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.

Four Generations of Yiddish Activism

Watch now:

Michael Katz, activist and grandson of Yiddish journalist Moishe Katz, outlines the history of his family and explains what it means to him to be both secular and active in the Jewish community.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Michael Katz.

This excerpt is in English.

Michael Katz was born in Bronx, New York in 1955.

This interview is part of the Beyond the Books: Yiddish writers and their descendants series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

"A Besere Velt" (A Better World) Through Music and Culture

3 min 10 sec

I'd Probably End Up Going to Prison

2 min

A Small Yiddish World

2 min 14 sec

"Dad, They Understand Yiddish!"

1 min 49 sec

I Was at the "I Have a Dream Speech"

2 min 44 sec

Divisions Within the Jewish Left

3 min 8 sec

"The Greatest Fiddler of Them All": Meeting Itzhak Perlman

1 min 37 sec

The Legacy and Future of Kinderland

2 min 42 sec

"They Got Us in Germany, They're Not Gonna Get Us Here": An Antisemitic Incident at Camp Kinderland in the Post-WWII Period

3 min 34 sec

"Can I be a Jew Without Being Progressive?"

2 min 28 sec

"If You're Not Gonna Go to Shul, Go to School."

1 min 1 sec

What a Mensh!

2 min 2 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

Themes: