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 Oberammergau Passion Play from the Perspective of a Jewish-American Child

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Hilary Salk, activist and author, recounts her experience living in the Bavarian village of Oberammergau, whose residents have staged a grandiose Easter pageant once a decade for over 350 years. She shares her impressions of the play and its antisemitic elements, discusses some of the scholarship that has been done on the topic over the course of its run, and explains the novel she wrote on the topic.

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.

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Other video highlights from this oral history

My Father Learned How to be American at Yale

3 min 16 sec

Longing for a Jewish Friend: Growing Up as a Jewish-American Girl Among American Soldiers Stationed in Germany in the 1950s

1 min 31 sec

Finding My Jewish Home at the Brown University Hillel as a Parent

3 min 3 sec

Running for Governor of Rhode Island on the Citizen's Party Ticket

3 min 52 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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