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.

"For Tragedy, for Comedy, for Everything": Fyvush Finkel on the Yiddish Language

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Fyvush Finkel, z"l — comedian, actor, and singer — reflects on what the Yiddish language means to him.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Fyvush Finkel.

This excerpt is in English and Yiddish.

Fyvush Finkel was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1922. Fyvush died in 2016.