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.

Ingathering of the Exiles: A Return to the Shtetl, then on to Israel

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Henry Kellerman, psychotherapist and author, discusses the trip his parents took in 1967 first to Ukraine and then to Israel. He describes what it was like for them to return to their shtetl after nearly fifty years away, as well as his mother's overwhelmed reaction to entering Jewish air space shortly before landing in Israel.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Henry Kellerman.

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

My Father Came to Canada on a False Affidavit

2 min 30 sec

Becoming a Poster Child for Secular Yiddishism

3 min 44 sec

"We Realized How Important Yiddish Was": Fundraising for the IWO Shules

5 min 28 sec

A Barg Shikh—A Mountain of Shoes

1 min 37 sec

Ceremony and Symbolism at Camp Kinderland

3 min

The Trouble With the Melting Pot: The Rapid Decline of Second Languages in the United States

3 min 12 sec

Archive of a Child Yiddish Star

4 min 52 sec

Pogroms And Jewish Resistance In The "Two-Blink Shtetl" of Yaruga

4 min 7 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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