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.

I Had No Idea Yiddish Had Grammar: Discovering Yiddish Dialects and Other Languages

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Rubin Friedman, author and son of Holocaust survivors, describes becoming interested in linguistics and discovering the differences and similarities between Yiddish dialects, and between Yiddish and German.

 

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Rubin Friedman.

This excerpt is in Yiddish and English.

Rubin Friedman was born in Linz, Austria in 1946.

Other video highlights from this oral history

Class Difference in My Parents' Eastern European Upbringings

3 min 8 sec

My Parents' Escape from Radom During World War II

3 min 20 sec

Growing Up "Yiddish" in Toronto

2 min 58 sec

My Father's Survivor's Guilt and Struggle to Adapt to Canadian Anglo Society

2 min 47 sec

The Role of Yiddish in My Education and Identity

1 min 41 sec

Becoming Norm: Antisemitism in Canada

2 min 4 sec

The Future of Yiddish Lies with the Hasidim

1 min 47 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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