Meet Christa Whitney of the Yiddish Book Center Oral History Project

When

Monday, February 3, 2025

8:00 pm EST - 9:00 pm EST

Event Type

Yiddish Alive Affinity Group

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Special Guest

CHRISTA WHITNEY
of the Yiddish Book Center Wexler Oral History Project

Monday, February 3, 2025 – 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific

Christa Whitney leads the Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project, which has recorded more than 1,300 in-depth video interviews that provide a deeper understanding of the Jewish experience and the legacy and changing nature of Yiddish language and culture. The interviews are conducted in Yiddish and/or English with narrators of all ages from a variety of backgrounds. Betty Lancer, a regular participant in Yiddish Alive, was one of those interviewed. The collection includes native Yiddish speakers, grandmothers, descendants of Yiddish writers, world-renewed klezmer musicians, students and much more. The interviews are focused life histories, covering family background involvement with Yiddish language and culture, Jewish identity and the transmission of a culture and values across generations of communities.

Click here for more information on the Wexler project.

Christa P. Whitney is an oral historian and documentary filmmaker whose work focuses on language, culture, and identity. Originally from Northern California, she discovered Yiddish while studying comparative literature, Jewish studies, and dance at Smith College. Since 2010, she has traveled near and far in search of Yiddish stories as the director of the Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project, a growing collection of more than 1,300 in-depth video interviews. These full-length oral histories and curated excerpts are freely available online to all who seek a fuller understanding of the place of Yiddish in Jewish past, present, and future. In recognition of this work, Christa was named on the 2020 Forward 50 list of “people we needed in a year we definitely didn’t.” Her personal research focuses on Yiddish cultural transmission among descendants of Yiddish writers and Jewish history in the Samogitia region of Lithuania. Among other things, she is currently working towards an MBA from the Isenberg School of Management at UMass.