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.

The Vaudeville Thing Was Translated Down to Us: Descendants of Jewish Actors

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Minna Barrett, psychology professor and granddaughter of Yiddish actor David Baratz, remembers meeting Borscht Belt comedians as a child and how their humor helped shape her identity.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Minna Barrett.

This excerpt is in English.

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

Other video highlights from this oral history

Actor David Baratz, At Home and Abroad

3 min 12 sec

Jewish Romanian Food

2 min 42 sec

I'm Having a Memory: Recalling Pogroms in America

3 min 2 sec

Kind of Larger than Life: My Uncle Marty, Jewish Actor

2 min 53 sec

One Eye on the Past, One Eye on the Future: Reaction to the MCNY's Yiddish Theater Exhibit

2 min 33 sec

Visiting Central and Eastern Europe, Revisiting the Old Country

6 min 21 sec

Emotional and Intellectual Wealth That Can Feed Everybody: The Role of the Yiddish Book Center

1 min 55 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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