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.

Discovering Secular Yiddish Literature in the Yeshiva

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Israel Milkow, a retired IT professional, describes his first experiences of reading classic Yiddish literature in a place where it was forbidden: the yeshiva (traditional Jewish religious school).

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Israel Milkow.

This excerpt is in Yiddish and English.

Israel Milkow was born in Slonim, Poland in 1935.

Other video highlights from this oral history

"Mit a pekl afn pleytse" (With a Bag on His Back): Reflections on Jewish Wandering and Israel

3 min 19 sec

Advice: Living a Good Life, Even on the Cloudy Days

2 min 31 sec

"If You Want To Eat Latkes, Wait For Hanukkah": On Jewish Identification, Especially After The Holocaust

2 min 7 sec

What Once Was Will Never Be Again

2 min 31 sec

Fleeing Poland: A Journey to Samarkand

4 min 6 sec

Life in a Children's Home in Uzbekistan During World War Two

3 min 6 sec

"Under Jewish Jurisdiction:" Rescue by the Jewish Underground in Poland

1 min 40 sec

American Relatives' Lives in 1910s Dorchester

3 min 17 sec

"I Called Myself a Yiddishist"

1 min 2 sec

A Gliklekher Mentsh (A Lucky Man)

1 min 29 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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