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.

Learning Yiddish to Sing It

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Sara Klompus, singer and Yiddish enthusiast, contemplates her relationship to the songs she sings, and how she's committed to understanding them with the help of other Yiddish speakers and self-discovery throughout her career as a Yiddish singer. In particular, she notes how her relationship to a song by Sutzkever is influenced by her knowledge of her roots in Lithuania.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Sara Klompus.

This excerpt is in English.

Sara Klompus was born in Washington, D.C. in 1949.

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This interview is part of the Yiddish and the Arts: musicians, actors, and artists series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

Trips to Eastern Europe and Jewish Identity

4 min 1 sec

The Girl From Pinsk: Roots Trips to Belarus

5 min 13 sec

Saturday Night Bagels: My Family's Shabbos Routine

1 min 36 sec

A Second Home: Finding My Voice in the Synagogue

3 min 37 sec

My Singing Career: From Entertaining Soldiers with the USO to Performing Yiddish Songs

3 min 17 sec

The Bridge to the Next Generation: The Transcendent Power of Yiddish Music

2 min 32 sec

Sara Klompus Sings a Connie Francis Favorite

1 min 23 sec

A Sukkah on the Shore

1 min 34 sec

With My Grandmother on My Shoulder: Studying Yiddish in Vilna

3 min 23 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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