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.

Kibitsing in Xhosa: Childhood Memories from the Jewish Kitchens of South Africa

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Zvi Jankelowitz, Director of Institutional Advancement at the Yiddish Book Center, remembers overhearing gossip as a child about his Jewish community from his household's maids and cook in South Africa.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Zvi Jankelowitz.

This excerpt is in English.

Zvi Jankelowitz was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in 1956.

Other video highlights from this oral history

"Everything was about der heym (back home)": My Grandfather's Nostalgia for the Shtetl-Life of Lite

1 min 39 sec

"Not the Hands of a Maid": How My Grandmother Ended Up in South Africa

1 min 22 sec

The Fate of the Last Jews of Kruk, Lithuania

2 min 17 sec

An Unforgettable Journey: From South Africa to Brooklyn by Boat, 1936

2 min 28 sec

My Father's Sense of Duty as a Lawyer in Apartheid South Africa

4 min 38 sec

Great Food! - Well, Great If You're From Lithuanian Heritage

2 min 47 sec

May 4, 1968: Shimon Peres Quizzed Me in Hebrew in Our South African Living Room

2 min 58 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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