The Columbus Jewish Historical Society

Interviewer:  The date is October 1^st, 2024.  This is Bill Cohen from the Columbus Jewish Historical Society, and I am talking with Hannah Kaunitz.  Hannah, tell us, first of all, can you trace your family back a generation or two or how far back can you go?

Kaunitz:   My, my parents, and then their parents and then their parents’ parents as far as the oral history goes, were born and raised in Bombay, India, as Jewish people in the group called Bene Yisrael Jewish Group.  In India, we had three groups of Jewish roots.  There were Bene Yisrael Jews in the Bombay area. There were Baghdadi Jews that were in the Bombay area and other parts of India and then there were Cochin Jews in the southwestern coast of India. Bnai Yisrael Jewish ancestry goes back to 2400 years and that’s the root of my family and I was born in Bombay, India and I emigrated to Israel at the age of 10.  My parents, Leah and Emmanuel, were born in India, were married in a synagogue in India.

Interviewer:  And their last name was?

Kaunitz:  Pezarker.  I wrote it down here   Pezarker.  P-e-z-a-r-k-e-r, and my mother’s name was, is Leah.  She’s still living in, in Israel.  She’s 95 years old, and my father, Emmanuel, was also born in India and they both emigrated with seven of us to Israel in 1969.  That’s when I was 10.

Interviewer:  Now, you say that there were Jews in India back two thousand years.

Kaunitz:   Um-hum.  There is a written history throughout the different people that ruled India, especially the British rule.  A lot of the Jewish people were involved with the British army.  They were also merchants.  How they got to India, this particular group of Jewish people were probably in the rebellion of Bar Kochba in Israel, and they needed to flee and I, they probably fled through the south into the Red Sea and then into the Arabian Ocean and then the Indian Ocean.  Another story they say that there was existence of Jewish presence because King Solomon required a lot of jewels and gold and silver that, when he built the First Temple in Israel, so, I think there were ships going back and forth of Jews to find treasures, to buy treasures.

Interviewer:  Now, your first explanation of Jews being in India was the Bar Kochba rebellion.

Kaunitz:  Rebellion.

Interviewer:  Are we talking, is that the Hannukah story?

Kaunitz:  I think so.  I’m not very good at those dates but there is a speculations of that being the force that forced people out of Israel. There is also a story about the Ten Lost Tribes that happened.  A lot of the Jewish people that were exiled, they went to Babylonia and some of the Jews went probably to Yemen and from Yemen ended up in India, so my grandfather, Reuven, from my father’s side, used to tell us stories of Yemen and how they were tortured as Jews by the Muslims that lived there, but…

Interviewer:  That would have been approximately the years, when did this happen?

Kaunitz:  Well, my grandfather was about 75 when he passed away and he passed away around 1970, so we emigrated to Israel in 1969.  He was already in Israel, but his business was selling fabrics.  He had a fabric store in Bombay, India, that probably his customers were mostly Jewish and, as Jews, all over the world, there is a lot of business with textile and so, they, my grandfather also was telling stories about stores or factories in Yemen of making fabric and he had a store in Bombay that was burned.  Who knows what happened? I don’t have the whole story, but then he would sell fabrics door-to door to all the Jewish community, and I remember as a child my grandfather picking fabric for our holiday dresses.  The girls mainly wore dresses.  My mom would wear saris but it was a customary thing that we, all five girls in our family, and there were two boys, so five girls got the same fabric dress, so we looked, they could spot us everywhere and this was something that my grandfather would do every year.  This was like a ritual, but some of the stories of the Jews in Bombay, India, it’s in the southern part of Bombay that a shipwreck happened of seven men and seven women that were on the ships to probably come and do a buying or selling or they were escaping.  We don’t know the exact story but the Jews from this Bene Yisrael group ended up being called by the locals as Shanivar Teli – Saturday oil-makers – meaning on Saturday they did not work so that was the Jewish in them, and they were labeled this by the locals, and there is a whole story about these people came on board to the land and sacrificed a cow but the cow is very sacred to the Hindus and so, all the locals wanted to kill these people because they desecrated their god, so, there is a story of Elijah, the Prophet coming to save these Jewish people, and there is a whole ritual with this big rock and it shows skid marks of the chariot of Elijah.  In every single home in Bombay and still in Israel, all the Jewish people that came from the Bene Yisrael people have Elijah ascending to heaven on his chariot and so they were saved. That’s the story. They were saved by Elijah so the locals would not harm these people that sacrificed, because sacrifices were a thank you.  “Thank you, God, for” you know, “for saving us.” Thank you, God for bringing us to land,” and so here they are sacrificing an animal, but then they got in to trouble, but then, things were settled, but these are the stories I cannot confirm but these are stories told to us, and I read these also online so there’s a whole history of the Jewish people.  In Bombay, India, when I was growing up, I went to a Jewish day school., Jewish day school that was named Elly Kadoorie School.  Elly Kadoorie was, I believe, a Baghdadi Jew that was very rich and he built schools and synagogues and hospitals in India.  He was a big philanthropist, and also there’s another family, a very famous family of Indian Jews but they were not Bene Yisrael.  They were Baghdadi Jews that were Sassoon family and as we know today there is Vidal Sassoon Company that sells skin care and hair care.  They were philanthropists in India.  They were from the Jewish community in India, so I’m sorry if I’m not covering you’re saying.  Could you ask me some of the questions again?

Interviewer:  Well, you were born what year?

Kaunitz:  I was born in1959…

Interviewer:  Okay.

Kaunitz:  …and when I was 10 my father wanted us to move to Israel.

Interviewer:  So, what are your memories?  Well, you’ve talked about some, especially talking about your grandfather and so forth.  What other memories do you have of life in India as a Jew?  Did people get along?  Did the Hindus and Jews get along for the most part, other than this one story you’ve talked about?

Kaunitz:  Right. That was an ancient story, but we experienced, I was born in 1959.  I was the fourth daughter to my parents, Emmanuel and Leah.  They, we lived in an apartment building and surrounding us, all the Hindus, the Christians, and the Muslims living in the same building.  No one had ever had any problem.  When we told the neighbor that we’re going to Israel, they said, “Where are you going and why are you going?”  They didn’t understand.  There was no anti-Semitism.  We were in the height of Jewish existence in, in India was about fifty to sixty thousand Jews so, can you imagine?  We weren’t really noticeable.

Interviewer:  Wait.  In all of India there were only fifty to sixty thousand Jews?

Kaunitz:  Yes.  Yes.

Interviewer:  Hundreds and millions of…

Kaunitz:  …of Hindus, Muslims and Christians, so, it’s the only time a Jewish problem happened in Bombay, India was more current.  There was a Chabad family that was located in Bombay to take all the Jewish Israeli kids and Jewish people that come to visit India would have a place where they wanted to teach them, you know, ‘If you’re searching for spirituality, here is your spirituality,’ so they were, there was an attack on the hotel, Bombay Taj Mahal Hotel and, at that time, this particular Chabad family was living there and that was more recent.  I think it was in the 90s, late 90s, I believe, and so, they dressed in the black and white and the women really had everything covered, but that was the only time I know in the history that Jewish people were attacked.

Interviewer:  So, when you, when you, when you talk about all the other people in your neighborhood, the non-Jews, asking you, ‘Well, things are, you have a great life here in India, why are you going to Israel?’ what was the reason?

Kaunitz:  So, our father was one of about 13 siblings and so, but my father had a very big presence in his family.  He, he decided that, you know, his mother needed help from him to make sure all his sisters were married first and then he would be married.  Even though his father was around, he really admired the mother’s power or the mother’s bravery all the time.  I was named after his mother, Hannah, and in India, most Jewish people named their children with Hebrew names from the Torah and so, but then you’re named after someone in the family, but the reason we came to live in Israel, the process started in early 50s.  As soon as Israel became a state in 1948, in the early 50s, they, Israel sent many emissaries in every, to every community in the world that had Jewish presence to try and convince the youth to make aliyah to Israel, and so, there was, this, a powerful machine of convincing young people. Once you convince young people, they’re going to tell their parents “We’re leaving on our own even if you don’t want us,” because they would have the right to go, but that’s what happened to my oldest sister.  She wanted to go to Israel with the youth aliyah, the youth emigration and my father said, “No.  You’re not going.  If you’re going, we’re all going,” so that’s what ended up happening, but my father had a good job.  He worked in the textile business. He was the only earner in the family. We have seven children.  My mother was working at home quite a lot, but she had a lot of help at home with the babies and with washing and with the dishes and all that stuff, so, it was very, the drive to come to Israel was not so, my dad knew he would go to Israel one day because most of his sisters emigrated in the early 50s to Israel and they wrote letters of how the conditions were so bad and then how the Indian Jewish community was treated badly because here are dark Jewish people coming in to Israel.  A lot of the Jewish people that had the power, political power were European Jews or Russian Jews and so, there was a lot of discrimination but can you imagine having a family feeling really that they are middle class, upper middle class in India and then they come and have to live in shacks and no running water, no electricity?  That whole thing created a big problem so he would get letters from his sisters in Israel saying, “Don’t come,” and, you know, because it was hard life, but that, that’s why the emissaries were sent to bring people so they would work hard to make this country work.

Interviewer:  So, even though the relatives of your father told him that conditions were bad for dark-skinned Jews who’ve come to Israel, he picks up the whole family and brings them anyway.

Kaunitz:  Eventually he brings them because this was, I was born in 1959.  My oldest sister was about six, seven years older than me so she was seventeen.

Interviewer:  She is the one who was enthusiastic about moving to Israel.

Kaunitz:  Because there were youth groups with emissaries from Israel telling them, ‘This is your place.  You have to go.” you know, painting a very rosy picture of enticing young people just like they go to war.  They don’t really know what’s going to happen but this is exactly the same way.  The, my father held off for a long time.  It was in ’69 that he was ready to do it because he had no other choice and I think, one of the concerns he had, a lot of Jewish families were leaving Bombay and he said, ‘I have five daughters. Who’s going to marry them?’

Interviewer:  Oh, that was a motivating force.

Kaunitz:  Right and I was a fourth daughter so, I was 10 and my sister was 11, 12 and then there’s a little gap but then the girls were older, and it was his worry that it would be harder for his daughter to marry a Jewish person in Bombay.  You know, the community wasn’t that big, but for us, it was our world. We lived in synagogues.  We practiced Judaism at home all the time, so, for us, it was, you know, we’re Jewish in this big non-Jewish world, but we didn’t know, until I looked back and I said, ‘we were such a small group’ but we stuck to our rituals and no one, and we respected other peoples’ rituals and other peoples.  My father was friends with everybody, so, so, he ended up being convinced, finally, to do it.  My father also helped a lot of the Jewish people that were coming to Israel because they needed to have an authoritative figure knowing as a witness, ‘Is this a Jewish family?’ so he would sign off.  He would know them from this synagogue or that synagogue or from the school, so he was very involved in the process of immigration but for him, it came at a time when he knew he had to do it.

Interviewer:  How did you feel about moving to Israel especially knowing that one of the reasons was so you would wind up marrying somebody Jewish?  At least the chances were better.

Kaunitz:  Right.  When I, looking back at this age of 10, we really are following our parents to do what they’re asking us.  We were, like, “Oh, this is a great adventure,” you know, back then.  As soon as we got to Israel and started our life in Israel, we knew it was going to be a hard road. I was coming home crying every single day from school because I was getting bullied by another girl that emigrated to Israel, but she was American.  You see the difference in color, in power, but for me, we had followed our parents to do what they’re asking us to.  We didn’t have a say in it.

Interviewer:  Was the bullying, was it blatantly racial or economic, or…?

Kaunitz:  I think bullying has many faces, so if you, if you’re the new newcomer, you will get beat up by the last group and you would be taunted by the last group because they had that suffering before, and so, here I am in fifth grade in a playground and I am being taunted and, you know, bad words are being said, and of course, my brother was in the same school with me and he would come in recess and say “ Who is bothering you?  Let me, let me, tell me. I’m going to go beat them up,” but I remember coming home for probably over a year saying to my parents, “We’re going to go back to India.  We can’t stay here.  We need to go back to India,” ‘cause it was a safe place there.  We didn’t really know what was going to happen to us as a new immigrant.  We weren’t prepared for it.  My parents were more prepared for it than I was.

Interviewer:  Did you speak Hebrew or what language did you speak in Israel, in school and everywhere else?

Kaunitz:  Right.  So, our, my first language was Marathi.  Marathi is spoken, you know, India is divided into regions like, Maharashtra.  Maharashtra is like one region where Bombay, and it’s like a whole region.  Before Israel, India was a, you know, political system.  There were rajas – kings – of different regions and they ruled over their state, but when the British came and finally after they left, the system became democratic…

Interviewer: …parliamentary…

Kaunitz: …parliamentary system.

Interviewer:  …in a unified state.

Kaunitz:  Right and so, in India I spoke Marathi, and then if I had gone, continued my schooling there until twelfth grade, I would have been speaking Marathi, Hindi, national language, Hebrew, and English.

Interviewer:  If you had stayed in India, you would have spoken those.  When you moved to Israel, what became of your language?

Kaunitz:  We were able to read a little bit of Hebrew, but everything was so different that we had to learn to speak very fast, very quickly, to become more Israeli, and in Israel there was a saying, “You’re in Israel now. Speak Hebrew. Do not speak Russian.  Do not speak English.  You speak Hebrew,” and so that was a drive but our parents wanted to speak to us at home in Marathi and we would resist and speak in Hebrew.  Within a year, we were pretty much able to, to speak Hebrew and make friends and the struggles, you know, got less and less difficult, but the, my parents knew Hindi, Marathi, Hebrew and English fluently.  They didn’t speak Hebrew but when they came to Israel, they were able to read Hebrew because the prayerbooks were in Hebrew and the prayerbooks translation was in Marathi so you have Hebrew on this side and Marathi on this side, and so, people could, growing up in India, my parents went to the same school that I went to in India, the Elly Kadoorie School, so their education was mainly with Jewish Group.  Today, that Group, that school is still around but most of the students are not Jewish.  They’re Hindus, Christians, maybe Muslim if they don’t send them to their own school, but that school is still around.

Interviewer:  Now in 1973, you were about fourteen years old, and the Yom Kippur War broke out. Do you have memories of that in Israel?

Kaunitz:  Yes.  I do have memories.  I was in high school and when the War broke, we were, we felt the need to go knocking on people’s doors everywhere in Israel and collect undergarments, toiletries, anything because the people that went from the synagogue, they didn’t have food, you know, they went in their, whatever they wore, they went to the army.  They were deployed from the synagogue on Yom Kippur, so we had collected any undergarment, any socks, any toiletries that we could so we went door to door as high schoolers to collect all these items for them and…

Interviewer:  These would go then to the soldiers because they didn’t have time…

Kaunitz:   …to pack anything and also…

Interviewer:  This is almost like the Jews in the Exodus didn’t have time to let the, let the bread rise.

Kaunitz:  Right.

Interviewer:  Okay. Sure. Wow.

Kaunitz:  Anyway, so…

Interviewer:  That’s a fascinating memory you have. Yes.

Kaunitz:  Yes, so, for us, we felt pretty safe, but we did have sirens that would be making us go to the bomb shelter and the sirens were, the bomb shelters were in, this building had like a U-shape building and about four stories. We would go down to the basement of this, two, two bomb shelters and there was a very big heavy door so we would sit there for a while and then when the sirens again were sounded, then we would leave, but bomb shelters were available in every building and today they have bomb shelters in every apartment because it’s the new standard.  When you build any building, you have to have individual bomb shelter.  They’re fortified, but in 1973 that was, that was our reality.  When you grow up and look back at it, you know it was huge event and it was affecting the Israelis very badly because here we have all these countries attacking Israel, and what would happen and when I look back at the history. Let’s say movies or anything like that, I never really had a clue at that time how big the risk was and how vulnerable Jews were at that time, but when you grow up and you start thinking of your past and you realize there’s so many things you didn’t know.   It was almost like we were sheltered from the bad stuff.

Interviewer:  You talked about being bullied and partly you felt, because of your skin color.  As you stayed in Israel for a while, did you see that general problem of racial discrimination among Jews, did you see that ease up or was that, in all your years of Israel, was that a major flaw?

Kaunitz:  I think it has been there, and it still is there.  We, recent immigrants to Israel were the Ethiopian Jews and they’re African and they were discriminated against but what the difference was when we came as Indian Jews, the Ethiopian Jews were really pushed to celebrate their holidays, to celebrate their language and let them understand that this is their heritage they should not put it away and do Israeli stuff.  For us, it was like, “Be an Israeli, speak in Hebrew, and just do it so you can mingle with all the rest of them,” and so we have been taught to “ Let’s push aside our Indian heritage and let’s just do Israeli stuff,” but I think it was wrong because it is a melting pot and it’s such a great thing that the Ethiopian Jews can continue and be proud of who they are.  They have special holidays to go up to Jerusalem, but we were told, the message was, “You’re Israeli now but we cannot be Israeli because we look dark.”  You still have discrimination because, “Yeah, you need to be Israeli but nah the color doesn’t match this Israeli thing.”  I didn’t, I wasn’t affected by it as much as probably my parents did.  As soon as my parents landed in Tel Aviv, we were, my father had a choice to go in two different places in Israel, so he had family in different places in Israel and the Immigration Office will ask him “Where would you like to go?  Do you want to go to the same place where you have some family?”  He said “No. I want to go up north to the Galilee.  I want a cooler climate.”  In India, he was, it was very hot but his sisters lived all in the south of Israel.  It was more desert-like and we were the first immigrant family to come to Nazareth Illit.  Nazareth Illit, now the name has changed to Nof HaGalil.  Nazareth Illit was a town near the old city of Nazareth that is Christian and Muslim and we would go shopping in their markets, but the Nazareth Illit was established to start a Jewish presence in the area and the, my father became very active with the political system and he also helped all the other immigrants that came after him and some of them were our relatives that came and asked to come to Nazareth Illit and helped them acclimate and helped them with the system, so both my parents were very active in the community because they were the first Indian Jewish family to come and my father was very, very active.  Unfortunately, in 1975, my father passed away suddenly and that means we were in Israel just six years at that time and here’s, we have another tragedy to deal with.  A mother with six kids has to now figure things out and it was pretty, pretty hard.

Interviewer:  And how long did you live, how long did you stay in Israel yourself?

Kaunitz:  So, I grew up in Israel from the age of 10 until I was 20, so here’s where Franklin comes into the picture, my husband.  He, I finished high school in 1977, and I needed to join the Army in November of 1977.  1977, so I had a gap between graduation and Army so I was always babysitting for families and so I had become a nanny to one of the families in Nazareth Illit to take care of their three daughters.  This family, the mother was from Holland and the father was from Switzerland and they were, they owned a factory or a place where the father would import all the parts of Swiss watches and they would assemble them in Nazareth and, you know, labor was cheaper than in Switzerland probably, so, they were both Jewish from Holland and Switzerland and they had three girls and I took care of them and I was involved in their lives for many years.  The, Franklin, came…he grew up in Connecticut and he came to play his violin in Israel, especially in the Galil.  Galil is the northern part of Israel and Galil is also where Lebanon border is.  It’s the Northern Galilee and it’s the Lower Galilee.  We lived in Lower Galilee.  So, Franklin’s orchestra, this shows, this poster shows that the Galil Symphony Orchestra was made up of all American Jewish musician that wanted to immigrate to Israel.

Interviewer:  They hadn’t yet immigrated but they were…

Kaunitz:  That was the agenda.

Interviewer:  …going to.

Kaunitz:   Right.  The agenda was to make music in the northern part of Israel. This was way before the Russian immigration because the Russians came with lot of music, piano, and violin and a lot of musicians but in Israel at that time there was a lack of classical music, so this orchestra was really coming to fill a hole.

Interviewer:  And Franklin played what instrument?

Kaunitz:  He played the violin and Franklin had to play, he started playing the violin since the age of five and then he, his teacher at that time said to him, “You know, there’s an audition in New York.  You should go apply, so he did get in and he came to Israel in the town where I lived and it’s a little town, and, but they placed musicians in different towns in the northern part of Israel, and Franklin and, I think, four other people were placed in Nazareth Illit.  Now, the family that I took care of, their daughters were involved in supporting these musicians that came to their town, so I ended up being there with the girls while they were all welcoming these musicians and as they welcomed the musicians, we, I saw these American musicians from far and I’m like, eh, I was too shy.  I was like, eh, you know, I do my thing, I take care of my girls.  What Franklin remembers is this:  he sees a dark skinny girl with long braids, and like, mmm, mmm, interesting.  Right?  So, he ended up, just, we didn’t even talk at that first meeting, but the next event was that…

Interviewer:  He was, he was attracted to you.

Kaunitz:   Yes, but he already had a girlfriend.  Anyway, so, we ended up not having any connections.  I joined the army in November, went through boot camp and was placed in the south of Israel in the southern city of Eilat and my new job in the army, was, I was doing communications with radio communications, and one day, I’m driving on the bus from Nazareth Illit to Tel Aviv and few stops after I get on, Franklin gets on the bus and I recognized him.  Actually, I, first, there was a Hanukkah party, and I met him and briefly talked because the girls that I took care of said, “They’re gonna’ be Americans there.  You have to come,” and I said, “I don’t really care.  I’ve been in boot camp. I want to sleep. I just want…”  Anyway, I was there and I was kind of tired and he came over and we talked for a few minutes, with broken Hebrew, broken English and it was a kind of funny thing, and then I didn’t have any connection with him.  There were, I probably didn’t have a phone at home and there were no cell phones and no communications so that’s when I get on the bus few weeks later and I’m already placed in my base in Eilat and he gets on the bus and I recognize him.  He sat next to me for two and a half hours and then we talked and, you know, he said he’s going to look for a kibbutz to live in because the orchestra fell apart and then he joined, the new orchestra was the Kibbutz Chamber Orchestra and the Kibbutz Chamber Orchestra he needed to go find a kibbutz to live on so he went to Tel Aviv and it happened that he got on the bus few stops later and that’s how we met. It was, I guess it was meant to be, but in Tel Aviv we separate, and I gave him a number at my base and I said, “If you ever come to Eilat to visit, I can show you the city.” A few days later I get a call.  My, the operator says, “Hey, Hannah, there is a guy.  He sounds very American.  Do you know him?”  I said, “What?”  I was surprised that he called few days later, so, here we are.  I said, “Where are you?” He says, “Here.  I’m here in Eilat.”   He’s camping on the beach in Eilat and so that’s how it all started, but…

Interviewer:  And you later got married.  How much later was that?

Kaunitz: It was, it was about three years later.  We got married in 1980 and we married in a synagogue in Nazareth Illit.  The synagogue was Ashkenazi synagogue, and the rabbi of the city was Sephardic, so that was our compromise.  We got married in an Ashkenazi synagogue in the courtyard and a, the city rabbi married us there and then we came six months later to the U.S., you know, on an adventure.  I had no idea, just like I didn’t have any idea what would be like in Israel when I came from India.  I was very young and very up for any adventure.

Interviewer:  Now let me understand.  Franklin, had he made Aliyah to Israel?

Kaunitz:  Hm-um.  Yes.

Interviewer:  So, you were in Israel.  You were a resident and citizen of Israel and he also, so, why did you make the move then to the United States?

Kaunitz:  So, Franklin was in Israel for about three years, and I think he was on the verge of deciding.  I think he was homesick.  The way it was done it was like, “You have never been to the U.S and we can go live there and travel,” but we didn’t have any money, so, we came and the first year was very difficult for me.  I constantly said, “I am not having children here,” because I didn’t want to set roots in the U.S.

Interviewer:  You didn’t want to have roots.

Kaunitz:  Yeah.  I didn’t want to settle in the U.S.  I felt very much attached to Israel.  The main reason was my mother and all our siblings and their families – it’s a big family but, we just didn’t, I was 20 years old.  At that time, I was like, yeah, I was, I was in the army.  I came ten years ago from India.  Why not?  Let’s go and do something in the U.S.  We came to Connecticut because he grew up in Connecticut and his parents and a sister lived there still.  His sister is still in Connecticut, but when we came to Connecticut, it was another adjustment of an immigrant trying to understand the New England culture and thought.  How do people see me and I kept saying all the time to Franklin, “Franklin, you didn’t see my color but I see my color in people’s eyes.  When they look at me they don’t see who I am on the inside, they always see my color and it’s not okay and I worked really hard to avoid having an uncomfortable situation, would reach out and talk and tell them where I’m from,” and da da da da, but it was my way of saying, you know,  “Do not judge me for my color,” and it, it stuck with me that, that I see color in people’s eyes.

Interviewer:  And did you feel that this included non-Jews and your fellow Jews as well?

Kaunitz:  Yes.  So, at the beginning it was Jews because I would go a synagogue, walk with him to synagogue and we’d get lots of stares.  They are not used to seeing Sephardic Jews, even like Jews from other tribes of Israel.  They were not all White.  They were many colors, so, I had to work hard on not feeling insulted by it.  I tried to move it around and even to let’s say, five years ago, and we were living in North Carolina.  I teach Hebrew.  I prepare them for b’nei mitzvah and I teach them reading Hebrew, modern Hebrew, Torah reading, haftarah reading, prayers, all that and I get a call from this rabbi in North Carolina.  He’s a Chabad rabbi and he said, “Hannah, I have this family would like to hire you as a tutor because they’re going to do their bar mitzvah in Israel,” so whenever the rabbi got something that is not in his temple, he would refer me to them, so I said, “Sure,” why not? So I called the mother, made an appointment and I knock on the door, come. I’m knocking on the door.  I see one boy opening the door and he stepped backwards and then I see the parents coming over and they are going backwards, and then I haven’t even had a chance to go in the house yet.  I had to tell them, “Rabbi referred me to you and here I am.  I’m Hannah Kaunitz,” and so, it happens all the time.  With people that are non-Jewish, it happens when I say something like, “I’m an Indian Jew,” and they’re like, “What? What does that mean? I’ve never seen dark Jews before.”  There are some, you know, African Jews in the community but it’s always been a kind of a thing that I have to take the first step to explain and then be accepted, and it shouldn’t be but, that’s what it is.

Interviewer:  Now, your husband, Franklin, has his own fascinating history. Just fairly briefly, can you talk about his, his family’s background and experience from the Holocaust?

Kaunitz:  Okay, so Franklin and his sister were born in the U.S. His parents, Ursala and Joergen, came as teenagers to New York. Ursala’s history was she came with her two parents but because she had eye issues, she had glaucoma, and they, somehow, they made a mess of one eye when they tried to do surgery, so she was, they were trying to get out of Germany, and they were either in Belgium or Holland.

Interviewer:  And this would have been what year approximately?

Kaunitz:  Probably in the mid-Thirties, ’36,’37, 19…I think it was in the beginning of the War, but they were trying, they were trying to be proactive and knew that they had to leave and so, his mother was always diagnosed with, she was legally blind, so she couldn’t drive and such, but her family came from Berlin.  Her father, I believe, was an Orthodox Jew, and she didn’t practice Orthodox Judaism.  Her mother didn’t either.  Her father passed away in 1951 or ’52 in New York City, so the mother and father of Ursala, his mother were living in the City, and the parents got married quite early because of father dying of cancer, so, they, his parents got married in New York City.  The, Joergen, his father’s family came, first sending one of the sons and by having someone sponsor them here in the U.S., because you couldn’t really get an immigration done in the right procedure unless you had someone sponsor you, and I think that’s what happened to Ursala’s family. Franklin’s parents, Franklin’s father’s family came from Hanover in Germany, and the father and the mother and the father, the parents, his father and the two parents came on the ship, the last ship leaving Germany.  Was it Germany?  I think it was another, it was in the north of, there was a ship leaving and that was the last ship that could leave to, that they would allow, the Nazis would allow people to leave, so they left but they had sent their other two children before by getting a sponsor here and they were establishing business or work so they can say ‘we can take care of our parents’ so they came at that time.  Franklin’s grandmother Elizabeth, she’s the mother of Joe or Joergen, she was a businesswoman. In Hanover they had three stores, haberdasheries, they owned.  Finally, they had to leave it all, but his father was there during the Kristallnacht and saw this thing happening and they had to wear a Jewish star and they had to be moving from regular schools to only Jewish schools.  They couldn’t study in any other schools, and he has his whole story written down that we can talk about later, but his grandmother, Elizabeth, was such a strong woman in Germany.  She had one factory of making hats for the German army way before Nazis have arrived into the scene, so she, during the Nazi regime, she had to go to the court with a woman that was suing her for firing her.  This woman was fired by his grandmother and his grandmother had to go in front of the Nazi court and tell them why she had to fire her, and so she was a very tough woman.  She went before the court and she said, “She’s late.  She talks all the time.  She doesn’t do her work. What do you think I should be doing with her?  I can’t have somebody not working and doing what they’re supposed to do,” and the Nazi court did allow her to fire this woman, and so, this was a story that we heard many times, and so she also had to go save her husband from a workcamp.  Her husband had some asthma issues.

Interviewer:  He was also much older.

Kaunitz:  He was much older.  I think he was twenty or something years older than her, but he was taken to a workcamp by the Nazis.  She went to the camp, bribed whoever she wanted to bribe to get him out.  She got him out and he came to the U.S., so his immediate family, grandparents and parents were able to escape, but all of the others that were staying behind, you know, relatives, aunts, uncles, everybody was murdered there and probably went to Auschwitz and other, other camps, but we are, we are grateful that we have some memories, like those two portraits that were hanging in his parents’ house, and just to have this rich history of people that were very well-off and had businesses and homes and had to leave everything behind to come, because they trusted that they were German first and Jewish second but that didn’t, that didn’t matter.

Interviewer:  Does, does Franklin’s link with the Holocaust, does it resonate?  Does it, does it give you more of a Jewish identity, you, yourself?

Kaunitz:  I, I think what it does, it gives me more power.  Our children have better knowledge.  Here I am, coming from India, as a Jew that was free to go do whatever we wanted.  No one discriminated us.  No one would have because it wasn’t their custom.  There was no, but I don’t know if Hitler had the power to finish all of the world, he would have gone into India and killed everybody because they were all Black, but for us, we didn’t, for me especially, the Holocaust came into picture when I was growing up in Israel. Every Holocaust Memorial Day we would go to the museum.  We would see.  We would hear lectures.  We would have ceremonies.  When I met Franklin and I knew of his family’s history from Germany, it, it spoke to me directly.  Our children and grandchildren are affected by all this.  You know, we, we want to remember so we don’t have this happen again, but unfortunately, with everything that is happening today, I have less hope, but I still have to do what I have to do and feeling, you know, my last name is Kaunitz.  My maiden name is Pezarker but Pezarker went, it’s just centuries of, of Indian Jews that were free, had no discrimination.  We did dress like the Indians.  We did do some customs like the Indians, like, in marriage there was Henna ceremony and, but the Ashkenazi Jews came from Europe had a different history and so we are, we’re in two different worlds when it comes to how I feel, but I do feel discrimination toward me because of my color.  It’s not like I have to prove to anybody anything, but I sometimes have to, to be accepted.  It doesn’t bother me anymore.  It’s just something I have to do in any situation I’m in.  Once they get to know me, they’re, they’re fine but, I think, that whole hurdle of leaving, so, Franklin did a genealogy, like a…

Interviewer:  Research.

Kaunitz:  Yeah, he had the, a test and his results came back saying ‘a hundred percent Ashkenazi Jew.’  Okay.  That’s great.  I’m glad they have a marker to say, “Oh, these are all Jewish people,” but when I do mine, I’m southeast, southeastern, South Indian, African, so my genes don’t have any kind of Jewish marker but, what is the Jewish marker for the Ashkenazi?  Most people that have done the DNA test, if they said they were Jewish, and they came from Europe, that means they were Ashkenazi Jews and so they compare it to something they know, that Jewish from Europe had the same identification.  For me, it’s, who knows?  I mean, Queen, Queen Sheba came from Ethiopia, right?  She was, she was with King Solomon and, and so there is a whole tribal thing from the Twelve Tribes we don’t really have markers to compare to.

Interviewer:  You’re saying Judaism does not show up in your genes and chromosomes like it does for the Ashkenazi European Jews.

Kaunitz:  Correct.

Interviewer:  Your identity, as least as far as the DNA tests are concerned, there’s no Judaism in it – in your heart, yes…

Kaunitz:  Yes.

Interviewer:  …but in your genes, no.

Kaunitz: Right.

Interviewer:  It’s your racial identity that shows up in your genes.

Kaunitz:  Right and I think, eventually, if there was comparisons with the Jews that came from India, Jews that came from Iran, Jews that came from Iraq, would have something in common, they will start looking into it more.  I think the data shows that Ashkenazi Jews have certain markings because there were so many of them that were tested, and if they claimed, “Oh, my parents were from Germany.  I consider myself Jewish.”  Then they look and see,” Oh, wait. Look.  This is a hundred percent the same person as the other genetic markers,” but I, I don’t worry about it because being Jewish, anybody could be a Jew.  If you convert, you are a Jew, and you know, our three children are, our oldest daughter, her name is Galit.  She married Becky, and Becky is not Jewish, but Galit, our daughter and her had like, just a ceremony like, a civil ceremony, but I feel that, you know, our two sons, one of them lives in North Carolina, Emmanuel and he’s married Dina, and Dina is Jewish, but they may or may not have children.  We don’t know, but our son Gabriel that lives here, has three children, two from his first marriage and one from his second, and both his wives were officially converted to Judaism, so, but the first wife came from Circleville, Ohio.  Her father came from a family from Chicago, the Mandel families that were here for probably a couple hundred years and so there is a history of Jewish link with our son’s first marriage but she wanted to convert because her father had a link for Judaism, not her mother, so, a mother, in Judaism, mother is the deciding religion but she ended up converting and, you know, we have beautiful two children from her, and then our daughter-in-law Nicole, currently, she converted because she was looking for different spiritual, and she found it when she met Gabriel and it became more important, so.

Interviewer:  So, how did you wind up and when did you wind up in Columbus?

Kaunitz:  Okay, so in, I believe, in 2013, our son Gabriel married Nancy from Circleville, Ohio.  She met him at Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia.

Interviewer:  And at this point, you were living where?

Kaunitz:  We were living in North Carolina, so, we moved from Connecticut to North Carolina in 2003, so, we lived in North Carolina until 2020, so, we were in North Carolina for about 18 years.  The reason we moved to North Carolina from Connecticut was because Franklin was working in a job in New York City and commuting to New York City from Connecticut and it was a lot of hours of commuting and then finally, his company moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, and so we said, “Okay, we’re going to be moving.”   It was not easy for our children but I always told my children that “If you’re moving to a different country, you have to learn a different language.  You have to learn different customs.  You’re only changing your accent when you move to North Carolina.  It’s not a big deal,” but still, it made a big deal for them because, you know, I think our youngest son was affected by it a hundred percent worse than anybody else, but it’s a matter of, you know, staying in one community, setting roots and kind-of feeling, you know, why would I uproot and go somewhere else,? but…

Interviewer:  So, there was a Circleville link, but you were still not in Ohio yet.

Kaunitz:  No.  We would come and visit a lot.  We would come on weekends and be with the grandkids and eventually, when Franklin retired, in is it, 2017? He retired in 2017.  I was still working full-time as a teacher for Hebrew in Charlotte.  I’m always amazed at how much Hebrew I’ve been teaching and how it became, like, more than a full-time job. So, in North Carolina I was teaching.  In Connecticut I was teaching Hebrew and now I’m teaching Hebrew here. The move to come to Ohio was, I guess, Franklin says, the biggest pull, a magnetic force, is the grandchildren.  There are two grandchildren at that time and 2020 was not the best year to move because of COVID. Also, Franklin had a stroke 2019, August of 2019, and as we were cleaning out the house, I had an accident in the house.   I fell through the attic into the garage floor, broke two vertebra and so it was really hard for me physically, but we were downsizing, so the house is sold.   Here we are moving in 2020, finding this place, but the motive was to come and be closer to the grandchildren.

Interviewer:  So, here you are on the Far East side of Columbus.  Your son whose wife had Circleville roots, they live in Columbus, too?

Kaunitz:  They live, the mother lives in Ashville, Ohio,

Interviewer:  Just south of Columbus.

Kaunitz:  Right and now the mother of the first two children, works in the community, Jewish community.  She works at Agudas Achim. She’s Marketing and Publicity Director there, and our new daughter-in-law works at Tifereth and they’re doing the same kind of a job, Marketing Director.

Interviewer:  These are the….

Kaunitz:  Two wives.

Interviewer: The first and second wives of your son.

Kaunitz:  Hm-hm.

Interviewer:  What a coincidence.

Kaunitz:  Right. Right, so, we are really happy being here. I am working.  As soon as COVID started easing up a little bit, they discovered that I’m teaching Hebrew, so I have been teaching in all three synagogues – Agudas Achim, Tifereth Israel and Temple Israel.  So, Temple Israel is the Reform and the other two are Conservative, but I, myself, coming from a background of being Jewish, for me, it’s all Jewish.  It doesn’t really matter, Orthodox…because even in Orthodox groups you have different levels of observance of the laws of Judaism, so, we’re all together.

Interviewer:  So, you’ve only been here in Columbus three or four years, but what’s your feeling about the Columbus Jewish community?  Do you feel welcomed or do you still feel some racial overtones?

Kaunitz:  I do feel welcome, but, you know, there is, the other day I went to Matt’s Bakery, Matt’s Bakery in Whitehall.  I picked up few items for Rosh Hashanah, and so, I come in and I’m at the cash register and this Orthodox woman was also buying some things and I started talking and she’s like, “Oh, you’re Jewish.”  I said, “Yes, my name is Hannah Kaunitz and I am Jewish.  Did you know that there were Jews living in India?”  She said, “No,” so there is always that hurdle to jump over no matter where I go, but I don’t take it as hurtful.  I’m just taking it as they don’t know and I’m here to educate them, and that’s my role is to educate people.  More so, in this neighborhood, you know, there is, it’s not the Jewish community.   It’s the non-Jewish that think that they need to save me.

Interviewer:  Explain:

Kaunitz:  Save me, meaning, Christians that believe in Jesus do not think that I will be saved if I’m staying Jewish and not believing in Jesus, and so, that has been more of a deal, but I feel very comfortable in all the community and I, I don’t feel like I should be making myself smaller if people don’t see me. It’s, it’s not a problem anymore, but this was a more of a shock being in a community that has a lot of people that really want to save me so I won’t go to Hell.

Interviewer:  So, what do you tell those Christians who evangelize you?

Kaunitz:  One of the lines that I have is saying, “I don’t really need saving.  I believe in what I believe and I respect you for your beliefs so I hope that you can respect mine,” and that’s usually my answer and then I go on doing what I do and it’s, I’ve grown up.  I am not in the same place as I was as a first-time immigrant in Israel or first-time immigrant in the U.S.  I’ve learned from all these experiences to say, “You know? You still have to teach people a lot of stuff.  You’re here for that reason.”  You know, I’m in Ohio, never thought we would be in Ohio, but there’s a large Jewish community and I know what my role is, and I know that even though I thought I would never really continue teaching but teaching became my passion, and so, teaching not only to students but to adults that don’t see me as I want to be seen, and…

Interviewer:  You just said something about if you were younger, you might respond to these Evangelical Christians in a different way.  How, if you were younger how would you have responded to them?

Kaunitz:  I may have said something like, “You know, Jesus was Jewish.  We have Yom Kippur and we fast and we repent for our sins. We don’t just have it, like, ‘Oh, go and repent for your sins.   I have to ask the person for forgiveness and for God for other forgiveness that I may have done against God,’ and I tried to explain that we have accountability.  We, as Jewish, have a faith that tells us, ‘Yes, you do have to repent for your sins, but we are not so easily forgiven, so I’m proud of that,’ and I would tell them that, so sometimes it’s taken,  ‘Okay,’ and sometimes they just, like, you know, shake their heads, ‘Uh, still you won’t be saved.’

Interviewer:  So, as you’ve matured you’ve understood that maybe arguing…

Kaunitz:  It’s not helping.  It’s just, continue doing what you’re doing.  You do good in the community.  They see you.  They know you.  They may not be happy with everything I do, but I have convinced a lot of people that the reason I’m here, it’s more powerful than whatever they say to me, and right?  That’s what I feel.  I feel like I have the power to teach young and old to be a good person regardless of what’s happening, you know, politically or security-wise in Israel. I mean, I am not to be blamed for everything every Jew does and for them to understand that is still like a working process, you know?  I’m still trying to be that person that will teach ‘right’ and not take the ‘wrong’ from them and just, become more negative, because it’s not going to help.

Interviewer:  You’re in your 60s now.

Kaunitz: Hm-hm.

Interviewer:  You have many more years, hopefully, to live.

Kaunitz:  Let’s hope.

Interviewer:  As you look back on your life so far, what role would you say Judaism has played?

Kaunitz:  Judaism was always the rock.  It’s always been. Growing up in India, watching my parents, grandparents, and relatives just sticking to their beliefs and doing what they’re supposed to be doing, teaching us, teaching us Torah, teaching us customs because most of Judaism’s taught at home.  It’s easy for American Jews to say, “No, my kids go to Hebrew school and that’s enough, and then on the weekends we’ll play soccer or football or what-not and it’s enough,”  but if you don’t continue the traditions at home, they are not going to be as Jewish as you may want them to be, so, I feel that, you know, it was always in me, it has always resonated with me, knowing that Franklin grew up Reformed Judaism [editor’s note Reform] and, you know, they may not have kept kosher at home but I, I  showed up in this family and now they are not buying pork or bacon.  You know, I influenced that on them, not by force but just becoming, being more of a

Interviewer: example?

Kaunitz:  …example and also, traditionally, I want our children to reflect on certain things, so when we used to celebrate, let’s say, Passover or Rosh Hashanah at his parents’ house, I always had a fear my children will not know the ritual of celebrating at home Passover, so I started taking on this tradition of inviting the whole family to my house, working really hard, but satisfied that my children have seen the traditions, and then if they do or not, that’s going to be up to them, but at least, I can say I have given it to them, and so.

Interviewer:  Is there anything about your life that you haven’t talked about, especially with a Jewish lens, a Jewish angle?  Is there anything you haven’t talked about that you want people to know about your life?

Kaunitz:  Um, so, one of the things that is in my mind all the time is the safety of my family in Israel, currently, and knowing, you know, I have gone to Israel for a visit.  It wasn’t a planned visit but it was, my brother at the age of sixty-one, died suddenly with a massive heart attack, we think, and I went to Israel and still in March there was a lot of things going on in Israel, you know rockets this and I know as an Israeli and that I’ve served in the Army, I know that people are as safe as they can be and not worry about going to Israel because a lot of people will say, “ Well, it’s so bad over there, I don’t want to go now,”  but they don’t understand there are families, millions of families, that are living every day to try and keep their routine, even if they’re bombed, because they have to be doing this for normalcy of the family, like, keep a picture in their minds, “ Okay, we know this is happening, but what are we, are we safe within our family?” and I have many nieces and nephews in Israel that serve.  Currently, there is one that is serving in the front lines, but they were, they served, and you have to protect this country, but there is a lot of divide in how to do it, and how we don’t want to be looked by others saying that we are doing genocide and we are hurting innocent people, ‘cause that’s not the Israel and the Jewish person that I want to be in that picture.  I want peace but we are not able to live in peace if we keep having unresolved situations because it’s been going on for ages and there’s always unrest in Israel.  Sometimes my students would say, “Well, why it’s happening all the time to Israel?”  I said, “Do you know where Israel is located?  Israel is located in between Africa, Asia and Europe. You know how important that piece of land was always?  ‘Cause people had to travel through it and whoever conquered it would have their right of way, and that’s how they would make money.”  This land always was important.  Right now, we are trying to solve the problem with the, with the kidnapped people to try and get them home.  How do you get them home when they are hidden under the people that reside on top, and to see the devastation of the people, it, it’s sickening, but how do you resolve it?  How do you?  There is such a strong pull to keep these people look like they’re suffering, that keep them in that situation.  There is a whole Arab nations all around that can be very easily solve these Palestinians’ problems. You have a beach.  You can build hotels.  You can have restaurants.  Your food is great.  You can do this in your land instead of building tunnels and just wanting to kill the Jews.  There is a way out, but no one wants to change their situation because then Israel would win. ‘Oh, Israel is not doing anything.  We are Arabs, are supporting Gaza and sending our children their children to universities and schools that we built,’ or give their parents a job in hotels and restaurants.  There is, no one comes and says, we will do it for you.  It’s always, Israel is the problem, and so, that worries me because I have a whole big family there and their children and grandchildren – my mother has seven children.  She has 15 grandchildren and another 15 great-grandchildren in Israel. all these people will have to serve to protect Israel.  I’m here because of my reasons but, I still, my heart is over there.

Interviewer:  So, it sounds like you do have a conflict in your mind.  You want Israel to be secure and safe and independent, but you’re also upset about the civilian casualties on both sides.

Kaunitz:  Right. Right, and you know, we cannot just detach this incident, October 7^th, from all the history of so many years. This is something that was so horrible, but this is a result of people hating us and wanting to do such big massacre that will, all the whole world is stopping and looking at this.  It’s not, it’s not going away.  How would it go away?  Because people in Israel that are still protesting and saying, “We need to sit at a table and make decisions.  We need to find a two-state solution,” but they were so close to it when Arafat was dealing with the Israelis, but he walked away and embezzled a lot of money in the process.  You know, there is, the Palestinians don’t have good leadership to want peace. You can’t do it one-sided.  I don’t agree with Bibi Netanyahu’s, you know, ways of doing things but he’s still the President, eh, Prime Minister of Israel and we still have to, you know, have elections if you want a change, and we’ve seen in history of Israel elections happen few months, at every few months, but it’s only, it’s just showing how divided the country is that we don’t have a majority deciding.  It’s coalitions.  You know, you make deals to get enough votes, but that’s too much politics and who’s hurt?  The people.

Interviewer:  We’ve talked for more than an hour now.

Kaunitz: Hm.

Interviewer:  I wonder if there’s anything you could say about how hopeful or how not hopeful you are about the future of Jews?

Kaunitz:  Um. In so many ways, we wake up and want to have hope, that light inside of you, it’s just like, I have to everyday do something to be hopeful and what I like doing, both Franklin and I, decided, we will be volunteering for the Jewish Family Services for several years now, taking, taking action by helping people in need – food drives, clothing drives, refugee support and we have been involved in refugee family that came from, I can’t remember the country’s name now.  It will come to me.

Interviewer:  Venezuela?

Kaunitz:  Venezuelan family and so, we were very involved to do good in our community and hopefully, that wave will grow. Some days, I wake up and said, you know, it’s doom and gloom because we cannot do anything, but still, we can.  If we spread and do good in our community and other people think the same, then we will have more hope and the, the growing of hope has to be from you.  You are the one that have to make a decision of doing that consciously.  Otherwise, you know, you’re spreading bad news all.  If you are unhopeful, then, you will, it’s, it’s contagious.  Being hopeful or being unhopeful, it’s contagious. It’s not, you know, if we stand up and say, “we’re going to do good in the world, even if I can’t fix the refugee problems or I can’t do that, but I can do something in my community, I feel more hopeful with that.

Interviewer:  With those words we’ll end our interview with Hannah Kaunitz and the date is October 21^st, 2024, and I’m Bill Cohen for the Columbus Jewish Historical Society.

 

Transcribed by: Linda Kalette Schottenstein
November 27, 2024