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.

April 1948: Yiddish Was Still the Language of the Jewish People

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Allen Katz, former student at the Yiddish Folkshul of the Wynnefield neighborhood of West Philadelphia, recalls his Bar Mitzvah ceremony and his appreciation at the time for the Folkshule education which enabled him to engage with over a thousand years of Jewish tradition.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Allen Katz.

This excerpt is in English and Yiddish.

Allen Katz was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1935.

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Other video highlights from this oral history

"If Judaism Dies, the World May Not Be Far Behind"

1 min 12 sec

A Sense of Collective Jewish Insecurity

1 min 18 sec

The Future of Jewish Food: My Take

2 min 34 sec

Philadelphia's Yiddish Radio

2 min 13 sec

A Partisaner Lid (Partisan Hymn)

2 min 20 sec

Being Taught by Holocaust Survivors

3 min 3 sec

The Wynnefield Yiddish Folkshul

2 min 5 sec

Wynnefield and West Philadelphia

3 min 57 sec

Overbrook High School

2 min 57 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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