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.

Yiddish: A Vikhteke Sprakh (Important Language)

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David Epstein, a Yidish-Vokh participant, talks about using Yiddish to communicate with German-speakers.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with David Epstein.

This excerpt is in English.

David Epstein was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1935.

Other video highlights from this oral history

Encounters and Reactions on a Visit to the Old Family Home in Bialystok

2 min 59 sec

Speaking Yiddish in the White House

1 min 58 sec

Mariampol, Mexico City, and Marriage

1 min 39 sec

A Yiddish-Speaking Home in Texas

1 min 20 sec

How Asthma Brought My Jewish Family From Mariampol To Texas

2 min 10 sec

Are You Greenhorns?: Our Yiddish Passed as Old Country Yiddish

1 min 30 sec

The Neighbor's Antisemitism

1 min 19 sec

Carrying Forward Jewishness

1 min 9 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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