An Afternoon With Bel Kaufman

 Interview by Erika Wilder Photos by Ari Seth Cohen

Ari and I recently had the pleasure of visiting with Bel Kaufman, celebrated teacher, author, and speaker�and granddaughter to Sholem Aleichem, the Yiddish writer on whose stories Fiddler on the Roof was based. As a poet and writer, I was honored to tag along and meet her.

Ms. Kaufman made a striking first impression, welcoming us into her home with warmth, radiance, and a great pair of sunglasses. One of the first things Ms. Kaufman says with pride, when introducing herself, is, �In a few months I�ll be 102 years old.�

Upon looking at Advanced Style the book, Kaufman says, ��They�re wonderful-looking women with styles that vary.� She describes her own style philosophy as being a �very personal� thing, and that she favors a balance between a tailored and a feminine look. �I used to live in spike heels!� Kaufman reminisces. �Students remember me running up the stairs at school in stilettos.�

Kaufman cites the publishing of her first book, the 1965 best-seller Up The Down Staircase, and her subsequent career as a public speaker, as helping to reveal her identity: �I really didn�t know who I was for a long time�daughter, mother, teacher, writer�but that�s changed now. It helped me recognize who I was.� Confidence, it seems, is key to Kaufman�s vitality, and she will happily admit: 
 �I do consider myself a good teacher and a good speaker.�

One of the first things I had noticed in Bel�s apartment was her extensive library of Nabokov books (in both English and Russian), and we discovered she & I share a favorite writer. Excited to also discover our shared interest in poetry, Bel recited Eliot�s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Keats�s Ode to a Nightingale, and Auden�s Stop All The Clocks on the spot, in their entirety, off the top of her head. �I like to recite them in my head as I�m waiting for a bus,� she says.

 
Another of Bel�s passions�and no doubt one of the keys to her energy�has always been dance. �I love dancing. The tango�especially the Argentine tango�is a very sexy dance. Imagine feeling sexy at my age!� She says. �But I do.�

I tell Bel that my mom has always told me that she never feels any different inside, no matter how much she ages�something I haven�t heard many other women say. �I know just what she means,� Bel says, and on the topic of aging goes on to say, �I so enjoy being old because for the first time I don�t have to do anything�work, teach, study. I feel very good about myself�and at my age I can say no to anything now if I don�t want to do it. What a liberating word.�

About her lovely teeth, Kaufman notes, �One is half-false, and all the rest are mine�they don�t fall out.�Kaufman came to the US from Russia at age twelve, and has been a New Yorker ever since, save for a brief period in Newark, New Jersey during her high school years, after which she �raced back to New York City� as soon as she could.

And in a moment of beautiful coincidence as Ms. Kaufman was explaining to us her academic career, Ari realized that she had gotten her Master�s in literature at Columbia during the same years that Ari�s own grandmother was earning her Master�s degree there.

Bel recalls renting a room on Lexington for $4.50 a week in the early 1920s: �I wrote funny stories about my landlady.� Some of Bel�s short stories will be out in two new collections this winter: Le Tigress Other Stories (fiction) and This and That (non-fiction).

As we were leaving the apartment, Bel insisted that I choose a book I haven�t read from her Nabokov collection to take with me, as a gift. A book and an afternoon that I�ll hang on to for a long time.