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.

They Took My Passport: A Yiddish Speaker Visits Israel

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Emile Karafiol, attorney, remembers being asked why he didn't speak Hebrew while at the airport about to depart from Israel. When he answered that he spoke Yiddish but not Hebrew, his passport was taken he was questioned by security.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Emile Karafiol.

This excerpt is in English.

Emile Karafiol was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1935. Emile died in 2019.

Other video highlights from this oral history

Historical Interactions between Jews and Non-Jews in Poland

2 min 46 sec

Oy Vey is a Slavic Expression

59 sec

My Mother Went On A Hunger Strike to Go to School

2 min 33 sec

My Mother Was an Orthodox Secularist

1 min 59 sec

"Like a Video Game, But Real": Experiencing the Bombardment of Bordeaux in 1940

1 min 56 sec

Listening to Holocaust Survivors' Stories

2 min 41 sec

History Of The Warsaw Cemetery Project

3 min 28 sec

My Mother Thought Yiddish Would Die Out. And Me? I'm Not Sure.

3 min 9 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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