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.

Henry Sapoznik's Oral History

Henry Sapoznik - musician, scholar, and KlezKamp founder - was interviewed by Christa Whitney on March 20, 2012 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Henry's parents were Holocaust survivors from Rovno and came to the United States in 1950. His mother's father was a housepainter and follower of Trotsky; his father had a beautiful voice and became a cantor whose talent saved him during the war. Henry describes growing up with other survivors in Brooklyn. He went to a Lubavitcher school although his parents were Orthodox, not Hasidic. He sang in a choir with his father; neither of them could read music, and he realizes that he learned in the same way that traditional music has been transmitted for generations. Looking back, Henry is glad that he received a traditional Jewish education, but at the time he did not appreciate the yeshiva's cultural teachings and Yiddish fluency. Henry became interested in the folk music revival and anti-war movement in the mid-sixties, around the time of his bar mitzvah. He started playing guitar and banjo, beginning to explore traditional American grassroots music. He describes the NYC music scene; many of the musicians were Jews and some even spoke Yiddish. In the mid-seventies, it became clear to Henry that Jews also had a traditional music repertoire. He realized that to do relevant ethnographic work that he would have to become a "stranger in his own community." In 1979, Henry formed a band called "Kapelye" which was one of the first klezmer revival bands. He was hired at YIVO to build their record collection in 1982. He recalls doing the first klezmer reissue for Folkways Records using records found at YIVO. Henry discusses the influence of Alex Haley's "Roots" and the excitement of young Jews rediscovering their own culture and history during this time. While at YIVO Henry developed the KlezKamp concept; it eventually was held during Christmas week at a hotel in the Catskills. Henry recalls the culture clashes between diverse folks interested in Yiddish at that time and the evolution of KlezKamp. Perhaps more important than the classes, people were learning from each other in the hallways. At the time of the interview, KlezKamp had been going on for 28 years and was seeding all kinds of other events around the world. Henry is proud that his generation has claimed Yiddish music and made sure that it will survive. On the other hand, he wishes more klezmer musicians would learn the Yiddish language. Henry explains how he came to Madison, Wisconsin, and why he feels that it is important to center his work in non-Jewish spaces as well as Jewish ones. He is excited about lecturing in the film, drama, and literature departments and to demonstrate that Jewish studies are part of the larger American story. He ends the interview talking about a trip to Rovno with his mother which he found heartbreaking as the entire Jewish world there had been destroyed. Henry expresses strong feelings about Eastern European Jewish festivals held in the very places where Jews were rounded up and sometimes killed by the ancestors of the sponsors of the festivals.

This interview was conducted in English.

Henry Sapoznik was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1953.