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.

Beyond Anatevka: The Challenges of Documenting Yiddish Life without Yiddish

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Marlene Hait, raised in a Yiddish home by survivors of the Holocaust, reflects on the complexity of Eastern European Jewish life and the ways in which modern film and literature have failed to capture it.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Marlene Hait.

This excerpt is in English.

Marlene Hait was born in Landsberg am Lech, Germany in 1946.

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Other video highlights from this oral history

A Community Divided: Tensions Within Toronto's Jewish Community

3 min 55 sec

The Yiddish Burlesque Theater in Toronto

2 min 8 sec

Yetsies Mitsrayim: My Childhood Home as a Meeting Place for Holocaust Survivors

1 min 30 sec

"If Not Higher:" Discovering Jewish Values Through Yiddish Literature

3 min 5 sec

Learning From the Past: Advice to Future Generations

52 sec

The Streets, People, and Smells of the Toronto Jewish Community

3 min 49 sec

A Lingua Franca Everywhere: Speaking Yiddish and Opening Doors

1 min 34 sec

Ties That Bind: The Global Network of a Polish Shtetl's Descendants

3 min 45 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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