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.

Why Beyle Needed to Make Art: The Force Behind a Massive Body of Work

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Esther Gottesman, granddaughter of Yiddish poet Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman and daughter of Itzik Gottesman, explains why her grandmother felt compelled to produce so much art, in so many different mediums.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Esther Gottesman.

This excerpt is in Yiddish and English.

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

Other video highlights from this oral history

"She Had Friends All Over the World": How Beyle Kept Her Home Full of Art and Yiddish

3 min 15 sec

Beyle's House on Bainbridge Avenue

3 min 52 sec

Beyle's Many Mediums: Descriptions of Her Paintings, Drawings, and Poetry

4 min 9 sec

Hearing Harbslid Now: How My Relationship to My Grandmother's Songs Has Changed

2 min 50 sec

My Great Grandmother, Lifshe Schaechter-Vidman

2 min 51 sec

A Yiddish Kid in Austin, Texas: How I Felt About Yiddish Growing Up

4 min 4 sec

Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman's Children's Songs: Writing Songs Was How She Showed Affection

2 min 12 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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