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.

Ed Asner on His Father's Journey from Lithuania to Kansas City, Where He Started A Junkyard

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Ed Asner, American actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild, has a lot he wants to tell about his father, an observant Jewish junkyard man in Kansas City.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Ed Asner.

This excerpt is in English.

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This interview is part of the Yiddish and the Arts: musicians, actors, and artists series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

My Parents Came To See Me Perform: Ed Asner as Rabbi Azriel in The Dybbuk

3 min 52 sec

Ed Asner's First Performance: His Bar Mitzvah

2 min 46 sec

Ed Asner Tells Stories of His Cousins During World War II

2 min 42 sec

Ed Asner Tells Family Stories from the Old Country

6 min 20 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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