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.

My Father Learned How to be American at Yale

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Hilary Salk, activist and author, discusses how her father's time among America's wealthy elite at Yale allowed him to shed his Jewish identity and fulfill his ambition of assimilating into American culture. She reflects on the differences between her parents and how her father "really wanted to make sure [she] didn't have any kind of Jewish mannerisms."

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Hilary Salk.

This excerpt is in English.

Hilary Salk was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1942.