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.

Michel Araten's Oral History

Michel Araten, banking/operations researcher by profession, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on August 5, 2014 at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts.

This interview was conducted in English.

Michel Araten was born in Casablanca, Morocco in 1940.

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Video highlights from this oral history

Witnessing the Aliyah of Soviet Jewry

1 min 46 sec

Speaking Hebrew in My Sleep

1 min 15 sec

They Spoke What I Swore was German: Growing Up in a Multilingual Home

1 min 29 sec

"Michalina, Daughter of Israel": My Great-Aunt's Abduction by the Catholic Church

10 min 42 sec

Fleeing the Vichy Government in Morocco to Manhattan: My Father, the "Undocumented Alien"

2 min 20 sec

Explaining Baseball to an Egyptian General, and Other Encounters From My Travels in the Middle East in 1947

1 min 54 sec

Artifacts related to this oral history

cover of "michelina"

Back of AR589_1505

grandfather and three others

grandfather and uncle

group in Morocco

letter from consulate

photo of maternal grandparents

maternal grandparents with metadata

mother and grandmother

narrator's aunt

narrator's father 2

narrator's parents

aunt michelina

father with car

grandfather 1

grandfather 2

Narrater's father young

More information about this oral history

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