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.

Malka Lee: Poetess and Mother

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Yvette Marrin, daughter of Yiddish writers Malka Lee and Aaron Rappoport, speaks about what it was like having a poet for a mother.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Yvette (Chave) Marrin.

This excerpt is in English.

Yvette (Chave) Marrin was born in Bronx, NY in 1937.

This interview is part of the Beyond the Books: Yiddish writers and their descendants series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

Yiddish Writer Aaron B. Rappaport's Childhood in Upstate New York

4 min 41 sec

A Russian Jew Depicts American Industry: A Reason to Read Aaron Rappaport

5 min 48 sec

A Ticket to America for Malka Lee, Not Her Father

5 min

Mother and Daughter: Communicating Through Poetry

3 min 4 sec

Growing Up In the Sholem Aleichem Houses in the Bronx

3 min 3 sec

Managing the Flow: Malka Lee Writing as Release

2 min 23 sec

The LeeRa Bungalow Colony

3 min 11 sec

Linen and No Harsh Words: Folklore and the Birth of Yiddish Writer Aaron B. Rappaport

1 min 30 sec

How Malka Lee's Mother Saved Her Poetry Notebooks from Fire

2 min 23 sec

How Malka Lee Took a Stand Against Stalin After the Night of the Murdered Poets

3 min 1 sec

The Forgettable Bridegroom

2 min 24 sec

The Impact of the Holocaust on Malka Lee and Me, Her Daughter

5 min 13 sec

The Writing Space: Where Malka Lee Wrote Her Poetry

1 min 59 sec

"In Vald (In the Forest)": A Malka Lee Poem Read By Her Daughter

1 min 58 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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