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.

Jewish Comedy When I Was Growing Up

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Hyman Batalion, Yiddish speaker and Montreal native, reflects on the Jewish comedians he was exposed to growing up and describes some of their comedy routines. See footage of Michel Rosenberg performing one of the routines Hyman mentions here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxVqVmbQhPg

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Hyman Batalion.

This excerpt is in Yiddish.

Other video highlights from this oral history

My Parents Got Married Twice

1 min 49 sec

Restriction, Not Fun: Memories of Jewish Holidays As a Kid

1 min 39 sec

Lots of Smelly Meat: A Vegetarian Remembers What His Mother Cooked When He Was a Kid

2 min 27 sec

The Plateau: Memories of a Jewish Neighborhood in Montreal

2 min 22 sec

How to Define Jewish Comedy?

3 min 12 sec

A Jewish Joke about Exceptionally Old Men and an Insurance Agent

1 min 29 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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