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.
Laughing at Oneself
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Andrei Malaev-Babel - theater director and grandson of writer Isaac Babel - discusses the necessity of being able to laugh at oneself. Specifically, he references a common tendency to take offense at any negative portrayal of a Jewish character.
This is an excerpt from an oral history with Andrei Malaev-Babel.
This excerpt is in English.
Andrei Malaev-Babel was born in Moscow, Russia.
Other video highlights from this oral history
Laughing at Oneself
1 minute 30 seconds
"A Mission To Tell the Truth": My Grandfather Isaac Babel's writing
1 minute 9 seconds
"Paris Is for Strolling, Moscow Is for Writing" according to Isaac Babel
1 minute 51 seconds
"He Makes You a Co-Creator": Reading Isaac Babel
3 minutes 1 second
"Jewish in What Way?"
1 minute 35 seconds
Babel and His Community
4 minutes
How Grandmother Met My Grandfather, Isaac Babel
5 minutes 37 seconds
Jews in the Vakhtangov Theater
2 minutes 26 seconds
"It All Became Words for Him": How Babel Recited His Own Work
1 minute 59 secondsMore information about this oral history excerpt
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About the Wexler Oral History Project
Since 2010, the Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project has recorded more than 500 in-depth video interviews that provide a deeper understanding of the Jewish experience and the legacy and changing nature of Yiddish language and culture.
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