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.

Being Held Back in First Grade

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Irv Zuckerman talks about getting held back in first grade, and how an early incident lead him to dislike education after.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Irv Zuckerman.

This excerpt is in English.

Irv Zuckerman was born in New York in 1924. Irv died in 2019.

Other video highlights from this oral history

A Plan to Get Killed

'It's time you should buy Claire a watch"

Antisemitism in His Infantry Unit

Father's Landsmanshaft

What We Did With the DPs

"Bist a Yid?"

"Why is the word 'Jew' so frightening?"

Helping the Greenhorns

Working With Refuseniks

His Mother's Mistrust of His Career

Racism and Antisemitism in the Work Place

"My Mother Did Not Allow Me To Run with the 'Trombeniks'": How My Childhood Made Me a Clumsy Soldier

Feeling at Home in Business School

"We didn't win the war, the war won the war"

"My Name Isn't Irving"

An Unexpected Encounter with a SS Major After World War II

What Being a Jew is All About

Making a Hard Job Easy

Renting Rooms on Brighton Beach

"From that moment on, my mother adopted her and ignored me"

"People who are Jewish wait to be drafted, Jews enlist"

"Rome Is Gone and We're Still Here": Proud of My Jewish Heritage

More information about this oral history excerpt

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