Outwitting History- The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books by Aaron Lansky
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ReneeKimball
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Outwitting History- The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books by Aaron Lansky
Book Review – Finding Books-Saving a Language and a Culture
“There are ways to recover, say tomato seeds, but language is an oral medium . . . it is gone if direct speakers are dead and nothing has been done to document it.” KEREN RICE
In 2013, Raveena Aulakh reported that “half of the world’s 7,000 languages” faced extinction by the end of the 21st century. Why would this matter? When a language is lost, so is its culture.
In 1980 Aaron Lansky began a life-long quest to save Yiddish books. Only 23 years old when he began his search, he was told there were maybe “70,000” Yiddish books left in the world – they were wrong.
Over the next 25 years Lansky and his friends saved 1.5 million Yiddish books and, in the process, created The National Yiddish Book Center, with a membership of 35,000 people-- the largest group dedicated to the preservation of Jewish culture in the United States.
Yiddish means “Jewish,” and has its foundational roots in Hebrew, Aramaic, as well as multiple European languages. For hundreds of years, Jews faced forced relocations across all of Europe. With each new environment, Yiddish accumulated new words, meanings, and pronunciations reflecting the local areas. The marginalization of Jews prohibited them from displaying or documenting a separate Jewish identity but speaking Yiddish linked Jews as a people.
Lansky knew Yiddish was dying as a form of communication, but for him, Yiddish books represented a written history of the Jews as a people and as a literate culture. Despite Hitler’s programmed genocide and push for destruction of Jewish culture, Yiddish language and literature managed to survive even the Holocaust moving with their owners across Europe, into the United States, and other countries.
Newly arriving Jewish immigrants to the United States spoke Yiddish as they arrived from war torn Europe and they brought their Yiddish books. In fact, Yiddish literature was still published in America up to the 1970s when it began to wane, the Yiddish language and its speakers and readers were disappearing. Lansky was determined to find these remaining lost gems of literature and save them for the future.
Lansky’s quest was not an easy one. But he pressed on and in 1980, Lansky quit school, withdrew his savings, and rented a U-Haul setting out to rescue whatever Yiddish books he could find.
Lansky’s persistence paid off when elderly Jews who had heard of Lansky’s search, contacted him. It began with a few, then many, elderly pleading with Lansky to take their Yiddish collections. Elderly Jews agonized that they had no one to care for their books and their children had no interest in Yiddish or reading it. For many, the books were often times left with Rabbis or thrown out. Lansky was not one to shy away from jumping in dumpsters or traveling distances to save these discarded books regardless of the weather and his lack of resources. Lansky’s search grew and Rabbis were soon transferring stacks of discarded books his way.
Books held by their owners for years were given to Lansky. To these aging Jews, each book was more than just a story, these books were living things and monumental memories. With each donation, the owner gave a part of their heart, their family, and their remembrances to Lansky for safekeeping. Along with each book, a story was told. The act of both the giving and the story telling were, in Lansky’s terms, a “cultural transmission” but even larger than that, “Book by book, he was placing all his hopes in me” (Lansky).
Lansky returned to graduate school and while finishing up his master’s degree in 1980, along with help from his father, friends, and two of his professors, the foundation for the National Yiddish Book Exchange was conceived and incorporated. (Now changed to National Yiddish Book Center).
Outwitting History is Lansky’s story of his search for a lost language, and what he found along the way represented more than just books. Lansky’s search takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster that travels across people’s lives and time and the books they treasured. It is about a love of language and books and the survival of a people. It is also about a 23 years old’s quest to save a culture and one cannot help but be amazed at his success. What he found was not just books, but a history of a people.
“This book is an adventure story: It tells how a small group of young people saved Yiddish books from extinction. It’s also the story of the Yiddish-speaking immigrants who owned and read those books—how they sat us down at their kitchen tables, plied us with tea and cakes, and handed us their personal libraries, one volume at a time. The encounters were almost always emotional: People cried and poured out their hearts, often with candor that surprised us all.”
Outwitting History – The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books by Aaron Lansky, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 2005
References
Outwitting History – The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books
by Aaron Lansky, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 2005
Dying languages: scientists fret as one disappears every 14 days. The Star By Raveena Aulakh, Environment, April 15, 2013.
Yiddish Book Center Online.
“There are ways to recover, say tomato seeds, but language is an oral medium . . . it is gone if direct speakers are dead and nothing has been done to document it.” KEREN RICE
In 2013, Raveena Aulakh reported that “half of the world’s 7,000 languages” faced extinction by the end of the 21st century. Why would this matter? When a language is lost, so is its culture.
In 1980 Aaron Lansky began a life-long quest to save Yiddish books. Only 23 years old when he began his search, he was told there were maybe “70,000” Yiddish books left in the world – they were wrong.
Over the next 25 years Lansky and his friends saved 1.5 million Yiddish books and, in the process, created The National Yiddish Book Center, with a membership of 35,000 people-- the largest group dedicated to the preservation of Jewish culture in the United States.
Yiddish means “Jewish,” and has its foundational roots in Hebrew, Aramaic, as well as multiple European languages. For hundreds of years, Jews faced forced relocations across all of Europe. With each new environment, Yiddish accumulated new words, meanings, and pronunciations reflecting the local areas. The marginalization of Jews prohibited them from displaying or documenting a separate Jewish identity but speaking Yiddish linked Jews as a people.
Lansky knew Yiddish was dying as a form of communication, but for him, Yiddish books represented a written history of the Jews as a people and as a literate culture. Despite Hitler’s programmed genocide and push for destruction of Jewish culture, Yiddish language and literature managed to survive even the Holocaust moving with their owners across Europe, into the United States, and other countries.
Newly arriving Jewish immigrants to the United States spoke Yiddish as they arrived from war torn Europe and they brought their Yiddish books. In fact, Yiddish literature was still published in America up to the 1970s when it began to wane, the Yiddish language and its speakers and readers were disappearing. Lansky was determined to find these remaining lost gems of literature and save them for the future.
Lansky’s quest was not an easy one. But he pressed on and in 1980, Lansky quit school, withdrew his savings, and rented a U-Haul setting out to rescue whatever Yiddish books he could find.
Lansky’s persistence paid off when elderly Jews who had heard of Lansky’s search, contacted him. It began with a few, then many, elderly pleading with Lansky to take their Yiddish collections. Elderly Jews agonized that they had no one to care for their books and their children had no interest in Yiddish or reading it. For many, the books were often times left with Rabbis or thrown out. Lansky was not one to shy away from jumping in dumpsters or traveling distances to save these discarded books regardless of the weather and his lack of resources. Lansky’s search grew and Rabbis were soon transferring stacks of discarded books his way.
Books held by their owners for years were given to Lansky. To these aging Jews, each book was more than just a story, these books were living things and monumental memories. With each donation, the owner gave a part of their heart, their family, and their remembrances to Lansky for safekeeping. Along with each book, a story was told. The act of both the giving and the story telling were, in Lansky’s terms, a “cultural transmission” but even larger than that, “Book by book, he was placing all his hopes in me” (Lansky).
Lansky returned to graduate school and while finishing up his master’s degree in 1980, along with help from his father, friends, and two of his professors, the foundation for the National Yiddish Book Exchange was conceived and incorporated. (Now changed to National Yiddish Book Center).
Outwitting History is Lansky’s story of his search for a lost language, and what he found along the way represented more than just books. Lansky’s search takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster that travels across people’s lives and time and the books they treasured. It is about a love of language and books and the survival of a people. It is also about a 23 years old’s quest to save a culture and one cannot help but be amazed at his success. What he found was not just books, but a history of a people.
“This book is an adventure story: It tells how a small group of young people saved Yiddish books from extinction. It’s also the story of the Yiddish-speaking immigrants who owned and read those books—how they sat us down at their kitchen tables, plied us with tea and cakes, and handed us their personal libraries, one volume at a time. The encounters were almost always emotional: People cried and poured out their hearts, often with candor that surprised us all.”
Outwitting History – The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books by Aaron Lansky, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 2005
References
Outwitting History – The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books
by Aaron Lansky, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 2005
Dying languages: scientists fret as one disappears every 14 days. The Star By Raveena Aulakh, Environment, April 15, 2013.
Yiddish Book Center Online.
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sharcg5
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I read this book many years ago, and was deeply impressed with the depths Lansky and his team went to locate books. And the stories the people told were priceless. Giving up their books was like giving up a part of their life. It was difficult to part with these books, like a favorite toy or possession, almost like an heirloom. Lansky found so many, many books. Who would have thought that so many people were able to bring books with them from Europe, of all things, books.
A wonderful book, well written, humorous, and deeply inspirational. I loved it.
A wonderful book, well written, humorous, and deeply inspirational. I loved it.
