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.

For gezunt, zay gezunt, un kum gezunt: A Mother's Yiddish Blessing for Safe Travel

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Ghita Wolpowitz, a Litvak (Lithuanian Jew) who grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), remembers how her mother would say "for gezunt, zay gezunt un kum gezunt", before departing for a trip. Today, she still invokes her mothers blessings before she or her children set off.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Ghita Wolpowitz.

This excerpt is in English.