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.

“What Culture War?": Yiddish and Hebrew As Part of the Same Modernization Project

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Ken (Binyomen) Moss—director of Jewish Studies Program and Assistant Professor in Modern Jewish History at Johns Hopkins University—explains why he does not subscribe to the "culture war" between Yiddish and Hebrew, arguing that speakers of both languages have much in common.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Ken (Binyomen) Moss.

This excerpt is in Yiddish.

Ken (Binyomen) Moss was born in New Jersey in 1974.

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

Other video highlights from this oral history

Yugntruf: An Organization Concerned with the Work of Maintaining Yiddish As an Everyday Language

2 min 13 sec

Advice to Yiddish Learners: Don't Get Discouraged, You Are Not Alone

2 min 29 sec

Mordkhe Schaechter as a Teacher

2 min 35 sec

What Does It Mean To Create Modern Jewish Culture?

2 min 29 sec

Seeking A Community More Knowledgeable About Jewish Culture, I Became A Yiddishist

2 min 10 sec

How To Raise Children in Yiddish

4 min 15 sec

“The Masters”: Prof. Ken Moss Shares His Yiddish Role Models

3 min 50 sec

Academics Play a Big Role, But Not the Biggest—Thank God: The Yiddishist World Today

4 min 29 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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