|
My parents met in a small town in Eastern Europe in 1912.
After my father returned from the war in 1919, he and my mother
settled in Ukraine, where I was born. My father was mayor
of our town and helped establish many Jewish community institutions.
But he soon saw that Stalin would not be good for the Jews.
In 1925, he moved our family to Montreal.
My two brothers and I grew up in a traditional Orthodox Jewish
home – speaking Yiddish and going to shul. We had great
pride in ourselves as Jews and the values that went with it,
especially tzedakah. We were taught that we had an obligation
to the community.
My father was the foreman in a wool factory in Montreal and
again became very involved in the community. As a young adult,
I joined the United Jewish People’s Order, an organization
focused on making life better for workers. At 18, I organized
a union for workers in the knitting trade and was asked to
do the same for the fur workers. I later travelled to Winnipeg
to organize a laundry workers union.
On my way back from Winnipeg, I stopped in Toronto and met
my husband, Barry. We married in 1952 and I’ve lived
in Toronto ever since. We sent our daughter and our two sons
to Peretz Shul and, though we weren’t religious, we raised
our children with very strong Jewish values.
Yiddish was always a very important commitment for me. For
15 years, I worked at UJA Federation as staff support for
the Committee for Yiddish and helped launch several innovative
programs. As a volunteer, I helped established an organization
called Friends of Yiddish, of which I’m still executive
vice president.
When my husband and I celebrated our 40th anniversary, our
friends and children wanted to celebrate. We didn’t want
gifts, so we established the Shockett Yiddish Teachers Training
Fund.
It’s not a large fund, but it has helped several people
pursue certification and attend seminars in Yiddish teaching.
Community care is our Jewish legacy. With this fund, I know
that Yiddish education – and our rich Yiddish culture
– will continue to develop and flourish for my grandson
and future generations.
In the future I would like Yiddish to become an integral
part of Jewish education. Let us not be in denial of our rich
Eastern Jewish heritage. It has a history, a language, literature
and culture.
|
