Libby Bottero

[Aryae Coopersmith]

Phone conversation recorded December 27, 1994

Libby: I was born in 1947 on an army base. I was raised in the military, the second of five children, by two wonderful parents, who were childhood sweethearts. My mother was Catholic, and my father was Episcopalian. We lived all over, in Georgia and New Hampshire and Kansas and Alaska, and places like that, different Army bases.

There were a lot of converts who were born right after the war, who like me, later on, became converts, because we had this feeling like, you know, we’d been there. (laughs) And this was our chance to come back. I think an awful lot of people I know that are my age, that have found their way to Judaism in one way or another have had the same experience. You know, entirely different family and different backgrounds, but had the very same experience. Somehow, we’d been through it before, and this was our chance to come back.

Aryae: What do you attribute that to?

Libby: Reincarnation.

Aryae: Is it the souls of Jews…

Libby: … that’s kind of my feeling…

Aryae: …you are the soul of somebody who died in a camp?

Libby – I think that’s part of it, yeah. And I think a lot of people felt that, that I’ve met. A lot of people who were born shortly after the war, that became converts, have had that feeling. As kids they might have thought, oh, this might be kind of weird. But then you get together with other converts and you realize, oh! You have all these stories in common! (laughs) Having dreams and things, seeing certain places, and then later as adults, seeing the same place and realizing, oh, now I get it.

And my parents were pretty cool about me converting. I was 18 when I got married. I was 19 when I converted. I married a Jew, Yesheskil Jaffe. He married me because I wasn’t Jewish, because he wanted to get away from it. Because his mother was involved with Hadassa, and his father was involved with B’nei Brith, and every Saturday morning they had to go to shul, and they kept kosher at home, and he hated it.

We met at the College of Marin. We ran off and eloped to Reno in 1965.

By that time my dad had gotten out of the Army. He left. He protested the Vietnam war, as many officers did, who resigned their commissions. He had gone to West Point, he had served 22 years, and he decided to move. There were a lot of officers who had signed up to fight Hitler, but did not think that Vietnam was what we should be doing.

Aryae: How did you first come to the House?

Libby: I had recently converted, and then I began to look for, okay, where was my niche in the Jewish world. I went back to San Francisco, and I went to every different synagogue, Reform, Orthodox, Conservative.

One day some guy picked me up hitching and told me about the House. I have no idea who it was. (laughs) You know, one of those angels. So I went there, and it was like, oh, this is where I fit! Elana and I shared a room upstairs, and then Joy was there. And we’re still friends!

One of the first things I remember is, you were all singing the Birthday Song! (sings) Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday … Do you remember that song?

Aryae: Absolutely! (sings) We wish you a good year, a very good year, we wish you a very good year!

Libby: Oh, that’s it. Yeah! You were singing it to Ruthie. She was very unhappy on that birthday. She was sad and you were trying to cheer her up.

Aryae: So when did you meet Shlomo?

Libby: I guess after coming there, after a while, he came there. So then I met him there and then, you know how it is with Shlomo. It’s like, everybody’s his best friend, and everybody’s so special, and he has this tremendous memory, and this tremendous love, and this tremendous light, and this tremendous neshama (soul).

I remember he was wearing these blue glass love beads, and he used to put this stuff in his beard…

Aryae: Patchouli oil!

Libby: … yeah, patchouli and stuff like that. (laughs) That actually became part of Shabbos for me, all these guys with scents in their beards! And Louise. Louise made a big challah. Louise was wonderful. She was kind of a martyr, you know, in a way. She taught school in Fairfield, remember that? She’s get up at four o’clock, make bread, and then teach all day. Then she’s come back, and help everybody with all their problems. She was amazing.

One of the things that I remember was about Bernice, this was really sweet. We were doing something, I don’t know what it was. Anyhow, everybody was davening and the kids were playing around. Asher had his dirty diaper and he was playing in the dirt. And I remember her coming over to me and saying in the sweetest way that was not judgmental, but was also like, (laughs) you need to pay attention to this, your baby needs to have his diaper changed! I don’t think I ever thanked her for that. Because, it just kind of brought me right back to earth. I was just spacing out for a while. That was a really nice thing that Bernice did for me.

In some ways they (Marv and Bernice) were like the mom and pop. They could say, okay, sweet kids, you’re having fun, but you’ve got to pay attention to this over here, you know? And that was good. That’s all it took. I think from then on I was a little more attentive.

I appreciated that about her. Her concern about, okay, you guys are all out here in … Reb Nachman world. But the baby still needs his diaper changed!