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.

Growing Up on Bainbridge Avenue

Watch now:

Itzik Gottesman - folklorist and associate editor at the Forverts - remembers the Yiddish-speaking community and the Sholem Aleichem Folk Shul in his childhood neighborhood.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Itzik Gottesman.

This excerpt is in Yiddish.

Itzik Gottesman was born in Bronx, New York in 1957.

Jump to map

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

Other video highlights from this oral history

The Philosophy of Camp Boiberik, A Yiddish-Inspired Apolitical Summer Camp

3 min 35 sec

Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman's Art and Writing

2 min 7 sec

Yiddish Song of the Week Blog

3 min 38 sec

Raising a Daughter in Yiddish

1 min 49 sec

Cemeteries and Gottesman's Pear Tree: On Visiting Eastern Europe

6 min 12 sec

"An Alternative": Yiddish's Place in a Broader Jewish Culture

1 min 50 sec

Making a Living in Yiddish: Parenting Advice from My Parents

1 min 43 sec

On Honesty and Survival After the Holocaust

2 min 15 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

Themes: