YiddishBookCenter.org is National yiddish book center.
Title
National Yiddish Book Center
Description
About the Center
The National Yiddish Book Center is a vibrant, non-profit organization working to rescue Yiddish and other modern Jewish books and celebrate the culture they contain. Supported by 30,000 members, we are now the largest and fastest-growing Jewish cultural organization in America.
Rescuing a Literature
The National Yiddish Book Center was founded in 1980 by MacArthur Fellow Aaron Lansky, who continues to lead the organization as its president. When he was a 23-year-old graduate student, Lansky stumbled upon an alarming fact: throughout North America, thousands of priceless Yiddish books – books that had survived Hitler and Stalin – were being discarded and destroyed. As an older generation passed on, more often than not their precious Jewish volumes were literally thrown in the trash by children and grandchildren unable to read the language. An entire literature was on the verge of extinction.
Lansky realized something had to be done – and done fast – before it was too late. So he took what he thought would be a two-year leave of absence from graduate school and, operating out of an unheated factory loft, issued a public appeal for unwanted and discarded Yiddish books. Jews from all over America rallied to the call.
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