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.

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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

A Father's Childhood Memories of Crimea

1 min 36 sec

Learning Yiddish from a Soviet Textbook

2 min 11 sec

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

More information about this oral history excerpt

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