Rachel Bortnick
Rachel Bortnick was born in 1938 in Izmir, Turkey, as were her parents and grandparents, in a Sephardic Jewish family descended from Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal in 1492 and welcomed into the Ottoman Empire. Her father, Joseph Amado, worked most of his life for an American tobacco company and, though he had only an eighth grade education, spoke seven languages. Her mother, whose maiden name Rachel traced back to Granada, Spain, was a homemaker. At home the family spoke Ladino, which they called Spanish. Rachel attended a Jewish elementary school, then a Turkish public school, and finally the American Collegiate Institute for girls, graduating at the top of her class and earning a full scholarship to Lindenwood College in St. Charles, Missouri, where she studied chemistry.
Rachel met her future husband, Bernard Bortnik, an Ashkenazi Jew of Russian descent studying at Washington University in St. Louis. They married in her family's synagogue in Izmir, then lived in Rotterdam, where Bernard worked as an architect, before spending two years in Israel. Each of their three children was born in a different country. The family settled in St. Louis for seventeen years, then moved to San Francisco for six years, and finally came to Dallas in 1988 when Bernard took a job there. Rachel found her calling teaching English as a second language, beginning with Russian Jewish immigrants in St. Louis and continuing for more than thirty years, including work with Jewish Family Service and later credit courses at Brookhaven College.
In Dallas, Rachel became a devoted advocate for Sephardic heritage. She served as president of the Dallas Jewish Historical Society, organized Jewish heritage tours to Turkey, and brought Sephardic festivals featuring music and kosher cuisine to the Jewish Community Center. She taught Sephardic history and Ladino, lectured on the Sephardic experience in the Holocaust, and founded Ladinokomunita, an online correspondence group that grew to more than 1,300 members across over thirty countries. In 2008 she was invited to lecture in eleven cities in Spain about her language and culture. She also helped many people of Hispanic descent discover their hidden Jewish roots as conversos, and served on the board of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies. She was featured in the film Trees Cry for Rain: A Sephardic Journey.
Full Transcript
today is June the 27th 2011 my name is Clinton Reisner I will be the interviewer and the videographer and the interviews name is Raquel a model bortnik a model portney okay I shall call you by shell in this interview thank you place of interview is in Dallas Texas and in the home of Rochelle a model morning we're going to begin about your family Rochelle tell me about your family parents grandparents where when you were born and how did you happen to settle in Dallas and what did your parents do for a living it's a very long story but doesn't tell you I was born in
1938 in Izmir Turkey and my parents were also born there and so we're my grandparents and back to so far as we can guess probably close to 500 years before me we are Sephardic Jews originating of course in the in Spain and Portugal the descendants of those that were expelled in 1492 and or may have converted originally and then come back to Judaism in the Ottoman Empire which received most of the exiles of us of Spain and Portugal my father Joseph Amado was worked most of his life for the American tobacco company he in Izmir the Aegean coast where Izmir is located is known for
its tobacco and American tobacco companies used to own fields and process tobacco there and that's why my father my father was one of the few people who knew English he had the only an eighth grade education but knew seven languages mostly because of where he was born where is Mir where there were many many ethnic groups and including Greeks especially Greeks and Armenians those languages as well as Hebrew and of course at home we spoke Ladino or Spanish we used to call it a Spaniard but most people know and my mother was also as I said born in Izmir and she was a housewife her
maiden name was Agron opti which was later turned to a grantee by my grandfather and that name shows the origins of the family which was Granada Spain so when I attended first a Jewish elementary school called been above it very close to our house our house and in the mirror was just a few doors down or up from the synagogue and a main street and across the street from the synagogue was a Jewish B'nai B'rith elementary school which is the one I attended for the first four grades of my education and then I transferred to a Turkish public school and after that I attended the
American school for girls called the American Collegiate Institute my father wanted me to learn English as opposed to French which had been the popular language until then so I took the entrance exam and was accepted at the American school and that's where I studied for eight years and since I graduated at the top of my class I ended up with a full scholarship to the United States to Lyndon with college in Saint Charles Missouri which was also a girls college and from there I have a degree in chemistry so if to your question as to how we ended up in Dallas I said it's a
long story so I'll make it short we I met my future husband who was Bernard bortnik of course an Ashkenazi Jew Russian Jewish descent the first-generation American who was studying at Washington University in st. Louis and together we went to Turkey after graduating we went to Turkey to get married we got married in his mirror in the same synagogue near our house and from there we went to Holland and lived in Rotterdam for two years where Bernard worked as an architect for former professor of his who was a visiting professor in architecture from Holland and so we lived in Rotterdam for two years from there we went to Israel and we lived in Israel for two years our first child was born there and then we moved to Kansas City where Bernards families and from Kansas City we moved back to st.
Louis where Bernard taught at Washington University and then worked for another architect there so we lived in st. Louis for a total of 17 years our I forgot to mention that our second child was born in his mere because we were on the way to coming back from Israel to America so I went home to have the baby so my second child the daughter was born in Turkey and we came back to America Kansas City and then back to st. Louis where our third child was born so each of our three children was born in a different country and we lived in st. Louis for 17 years our children were raised there and then Bernard was transferred to San Francisco the office in San Francisco hok our and so we lived there for six years before Bernhard got another job here in Dallas so we moved to Dallas in 1988 and we've been here since so that's our story yeah what an educational experience Michele as a child what were your Jewish affiliations did your family belong to synagogue and what was extent of their participation and how did you how did you as a Sephardic Jewish child celebrate Jewish holidays in the Sephardic tradition as contrasted with Ashkenazi well of course I
knew nothing about Ashkenazic culture until I came to America I had there were a few Washburn Azim in Turkey but we didn't even know that name that word Ashkenazic I think at least I didn't as a child because everybody was Sephardic and the few Ashkenazim integrated to our society so they spoke Spanish also so the our life was Sephardic everything we also all Jewish people with when I was growing up there were about 15,000 Jews in his near Turkey most of them went to Israel in 1948 after 1948 in the first years of the State of Israel but we stayed and like I said I
went to the Jewish public school and we live very close to the synagogue we were all observant Jews by that it does not mean Orthodox because we had no separation the first time I heard that there were divisions in the Jewish world was here in America the we were all observant but not in the honors to that sense in that we we kept you kosher homes the word kosher by the way is Ashkenazic we say cashier which is the Sephardic pronunciation everybody but cashier meat from the cashier butcher everybody observed all the holidays we all fasted on Yom Kippur now my father worked on Saturday
so he could not go to synagogue you asked if we belong to the synagogue there was nothing no such thing as belonging there was a habit that the men had of going to the closest synagogue and so we went there and all the upkeep of the synagogue was by voluntary donations so there was no no system of paying yearly dues here as as there is here and so there no no such thing as belonging in that case but of course my father and my brother went to been a bit and been betis file which was the our synagogue and we had all the holidays were
celebrated and observed Shabbat we did nothing even though my father worked my mother did no work at all and because she had a sister first in Italy then in Cuba and then in America and another sister in Barcelona Spain and another sister in Israel she Saturdays were the only time she could write so without letting on to anybody that she was doing it she used to write letters on Saturday so we were sort of a little liberal and in our observance of Shabbat but no housework or cooking or anything was done a shepherd so without going into detail as to the differences between Sephardic and
Ashkenazic observance that is sums up how we created as Jews Rochelle Rochelle the food Sephardic food is very different from Ashkenazi right especially for this another oh well first of all we lived in different parts of the world with being Mediterranean culture our cooking obviously had a lot of and especially Turkey which is a very fertile land heavy on vegetables and olives and figs and almonds and all those things are within involves vegetables a lot of vegetables and and a lot of rice and and so the foods are totally totally different and you asked about Passover I think you probably have heard that sefa Redeemer
to eat certain foods on Passover that Ashkenazi might not this includes we some Sephardic people do and some don't eat rice on Passover we didn't but with some other foods that we did eat that so she can azim don't seem to eat our the beans we eat green beans and whatever other regular vegetables that so there's quite a difference between the two cultures yes food is only one of them and the main thing is let me tell you this story that might be interesting when I came to America to school the only one condition that my parents put was that I meet the Jewish family
in st. Charles where this school was located near st. Louis and go there every Shabbat to observe about Friday night and so the school helped me find this family and that was my first introduction to an Ashkenazi family I was there on a Friday night and the first thing I noticed was that mr. and mrs. Kaplan were speaking a language that was not English but I didn't know what it was but I didn't ask I was shy then we sat around a very nicely set table they were very observant Jews and the mr. Kaplan started to say what was supposed to be the condition for Friday night and we said the kedusha every Friday night in our house but I didn't understand a word that mr.
Kaplan said once in a while I'd recognized a few words but it seemed like he didn't know how to pronounce the Hebrew well I later found out that he was chanting the Ashkenazic style and pronouncing the words Ashkenazic style which were almost incomprehensible even to the Sephardic then the food started coming and she brought a platter of something that were like white balls and so I said what is that mrs. Kaplan and she said what you don't know what this is and I said no she said that's she says that's good fill two fish and I said this is a fish she said you don't even recognize a gefilte fish what kind of a Jew are you and I said well I know fish we eat a lot of fish we'd fish on Friday night but our fish looks like fish so then she brought other things that also were very new to me and when I asked what language I finally asked what language they were speaking among themselves she said you don't know Jewish and I said
Jewish to me is either Hebrew or Spanish and she said what's bad she said I don't know if you're Jewish she said I don't think you're Jewish anyway so yeah she told me it was a Yiddish but she knew nothing about Ashkenazi core Sephardic so I she I think finally got convinced that I was Jewish since it was so important to my parents that I go to a Jewish home but but I think there was always a doubt in their mind so that's so far and of course this dialogue about you you don't eat gefilte fish what kind of a Jew are you you don't
know Yiddish what kind of a Jew are you happened maybe hundreds of times during my life with other people so Michelle you had many cultural contrasting experiences with yeah the Jewish population here even my mother intellectually knew that I was Jewish what's convinced I was Jewish because my father-in-law didn't know all about Sephardic Jews he was a very well self educated man but my mother-in-law every once in a while would say you know Rachel by the way my name became Rachel in the United States it's easier for people to pronounce you know Rachel should say Jewish people cook this this way and I used to
say mama please don't say Jewish people please say African Isaac because we're Jewish and we don't cook it this way or should say and another occasion Rachel you know what Jewish people say and shouldn't blurt out something a Yiddish and I say I'd say mama that's what Ashkenazic people say not Jewish people so things like that went on for many many times how interesting yeah Michelle you definitely brought the Sephardic culture and the Sephardic traditions and the Sephardic awareness to the people of Dallas and we are deeply indebted to you for bringing that knowledge to us and the culture as well for sure I would
like to ask about Europe work activities as an adult I Eve had college instructional experience you've worked with foreign students would you like to like tell us about some of them work so many projects that were significant for you well very briefly even though my degree was in in chemistry I as I the children were small I didn't work and then I started working in chemistry and didn't like it in the late 1970s Russian Jews were coming to st. Louis and I had done some private teaching of English as a young person in Turkey and so I thought I would really like to be involved in teaching English for the Russian we're coming and I had a friend who was teaching at the synagogue with where I we belong we belong to a conservative synagogue in st.
Louis and so I said I'd like to do that at the time it was a voluntary thing and I went and I observed and the director said sure you know we are coming we need teachers more and more people are coming and I started teaching and then in a few years they were asked to accept Vietnamese and Laotian immigrants who are coming also and they said that if but the teachers had to have teaching certificates but they would pay for us to go back to school get some classes and give us temporary certificates to make a long story short I went and took classes in adult education there was no ESL masters program available at the time in st.
Louis and so I became a teacher of English as a second language and that's when I did for over thirty years both in st. Louis then in the Bay Area of San Francisco then here in Dallas I worked with Jewish Family Services first and then talks there with Jewish Family Service which immigrant population did you work with mostly Russian Jews Russian Jews yes five years yes five years I've worked there then the Russian immigration slowed down and they were getting some Iranian Jews and also a few non-jews coming there but finally I I saw that the student population was getting less and I really wanted to teach in a more academic setting so I transferred to Brookhaven college now Rochelle I believe you talk credit yes credit it's different from
continuing that yes for people who wanted to go to college or university here what were your experiences like working with the multi nationalistic population I'm sure I I think the students felt very comfortable with me because English being my second language I knew exactly what was difficult and what needed to be explained to students so that they would the various people had it was very challenging and very interesting at the same time but I had a very good rapport with each of the students and it was very very satisfying to see their their progress so Rochelle it was very personally rewarding for you yes yes
and working with immigrants of words also very rewarding I still see the people in around here at the JCC is someone who just hugged me every time you know Ranchin students so this is and Allegan one of the projects that's most memorable to you recently retired I am so busy that I don't think about it but when I think about my teaching experience I miss it Brazil have you been active in any civic organizations in Dallas or Jewish organization I believe you were president at the Dallas Jewish Historical Society after retailer retailer asked me to consider taking over after he left so I was president
I believe from 96 to 98 I don't remember exactly but I was president and at the time I organized to Jewish heritage tours to Turkey and behalf of me that was Jewish Historical Society so that was one other than that I am a passive supporter of civic Jewish organizations a life member of Cardassia and I support other organizations but I'm not active like you mentioned I was instrumental in bringing Sephardic festivals to the JCC to me that was very significant when you brought Sephardic festivals to the JCC with Judi comma could you elaborate on that was a Sephardic music was his fart of history and
how successful your first event was oh yes I forgot you mentioned Sephardic history I also there were I also taught Sephardic history and even ladino language and the educational programs of the JCC they used to have something called joys of Jewish learning where I taught for a few years I also taught there English as a second language in the evenings at the JCC so the festivals themselves had were music mostly but we also cooked and it had a culinary component where since everything had to be a share we had to cook everything in the kitchens of the JCC and we made a big deal of
the food part which was served after the concert and it was those were very successful events if I might say so but very hard to the idea of doing it again sort of scares me because it was so much work we had a committee of course I remember that very well Michelle and you were certainly instrumental in bringing that facet of this Sephardic culture to Dallas well some people have heard but it was interesting I have also lectured different occasions on the Sephardic experience in the Holocaust and one time I spoke to the docents of the Holocaust Center here and it was after we had
had all these Sephardic classes and Sephardic festivals and so yet after I talked about the Sephardic experience in the Holocaust where we lost most of our but I don't understand he said if they did if those people did speak Yiddish were they Jews so some people still have also Rochelle I remember very well that you introduced me to Sephardic people here in Dallas and they had similar experiences that you did when they came here every Sephardic person had it even even in New York and Los Angeles where there were many Sephardic people each one will tell you similar stories back to laudanum teaching Ladino at
the Jewish Community Center the Ladino is what exactly could you elaborate on that for a few minutes and what kind of students did you have in that you know class oh that's an interesting question thank you first what is Latino but they know is to be exact a Spanish based language that developed in the Ottoman Empire among the Sephardic people and which over time incorporated some elements of Turkish and the other languages that it came into contact with including French later on but Italian it has some Portuguese and some old medieval Spanish or IB r ik dialects like and so on in it so it's
a mixture but basically it's medieval Castilian and so if we speak to a spanish-speaking person we know the differences between our language and modern Spanish we can make ourselves understood and we certainly understand Spanish modern Spanish because the differences are small reading modern Castilian is a little difficult because they write very complicated sentences but but basically we can get by it's it's I think closer Latinos closer to Spanish the Yiddish would be too German we have a lot of Hebrew influence too but mostly related to our holidays and Jewish ritual observances Shabbat things like that Michelle I have heard people state that Ladino is a
15th century Spanish what is your take on that well like I said yes it is pre 15th century but that's the basis of it and it's the grammar but there's also Elodie know which is which we find in our sacred or liturgical texts which are word by word translations from Hebrew from the Hebrew text by the way Ladino is also used in the synagogue that's one difference between Sephardic and Ashkenazic which Ashkenaz seem to use the addition in the synagogue they have that as the secular language whereas Ladino is used in the synagogues many prayers and songs are sung is this translation from the Hebrew
which follows the Hebrew syntax and when is this spoken Ladino which follows the basically the Spanish syntax Brazil I feel this is a very significant part of your connection with Sephardic history and Ladino it's my understanding that said what's your ancestry is Spanish and Portuguese and I believe you shared with me Rochelle that the Spanish government or Spanish universities invited you to go back to Spain and you had a Spanish connection I would you like to elaborate on that for a few minutes well in 19th I have always been active in Sephardic affairs maybe because I'm so I selected from it and and frustrated that
people don't know about Who I am and what culture I come from so one of the things that I have done is as much as possible attended symposia or or conferences having to do with our culture and in 1990 one of these was in 1999 I attended a conference in Israel in Jerusalem on how we should spell that they know in Latin letters because Ladino also traditionally was used it was written in Hebrew characters like Yiddish was and but now very few people use the Hebrew characters and so that we don't have a standard way of spelling the language so anyway at that conference they
somebody said that the internet which was knew coming into popularity at the time would be a good way to spread and popularize a standardized method of spelling and they mentioned something about forming a correspondence group so when I went came back here I asked my friend retailer I said what is this about I had just gotten the computer and so I said what what are these correspondence groups how do you start one so he told me how to do it it was very simple so I started a correspondent I contacted a few friends and I that would you be part of ávila be no correspondence
group and so we started one and this was like December of 1999 and the thing mushroomed it I named it Latino community and today we have over 1300 members not all of whom right but all of whom read our Ladino and so via this correspondence group we have members from over 30 countries and so many of whom are in Latin America and one day I wrote and asked this group if anybody in Buenos Aires knew a friend of mine who was my neighbor and friend we had gone to the Jewish school together and that to the Turkish public school together and it was a leg
reciben I said does anybody in in Buenos Aires know the family Saban which had migrated to from Izmir Turkey in early 1950s and so a couple of people answered yes of course we know that so that put me in touch with a childhood friend of mine whom I later by the way went to Argentina met after 60 years but anyway through her her nephew lives in Spain and is a professor there in Barcelona and had just formed an organization to spread the knowledge of Judaism in Spain called Terra beautiful and and so he name is Mario sunburned and Mario contacted me and said as a
founder of Latino community I'd like to invite you to come and give lectures in different cities of Spain about your culture and your language you choose your subject and so to make the long story short in 2008 Bernhard and I went to Spain and we went to the car and I ended up lecturing in 11 cities most of whom do not have a single Jewish resident in different venues organized by representatives of Stanford sepharad in that city and it was a very very interesting experience I lectured in Ladino trying not to use the foreign words that have captain that we have in Ladino and but
still using my medieval Spanish and they were fascinated we kept this was really an incredible reconnection with your supporters as a matter of fact I yes I call it my return to safar ad and I did a presentation on Jewish Historical Society I think in 2009 well how interesting this is very significant and certainly when we return to your roots yes and to your culture and your language and the people were receptive to very very very receptive amazingly so there was one of the most interesting places was in Don Quijote country in La Mancha little a mantra area and a small town called as table
also interestingly had some of the one of the largest audiences there and very formal the mayor the stage was decorated with flowers and so on it was the the town historian the mayor were there the Jews have been absent from Spain for hundreds of years now they're slowly returning let's say but most of these places have never seen in you their knowledge is from what they read so and the anti-jewish nests at they have been fed in their Catholic churches and so on wasn't a while popped out and of all people it would come out from what seemingly were the most educated and anyway I
don't want to go into what that comment was but it was really it really came out in in certain people in their questions afterwards as to whether Jews were - two-faced people anyway so that was one of the more memorable experiences yes one other question about Ladino safar D in teaching Ladino I Rochelle I would like to say that you certainly discovered a group of people here in Texas that some of them took your class and they discovered their Jewish roots known as converse or Jews yes people don't know what this means could you elaborate on that yes yes many of the people who took
my class were Spanish speakers in fact for the language I required that they have some knowledge of Spanish because I'm not going to start teaching them uno dos tres I just wanted them to realize what the basic differences were and that how we can still understand each other and so on so among the people who came were some of Mexican or old Texan descent and as I talked some of them asked me about Sephardic customs and once I brought in my wedding pictures which were as I had mentioned we were married in our synagogue in Turkey the Sephardic way and we one of the customs
that when student particularly noticed was that instead of standing under Coppa we we throw the prayer shawl the tallit over our heads of the bride and groom and he said well in our family we only now are family not all Catholics do this but we have that custom of the wedding of throwing a shawl over the people and then as we talked he started he went back home and started asking questions David Jimenez the questions of the family about why we do this and he found out that his ancestry was Jewish and they had converted to Christianity and since then I met many others in
Dallas who had been raised Catholic or in one case other Christians but found out that Sephardic Jews who had to convert it and some customs some Jewish customs had been kept in their families so as messages of their Jewish old Jewish customs but most often they didn't know why they had those Jewish customs oh one of them which was very popular he said I mean it seemed among several families was that when somebody died they covered the mirrors and and others didn't eat pork and had a custom of slaughtering the animals that they did eat themselves it turned out the Jewish way and some had
the custom of lighting candles on Friday night but in secret in the place where nobody would know or are somehow putting a white tablecloth on Friday nights at the table things like that anyway these are the people that are nowadays called either crypto-jews or conversos and they some of them in Dallas even have been interested in returning to Judaism and in the meantime I'm also I became one of the association's where I'm active and in fact I'm on the board now is the Society for crypto Judaic Studies based in Los Angeles and as a matter of fact I'm going to their conference in in August
crypto meaning secret secret in the southwestern part south most of southwestern part on but also Texas South Texas saying Rachelle what a revelation you were to these people in assisting them in discovering their Jewish roots when they did not understand these traditions that were practice among their families that other Hispanics did not practice what a revelation Michelle of course in Dallas I must mention that the retailer does a lot of research on that awesome rasuu who are your role models oh gosh I don't know that I have I think probably my parents but I don't live up to their their level of devotion to Jewish
tradition what changes that we've seen in Dallas since you've moved here oh yes we as I said we came in 1988 I many I mean this is of course something that everybody has noticed the way it has built up but having moved here from the Bay Area I was really unhappy and seemed like there was nothing here when I first came but I am just delighted with the art scene in in Dallas I was very impressed that Dallas had one of the first Holocaust centers in the country and it's amazing to see how the Holocaust Center has grown but how the downtown has these fantastic
new buildings and of course my husband since he retired being an artist we're more involved in the art scene and so I think Dallas has on the one hand grown for the better in the urbanization of downtown but on the other hand I don't like the spread the way Dallas has spread out and depends so much on cars transportation Rochelle what are you most proud of I have to tell you that culturally I was always taught that pride is not a good thing and so I cannot say that I'm proud I cannot talk about what I have achieved and I cannot see that what my
children or my husband has achieved is a reflection of me that's their achievements and so I would not say that I'm proud I think that's a an American concept tell me about your family today Oh my family I have my three children are each in a different part of the country which is very disturbed well no thank God one is here unfortunately none of them are married so and what does disturb me is that I never taught them know about the food more or less and my oldest son who studied in Brazil understands my Latino for more or less through his Portuguese but basically they
are not going to carry on Sephardic culture or even identity except of to say that their mother was Sephardic so I have to say though that I am very glad I'm not going to say proud but glad that at night when I was living in the Bay Area California a filmmaker did a movie with me called trees cry for a rain a Sephardic journey and that film has been shown in many jewish film festivals from sweden to israel and all over and here in the united states and my children each have a copy of that so i think that my legacy will stay through that
and the Sephardic legacy in the legacy of Ladino we're keeping it alive so us older people who still speak it via and passing it on to some young people by a Latino community on the Internet but mostly it's the songs the music that will live forever I think but it's very important to stress and this is the last thing I want to say that singers are Latinos ones excuse me need to sing those songs authentically need to know the meanings and to pronounce the words correctly because one of the main differences between Ladino Spanish is the pronunciation of words and they need to find an
authentic person to teach them the songs the pronunciation and not learn it from other records which may or may not have the right pronunciation Brazil and including our oral interview is there anything you want to add I want to express to you my thanks for doing this I hope that Sephardic culture the good things about Sephardic culture that is our the fact that we don't have a history of living in ghettos in status of being more open to the advancements of of the society and large if you asked me if I had a role model certainly not a role model but a person that I'm
very proud really in this case too because to know that he was a Sephardic person and that is the legacy of Maimonides who himself was not only a rabbi but a doctor a physician and an open and had friends in the Arab world and I think the fact that we Sephardic people lived among Muslims and lived without any distinguishing dress and and were open to to learn from others she would become part of the Jewish world especially especially those that are not open that think that the survival of Judaism depends on being isolated I don't well thank you very much Michelle this has been very
personally rewarding and mil-mil gracias you