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.

Our Makeshift Menorah

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Jacob Schlitt - New York City-born native Yiddish speaker and social justice activist - remembers celebrating Khanike ​(Hanukkah) with his mother, when they were too poor to buy a menorah.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Jacob Schlitt.

This excerpt is in English.

Jacob Schlitt was born in Bronx, New York in 1927. Jacob died in 2018.