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.
Moyshe Kulbak Taught at My School
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Benjamin (Binyomen) Harshav, z"l - professor emeritus at Yale University - remembers how writer Moyshe Kulbak would go to unusual lengths to inspire his students' writing.
This is an excerpt from an oral history with Benjamin (Binyomen) Harshav.
This excerpt is in Yiddish.
Benjamin (Binyomen) Harshav was born in 1928 in Vilna, Lithuania. Benjamin (Binyomen), z"l, died in 2015.
This interview is part of the Yiddish in the Academy: scholars, language instructors, and students series.
Other video highlights from this oral history
Moyshe Kulbak Taught at My School
1 minute 17 seconds
We Went Right When Everyone Went Left: Benjamin Harshav and Family Escape Death During WWII
4 minutes 9 seconds
History of the Sofye Gurevich School in Vilna
2 minutes 43 seconds
I Missed the Train While Escaping to the Ural Mountains During WWII
6 minutes 50 seconds
How Our Vilna School Assignments were Accidentally Saved Through WWII by the Nazis
1 minute 49 seconds
Benjamin Harshav, z"l, Remembers Collecting Folklore in the Market in Vilna
2 minutes 52 seconds
The First “Yung Vilne”: Prof. Harshav Remembers Growing Up with the Weinreichs
1 minute 48 seconds
Memories of Chaim Grade, Avrom Sutzkever, and Itzik Manger
1 minute 59 seconds
The Kletskin Publishing House Was Downstairs: Prof. Benjamin Harshav, z"l, Remembers From His 1930s Childhood in Vilna
1 minute 56 secondsMore information about this oral history excerpt
Themes in this oral history excerpt:
- Benjamin Harshav
- Binyomen Harshav
- Moyshe Kulbak
- Vilna
- Vilnius
- Vilne
- Lithuania
- Poland
- Childhood
- Yiddish personalities
- Education
- Eastern Europe
About the Wexler Oral History Project
Since 2010, the Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project has recorded more than 500 in-depth video interviews that provide a deeper understanding of the Jewish experience and the legacy and changing nature of Yiddish language and culture.
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