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.

Grandma Jenny and I

Watch now:

Robert Booth, artist, describes his Yiddish-speaking grandparents, his relationship to them growing up, as well as the legacy of his grandfather's orthodoxy.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Robert Booth.

This excerpt is in English.

Robert Booth was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1934.

Jump to map

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

Other video highlights from this oral history

The Kaddish

56 sec

Passover

1 min 17 sec

How My Father Made Seventy-Five Dollars a Week During the Great Depression

1 min 16 sec

"I Walked Into the Wrong Building": How I (Accidentally) Got Involved in the Reform Movement

2 min 41 sec

The Young Singles Group

2 min 33 sec

Returning to Art

2 min 1 sec

"We Were Looking at Dance Magazine": A Story of Serendipity

3 min 7 sec

An Impossible Goal: Emulating Rodin

2 min 31 sec

Our Close Friend Rabbi Awraham Soetendorp, Liberal Judaism Leader of the Netherlands

3 min 12 sec

I'm Not a Religious Artist

2 min 15 sec

Being an Artist is the Fiber of My Life, Being a Jew is the Fact of My Life

1 min 6 sec

Only Guy with a Beard... So I Was the Orthodox Priest: A Production of Fiddler in New Hampshire

42 sec

If You Can't Find It, You Build It: Building a New Jewish Community in Prague

2 min 31 sec

Wearing a Mogn Dovid (a Jewish Star) in Prague

2 min 6 sec

One of the Carried Children

1 min 44 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

Themes: