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.

Speak English and Pay a Fine: Yiddish in the Schaechter Home

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Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath, Yiddish poet and daughter of linguist Mordkhe Schaechter, remembers her parents' strict Yiddish-only policy, and reflects on the languages spoken in her own home today: Tamil and Yiddish.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath.

This excerpt is in Yiddish.

Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath was born in Bronx, New York in 1958.

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

Other video highlights from this oral history

The Yiddish World of Bainbridge Avenue and the Schaechter Household

2 min 54 sec

Covered With Books: The Home of Mordkhe and Charne Schaechter

2 min 6 sec

We Smeared Everything on Matzo: Sweet Memories of Peysekh (Passover)

1 min 3 sec

A Philologist As a Father

5 min 15 sec

I Saved Him from Drowning: Meeting My Husband at Yidish-Vokh

2 min 5 sec

My First Real Poem: Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath on How She Started Writing Yiddish Poetry

2 min 52 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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