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.

Lessons from Translating The Shopkeepers of Vilna: Distant, Vibrant Customs in Colloquial Yiddish

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Paul Azaroff, Hebrew and Judaic Studies teacher and native of New York City, shares how he came back to Yiddish and highlights what he learned about Eastern European Jewish customs by co-translating the Yiddish novella by Ayzik-Meyer Dik about shopkeepers in Vilna.

Find the book: http://mellenpress.com/book/The-Women-Shopkeepers-Or-Golde-mine-The-Aba…

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Paul Azaroff.

This excerpt is in English.

Paul Azaroff was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1934.