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.

"You Can't Understand the Music Without Yiddish"

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Raphael Roginski, a musician and activist, describes his musical education in the small rural town of Podkowa Lesna, and the importance of Yiddish in understanding Ashkenazi Jewish musical traditions.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Raphael Roginski.

This excerpt is in English.

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This interview is part of the Yiddish and the Arts: musicians, actors, and artists series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

Raphael Roginski: Improv #2 in Sejny, Poland

4 min

Gambling in Yiddish: Growing up in Frankfurt in the 1970s and 80s

4 min 46 sec

“An Amazing Place”: Red Lights, Trauma, and Yiddish in 1970s and 80s Frankfurt

7 min 46 sec

“A Symbol of What Was Jewish Culture for Me”: My Uncle, an Auschwitz Survivor, was Funny

2 min 18 sec

Everything Had “A Flavor of War”: My Later Childhood in Post-WWII Poland

6 min 13 sec

“Finding Space for Another Language in Polish Monoculture”: Using Yiddish in How I Present My Music

1 min 59 sec

“Who Am I, A Ghost?”: Making Sense of Multicultural Polish Past

3 min 25 sec

Raphael Roginski on Countering the “Fetishization” of Jewish Culture and Music in Poland

5 min 44 sec

Raphael Roginski: Improv in Sejny, Poland

2 min 55 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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