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.

To Me, He Was "Papa": My Grandfather, Sholem Aleichem

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Bel Kaufman, z"l, granddaughter of Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem and author of award-winning novels, recounts her grandfather's final illness and death. She reflects on his legacy, noting that as a girl she saw him not as a famous Yiddish writer, but as her beloved "Papa".

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.

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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

Sholem Aleichem's Gift: How My Grandfather Elevated Yiddish To A World Literature

2 min 34 sec

The Writer At Work: Sholem Aleichem's Habits

1 min 44 sec

Learning Empathy During the Russian Revolution

4 min 2 sec

The Jewish Mark Twain

2 min 46 sec

Motl, The Cantor's Son: A Childhood (Imaginary) Friend

2 min 9 sec

Bel Kaufman's First Memories of New York and English

2 min 9 sec

"You Must Not Call Him Mr. Aleichem": Sholem Rabinovitz' Pen Name

1 min 21 sec

Memories of the Russian Revolution

2 min 16 sec

A Stepmother's Yiddish Curses: Sholem Aleichem's First Work

1 min 35 sec

My Introduction to Communism

3 min 31 sec

"Huge Black Iron Gate": A Childhood Memory of Odessa

1 min 43 sec

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

2 min 52 sec

My Inheritance From Sholem Aleichem

59 sec

"He Was Not Like Any Grandfather I Knew": Memories of Sholem Aleichem

2 min 25 sec

Sholem Aleichem: The Great Mimic

1 min 9 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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