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.

Yiddish to Relate to the Past: Ilan Stavans on Languages as Glasses that Change One's World View

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Ilan Stavans, academic and writer, talks about language as a lens through which to understand the world, and how Yiddish, Spanish, and Hebrew functioned for the community in which he grew up.

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.