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.

"As An Eight-Year-Old, He Was Already Supporting His Family": Yiddish Singer Seymour Rexite's Early Life

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Caraid O'Brien—writer, performer, and director, including of Yiddish works—discusses Seymour Rexite's early life. She describes the trauma of leaving Poland, coming to America and then Seymour's emergence on the American scene as a musical "wonder boy".

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Caraid O'Brien.

This excerpt is in English.

Caraid O'Brien was born in Galway, Ireland in 1974.

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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

Caraid O'Brien's Early Interest In Theater

1 min 47 sec

“I Recognized Something That Seemed Very Comfortable To Me”: Caraid O’Brien On Discovering Yiddish Culture Through A Love of Literature and Irish Culture

7 min 15 sec

Finding a Mentor in Luba Kadison, Last Surviving Member of the Vilna Troupe

3 min 41 sec

Sholem Asch's God of Vengeance Retranslated and on a Go-Go Stage

4 min 10 sec

Path Altering Learning: Studying Yiddish with Ruth Wisse and My Great Friendship with Luba Kadison Buloff

2 min 49 sec

Seymour Rexite, Miriam Kressyn, and "a Vast Theatrical Movement, United by Performing in Yiddish"

2 min 9 sec

Yiddish Theater in the 20th Century: an Interconnected, International Scene

1 min 56 sec

Learning Yiddish and the Physical, Sensory Experience of Engaging with the Books: Internship at the Yiddish Book Center, Summer 1994

2 min 43 sec

"So Much of the Foundation of that Company Was About Finding a Reason to Stay Alive": The Origins of the Vilna Troupe

3 min 33 sec

The Yiddish Book Center: the Positive and Joyful Impact on My Career as an Artist

1 min 1 sec

"Stories that Would Have You Weeping And Laughing at the Same Time": My Irish Family

3 min 52 sec

Getting To Know Seymour Rexite, Famous Tenor of Yiddish Musical Theater

5 min 26 sec

Accessing Yiddish Through Experts And Language

6 min 51 sec

Advice To The Yiddish Theater Curious

2 min 38 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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