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.

Sophia Wise's Oral History

Sophia Wise, Yiddish language student in the January term intensive at the Yiddish Book Center, was interviewed by Hillary Ossip on January 1, 2011 at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts.

This interview was conducted in English.

Sophia Wise was born in Orlando, Florida in 1992.

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Video highlights from this oral history

The Lion King in Hebrew

1 min 36 sec

Becoming a bat mitzvah

1 min 51 sec

"Yiddish defies linguistic possibilities"

1 min 7 sec

"How many cousins I don't have"

1 min 25 sec

Keeping kosher

55 sec

"It's this ghost that doesn't have a home state"

1 min 22 sec

"The Heartstrings Attached": Deepening My Understanding of Yiddish

1 min 12 sec

History Made Tangible

56 sec

Hearing Tumbalalaika Again

1 min 2 sec

More information about this oral history

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