Abstract

Alana Fichman, 2014 Yiddish Book Center's Steiner Summer Yiddish Program student, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on July 24, 2014 at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. She grew up in Santa Rosa, California. Her parents were physicians, and although they were not very religious by some standards, they were more observant than many of the people in their milieu. Alana's family was musical; she describes how they and their friends gathered in Redwood Grove one year during Rosh Hashanah to play klezmer music. The polarized political atmosphere on her college campus and the desire to create a progressive Jewish space there led Alana and a group of fellow students that focus on Yiddish rather than Hebrew. Alana participated in the Helix Project which takes groups of young Jews to Eastern Europe to learn about their heritage; the experience gave her a stronger connection to her Jewish identity, and she decided that she wanted to learn Yiddish. Alana is enrolled in the Steiner Program where students have language and culture classes, see films, and participate in a poetry group and music club. Alana plans to continue her Yiddish studies, although her family have mixed feelings about her pursuing this trajectory. To Alana, books and learning are central to Jewish culture and have allowed the Jewish diaspora to maintain a coherent identity throughout the years of dispersion. She feels that coming from a "fringe" immigrant group has influenced her sense of self. She warns that learning Yiddish may not fulfill one's specific expectations but will nevertheless change the way one views the world.

Addeddate

2015-10-02 17:19:06.275011

Citation

Alana Fichman Oral History Interview, interviewed by Christa Whitney, Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project, Karmazin Recording Studio, Yiddish Book Center, July 24, 2014. https://archive.org/details/AlanaFichman24july2014YiddishBookCenter ([date accessed]).

Color

color

Controlled-themes

Advice | Jewish Identity | Yiddish language | Childhood | Family histories | Yiddish learning | Post-vernacular uses of Yiddish | Languages | Hebrew | Music | Klezmer | Singing | Religion | Eastern Europe | United States | Politics and political movements | Yiddish Book Center | Heritage | Jewish community | Rural | Travel

Excerpts

3648, 3649, 3650, 3651, 3652, 3653, 3654, 3655, 3656

Geographic-themes

Belarus | Lithuania | Poland | Kaunas, Lithuania | Eastern Europe | United States

Ia_orig__runtime

61 minutes 49 seconds

Identifier

AlanaFichman24july2014YiddishBookCenter

Interview-date

7/24/2014

Interview-location

Karmazin Recording Studio

Narrator-birth-place

Santa Rosa, California

Narrator-birth-year

1991

Narrator-first-name

Alana

Narrator-last-name

Fichman

Organization-themes

Yiddishkayt | Yiddish Book Center's Steiner Summer Yiddish Program | Wallis Annenberg Helix Fellowship

People-themes

Alana Fichman

Run time

1:01:49

Series

Yiddish in the Academy: scholars, language instructors, and students
Yiddish in the Academy: scholars, language instructors, and students

Sound

sound

Uncontrolled-themes

Alana Fichman | Belorussia | Belarus | Lithuania | Poland | Kaunas | Kovno | Kovne | Yiddishkayt LA | Steiner Summer Yiddish Program | The Helix Project | Reform | Reform Judaism | Arabic |

Uncontrolled-themes2

Alana Fichman | Belarus | Lithuania | Poland | Kaunas, Lithuania | Kovne | Yiddishkayt | Yiddish Book Center's Steiner Summer Yiddish Program | Wallis Annenberg Helix Fellowship | Reform | Reform Judaism | Arabic

Wohp-interview-id

588

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