The Yiddish Book Center's

Wexler Oral History Project

A growing collection of in-depth interviews with people of all ages and backgrounds, whose stories about the legacy and changing nature of Yiddish language and culture offer a rich and complex chronicle of Jewish identity.

My father refused to attend my brother's bar mitzvah

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Florence Schumacher remembers the strong political conflicts between her parents growing up. She remembers her father leaving the communist party after the Doctor's Plot. While her brother was bar mitzvahed per her mother's beliefs, her father refused to enter the shul during the ceremony.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Florence Schumacher.

This excerpt is in English.

Other video highlights from this oral history

How WWII and the Holocaust affected my family

1 min 53 sec

Jewish Values in the Family-- Cantorial Albums and Jewish Newspapers

2 min 1 sec

Personal Meaning of Yiddish today

1 min 54 sec

How Steinberg sense of humor helped her uncle survive the war while in the Russian Army

1 min 32 sec

Escaping "Jewish Bubble" in College

2 min 54 sec

Winnepeg vs. U.S. Today: Jewish Culture, Education, and Assimilation

2 min 25 sec

"They didn't talk about the Old Country."

48 sec

Reconnecting with Lost Cousins from the "Old Country"

3 min 22 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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