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BEL KAUFMAN
Bella "Bel" Kaufman (born May
10, 1911) is an American teacher and author, bes t
known for writing the
1965 bestselling
novel Up the Down
Staircase.
Kaufman was born in Berlin,
Germany, where her father was studying medicine.
Although born in Germany, her native
language was Russian. She was raised in Odessa and
Kiev.
In December 1923, they immigrated
to the United States with
their twelve-year-old
daughter to escape the hardships of postrevolutionary Russia.
When the family arrived in New York City, the young Kaufman did not speak a word of English. She was taken to the local public school in a first-grade class
with children half her age and felt immensely awkward. Her uneasiness was appeased by the kindness of her teacher, which had a profound effect
upon the twelve-year-old: She decided that she too wanted to be a teacher.
Aged 18 she attended Hunter College in New
York, from which she received a
Bachelor of Arts degree, then
earned a Master's degree in
literature at Columbia University.
Kaufman began work as a teacher
in various New York City high schools, along
with working part-time as a writer, including articles
for Esquire magazine, under
the name Bel Kaufman.
Up the Down Staircase was originally a short story—only three and a half pages long—
published in The Saturday Review on November 17, 1962.
Then an editor contacted Kaufman after reading it and encouraged her to extend her
fledgling story into a full-length novel
In 1965 she published the novel Up the
Down Staircase, a
novel about an idealistic young honors college graduate who becomes an
English teacher in a New York
City high school and deals with
the gritty realities of her colleagues and students; it was
based on Kaufman's own
teaching experiences.
Up the Down Staircase
became an enormous success,
remaining on the New York Times Best
Seller list for 64 weeks. In
1967, the book was
turned into a film of the
same name.
The film opened at Radio City Music Hall in New York City
and was chosen to represent the United States at the Moscow Film Festival. In June
1977, Up the Down Staircase became a play and a popular
choice for many public school
drama productions.
Kaufman’s contributions to social awareness
continued well beyond the reach of her famous book. On December 7,
1987, Kaufman accepted an invitation from the Soviet embassy to join Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev as his guest at a reception held for prominent Americans. During this same year, she participated in the Moscow International
Forum for a Nuclear-Free World at the invitation of the Soviet Union. There she delivered a speech on “The Role of Culture in Protecting Civilization
and Universal Human Values.”
In her later career, Kaufman has been involved in theatrical writing and lecturing, and is a popular public
speaker. In the 1970s, she married Sidney Gluck, who heads the Sholem Aleichem Memorial Foundation, where
she is an honorary chair. The foundation was created to
commemorate her grandfather and the world of Yiddish literature.
Bel Kaufman is the recipient of many awards, such as Bonds for Israel
plaques, the Paperback of the
Year Award, and the National School Bell
Award. Bel Kaufman’s great legacy is in the literature about
education in America and in the
propagation of Jewish culture. Her
life’s work is a poignant reminder
of the struggles and dedication
necessary in the search for
knowledge.
At 100 years old, Ms. Kaufman is still shpritzing
jokes, Jewish and otherwise, which is in her
genes.
In 2011 she became one of the
few adjunct professors in her age and taught a course on Jewish humor at Hunter College, her alma mater. One of the
jokes the class dissected:
“The Frenchman says: ‘I’m tired and thirsty. I must have wine.’ The German says: ‘I’m tired and thirsty. I must have
beer.’ The Jew says: ‘I’m tired and thirsty. I must have
diabetes.”
She now meets former students who are grandparents. Indeed,
she cannot believe that she has a son, Jonathan Goldstine, 69, who is a retired professor of computer science, and a daughter, Thea, a
psychologist, who is 67.
Now Ms. Kaufman intends to
resume her hobby — dancing
mambos and tangos at a local school.
Her determination
helps to explain how she made it
to 100, though she
does not think it is such a big deal.
Bel Kaufman: “It must have happened gradually, while I
wasn’t looking,I feel no different than I felt at 99, 98 or 97. Just because you live a
long time, you get all this attention. Just because you
survived? Of course, I survived a lot.”