Yiddish Book Center facts for kids
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The Yiddish Book Center is located on the campus of Hampshire College.
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| Established | 1980 |
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| Location | 1021 West Street, Amherst, MA, 01002 |
The Yiddish Book Center is a special place in Amherst, Massachusetts. It works to save books written in the Yiddish language. It also helps people learn about the culture and history found in these books. Think of it as a treasure chest for Yiddish stories and traditions.
Contents
History of the Yiddish Book Center
How the Center Started
The Yiddish Book Center began in 1980. It was started by a young student named Aaron Lansky. He was studying Yiddish literature, which means books written in Yiddish. Aaron noticed that many old Yiddish books were being thrown away. This happened because younger Jewish people in America often couldn't read the language of their parents or grandparents.
Aaron wanted to save these important books. He created a group of volunteers called zamlers. This Yiddish word means "collectors." These volunteers helped gather Yiddish books from all over the country. Aaron wrote a book about how he started this project.
Saving Yiddish Books
When Aaron began, experts thought there were about 70,000 Yiddish books left. But the Yiddish Book Center has found over a million books since then! They still get thousands of new books every year from around the world.
The Center's Home
In 1997, the Yiddish Book Center moved to its current building. It's a large place in Amherst, Massachusetts. The building's design looks like the roofs of an old East European shtetl, which was a small Jewish town.
This center is now home to many things. It has exhibits, a huge collection of Yiddish books, and educational programs. It also hosts a music festival called Yidstock every year. In 2010, the center changed its name slightly. It dropped the word "National" and is now just called the "Yiddish Book Center."
Amazing Collections at the Center
The Yiddish Book Center has many different collections of books and recordings. They even share duplicate books with libraries and schools worldwide.
Digital Yiddish Library
- The Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library started in 1997. It has made over 12,000 Yiddish books digital. This means you can download them for free online!
- In 2012, the center teamed up with the National Library of Israel. They worked together to digitize even more books. Because of this effort, Yiddish is now one of the easiest languages to find books for online. By the end of 2014, books from this digital library had been downloaded 1.3 million times.
Memorial Books Collection
- The David and Sylvia Steiner Yizkor Books Collection has hundreds of yizkor books. These are special memorial books. They tell the stories of Jewish communities in Eastern Europe that were destroyed during the Holocaust. You can search these books online.
Children's Literature Collection
- The Noah Cotsen Library of Yiddish Children's Literature has about 800 books. These include original Yiddish stories and Yiddish versions of classic tales from other languages. Most of these children's books have also been made digital.
Recorded Yiddish Books
- The Sami Rohr Library of Recorded Yiddish Books has about 150 audio recordings. These include novels, short stories, and poems. Native Yiddish speakers recorded these books in the 1980s and 90s.
Online Audio Library
- The Frances Brandt Online Yiddish Audio Library has recordings of talks and interviews. These feature writers and poets who visited the Jewish Public Library of Montreal. The Yiddish Book Center is working to make about 1,100 of these recordings available online.
Oral History Project
- The Wexler Oral History Project is a collection of over 1,200 interviews. These are stories from people about Yiddish language and culture. Many interviews are with Holocaust survivors sharing their experiences. The collection also includes talks with Yiddish scholars and artists today. In 2013, the project even interviewed the famous actor Leonard Nimoy.
Public Programs and Resources
The center offers many fun programs about Yiddish and Jewish culture. They have two changing exhibits each year in their Brechner Gallery.
Permanent Exhibits
They also have several permanent exhibits you can always see:
- The Lee & Alfred Hutt Discovery Gallery helps you explore Jewish cultural identity.
- Unquiet Pages focuses on Yiddish literature.
- A Living Connection shows photographs from old expeditions.
- Sholem-Bayes looks at Jewish homes in America.
- The Nancy B. Weinstein, Kindervinkl is a special corner for children.
- The Appelbaum-Driker Theater has exhibits on Yiddish movies and radio.
- A reproduction Yiddish Print Shop shows how Yiddish newspapers were made.
Pakn Treger Magazine
Pakn Treger is the center's magazine. Its name means "book peddler" in Yiddish. This magazine is in English and covers topics about Yiddish culture and literature. It also shares news from the center. Each year, they publish a special online issue with new translations of Yiddish literature.
Educational Programs
The Yiddish Book Center has many ways for people to learn. They offer online and in-person classes.
- The Steiner Summer Yiddish Program is for college students.
- The Great Jewish Books Summer Program is for high school students.
- They also have workshops for teachers.
- There are fellowship programs for people who want to study Yiddish deeply.
- They offer online and in-person classes for adults, including the Bossie Dubowick YiddishSchool.
- Middle and high school students can also visit the center for field trips.
Translation and Other Initiatives
In 2013, the center started a big project to translate Yiddish books. This helps more people read Yiddish stories in English.
- They have a translation fellowship program.
- They also have their own publishing company called White Goat Press. This press publishes new translations of Yiddish books.
- Taytsh.org is a website that helps people who are translating Yiddish to English.
- They also publish an annual digital collection of translated works in Pakn Treger. White Goat Press has released five books as of 2022, including a new Yiddish textbook.
