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.

"I Felt Like an Outsider": Growing Up Without Yiddish in the Home of a Yiddish Writer

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Ze'ev Tsanin—son of Yiddish writer, journalist and activist Mordkhe Tsanin— talks about feeling alienated from his parents' social life by his ignorance of Yiddish.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Ze'ev Tsanin.

This excerpt is in English.

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This interview is part of the Beyond the Books: Yiddish writers and their descendants series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

From the Desk of Mordkhe Tsanin: Memories of Where My Father Worked on Letste Nayes, a Yiddish newspaper printed in Tel Aviv

2 min 38 sec

Battling Ben-Gurion: Yiddish Activism in Israel

3 min 19 sec

Not Dead or Alive, But Disregarded: The Current Status of Yiddish in Israel

1 min 28 sec

People, Not Banks: Organizing Family Reunions in "Letste Nayes"

1 min 37 sec

Leaving Warsaw for the Land of Israel

1 min 52 sec

Adventures of a Bundist Yiddish Writer, Mordkhe Tsanin

2 min 46 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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