Audio: National Public Radio Profiles the National Yiddish Book Center

Here’s a report and some added links about the award winning work being done by the National Yiddish Book Center (NYBC).
While I’m far from fluent in Yiddish it’s a language I use often. I was fortunate to have had my grandmother (who was fluent in Yiddish) living in my house while I was growing up and many objects, events, etc. were almost always described using a Yiddish word or expression. Today, my wife (her grandparents were also fluent in Yiddish) and I continue using the Yiddish we learned in our home and with our son.
From the Text Version of the NPR Report:

Plays, poetry, novels, political tracts — all were published in Yiddish until the Holocaust. A great deal of these works can now be found at the National Yiddish Book Center in Western Massachusetts.
The center was founded by Aaron Lansky, who began his efforts to save Yiddish books in 1980, while enrolled in a Jewish Studies program at McGill University in Montreal.
[Clip]
The National Yiddish Book Center’s headquarters is on the campus of Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. It is a light and airy structure that recalls a wooden synagogue in one of Eastern Europe’s shtetls or small towns.
The oldest books are stored in a climate-controlled vault on the lower level and newer books are upstairs on shelves. Books are still being published in Yiddish today in the U.S., Israel, Europe and South America.

Read the Complete Article / Listen the Audio Version of Report
Direct to National Yiddish Book Center Web Site
See Also: Yiddish Book Center Multimedia Library (via Internet Archive)
See Also: The National Yiddish Book Center Was a 2014 Recipient of the IMLS National Medal for Museum and Library Service
See Also: More About the Yiddish Book Center in this 2011 Post

Filed under: Awards, Libraries, News, Profiles