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.
Learning About Prejudice from My Black Childhood Playmate
Watch now:
Fred Irving - WWII veteran and retired ambassador - talks about growing up as a member of the only Jewish family in a predominantly African American neighborhood.
This is an excerpt from an oral history with Fred Irving.
This excerpt is in English.
Fred Irving was born in 1921 in Providence, Rhode Island.
Other video highlights from this oral history
Learning About Prejudice from My Black Childhood Playmate
2 minutes 2 seconds
The Rabbi Said She Had To Vote Republican; Questioning Religion
3 minutes 34 seconds
April 29, 1945: Liberated By General Patton
1 minute 23 seconds
This Fellow Can't Seem to Die: American Soldier Tortured in a POW Camp During WWII
4 minutes 52 seconds
His Plane Goes Down in Hungary
8 minutes 18 seconds
You Look at What's Inside A Person: Learning Liberal Jewishness From My Mother
2 minutes 41 seconds
I Almost Came Close to Eating Something: A Forced March as an American Jewish POW at the End of WWII
2 minutes 54 seconds Plane Goes Down in Hungary: Near-Death Experiences of a WWII POW
8 minutes 18 seconds
Planning to Escape a German POW Camp
5 minutes 53 secondsMore information about this oral history excerpt
Themes in this oral history excerpt:
- Fred Irving
- Prejudice
- African American
- Childhood
- United States
- Jewish Identity
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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