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.

He Was a Father at 14 and Died from Cholent: the Story of Samuel Bak's Great-Grandfather and Namesake

Watch now:

Samuel Bak, prominent Jewish artist from Vilna, tells the life story of his great-grandfather, who was married at age 13, became a father by 14, and died after an unfortunate Tisha B'av meal.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Samuel (Shmuel) Bak.

This excerpt is in English.

Samuel (Shmuel) Bak was born in Vilna, Lithuania in 1933.

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

Other video highlights from this oral history

"Hearing Lithuanian in Vilna was like hearing Chinese in Boston," Samuel Bak On The Languages of Vilna

1 min 50 sec

War Comes to Vilna: Paradise Turns Into Hell

1 min 17 sec

Avrom Sutzkever: The Shakespeare of Yiddish

1 min 20 sec

Remembering Sutzkever

5 min 32 sec

We Spent the End of World War Two Hidden Among the Books in Vilna

3 min 30 sec

Each Language Opens a Horizon

2 min 43 sec

Yiddish Will Stay: Artist Samuel Bak Reflects on the Yiddish Language

3 min 46 sec

A Good Jew? Reflections on Jewish Sentimentalism and Ethics

3 min 8 sec

Identity in Flux: Reflections on Jewishness in the Modern World

3 min 22 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

Themes: