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.

What's In a Name: Menke Katz on Changing Names and Changing Destinies

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Troim Katz Handler, daughter of Yiddish poet Menke Katz, speaks of her father's concern that she not change her name for fear that, as the Kabbalah says, she change her destiny as well.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Troim Katz Handler.

This excerpt is in English.

Troim Katz Handler was born in Los Angeles, California in 1927.

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

Other video highlights from this oral history

Dual Consciousness: Growing Up In A Blended Religious and Secular Home

2 min 26 sec

Born Under the Bed During a Pogrom: Stories From My Family Before Coming to America

1 min 26 sec

Satmar and the Future of Yiddish

1 min 1 sec

The Jewish Community of Passaic, New Jersey

1 min 45 sec

The JPFO-IWO: The World of the Yiddish Intelligentsia

4 min 15 sec

My Mother, Khashke Katz, Was Also A Writer

1 min 24 sec

“How Strange That I Didn’t Recognize You!”: Meeting My Father, Poet Menke Katz, After Years Apart

1 min 20 sec

The Experience of Menke Katz, Yiddish-Speaking Poet, in Israel at at Time of Strong Anti-Yiddish Sentiment

1 min 50 sec

A Strange Arrangement: Growing Up With My Yiddish-Speaking Grandparents So My Father Could Write

2 min 5 sec

"Two Lives With One Man:" Memories of Menke Katz

1 min 16 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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