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.
Hershl Hartman's Oral History
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Hershl Hartman, native Yiddish speaker and educational director at the Sholem Community in California, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on January 15, 2013 at Workmen's Circle in Los Angeles, California.
This interview was conducted in Yiddish and English.
This interview is part of the Yiddish in the Academy: scholars, language instructors, and students series.
Video highlights from this oral history
Hitler-Stalin Pact and Changing Perceptions of Russia
4 minutes 59 seconds
Lessons From Working with Holocaust Survivors
2 minutes 28 seconds
Teaching Yiddish Appreciation Through Music
1 minute 3 seconds
Shtot Oder Shtok?: Dialects & Interpreting for Hasidim on Phone Help Lines
1 minute 54 seconds
Secularizing Jewish Holidays
2 minutes 53 seconds
Sholem Asch's Yiddish Dialect
1 minute 51 seconds
"Off-Broadway," A Phrase Courtesy of the Yiddish Theater
2 minutes 43 seconds
Drafting a Communist
10 minutes 49 seconds
The Language of Fighters
1 minute 15 seconds
"My Mother Was a Bolshevik": Politics in My Yiddish-Speaking Home
1 minute 16 secondsMore information about this oral history
Themes:
- Advice
- Family histories
- Childhood
- Jewish Identity
- Yiddish language
- Post-vernacular uses of Yiddish
- Immigration and migration
- Theater
- Music
- Literature
- Poetry
- Career and Professional Life
- Academia
- Education
- Jewish holidays
- Eastern Europe
- Soviet Union
- United States
- Politics and political movements
- Summer camp
- Cultural transmission
- Heritage
- Jewish community
- Urban
- Assimilation
- World War II
- Secular
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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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