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.

Memories of the Russian Revolution

Watch now:

Bel Kaufman, z"l, granddaughter of Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem and author of award-winning novels, describes her childhood home in Odessa and recounts a gruesome shooting which occurred in the courtyard and was fairly typical of life during the Revolution.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Bel Kaufman.

This excerpt is in English.

Bel Kaufman was born in Berlin, Germany in 1911. Bel died in 2014.

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