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.

"When They Opened the Department, People Came With Rotten Eggs": The Early Days of the Yiddish Department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem

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Chava Turniansky, professor emeritus of Yiddish literature at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, discusses the unpopularity of studying Yiddish when she was younger and some of the troubles faced by the Yiddish department in Israel at the Hebrew University in the years after its founding.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Chava Turniansky.

This excerpt is in Yiddish.

Chava Turniansky was born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1937.