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.

A Eastern-European Jewish Immigrant Girl's First Week of American School

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Sara Tepper, Yiddish speaker born in Poland, talks about her first week of school in America. She explains how her language barrier, not knowing English, affected her experience.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Sara Tepper.

This excerpt is in Yiddish.

Sara Tepper was born in Kletsk, Russian Empire in 1922.

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Other video highlights from this oral history

Saving a Yiddish Library: Becoming a Zamler and Connecting with the Yiddish Book Center

3 min 12 sec

My Childhood in the Shtetl of Kletsk, Poland

2 min 15 sec

My Grandmother was the Only One Crying: Leaving Our Shtetl

1 min 35 sec

Refusing the Women's Section at the Synagogue

1 min 59 sec

A Bathroom? A Radiator? What Luxury! A Jewish Immigrant from the Shtetl of Kletsk Arrives in New York

1 min 37 sec

Funny Things about My Last Name

1 min 24 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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