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.

“I Wouldn’t Say A Hotbed of Radicalism, but…”: Brooklyn College in the 1950s

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Rebecca Levine, Yiddish teacher and Yiddishist, remembers the political climate at Brooklyn College, where she was a student in the 1950s.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Rebecca Levine.

This excerpt is in English.

Rebecca Levine was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1932.

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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

My Parents’ Corner Store Had the Only Public Telephone in the Community

2 min 12 sec

A Gute Nakht

1 min 15 sec

You Can’t Handle the Truth!: Remembering Yiddish Shule

1 min 39 sec

Murdered, Right There In The Town

1 min 29 sec

Bobe Listened Continuously: WEVD

1 min 26 sec

Racism and Antisemitism in Virginia

4 min 18 sec

“I Don’t Think Any of Them Will Be A Yiddishist, but Who Knows?”: Yiddish Across Generations

3 min 31 sec

“My Crown, My Treasure!”: An Itchie Goldberg Story

2 min 17 sec

Passing on a “Tam” for Yiddish

2 min 7 sec

How My Neighbors “Adopted Me As Grandma”

2 min 4 sec

Dictionary Yiddish and Chocolate: The Possible Future of Yiddish

1 min 58 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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