Things I've learned, with the Profs Caplan
Professors Marc and Beatrice Caplan, professors of Yiddish literature and language respectively, are one of several married professors at Johns Hopkins University.
The News-Letter sat down with the Caplans to talk about both their relationship and work here at Hopkins.
The Johns Hopkins News-Letter (N-L): How did you two meet?
Beatrice Caplan (BC): It depends on who you ask.
Marc Caplan (MC): We first met during my first semester of graduate school at NYU. Beatrice went to Columbia graduate school. … I married up. It was my first semester of graduate school and I went to this Yiddish language lecture at this Jewish social organization called "The workman's circle."
I had never been to a Yiddish language lecture before and I barely spoke Yiddish at the time. When I entered the room, Beatrice saw me. We were probably the youngest people in the room by a magnitude of 60 years. She comes to me and starts chattering away in Yiddish and I was just completely overwhelmed and intimidated. I then had to stammer out that I don't speak Yiddish and basically letting her know that I was a fraud, I didn't know what I was doing here, why I was in graduate school and how I would ever get a job.
At that moment Beatrice interrupted and said that she wasn't so interested in this aspect of my psychological and emotional autobiography but that she would like to invite me to some Yiddish language activities that she was organizing for students. As a result, in the following semester, Beatrice was my Yiddish language instructor. I married by Yiddish teacher. A year later we both took a seminary class together and I think that's when we became friends. A year after that we started dating and less than a year later we were married.
Beatrice Caplan (BC): And by that time your Yiddish was excellent too.
MC: I definitely want that to go on the record.
N-L: I hear you have a daughter.
MC: Yes, she is three years old. We definitely try to make time to be together with our daughter, Zipporah, watching television, playing together and reading. The great thing is she is getting a little older and she has already made an effort to be a part of our conversations connected to our work. We sometimes have conversations that most three-year-old daughters don't have with their fathers. For better or worse, I invite your readers to pity her that this will be an increasing part of our interaction with her.
The News-Letter sat down with the Caplans to talk about both their relationship and work here at Hopkins.
The Johns Hopkins News-Letter (N-L): How did you two meet?
Beatrice Caplan (BC): It depends on who you ask.
Marc Caplan (MC): We first met during my first semester of graduate school at NYU. Beatrice went to Columbia graduate school. … I married up. It was my first semester of graduate school and I went to this Yiddish language lecture at this Jewish social organization called "The workman's circle."
I had never been to a Yiddish language lecture before and I barely spoke Yiddish at the time. When I entered the room, Beatrice saw me. We were probably the youngest people in the room by a magnitude of 60 years. She comes to me and starts chattering away in Yiddish and I was just completely overwhelmed and intimidated. I then had to stammer out that I don't speak Yiddish and basically letting her know that I was a fraud, I didn't know what I was doing here, why I was in graduate school and how I would ever get a job.
At that moment Beatrice interrupted and said that she wasn't so interested in this aspect of my psychological and emotional autobiography but that she would like to invite me to some Yiddish language activities that she was organizing for students. As a result, in the following semester, Beatrice was my Yiddish language instructor. I married by Yiddish teacher. A year later we both took a seminary class together and I think that's when we became friends. A year after that we started dating and less than a year later we were married.
Beatrice Caplan (BC): And by that time your Yiddish was excellent too.
MC: I definitely want that to go on the record.
N-L: I hear you have a daughter.
MC: Yes, she is three years old. We definitely try to make time to be together with our daughter, Zipporah, watching television, playing together and reading. The great thing is she is getting a little older and she has already made an effort to be a part of our conversations connected to our work. We sometimes have conversations that most three-year-old daughters don't have with their fathers. For better or worse, I invite your readers to pity her that this will be an increasing part of our interaction with her.
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