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.

Learning to Read Yiddish with Poems with my Father, Yiddish Writer Rachmil Bryks

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Bella Bryks-Klein, Yiddish speaker and daughter of writer Rachmil Bryks, remembers how her father taught her to read Yiddish and recites some of the rhymes that helped her learn the alef-beys.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Bella Bryks-Klein.

This excerpt is in Yiddish and English.

Bella Bryks-Klein was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1948.

This interview is part of the Yiddish in the Academy: scholars, language instructors, and students series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

Bella Sings Her Mother's Transylvanian Yiddish Shabbes Prayer

2 min 35 sec

My Father Wrote "To Tell the World What Happened" (formerly "He Never Really Left the Ghetto")

2 min 53 sec

My Father Yiddish Writer Rachmil Bryks' View on Yiddish

1 min 31 sec

He'd Go to Shul and then Buy a Newspaper

1 min 9 sec

How Rachmil Bryks Wrote

2 min 5 sec

She Wanted to Become an American; My Father Refused

1 min 24 sec

Their World Was Lost, Not Just Their Lives

1 min 11 sec

My Life Is Now Completely Immersed in Yiddish

3 min 49 sec

Yiddish in Israel

3 min 33 sec

Advice for Future Generations

2 min 27 sec

My Father Always Said, "It's Best to Write About One Family"

1 min 53 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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