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.

"You Have To Be Hungry To Appreciate Food": Chocolate Arrives to Odessa in a Hoover Package

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Bel Kaufman, z"l, granddaughter of Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem and author of award-winning novels, recalls the food shortages of her childhood in Soviet Ukraine and how her early memories of hunger have made her deeply appreciative of food.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Bel Kaufman.

This excerpt is in English.

Bel Kaufman was born in Berlin, Germany in 1911. Bel died in 2014.

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