
any sleep again, but I promiseit will happen.
I did not believe people, butmy daughter sleeps through the
night now and it's.

it's a magical experience, but I do
want to say somethinginteresting going off, we can
edit it later, but yeah,something that is very
interesting about how we'rethinking now is.
My sister asked me.
She's like so are you going totalk Hebrew at home or are you
going to talk English?
Are you going to?
You know, read to her inEnglish and Hebrew.

(17:58):
So we kind of do both becausewe don't know yet.
We said, we're probably going tospeak Hebrew in the house and
then when she goes to schoolshe's probably going to be
spoken in English.
So it's just very interestingto kind of think forward.

So let's jump in to the main topic.
You are all 3Gs and for thoseof you that have not listened to
previous episodes, I have agreat one with 3G and wise
President Elizabeth Kamens.
These are grandchildren ofHolocaust survivors.
So they're 3G, so the thirdgeneration.
I want all of you to talk alittle bit about your
grandparent or grandparents'experience, where they're from,

(18:42):
what happened during the war,and a little bit about what
their lives were like post-1945.

Gosh, I get even .
We have.
It's such a good balance.
Shani needs us and we needShani.
I get even a little emotionaljust having you introduce us as
three, you know, like thegrandchildren of Holocaust
survivors.
It's just, it's such a specialthing in all of our lives.
My grandmother's name was Rose,my grandpa's name was Ben, and

(19:05):
they both are from Lodz, PolandLodz is how you'd say it which
is actually where John'sgrandparents are also from,
which is wild.
So we think we're related.

The Jewish geography.
We are all related, I think, insome aspects, so it's possible
that you could do a test withdistant cousins.
I think we should.

Yeah, so my grandparents both entered the
ghetto at like 11 and 12.
All of their families.
My grandmother had, I think shehad like three brothers and
three sisters, and mygrandfather had three sisters
and they both.
It's so interesting, mygrandmother was really harsh and

(19:54):
strict and fearful and she wasthat one.
And then my grandfather was thesweetest, most patient, kindest
, gentlest man and as I gotolder and re-listened to their
stories, who knows why, what,when but she definitely had it
harder, I think.
I mean, how can you compare?
But then he did so, you know,she would tell little stories of

(20:17):
them trying to steal potatoesfrom neighbors in the ghetto,
you know, or share, burrow themin from somewhere, not steal
from neighbors, steal fromsomewhere and share with their
neighbors.
That's kind of the most shewould talk about it.
And then in the interviews Iwatched this is horrible Her

(20:41):
father refused to eat in theghettos so they could, and so
that's how he died, which I canonly imagine, the guilt that she
carried through.
So that's part of their story.
Then they went to I don't knowwhat camps first, but my
grandmother went throughBergen-Belsen and she went

(21:02):
through Auschwitz.

I just learned that Bergen-Belsen at one point
was a transit camp, so it'spossible that she went there
first.
But then again Anne Frank wastaken from Auschwitz to
Bergen-Belsen, so they were allpassing people around.
So yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
So she was in Bergen-Belsen andAuschwitz.

She had some crazy stories, so anyways the
lines, and so she was taken oneway and she was separated from
her family at the get.
So I think she was in the.
I think she was in the ghettofor three to four, I mean what.
They went in at 1939 and thenthey went into the camps at 1944
.
So they were in the ghetto fora lot of years, um, and so she
was like 12 when that happened.

(21:43):
So she went into the campsaround 16 or something, if my
math's correct, um 17.
I think she got out of the warat 18 or 19.
It's all all of her.
You know, young adult,adolescent years were the war um
, and she has this other storyof being in one of the camps and
like the, the fence, the chain,um, the metal fence, and and

(22:03):
was separating her in this othersection, and she saw a friend
that she knew on the other sideand the girl said come, like,
because she's like are you alone?
And my grandmother said, yeah,she goes, come to our side, like
come, stay with us.
And my grandmother was tooafraid to do it so she didn't.
And the next day, like thatwhole section had been like

(22:23):
murdered and put like onto thegas chambers.

So I have a crazy story about my, my great
grandmother in world war one,cause she was from I don't know
Russia, in a place that nolonger exists, like I've Googled
the town and it's no longerthere.
So her, she was one of six, oneof seven daughters and the last
one died and she was like thedevil was always trying to get
me because I was the one, likeyou know, that got away.

(22:49):
And apparently you know,because there's a bunch of
bombings during World War One,her mother was always like, if
there's bombings, you have tocome to the shelter near our
house.
So she's out playing in thefields like you do in Russia in
1916.
And there was an air raid andher friend was like, let's go to
the shelter together.
She's like, no, no, I told mymom, I have to go to the one
near her house.

(23:09):
So they parted ways and whenshe came out, that shelter that
her friend wanted to go to hadbeen bombed and everyone had
died.

So I feel like all these survival stories are
all these random acts ofno-transcript, because they know

(23:54):
they're like what did I do todeserve to be alive?
So she had some crazy storieslike that, um, and then she
survived.
She was liberated, um, uh, andshe got taken in by these three
sisters who survived, and by twosisters, so they called her the
third sister and that's whenshe met my grandfather what they
met in germany after the war.

(24:15):
My grandfather in the same townwent into the ghetto at the same
age with his family and he hebecame like a messenger so he
would ride his bike and helpdeliver mail to a Nazi, I
believe, like he had asemi-important job so he would
get some extra food for hisfamily.
So he had that kind ofexperience.
Then him and his family gotsent to the camps.

(24:39):
He also went through.
I know he was in Auschwitz fora little while and Birkenau
someone was in Birkenau at somepoint.
The thing that about him that'spretty beautiful is that him
and his grandfather, him and hisfather, went through the entire

(24:59):
experience together, throughthe camps up until two months
before liberation.
His father passed away, yeah,but so I think even that too,
just like the way he movedthrough life and thinking about
how he got to have his dad withhim through all of it up until
the end, I think has a bigimpact on the way he was in the
world, compared to mygrandmother.

(25:20):
And so then they met.
You know, to the best of theirknowledge, all of their families
were gone.
They met in Germany again.
My grandfather found a cousin,leo, somewhere, um, uh, and he,
they got on a train and foundthese three sisters.
They all, they all theirstories were.
They all went back home just tolook like let's just go back,

(25:41):
maybe someone's there, maybesomeone's alive.
So on their way back to or from,they met these three sisters,
my grandmother being the adoptedone, and they all kind of like
stayed together in apartments.
And you know, that's where theyalways kind of get like shy
about the story and I'm like,well, did you fall in love?
You know like it's okay ifsomething happened.
But so you know, after soondiscovering that there were no

(26:04):
family members left, they got solucky, they got papers to
America very quickly and theyall of them together got on a
boat to Ellis Island and, yeah,they just were.
They finagled their way andcame here and my grandparents
have a cool story, whether ornot it's exactly historically

(26:26):
true down to the very specifics.
They were known to be the firstsurvivor couple ever to be
married in America after WorldWar II.
So their wedding picture is inthe Holocaust Museum in
Washington DC and we have NewYork Times articles about their
wedding and you know it was abeautiful kind of commemorated

(26:48):
thing and that took place atwhat is now known to be the
public theater, because it usedto be a Jewish tenement house
for the refugees to come overand there was a little temple
inside.

I didn't know that I we give a tour, we talk about
the public theater, so now Ihave to add that in.

Yeah, and so that's where they started their
American life and they left thepast in the past in that sense.
And they came here and we'regoing to start anew.
And my grandfather became afurrier's assistant and my
grandmother was a seamstress andthey lived in the Lower East
Side on Eldridge Street and mygrandmother was a seamstress and
they lived in the lower eastside on eldridge street and they

(27:26):
their, I think their way ofsurviving was staying with their
kind.
So they I never met a friend ofmy grandparents that was not a
holocaust survivor like that,they only were with survivors
and that's how I think they madeit through.
They took, they took englishclasses at night.
They, you know the highest, Ithink it was called.
They had organizations.
My grandfather was the treasurythey just that was what they

(27:49):
kept them going.
Um, yeah, and then they movedto the, to the Bronx, had my mom
and her brother, and then theymoved to Bayside, queens, and
you know, and, but they allmoved together, like all of you
know, their close group.
And then it was upstate NewYork, the Catskills, which is
where I was born, and then downto Florida for the full
retirement, which is wherethey're.

They're hitting all of the Jewish cornerstones.
They started in Poland.

John Reed (28:15):
They came to the Lower East.

Side, they went to Queens.
They're the Catskills inFlorida.
Yeah, checked all the boxes.
When you're talking aboutinterviews with your grandmother
, are you talking about the onesdone through the Shoah
Foundation?
How did that feel watching that?
Because my third grade Hebrewschool teacher was an Ashwood
survivor and she gave testimonyand I have to contact an

(28:37):
organization to watch it andjust say I'm a master's student,
I'm writing a paper or whatever, but like, just seeing that
little thumbnail of this womanmade me really emotional and she
was not my grandmother, so howdid that feel watching?

that Well, I honestly it's like I was.
I'm in the video Like this waswhen I say this was my world,
like I.
It's so funny because my momdidn't grow up that way.
Like she found the photo albumof their wedding.
She wasn't told about it.
I remember being seven or eightand them sitting us down and
being like this is who you are,this is your history, blah, blah
, blah.
So so there's we're in the endof it.
When they're talking about whotheir family is, you can see me

(29:11):
as like a seven-year-old girland my sister, who's 10, sitting
on their lap, so like, and Iremember that day actually I
remember it being reallyimportant and my mom telling us
like be quiet.
And and then you know, weinterviewed them for middle
school.
So it was always.
It was not always talked about,but it was talked about.
But I remember watching itthrough for the first time and

(29:33):
it's insanely emotional.
It's so hard, it's so, it'sjust so sad, it's so, so, so, so
sad.
And then I rewatched it atdifferent times in my life and
before writing my show I waslike okay, here we go.
And I think it was over COVIDand there's like two, three DVDs
for each of their stories.

(29:54):
Yeah, yeah.
It's extremely hard, but itfeels so important and you also
feel so like because, eventhough they would talk about it,
they wouldn't go into thatdetail.
They were doing this once, likethat was understood.
It's like I'm doing this onceand one time, only for you to
get this on record, and I'mnever going to do it like this

(30:15):
again.
You know so yeah.

Thank you for sharing that, John.
You're up yes.

John Reed (30:24):
Yeah, incredibly, just like Jana's grandparents,
my mother's parents weresurvivors.
My grandfather was from Lodz,or Lodz with his family, but my
grandmother was actually born inBialystok, which is in the
northeast.

Of the famous bread and the producer from the
producers, the producers,exactly right.

John Reed (30:47):
Exactly right so and they didn't meet until actually
liberation.
And I mostly know more about mygrandfather's story than my
grandmother's, mainly alsobecause my grandmother just
wouldn't talk about it after thewar.
I actually never knew her.
She died in 1983, before I wasborn, sadly of cancer.

(31:08):
So I never got to hear hertestimony.
But my grandfather was alsointerviewed by the Shoah
Foundation, I think in 1997.

For those of you listening who don't know what
the Shoah Foundation is.
Someone asked me today what mydream job would be one of the
kids and I was like running theShoah Foundation.
So life goals I I told myhusband we can retire to la and
I'll run the show.
A foundation so if you areworking for the show foundation
listening, I'm gonna be yourfuture boss.
So after schindler's list wasproduced, steven spielberg

(31:39):
realized that a lot of survivorswe were losing them, so he
created a foundation which isnow run with usc, and they went
around interviewing thousands ofsurvivors and some of this
testimony is four or five hourslong and there's about 1500
interviews available online andthere are about 5 000 more, I
think, that are availablethrough institutions like

(32:00):
schools and museums and you canrequest to see them if you know,
if you have a family member,and a lot of the work I do in
school is involving testimoniesfrom these videos and a lot of
the books I'm reading involvestestimony from these videos,
because, as someone like me whois entering Holocaust
scholarship, after a lot ofthese people have since passed

(32:20):
away, this is really the onlyinformation I have for research.
So it's thank you to yourgrandparents for doing this,
because it's so informative andimportant for people who are
studying this and to use ineducational settings.
I'm sorry for interrupting you,but I just wanted to make sure
people knew what that was.

John Reed (32:35):
No, absolutely Definitely.
Yeah, my grandfather was theyoungest of four kids and they
lived in a very non-Jewish partof Lodz and they also were moved
into the Lodz ghetto when theNazis invaded.
And his oldest brother,actually my great uncle, managed
to actually escape to Russiawhen they invaded because he was

(32:59):
quite a bit older and healready had a wife and because
he was also actually a communist, so he was actually it was a
good place for him.
Yeah, it was a good place forhim.
I mean, he was still sent to awork camp in Russia, but he
managed to also survive,actually, and my grandfather was

(33:21):
essentially became thebreadwinner of his family inside
the ghetto.
He was about maybe 17 or 18when the war started and he
essentially started working as abuilder and construction man
for this person, who became hiskind of boss and mentor and who
ended up essentially being hisfirst savior, because he gave

(33:44):
him a trade to be able tosupport him and his family and
they were able to keep as muchfood as they possibly could, as
well as keeping them from thetransports a lot of the
transports Until when the ghettowas liquidated in August 1944,

(34:04):
they were taken to Birkenau inAuschwitz and my grandfather was
there for two weeks and didwatch his parents as well as his
Death, who sent people eitherto the right or to the left.

(34:30):
He was holding hisgrandfather's waist and they
sent his father to the left andmy grandfather went with him and
then Mengele stopped him,pulled him aside and said no, no
, no, you go work first, you'lldie anyway, but first you go
work, and that was the last timehe saw his father and he
actually managed to survive thelines for the gas chambers twice

(34:51):
Because, also luckily, hemanaged to do a lot of favors
for people in the ghetto.
He actually had quite a bit ofclout with his construction
business and until finally twopeople actually managed to wake
him up and get him out ofAuschwitz onto a work transport

(35:12):
that was taking people to workin a coal mine in Falkenberg in
Germany, where then he was thenmoved on to Bergen-Belsen and he
developed typhus there and wasvery close to death.
Typhus there and was very closeto death and then was obviously
liberated there.
And I know that my gran fromlittle I know about my

(35:34):
grandmother she and her sisteractually survived together.
She had a younger sister namedGita and she survived with her,
but her mother was murdered inTreblinka and her father was
murdered in Majdanek.

For those of you who saw A Royal Pain that's, the
camp that they go to isMajdanek.

John Reed (35:54):
Yes, and actually what was funny enough that you
mentioned A Royal Pain.
I had the most visceralreaction watching that, because
I don't know if you know aboutthe program March of the Living,
but I went on March of theliving when I was 17, uh and uh
to poland and when we and wewent to my donik, um, and now

(36:15):
that I'm supposed to that I hadthat knowledge and then seeing
that in a real pain actually wasincredibly, um, it affected me
physically in a way that Ireally didn't expect, because I
was just like, oh yes, Iremember I was there, what was?

so interesting about that is that scene after
they leave the camp and justeveryone's reaction.
And I feel like all of thosereactions are valid, because we
did a trip in 2018 where wespent three weeks in Germany and
Poland and visited Dachau andAuschwitz and I feel like just
that kind of like defeated.
You know, it's like how youfeel after that.

John Reed (36:51):
What do you?
Yeah, no, what do you do that?
Yeah, that's crazy.
But then they yeah, all of themmanaged to actually find their
way into Bergen-Belsen, and mygrandmother was incredibly lucky
.
She was actually able to work alot in the kitchens as well,
and she was also a very giftedseamstress, so she was actually
able to do very much easier jobs, so it wasn't as much of a toll

(37:14):
on her health, and when the DPcamp for Bergen-Belsen was
created, she was one of the fewthat was actually well enough to
help the soldiers, and sheactually helped nurse my
grandfather back to health, andthat's how they met oh, I love
this.

Yeah, and I love I was weird.

John Reed (37:33):
I love holocaust survivor love stories because I
feel like it's crazy, veryhopeful in a way, I mean that
that's the thing too.
Is that it like just you haveno work?

young people who'd'd been through literally
the worst thing that everhappened in the history of
humankind.

John Reed (37:49):
They were 21.

And then they meet other people when they've lost
their entire families.
And they're able to createtheir own families, like Jenna
was saying of this group ofsurvivors that they met.

John Reed (38:04):
The fact that they can even get to be that point
where they can trust anybodyagain or where they can love in
that way was just amazing.
So they actually left the DPcamp together after about three
months and moved to Frankfurt inGermany where they just worked
and tried to save enough moneyto leave the country.
And they had my auntie theirfirst daughter in Salzheim, and

(38:31):
then they managed at firstactually got visas to go to
Israel.
However, then that was actuallyat the time when my grandmother
was pregnant with my aunt, andthen they Israel then actually
rejected them because theyneeded fighters, they needed

(38:51):
people that could work and couldalso work in the army.
They couldn't have expectingmothers.

I feel like pregnant Israeli women can fight
in the army.
They're pretty tough.

John Reed (39:04):
Oh, 100%.
But then actually what happenedwas that a friend of my
grandmother's that also survived, who came from Bialystok, knew
that there was a BialystokCenter in Melbourne, australia,
that was actually able tosponsor them over, and so that's
where they decided to go.
They moved to Melbourne in 1950.

(39:27):
My grandfather always used tosay as well, he said he chose
that as well because he wantedto get as far away from Europe
as humanly possible, and thereis nowhere farther from anything
on earth than Australia, and mymother was born there in
Melbourne in 1955.
And they also went aboutrebuilding their lives.
Many of their close friendswere survivors and they also

(39:51):
kind of became surrogate auntiesand uncles and cousins to my
mom and my auntie.
All called them Auntie Lodja,auntie Henya, uncle Max.
They were all family even thoughthey weren't blood, and what my
mom and my auntie remember alot is that they had so many

(40:11):
parties in their house.
They grew up in a house full ofparties where they had their
friends over on Saturday nightsand they would go well into the
morning and then people would bedrunkenly hungover sleeping on
the couches and then mygrandfather would be down at six
in the morning making scrambledeggs for the people who had
stayed over, and my mom and myauntie would just come down just

(40:33):
being like what is going on.
So they really actually tooktheir youth back when they came.
They worked like dogs and theymade sure that they were really
good examples for my mom and myauntie, but they also they also
wanted to have fun, they wantedto drink, they wanted to party,
they wanted to enjoy the lifethat they had managed to live,

(40:56):
to save and they were incrediblyserious about that and
incredibly serious about my momand my auntie getting a good
education, because theireducation was obviously- Was
taken away from them.
Was taken away from them.
Yeah.

So you have a story that you told me about
your grandfather having analtercation with the infamous
Chaim Rumkowski, who wasbasically the leader of the
ghetto and a terrible, terribleperson.
You can Google him for moreinformation.
Someone in a class I'm takingwas kind of trying to be
sympathetic and I used the story.
I was like this is somethingthat happened.

(41:35):
He was not a good person and Iwas wondering if you'd share
that story.

John Reed (41:41):
Yeah, so one day when my grandfather was working in
the ghetto.
One day when my grandfather wasworking in the ghetto
overseeing a building of,actually apartment complexes
outside the ghetto, one of hisworkers actually came up to him
and said I was in Auschwitz.
And my grandfather said what'sAuschwitz?
I've never heard of that before.

(42:01):
And he was an escaped personthat managed to come back to
Lodz to get this work.
And he said they're gassingJews there.
This probably was maybe 42,late 42.
And my grandfather, you know,didn't know what to do.
So he went to his boss becausehe trusted him with his life,

(42:24):
and he said this man told methat there's a place called
Auschwitz where they're gassingJews.
And then his boss, gutmann,said let's take this to
Rumkowski, let's tell him.
So my grandfather and his bosswent to Chaim Rumkowski and they
said you know, we heard fromthis man that the reason also
why there are so manydeportations that have started

(42:46):
to happen in this ghetto isbecause they're taking people
away to gas Jews.
Rumkowski comes up from behindthe table, walks across in front
of my father and smacks himacross the face, essentially
stating that he said he was aliar.
You're lies.
This is not true you're.
How can you say such a thing ifyou, if you bring this up again

(43:08):
, you're going out of the ghetto?
And then all of a sudden, mygrandfather says he never saw a
man lose his cool so much thanhis boss, who then railed
against rumkoski saying how dareyou slap this young boy?
He is doing this, is doing this, and they essentially he got

(43:29):
rumkoski actually to calm downand let it go um, even as as so
much, at one point rumkoski, afew maybe weeks later, come over
with actually a little bit ofextra food and money to give to
him, to give to my grandfather.

My grandfather said I don't want it, wow for
those of you that don't know,this is a man who didn't even
make it to the gas chambers atauschwitz.
He was beaten by the soldercommando who recognized him
because of the things he haddone.
His famous.
Give us your child, give me,give us, your children, give
your children speech, because hewas basically told he had to
come up with I think it was 5000 people by the germans and he

(44:06):
basically was like he gave thiswhole speech about asking
parents to give their children,so that.
So this is, yeah, that's crazy.
That story is crazy.
Alright, shani, your turn.

I feel like we're saying about every story
it's crazy, it's anunprecedented event and I.

God willing something like this never
happens again, but it neverhappened before.
It is, in my opinion, the worstthing that has ever happened in
human history.
It is the most infamous crimein history and I've never heard
a story from someone who was asurvivor or refugee that I did
not think was crazy.

And I think so sophisticated and highly, cause
shit happens everywhere.
Excuse my language thecraziness, but it's not so
sophisticated and organized tothe umpteenth level.

Anyways, yeah, it's yes, yes, yes, yes.

All right.
So, um, my family'm gonna sayI'm gonna talk about two of my
grandparents because, um, mygrandfather from my mom's side
also went through the holocaust,but, uh, we don't know as much
on his story, unfortunately, um,and so in my show that I'm

(45:26):
doing as well, I'm focusing onmy grandfather from my father's
side, emmanuel Dagan, and mygrandmother from my mother's
side, lili Altea.
And so I'm going to start withmy grandma.
She was also the closest personto me growing up and her

(45:47):
interview was with Yad Vashem inIsrael, and so we do have her
testimony full.
That's the first time I saw hertestimony was when I was 12.
And in Israel we do what wecall Avodah Shor Hashim, which
is basically we're goingbackwards and learning about our

(46:08):
history, the tree, and so mysisters I have two sisters, they
already did that before me, butI've decided I'm going to go a
little bit deeper.
And that's when I found YadVashem testimonies and I kind of
learned a lot more and got moreinto the history of the family.

(46:31):
And my grandma's upbringing wasactually in Romania and was
beautiful.
They were very, very rich atthe time.
She was one of the mostbeautiful women.
Um, she was.
She was not even a woman, shewas 12, but, um, she was the

(46:55):
most beautiful one in the area,like, it was very known.
My grandma was just like, uh, Idon't even know how to say it
she was just like, breathtaking.
Um, even growing up like, aslike as a grandma, she was
breathtaking and she was a veryhard woman but a very warm woman

(47:18):
.
So she was hard on the exteriorbut very warm inside, and
especially to me because she was, um that I grew up with and so
my grandma was, was, um, sorry,my English is is a little bit
all over the place at this time.

Um, I speak one language.
I'm not going to judge youthough.
I have to learn German for mydoctorate, so that'll be fun.
I'll just start yelling at mydaughter in German.
Your brain, you literally losethis again, something I did not
believe, that my mother told me.
Your brain dies, your part ofyour brain dies completely, and
so my grandma had.

I would say she was lucky, and the fact that
I'm saying she was lucky isbecause the whole family
survived.
But it was not an easy time atall.
I mean, they ran away fromRomania Altogether.

(48:21):
They were split along the wayfor a few years and then they
found each other.
And once they found each othershe ran away with her brother,
bruno, who also was sick in themeantime, and she took care of
him.
It seemed like he's not goingto survive, and then eventually

(48:45):
they were in the hide, so shewas able to kind of take care of
him, as they were hidden andit's kind of unknown how they
survived, but they just ran fromone ghetto to another.
They were caught.
They ran away again.
They were caught again.
They ran away again Because shewas so pretty.

(49:06):
She managed to hide herJewishness, although she was
very Jewish growing up.
But she was able to have morefood because the soldiers the
Romanian soldiers and theGermans kind of fell in love
with her.
So she was really like lucky.

(49:28):
Lucky is a big word to say inthe Holocaust, but that was
something that worked for her,the fact that she was so pretty,
and so we keep talking abouthow pretty she was, because it
was basically how she survived.
And so after that, um, theydecided to stay in romania, um,

(49:54):
and they went back to the house.
The house was not theirs anymoreand it was ruined of course,
and everything was taken andfrom being very rich and have
this like very beautiful house,she kept talking about the piano
.
The piano was the grand pianoand the living room it was all
taken by Germans and nothingstayed and they become poor and

(50:21):
they kind of don't know how tolive.
And she met my grandfather atthe time and they stayed in
Romania for three more years andafter that they decided to move
, to move to Israel, or like totake a boat to Israel, and
that's how they survived andthey just started the family in

(50:44):
Israel, um, and so mygrandfather, uh, emmanuel Dagan,
he grew up in Odessa, um, andhe actually grew up the exact
opposite.
It was very, very Russian.
They call him the Russian, um,emmanuel and um, they were very

(51:08):
poor.
They actually split a housewith another family, a very
small house.
Imagine a New York studioapartment.
They needed two kind of.
But he's talking about his lifebefore the Holocaust a very
happy home.
The Holocaust, a very happyhome, very warm, lots of food on

(51:34):
the table, although they werenot very able.
I mean, his father kept ongoing to work and worked really
hard and they had potatoes allthe time and it was kind of a he
remembers it very, very happytime, although it was very poor.
And so the bombing kind ofcaught him in the middle of camp

(52:00):
.
He was a nine-year-old, and thereason why I say the bombing is
because it just started.
Bombs just fell, started tofall and it was just a crazy
like sudden behavior.
So he didn't really know whatto do and he ran home and his

(52:24):
parents didn't believe thatsomething like the Holocaust can
happen.
They heard things.
They heard that it started inRomania, it started in Germany.
Jews are being killed and beingtaken out of the house.
But his parents didn't believethat someone will do something
like that and and they rememberthat I don't remember exactly

(52:51):
the year, but I think it was1930.
There were a few Germans thatlived nearby and they were
friends with them, so theycouldn't really imagine a world
where those kind of people thatthey're friends with will become
their enemies.
So my grandfather, nine yearsold, said I think we need to run

(53:15):
away.
And his parents said no, no, no, we're going to stay.
They're going to vouch for usbecause you know they're friends
.
And that was the point also inthe show that he's deciding to
leave the house and his mom says, okay, you can run away, just

(53:35):
in case, kind of find, find aplace to hide and he just take.
He took his backpack and hejust left a nine-year-old just
walked away.
So, um, after that he found outthat his parents were killed,
um, and it was just, uh, youknow, he felt guilty that he

(53:57):
didn't stay and, like, make themcome with him a nine-year-old.
So that's just a crazy, crazy.
After that he just ran from oneplace to another and he was
caught a few times being takento working camps.
But every time he was taken toa camp he managed to run away.

(54:23):
He was very thin at the time sohe jumped in between the I
don't know what the name of it,but they were on the train.

they had those sticks the bars on the windows.
Thank, you.
I've heard stories of peoplesqueezing through the bars on
the windows or people throwingtheir children out of the
windows from the trains, whichis also crazy.
So he threw himself out of thebars and the windows, or people
throwing their children out ofthe windows from the trains,
which is also crazy.

So he threw himself out of the bars in
between the bars because it wasso thin.
He said he's kind of when wewere a little older.
He never spoke about it, butthen we heard it during the
testimony.
So actually he changed hisstory three times, telling us
because it was so horrible.

(55:10):
The time that we actually foundout what really happened was
when he told the story to YadVashem, and we heard it after he
passed the real story.
So the stories that we wroteabout him during our Avodah Chor
Hashim at the age of 12, whenwe learned about the history,

(55:32):
were not true.
It was all his stories in areally nice way being told.
So, yeah, he just jumped fromthe train, he ran away again, he
, he worked for people to hidehis um, jewish background and he

(55:54):
said he was just, you know, alonely boy who, um, doesn't have
a family.
It was quite, quite crazy, um.
But the really interestingstory is that he joined the
partisans eventually, when hewas 11.
And that's kind of what savedhim.

(56:15):
So he was with the partisans,he was a soldier at 11 years old
and they took care of him andput him into the Silvino house,
which is a whole story as itsown.
Silvino children is a verythere's a book about it, there's

(56:37):
also a movie being done andit's basically refers to
approximately like 810 childrenJewish children that were taken
to Israel after that.
So it's a very interestingstory and there are 810 stories

(57:00):
there, so I suggest you go andread about it.
But that's what saved him andhe got to Israel and in Israel
he was a very happy boy but acrazy one.
So everyone kept calling himEmmanuel Abusi, which is the
Russian Emmanuel, because hedidn't know a word in in Hebrew,

(57:23):
but he studied on its own andand his level of Hebrew was
probably one of the highestlevels because he studied from
Torah and he just wanted to bethe best, know the best, and he
wanted to stop speaking Russian.
He didn't want to have anyconnection to his past, he

(57:44):
wanted to black it completely,so he only spoke Hebrew, very,
very bad Hebrew, but he spokeonly Hebrew and so that's how he
kind of learned and hecompletely didn't want to
remember anything that happened,and he was very quiet.

(58:05):
When I was born I just rememberthat he barely spoke in, but
you can see behind his eyes thelove, and you know everything he
wanted to say.
He just gave big hugs.
You knew how he felt, you know.
So yeah, that's basically thestory.

Well, thank you all so much for sharing that.
I want to ask, because we hadmentioned intergenerational
trauma your parents were all 2Gs, so do you think your parents
were affected by what happenedto their parents and did that
affect how they raised you?
John's grinning.

I love how we're both laughing at that, because
if we don't laugh, we cry.
But that's to be Jewish, thatis to be Jewish.

And that's why we make great comedians, because if
we don't joke about things, wehave to think about it, and then
we cry.
That's just culturally what wedo.

John Reed (59:00):
Oh, yeah, for sure, yeah, I definitely.
What's really interesting,though, is that I think, at
least from what my mom told me,she was very much.
She was very sort of outspoken,very much a go-getter, was kind
of seen as a little bit of ayou know, she was a rebel and a
hippie and she, you know,marched in the streets against

(59:20):
Vietnam, and I think she wasincredible.
She was, you know, she was theactivist of the family, was
incredible.
She was the activist of thefamily.
But I had noticed that as me andmy sister have come up and
gotten older, and particularly,I think, she's been getting so
much more scared in the last fewyears, because I think she

(59:42):
always really thought that she,that, you know, we'll never
experience such hate again, andmy papa would always tell her
history repeats itself all thetime, and she, I think, yeah,

(01:00:16):
fears for me and my sister'ssafety sometimes, even if it's
actually not probably based infact.
But I think, yeah, there'sdefinitely a feeling of, but I
think, yeah, there's definitelya feeling of.

(01:00:37):
You know, we have a mark on ourback, always in some form, and
you know I always used to sortof joke that she would see
anti-Semitism everywhere, evenwhen there wasn't there.
And now I don't know if I agreewith myself anymore.

Nicole Kelly (01:00:48):
That's what I was with with my mom and I feel like
I've told this story.
I tell the story like everyepisode is I.
One of my survival jobs in mytwenties is I worked at white
house, black market, theclothing store, and one of the
women who worked there was likethis retired woman who her
husband had passed away and sheshe was Jewish and we were
talking and she said I volunteerwith the ADL and I said, oh,

(01:01:08):
what's that?
And she explained that it's anorganization that studies and
fights anti-Semitism and I said,well, why do we need that?
Why is that necessary in 2009or whatever year it was?
And I was just at the ADLconference at the Javits Center
and I'm like, yep, we needpeople fighting anti-Semitism.
So I think we all you know welive in a post-october 7th world
and, as people who grew uphearing about the holocaust and

(01:01:31):
our parents experiencedantisemitism.

Jana Krumholtz (01:01:32):
It's really scary yeah, yeah, I I am.
I am kind of, uh, I think Idon't know, I don't know if I
can, whatever, if I'm weird ornot or if it's rare, but I have,
like I dove in deep to tointergenerational trauma and
like healing it in my own ways,from like I think I've been
subconsciously doing it eversince I got out of my house.

(01:01:55):
Um, I think we all have someextent, but like very
consciously doing it from theages of like 25 till now, um,
like on a hungry, desperatesearch, like spending every
dollar I've ever made, on likebody work and breath work and
acupuncture, and you know umreading the books and talking,
trying my my darndest tounderstand it.

(01:02:17):
So I have spent a lot of timeand I think I, I it was like an
obsession of mine and I'm stillfiguring it out, um, and also
know that I like there's nothingI don't need to figure it out,
and you know you can only dowhat you can do.
But I guess the biggest eyeopening things for me was like

(01:02:37):
going to therapy and then justbecoming aware of the anxiety
that lived in my body and thefear that lived in my body on
such a deep level when I hadn'tI haven't like I had a, I had a
blessed life, like I grew upreally loved and beautifully,
but there was such a deep levelof of pain and fear in my body

(01:03:00):
that came out by me running andlike dating terrible people and
making terrible decisions andthen when I, you know, stopped
to deal with it.
So for me it was like physicalailments would come out, like I
had IBS from the age of 10 untilI went to therapy and
acupuncture and then it wentaway when I like learned how to
calm my nervous system down andthen I like had, you know

(01:03:24):
whether it's like a neck spasmor like you know so, my body
maybe being a dancer, but mybody really was my way in for
like what, my what is all withinme.
And it's such a personaljourney and I won't take because
I can talk about it trulyforever, but it's something I
like avidly, I'm seeking tounderstand all the time, and
sometimes to a fault, but I, youknow my shows about it and it's

(01:03:49):
, I think it's kind of thepurpose of my, one of the
purposes of my life, but just inwhat I love to do, and how that
was, you know, not um.
So the title of my show is sixmillion Jews didn't die for you
too.
Dot dot, dot Um.
And it's something mygrandmother said to me all the
time and it it was, you know, ajoke.

(01:04:09):
But, and I never, I neverunderstood the gravity of it.
But I think my body did so likethe first time.
I remember her saying it waswhen I was like six or seven,
and she'd say, like six millionJews didn't die for you to break
your arm on the monkey bars,you know, like it was just this
term that she'd throw out fromfear and this crazy
responsibility to live a safe,perfect life because we get to

(01:04:32):
live.
So you know.
And then it came out in highschool when I had a Spanish
boyfriend she would.
She said six million Jewsdidn't die for you to date a
Spaniard.
And then she did say to me oneday at dinner six million Jews
didn't die for you to be adancer.
And it it was.
It was like an off the cuffthing, but that you know I
carried it with me and it it wasinternally doing what it did.

(01:04:54):
So for me particularly, it waskind of my way.
My art and intergenerationaltrauma are intertwined and, um,
I'm so great.
It's like such a weird thing tobe grateful for now.
But I understand.
I understand it on so manydifferent levels now as best I
can.
And my mother and I, mygrandmother, passed away when I
was 18.

(01:05:15):
So a lot started to changebecause she really had the
stronghold on the family and shewas also the best, and we were
also so close and I was born onher birthday and she was.
I was her favorite, you know,like so many wonderful memories
with her too.
But me and my mother have beenable to have conversations where
my mom said to me like Jan, Iwould never have been able to
let you dance in that way whileshe was alive.

(01:05:39):
Like my mother's life wasdevoted to what my grandmother
wanted for her, and so you know,even as simple as like the
clothing she'd wear.
So we I'm very grateful that mymom is capable of evolving and
opening up, because we've hadsome very healing conversations
around what has now beenpossible.
Um, but it, I would say it hasaffected every ounce of the way

(01:06:04):
I grew up, but specificallybecause my mother chose to never
leave her parents, we grew up10 minutes away from them.
We saw them five times.
You know, like, and there is somuch gorgeousness that came
from like.
I want, you want to sayintergenerational, like magic
you know is also there.
But for me particularly, thathas been become like my life's

(01:06:25):
work to try to unravel, mainlyjust so I can keep transforming
it, because that's what we alldeserve for them to like the
ones who didn't get to live freewithin their own beings.

It's a lot of pressure, I think, not coming
from this as a 3D, but I thinkjust being a Jewish person in
general is a lot of pressurebecause I think we carry
thousands of years of people whogot away, people who dealt with
insane conditions and a lot ofpeople I know.

(01:06:58):
You know they're expected toadhere to a higher standard and
that's a lot of pressure.

Shany Dagan-Kerem (01:07:04):
Yeah.

How about you, Shani?

how about you , shani?
Yes, 100 percent.
Um, yeah, I agree with, witheveryone.
I mean, we all have that goingthrough the generations, but I
feel like we felt it mostlyaround the table when my grandma
, for example.
She kept like you have tofinish your plate, and so,
because they didn't have a lotto eat, obviously you have to

(01:07:38):
finish your plate, and so my momkept saying you have to finish
your plate.
And my mom is a person who, ifshe's going to hear this one,
she's going to kill me.
I know, I'm nervous.

John Reed (01:07:52):
Now, you're fine, you're fine it's my mom doesn't
listen to my podcast.

I literally told her last night I am like
practicing, my jewish mom goes.
I was like it's fine, mom, I'mreally, I know, I'm really.
She laughed.
I was like I know, I'm reallyfunny.
You'd know that if you listento my podcast, I have more
listeners in frankfurt, germany,than in the, the house that I
up in, which is a fact that I orno, no, it's I have more
listeners on some random Islandin the Pacific ocean than more
people than, than more than thanpeople who live in the house

(01:08:19):
that I grew up in and my mom's,like.

John Reed (01:08:20):
I can't.

I don't figure out how to do it.
I was like, well, this has beengoing for a year and a half and
I can, yeah.

John Reed (01:08:26):
Here's the link.
Yes, I know.

Here's the information, if you would like
to listen, it's fine, like I,but okay, so go ahead and say
what you're gonna say.
So, so, yeah.
So I wanted to say that, um, mymom can go like one meal.
My, my sister is always madabout it, but she can go one
meal without having somethingfor everyone.

(01:08:50):
So, for example, it's Passovercoming right, and so my sister
is about to host, for the firsttime, the whole family.
Unfortunately, we're not goingto be there, but my mom is
really on her ass about havingtofu and like she doesn't need

(01:09:11):
tofu.
She doesn't need it.
But my other sister eats tofuand she knows that her kids
really like tofu.
But there's no Passover koshertofu and my sister needs
everything to be kosher forPassover, and so we have a real
big problem now because my momis like how are we going to go

(01:09:34):
through Passover without havingtofu for the kids and for my
other sister.

This is the question the Jews have been
asking for thousands of yearshow do you do Passover without
tofu?

It's so important because it's not like
she eats salads, potatoes,chicken, everything else that
they're going to have there, andI mean she has to have the tofu
as well, and so that's kind ofour story with every meal, like
everyone needs to haveeverything, and if she doesn't

(01:10:05):
have something that she knowssomeone likes she's really
frustrated about it.
And like we always have chickenand fish and like all the
proteins.
So you will make sure thatshe's going to make sure that
you have everything you wantedand more, and you're going to
have to finish your plate.
So there's always too much, andI think that's because they

(01:10:29):
didn't have enough and it wentthrough this generation to pass
to us.
So that's one thing around thetable.
And then there's another thingthat she always wanted us to be
together in everything, andeverything always has to be
positive and happy, andeverything always has to be
positive and happy.

(01:10:49):
And if it's not positive andhappy, then it's like she's
taking it really personally, andso I feel like that comes from
they didn't have everyonetogether all the time.
They lost people.
We have to be together all thetime.
We have to be happy, because weneed to be thankful for being

(01:11:12):
alive, which I agree, but it'salso impossible to be happy all
the time my mother was five whenher sister died.

Her sister was, I think 11 or 12 and she has this
like obsession with me and mysister getting along yeah.
Yeah, she's obsessed with it,like you're only going to have
each other when we're gone, blah, blah, blah, because it's like
she lost this.
So I can't imagine goingthrough losing your entire

(01:11:44):
family.
It's just like.
Obviously my life experience isvery different, like my family
story, but it's just sointeresting how these things
from your childhood, kind of youknow, can affect your
great-grandchildren.
Oh, absolutely.

And I feel it on me now.
I mean I have the same problem.
I say that I need everything toalways be perfect and it's
impossible for everything toalways be perfect, and it's
impossible for everything toalways be perfect.
And my husband is trying totell me that he's like it's okay
not to have everything asperfect as you think it should

(01:12:20):
be, and so I can feel it goingthrough the generations.
My mom, I'm taking it now.

I'm sure that my daughter will eventually
eventually no, and it's evenlike my own childhood trauma,
like my husband's always likedon't put your childhood trauma
on our daughter.

It's hard not to like it'll be there regardless,
yeah and, like we're in a timewhere we're all hyper aware of
it, it's become we're allowed totalk about it and see it and
like we've become so privilegedand comfortable in our lives we
have the time and the luxury totalk about it all.
So it's a, it's the thing now,but it is impossible and I can't

(01:12:59):
heal it all.
We can't heal it all, but I do.
I am very passionate about if,if and when you can have the
privilege to become aware, like,what are you going to do about
it?
And you really, and it's apersonal journey of and and and
so I think that brings us to allof our projects.
Like I I don't want to speakfor you guys, but, um, if I can

(01:13:20):
transform it in myself, that's,that's my, that's the only if I,
if I care to, that's myresponsibility.
And to me, what transforminglooks like is finding out who I
really am underneath all of itand living as authentically as I
can as me, with the beautiful,everything I've learned.

(01:13:43):
But like, who am I?
And I just think that's kind ofan across the board human thing
and I just think that's kind ofan across-the-board human thing
.

John Reed (01:13:59):
You know from that and also actually from your
mom's sister's story is againnot to make it about me and my
personal trauma, but I also didlose my dad when I was quite
young and I feel like, funnilyenough, ever since then there
has been this need thateverything needs to be, sort of.
I feel like since then Ideveloped an insane amount of
impatience, essentially tryingto get as much done as possible,

(01:14:20):
and I think that's probablyalso true of you know, my mother
was an incredible overachieverand I think there is something
to that.
When you have experiences orhave intergenerational traumas,
particularly with death and theidea of spending as much time as

(01:14:40):
possible, you're trying to makeevery moment count.
You don't want to waste anysort of moment, but what that
also can mean is that you justrun yourself into the ground.
And so I have, I guess, thisconstant ticking time.
You know ticking clock in myhead trying to get shit done.

(01:15:00):
Sorry to swear, but like asmuch as I can, because you know
what happens when it's all gone,you know.

And the underlying thing, I think, is
grief like for all humanity butespecially for our, our tribe,
you know this.
it's like when did they grieve?
Did they grieve?
When did our parents grieveabout it?
When have we grieved about like?
And there's this running fromthe present that I felt in my
you know, it was like how can weobsess about the food and the
wait?
Why aren't you all happy?

(01:15:28):
And like what you were saying,shani, like how do we just?
We're here, we're here, we haveto be happy.
But then there's some kind ofthere's so much pain in what
happened.

John Reed (01:15:36):
Yeah.

I want to say awareness.
I mean lack of awareness.

Yeah.

We'd never talked about it, like in the.

Like what actually happened and how they
actually felt and right.
So you know this big thing butit's never been like you know.

I also want to add oh yeah, sorry, sorry,
nicole.
I want to add that in ourhousehold, for example, therapy
was not a thing.

It's like Not in mine either.
Yeah.

So I feel like I hear it in a lot of
Jewish houses.
I was in a Jewish.
You don't need therapy.

I was in a mom's group through the JCC and I said
something like well, I talkedabout my psychiatrist.
She's like you told them you goto a psychiatrist.
I was like this is a.
Jewish mom's group in the UpperWest Side, Like we're all
seeing psychiatrists.
Like it's such a generationalshame with the therapy and I'm
like we're all in therapy.

We all need to be in therapy.
They were so scared.
They were just so scared.
When I started going they wereso they were like why Are you
just talking about me?
And I was like, well, yeah.

John Reed (01:16:41):
They always want to know if you're talking about
them?

Yes, I am talking about you.

John Reed (01:16:44):
Yes, I am.

And then my mom started saying things like just
blame me, just blame me foreverything.
Anyway, it's fine, just goahead and blame me.

John Reed (01:16:51):
Stop going, I will feel better if you blame me and
stop going.

I also feel, Shany, that it is so.
Culturally, israel and Americacould probably not be more
different.
The difference, too, about itall.
For you, growing up in Israel,in a Holocaust survivor home, of
course, I could just imagine itbeing more of a just get the
thing done Like not I don't wantto say warrior mentality, but

(01:17:17):
like you're in Israel also,you're not in America.
It's a different, you know.

Yeah, yeah, I I agree and I think that I'm
saying it as, unfortunately, Ithink that we, we are so used to
being in such a crazyatmosphere, yeah Like but it's
like oh, it's the norm.
You know, I went to the army.
It's like it was it's part,it's part of the norm.

(01:17:43):
And I would even say like whenI went back to during COVID time
, say like when I went back toduring COVID times and that
there was all type of warstarting, obviously, but there
were some, some bombing and weneeded to run to the shelter and
I freaked out because I haven'tbeen for a while under that

(01:18:06):
normal situation.
So my husband was like oh, it'sfine, we have some time.
I was like what do you mean?
It's fine, we have some time.
I was like what do you mean?
It's fine.
Like I took the whole house.
I was like I need to takecookies with me.
And he's like why are youtaking the cookies?
I was like I don't know ifsomeone will you know, the sugar
level will drop because they'renervous.
And he's like it's fine, it'slike two minutes you're in the

(01:18:27):
like under um in the room andthen you're coming back and I'm
like what I'm?

sorry, did you say two minutes?

yeah, you're like two minutes, so I need to
like run.
I was just like I freaked outand then, as we kept going
through the weeks and it kepthappening, I was getting chill
about it as well.
I was like, oh okay, we have,we have two minutes, that's like
, that's so long.

That's how long you go I, because I've never
been to.
I know I've never been toisrael and I'm ashamed to admit
that.
Um, but is that how long youwhen there's like it?

depends.
It depends where you are in thecountry.
So, like, some areas you needto, you have five minutes to go
in, some places you have 10seconds, some places you have
two minutes.
Two minutes is is normal forlike around tel aviv, for
example.
Um, it depends where you hearit from as well.
Like, is that coming from thegaza area or is it coming from

(01:19:23):
the northern area?
Um, so yeah, but you see, likeit was, I thought it was crazy
how normal people felt about it.
Like okay, we have to do it,but like it's fine, like you'll
be there for a few minutes 10minutes and then you're out
again and you're like how do youjust keep on going with your
life right now?

you know, I think people are very adaptable and
something, because I was justreading this chapter about
transit camps and I think thequote was we just got used to it
talking about people dying andI think that people to get
through things, they just getused to things and it becomes a

(01:20:06):
normal.
Yeah get used to things and itbecomes a normal.
Yeah, thank you so much forlistening to part one of my
two-part interview with the 3GCollective.
So we have some excitinginterviews, as well as
informational episodes coming upin the next few weeks, so be
sure that you're subscribing andalso follow me on Instagram and
my little baby TikTok.

(01:20:27):
I've been posting a lot morevideos, which I'm very excited
about.
I'm excited to see what therest of the year brings.
This is Nicole Kelly, and thishas been Shebrew in the City.

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