Darrel Anne Strelitz
Darrel Anne Strelitz came from what she described as an unusual family. Her father's family emigrated from Lithuania to South Africa, escaping poverty and persecution, and his generation was the first to gain an education. Her father, born in South Africa in 1911, became a well-known dentist, magician, amateur actor, and tireless volunteer who developed a method of teaching blind people to play ball and helped build a clubhouse for the blind. Her mother came from a more aristocratic, atheist family; her maternal grandfather was a doctor of law from Tallinn who spent time in solitary confinement, and her grandmother had studied dentistry in St. Petersburg. Political tensions ran through the family, particularly over an uncle connected to anti-apartheid activists, which created lasting rifts.
Darrel earned a master's degree in psychology and became an associate professor for ten years, working at the center of the liberation movement's academic world. Following the 1976 riots and out of concern for raising her children amid such turmoil, she and her husband David decided to leave. Not wanting to trade one war zone for another, they chose Dallas rather than Israel. In 1977, after a long sea journey by ship to London and then aboard the QE2 to New York, Darrel arrived in Dallas during a difficult and lonely adjustment, finding little welcome and missing the family and community she had left behind. Her three children were her greatest source of joy during those early years.
About two years after arriving, Darrel read about a new program serving children in foster care, run by the National Council of Jewish Women, and her life took off. She researched children's backgrounds and advocated for them in court, eventually becoming a vice president and then president of NCJW. Through this work she learned about many communities across Dallas and became deeply Americanized. She was later hired as executive director of the Dallas chapter of the American Jewish Committee, where she worked for about twenty years and where Israel became central to her life. A member over the years of Shearith Israel and Temple Emanu-El, she raised three children, Philippa, Peter, and Robin, and delighted in her grandchildren living nearby. Honored with the Hannah G. Solomon Award and other recognitions, she felt she had both received much and given back through her immigration experience.
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Full Transcript
today is Tuesday September the 2nd 2014 and I'm John Grant and I'm really happy to be interviewed on Australis in a beautiful home in Dallas Texas Darryl talk about what you know about when and why your family originally emigrated to South Africa and what can you share about their lives and their early years in South Africa my father's family came from the zoo and they brought out the family one by one by one they were very poor and not very educated and his generation was the first generation to have an education but they came out of their time to escape the problems and the typical Lithuanian Jewish history I've been very poor very persecuted and he didn't only bring out his wife everybody brought up brothers and sisters and we're on a whole lot of family and my dad was actually born in South Africa in 1911 yeah and your mother said well mother comes from a different family from a kind of aristocratic family in a way my grandfather came from Tallinn in Estonia and he was a doctor of law and my grandmother came from st.
Petersburg and she studied to be a dentist because there was only one of the few professions opened to Jewish woman and she never practice dentistry that and the story was that she could take out your tongue so she put the string but a charming story about them like to tell my cat my grandkids where my grandfather wants to write his final exams he had to be a married man weren't married but a very liberal I'm sure they were living together but he had to be married man so they went to the rammer on Shabbat and my grandmother didn't have a veil and the grandma that
there were the rebels one took off off the white tablecloth and put it on my grandma mother's head and that's how they were married yeah but so they came out very differently in my grandfather my grandmother's father was already from Russia in South Africa quite a number of generations going back yes they'd come stated in Sweden for a while in it Sweden win women came into power my grandfather was a confinement for two years and it was very liberal he was an atheist on my mother's side were atheist till they died we had nothing to do with the synagogue on the show where is my
grand mother on my father's side was a very religious and observant woman interesting so tell us about your own life growing up in South Africa you had family grandparents they were fortunate your family your schooling and what was particularly my dad was a dentist and we never worked Richard Webber we didn't think of life in terms of money the way we do think about it here and I went to banana pop to have the primary school and go to a public school and the friends with I had actually from the nursery school saw my friends today some of them up nice and someone's a few
months old so that's a long time but we had a bit of difficulty in our family and its shadow it shattered our lives continue to this day in a way was that my mother's sister was married to the Communists they called them communists and he was very friendly with Joe Slovo and Ron fish and one of them and it was actually arrested they were all arrested one rewarding to a.m. and at nine o'clock the lawyer said mckendree's got them out and my uncle escaped to London it was my aunt came back to see their parents were matrices on the plane in return to London but my father didn't approve of this at all phones were bugged they'd call us and say you know your car was seen at my arms and everything so there was a kind of a rift in the family and it's only since I moved here and my one cousin moved to Washington reached after her and we've now become friendly but for many years there was a lot of no talking in the
long time yeah Daryl win and where were your children born all mad sweet children born in South Africa okay so tell us about how and why you made the decision to leave South Africa well when I was in South Africa I've graduated with the master's degree I had a psychology degree at the end and I had an honours degree and then I had a master's degree laude in psychology and I became an associate professor but for ten years the psychology which was a very center of the core of what was going on in the liberation movement so we were very uh perdus and then in
1976 there were the riots the big riot and of course I remembered shock for very well because of my uncle and all that's very politically aware and we decided that we didn't think it was right to bring up our children in South Africa we did not want to go to Israel but I didn't want my kids to go to the army I wasn't leaving one war zone for another that's why we decided to come here so once the decision to leave had been made how did you feel you know it's totally naive about it totally naive I was working I treat children and a very
active life and David came out to America to look around and see I didn't fly at the time I had a fear of flying so he picked Dallas which I have to say I don't think I would have picked was wonderful they said that education was good and there was an easy City to go around so he picked death and I just kind of went along with it I was very naive I was very involved in my own life and the kids lives and I just kind of was a wife and did what I had to do but I have to tell my grandchildren hope
you don't mind it's not too long but so I took the train from Johannesburg to Cape Town a friend of mine came with me the three children I went onto the transport castle took us two weeks to get to London and when we were in London we had lots of friends there in family we saw them and then we left England on the qe2 and came to New York I was so miserable it was so seasick I was in assisting it was not a pleasure vacation for me and we're out in New York on the day of the blackout and everything was shut down guess
you couldn't get a care the hotels you couldn't go up the elevators or the escalators and everything so David said look I don't care what happens I'm going to Dallas and I'm flying with the children and you could decide what to do so other desperation are fluid them on our set separately from them because I thought if I had a breakdown I didn't want them to see and that's how we flew into Dallas played one match in July's theatre summer now you were part of an early way from South Africa near Franklin you came here so and what way were others helpful when you first
arrived and how welcoming did you find the dentist community as a new immigrant I didn't find anybody very welcoming of the South Africans and not all American there were a few Americans who are made to carpool and become very good friends but it was a very lonely time I haven't traveled in that time all the time it was called every week I was all alone with the three children and I remember I had some news I wanted to try I had nobody to call it was very lonely for me and it was a very difficult adjustment and do what challenges did you have terms of
how things were different here from the way they had been in South Africa well you know in the beginning and I'm sorry about it now was very critical of everything tended to be a bit critical but there wasn't the family laughs we didn't see all the people we must seeing all the people we're Island we didn't even see people of color you know it was my friend America and I don't know it wasn't what I had expected America to be the weather of course you came in July it was very hot and something I couldn't get used to so I had a very difficult time
thank God I had the children that was my only real source of joy and what year did you come whatever 1977 and Daryl what kind of work have you done and when you came here did you work in wasn't the same or different from what he didn't South Africa well in South Africa was at the University and I worked full-time so I had a wonderful job for 10 years which I loved and I missed terribly but I had three little kids no family nobody I couldn't get my head round getting a babysitter for their kids so I didn't work I decided not to work because
I was thinking of going back to work but it was too difficult and I stayed home with the children and after about two years one day I read in the newspaper about a new program that was starting working with children in foster care and and after that my life took off tell us about what happened well I didn't know anybody and I'm amazement I did it when I look back but it was a program working with children whose parental rights had been stripped away from yeah yeah and they were in the foster care system and a new law had just been passed the children were
no longer to live in foster care for more than six months every if it was to be made to put them into permanent care and get them families and this was seed money for this program had been given to the National Council of Jewish woman it were three cities in America Seattle up in Jacksonville Florida and Dallas so I went downtown which was a feat in itself for me in those days and I loved the program and we were given children and we had to research their backgrounds talk to them social workers we had to go to court and up here before I had to
be sworn in to the program and then we had to go to court and appear on behalf of the children and explore all possible avenues for them being moved out of foster care and of course the program was run by a National Council of Jewish women amid all the top people in NCJ Avenue and that's how I made my life and my social life and my friendships from that and you became very involved in national became very involved volunteered a lot of stuff I became vice president of community service and vice president of administration and I became president in this and ten years being here
which was really fantastic was president for two years and through National Council of Jewish women I got an education in what it means to be an American being a volunteer and I learned everything I learned all about the places in South Dallas and West Allis in East I learned about the different communities I worked with the Vietnamese and Cambodians I worked with the Latino community I worked with the african-american community I worked in the deepest pockets of poverty and I saw a different America to the America would have seen it I was just living here and I really became Americanized in a way it separated
me from the South African community and all my friends became Americans and move on T and we were all very active ability I used to go to Washington and to Austin to do advocacy work give testimony and that was my last it was a wonderful wonderful life and being a volunteer course I could stop at three o'clock or four o'clock when the kids came home boys they were sick or something like that there was a job I worked very very hard and I learned a tremendous amount but then you also did work who you were employed yes well we're not finished when I completed my
presidency I was approached by the dance chapter of the American Jewish Committee and they asked me to apply for the job of executive director where they had a vacancy and I did apply and somebody flew down from New York to interview me and he told me afterwards that he told the committee not to employ me that I was too soft and I couldn't make it in the professional world but the lay people wanted me very badly because I've been a pretty good president of NC JW and so I was employed and I worked there for 20 years and checked expanded and did very well and
I worked in and I retired and there are what about South African Jewish cultural traditions and what kind of Jewish life did you give your children that they go to Jewish schools no there were no Jewish day schools and I think it was just shortly after we came that the new South Africans came and started Allen Solomon Schechter but my kids went to the JCC pre-screen and then Philip and Peter went to the public school where we lived and I was just horrified horrified by the education and applied for Peter to go to the st. marks in second grade but it's very difficult to get into in second grade and he got in and then when full of her finished 4th grade she went to green hill and then Robin started Green Hill in first grade so my kids actually got a fantastic information but even though we were in Richardson Public Schools I thought the education was very bad and didn't want the kids I thought I've come all this way for the children and for them now not to get ahead would be a terrible thing and at that time there were no South Africans in the private schools so again my Americanization
continued and the chasm between me and the South African community you know there was a little gap between us and that will continue and Jewish cultural traditions in your family okay I was brought up reformed and I'm one of the few South Africans who perform all the docs his grandfather was a Rob he didn't like Shirley at all it's wrong for me you would never have gone but we first joined furniture savers to ferret Israel because our good friends were there and then after a while that was just not good I didn't like that so we went to share it Israel so Peter and Philip
er worm vomits for the territory Israel and Robin as Cherith Israel but as soon as the kids finished the time for sure I went to Temple emanu-el which was much more of a spiritual home to me more like when I come from the other thing that I didn't do now I'm sorry about it now go to Sunday school other Sunday school was a fast the kids learn nothing and it was a waste of time and um found a private teacher and the children would choose at home until they had their Bar Mitzvahs and I'm sorry about that now because they don't have that familiarity with
the Shirelles growing up you know they only knew them from the High Holy Days and we you said every Friday night we used to laugh the candles have survived on that but that we didn't actually participate in and how important with Israel to you when you were growing up okay and today how do you feel about it well when I was with NC JW it was not a big focus of my life but at the American Jewish Committee it became a very big focus of my life and it was a whole new learning curve in fact I went on a project interchange where I took
our freshman senator possessions to Israel I went with all the senators and congressmen and I went all about Israel through American Jewish community through conference calls getting speakers going to Israel and it became very important to my life and there are what traditions rooted in your South African Jewish heritage do you see your children continuing today sad to say very little my eldest granddaughters just had a bat mitzvah and her brother's going to have and she married an ostrich boy from Chicago but they don't do the front enhance the way we do it and they don't have that Jewish cut that we had they just
don't have it they live in Austin and most of their friends are not Jewish my son married a girl a lovely girl who's not Jewish and they've got twins and I'll sit her the other day because she was going to church I was so I was the other weekend I said Allison do you think the boys will have a Bar Mitzvah like even May and she said well it's up to their dad he wants to take them to shul that's fine with me but sadly I don't think my son is gonna do it and then my youngest daughter married a Jewish boy with a solid
Jewish background and they will be solid Jewish once you were here came to Dallas did you arrange for friends or extended family to join you and who came and when and when and where did they come to we were very isolated first of all I didn't flash I didn't go home I could only make short little flats our parents used to come and say about three months of the year which was pretty traumatic I have to say looking back on it I mean nobody would have parents say three months a year in these days and they they did not push me to assimilate and they
didn't say will babysit to end you got out from heaven they wrote those kind of people we had to entertain them and look after them so those visits were rather difficult for me but my sister came after I've been here for 10 years and she emigrated with her husband and two children and she had a baby here so I'm lucky enough to have a sister here and tell us more about your family since immigrating here how has how does have grown and how many young grandchildren do you have where are they all living well my three children Philippa Peter and Robin all living ours they're
all married Philip has two children Eva made even a stirlitz block and Jude strengths block and Peter married Alison and they have twins Jake and miles Robyn has my little boy Harlem three little boys Jacob Mars and Harlem or Sonic first grade this year so they're getting big but it's very nice to have them in one city and for them to have each other which is a very nice thing and the cousins know each other and are growing out together and do to have any family in South Africa I have one cousin and her mother who was married to my uncle she's in her 90s
and I've been there often in business with them so you have been back to many many times in the last society flying again right and words later on how do you feel about your but that's going back you notice change I love South Africa people tell me they frighten that people are pretty um am i frightened at all in South Africa guard at night my friend and our who I say within a very closer we walk at night to the shopportunity cigarette I mean can you believe it she was very liberal and worked for operation hunger so she has no fear it's not I have
no fear and the native the dog is bothering you this is a toy in the kitchen I've been back to my high school reunion twice which is really something and we have a monthly news day that the front so we miss all the old friends and I've made up with them in London and I'm still friendly with all the friends and I was friendly with a high school and talked about citizenship obviously regard yourself as an American and you are a human citizen every US citizen it took us a while to get a green card we did not come in with a green card and
it took us a while and my brother was living in Boston at the time he was a neurologist and with her an attorney and there was a little envelope of time when sibling preference got her preference and we put in our application and that's how we actually got our green card and I remember going with all three children and getting made given us it was a big day for us had to study for it but I already knew everything because I've been so active in that in the community in different cities and different and volunteer opportunities and different people then it was an easy trick
to me but deep in my heart I think I have the answer are you glad you came here you know I ask myself that the other day I haven't asked myself that for a long time many years I was not I don't think about whether I'm glad or not glad I just know I'm here my three children are here my grandchildren are here so there's no point in thinking about it there's no alternative I'm here I have no family left and I feel that I have been given a lot through the immigration experience but I also feel I have to sound field planner but I've
made a contribution to society yeah so I suppose you could say I'm glad Darryl is there anything that I haven't covered that you would like to talk about well I love my kids to know my grandkids but I've had a few awards over the years tell us about them I've got the Laurel award from the American Association of University Women I've got the going an extra mile award from D is D which is a very big award and I got the Hannah to Solomon award which is NC JW's highest award so I have been recognized in a lot of public speaking and I must say
that I felt that I knew everybody in the community I knew the whole heart in cjw temple Emmanuel and every surprise that every person lived in so I want them to know I do feel very much American sounds like you've done a lot for the city of days yeah thank you Darrell really appreciate this part two of the interview with Darrell Strelitz Darrell tell us more about your immediate family of siblings and your parents well I come from an unusual kind of family we were always a little unusual and that's how it seems my life is fun my grandfather was a brilliant lawyer and I
thought he'd been in solitary confinement this is your you are mother's father okay I did not know my father's father he died before I was born but my mother's father was what we call a kalanchoe he was a well-educated very learning man he used to go to the symphony there was an atheist though and he brought up a very big successful business and then my mom married my dad who was a dentist but my dad was a wonderful man he was very charismatic very well known in South Africa had the biggest dental practice I think you should do an enormous amount of volunteer work and
he made me his biggest thing that he did he did a lot of stuff but was it he did he took blind people how to play ball and raise enough money to build a clubhouse for the blind it's still there today and he wrote a book which I've got one day he developed a method for teaching blind people how to play balls and he was invited to go to Israel after both of the big boards the 60 worn neon capable to work with their blind and he used to take teams of blind people to handicap games in England he was invited all over the world
for this man that he was very well known for that but another thing about my dad he was a showman and as a young man he used to act for the reps the red Johannesburg rubbish in theatre and he was very good-looking and he always used to pay the juvenile leaned I can ask a while the importance of being earnest or that kind of thing and he became a magician and he used to go to birthday parties and entertain the kids and but oh yes my parents started making movies they started not making home movies but they'd get a story and my mother would write
the script and my dad were directed and they found people to act and my mother would edit it and they won prizes they won a prize they made a film they would they were asked to make her fun on a new kind of corn which was being genetically changed it was right in the beginning and they made a film on that and they won award and they made a film on how South Africa with Roberta started in 1907 the South Africa when the africanus took over and we've all had the film made into a bed and made into a VCR announced but we'd had to
change then I watched the former neighborhood they won awards for all their fathers my brother has been particularly successful he's a neurologist and lives in Tampa but he became president of the American neurological Association and traveled the world on there and my sister Katie my younger sister Katie has had a very successful career as a preschool teacher and then my middle sister Leora she's called Leora because she was born in 1948 the line she moved to London from Johannesburg and she made a young man and she got married and she has three children there the whole family has been pretty successful in America and tell
us a little about your mother what what interested here my mother was a solitary kind of person and she was when I would choose University she had left University got married at 18 then I was born when she was 19 she went back to university and got her degree when I got man but she was extremely well-read very um she used to run the business side of my dad's business and she used to read a lot and she's do yoga and she was just different from other mothers she wasn't a motherly mother she never cooked I mean I did not really cook at home and
to this day I'm not a great cook and she was she was different she had this thing going on and her family with difficulties between my father and my uncle and my grandparents and for my grand father who was anti-communist Chaves son-in-law who was communist was a big thing so there was kind of an underlying tension and there are wind told your parents you were leaving what was their reaction they never once imagined how they never wanted don't go they never once said don't go I would really be bereft if my children would leave but they just looked at it positively I never complained about
it and thought it was for the best and in the end all four of their children left yeah my brother knit first he left to go to he went to Harvard Medical handle and he was already here when we came and then and there my sister went to London Leora I was the third one to leave and Katie was the fourth please there - here in the same city yes that's good yes thank you