..inte: Deborah J. Metz ..intr: Dorothy Pickelner ..da: 1991 ..cp: 1997.003.001.001 Rabbi and Mrs. Philip Jaffa in front of Culver St. Temple Beth Israel, 1936. ..ca: ..ftxt: An Interview with Deborah J. Metz June 25, 1991 Transcriptionist: Nancy Smith Interviewer: Dorothy Pickelner Arizona Jewish Historical Society Log For Deborah J. Metz Interview Pages 1 ` Introduction. Early life of Rabbi Phillip Jaffa. 2 Rabbi Jaffa's education and his becoming a Rabbi. 3 Rabbi Jaffa's move to Phoenix and his time at Temple Beth Israel. 4-6 Rabbi Jaffa's retirement and study group. Phoenix celebrates the Palestinian mandate separating Jewish and Arab countries. 7 Rebecca Persky Jaffa's childhood and later years. 8-9 Rabbi Jaffa's involvement in the community. 10 Rabbi Jaffa's second Bar Mitzvah. 11-13 Rebecca Persky Jaffa's life and Rabbi Jaffa's writings. 14-16 Deborah J. Metz's life and conclusion. Deborah Metz Interview This is Dorothy Pickelner. I'm interviewing Debbie Metz. The interview was to be mostly about her father, Rabbi Phillip Jaffa who was rabbi of Temple Beth Israel here in Phoenix, Arizona. Debbie will tell us about her father and his activities here. Dorothy: When and why did your family come to Phoenix and would you tell us something about your father's youth and where he came from, etc. so that we can have a good picture of him. Debbie: My father was born in Riga, Latvia in 1885, came to this country when he was about 7 years old and lived in Cleveland, Ohio. He subsequently owned a print shop and later became the rabbi of Congregation B'nai Israel in Cleveland, Ohio. His preparation for this profession began when he was very, very young. His main Jewish education came from his grandfather who had been blind from birth but was evidently a genius, who had memorized the Bible (in Hebrew of course) and the Talmud, and was able to pass on his learning to his grandson. At the age of 6 my father received, as a birthday gift, the first Tractate of the Talmud and thus began his deep study after his study of the Bible. He received smichas from 3 Rabbis when he was a young man. Debbie: He remained rabbi of the congregation in Cleveland, which was a conservative congregation, for 7 years. At that time (I should precede this by saying that he left school when he was quite young, and he did not finish high school until after he was married to my mother, Rebecca) he received his college degree from Bolgomalas College in Cleveland after attending night school while he was working as a rabbi. After which, he decided that he wanted to become a Reform rabbi and he entered Hebrew Union College in 1925. He completed the 5 year course in 3 years while working every weekend as a weekend rabbi in Cincinnati. Having Passed off many of the courses in Talmud and Bible and so forth when he first entered the school, he graduated from Hebrew Union College at the age of 43 and then became a traveling rabbi for the union Of American Hebrew Congregations for 7 Years. He traveled across the United States and Canada for 7 Years. He helped to form new Reform congregation in small towns. He spoke to Jewish students at colleges. He even spoke to Jewish prisoners here and there. It was a grueling job. Of course very satisfying in many ways, but he traveled only by train, of course, and would speak to a Jewish group in one city one evening, get on a train and travel through the night to the next city. Then, of course, he was received and entertained by the people in the next city through the day, and then spoke again at night. It was hard work but it Was very satisfying religiously and probably culturally. Debbie: He Came to Phoenix to address the small Reform congregation here at the end of his 7 years of travel and subsequently was asked to come here as the rabbi of Temple Beth Israel. He came here in 1935. The congregation was very small at the time. Their temple was at 2nd Street and Culver and the temple seated up to 315 people, but, I guess was not full except at the High Holidays which is the usual thing. He served as rabbi for 3 Years here. He had had many difficulties among which were the problems that he himself had created by wanting to introduce Hebrew into the services, wanting to chant the Kaddish for example, and this was not to the liking of some of the leaders of the congregation. Another problem was the fact that there was a fire at the temple and a good part of his library was burned. He had quite an extensive library and he was able to send some of his books back to me, in Cincinnati, where I was working in the library of the Hebrew Union College. The librarian, Dr. Walter Rothman, was kind enough to allow me to place his books in the library where the students were able to look at them and they were able to buy them at really amazing bargain prices in starting their Rabbinical library that way. After 3 Years as rabbi, my father had to resign his position because he had a heart attack and subsequently for years was really almost bed ridden. Dorothy: Debbie, did your father, was he actually the rabbi for just those 3 years? Debbie: Yes, that's right. After his resignation, Rabbi Krohn came here and he was the rabbi for I don't know how many years until he took sick and Rabbi Plotkin came in as the rabbi. when Rabbi Plotkin arrived here, he came to visit my father and at that point asked him if he would come to services on Saturday morning and share the pulpit with him. This was a wonderful gesture by Rabbi Plotkin which my father and we appreciated very, very much. Dad did come back and take part in the services eventually, reading the Torah and doing whatever else Rabbi Plotkin wanted him to do. I do know that when non-Jewish groups came to the Temple to understand something about Judaism, my father very often spoke to them and answered their questions. Dad was well enough to do this and to enjoy life a little bit more as time went on and he lived to be 93 years old. He passed away in 1978. Dorothy: Debbie, that is most interesting and he certainly had a most wonderful background and I knew him, so many of us knew him and enjoyed him so much. He really took a lot of interest in the community. Tell, for example, Debbie about our study group that we had with your father. Debbie: Yes, a group of us who were friends decided that we wanted to meet with Dad and maybe learn something of his tremendous lore. He incidentally, was not only extremely knowledgeable in Bible, Talmud, Midrash and all other rabbinical writings and writings up to the middle ages, the Torah and so forth, so a group of us began to meet with him every Sunday night at his home where my mother presided also, and she was wonderful and gracious in the way she greeted us. we began to study in the beginning in the book of Genesis and what we would do is take turns reading right from the Bible and my father would stop us and give us the commentary on most passages which were especially interesting and we continued this meeting every Sunday night through the first book of Kings. So it was a long and wonderful experience for all of us and I know many of my friends have said from time to time "I remember your father said..." and they retained some of his knowledge all through the ensuing years. I also remember in the early Years, my father was, for a time, president of the zionist organization and I remember vividly the Saturday night after the United Nations declared that the Palestinian mandate would be separated into Jewish and Arab countries, and the excitement in the City of Phoenix when this was announced. In some way everybody wanted to rejoice because my father called together and announced that there would be a gathering at the temple. Debbie: The whole Jewish community was there to rejoice. I don't remember what the program was but it was just one of the most exciting times that we had had. Also when the Jewish State was announced there were gathering, and I remember vividly, because I had a part in it, the 1951 celebration of the State of Israel's birth because we had a big party in the social hall of the new temple. I remember there was a program and we even had dancing afterward and it was just a marvelous evening. Recently I have heard people say,"Well there wasn't much interest in Israel in the early days", but that was not true at all. we celebrated the birthday of Israel in many different years and we rejoiced in it greatly. Dorothy: Thank you, Debbie. That was a very interesting picture. Now, as we go back to the early years and his subsequent ones, I remember many times when rabbi entertained all of us with his songs and his knowledge of old American songs and so on. Tell about his social talents, because I thing they were very great and would you also please tell us about your mother. Debbie: My mother came from a Very literate and intellectual Jewish family. She had not had a great deal of official schooling because she Was the one child in a large family who was able to stay at home and take care of the younger children. She left school Very early and had the obligation of keeping house while her mother worked. she had a little creamery in the back of the house and my grandfather (this was in Cleve1and, Ohio) studied Mishna morning, noon and night. My father was introduced to her family by a cousin and he and mom were married in 1911. Dorothy: Her name? Debbie: Rebecca Persky was my mother's name. The Persky family was very well known in Cleveland. Her brother incidentally, Dr. Ben Persky, was city councilman for a time and people from Cleveland remember the family very well. Mom came out here shortly after dad became the rabbi here. She had moved with me to Cincinnati when I began to work in the library at Hebrew Union College. She was in Cleveland at the time when my father called and said that he had taken ill and would she please move out to Phoenix. She had the obligation, of course, Of selling the furniture that they had and it was a difficult time but she came Out to Phoenix in January after the September in which my father had taken the pulpit. Debbie: Incidentally, I remembered something else that was interesting about my father's time in the rabbinate here. When he first came, he asked the machers, the leaders of the congregation, to close their businesses during the High Holidays. This was something quite new but they agreed to do it and this meant that Korrick's, which became the Broadway store and Rosenzweigs and Diamonds (which later became Dillards) all had to close their stores during the holidays and they continued this through the 3 years that dad was the rabbi. I subsequently had occasion to speak to members of the non-Jewish community, friends in the library profession, Who were amazed and very much impressed by the fact that the Jewish people in this community would value their religion and celebrate it to that extent. Needless to say, after those 3 years, this was no longer the custom. You asked about my father's singing and entertaining us with his music. Dad had been a cantor before he became a rabbi and he really had a beautiful tenor voice. When he was at Hebrew Union College, he was in the choir for the 3 Years and I remember when they did a performance of the student Prince at HUC, he was one of the soloists, and I remember it so well because when he would come home to Cleveland during vacations, he would sing songs from the Student Prince and my sister, who played the piano, and I who played the flute, would accompany him. I still remember the words to all the songs. He enjoyed music so very much and his Hebrew and Yiddish songs were so much a part of our childhood and growing up and he told us much about the early writers of Yiddish music here in this country. so when we would get together we would sing some of the songs together and it was really a wonderful, warm experience. Subsequently when my sister would come here for visits, her name was Leah Jaffa, later Leah Rosenbluth, and she was the executive secretary of the National Jewish Music Council and traveled all over the country promoting Jewish music. when she would come here and friends would get together, she would play the piano and lead us in singing. It was a great joy. Dorothy: I remember those days very well and all those wonderful occasions and I remember we used to chuckle about the endless verses of some old American song that your dad would sing word for word. It went on from verse after verse after verse, but I wanted to say that I felt that he added a tremendous amount to the cultural life, the Jewish cultural life of this community in its earlier days and we were very fortunate to have him in our midst and he had great respect from all the other rabbis because his learning was so profound. Tell us more about your mother. I had a great fondness for her and she would sit in on our study group and make Very interesting comments and was always such a gracious hostess. Tell more about his later life, Debbie. Didn't he have a Bar Mitzvah when he was here? Debbie: At the age of 83, my father had his second Bar Mitzvah and the reason for that particular time is that, according to Jewish lore, three score and ten was the period of Jewish life, of life that normal people might have and so at the age of 70, he had reached that span and at 83, then, he was 13 all over again. Rabbi Plotkin and the temple, were very gracious in dedicating that service to my father and my family came here and it was a great celebration. After that, at almost every birthday, the temple would have a simcha in his honor and my dad would chant the Haftorah. I also wanted to tell you that later in life I remember Phil Copland, the educational director, at one time saying that my father was his encyclopedia, that at any time that he had a question, he would call dad and receive the answer. And I do remember that at anytime I had a problem or a question, because I used to write a column for the Phoenix Jewish News and if I wanted to be sure of a fact, I would call dad and he would always have the answer. And if he wasn't sure of the exact tractate of the Talmud in which the answer appeared, he would say "I'll call you back", and within the half-hour, of course, I had the exact quote from the exact section of the Talmud. Debbie: About my mom. She had a great love for music and I know that she sang in a choir at the temple in Cleveland for a time. Although mother came from a very Orthodox background, I do recall her telling me that she decided that she wanted to be confirmed at the temple in Cleveland. In spite of the fact that every Friday afternoon she had to clean house, scrub the floors and be ready for Shabbat, she would rush through her chores and run to take the bus to go to the temple for confirmation classes. This always touched me greatly. She was confirmed at the temple, I have the certificate of her confirmation in the Bible that she received with her name in it and the name of the rabbi who preceded Rabbi Silver at the Temple. This Was Rabbi Greis. She really had a great love for learning but had so little opportunity for education. she had a wonderful sense of humor and friends of mine from childhood on always appreciated her sense of humor greatly. This continued until the time of her death. she lived to be 91 years old and died in 1979. Great loss for all of us. Dorothy: Debbie, all that is most interesting. Did your father publish. Did he write his knowledge down on paper? Debbie: I do have a copy of his graduating thesis at Hebrew Union College. In fact, when I was at Hebrew Union College, which had a bindery right on the premises, I had his thesis bound so that this will pass on to my children. He also won prizes for essays at Hebrew Union College and I have his prize essays. Debbie: During the time that he was a rabbi here, and aside from Rabbi Dow, who was for a time the rabbi of the small early years of the Conservative congregation Beth El, he was the only other rabbi in the community and he was asked to speak for many different occasions. I have some of the published articles. For example, he would write editorials for the Republic/Gazette here at different times, Usually for Jewish holidays or occasionally when the Red Cross had a fund raising drive. I have some of those speeches that he gave because he typed them up before giving them. He would also address churches at different times. I can't remember any other occasions, but he was very much a part of the Jewish community in the early years because he was the representative of the community. He also, I know, spoke at Tucson at different times and he was a member of the Elk's Club for all his years in Phoenix. In his later years he was the oldest member and he really cherished his membership in the Elk's Club. Dorothy: Thank you, Debbie. Is there anything else that you would like to add. Anything that we don't want to leave out, because these are precious things that we remember and he added so much to the spiritual life of the community. Debbie: Yes, I would like to say that during Dad's time here there were 25 children in the religious school and I remember his saying that there was no school building. The Sunday school Classes Met in the sanctuary itself on 2nd Street and Culver and the different classes would Meet in different corners of the sanctuary and in Dad's words "it was bedlam". After the fire, there was a small religious school building built and there were 5 classrooms as I recall his saying. That was a much better situation. Dorothy: we thank YOU. That was an important item. I mean that was important in the history of Beth Israel and certainly of the whole Sunday School community of the city. There was no other rabbi most of the time that he was active as a rabbi, was there? Debbie: Rabbi Dow was rabbi of Beth El for a time and I am not absolutely sure the history of Beth El would tell this but Rabbi Barack subsequently became the rabbi and then after that Rabbi Schectman and so on. Dorothy: Thank you very much, Debbie: I think this record is for the future and for all of us an inspiration. Debbie, it's most interesting. Would you tell us something about your own background and how you came to be in Phoenix and therefore knew your father so well during this most important period of his life and what his situation was when you arrived and then tell about your friendship with your father. Debbie: I always thought of my dad as the most wonderful person in the world. It wasn't until I was much, much older that I began to see him more objectively. I remember when I was at Hebrew Union College, working there, and it was before I was to be married, of course all the members of the faculty at HUC were sent invitations to my wedding. One of the members of the faculty, Dr. Francis Blow, who taught psychology, wrote my father a letter in which he expressed his amazement at the fact that I felt so close to my dad and expressed my love for him so openly. I should like to tell the reason that my husband and I were in Phoenix at all. We were married in Cincinnati in 1939. My husband, Jack Metz, was in business in Cincinnati and I had come to Cincinnati from Cleveland in 1934 when I graduated from Western Reserve University Library school. It happened that there was an opening in the library at HUC because the girl whose place I took had married a graduating rabbi and they had gone to Israel. Therefore, the position was Open and I was given the job actually through the mail before I graduated from library school. In the summer of 1934, I came to Cincinnati and I worked in the library there for 10 Years. Debbie: In 1943, during world War II, Jack was taken into the service and after his training he was sent overseas and ended up in the Aleutian Islands, the most Godforsaken territory in the world. At the point where we knew that he was to be sent overseas, I received a letter from my parents in Phoenix suggesting that I come with my two year old daughter to stay with them in Phoenix until the war was over. We stored our furniture at my mother-in-law's home and my parents came and helped my daughter Miriam and me to travel back to Phoenix. We lived with my parents until 1946 when Jack came home. Of course we fully planned and intended to go back to Cincinnati, but at some point Jack overheard my mother speaking to a friend and crying because we would be leaving Phoenix. Jack was very much attached to my mother and very touched by the fact that she felt so strongly about our leaving and he came to me and said, "How about trying to stay here in Phoenix and see how it works out?" I was just thrilled about the suggestion because by that time I had fallen in love with Phoenix and had made friends here and I had wanted Very much to stay here but felt that it was quite impossible. With Jack's suggestion, I fell into the plan. What we did was go back to Cincinnati with Miriam and sell our furniture and to show our faith in Phoenix, we bought a house before we went back to Cincinnati. Jack didn't have a job, no work and at the time I wasn't working either, but we did buy a house, went back to Cincinnati, sold our furniture and came back here to live. Dorothy: That's a very interesting experience. We are very much interested in why and how people came to Phoenix. Talk about your friendship with your father, Debbie, or daily visits. Debbie: In 1957, when my younger daughter was 10 years old, I had the opportunity to go back to work, half-time, at Phoenix Elementary School in the library department of the administration building. I cataloged books there for 23 years until my retirement at the age of 65. During all those years, on my way home from work, I would stop and visit with my parents. We would have the most wonderful visits because my father had so much depth of learning and I would enjoy so much discussing everything from ancient history to baseball with my dad. Whenever I had a question, he always had the answers so our visits together were most enjoyable. I remember calling him up whenever there was an exciting moment in a baseball broadcast to make sure that he hadn't missed it or if I had any questions to ask him, he would always have the answer. So, all those years of visits with my dad were just most enjoyable. Also, I would like to say that I was very fortunate in that there were only a few years of my life that I wasn't close to my parents, so our life together was really inspirational and the loss of my parents was very difficult for me, as it is for everyone, but I'm very grateful for our years together. Dorothy: Thank you Debbie. This will be a very important tape for all of us in this community. [end of transcript]