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.

What Hitler Couldn't Take From Us, America Won't

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Elliott (Elye) Palevsky – former CEO of River Garden senior services and child of Yiddish-speaking former partisan fighters – describes how his parents held onto their Jewish identities and passed that onto him. They spoke Yiddish together, even when they were around English speakers.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Elliott (Elye) Palevsky.

This excerpt is in English and Yiddish.

Elliott (Elye) Palevsky was born in Bronx, New York in 1947.

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Other video highlights from this oral history

Secular, but Not Out of Touch with Religious Roots of Jewish Culture

1 min 29 sec

Shtetl on the 6th Floor

1 min 19 sec

They Were Mythological Figures-Growing Up the Child of Former Partisan Fighters

2 min 38 sec

Yiddish, Not Assimilation

3 min 43 sec

An Interesting and Important Enterprise: Camp Hemshekh

2 min 45 sec

An Important Moment in American Folk History: Reflection on Camp Hemshekh and Ethnic Pride Movements in the U.S.

1 min 22 sec

From Privilege To Partisan

3 min 14 sec

Couldn't Speak Love to a Child in a Language Other than Yiddish

1 min 52 sec

Former Jewish Partisan Fighter's Reaction to Her Son's Political Activism

1 min 25 sec

Grand Central for Holocaust Survivors in Brooklyn

1 min 15 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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