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.

The Death and Resurrection of Yiddish

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Selma Gordon, a retired school aide, talks about the contemporary resurgence of interest in spoken Yiddish, and her regrets about not teaching her own children to speak it.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Selma Gordon.

This excerpt is in English.

Selma Gordon was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1918.

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Other video highlights from this oral history

After School at the Sholem Aleichem Folk Shul

1 min 46 sec

Orthodox Observance and a Reform Bat Mitzvah

2 min 55 sec

I Saw All of Them; I Wouldn't Miss Them:" Yiddish Theatre and Film

2 min 18 sec

"Radio! Now That Was the Beginning of Something Great!"

1 min 32 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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