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.

A Yiddish Phrase from Childhood: "Shmey-drey"

Watch now:

Jim Hoberman - Village Voice film critic and author of seminal book Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between the Two World Wars - discusses his family's use of Yiddish words in their English conversations and explains their use of the phrase "shmey drey."

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Jim Hoberman.

This excerpt is in English.

Jim Hoberman was born in New York, New York in 1949.

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

Other video highlights from this oral history

Empty School on Jewish Holidays, Except for Me and an Italian Girl

2 min 47 sec

Exhibit on Yosel Cutler

1 min 44 sec

"History Is What There Is"

1 min 35 sec

Skipping Christmas for KlezKamp

1 min 41 sec

Writing for the Village Voice

1 min 15 sec

Yiddish is like a Phantom Limb

2 min 5 sec

Yiddish Talkie at College

1 min 24 sec

Hebrew School and Sholem Aleichem School

1 min 52 sec

Taking Grandma to the Lower East Side

1 min 8 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

Themes: