We honor the memory of acclaimed actor and activist Ed Asner, z”l (1929-2021). Christa Whitney had the special opportunity to sit down with Ed for an interview as part of the Center’s Wexler Oral History Project back in 2018. In the interview, he reveals his humble beginnings growing up in his father’s junkyard, attending kheyder [traditional Jewish religious school] four afternoons a week while his friends were out playing ball. He reflects on his complicated Jewish identity, how his bar mitzvah kicked off his acting career, and his love of Yiddish. We’ve included some highlghts below; you can also watch the full interview, search the transcript, and browse the photos donated along with the interview. Ed Asner’s oral history interview is part of our growing digital collection of over 1,000 interviews about Yiddish language and culture.
“My father came from . . . Well, he called it Eišiškės, or Eyshishok. And I gather it’s right on the border of Lithuania and Belarus . . . so much I want to tell about him. He was orphaned. His mother died when he was twelve. His father remarried, and she was not nice, the second wife. So the initial children from the father were somewhat ill-treated. And at the age of twelve, my dad was in the forests of Lithuania chopping shingles. Came from a large family, as they all did, and got to the States—maybe 1900, somewhere around that date. Came in through Boston and worked for a year in Boston. I don’t know what he did there. But because all the foreigners moved on because of landsmen [fellow countrymen], because of paisans [Italian: fellow countrymen], whatever, he knew of successful Jews in Kansas City. So, he felt that his future and fortune lay there…
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