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.

I Started Studying Yiddish Because I Was Offered A Job To Teach It In Birobidzhan

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Nikolai (Kolya) Borodulin - master teacher at Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring - describes how he was working as an English and German teacher when he was asked to learn Yiddish and become a Yiddish teacher.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Nikolai (Kolya) Borodulin.

This excerpt is in Yiddish.

Nikolai (Kolya) Borodulin was born in Birobidzhan, Russia in 1961.

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

Other video highlights from this oral history

What Is Rosh Hashanah? Discovering Jewish Culture at Age Twenty-Eight in Birobidzhan, Jewish Autonomous Region of the Soviet Union

4 min 32 sec

Discovering Chancellor Murphy’s Connection To Birobizhan on My First Trip To America

1 min 37 sec

Creating Yiddish Games for Children

1 min 18 sec

A Week in Yiddishland at Circle Lodge with Workmen's Circle

1 min 26 sec

Advice for Yiddish Learners: Have a Real Interest in Yiddish

1 min 7 sec

Discovering My Family History Through Proverbs

4 min 4 sec

A Father's Childhood Memories of Crimea

1 min 36 sec

Learning Yiddish from a Soviet Textbook

2 min 11 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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