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.

Lazar Weiner and US Yiddish scene around the 1920s

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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 the beginning of his father's career as a musician, as well as about the turning point in Lazar Weiner's work - the decision to go back to Yiddish. This decision is closely related to the influence of Di Yunge poets and other prominent Yiddish figures in the early 1920s, such as Perez Hirshbein and Joel Engel.

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

This excerpt is in English.

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This interview is part of the Yiddish and the Arts: musicians, actors, and artists series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

editing my father, Lazar Weiner's work

2 min 20 sec

From a shoe maker to a doll designer

2 min 15 sec

Formational Figures in the Early Life of Lazar Weiner

1 min 34 sec

A trip to Russia and a goodbye to communist ideology

3 min 56 sec

1940 New York's World Fair

1 min 9 sec

Lazar Weiner's Music "Aimed to Overcome The Ghetto Mentality"

3 min 10 sec

Sidor Belarsky, the Yiddish Frank Sinatra

2 min 32 sec

Lazar Weiner and his mentors, the Crème de la Crème of NY Music Stage

4 min 27 sec

Lazar Weiner's work in Jewish synagogue music

4 min 49 sec

A reflection on the work of Lazar Weiner's music

2 min 3 sec

In a family of musicians

2 min 7 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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