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.

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

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Henry Kellerman, psychotherapist and author, shares his thoughts on the future of secular Yiddish culture in America, arguing that the melting pot model of assimilation as well as America's focus on popular culture makes it unlikely for any language other than English to be transmitted beyond a few generations.

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

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

4 min 7 sec

My Father Came to Canada on a False Affidavit

2 min 30 sec

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

1 min 59 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

Archive of a Child Yiddish Star

4 min 52 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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