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.

My Grandfather Considered This Very Goyish: The Orthodox and Reform Synagogues of My Youth

Watch now:

George Goldman, Jewish atheist born in Brooklyn, describes the Orthodox synagogue that his family attended before his bar mitzvah, and the Reform one that they switched to during his bar mitzvah.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with George Goldman.

This excerpt is in English.

George Goldman was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1935. George died in 2018.

Other video highlights from this oral history

Wife's Matzoh From Scratch

1 min 34 sec

"Almost the Most Famous I've Been": Getting Lost in the Sierra Nevada

2 min 18 sec

Our Apartment in A Two-Family Home A Few Blocks from Ebbets Field

2 min 33 sec

My Path to Atheism

2 min 28 sec

"Why Can't You Find a Nice Jewish Girl?": Meeting My Wife at the Dance Hall at U.C. Berkeley

2 min 32 sec

Driveaway Cars

1 min 42 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

Themes: