VIDEO: Actor Jacob Lewin describes Yiddish cultural life in the Lodz ghetto
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Forverts Staff October 13, 2021
The Yiddish actor, Jacob Lewin, who lives in Los Angeles, is one of the few Jews left who actually remembers what life was like in the Lodz Ghetto.
In 2004, Miri Koral, the director of the California Institute for Yiddish Culture and Language, interviewed him in Yiddish about his life both during and after the war, and excerpts of that interview were subtitled and posted on YouTube in 2017.
In this clip, Lewin describes the thriving Yiddish cultural life that took place in the ghetto, despite the depressing circumstances and also tells about his settling in Melbourne where he reunited with several childhood friends and was deeply impressed by the Yiddish culture that continued there.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
