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.

Rare Anecdotes of Everyday Yiddish Singers

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Mark Slobin, ethnomusicologist who has specialized in the music of Eastern European Jewry, discusses his introduction into the world of Yiddish music, and shares anecdotes that he gathered from recordings about everyday people singing Yiddish songs in the Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett collection at YIVO.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Mark Slobin.

This excerpt is in English.

Mark Slobin was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1943.

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

Other video highlights from this oral history

Jewish Use of Classical Music to Perform Civic and Cultural Identity

2 min 53 sec

“Sung Poetics”: Mark Slobin on Why the World Needs to Hear Yiddish Song

2 min 49 sec

An Ethnomusicologist's Favorite Jewish Music

1 min 25 sec

Russian Songs From My Childhood

3 min 58 sec

The Place of Jewish Music in Jewish Studies

3 min 14 sec

A Very Particular Kind of Background that People Don’t Have Anymore: Growing Up in a Jewish Enclave in Detroit

2 min 11 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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