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.

Suppressing the Old World Jewishness

Watch now:

Glenn Dynner, Professor of Religion at Sarah Lawrence College, recounts his parents' efforts to shirk the "Old World" Jewishness of their immigrant parents, which resulted in Yiddish being used only for the sake of derision and ridicule.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Glenn Dynner.

This excerpt is in English.

Glenn Dynner was born in Washington, D.C. in 1961.

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

Other video highlights from this oral history

"Classical music, In an odd way, was a very Jewish thing"

1 min 47 sec

Personality Quirks or Cultural Traits?

59 sec

“My Real Deep Engagement with Non-Jewish European High Culture was an Inoculation” Against the Baal Teshuva Impulse

1 min 20 sec

"It's Like Falling in Love Again:" The Beauty of Reading Yiddish Memoirs

1 min 57 sec

Polonized Jews Are Not THE Story

2 min 3 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

Themes: