The Columbus Jewish Historical Society

The date is October 22, 2024. This is Bill Cohen from the Columbus Jewish Historical Society and we’re doing an oral history today with Carole Genshaft at her home on East Whittier in Columbus.
Interviewer: Carole, maybe you can start, give us some background about your roots. What do you know? What can you tell us about your parents, or maybe you can go back further. Can you tell us about grandparents, what their names were, where did they come from?
Genshaft: I grew up in Canton, Ohio, where I was born, where my parents were born. They were both born in Canton. Unfortunately, I was named for the last grandparent who was living, so I never had any living grandparents, which is kind of sad knowing how close we are with our grandchildren today, but that’s the truth. They came from Eastern Europe. They were immigrants, the grandparents. They came here to be with some family in Canton, Ohio and they lived there and died young. My mom always said that my parents got married late because my dad was in WWII. He won a Bronze Star. He was wounded twice. He was a tank commander and landed at Normandy. We just went to Normandy in May because I hadn’t been there, and it was really moving.
Interviewer: Your father’s name was?
Genshaft: Philip Miller and my mom was Sally. This is a funny story. He was a bit of a gambler. He was very good with numbers. He had a photographic memory. When he went to the army, he played a lot of poker, and he would send the winnings to my mom. They weren’t married yet. By the time he got back, four years later, she had accumulated enough money to let him start a small business, which he did. He was in the catalogue showroom business, which was really interesting too, kind of off the subject here maybe. He started out by loading up his station wagon with stuff, like the things you, everything that has a hole and you could put on a peg. He’d go to like general stores, gas stations, in very small towns all over Ohio. The business grew and he opened a store in Canton and then eventually he had three stores, one in Massillon and two in Canton. I grew up around those stores. My sister and I worked there all the time. It was a neat thing because it was before the big box stores, but they were big stores at the time. What they did, he would have an association with people like him all over the country, many of them Jewish. They had these catalogue showrooms. They shared the same catalogue and purchasing power, but they all had different covers on the catalogue. His was Miller Sales, Canton, Ohio. Till the day he died, he could go to people and just say, “I’m Phil Miller. Did you every shop at Miller Sales?” People would just say, “Oh, I got this watch at Miller Sales, or I got my wedding band there.” You know, it was quite a wonderful place. As I said, we’d work every Christmas, my sister and I. The funny part was so you worked with these people, you’d think you had this great sale, and then they’d say, “Okay, go get your dad so I can get the real price.” (Laughs).
Interviewer: They wanted a lower price.
Genshaft: Dad, if he knew, he probably gave a lower price.
Interviewer: These were retail stores?
Genshaft: Right.
Interviewer: This was all after WWII, when he came back?
Genshaft: Yes, 1950’s, 60’s. You know, it was wholesale, so I never knew from behind retail. It was always wholesale. Our family trips were to the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, this toy show in New York. It was great. I got to go to a doll factory when I was very young and pick out any doll I wanted.
Interviewer: So your dad would buy wholesale, he would sell retail, or he would also sell wholesale?
Genshaft: No, they were called wholesale houses because they were cheaper. There was always a discount, and it was because they bought in this big number. There were probably, I don’t know, 15 stores from around the country. So, any company like, they sold appliances, and luggage, and jewelry, but they often bought together and then it was shipped to their wherever. The funniest was, in the store there was a conveyor belt. You’d give your order, and you’d wait while the conveyor belt from down in the storage area would bring things up. It was a great place. It was really a lot of fun.
Interviewer: You say that a lot of the other merchants who were affiliated with your dad, well they had separate business, they schmoozed together, they bought together. They were Jewish?
Genshaft: Many of them, State Wholesale in Cleveland. I’m trying to remember some of the other ones. Eventually, he was bought out by a bigger conglomerate. I can’t remember the name. You would recognize it. It’s no more. I just can’t think of the name of it. Yeah, it was fun and they won trips. Because he had been in the war, he never wanted to go back to Europe. This was not his favorite thing, so he’d give us the trips and we’d go with all these old people who were probably the age I am now. They thought we were so cute. He’d always give us his trips because when you buy in that quantity, you earn points and you used to get these trips. (Laughs).
Interviewer: Did your father ever talk about his time in WWII?
Genshaft: You know, he remained very close with his buddies and never missed a reunion. It was only prying, and I’m sorry I didn’t ask more questions. He was a tank commander in the Fourth Battalion under, well, he actually landed at Normandy, but, you know, like 22 days out, and then they actually ended up liberating a concentration camp, they did, Ohrdruf, I think somewhere in Germany, I think. I’m not sure about that. That’s the name of it.
Interviewer: What was the name of it?
Genshaft: Ohrdruf, I think it was a smaller camp. He didn’t know what he was doing. They didn’t know at that point, so he never talked about it a lot. He was a very peaceful person who never owned a gun or wanted to own a gun. He wasn’t that young when he went. He was like 28. He landed at Normandy, but he didn’t know how to swim, and he hates boats. He hated boats. He never got on a boat again. That was a very rough crossing. That kind of ended any cruises that he would ever do.
Interviewer: Let’s talk about your mother, her name again? What was her maiden name?
Genshaft: Sally Berkman Miller.
Interviewer: Berkman?
Genshaft: Exactly, she was a very smart woman. She did the accounts for the Golden Age Distributing Company. They distributed ginger ale, and I guess other pops too in Northeastern Ohio. So she worked hard, and as I said, she saved this money for my dad. When he got back, he was in his station wagon going out to the various stores, but then he had his own. She really worked there a lot as well. The first little store, and I remember this, I was probably five years old, it was next to an Arthur Murray’s Dance Studio which fascinated me. They had his winnings from poker, but they would save all the old boxes of things to make it look like there was more inventory. There were a lot of boxes. Then they had a few show cases, you know, and then he kept moving to bigger stores. It was a real American success story starting with nothing, literally nothing.
Interviewer: Your mother basically was a housewife and a helper in the business?
Genshaft: Yes, and as I mentioned, when we got older, we were all helpers in the business.
Interviewer: Besides doing that, what else do you remember about your childhood in Canton?
Genshaft: It was a great place to grow up. I walked to school. Then we moved out a little further. My husband moved down the street. We knew each other since, we went to the Purim Ball together when I was 12. He was 13 and his mother drove us.
Interviewer: The ?
Genshaft: No, the Purim, the holiday, the Purim Ball at the Jewish Center.
Interviewer: The Canton Jewish Center.
Genshaft: Yes. I was 12. We were always friends. We went our separate ways to college, etc., but we always kind of knew where we’d end up, I think.
I think we’d both say that.
Interview: Nelson, Nelson Genshaft.
Genshaft: Yes, we’re now married 52 years, but we’ve known each other since we were kids.
Interviewer: Did you go to synagogue, or Sunday School, or Hebrew School, anything Jewish in Canton?
Genshaft: Absolutely, we went to Sunday School. You know it wasn’t the thing when I was young to have a Bat Mitzvah, so I didn’t. Nelson’s sister did, and cousin, but they were one of the few. I didn’t. I got confirmed. The JCC was wonderful. I don’t know the years, but they built a new one that everybody was excited about. I eventually was like a camp counselor there, a swimming instructor for a while. That’s where the Purim Ball was, of course. That was the center of Jewish life. We belonged to the Conservative congregation. What’s funny is we always sat very close to the front and Nelson’s family sat a row behind us, so Nelson and I often would walk home if it was a Shabbat or Yom Kippur, we’d walk home from Services. If you really want to hear the story of how we got together after all that, because it’s a good story. I graduated from college early. I think it was that first semester, I was still there. Yes, so I came home for Yom Kippur, so did he. He said, “Oh do you want to walk home?” We walked home together?” Then he said, I went to Syracuse University and I had to go to Cleveland to take a plane, so he said he’d take me to the airport. Then he said, “You know, I have a ticket to the Browns game. Would you like to, maybe you’d want to come with me.” I said, “Oh sure, I love the Browns, the old Browns.
Interviewer: What year would this have been?
Genshaft: 1970, yes probably 1970. We went to the game and then I stayed for two weeks, in Cleveland. I was supposed to be back in Syracuse. I just stayed and we never went our separate ways again. So we got together, and the funniest was, he was living on the third floor of a big old house on Euclid Heights Blvd. I don’t know how well you know Cleveland.
Interviewer: You were in Canton, and he was in Cleveland?
Genshaft: He was in law school at Case Western. He’d gone to Penn and graduated. I used to go there occasionally, and he would come to see me. The funny part is he lived on the third floor and next door was a group of nurses, and I think he was trying to save money. They had a phone, so they shared a phone. When he got a call, they would knock on the window, and they’d pass it on the roof. You know, there was two windows, but it was two apartments. So anyway, I got there, and the funniest thing happened. I always called my parents to tell them I got back to school, so I kind of was hedging a little, was going to tell them that, and an operator came on the phone and said, “Go ahead Cleveland.” I was supposed to be in Syracuse, but they didn’t catch it, so it all worked out. (Laughs)
Interviewer: You were at Syracuse University, and you were supposed to be back there?
Genshaft: I made a little stop, and I went to classes with him. We had a great time. We were always together. He actually had to take off the next semester. He was in the army reserves, and he had to do basic training. I came to Cleveland. I graduated early as an Art History major. I was going to graduate school in Art History at Case Western Reserve because, by that time, I applied to a number of other places but I also included Case Western so I could be near him. That worked out, as you can tell.
Interviewer: You had to go back to Syracuse at one point.
Genshaft: I graduated from there. I did, I went back a little late from Yom Kippur. I graduated from there the winter semester of 1970.
Interviewer: Let’s finish up Canton just a little bit. You went to high school in Canton?
Genshaft: Glenwood High School.
Interviewer: Glenwood. What kind of neighborhood were you in growing up? Was it mostly, were the Jews a significant number of people?
Genshaft: Yeah, in my life I thought everybody was Jewish. Well, I didn’t think everybody was Jewish. I started out at a school, Canton public school on Millstone. My first brush with realizing that I was Jewish and maybe different was, this was a great memory. I was in second grade, and we were going to be like the stars of the Christmas program. In order to do this, we had to say the biblical passage where the angel comes and, you know, tells Mary that she’s going to have this baby, and a child is born. There were three of us in a class of 30 who were Jewish. I can name them, but I won’t bother. I remember them well. I was a very smart kid, as were they, and after you hear 27 other kids say this, you know it by heart. I knew it by heart, but I wouldn’t say it. The teacher said, “Well, if you’re not going to say it, you can stand in the back.” You know, we were ? risers, so I stood in the back. Because it was all about Jesus and I thought, at the time, we just didn’t, we kind of whispered about being Jewish. An interesting side to that, my parents wanted to build their own house, and they were in the very final phases of buying this small lot in this not that fancy of a neighborhood because there were other fancy neighborhoods that restricted Jews, but this one wasn’t fancy. There was a codicil in there, or something, that said you can’t sell to Jews, so we had to abandon that plan. I was quite young because we moved. I went into third grade, I think, yeah, in the new school. That’s a very strong memory.
Interviewer: When you told the teacher, when the teacher said, “I can see you’re not saying this biblical passage.” Did you explain why?
Genshaft: I don’t know. I don’t know. I just said I’m not going to say it. But I think it’s funny. Years later, maybe 30 years later, she happened to move near my parents. It was long after she had retired. She probably never knew the effect this had on me. We were in a high achievement group. They used to group you, so these other two Jewish kids she had to know. Friedman was one and Kramer was one. Nowhere never got me anywhere Jewishly particularly. Anyway, she had to know that’s what it was. Did I utter those words? I like to think I did, but I don’t know. I really don’t know.
Interviewer: Did you have any experience at all with what people would say was antisemitism either among classmates or adults?
Genshaft: No, except for that, being very aware we couldn’t live where we wanted to live, which is quite a big thing to realize. I don’t recall anything else until I got to college. I was a, Delta Phi, I don’t know, some fraternity had little sisters, it was a way for them to get dates with freshman girls. I was one of these. We were in a car packed with kids. Nobody would wear their seat belts. There must have been seven kids in a five-passenger car. Somebody said something like, “cheap like a Jew,” that kind of, I can’t remember the words, I used to know the exact words. I piped up and said, “I really have a problem with that. You know I’m Jewish.” It was a non-Jewish fraternity, and my name was Carole Miller. I had kind of blondish hair. I really didn’t look Jewish. There was a hush.
Interviewer: You spoke up.
Genshaft: I did. I did.
Interviewer: What college was this?
Genshaft: Syracuse.
Interviewer: That’s right, Syracuse. Okay.
Genshaft: I’m sure there were other small things, nothing else sticks out.
Interviewer: For instance, in elementary school and high school did you have mostly Jewish friends?
Genshaft: Yeah, we moved after second grade and I knew there were a handful of Jewish kids at that school, but then people started moving out further beyond the city limits. Where we moved had been farmland, and we were one of the first families. There were a lot of empty lots. Nelson came much later, not much later, a couple years later. There they also had like, what did they call them? It wasn’t advance placement, but it was harder classes, and a lot of the Jewish kids, not all of them, ended up in those classes for whatever reason. Yeah, a lot of my friends were Jewish, but a lot weren’t. In fact, my best friend lived in one of those areas that was really restricted to Jews, and Catholics, and Black people.
Interviewer: This is suburban Canton.
Genshaft: Yes, a beautiful area, Hills and Dales, which today, of course there are Jewish people living there, but at the time, I was very aware of that.
Interviewer: In general, the children and the teenagers got along.
Genshaft: Oh yeah, absolutely.
Interviewer: Anything in particular you want to tell us about college years? Anything Jewish, in particular. Did you go to Hillel?
Genshaft: I did go to Hillel, but it kind of made me homesick, so that’s why I would come home for the Jewish holidays, maybe because I wanted to see Nelson too. I think Hillel is so much stronger now. I have a granddaughter at Wisconsin, at Madison. She is so active at Hillel. She does Services. She’s just amazing. There’s an amazing rabbi there, as there is here, it’s a great Hillel. It was not the in thing to do particularly. I think maybe on the High Holidays they had Services, and maybe other kids did, but I don’t think I was so active there. I do recall, it comes to mind because it’s so pertinent to the time we live in. There was a beautiful quad that you walked through a main building, and there would be tables for people. I remember there were pro-Palestinians then haranguing about how Israel stole their homes. That was very startling to me because I wasn’t so grounded Jewishly. I mean I was on the holidays and culturally, and food, we kept Kosher. Politically I just always thought Israel was the most wonderful thing in the world and nobody ever suffered. You know, I didn’t know the whole story, to be honest.
Interviewer: Your college years, you graduated Syracuse what year?
Genshaft: Well, I was the class of 1971. We were the class second to none, but I graduated early, so it was 1970.
Interviewer: How did you wind up in Columbus?
Genshaft: I went to graduate school in Cleveland because Nelson was in Law School there. He graduated and got a job with the state, the Attorney General’s office, here in Columbus. I was nine months pregnant when he passed the bar. We’ve been here ever since. That was 50 years ago. My daughter just turned 50 which I can barely believe. I still feel like I’m 50s.
Interviewer: So, it was the early-to-mid 70’s that you moved to Columbus?
Genshaft: Yes.
Interviewer: Where did you live? Where was your first house?
Genshaft: Oh, where everybody lived, Wyandotte East. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it.
Interviewer: That’s on East Main Street?
Genshaft: Yes. It was a Schottenstein property. Howard Schottenstein managed it. Ironically, he’s kind of, his brother married Nelson’s sister, so we’ve been together ever since. He was great. Something was wrong, he’d come and fix it. We always had a dog there. They were supposed to be under a certain weight, but our dogs were always bigger. Nobody cared.
Interviewer: It was Wyandotte East, is where you were, and were there a lot of Jews there?
Genshaft: Yes, there were.
Interviewer: In your early years together, as a married woman, what kind of, if any, what kind of Jewish things, links did you have? Were you a member of synagogue?
Genshaft: Yes, we joined right away at Tifereth. We became very active, both of us at the Federation, as it was called then, JewishColumbus. I ended up, at the time I was chairperson of the Young Women’s Division, and we were very active. Now I’m trying to think, so that was 1973, the one after the 67 War, Yom Kippur.
Interviewer: 1973, the Yom Kippur War.
Genshaft: Yom Kippur War, we were very active. We were on the Board for years and years, ultimately took various positions. I was President of the JCC. I was trying to remember what year that was. It’s the late 80’s or early 90’s. I was quite young. Nelson was President of Hillel, the Board. Yeah, we were always very active Jewishly, definitely.
Interviewer: What were your feelings about that? Why were you so active?
Genshaft: You know, we were in the first class of the Wexner Heritage Foundation with Les. Les was in the class.
Interviewer: You were in the class of the Foundation? I don’t understand. Did they have a series of seminars to train new leaders?
Genshaft: Yes, this was really impactful. Les Wexner started this Jewish Heritage Foundation, and Herb Friedman was the Chair of this. He was in New York. Herb Friedman is iconic. He’s now passed away. He fought in the War of Independence and he was just extremely intelligent. He kind of spearheaded this program. We were the first, there were 20 of us. We met at Les’s house and we met and went to his house in Aspen. We traveled to, we met with scholars. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience, really a privilege. He would bring the best. It was to encourage Jewish leadership, and it did. After that, I said well, eventually I became President of the Center and Nelson did his things. We were always on the Boards of the agencies, and actually started, we started out I didn’t keep kosher, but we had a weekend retreat in the Hocking Hills with a very wonderful rabbi, Joseph Telushkin. He’s written a lot. It was all about the importance of Shabbat. Then we moved to a different house, and I started keeping kosher, and have ever since. That was probably about 30 years ago, a lot of years ago.
Interviewer: This training was very inspiring and energizing for you.
Genshaft: Yes, it was. I’ll tell you, Leslie Wexner took a group of, I think, eight men, there weren’t any women, on his private plane. Nelson was one of those. That would be another interesting story because they had access, I think they met with Elie Weisel, they met with a Rothschild. They followed the whole rise of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. It was an amazing kind of deal. That was what this Wexner Heritage program was like, and it still is.
Interviewer: It’s still going on?
Genshaft: It’s probably been in 35 different cities. This year they’re doing it again. There’s going to be another group from Columbus. There’s been several in between since that was the 80’s I guess. At any rate, yeah, it was in the 80’s. We just actually had a little reunion. That was a wonderful opportunity. At first, Bob Schottenstein was on that trip. He was in the group, Neil and Karen Moss, many of the folks in that program which lasted like a year. Then, on our own, we continued to meet for years and years, and study. Many of those folks became leaders in the community and nationally, so, it was a wonderful opportunity. It’s still very strong today.
Interviewer: You kind of personify the success of that program because you wound up in leadership positions for many years.
Genshaft: It certainly directed both Nelson and I in that direction for sure on the importance of community. It had wonderful opportunities to meet people and just see what was going on in other cities. It was eye opening. It really was. I must say Leslie Wexner has never diverted from that goal of the importance of Jewish community life. He’s still doing it.
Interviewer: You started out at Wyandotte East. Where did you move from there?
Genshaft: We moved to Bexley. We had two kids at Wyandotte. I remember that well. Then we moved, when I was pregnant with the third, to Ardmore, 157 S. Ardmore. It was a great house.
Interviewer: You were there how many years?
Genshaft: Then we moved to a large house on North Columbia. After the kids all left, we moved to a lovely small house, but beautiful, on Fair Avenue. We were there for sure 30 years, a long time.
Interviewer: In Bexley, about 30 years. Your children went to Bexley schools?
Genshaft: Yes, the girls, Tracy went to CSG, but left her junior year to graduate from Bexley. Lindsay went to Bexley until sixth grade and she graduated from CSG. Other than that, they’re all Bexley kids.
Interviewer: Tell us a little bit about your children growing up and any Jewish angle there. Were they at the synagogue? Were they with youth groups? Were they at the Center? What did they do?
Genshaft: Yeah, all of the above. To us, coming from Canton, Ohio, living in Bexley was like, it was jolting because there were so many Jewish people. That was never the case in Canton. We were always different. We were always a minority.
Interviewer: You were a very small minority in Canton, but in Bexley you were still a minority, but you were a much more noticeable minority.
Genshaft: They closed the schools on Yom Kippur. We never had that luxury. We always had to stay out. It was always a question, one or two days for Rosh Hashanah. Here, I think that was very different. I wanted that for our kids. That’s why we moved to Bexley. The schools, of course, were supposed to be very good, which they were. So they went to Hebrew School, all had beautiful Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. Their friends, they’re not entirely all Jewish, but a lot of them are Jewish, and they still stay in touch. All our kids eventually moved to Colorado, so we have three kids in Colorado, two in Denver and one in Snowmass. We just had, our youngest, Tracy, she had twins, a boy and a girl, and they just had their B’nai Mitzvah in May, which was quite wonderful. Ben and Alyssa live in Snowmass. Our daughter-in-law is running for Mayor of Snowmass right now, and they’re very Jewishly engaged. It’s a very small congregation. The one daughter who I mentioned, who’s at Wisconsin, like taught every grade. I don’t know how they’re getting along without her because she was so active, and she taught every grade, did the Services. They always had a Rabbi. For years they had a volunteer Rabbi who was a lawyer, and then they did get a Rabbi that the kids were very close. It was such a different setup because it’s so small. They meet in, they share the space with a church, but it’s so beautiful. It’s like this amazing mountain chapel. They’re very connected, both in the Jewish community, and in the non-Jewish, and the same with Tracy and her family. Our daughter, the oldest, is in Denver. All these people in our family are lawyers, except for me, Nelson’s father, Ben’s a lawyer, his wife Alyssa is a lawyer, Tracy is a lawyer. I finally got Lindsay, who is at the Denver Art Museum. She’s doing a lot of the same things I did at one time. It’s real fun.
Interviewer: Besides all the Jewish activism you have done on your own, you also have done a lot of amazing work in the general community in the art field. Tell us about that.
Genshaft: When Tracy, the youngest, was going to first grade, I decided I was going to be a lawyer, so I took the LSATs. I got into both Capital and Ohio State. I was going to go to Ohio State. My friends all got me a briefcase with my initials on it. The year before, I took the docent course at the museum. Then there was an opening. I also have a degree in Library Science. They had a library at the time, and they needed a librarian, so they hired me to kind of be the librarian in the Education Department. I started writing a lot. I was an Art History major. It was a great match, and I was there ever since. So, that’s how that started. I never actually was a docent. I took the course, which was great, because it made me know the collection so well. I started working there, and as I said, I just did a lot of programming. I was Director of Education for years, as I said, lots of innovative programs. Probably one of the best, which I hadn’t even thought about, was called, “I Spy Adventures in Art.” I don’t know if you remember that, but it was this wonderful, interactive exhibition space, prime space using real objects from the collection. There’s a section on Elijah Pierce. There was one on George Bellows. There was one on tao tunica (?), ancient Mexican Art. It was quite fabulous, I think. If I say so myself. It won a lot of prizes nationally. I did a lot of presentations at conferences and that sort of thing. Before doing that, I traveled for a year looking at interactive exhibitions all over the country. Not all of them are art exhibitions, but children’s museums. It was a lot of fun developing these activities that could stand the test of time and all the use they got and present different aspects of the art collection and make it so accessible for kids. What we’ve found is adults loved it too. Many adults come in not having an Art History background and they had the same questions a kid might have. There’s a lot of doing art that visitors, themselves, and interacting. It was really a fun thing.
Interviewer: You were headed to Law School, but then you got sidetracked and hooked into the Columbus Museum of Art. How quickly did that goal of Law School fade away?
Genshaft: I was all set to go, but I had this opportunity to work at the museum. I said to myself and to Nelson, “I don’t think the world needs another lawyer.” It was the right decision; I must say because it was a privilege to work at the museum for all those years and do all these wonderful projects. I’m living vicariously through my daughter who’s doing the same stuff now. She, just aside, she’s an actor and she went to NYU, to the School of the Arts and graduated, and then she got, after several years of not being on Broadway, but being off Broadway, off off Braodway, etc, she got a Master’s degree at the University of Texas in Austin of using theatre in art museums, and she wrote a thesis on that. She sells a few copies every now and then. That’s what she’s doing at the Denver Art Museum. She’s head of all the children and family programs, but she has a whole troop of actors, and interestingly, just opened last week was an exhibition on “Where the Wild Things Are” about Maurice Sendak that we had here. We actually organized the exhibition. This is the first time that Denver took one of our exhibitions. I don’t know, we’ve probably taken one of theirs, but maybe not. It was really fun because we both to get to work on this a little bit together. She’s very involved in that, has written a play, with her husband, about Maurice Sendak that we’re going to go to see. I can’t wait. It just opened and does all these crazy acting things, making things come alive for kids, literally. That’s Lindsay. They don’t have any kids. They’re just these very creative people who just have a lot of fun.
Interviewer: While the lawyering profession is very strong in your family, you have helped start a new strain, a new field, a new thrust of art.
Genshaft: I’d like to think so. It’s really nice to have Lindsay doing what she’s doing and really so dedicated and just so creative. I love it. It’s great. The others I love too. They’re actually doing, so Tracy is an environmental lawyer in Denver and Ben is a real estate lawyer. I’m so blessed to have these three great kids, it makes me cry. Ben is very active Jewishly. He’s also a volunteer for Aspen Mountain Rescue. He does really serious rescues, and it’s all as a volunteer, saved many lives. It’s really quite wonderful. His real love is golf, but he does a lot of good. Allyssa is running for Mayor. She’s been on Council there for years and years. I will mention this, which again makes me a little sad, but it’s good to remember. They lost a child who was Max, who was 17 months old, to sudden unidentified death in children. As a result, how could it be anything but the most difficult time in one’s life, even grandparents. I think they do a lot of things to make the world a better place because of Max. In fact, the other daughter in Denver has this whole studio that’s associated with the Maurice Sendak exhibition. In this studio space which is right when you walk in the museum, it’s fabulous, there’s a corner that’s dedicated to our Max because she decided to do that, and they let her do it because Ben liked to read ‘Where the Wild Things Are ‘ to him. That’s really nice. They’re great kids and they do do a lot of good things in the community, all three of them.
Interviewer: In your work in the art field in Columbus are there any other Jews, in particular, who are active in the art field here?
Genshaft: Yes, I’m sure there are a lot. I always kind of laugh because I was kind of like the resident Jew at the museum. It was I always can we do this during Succoth or when are those Jewish holidays really because you know, it’s confusing. It’s confusing to all of us. Yes, and I guess, another thing I’m very proud of at the museum is I, with the encouragement of the then Director, Nannette Maciejunes, at some point we got together and looked at what we’d done, and I, with her approval, because she was the Director, I got to do a lot of Jewish art exhibitions. There were things from the Israel Museum, ancient art. There was the art of Bezalel , the art school in Israel. I did my own exhibition of Ketubah, the art of marriage.
Interviewer: The written marriage contracts.
Genshaft: Yes. I did another one on the Passover Haggadah called ‘Miracles and Wonders.’ We brought a gigantic mosaic from Israel, the Lod Mosaic to the museum. It then traveled nationally. I don’t know what’s happening now, but it was excavated, it’s probably been ten years ago. It was miraculously brought to the Columbus Museum of Art very efficiently.
Interviewer: Was that kind of an archaeological?
Genshaft: Yeah, and it took up an entire large gallery. You could walk around it. It’s a magnificent piece with all kinds of animals, you know, very Roman, got me very interested in mosaics actually. We looked back and said we had done an exhibition actually from the museum of the University of, I think it was Minnesota, called ‘Witness and Legacy,’ and it was contemporary art about the holocaust. Looking back, we had done a lot of exhibitions that were of interest to everybody but were of particular interest to the Jewish community. I got this idea to do this ‘Friends of Jewish Art,’ so we started that probably about 15 years ago, maybe a little longer. It became an interest group for a nominal fee extra. As a member, you could belong to this group, and I put together programs of special interest. We would go to see, like we went to see the Plum Street synagogue in Cincinnati, which is fabulous. We went to Silver’s temple in Cleveland. We visited private collections. I would bring in speakers to talk about ritual objects, their Jewish art. I would do talks about Chagall, had different speakers in. We had about four or five programs a year. It was not just open to Jewish people, of course, there were a few non-Jews as well. It was a great group. That was pretty unique. I don’t think that’s anything that happens regularly or normally in a mainstream art museum.
Interviewer: The intersection of Jews and art, and you were the perfect person to do it.
Genshaft: Yeah, and as I said, what happens when we do these exhibitions, people would kind of come out of the woodwork and say, “Well, you know, my father was actually Jewish but we never, you know, we didn’t call ourselves Jews.” There were always some of those, but I do worry because I’m gone, you know. I don’t think there’s another Jewish person at the museum right now. I don’t know. I retired a year ago this month. I’ve really been so happy to be retired and finding a new life that I don’t know who works there anymore. I have my few friends that are still there, but I was really, you know I think I was very aware of things, even as late as, we did a fabulous exhibition of the Raphael tapestries from Dresden just last year, maybe two years ago now. I’m trying to think what the case was. There was one work of art that really, to me, always was antisemitic. It was probably about money lenders in the temple. I just wanted to make sure it was presented in a way that that was part of the conversation. So, I did my own little label, and you could listen to me talk about that. Things like that, that I don’t think other people are aware of. I mean interestingly, for example, we just were in Chicago this weekend with our brother-in-laws and sister-in-laws. We were at the Art Institute and there are these fabulous Chagall windows that were made for the museum. They’re beautiful. There’s this little paragraph, and it talks about how they relate to the arts and music. I did a lot of work on Chagall, and there are so many references to the shtetl and to Jewish life and to, you know, the ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ theme, and no mention of that. It’s a great museum. I love that museum. It was just a small little label. If I wrote that label, believe me, I would say there’s Chagall’s life in recaps (?), in Russia as well. He was celebrating America for the Centennial, I want to say. It’s really great. It has the Statue of Liberty. It’s just a great piece, but it’s just completely immersed in his Jewish background, as all his work is really, even the, he’s done a lot of Jesus Christ images, but they’re all bound up in the fact that Christ was Jewish.
Interviewer: Is your point that that museum didn’t do enough to point out the Jewish roots and the Jewish links?
Genshaft: Yes, to my way of thinking, if it had been at my museum, and I was there, I would do that. I don’t fault them. It was a very small introduction, surprisingly. They could have had more. Maybe there was an audio guide that might have talked more. I didn’t take the audio guide. I don’t fault them. I’m just saying those are the kinds of things that are probably going on now that nobody notices, but that I always had a special eye for.
Interviewer: You like to see the Jewish links.
Genshaft: Yeah, exactly, just like when you travel. When we travel, we always try and do, visit the synagogues, the old Jewish neighborhoods where
ever it happens to be. I look for markers that might say there was a mezuzah on this door, or whatever. I think it’s probably a pretty prevalent way of life for a Jew. (Chuckles)
Interviewer: How big a role would you say Judaism has played in your life?
Genshaft: I think a major role. I just wouldn’t be who I am or what I’ve done. I think I’m a pretty typical American Jew, but it’s very important to me,
absolutely, and to our kids, and to our grandkids. Yeah, I think it’s who I am.
Interviewer: What has it done for you or to you?
Genshaft: I have always loved studying. As I mentioned, I didn’t have a Bat Mitzvah, but I had an adult Bat Mitzvah with three good friends, maybe 15 years ago. We studied. I’ve taken Hebrew so many times. I still, I do this word a day. I never had that basic training as a kid. At least I can read now. I know a few words. Yet, it’s always been central. These other three women, myself, we started like a study group. One day one of them said you know we’re doing this. Would anyone be interested in having a Bat Mitzvah because none of us had. We were all very interested intellectually in Judaism, and so, we did. We had a great time studying. That group has evolved into a Jewish book group. We’ve been doing this for 20 years.
Interviewer: You think Judaism has some link with literacy and inquisitiveness, and curiosity, and wanting to learn?
Genshaft: Yeah, I think that’s really true. You know, Orthodox Jews, that’s how they kind of interact through study. There’s just so much there. As I said, maybe a lot of it was due to the privilege of being in the Wexner group and what Columbus has to offer. Bringing people in, there’s many fine rabbis and cantors, learning opportunities. I was Chair of the Jewish Film Festival. I’ll give them a plug because it opens next week. That’s a great cultural program that brings films particularly with a Jewish slant to Columbus that wouldn’t come otherwise. That’s been a lot of fun. The Jewish Book Fair, I was active in that as well. I guess I have always loved books. I’m a librarian way back. I later got my PhD in Art Education. In graduate school I ended up with a degree in Library Science. I actually made a book with my daughter called ‘Challahdays.’
Interviewer: Did you say Challahdays?
Genshaft: Yes.
Interviewer: The bread of challah with the word holiday, you put together.
Genshaft: She wrote a poem, and I illustrated it. The whole idea is that you use the challah all week, but by the end it becomes breadcrumbs for whatever you’re making. It’s cute. We tried to get it published, but nobody thought it was as cute as we did. Although some people did,
actually. One of them was Linda Schottenstein who was a pre-school teacher. She uses it. I guess she’s now retired. She used it all the time. Every kid read this book about the challah and how it lasts for a week. We tried to get it published, but I just did my Shutterfly version, and gave it to all my friends, little friends. (Laughs)
Interviewer: You mentioned that, back in Canton, there was one neighborhood where your parents wanted to move, but they couldn’t because officially, or unofficially, they wouldn’t sell to Jews. You moved to Columbus in the 70’s. You said you moved to Wyandotte East where there were a lot of Jews. Almost all the Jews at that point were living in Bexley, Berwick, Eastmoor, and Wyandotte East. In the 50 years since then Jews have scattered to many parts of Columbus, and you, yourself, here are living now in the heart of German Village. Do you have any analysis, any feelings, on whether that has been a good thing or a bad thing, or a mixed thing, the scattering of the Jews in Columbus?
Genshaft: I think it’s all about assimilation. In that sense, being free to live where you want, of course, is a good thing. I think you maybe have to work a little harder to make sure you’re part of the community.
Interviewer: The Jewish community.
Genshaft: Yes, part of the Jewish community, exactly. For the kids, it was really nice. As I said, they had lots of friends who weren’t Jewish, but they had a lot of friends who were Jewish. That makes for a more secure kid, I think. Today, on the other hand, we all kind of worry a little more than we ever did about being Jewish and, you know, you go to synagogue and there’s a whole brigade of police which we are happy to see, but what a sad commentary. When Sophie was a sophomore at Madison, you know the college campuses are really difficult. That’s a sad thing to me, of course. As far as where you live, as I said, I think it’s a good thing. For example, so we moved to German Village, but believe it or not, we actually had a Chavurah here with a group of Jewish people. We’re still friends with all of them, but a few have left for one reason or another, have moved to other states, so we’re not meeting, but we make good friends that way, again just from an area. That was what was so nice about my Friends of Jewish Art group at the Museum. They were people that would have never met each other, or me, otherwise because there were a number of university people, there was every congregation and non-congregation. It was just a good place, kind of like a Jewish Center where you had a common interest in art. The whole point was with an emphasis on anything Jewish art, and we had a big umbrella for anything that might encompass. It was a good way to bring people together who are spread out all over the city. There are quite a few Jews in German Village.
Interviewer: You have found that, even though it might take a little extra work, you’ve been able to maintain your Jewish identity and Jewish activities even though you and other Jews are scattered on the East side.
Genshaft: Yeah, I think so. I suppose some people prefer to maybe not. As I said, I think you have to want to do that. It’s not hard. The Film Festival, all those programs at the JCC, if you don’t belong a congregation a wonderful kind of nucleus for Jewish activity, creativity, and sometimes it’s just for playing basketball. That’s okay too.
Interviewer: Is there anything we haven’t talked about so far that you want to make sure people understand about you, your family, your Jewish life in Columbus?
Genshaft: I think it’s kind of interesting what I’ve found since I retired. I mentioned to you that we have his fabulous dog named Oliver, a Golden Doodle. We had dogs when the kids were growing up, and then we didn’t have a dog. Sometimes we’d get the kid’s dogs when they were roaming around. For years we didn’t have a dog. Then, one day, Nelson is on the Internet, and he sees this breeder near Canton, outside of some little town, Minerva I think, yeah. He shows me the picture and he says, “You’d never have another dog.” I said, “You know, I don’t think I want to go through life without another dog,” so we got Oliver. He was eight weeks old. He was always just the most calm, what I call kind, friendly creature you could ever imagine. He loves people. He loves dogs. I always joke he could be the mayor of German Village. When I was working, of course, and we always thought maybe someday he would be a great therapy dog. So, when I retired, Nelson actually is the one whose name is on the course, we took the Therapy Dogs International course, out beyond Johnstown. We did that. It was just a seven-week course, and it qualifies you to have a therapy dog. When I retired, you get a list of organizations that would like a therapy dog. Children’s Hospital has just exploded with their program, as many places have. There are therapy dogs at the airport. There are therapy dogs in schools. Ohio State has ‘Buckeye Paws’ at the hospital there. There have been studies done about how dogs relieve stress. We applied to work at Children’s, but you have to go through all the hoops. You have to get security checks, blood tests for the owners of the dog in addition to all this stuff for the dog. We all made it. We also go to the Ronald McDonald House which is a wonderful institution that helps people whose kids are there, often for weeks and months. We started doing that. Finally, we got everything taken care of at Children’s, so I go with Ollie on Wednesdays. They have a spot called ‘Canine Corner’ which is in the middle of the lobby, and kids and staff, absolutely, sometimes I think they just don’t want to go back to work because it can be stressful and they just love the dog. Families that are there, and the patients, they come from all over the world, literally, and they have to leave their pets, and so it’s such a relief to have this furry, fuzzy, friendly thing to pet, and the dog loves it. I’ve always worked for a not-for-profit, so my heart was always in doing that, not particularly making a lot of money. This is like so hands on. I don’t have to do anything. I just bring the dog. I talk to the folks, but the dog does what he’s doing. He lies down. They pet him. It’s great. On Fridays we actually go up to the floors and visit the really sick kids who can’t come down.
Interviewer: In their individual rooms?
Genshaft: Yes, when somebody checks in, the guardian, or the parent of the child, they have a waiver that says whether or not they’d like to have a dog visit. I can tell you that almost everybody wants a dog to visit because they (?). There’s a list of rooms of where the children can be visited. There’s lots of being very careful, needless to say, in a hospital setting. It’s just been a whole other thing for me that I absolutely love. Nelson is going to do it too. He’s still working full time, but he’s actually, next Sunday, I think, he’s going to go to Children’s for the first time on his own there. (Laughs) That has been wonderful. I studied Art History throughout college, and really beyond, but I never took an art class. I’ve been taking a watercolor class for a year now at the Cultural Arts Center, and I just love it. I could do that full-time too. I could do the dog and the art. I’m just so happy. It’s just great.
Interviewer: As we wrap up this interview with you, I just wonder what your general sense is of the Columbus Jewish community. Are you hopeful?
Are you fearful for its future? What are your feelings?
Genshaft: I think it’s a great community. I think it’s a great place for families, for anybody, lots and lots of opportunities to learn and participate. I think the synagogues and the agencies are very welcoming, very open to new ideas, and trying to serve the community in the best way possible. I think it’s a great place to be Jewish. Unfortunately, thinking back to Canton, the wonderful Jewish Center I described is no longer. That was bought by a local college, and is no more. The Conservative congregation where I grew up merged with the Reform. They do have a kosher, they have two kitchens, but they’re struggling, and they are losing Jewish and general population as well. I really feel so privileged to live in a community where I think, for all the problems that we’re facing right now as far as Israel, and those are really very serious and divisive in many ways, I think it’s a great place to be Jewish. I think we had great leadership, great clergy, and it’s very accessible. I think it’s a great place to be Jewish.
Interviewer: With those words, we’ll end our interview today with Carole Genshaft on this, the 22nd day of October, 2024. I’m Bill Cohen for the Columbus Jewish Historical Society.