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.

Iosif Lakhman's Oral History

Iosif Lakhman, z"l, native Yiddish speaker who grew up in the Soviet Union and writer for the Forverts, was interviewed by Aaron Lansky on October 30, 2013 in Brighton, MA.

This interview was conducted in Yiddish.

Iosif Lakhman was born in Ukraine in 1921. Iosif died in 2017.

Jump to map

Video highlights from this oral history

The Language is Not Important, It’s the Knowledge: How I Ended Up In A Jewish School in the Soviet Union

2 min 6 sec

1936: Reciting a Poem for Itzik Feffer, Soviet Yiddish Poet, When He Visited Our Ukrainian Shtetl

3 min 57 sec

1937: They Gave a Directive to Round up Six Enemies of the Soviet State From Our Shtetl

3 min 4 sec

"I Didn't Have Anyone to Speak with.. So I Read and Read": Reading, Translating, Exchanging Letters to Keep Yiddish Fluency

2 min 40 sec

August 12,1952: We Had No Idea About the Murder of Peretz Markish and the Soviet Yiddish Poets

2 min 45 sec

Learning English in Community College Upon Arrival from the Soviet Union

1 min 45 sec

The Soviet Yiddish School Held a Passover Dinner with Treyf Food

1 min 32 sec

Artifacts related to this oral history

Aaron Lansky meets Lakhman in Moscow from The Book Peddler

More information about this oral history

Themes:

Listen later:

Download as an mp3 audio file for free

For other download options:

View the full Internet Archive record