The Wexler Oral History Project is conducting an ongoing series of interviews with scholars working in Yiddish. Our first interviews in the series were in conjunction with the Association for Jewish Studies conference in Boston, MA in December 2010.  We've interviewed Yiddish Book Center Steiner Summer Program faculty.  We've also talked to teachers, students, and performing artists alike about the joys of studying Yiddish.

Below find a list of the interviews make up this series.  Click on the link to see the full abstract and to watch the interview:

Justin Cammy, Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and Comparative Literature at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, grew up in Ottawa.  In this interview, he explains his polyglot Jewish identity and his rejection of the "language wars," current issues in Jewish education, and the need for translation of Yiddish works. 

  http://www.archive.org/details/JustinCammy14dec2010YiddishBookCenter

Michael Steinlauf, Associate Professor of History at Gratz College in Philadelphia, is the only child of Polish Holocaust survivors.  In this interview, he describes growing up in Brighton Beach, sit-ins at Columbia University, and how he came to Polish-Jewish relations as an academic focus.

  http://www.archive.org/details/MichaelSteinlauf19december2010YiddishBookCenter

Jack Kugelmass, director of the Center for Jewish Studies and professor of Anthropology at the University of Florida, remembers his parents' "kitchen Yiddish" growing up in Montreal.  In this interview, he outlines his academic evolution, and ultimately concludes that the future of Yiddish partly depends on the univeristy systems.

  http://www.archive.org/details/JackKugelmass21dec2010YiddishBookCenter

Cecile Kuznitz is Associate Professor of Jewish History and Director of Jewish Studies at Bard College in New York State.  In her interview, she discusses growing up in Howard Beach, Queens, working at the YIVO Institute, her scholarship in the filed of modern Jewish history, and her relationship to Yiddish. 

  http://www.archive.org/details/CecileKuznitz19dec2010YiddishBookCenter

• Visit the project's full digital archive here.
• For more information on the Wexler Oral History Project, click here.