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.

When Do You Sing a Nign? Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold Explains

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Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold, z"l, long-time Rabbi of the Harvard University Hillel, describes what a nign is and when one might sing one.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Ben-Zion Gold.

This excerpt is in Yiddish.

Ben-Zion Gold was born in Radom, Poland in 1923. Ben-Zion died in 2016.

Other video highlights from this oral history

It Sounds Better in the Aramaic: Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold Sings "Ya Ribon"

1 min 19 sec

Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold and Jane Myers Sing "Ki V’Simcha"

1 min 58 sec

Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold Remembers the Family’s “Concert” of Zmires on Friday Nights Growing Up

1 min 27 sec

Shoyn Nishto Keyn Nekhtn (Yesterday Is Gone) - Sung by Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold

52 sec

Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold Sings "Az Ikh Volt Gehat Koyekh (If I Had the Strength)"

1 min 1 sec

Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold Sings "Im Amarti"

2 min 42 sec

Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold Sings His Father’s Peysekh (Passover) Nign

2 min 51 sec

Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold Sings "Anim Z’miros"

1 min 19 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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