A Fourth of July Story about Yiddish Writer Solomon Simon

Lekoved (in honor of) the Fourth of July, descendants of the Yiddish writer Solomon Simon explain how and why he came to choose our Independence Day as his birthday. Our Wexler Oral History Project has been collecting stories like this from many of his relatives for a short film about Simon in our ongoing series "Beyond the Books: Yiddish Writers and Their Descendants." "Dr. Simon," as he was known, earned a living as a dentist, but he was a prolific writer and a true Yiddishist who wrote children's books—including Di heldn fun Khelm (later translated as The Wise Men of Helm and supplemented by More Wise Men of Helm)—as well as memoir and philosophy. He was active with the Sholem Aleichem Folk Institute and Camp Boiberik.