Fred Terna and Rebecca Shiffman

INTERVIEW

Fred Terna, 83, Artist

Hometown: Prague, Czech Republic.

Rebecca Shiffman, 60, Obstetrician

Hometowns: Paris, France; Bogota, Colombia; Brooklyn, NY.

Current residence: Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, NY

Date of interview: August 7, 2007

Fred: “I picked her up on the subway.”

Rebecca: “You picked me up on the subway platform at the 51st Street station of the 6 Train.”

Fred: “We saw each other at a Holocaust second-generation conference at the Waldorf-Astoria where I was one of the speakers, but we didn’t meet or speak until afterward, in the subway.”

Rebecca: “He asked me for a coffee, and he being a starving artist I paid for it.”

Fred: “I was looking to meet someone and had three conditions of which the first two were absolute: she had to be nice, bright, and preferably Jewish.”

Rebecca: “There was no courtship. I was a resident, and except for the three nights I was on duty we spent all our time together. We met on March 21, 1982, in May I received the key to his apartment as my engagement ring, and we married on August 29, 1982.”

Fred: “I was a member of a shul and was invited for dinner by another member who wanted me to meet her daughter, and I asked if I could bring Rebecca.”

Rebecca: “The hostess asked me if we planned to marry, and I replied, ‘We have no plans.’”

Fred: “Afterward I told Rebecca, ‘Next time someone asks you that just say ‘Yes.’”

Fred: “It was an Orthodox Jewish wedding, as frum as you could imagine.”

Rebecca: “Don’t exaggerate; I wasn’t completely covered up. I snuck a ring under the chuppah ---the Orthodox rabbi opposed two-ring ceremonies.”

Fred: “I don’t believe in a Beshert. We decided, not God.”

Rebecca: “I don’t regret that I didn’t marry earlier; I avoided a potential divorce by marrying later. But had I married earlier infertility would not have been an issue.”

Fred: “I can’t compare my parents’ marriage to ours: My mother died when I was eight, and my father never remarried.”

Rebecca: “I was the product of a second marriage. They were both survivors who lost spouses and children. I was born in in Paris, France, grew up in Bogota, Colombia, and then was raised Orthodox in Boro Park, Brooklyn after we immigrated to the United States when I was 12. I became less observant during my junior year abroad in Israel. It was the first time I was just a person and not a Jew.”

Fred: “I was born and raised in Prague. In 1937 I asked my grandfather if he believed in God. He said ‘No.’ ‘Your father?’ ‘No.’ ‘His father?’ ‘No.’ I’m the sixth or seventh generation of non-believers who nonetheless belong to a shul.

“From age 11-15 my brother and I boarded with a non-religious Hussite family. Our Jewish education was integrated into our public school: During religious instruction we went to separate classrooms according to faith. We had an awful teacher, Professor Adler, who turned me off Judaism. Socially I floated among the youth groups of the various Jewish movements without joining any one of them. I was a typical Jew of Kafka’s and the following generation. My father was of Kafka’s generation with all its conflicts.

“Rebecca and I were both involved Jewishly when we met. I belonged to a Reform synagogue because it was nearby. My first wife was bipolar, and that congregation was my emotional support.”

Rebecca: “I developed an appreciation of Fred’s congregation. In my upbringing Reform was considered worse than a church, and I had no contact with the Reform movement before meeting Fred. A year after we married we moved to Brooklyn, and through a friend we found Kane Street Synagogue, which is Conservative egalitarian. Being Jewish is an integral part of my being--like being female—I don’t know anything else.”

Fred: “Same for me, except that I don’t know what it is to be a woman.”

Rebecca: “Being part of a larger community bonds us with certain values, rites, and rituals.”

Fred: “Another ingredient is the Shoah.”

Rebecca: “The elephant in the room.”

Fred: “That overrides the other influences. It is a comfort that I don’t have to explain it to her.”

Rebecca: “Being a child of survivors is what brings me to Judaism. I have to be more Jewish because of the Nazis. The Shoah is there, and we both understand what it is about.”

Fred: “I’m a painter, and the Shoah is subject matter. I have one leg in the Tanakh and another in personal experience. As a survivor I have a constant awareness of my Jewishness. Inside me is a crazy bass player over whom I have no control, and I’ve learned to play fiddle above it. I wear a kind of glasses that distort everything, and I’m aware of it. 90% of our friends are Jews.”

Rebecca: “My mind, ethics and values are Jewish. I am who I am because of my background. My desire to help people came out of being Jewish, though with the same talent and temperament I still might have become a physician had I been born into another tradition.”

Fred: “I’m involved in Shoah organizations and talk to classes.”

Rebecca: “We discuss what Fred will say. We share a love of classical music, but my tastes are broader—I also enjoy jazz and pop music of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. I love dancing but Fred doesn’t dance. I also love to ski, which he doesn’t do.”

Fred: “At the age when other people learn how to dance I was otherwise occupied. I’m old fashioned: Good music stopped in 1830 except for chamber music.

“We both agree the other has no taste in home decor. I prefer a spare Japanese kind of minimalism.”

Rebecca: “We compromise. We had no disagreements before our son Daniel came into the family.”

Fred: “Rebecca, a child of the ‘60s, is much more tolerant. I am much stricter by inclination and grew up with an old fashioned European sense of standards.”

Rebecca: “We have no disagreement on Jewish values.”

Fred: “I’m an old fogy. Daniel is over 20, and we don’t set rules. He’s expected to behave as an adult, but he’s not really as responsible as he might be.

“Rebecca is the breadwinner, and I’m comfortable with it.”

Rebecca: “The house was bought with your money, not mine.”

Fred: “I still manage the money.”

Rebecca: “It’s never been an issue. It’s our money, and we run a household together. His work is different from my work. Fred is home more and winds up doing more household chores.”

Fred: “I do four things: marketing, cooking, cleaning, and laundry. I don’t sew.”

Rebecca: “We don’t have assigned chores.”

Fred: “Serious cooking and baking are Rebecca’s specialty. I’m aware of the big hours Rebecca puts into her practice.”

Rebecca: “Daniel put different demands on each of us.”

Fred: “We had to be more sexually circumspect with a child in the house.”

Rebecca: “Marriage may not be for everyone, but it certainly works for us. I wanted to marry Fred even though I had previously been opposed to marriage, having seen ugly divorces.”

Fred: “I’ve been married since 1946; it suits me. A few years before I met Rebecca my first wife divorced me, but because of her mental illness I remained her primary caregiver. She died of breast cancer about a year after I married Rebecca.”

Rebecca: “Religion is organizational and political. Spirituality is an individual feeling.”

Fred: “There is a spiritual dimension to our marriage. I consider myself a Jewish atheist who belongs to and supports a shul. We sent Daniel to a Jewish day school from kindergarten to eighth grade, and he will do his junior year abroad at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I’m very much involved with Jewish values. Spirituality is one of 100 dimensions to our marriage.”

Rebecca: “I start with mine and keep going.”

Fred: “It’s built in—it’s like asking a fish about water.”

Rebecca: “My love and devotion for Fred and Daniel are on a different and more immediate level or dimension than that which I have for the Jewish people. It’s an apples and oranges comparison. There are concentric circles: first family, then the Jewish people, then all humanity. I love my work but not in the same way that I love my husband and child.

“I’m glad I had the opportunity to learn Torah, Mishnah, Midrash, and Hebrew. I’m less happy with the insular, superstitious, autocratic aspects of some of my education. Yet it allowed me to ask questions, move out, and open doors.

Fred: “I started my Jewish education fairly late. My first wife was very traumatized by her Shoah experience. I scattered Jewish books throughout our library. And my childhood teacher Professor Adler turned me off. I’ve learned a few things since--I read Salo Baron—all of which is colored by my Shoah experience.”

Rebecca: “You take classes, such as the Talmud class at shul. If I didn’t work I’d study Talmud and Midrash—except for ski season.”

Fred: “The kind of Judaism that judges people by what you do ritually as opposed to how you live is not for us. Punctilious observance is un-Jewish. It’s living a certain way rather than strict observance. We do keep a kosher home.”

Rebecca: “I’m much more knowledgeable about rules and regulations than Fred is, but we share what Judaism means to each of us. Marriage works well for us, but I’m still not sure that it works equally well for women as for men. There are legal advantages to marriage, as we see in the issue of gay marriage. If I didn’t have the emotional and spiritual attachment the institution would have little meaning for me.”

Fred: “There is a huge legal aspect that is important but different from the emotional aspect. In the last 200 years the distinction has been blurred; we’ve combined the two and hope they will work, and they mostly do. We are both offended that gays cannot marry in New York State.”

Rebecca: “We have generational and cultural background differences in our tastes and child rearing approaches; otherwise we’ve accommodated.”

Fred: “We’ve found modes of accommodation. Conflicts arise when people are insecure. Politically we differ in the degrees of our disapproval of Bush. We vote the same. We’re both flaming liberals.”

Rebecca: “We have the same world view.”

Fred: “I hope Daniel will become a mensch.”

Rebecca: “I hope he finds happiness and satisfaction in work and life. I hope he finds himself and finds work and a partner who suits him.”

Fred: “We’ve been a model for him of a decent and good marriage. Acquiring a lifestyle happens while living it.”

Rebecca: “And preferably a Jewish partner.”

Fred: “All three of his girlfriends have been Jewish.”

Rebecca: “I would be disappointed if he did not live a Jewish life in some way.

“On 9/11/01 and the days following I was looking for meaningful texts. For the first time I understood the phrase from the Haggadah, ‘Pour out your wrath.’ The words of certain prayers, such as blessing one’s child on Shabbat, resonate but otherwise are meaningless. When my father died I said Kaddish silently to myself. When I had miscarriages I would have liked to have a ritual to commemorate that loss. I felt ‘God is still killing Jews,’ even though I don’t believe in God.”

Fred: “Not having an answer is something I’ve learned to live with. There are certain things for which there are no good answers.”

Rebecca: “There is a built in genetic component that makes people want to abdicate responsibility and rely on superstition.”

Fred: “Gene is the wrong word. In our mental equipment are sets of notions. Where do five year olds get the notion of fairness? This built in mechanism has been perverted into religion. There is an area of the brain that responds to groups.”

Rebecca: “In-law problems? I have trouble with his mother-in-law.”

Fred: “She’s 95 years old. I praise her, and she laps it up. I try to keep the peace.

“My marriage turned out exactly as I wanted: Rebecca is smart, kind, and Jewish.”

Rebecca: “It turned out as expected; it’s been a very nice 25 years.”

Fred: “I consider myself a lucky guy. I have a wonderful wife and son, work I like, and a warm community around me.”

Rebecca: “I’m content that I have a pleasantly boring life—no soap operas.”