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.

Funny Things about My Last Name

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Sara Tepper, Yiddish speaker born in Poland, shares some funny stories regarding her last name. She talks about her father changing it when they came to America, meeting someone with a very similar but opposite last name, and how she used her last name for a school election slogan.

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

This excerpt is in English.

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

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Other video highlights from this oral history

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

1 min 23 sec

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

1 min 37 sec

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

3 min 12 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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