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.
Jim Hoberman's Oral History
Jim Hoberman, Village Voice film critic and author of seminal book Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between the Two World Wars, was interviewed by Emma Morgenstern on June 26, 2011 at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts.
This interview was conducted in English.
Jim Hoberman was born in New York, New York in 1949.
Video highlights from this oral history
Yiddish Talkie at College
1 minute 24 seconds
Exhibit on Yosel Cutler
1 minute 44 seconds
Hebrew School and Sholem Aleichem School
1 minute 52 seconds
Empty School on Jewish Holidays, Except for Me and an Italian Girl
2 minutes 47 seconds
A Yiddish Phrase from Childhood: "Shmey Drey"
1 minute 17 seconds
Skipping Christmas for KlezKamp
1 minute 41 seconds
"History Is What There Is"
1 minute 35 seconds
Yiddish is like a Phantom Limb
2 minutes 5 seconds
Taking Grandma to the Lower East Side
1 minute 8 seconds
Writing for the Village Voice
1 minute 15 secondsMore information about this oral history
Themes:
- Advice
- Favorite Yiddish word
- Yiddish words
- Family histories
- Childhood
- Jewish Identity
- Yiddish language
- Yiddish learning
- Immigration and migration
- Visual Arts
- Theater
- Film
- Press
- Radio
- Literature
- Career and Professional Life
- Academia
- Family traditions
- Jewish holidays
- Israel
- United States
- Politics and political movements
- Heritage
- Jewish community
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About the Wexler Oral History Project
Since 2010, the Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project has recorded more than 500 in-depth video interviews that provide a deeper understanding of the Jewish experience and the legacy and changing nature of Yiddish language and culture.
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