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.

Ilan Stavans Describes his Yiddish Education in Mexico City

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Ilan Stavans, academic and writer, remembers his Yiddish primary school, which had a strong ideological bent in favor of the preservation of Yiddish language and culture against what it saw as the threat of Hebraization.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Ilan Stavans.

This excerpt is in English.

Ilan Stavans was born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1961.

More information about this oral history excerpt