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.

Eleanor Reissa's Oral History

Eleanor Reissa - singer, actress, and director in both English and Yiddish - was interviewed by Christa Whitney on August 22, 2013 at KlezKanada in the Laurentian Mountains, Quebec, Canada.

This interview was conducted in Yiddish and English.

Eleanor Reissa was born in Brooklyn, New York.

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Video highlights from this oral history

"Ver Iz Nishtu (Who is Not Here)": Growing Up as a Child of Holocaust Survivors

2 min 21 sec

"I Speak How I Speak": Shifting Among the Dialects of Yiddish

53 sec

Summers at the Bungalow Colony

2 min 24 sec

Reciting Kaddish For My Father From Onstage

1 min 12 sec

"My Ego is in English, but My Heart is in Yiddish": Reflections on a Bilingual Career

2 min 57 sec

"It Ain't Your Bubbie's Yiddish Anymore": Eleanor Reissa Reflects on the Yiddish Artistic World Today

3 min 29 sec

Getting Cowgirls to Speak Yiddish: My Particular Brand of Activism

1 min 28 sec

"Remember That You Stand On The Shoulders of Other People"

1 min 44 sec

Artifacts related to this oral history

Great-Grandparents

My Mother in Poland

Mira Been, Shifra Lehrer and Myself

Myself and Bruce Adler

Dancing Ballet

Robert Adelson's 80th Birthday

Me and My Father

My Family in Ulm, Germany

My Parents Courtship Post-War

More information about this oral history

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