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.

"Language of the Diaspora": Speaking Hebrew or Yiddish in Israel

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Jacob Apelberg, Holocaust survivor and translator of Yiddish poetry, talks about propaganda against Yiddish in Israel. He describes his relationship with Yiddish as "closer" that Hebrew because its a language he learned from listening as a child, not studying in adulthood.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Jacob Apelberg.

This excerpt is in English.

Jacob Apelberg was born in Wasewo, Poland in 1932.

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This interview is part of the Yiddish in the Academy: scholars, language instructors, and students series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

Memories of the German Invasion

3 min 24 sec

Memories of Fleeing: from Białystok to a Russian Work Camp

3 min 26 sec

When to Leave, Where to Go: Memories of Poland Under Occupation

5 min 30 sec

Life in the Soviet Labor Camp

4 min 2 sec

The News in Soviet Kazakhstan: The Warsaw Ghetto on Radio Moscow

2 min 18 sec

Translating from the Soul: Coming back to Yiddish through Translating a Poem

3 min 41 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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