Saving a culture through its books
99% of the people who visit the National Yiddish Book Center can't read the books, and neither could Aaron Lansky when at age 23 he set out to save thousands and thousands of priceless Yiddish books, books that had survived immigration across many countries and destruction by Hitler and Stalin. The older, Yiddish speakers were dying, and their treasures were being thrown out. Yiddish books were a portable homeland, and after Jews had a homeland, many people forgot them. His first visit to an elderly man involved sitting down with him to hear the story of each book. Stop at the home page and click on the brief film about the National Yiddish Book Center. (I was unable to embed the video.) I had tears in my eyes and marveled at the story of this young man who saved a culture that spanned hundreds of years and many cultures.And now, through Internet Archive, you can visit too. The National Yiddish Book Center, founded in 1980, "is proud to offer online access to the full texts of nearly 11,000 out-of-print Yiddish titles. You can browse, read, download or print any or all of these books, free of charge. These titles were scanned under the auspices of our Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library, and have been made available online through the Internet Archive."
The index isn't difficult to use, the tags are self explanatory, and even if you don't read Yiddish, you can enjoy the pictures, like the 1926 vegetarian cook book I looked through.
I started my professional career (as a graduate assistant) unpacking and dusting off hundreds of PL 480 books in the bowels of the library at the University of Illinois. I can start sneezing from the memory of mold of the boxes and boxes of books brought to the vet library from the barn after grandpa died and no one knew what to do with his books. So I have a tender spot for this story. Many years ago I'd read about Lansky's efforts--probably before he had a building, and long before digitization made it possible for me to see his efforts. A truly amazing rescue work.
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6 comments:
Norma, thanks for the plug for the National Yiddish Book Center. I have been a supporter of the center ever since it was established. I contributed my father's Yiddish book collection to the center after his death. Unfortunately, I can no longer read Yiddish as easily as I did when I was younger, and it saddens me to see the language languishing. Ironically, the only people for whom Yiddish is still the primary language, the Hasidim and other ultra-Orthodox Jews, have little interest in the secular Yiddish literature in which the library specializes.
I've been reading your blog for around 6 months now, and I truly enjoy it ... I certainly appreciate your perspective.
I noticed that one of your recent posts talked briefly about the upcoming Library levy vote and your thoughts. I am certainly glad that you can see through what we're being told by the city and the library ... but then again, I wouldn't have expected less based on the thoughtfulness with which your posts are composed!
Thank you for your blog ...I look forward to reading more!
V. UA
Mort: what a wonderful tribute to your parents. Lansky's efforts are an inspiration for all of us who think "what could one person do?" Languages are being restored all the time--brought back from extinction. I think Yiddish will make it. Get out your books and make a few recordings.
My Uncle Bill donated quite a bit of books to this collection before he died. These included some of his and some he hunted down to donate. My mother and her family were Yiddish speakers although born and raised in NJ. I was raised in a bi-lingual household but never spoke Yiddish although I understood lots. Unfortunately most is gone from my memory although I remember words and phrases. Yiddish for all sorts of reasons has contributed lots to what is now Yinglish and you hear it all the time on tv and in literature. My older brother taught himself to read Yiddish it as an adult and for years he was a translator at a hospital near his home for Russian Jews since he knew Russian and Yiddish. E.
I thought that I would tell you that I forwarded your article about the Yiddish library to some relatives and friends and all were so delighted and all watched the film. Since my aunt and uncle donated books to this collection it had some definite relevance. In two generations not one of these people had even a nodding accquaintance with Yiddish although as I told you my brother did and I had a smattering, mostly now forgotten except some verbs and nouns and curse words in which Yiddish was really rich. I did not ever use these myself. My mouth would have been rinsed with soap. . My mother was born in NJ and did not speak a word of English so her teacher had her repeat kindergarden and while she spoke Yiddish well and even attended a Yiddish school when young (I have the photo of the entire school) she had to teach herself to write it in adulthood when her mother, my grandmother went to stay in California for months at a time. I think people care a bit more about preserving their culture now but in those days you just learned to speak English as all my older relatives did and read it too. No catering to those who want to have us speak their languages as seems to happen now. My mother had not one bit of accent, only English. My father grew up in a Yiddish household and could hardly use it himself and he too was born in the USA. It was swept away with the old country. EB
At the age of 23 Lansky created the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, and started collecting books that would otherwise have been consigned to destruction. When he set out on his mission, it was estimated that only 70,000 Yiddish books were left in the world. Six months later he had already saved 70,000 books. He’s since gone on to save 1.5 million, making them available to libraries and individuals around the world.
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