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.

Stories About My Bobe: Sneaking Out of Shul to Skinny Dip, Making a Living Through Depression

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Fay Webern, New York City native and writer of historical, literary non-fiction, shares stories about her maternal grandmother, who snuck out of shul with her students in Russia to skinny dip, prayed over graves at Yahrzeits, and sold sour pickles and pickled herring during the Depression.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Fay Webern.

This excerpt is in English.

Fay Webern was born in New York, New York in 1927.

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Other video highlights from this oral history

My Parents' Arranged Marriage

3 min 56 sec

Song About Tsar Nikolai

2 min 7 sec

Popcorn and Fundraising at Intermission: Memories of New York Yiddish and English Theaters and Movie Houses

2 min 16 sec

Fear of the Black Hand Italian Mafia Between Kids at the Jewish Center

2 min

Mizele, Mayzele: Yiddish Song for a Lost Baby Tooth

1 min 6 sec

"Kukh-aleyns”: The Jewish Summer Retreat for Those Who Couldn’t Afford the Catskills

1 min 23 sec

Mother Getting the Family a Cottage for the Summer

5 min 23 sec

Tragic Story of Her Namesakes in Ukraine

3 min 47 sec

My Mother's Protest to Get into the Lavanburg Homes

5 min 59 sec

Description of Lavanburg Homes, A Utopian Housing Co-operative in New York

3 min 40 sec

Speaking Yiddish as a Child

2 min 17 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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