The Columbus Jewish Historical Society

Interviewer:  The date is February 13th, 2024.  I’m Bill Cohen for the Columbus Jewish Historical Society and we’re at the home, the Columbus home of Ruthetta Topolosky and we’re going to be interviewing her about her life and her experience in the Jewish community here in Columbus. Ruthetta, maybe you could start, tell us a little bit about any roots that you know in your family tree.  Can you go back to your parents, to your grandparents?  Do you know anything about, you know, past ancestors?

Topolosky:  I don’t know any grandparents, never had a grandparent, which I know, I missed a lot, because I know what I give to my grandchildren and it means so much and I really missed that experience, but I was raised in a Jewish home.  We did not keep kosher but Friday night we had Shabbos dinner, every Friday night and I went to a school where there were lots of Jewish children.

Interviewer:  Now, you were talking about…

Topolosky:  Cleveland, Ohio.

Interviewer: Cleveland, Ohio and your parents?  Give us the names of your parents.

Topolosky:  My mother’s name was Eva and my father’s name was Melvin. My father was born in Russia and my mother was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Interviewer:  Now your mother was not a Topolosky.

Topolosky:  No.

Interviewer:  Your mother was…what was her name?

Topolosky:  Klinger.  My mother’s name was a Klinger.  I married a Topolosky.

Interviewer:  And Klinger, spell that.

Topolosky:  K-l-i-n-g-e-r, and that was my grandfather’s name.  His name was Morris Klinger and he married, my grandmother’s name was Rachul and my name is Rachuleah and it’s, my mother’s mother’s name was Ruth and my father’s mother’s name was Etta.

Interviewer:  Now when you say Rachul, you mean basically Rachel, but you pronounce it…

Topolosky:  Well, my name in Hebrew or Jewish is Rachul.

Interviewer:  Yeah, that’s good we want to know that your Jewish name is Rachul.

Topolosky:  is Rachul, Rachul.  Ravhuleah is what it really is.  If I would be on the bima, that’s what they would call me.

Interviewer:  So, you were born in Cleveland.

Topolosky:  I was born in Cleveland and I went all through, I was a junior in high school and my father was in the, today they would call it the real estate business but, in those days, they called it a business broker and he would go from city to city, small towns usually, and he would list a business and then he would try to sell the business.  He would go to another small town or a bigger city and try and sell the business and that was how he made a living and one of the places he went when I was a junior in high school, gonna’ be a junior in high school, was in Xenia, Ohio, and there was the big war.

Interviewer:  What was the name of this?

Topolosky:  Xenia, Ohio.

Interviewer:  Oh, Xenia, yes.

Topolosky:  There was, this was the big war, World War number II, and there, Xenia is right in the middle of two army bases, Wright and Patterson Field, and there was a hotel for sale, in Xenia, Ohio, and my father came home to my mother and he said, “I think this would be a wonderful, wonderful opportunity for us to make a really good living, if we could move to Dayton. It’s sixteen miles from Dayton, Ohio, so if we could move to Dayton, and send the kids,” I had a brother – “and we could send the kids to school in Dayton, and I would commute to Xenia.”  My mother was a good sport. She said, “That’s wonderful. That would be terrific.  I’ll do it.”

Interviewer:  So, he wanted to buy the hotel.

Topolosky:  He bought the hotel.  My father bought the hotel and my mother and father couldn’t see me living in Xenia.  I just couldn’t, they couldn’t do that.  There weren’t any Jewish boys there for me to date, so I stayed with, my mother had a best, best friend and she had a daughter my age, so they, my mother asked if I could stay with them and I did for the junior year of high school.

Interviewer:  So that you could be in Dayton.

Topolosky:  So, I could be in, I was in Cleveland. I was still in Cleveland.

Interviewer:   Oh, you’re still in Cleveland.

Topolosky:  That’s’ right.  I’m in Cleveland.   I don’t want to leave.  They don’t want me to leave Cleveland because it’s, would be too traumatic, but I stayed there and these people were super to me.  They were wonderful, wonderful to me, and, but I wasn’t happy.  I wanted to be with my family, so, but it was impossible really to get housing because of the Wright-Patterson Field, people that, soldiers that were married, their wives would come with their families and they were buying up all the houses or renting all the houses. Well, so I had to live in Xenia for six weeks and I went to school in Xenia and I just want to tell you the difference in schools.  When I went to school in Cleveland, I went to Heights High School.

Interviewer:  Cleveland Heights.

Topolosky:  Cleveland Heights High School.  I was a very, very average student, a very average student and then I went to Xenia.  I made the honor roll.  They made me answer questions that nobody else could ever answer, and I couldn’t believe, this was really a life for me.  This was wonderful, but I only lived there six weeks and then I went to Dayton and Dayton, too, was not like the Heights High either.  It was easier.  I got good grades in Dayton, too.

Interviewer:  You’re saying the standards were lower.

Topolosky:  Totally different.

Interviewer:  So, tell us a little bit.  We haven’t talked much about your childhood in Cleveland…

Topolosky:  In Cleveland.

Interviewer:  …and at Cleveland Heights.

Topolosky:  I went to Temple.

Interviewer:  Did you live in Cleveland Heights?

Topolosky:  I lived in Cleveland Heights and I went to Boulevard Elementary School and then I went to Heights High School and I went to a, we belonged to a Conservative temple.  It was called Temple on the Heights and I was confirmed from there.  At those days, girls weren’t bat mitzvah’ed at all.  Nobody, I never knew anybody that, boys all had bar mitzvahs but we never had bat mitzvahs.

Interviewer:  So, this would have been in the 1940s?

Topolosky:  Forties.  Uh huh, that’s right, 1944.  In 1944 and 1945 I moved to Dayton and went to school there and graduated from Fairview High in Dayton, Ohio.

Interviewer:  In the year…

Topolosky:  Of 1945, maybe it was…

Interviewer:  ’45.  So, earlier, before 1945, you were up in Cleveland Heights.  Remind us. Cleveland Heights, I know there were some Jews there. Do you know…

Topolosky:  Plenty of Jews.

Interviewer:  …what percentage approximately?

Topolosky:  No, I don’t have any idea, but there were a, I only had Jewish girlfriends, so there had to be lots of Jewish kids.

Interviewer:  And tell us a little bit more about that life as a child in Cleveland Heights.  How did the Jews, did you mix at all, though, with non-Jews?

Topolosky:  I never had any non-Jewish friends.  I did not.  My neighbors were Jewish, next door were all Jewish, and then, when I went to college, I had all Jewish friends.

Interviewer:  And do you know why that was?  It just kind of happened that way?

Topolosky:  It just sort of happened that way.  I really can’t answer that at all.  We just, I don’t know.  I don’t know. I went to Temple and I knew I was Jewish, that’s for sure.  There was no question about it.  I was Jewish.

Interviewer:  Now, especially when you’re a teenager, there’s always the issue of, are you allowed to date non-Jewish people.

Topolosky:  It never, it didn’t come up. It never, my father, it never came up.  I do know that when I got married and I married a Jewish man and we had children, he always told his children, “If you don’t date ‘em you won’t fall in love with ‘em” but, my children did date non-Jewish people. However, I have nine grandchildren.  Eight married Jewish.

Interviewer:  The grandchildren, for the most part….

Topolosky:  My grandchildren.  Eight out of nine married Jewish which is really like a miracle.

Interviewer:  So, you came to the Dayton area and Xenia.  That’s basically where you graduated high school.

Topolosky:  High school.

Interviewer:  And tell us about that life in terms of Judaism.  Were you a member of a synagogue there?

Topolosky:  Yes.  Now when we moved to Xenia, to Dayton, we, my parent joined a Reform temple and that was really very foreign to me because my Conservative temple was probably a little bit towards Orthodoxy, but we didn’t have a mechitza or anything like that, but…

Interviewer:  You didn’t have the wall separating the men and the women.

Topolosky:  No.  Uhn uhm. No. We didn’t have that.

Interviewer:  But still, it was a…

Topolosky:  …but it was a, we had a cantor and we had a rabbi and an assistant rabbi, and a Sunday school and, like I said, I was confirmed from there.

Interviewer:  That was back in…

Topolosky:  That was…

Interviewer:  …a Conservative synagogue…

Topolosky:  That was, I was fifteen, Conservative.

Interviewer:  …but then when you came to Dayton…

Topolosky:  Then we moved to, then my parents joined a Reform temple and I really didn’t have anything to do with it because by then, I was a senior in high school and after I graduated high school, I went away to college, so, I never, I really didn’t live in Dayton only one year and when I went to college – I went to Ohio State – and that’s when I met my husband.

Interviewer:  And so, tell us about meeting your husband.  How did that happen?

Topolosky:  That was the best. That was the best.  I was studying.  It was the end of the season, end of the year.  It was June already, or the end of May early June.

Interviewer:  Your freshman year?

Topolosky:  Freshman year, finishing that up and I’m studying for finals and my girlfriend across the hall had a boyfriend and she said, “My boyfriend just called and he has a friend,” (to interviewer: who you probably know, Stanley Maybruck, or maybe you don’t know him) “and Stanley Maybruck has a boat.”   In those days that called it Storage Dam.  I don’t know what they, now they call it Hoover Dam. “He has a boat at Storage Dam and if you’re interested, we can take a ride over there.”  He had a car. “We’ll take a ride and we’ll go on the boat.”  You know, so, I thought, who doesn’t want to do that? Much better than studying for finals, so I go on this boat and I see this guy.

Interviewer:  This is the friend.

Topolosky:  This is Stanley Maybruck’s friend, and I saw this guy.  The minute I saw him I really liked him and he said he’d call me.  He never called.  And he told me that he was taking finals.  He was pre-med, so, he was taking it in the zoology building.  I walked by that zoology building a thousand times.  He was in that. He was there.  His car was there, with another girl. He didn’t even say hello. Nothing. So, I was, I just thought, he was really a good-looking guy. What did I know about him? I knew nothing about him. So, I go home.  I finish my finals and I go home.

Interviewer:  You go home to Dayton.

Topolosky:  To Dayton.  To Dayton.  That’s right. You got it.  I go home to Dayton, and my, this girlfriend who took me to this boat, calls and she was going to summer school and she says, “Why don’t you come for a weekend to Ohio State,” and I said, “I would love to – IF – you can get me a date with that Sanford Topolosky.” She says, “Well, I’ll try. I’ll do the best I can.” So she called him and she asked for a date for Saturday night and he said he would love to go out with me but it would have to be Friday night because he already had a date for Saturday night. So, we went out on a Friday night and that was 1945 and I got married in 1946.  That’s right.  I had a date with him that night and from then on, he did call, and he came to Dayton all the time.  He would take a bus to Dayton and he, it was a whirlwind, but that, you know, in those days, life was just different.  You didn’t move in with a guy.  You know, it was a whole different world. So, we got married in 1946.

Interviewer:  And where did the wedding take place?

Topolosky:  In Columbus, Ohio.  That was crazy because my parents really weren’t from Dayton.  They only lived in Dayton a couple years, so they didn’t have life-long friends there, and we, for some reason, and I honestly, why, I can’t ask my mother ‘cause she’s long gone, but we moved to, we decided.  He was, my husband was from Columbus and they were a very strong family, Topolosky family had, there were lots of brothers and sisters and there was a big family and they were lawyers and doctors and, so the name was prominent and they, I don’t know, my mother said, let’s get married, she brought Rabbi Zelizer and we got married at Tifereth Israel, and that was the, and then we were married a long time.

Interviewer:  Now, where did you live right after you got married?

Topolosky:  Okay, there were, we lived in a place called Driving Park and we lived in an apartment that wasn’t built yet.  It was being built at 1441 East Columbus Street, and…

Interviewer:  This would be south of Livingston.

Topolosky:  Off of, yeah, south of Livingston, right, exactly.

Interviewer:  Okay.

Topolosky:   It was near Kelton and Lilly, you know, those streets if you’re ever, if you’re familiar with that.

Interviewer:  Were there a lot of Jews in that neighborhood at that point?

Topolosky:  Yes. There were plenty of Jews.  I lived in an apartment that had all Jews.  There were no, there were only four families in mine and then next door was the same four families, all Jewish people.

Interviewer:  This is right after you got married.

Topolosky:  This is right, I got married and we went on a honeymoon to Detroit.  It was a really wonderful honeymoon, went to Detroit for a honeymoon.  Then we came back and my apartment wasn’t ready yet. It wasn’t finished being built so I had to move in with my in-laws for six weeks, but, and my sister-in-law and brother-in-law were living there also.  He, everybody had just came back from the War, see, so, it was a whole different story, and my husband, as I told you, was in pre-med, but what happened was, he was in the army for three years, two years or three years and when he came back from the army and he had to go back to college, all the kids were eighteen years old and he was twenty-one years old and it didn’t, like today it wouldn’t make any difference because people go to graduate school and on.  They didn’t do that then so he was very uncomfortable and he was a very good student and he, but, he just wasn’t happy.  He was gone too long from Columbus and from school and the, so, he went in his father’s business.  His father was in the scrap business so he went into the scrap business and he was always happy. I think that probably he would have loved to have been a doctor, but…

Interviewer:  So let me understand.  He was in the armed forces…

Topolosky:  Um-hm.

Interviewer: during World War II…

Topolosky:  Um-hm.

Interviewer: …in the early Forties…

Topolosky:  Um-hm.

Interviewer:  and then he came back in ’45 and said, ‘I’m gonna’ try to be a doctor’…

Topolosky:  Um-hm.

Interviewer:  That’s when he was taking zoology.

Topolosky:  Um-hm.

Interviewer:  …but then as you said he was unhappy and uncomfortable…

Topolosky:  Uh-uhn.

Interviewer:  …and he dropped the idea of…

Topolosky: …being a doctor.  Now I probably, had I been older – I was only 19 – had I been older and wiser, I would have suggested, insisted that he go to, that he continue school, but I was a young kid and in love and I wanted to get married and all my girlfriends were getting married and it seemed like the right thing to do, and looking back, I had a good life with him as a scrap dealer.  It was just fine, but now that I’m all, I’m so much wiser, probably he should have gone, finished school.  Today’s world they would.

Interviewer:  Now tell us a little bit more about this scrap business.  There were a lot of Jews in this industry.  Where was this facility?

Topolosky:  He was on Fulton Street and then in the end, he was on the West Side on – I have to think of the name of the street but I’ll get there.

Interviewer:  Would you call this a junk-yard or is that something different?

Topolosky:  Well, no. It was, it’s a junk-yard but they didn’t like to be called a junk-yard.  I mean, that’s definitely not what they call them.  It’s a scrap business.  That’s what they called it, the, he was in the scrap business, but it was a junk-yard, but he was a successful junk-man.

Interviewer:  But the actual place where all the metal was collected was on Fulton first, and then…

Topolosky:   Then they moved to…

Interviewer:  West Side.

Topolosky:  Why can’t I think of the name of it? Well, whatever.

Interviewer:  The West Side, you said.

Topolosky:  The West Side.

Interviewer:  So, the business consists of him finding…

Topolosky:  …his father, his brother and he.  His brother was in the business also.

Interviewer:  And give us the names of the brother and the father.

Topolosky:  His father’s name was Joe Topolosky and his brother’s name was Irwin Topolosky and his brother was married to a girl name Cohen but I don’t think she’s related to you.

Interviewer:  And the name of the business was…?

Topolosky:  J Topy and Sons.

Interviewer:  J Topy and Sons.

Topolosky:  Right.

Interviewer:   And so, they would buy up metal that was from…

Topolosky:  They would go to big companies that were manufacturing things, that were manufacturing parts or things, parts of automobiles or parts of refrigerators, like say, Westinghouse or those and they would buy the scrap, that they would, when you make it, everything that you make, makes scrap.

Interviewer:  Leftover metals.

Topolosky:  Leftover metals.   It could be brass.  It could be copper.  It could be steel.  It could be any of those things and he would, he would buy it by the ton or by the pound, however you do it, and he was, he was, he was the mainstream of that business, when he got a little older, and a little wiser.  You figure out how to, you learn how to entertain the purchasing agents for these companies and take them to golf and take them to lunch and do all that and then he would buy their scrap, and he became a successful scrap dealer.

Interviewer:  So, they would buy up the scrap from these manufacturers.  Then they would resell it to who?

Topolosky:  Sell it, to, they sold it to, I forgot what you call it, it’s, you know – big steel companies. Uhm- hm.

Interviewer:  And they would be able to use it to make something else.

Topolosky:  That’s right. Then they would make something else, or sell that and that’s what they, that’s what they did.

Interviewer:  So, back then, this is in the Forties and Fifties, they didn’t have the term recycling but that’s what it was.

Topolosky:  That’s right, but they didn’t have such a word even.  That’s right.

Interviewer:  And did you and your husband, did you schmooze with, with other Jews who were in competing businesses?

Topolosky:  We went to conventions. Absolutely.  We went to conventions and we, all the scrap dealers from all over the United States and the conventions were in big cities, that had to be like it was in Las Vegas, or San Francisco, and, you know, big, wonderful places, and we always went, and we had, and Sanford had friends that were in the scrap business and we always went with these other people and we had wonderful times.  It was all great.

Interviewer:  So, even though they competed locally in business…

Topolosky:  Well, they didn’t…

Interviewer:  …they were friends and associates.

Topolosky:  Yeah, they were.  They were, some better friends than others, you know, like anything else, but it, that was what we did.

Interviewer:  So, you met scrap metal dealers from all over the country. What’s your, I know it’d just be a guesstimate, what percent would you say were Jewish?

Topolosky:  A large, large percentage.  Now, nowadays, not so much.

Interviewer:  Okay but back then…

Topolosky:  Back then, I would say, I would say, 30%?  40%?

Interviewer:  Wow. Even though Jews at that time were only 3% of the population, you think they were 30%.

Topolosky:  Well, I don’t know.  If a hundred percent is everybody…

Interviewer:  Yeah.

Topolosky:  …so then maybe 30%.  I really can’t tell you. The people we associated with were Jewish, but the, and then, from that apartment that we lived in, then they raised the rent so we couldn’t afford that rent, so, ‘cause it was seventy-five dollars a month, so we moved.  We bought a lot on North Merkle.

Interviewer:  Now this is Bexley.

Topolosky:  That was in Bexley.  Well, my husband knew we had to live in Bexley because even then the schools were better than they, for some reason, I didn’t know because I’m not from Columbus, but he said, “We’ve got to move to Bexley.”  I said, “Okay.” So…

Interviewer:   What year would you say this was?

Topolosky:  I know what year this was.  It was Nineteen…I was married in ’46, ‘47, ’48, ’49, ’50, ’51, 1951. We bought a lot and we built a house for $16,000.  That house was just sold, was just recently, for $445,000.

Interviewer:  What was the address?

Topolosky:  98 North Merkle.

Interviewer:  Now, go ahead.

Topolosky:  From there, I loved that little house.  It was a wonderful little house and I was very happy there.  I didn’t want to ever move.  Perfect.  So, my friends, my very, very, very dear friends, the Stans, were my best, best friends and Maitzie had two children.  She had Michael and she had Jodi, and they decided that wanted to have a third child and they lived in a little house on Brookside Drive.

Interviewer:  Which is Eastmoor, near Bexley.

Topolosky:  Yeah. That’s where they, that’s where they bought a house when they, after they moved out of an apartment, but they had two kids and then she gets pregnant and lo and behold, she has twins.  Well, now she’s got to get a bigger house. They have to have a bigger house, so they’re shopping and looking and looking and shopping and one day she calls me on the phone.  She says, “I just saw a house.  It’s got your name on it.” You’ve got to go see this house.”  I said, “What kind of, I don’t want a house. You want a house!”  “It’s on Fair Avenue, Roosevelt and Fair and it is gorgeous and I really would love it but we can’t afford it.”  So, I said, “I’m not the least bit interested and goodbye,” and I hang up. She calls Sanford at work, and she says, “I saw a house, got your name on it.  You’ve got to go look at this house.”  So, he called the realtor and he makes an appointment for 4:30 in the afternoon, and Sanford isn’t going to go look at a house without – we were very good friends with Harold and Miriam Kayne.  I don’t know if you know…

Interviewer:  Kayne K-a-y-n-e.

Topolosky:  That’s right.  That’s right, best friends and he would know a house. So, but they’re in Florida, So Sanford gets hold of him in Florida and he says, “I saw this house.”  He says, “Well I’ll call my partner,” who was Joe Slavin.  Joe Slavin goes with us to look at this house, 4:30 in the afternoon, and I said to Sanford, “You’re in big trouble, ‘cause I really like this house.”

Interviewer:  Even though you weren’t really in the market to buy a house.

Topolosky:  I’m not the least bit in the market. I had a lovely little house.  We had a little mortgage and we had a little house on a nice street with nice neighbors and I didn’t want to move, but when I saw this house, I really liked it, so, we bought it.

Interviewer:  So, you were at the house on Merkle, how many years?

Topolosky:  Nine.

Interviewer:  Okay.

Topolosky:  Do you want, yeah, ‘cause I think we moved into the big house – I always call it the big house – the big house in ’59 I think it was.  Now I’ve been here almost 25 years.

Interviewer:  Okay but so, you were at the new house at Roosevelt and Fair for many decades.

Topolosky:  Correct. Many decades.  That’s where I raised my children, my whole family.

Interviewer:  Okay and they, so how many children do you have?

Topolosky:  I have three children.  I have nine grandchildren and I have twenty-one great grand-children. Kinehora.

Interviewer:  Now, the three children, they went to Bexley schools.

Topolosky:  All Bexley schools.

Interviewer:  Graduated from Bexley High.

Topolosky:  That’s right, and they went to college and they, my son didn’t finish college.  My one daughter went to vocational school and the other one went to, she graduated from Miami in Florida, in Coral Gables.  That’s where she went and she, what else do you want to know.  Do you have any questions?

Interviewer:  Well, let’s talk about your life. First of all, it’s interesting.  You say you moved to Bexley around 1951.

Topolosky:  Um-hum.

Interviewer:  So, that kind of reflects what we hear from a lot of Jews who were here in Columbus.  Before World War II, they lived in Driving Park or Parsons and Oak.

Topolosky:  That’s right.

Interviewer:  But then after World War II there was a movement to Bexley and Eastmoor and Berwick and you were, you were right in that group.

Topolosky:  I was part of that.  I was part of that.  Exactly.

Interviewer:  You saw that among your friends, too, that they were also…

Topolosky:  Absolutely.  Now, when I lived, when her mother and father, when they got married, there was an apartment complex called Robinsville and it was a lovely apartment on East Broad Street, across the street, like, from the Broadmoor market.

Interviewer:  Oh, in Eastmoor, okay.

Topolosky:  Yeah.  They lived in an apartment until they moved to a house, two doors away from me on North Merkle.

Interviewer:  And the family you’re talking about is…

Topolosky: is Mickey, is Mickey and Howard Schoenbaum.

Interviewer:  Schoenbaum. Okay.

Topolosky: and they, they lived there and they had three girls and they were close in age with my kids, so the girls were, all grew up together and…

Interviewer:  they moved right near you on Merkle.

Topolosky:  and then they moved on Merkle.  Then they moved on Fair Avenue.  The Schoenbaums moved on Fair Avenue, too, and so we were always friends.  We were friends forever but all my friends were Jewish.

Interviewer:  So…

Topolosky:  Now, Mickey, her mother and father…

Interviewer:  Mickey Schoenbaum.

Topolosky:  Right.  She was raised with all non-Jewish people, ‘cause she came from Circleville, so, her history would be totally different from mine.

Interviewer:  So, tell us about your memories of those early years in your marriage and so forth.  You joined, did you join a synagogue?

Topolosky:  In order to get married at Tifereth Israel, probably one of the reasons we got married at Tifereth Israel, you could join for eighteen dollars, eighteen dollars – chai – I think that’s eighteen, so we joined for eighteen dollars.  You can’t, how could you pass it up?

Interviewer:  Oh, when you just said chai, for a second, I thought you meant h-i-g-h, but you were saying chai, c-h-a-i, life.  Okay, I understand.

Topolosky:  Chai. That’s right.  That’s right. Got it?

Interviewer:  And so, you were members of Tifereth Israel.

Topolosky:  From, that’s right. When we got married, we joined and we’ve never gone any…

Interviewer:  You’ve never what?

Topolosky:  We never went anywhere else.  We’ve always belonged to Tifereth.

Interviewer:  So, tell us about your memories about Tifereth Israel. Any particular personalities or programs?

Topolosky:  Well, we loved Rabbi Zelizer. He was wonderful.  We went through a lot of rabbis in my life there.  I’ve been there seventy some, I got married in ’46 and it’s ’04 now [transcriber note – she meant ’24] so how many years is that, Gail?

Gail:  ’24 [and like] 54 years.

Topolosky:  Seventy-some years, so I’ve been here seventy-some years in Columbus.

Interviewer:  So, tell us about memories of Tifereth Israel.

Topolosky:  It was, well, first of all, the bima was in a different place.  Then we changed and we had benches.  We didn’t have chairs.  We didn’t have seats. We had big benches, like a church.  That’s what we sat on.

Interviewer:  Pews.

Topolosky:  Pews.  That’s it. Pews.  That’s how we sat. Uh-hun.

Interviewer:  This was in the old Tifereth Israel.

Topolosky:  But it was the same building.

Interviewer:  Yes.

Topolosky:  It’s the same building that they want to, right now, they don’t know what they’re doing.  Did you go to that meeting?

Interviewer:  No.

Topolosky:  No. Neither did I.

Interviewer:  But I remember, as you say, the bima was in the opposite direction until 1961 when they reconstructed it.

Topolosky: turned it around.

Interviewer:  So, your children were, or at least, your boys, were bar mitzvahed there?

Topolosky:  I had, I have one boy and two girls.

Interviewer:  Okay.

Topolosky:  When my girls were at thirteen, they weren’t doing bat mitzvahs for girls.

Interviewer:  Still were not doing that.

Topolosky:  Uhn-uhn.  It came right, very soon afterwards.   Were you [ to Gail] bat mitzvahed?

Gail:  Yeah.

Topolosky:  Which is, was unusual.

Gail:  I was one of the first ones.

Interviewer:  Okay, so, bat mitzvahs came in a little…

Topolosky:  For girls but my boy was bar mitzvahed there. My boy had his bris from there and my girls were confirmed from there and we were members of that.  That’s where we went and that’s the only place we went and we did not go every Saturday morning, and we did not, but, we, my husband would never miss a, my husband was a great davvener.   He knew how to read Hebrew beautifully.  His grandfather was a real learned man and he made sure that those boys would, knew how to read Hebrew and they did.

Interviewer:  You say, you were starting to say, your husband never missed a…

Topolosky:  He would never miss a kaddish for his family.  He would never.    You know, he observed all the traditional things that you’re supposed to do in Judaism.   He always did that. Now I do that, too.

Interviewer:  Any other Jewish institutions or groups that you’ve been active with, whether it’s the Jewish Center or the Hadassah or…

Topolosky:  Well, I’m a life member of Hadassah.  I’m a life member of Council of Jewish Women.  I belong to the Sisterhood.  I belong to whatever.  I did it, did them all.

Interviewer:  So, you remember the old Jewish Center before it was remodeled?

Topolosky:  Absolutely, and I will tell you something else.  My husband was the instrument in getting Heritage House.  He and, there were, used to be a realtor named Denmer, something and Meade,  Denmer and Meade, or something like that,  realtor, and my husband, he worked with his father but he, it wasn’t good enough.  He, we needed more so, he got a real estate license and he…

Interviewer:  Your husband.

Topolosky:  My husband.

Interviewer:  Sanford got a real estate license.

Topolosky:  Sanford got a real estate license also working with his dad. He never quit his dad, but he got this license and he, the community was looking for a nursing home, an old home, for old folks home.  I think they called it an old folks home, at that time, and so, he went with this realtor and he was a realtor, too.  He passed the test and everything, and they went looking for a house.  They were looking for a big house, so, on Woodland Avenue – I think it’s called Woodland Avenue.  It’s off of Broad Street. – They found this, like was a mansion, an old mansion, and the Jewish people bought it but in order to buy it, they needed money. We didn’t have Leslie Wexner then.  So, I don’t know if you, well, Aaron Zacks – do you know who Aaron Zacks was? Aaron Zacks was Ed Stan’s boss. He owned RG Barry.  He founded RG Barry.  He took a year off of work and went peddling for money to build a Heritage House.

Interviewer:  Asking for donations.

Topolosky:  Uhn-hun.

Interviewer: to build a Heritage House on Woodland or a new building?

Topolosky:  Well, no. Woodland, they found the money for that somehow, I don’t remember now how they got the money for that, but now we gotta’ build the Heritage House on College.  We gotta’ do that.  We gotta’ get a, so he went and got, and he worked a whole, I think, a whole year that he went out raising money to build the first, and that was about, that must have been about 1949 or ‘48.

Interviewer:  And you’re saying that for a while the Jewish Home for the Aged was on Woodland Avenue.

Topolosky:  Woodland Avenue.  That’s right.

Interviewer:  Near Long Street in a big mansion that I think may still be there.

Topolosky:  That’s right.  It probably is.

Interviewer:  And then, after a while they said, ‘Well, we need to build a new facility near the Jewish Center.

Topolosky:  We had a pool.  We built a pool.  We had bowling alleys there, too.

Interviewer:  In the Jewish Center.

Topolosky:  In the Jewish Center, not on Woodland.

Interviewer:  Right, but you had, okay we’ll get back to Heritage House in a second but you mentioned the bowling alley so, I’ve gotta’ let you talk about that.  What do you remember about that bowling alley at the old Jewish Center?

Topolosky:  It was an unbelievable, it was a bowling alley.  I don’t know how many lanes they had, maybe four? Maybe five? And the B’nai Brith men… [ to Gail] They had more than that?

Gail:  They had

Topolosky:  Ten maybe?  Maybe they had ten.  I don’t remember, but I know, I think, B’nai Brith men bowled there on Sunday mornings and it was very active, but for some reason, they took the bowling alley out.

Interviewer:  Do you remember the smoking there?

Topolosky:  Oh, sure.  Everybody smoked. I didn’t.  I never smoked.  Maybe that’s why I’m ninety-six.

Interviewer:  But you remember a lot of people smoking back then.

Topolosky:  Oh, everybody smoked.  Her mother must have smoked God knows how many cigarettes.  Did you ever…

Interviewer:  Mrs. Schoenbaum, you’re talking about.

Topolosky:  But most everybody, my husband smoked Lucky Strike. Uhm-hm.

Interviewer:  And there was kind of a haze in that bowling alley.

Topolosky:  Oh, my, it was, and the Jewish Center was wonderful and we belonged to the Jewish Center and we’d take my, well, at the time I only had one kid, took him swimming there, and there, now they had a preschool there, which they still have, and Rose Schwartz was in charge of it, a lady named Rose Schwartz and she was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful lady and she really, and the other lady that was instrumental in making Heritage House what it is, was Sylvia Schechter.

Interviewer:  Now, okay let’s go back now to Heritage House.

Topolosky:  Okay.

Interviewer:  So, you say that your husband helped to find the land, well helped to find the money and…

Topolosky: to find the house. Actually, he didn’t really raise the money.  He really found the property.

Interviewer:  The property that was just south of the Jewish Center to build the new Heritage House.

Topolosky:  Well, now.

Interviewer:  Is that what you’re saying or you’re talking about the one on Woodland?

Topolosky:  I’m talking about the one on Woodland.

Interviewer:  Okay.

Topolosky:   I’m trying to remember where the first one was.  It was right there.

Interviewer:  Okay.  There is a huge house on Woodland. Okay. So, he helped to buy that for a while…

Topolosky:  Right.

Interviewer: until, they decided to build south of the Jewish Center.

Topolosky: they needed bigger and better.

Interviewer:  Okay.  That’s…

Topolosky:  We needed bigger and better and we got it. I mean, they did it.  We had some very prominent Jewish people in Columbus that, obviously, I was very young and I probably didn’t really realize the great need for so much money to build a Jewish Center, a Jewish Center and a Heritage House.  We had the same camp.  Somebody donated the land.  I know who donated the land, Millard Cummins.

Interviewer:  Say that name again?

Topolosky:  Millard Cummins.

Interviewer:  Millard Cummings.

Topolosky:  i-n-s.

Interviewer:  i-n-s.  Oh, Cummins. Okay.  Huhn.

Topolosky:  I think he do… [nated].  As I recall, he was the one that had the land.

Interviewer:  Okay.

Topolosky: ‘Cause that was a lot of land.  We have ballparks back there.

Interviewer:   Yeah, so, all the major Jewish institutions are now…

Topolosky:  I think, well I don’t know, if they had all the land but I know part of that land and then we got the Melton Building there…

Interviewer:  Yes.

Topolosky:  …and we have Beth Jacob and the Jewish Center and the Heritage House, so we’ve got a nice campus, but now, I think there’s a lots and lots of non-Jewish people that belong to the Jewish Center and lots of, and we’re having, Heritage House is not what it was either and I don’t know why.

Interviewer:  Now what is your point about the Heritage House, about the quality or what?

Topolosky:  I think what I hear.  Now when my husband was there, he really was home.  When he was sick, he lived right here in this house, but every once in a while, he would get, something would happen and he would have to go to a hospital.  Then from the hospital he’d have to go to Heritage House.  He had wonderful care, but now I understand that it’s just this empty, and it’s got a lot of, it’s just different, totally different.

Interviewer:  In terms of the quality, are you, is that your understanding?  The quality is not as high as it was?

Topolosky:  The quality, uhn-hun, not where it was. That’s what I’ve been told and….

Interviewer:  Do you have friends who have been there and relatives?

Topolosky:  Yes.  Yes. I do.  I did have friends.

Interviewer:  You know one thing I haven’t asked you about is anti-Semitsm.  In your life have you experienced whether you were in Cleveland or you were in the Dayton area and now in Columbus, have you experienced, uh…

Topolosky: what we’re going through now?

Interviewer: anything that you think, well, now of course we have a big rise in it but when you were younger, have you in your lifetime experienced personally?

Topolosky:  I really did not because I lived in a community in Cleveland that was a lot of Jewish people and, like I said, I didn’t have any non-Jewish friends, so I really didn’t even know what that was about.  I’m sure that in Dayton, there was different but I wasn’t there that long. We’ve got a big problem, terrible problem right now, just terrible, and it’s frightening for your kids to go to college and it’s a very scary situation, but we, you know, people ask me often, “Do you ever remember the, anything as bad as we’re going through?”  I says, “You know we’ve gone through terrible things.  We had a Holocaust.  That’s as bad as it gets. It can’t get any worse than that.  They came and they took down our towers in New York.  They put airplanes right through that.  Think that was a walk in the park?  That wasn’t a walk in the park.  I mean, they shot Presidents.  Kennedy was in a convertible and he got shot in the head and died, John Kennedy.”

Interviewer:  Okay, now what, but is there some link on that front to anti-Semitism?

Topolosky:  No, that has nothing to do with anti-Semitism.

Interviewer:  Okay.

Topolosky:  I’m just saying our world was not perfect before.

Interviewer:  Right, but do you, you yourself, you haven’t experienced any anti-Semitism?

Topolosky:  I never, nothing terrible, but I don’t go to those kinds of meetings anymore.  You know, I used to go to, speakers would come into Columbus and I would listen to them but I don’t do that anymore and I didn’t find anti-Semitism, I never found it here in Columbus either.

Interviewer:  So, you think, well, how do you assess the state of the Columbus Jewish community?  Is it healthy?  Is it, what’s your view?  Do you think it’s, do you think we’re doing well?

Topolosky:  Well, I think there’s a, I think we have, I think that the temples are having…the Conservative movement is having a terrible, terrible time.  The Orthodox and the Reform have no problem at all.  The Orthodox, I went to a bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah at Beth Jacob Saturday.  The seats were all filled, all filled.  I haven’t been to Temple Israel for a while but last time I went, all filled.  Not so at my temple.  I have children, grandchildren that were born and raised at Tifereth Israel that dropped out and it breaks my heart that they dropped out.  They joined Beth Jacob.  I will say that my children, my grandchildren of the nine of them, seven of them, I would say seven out of nine belong to a temple which is very unusual because a lot of young people, they would, they’ll do other things.  They’ll buy a car.  You know, they’ll go to a vacation, but they won’t join a temple ‘cause it’s too expensive and it is expensive.

Interviewer:  So, you’re saying your grandchildren for the most part have a strong Jewish identity…

Topolosky:  Obviously, they belong.  I have one that keeps kosher.  No, my grandchildren have, I’m very proud of them for that. I have one grandchild in New York and belongs to a temple in New York.  You know how expensive that has to be.

Interviewer:  Do you, do you, is there, does it seem to you there is any rhyme or reason that determines whether a young person has a Jewish identity?  I mean, sometimes we hear cases where a child is raised with parents who are observant and joyful about Judaism and yet…

Topolosky: the kid…

Interviewer: they don’t stay Jewish.

Topolosky:  I got a gazillion of those friends like that, too.  I don’t know the answer.  I would like to believe it’s who you marry.  I would like, in my heart, it’s who you marry.  If you marry a person that is traditional and really loves to be traditional, really loves it, I think that the person you marry, maybe you can convince them or make them like it also, but I do think a lot has to do with who you marry.  Do you?

Interviewer:  Well, but sometimes though a, even a husband and wife can be religious and observant and joyful about Judaism and yet their children…

Topolosky: don’t do it. Oh, I understand.

Interviewer: so, it’s hard to understand.

Topolosky:  I can name you, I can name them for you.

Interviewer:  In other words, friends of yours you’ve seen…

Topolosky:  Absolutely.  I can tell you right now that I had a girlfriend.  She was raised in a little teeny weenie town.  She never had one Jewish friend but she married a man who was very traditional, extremely traditional and a strong man.  She was a strong woman, too, but this man made her love Judaism.  I don’t know anybody that loved it anymore.

Interviewer:  So, they…

Topolosky:  She put a sukkah out every year for, and we would go there and they went to synagogue and brought the lulav and the etrog and the whole thing.  She did it all, but it was who she married.

Interviewer:  And how ‘bout their children?  Did they have any children?

Topolosky:  Her children, yes. Two out of three married Jewish boys and the other one didn’t get married…

Interviewer:  Okay.

Topolosky: but she knows her Judaism.  She knows Judaism, totally.

Interviewer:  One thing that’s happened during your life here in central Ohio, when you were married in the Forties, or early Fifties, in that era, 95% of all the Jews lived in Bexley, Berwick, Eastmoor and maybe a few were still coming over from Driving Park, but they were all on the east side…

Topolosky:  Uhm-hum.

Interviewer: clustered, and then in the decades later in the Eighties, Nineties, and Two Thousands, Jews have moved to Worthington and Westerville…

Topolosky: Clintonville, West…Worth… have definitely.

Interviewer:  What, what do you make of that?  Has, what’s your analysis?  Has it been good, bad?  What’s your take on that?

Topolosky:  Well, I don’t know. I really can’t tell you.  I can’t give you an answer to that.  I love living, I wouldn’t want to live in New Albany.  If I were young today, I still would want to live in Bexley, but my experience in Bexley was good.   I mean, my children had good friends and they still have the same 14,000 Jews.  I don’t know how many Jews, I came from a city, Cleveland that had a hundred thousand Jews.  I don’t know how many Jews we have here today.  I really, do you have any idea?

Interviewer:   Well, a lot more.

Topolosky:  I know it’s more than 14,000. First of all, we had Temple Israel.  We had Tifereth Israel.  We had Agudas Achim.  I can’t, Ahavas Sholom.  Now, they got a temple in New Albany.  They got a temple up north.  We must have five temples, six, but the thing that I don’t understand, is back in my day, when I came here, I think we had four kosher butchers.  We can’t even keep one kosher butcher now.  Now why is that?

Interviewer:  Must be there’s not the demand and customers.

Topolosky:  But we’ve got, we built a temple, Torat Emet, that’s an Orthodox synagogue.  When I tell you Beth Jacob, you couldn’t, the strollers, you couldn’t walk through there were so many strollers.  That’s young people.  We don’t have young people where I belong.

Interviewer:  So, what are your memories of kosher butchers in Columbus?  Do you have any…?

Topolosky:  I can tell you their names.  There was Goldmeier.  There was Mendelman’s and there was Center’s and there was Martin’s.

Interviewer:  You know of at least four and that was in the late Forties.

Topolosky:  And I think there were more than that. That’s all I can remember off the top of my head.

Interviewer:  But in the Forties…

Topolosky:  In the Forties they had four.  Now we have a gazillion Jews and not even one kosher butcher.  Isn’t that…but we have two kosher bakeries.

Interviewer:  So, do you have any particular memories of Martin’s in particular?

Topolosky:  Oh, I loved Martin’s.

Interviewer: or where did you go?  Was there a particular grocery that you would frequent?

Topolosky:  Martin’s.  Everybody went to Martin’s.  That was the best.  He made you feel like a person.  That was the key.  Marty Godofsky was a definitely a, he was a wonderful man and he made everybody… my mother would come in from out of town and he would be at the back of the store and he would see her and “Mrs. Deutch!  Mrs. Deutch is here!”  and my mother loved that.  Who doesn’t love to be recognized?  See? So…

Interviewer:  Did you, you saw all your fellow Jews at Martin’s.

Topolosky:  Always. My, when I had my first grandchild – her name is Emily – and Sanford would go over to their house on Sunay morning and they, my daughter-in-law would dress this kid up in her best dress and Sanford would take her to Martin’s to show her off.  I mean, we were the only one with a grandchild at the time of all our friends, and he would take her and she must have liked it because she always wanted to go, and that was the place to go – Martin’s.  You see everybody at Martin’s but he was a wonderful, wonderful, I don’t even know what you call it but whatever he was, he did it right because no one’s been able to do it since.

Interviewer:  You have lived a long life.  You are how old right now?

Topolosky:  I’m ninety-six and a half. I’m almost ninety-seven.

Interviewer:  As you look back on your life, what, not that Judaism is all of your life, but what role would you say Judaism has played in your life?

Topolosky:  I think it played an important part.  I, I love being Jewish.  I really love it and I loved being married to a man that was very Jewish.  I liked that.  He taught me a lot and, like I say, like I said in the beginning, I do think a lot happens who you marry, and I married this man who came from a very religious family and had a very religious grandfather.  His name was Mellman, the grandfather, and a lot of that rubbed off on me, and I loved that, and I loved, I had a, I mean, I never kept kosher but I know all about it.  I know about it and I love it and I admire it and, I, like I said, I love being Jewish and my children do, too.

Interviewer:  What is it about being Jewish that is…

Topolosky:  We are, we are, we’re good people.  We are just good people.  We’re charitable people.  We’re honest people.  We’re smart, very smart. I just, I like being Jewish.  Do you like being Jewish?

Interviewer:  Yes, but this not an interview of me.  Yes.

Topolosky:  No, but I do like it, and, like I say, I have a daughter, one of my daughters married a non-Jewish boy and she got, eventually they were married a long time, like thirty years and then she got divorced and she has a boyfriend, who, they’ve been in boyfriend now for ten years. So, I think it’s ten years, about that.  Anyway, so, just yesterday we were in [?] City and we were at a bat mitzvah and she says to me – I said something about, her boyfriend is Jerry – I said “Oh, he’s such a nice guy, he’s just a great guy.”  She says, “There’s a lot of things I really like about him, love about him, but you know what I really, really love about him?”  and I said, “What?”  She says, “That he’s Jewish.”  I said, “Halleluyah. Why is that make such a difference?”  She says, “Because it’s the holidays coming. I don’t have to say, ‘You can’t go hunting because it’s Rosh Hashanah.’ He knows it’s Rosh HaShanah.”  And she says, “I just love that he’s Jewish.”  And I thought that was wonderful, and I guess, I think, blame that on me.  We did something right. Sanford and I did something right that they like being Jewish.  It’s just very interesting.

Interviewer:  Well, with those wise words, let’s conclude our interview here with Ruthetta Topolosky.  My name is Bill Cohen and we’ve been doing this oral history with Ruthetta for the Columbus Jewish Historical Society.

 

Transcribed by Linda Kalette Schottenstein

February 21, 2024