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.

"It Was Like You Entered the Old World": YIVO

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Jan Schwarz, Associate Professor in Yiddish at Lund University, shares his memories of the former YIVO (Yiddish Research Institute) building on 86th Street, and how its atmosphere and rhythms caused it to feel more like an "Eastern European Jewish academy from Vilna" than New York City.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Jan Schwarz.

This excerpt is in English.

Jan Schwarz was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1954.

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This interview is part of the Yiddish in the Academy: scholars, language instructors, and students series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

"We need maintenance of the Yiddish cultural infrastructure"

3 min 2 sec

Isaac Bashevis Singer's Writings Opened Up a Whole World

1 min 55 sec

Life Writing as a Way to Process Displacement and Trauma: Jan Schwarz on Yiddish Autobiography

4 min 36 sec

Yiddish Speakers and Yiddish Culture in Post-War Sweden

3 min 42 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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