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.

Seltzer was the Jewish Champagne: Growing Up in Brownsville, Brooklyn

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Anita Garlick, YBC zamler in Sullivan County, shares memories of her childhood neighborhood, including having seltzer delivered to the house, drinking egg creams, interacting with Yiddish-speaking tradespeople, and visits from the insurance man.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Anita Garlick.

This excerpt is in English.

Anita Garlick was born in New York, New York in 1924. Anita died in 2020.

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Other video highlights from this oral history

A Family of Talmudic Scholars: My Father's Shtetl Background, and His Reason for Coming to America

1 min 20 sec

A Gan-eyden (Garden of Eden) in the Borscht Belt: Bungalow Colonies in the Catskills

4 min 1 sec

Living Above a Funeral Home in Monticello, NY

4 min 11 sec

An Antisemitic Experience as a Child in Queens

1 min 47 sec

My Experiences as a Zamler in Sullivan County, and How Aaron Lansky Inspired Me

2 min 54 sec

Bargaining for Dresses and Visiting the Shochet: Shopping with My Bubbe on Belmont Avenue

2 min 30 sec

"Yiddish Is the Language of Love": Relationship to Yiddish Through Grandparents

1 min 23 sec

Growing Up During the Great Depression

1 min 53 sec

Hearing Yiddish Music in Grandparents' Home

2 min 15 sec

Reading Newspapers to Her Grandmother

1 min 47 sec

Carp, Cholent, and Chicken Soup: My Grandmother's Cooking

2 min 10 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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