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.
Chaim Grade: A Bombastic Character
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Betty Sorkowitz, daughter Yiddish activists and founders of the Sholem Aleichem Institute in Detroit, remembers her relationship with Chaim Grade and what a fascinating person he was.
This is an excerpt from an oral history with Betty Sorkowitz.
This excerpt is in English.
Betty Sorkowitz was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1927.
Other video highlights from this oral history
Chaim Grade: A Bombastic Character
2 minutes 41 seconds
She Paid His Passage and Sponsored Him Herself, Against Her Family’s Wishes: My Parents’ Story
2 minutes 3 seconds
Punishment for her Left-Handed Father
1 minute 24 seconds
Anti-Semitism in Pre-War Poland: My Mother's Story about a Jewish Man at the Train Station
1 minute 36 seconds
When Yiddishists Came to Visit Us in Detroit
3 minutes 11 seconds
My Memories of Rokhl Korn
2 minutes 57 secondsMore information about this oral history excerpt
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About the Wexler Oral History Project
Since 2010, the Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project has recorded more than 500 in-depth video interviews that provide a deeper understanding of the Jewish experience and the legacy and changing nature of Yiddish language and culture.
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