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.

"Huge Black Iron Gate": A Childhood Memory of Odessa

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Bel Kaufman, z"l, granddaughter of Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem and author of award-winning novels, describes the heavy, iron gates at her childhood home in Odessa. She recounts visiting the home later in life and no longer finding the gates as intimidating as she remembered.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Bel Kaufman.

This excerpt is in English.

Bel Kaufman was born in Berlin, Germany in 1911. Bel died in 2014.

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