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.

Yiddish With My Grandkids

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Shulamith (Shami) Kligman Zimmerman – Yiddish teacher and daughter of Yiddishist Joseph Kligman – shares what her grandson's favorite Yiddish phrase is, a curse, "Zoltsu vaksn vi a tsibile (You should grow like an onion)."

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Shulamith (Shami) Kligman Zimmerman.

This excerpt is in Yiddish and English.

This interview is part of the Yiddish in the Academy: scholars, language instructors, and students series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

People Would Send My Father Yiddish Books to Review or Promote

2 min 8 sec

Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet" in Published Yiddish

52 sec

My Father, Yiddish writer and Activist, Joseph Kligman

2 min 16 sec

The Peretz School of Windsor, Ontario

3 min 34 sec

The Variations of Yiddish in Ontario

3 min 15 sec

Becoming a Yiddish Teacher

2 min 26 sec

My Father, The Rabbi, and Yiddish

1 min 11 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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