Before the Second World War, Yiddish was spoken by some 11 million Ashkenazi Jews, a majority of the world’s Jewish population. The Holocaust decimated Yiddish language, literature, and culture in Europe. After the war, assimilation in the West also took a toll, as did the establishment of Hebrew as the official language of the State of Israel.
The National Yiddish Book Center was founded in 1980 by Aaron Lansky (pictured), then a young graduate student studying Yiddish literature. The center is dedicated to preserving and reviving what many thought was permanently lost. So far the center has accumulated more than a million Yiddish books, and its collection continues to grow. The National Yiddish Book Center is located at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Quote: “So I started putting up notices, little signs, in the Jewish delicatessen, in the laundromat in the old Jewish neighborhood, saying, ‘I’m a young graduate student, I’m looking for Yiddish books.’ So before I knew it, people are calling up, boxes of books are piled high, and my apartment is overflowing with piles and piles and piles of Yiddish books. And it was somewhere along that point I got a phone call from my parents, and they said, ‘Aaron, I think your going to have to come home, because the rabbi is giving us so many books, we’re afraid the second story of the house is going to collapse.’ ” — Aaron Lansky
Sources: Wikipedia, “Bridge of Books” on YouTube
Learn more about the National Yiddish Book Center on Wikipedia. >>
Watch “Bridge of Books,” the moving story of the National Yiddish Book Center [13:35] >>
Go to the website of the National Yiddish Book Center. >>
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