Summer Faculty Speak

Hear more about the Wexler Oral History Project's series of interviews with academics involved with Yiddish.

Five prominent Yiddish scholars, faculty members of the Steiner Summer Program at the Yiddish Book Center, reflect on the inspirations that lead them to Yiddish.  Interviewed in Yiddish and English by young participants of the 2010 Summer Program, they give insight into the geography and topography of the Yiddish world today.

David Shneer speaks about that pesky question any student of Yiddish has heard over and over: “Why Yiddish?”

 

Eve Jochnowitz reflects on how both language and food weave, often unnoticed, through the tapestry of daily life.

 

Hanan Bordin gives examples of the Yiddish words he knew before he began his formal study of the Yiddish language. (Yiddish)

 

Hankus Netsky recounts how, in his youth, a Bertolt Brecht play inspired him to actively recover missing parts of Jewish culture.

 

Yuri Vedenyapin describes the ways that Yiddish culture felt during his childhood in Russia and on his first visit to Israel. (Yiddish)

 

  • For more information on the Wexler Oral History Project, click here.
  • To learn more about the Steiner Summer Internship Program or to apply for the coming summer, click here.

 

September 29, 2010