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.

How Asthma Brought My Jewish Family From Mariampol To Texas

Watch now:

David Epstein, a Yidish-Vokh participant, relates the story of how his family, Lithuanian Jews, ended up immigrating to Texas, by serendipity.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with David Epstein.

This excerpt is in English.

David Epstein was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1935.

Jump to map

Other video highlights from this oral history

Encounters and Reactions on a Visit to the Old Family Home in Bialystok

2 min 59 sec

Speaking Yiddish in the White House

1 min 58 sec

Mariampol, Mexico City, and Marriage

1 min 39 sec

A Yiddish-Speaking Home in Texas

1 min 20 sec

Are You Greenhorns?: Our Yiddish Passed as Old Country Yiddish

1 min 30 sec

The Neighbor's Antisemitism

1 min 19 sec

Yiddish: A Vikhteke Sprakh (Important Language)

1 min 41 sec

Carrying Forward Jewishness

1 min 9 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

Themes: