Rhoda Silver Kachuck

Born in 1932 in New York City to Harry and Sylvia Silver, a kosher butcher, and a secretary, she and her younger brother Arthur grew up in a loving home in the Bronx. She divided her time between public school and the classrooms and auditorium stages of the Workmen’s Circle schools (https://www.circle.org), learning to speak and sing in English and Yiddish. She met her husband-to-be, Israel, while working as a counselor at Die Arbeter Ring’s Camp Kindering in the Catskills. They married after several years of courtship, in 1951, and had two sons, Norman and Martin. In 1960, the family moved across country to California to start a new life, Israel made a career in aeronautical engineering, and Rhoda worked as a teacher starting at the Long Beach Jewish Community Center. Israel eventually became a successful real estate developer and avocado entrepreneur, while Rhoda continued pursuing her passions for teaching and singing.

On her academic journey, Rhoda graduated Hunter College High School where she was awarded the Louisa M Webster Prize for Scholarship. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA from Hunter College in English, with minors in Latin and Spanish, and awards that by report kept her going to and from the stage multiple times during the graduation ceremony. Her family was so proud. She attended Columbia University for her master’s degree in English and Comparative Literature, achieving it by finishing her dissertation while pregnant with and delivering Norman. Her advisor had warned her to “either have a career or be a mother; you cannot do both”. Fortunately for all of us, this was not Rhoda’s way. She achieved her doctorate in 1966 from USC, with her dissertation on the “Portrayal of the Jew in American Drama.” Her scholarly interests as she stated, “bridged the two worlds of English and American Literature on one hand, and Yiddish literature and Jewish culture on the other.” Much of her subsequent scholarly research and academic publications were focused on how Shakespeare was adapted for the Yiddish stage and reconciled with antisemitism, especially in the cases of the plays King Lear and The Merchant of Venice, respectively.

After some years at Chapman College in Orange, she established her academic career as a professor at University of La Verne from 1971 through 2000, where she taught English and American Literature, with an emphasis on Shakespeare’s oeuvre, and Holocaust and Multi-cultural Literature, as well as a 5-year term as the English Department Chair.

She also initiated an innovative “page to stage” program, in which she went with a recruited posse of students to the Ashland Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon to experience Shakespeare and live theatre. For a jam-packed week, she and her students, aspiring thespians, family (and hangers-on!) would see upwards of 6 to 7 plays. Every summer for 25 years, Rhoda would conduct seminars, often inviting the actors to come visit the group for personal interactions; and of course feasts, hikes, and lolling about in Lithia Park. Her students came away from these weeks of comraderie, theater, and education, sated with the pleasure of sharing her vast expertise and vibrant enthusiasm.

She was a regular fixture on panels at the annual conferences of the Shakespeare Society of America, and was sought after for her expertise on the adaptations of the Bard’s work in Jewish culture, especially in the New World.

She was an immensely dedicated, passionate, and caring teacher, beloved by her students, even though she was merciless in her commentary and grading of their work. She was known as “Kachuck the Bear” on campus, but even students who failed to initially meet expectations came back for more, and often blossomed under her tutelage. Her guiding principle in her own words, was that “learning can be fun, and that students of all ages are capable of much more than they ever imagined. The classroom has always been my focus, and the students my overriding joy.” Announcing her retirement in 2002, she said “I always wanted to be a teacher. When I was a little girl, my grandfather would call me his ‘professorkeh,’ his little professor.” Dr. Kachuck lived by the adage, “When you become a teacher, by your pupils you’ll be taught.” After her retirement from La Verne, she maintained her lifelong passions for reading, learning and theatre.

She was a talented singer and purveyor of Yiddish and Jewish song, and over the years performed at dozens of celebrations, concerts, conferences and ritual occasions, including in a program she developed called “Singing Your Way to Yiddish”, which she was still offering at University Village in Thousand Oaks, after they moved there in 2012. Her home was full of music, books, pictures, photographs, and her files replete with arcane Yiddish sheet music and literature, along with all the desiderata of her hyper-organized academic career.

Rhoda Kachuck was a loving wife for 70 years, a protective and caring mother, and a doting unconditionally affectionate grandmother and great grandmother. She was intimately involved in the lives of her immediate and larger family, which she treasured above all things. Razor sharp, perceptive and intelligent, articulate, and principled, she was also emotive, empathetic, and someone who, as she shared in a lecture for the La Verne Alumni Day Keystone address in 1992, still cried at Romeo’s death in Romeo and Juliet.

Her passing fills us all with great sadness as she will be dearly missed. At the same time, we also celebrate a life well lived surrounded by family and close acquaintances who loved her and she them with all her heart and soul. She is survived by her sons Norm and Martin Sampad, grandsons Aaron, Samuel and Gabriel, and three great-grandchildren.

Funeral Services will be held at Eden Memorial Park Cemetery, 11500 SEPULVEDA BLVD, MISSION HILLS, CA, AT 1 PM MONDAY, APRIL 18, 2022.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.gromanedenmortuary.com for the Kachuck family.

PSALM 23

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;

He leadeth me besides the still waters.

He restoreth my soul;

He guideth me in straight paths for His name sake.

Yea, through the valley of death, I will fear no evil,

For Thou art with me;

Thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;

And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.