I got to shake Bel Kaufman's hand!

[ellenkushner]

Bel Kaufman is the granddaughter of the great Yiddish writer, Sholem Aleichem*.  She was speaking at a lovely little reading down at the Cornelia Cafe in the Village this evening.

But she's also the author of Up the Down Staircase, one of the few books I owned as a teenager, so I read it over and over again, and loved it. And I got to tell her so - and to figuratively go back and tell my teenage self, "Guess you you get to meet when you're grown up!"  (Since it was an evening devoted to her grandfather & his work, she wasn't expecting anyone to mention hers.  You should have seen how her already radiant face brightened when I mentioned her book!)


*Yes, it does mean "Peace be with you," or, more colloquially, "Hi, there!"  It was his pen name, kind of like "Mark Twain."  His "Tevye the Dairyman" stories are what Fiddler on the Roof was based on.  She told wonderful stories of him, including that when she was small he told her to hold his hand tight when they went out, because "the tighter I held onto his hand, the better he wrote!"  She is the only living person left who knew him.  She is about to be 99!  And has a wonderful voice, a wonderful presence . . . . Suddenly living to 99 doesn't look like such a bum deal.

Comments

[quietspaces.livejournal.com]

I remember Up the Down Staircase. It was a favorite book of mine during my college years.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I had no idea until now that Bel Kaufman was Sholem Aleichem's granddaughter! Or that she was still with us, for that matter.

I also loved Up the Down Staircase. The bit where the handsome male teacher red-pencils the love letter from the angsty female student has never left me.

Her (only other?) novel, Love, Etc. was also quite delightful.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

I also had no idea of either of the first two things, and I also loved Up the Down Staircase and read it endlessly.

The bit I remember after all these decades is the bit about the would-be teacher who was failed for her interpretation of Edna St. Vincent Millay's poems, so she wrote to Millay, who supported her. The school's response: eliminate living poets from the exams.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

The bit I remember after all these decades is the bit about the would-be teacher who was failed for her interpretation of Edna St. Vincent Millay's poems, so she wrote to Millay, who supported her. The school's response: eliminate living poets from the exams.

I remember hearing this story from my 11th-grade English teacher. Part of her point was that exam-designers were unreasonable by nature, but I was nonetheless inspired to go looking for Up the Down Staircase. Which I loved, apparently like everybody else.

[foreverrhapsody.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm very jealous of you! I played Alice Blake in my schools production of Up the Down Staircase, and it was one of my most favorite plays throughout school.

[natesmomclaire.livejournal.com]

I loved Up the Down Staircase too! I even remember the Mad Magazine parody of the movie, and behind that, much more vaguely, the movie itself. Just recently I was reflecting that these days it would never occur to anyone to call an Adm. Asst. "Admiral," even in jest.

Jealous!

[moonmothx.livejournal.com]

I LOVED "Up the Down Staircase" as a teenager!

Plus: Corneilia Street Cafe? snf. Back in my folkie days, it was a little hole in the wall where we'd gather and swap songs. Man, that brings me back...

Re: Jealous!

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Hey, Rosie! I didn't know you had a blog, now! Excellent news.

Yep, Cornelia St is still there - and still run by the amazing fantastic Robin, with nightly shows down in that little basement room. Come visit sometime, and we can go check it out!

[tazlet.livejournal.com]

Wow! I am impressed, I read "Up The Down Staircase" so many times when I was a kid -- a vivid, vivid book -- was remembering the passage where an older teacher explains how difficult it once was to get a teaching certificate -- so difficult that a candidate was denied one because the board disagreed with her interpretation of a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay -- denied even when Miss Millay wrote a letter saying the candidate was correct.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

See the punchline to that story in my comment above.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

I would have mentioned her work, having enjoyed Up the Down Staircase, a book proving that the epistolary novel was still alive and well in the mid 20th century.

I might also have mentioned her college friend Joy Davidman, the one who went to England and married C.S. Lewis, and a notable author herself.

[ninamazing.livejournal.com]

AAAAH JEALOUS. I tell everyone I know, especially teachers/aspiring teachers, to read Up the Down Staircase. ♥ So glad you got to have this moment.

[themaskmaker.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a wonderful evening. I love Sholem Aleichem's work.

[marinarusalka.livejournal.com]

That is so cool! I had no idea she was still alive. I was in a truly terrible junior-high drama class production of Up the Down Staircase once, which somehow managed not to diminish my love of the book.

[margdean56.livejournal.com]

Count me as another who read and reread Up the Down Staircase and hadn't the foggiest notion that Bel Kaufman was related to Sholom Aleichim. What a thrill!

(Myself, I played Grandma Tzeitel in our high school production of Fiddler on the Roof...)

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

(--"may she rest in peace"--)

[wildwose.livejournal.com]

Although I am not familiar with their work, I was a musical theater kid, and have worked Fiddler on the Roof several times. Great story, I always appreciate it when I get to note that all of us, every single one, are a fan girl or boy about someone. I got to meet Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman once. It was cool.

[elissa-carey.livejournal.com]

Same here. Lovely people. :)

[sovay]

I got to shake Bel Kaufman's hand!

That's very cool.

There is a familial connection between me and Sholem Aleichem, but I am not sure anyone knows precisely what it was anymore; my mother thinks a cousin of some sort, I think it may have been by marriage. I should ask one of her cousins who knows the family stories.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Oh, do!

[gaedhal.livejournal.com]

I recently gave my old paperback copy to my 12 year old
niece -- she loved the movie, so of course she had to
read the book!

This is great that's she's still around and fighting the
good fight.

[jim-p.livejournal.com]

Much envy! :) Mazel tov :)

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Oh! I was not aware UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE was a book as well as a play! (In fact, I didn't even know it was also a movie until two seconds ago.) I will have to get it and read it!

And how incredibly, incredibly cool to have met her, and to have heard her stories about the man who created Tevye. Wow. I am so envious, and yet so very, very glad that I read your blog so I could read this story!

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

And *I* didn't know there was a play - though half my LJ pals I guess were in it!

Dearie, you must come to NYC sometime and let us take you on Adventures.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

For some reason I never manage to be in NYC for more than 48 hours at once. I have this fevered dream of actually visiting for a whole week sometime. I would so love to be taken on Adventures! :)

[negothick.livejournal.com]

Thrilled to hear that Bel Kaufman is still hanging in there--great genes in that family. I met her when we were the entertainment at an Israeli Bonds brunch in 1998, when she was a mere spring chick of, what, 87, and had lots more energy than I did.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I can't belieeeeeeve it didn't occur to me til now that I should have asked her to autograph my program!