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.
Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman's Oral History
Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, z"l, Yiddish poet and educator, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on August 26, 2012 at Yidish-Vokh in Maryland. This interview is entirely in Yiddish.
This interview was conducted in Yiddish.
Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman was born in Vienna, Austria in 1920. Beyle, z"l, died in 2013.
Video highlights from this oral history

"The Last Day of Joy": Chernowitz in 1945
1 minute 39 seconds
Eliezer Shteynbarg Was Our Peretz
1 minute 46 seconds
I Began Writing To Entertain the Children: A Yiddish Writer's Inspiration
1 minute 37 seconds
Bainbridge Avenue: A Micro-neighborhood of Yiddish Culture in the Bronx
1 minute 39 seconds
Isaac Nachman Steinberg and the Frayland Lige (Freeland League)
2 minutes 13 seconds
Yiddishism Is a Way of Life
1 minute 25 seconds
"It Gives Us a Reason, an Ideal": Yiddish in the Schaechter-Gottesman Family
2 minutes 9 seconds
I Read Every Holocaust Memoir I Find
3 minutes 56 secondsArtifacts related to this oral history
More information about this oral history
Themes:
- Yiddish speaker
- Eastern Europe
- Western Europe
- Soviet Union
- Holocaust
- World War II
- Immigration and migration
- United States
- Childhood
- Languages
- Singing
- Family traditions
- Antisemitism
- Urban
- Advice
- Family histories
- Jewish Identity
- Yiddish language
- Yiddish teaching
- Yiddish scene
- Yiddish revival and activism
- Music
- Literature
- Books
- Poetry
- Career and Professional Life
- Religion
- Cultural transmission
- Shabbos
- Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman
- Bella Schaechter-Gottesman
- Vienna
- Czernowitz
- Eliezer Shteynbarg
- Bainbridge Avenue
- Bronx
- New York
- New York City
- Sholem Aleichem School
- Yitskhok Nakhmen Steinberg
- Yitskhok Nakhmen Shteynberg
- Frayland Lige
- Yidish Lige
- Yiddishism
- Yiddishist
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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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