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.

Singing Zmires (Shabbes Hymns)

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Miriam Oles, granddaughter of Yiddish writer Eliezer Schindler, speaks about how her parents loved to sing zemirot (traditional hymns) on Shabbos and shares a few bars of "Ya Ribon" in hopes that the traditional melodies with which she grew up are preserved.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Miriam Oles.

This excerpt is in English.

Miriam Oles was born in United States in 1947.

This interview is part of the Beyond the Books: Yiddish writers and their descendants series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

"My Mother was an Orthodox Jewish Feminist Way Before I was"

6 min 20 sec

"That feeling, that people have been doing this for thousands of years"

1 min 32 sec

The Unfinished Story of My Grandfather’s Letters

4 min 58 sec

It Helped Them Find “Confidence and Consolation” In The Death Chambers: My Grandfather Eliezer Schindler’s Poetry Was Recited During the Holocaust

2 min 56 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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