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.

Keeping Yiddish, Learning Hebrew: Stories of Language in a Kibbutz and a Jewish Multilingual Past and Present

Watch now:

Paul Azaroff, Hebrew and Judaic Studies teacher and native of New York City, explains the political divide between Hebrew and Zionism, and Yiddish and Socialism through the telling of goofy anecdotes about mixing up the languages while living in an Argentinean kibbutz in early state Israel.

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.

Jump to map

Other video highlights from this oral history

Finding the Mishpokhe in London, France, and Israel

4 min 59 sec

Traveling with Yiddish: A Language Shaped by Different Countries and Climates

4 min 8 sec

$75 from Marseille to Haifa:Fighting Sholem Asch on the Way to Israel

1 min 35 sec

I Thought She Was Magic: Stories of My Vegetarian, Witchy, Thrifty Bubbe

4 min 4 sec

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

5 min 20 sec

Accidental Artifacts: The Essence Yiddish Theater and Yiddish Film

2 min 27 sec

It Was All One Piece: On Finding Zionism, and Experiencing Judaism in Israel

2 min 51 sec

A Jewish Neighborhood, A Jewish Home: Stories of Growing Up, and Eating in New York City

3 min 5 sec

Mesmerized by The Young Guard: Radical Youth for a New Generation of the Jewish People

3 min 57 sec

Making Love in Yiddish: On Americanized Jews and Living Yiddish

2 min 17 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

Themes: