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.

Formational Figures in the Early Life of Lazar Weiner

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Yehudi Wyner - an American composer, music educator, pianist and conductor and the son of Lazar Weiner (a Yiddish composer) - talks about two significant events in the life of his father, the eminent Yiddish song composer Lazar Weiner. First, the shoe maker's son traded the tools for the piano, and then a Russian girlfriend sparked in him a lifelong love for reading.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Yehudi Wyner.

This excerpt is in English.