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.

Inexplicably Other: Being a Religious Minority in Soviet Ukraine

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Igor Senderovich, physics professor at the University of Connecticut, recalls when he first learned about antisemitic violence (the Holocaust) and discusses his confusion growing up as a religious minority in the officially atheistic Soviet Union, being aware of his status as Other without knowing the reasons behind it.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Igor Senderovich.

This excerpt is in English.

Igor Senderovich was born in Uzhgorod, Ukraine in 1982.

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Other video highlights from this oral history

Keeping Politics Out Of the Home

1 min 37 sec

(Tip-)Toeing the Party Line in Soviet Ukraine

3 min 8 sec

First Impressions of America as a Russian Jewish Immigrant in the 1990s

3 min

An Extended Jewish Family Deciding to Leave Ukraine in the 1990s

3 min 53 sec

Constructing My Jewish Identity and Encounters With Diaspora Judaism

4 min 29 sec

Tradition versus Modernity: Finding My Balance

2 min 1 sec

"As If The Twentieth Century Didn't Happen": Making Personal Choices About Religion In My Family

2 min 1 sec

A Case for Slow and Deliberate Change

2 min 10 sec

"This is Something That's a Burden": Becoming Aware of My Jewish Identity in Soviet Ukraine

2 min 54 sec

Transitioning From Secular Ukraine to a Brooklyn Yeshiva

3 min 56 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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