Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures Of A Man Who Rescued A Million Yiddish Books (2005) - Plot & Excerpts
Shmegegee, shmuck, putz, meshugana…this is the Yiddish I grew up around, a Yiddish that permeated many Jewish households on Long Island. Until I was a teenager, I didn't know that my father could speak Yiddish. I didn’t know anybody could speak Yiddish, that it was a full language with verbs and adjectives, and not just insults. My father learned Yiddish from his grandparents who helped raise him. My great grandmother Anna swore at us in Yiddish, her Alzheimers stealing her love from us. She scared me, and I never knew the dedicated mother and grandmother, who never learned to read or write, but made sure all her children had a decent education. My education never included a formal study of Yiddish. Like other immigrant groups who lost their native tongues, Eastern Europeans Jews disposed of Yiddish in favor of English. A few years ago, when I went with my aunt and uncle to visit the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA. To be honest, I do not remember much about the visit, except feeling a little confused why a Yiddish Center was located in rural Massachusetts. I did not fully understand the purpose of the National Yiddish Book Center until I read Outwitting History, an engaging triumphant story that once again illustrates Margaret Mead's famous quote that "A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."I found the book at my grandma’s house, and started to read, hoping it would help me fight my insomnia. At midnight, I became engrossed in readable, inspiring story of the creation of the Yiddish Book Center. I enjoyed the book for so many reasons. I love the idea of someone coming up with an idea, and seeing it to fruition. Aaron Lansky wanted to save Yiddish literature, and he went about it in the most physical and basic ways. With friends, he collected books from damp basements, dusty attics, and garbage filled dumpsters. Numerous practical problems, from storage to money, didn't stop him. But even as the books piled up, the bigger question arose -- Who would read these books? Who would care? Everything else had been lost in the once vibrant life and culture of Eastern Europe. There was no physical home to return to. Not for the people and not for their books. Mr. Lansky tells the story of his visit to a small village in Lithiuania that once had been filled with thousands of Jews and now had only one small stone to commerate the demolish Jewish cemetery. Other headstones had been turned into walls and steps. There was no home to go back to. This and other experiences strenghtened his desire to give the books a homeland, an Israel for books, but without the contentious borders. The story of how the center got the funding and support is told with both love and drama. Mr. Lansky does not make himself the hero of the tale. He generously includes all those who helped, including great tales of the elderly Jewish people who handed over their books like they were handing over their children. Mr. Lansky traveled everywhere to get the books, from Cuba to the former Soviet Union. It was a tale of saving an endangered species before it was wiped off the earth. Thanks to the full digitization of all the books in the collection, all of Yiddish literature is now available to be printed and sent anywhere in the world. Yiddish was the first language to have its entire literature fully digitized.Judiaism emphasizes the seperation of the holy and the unholy. The Sabbath and the other days of the week. Lansky writes about the differences between the holiness of Hebrew and the earthiness of Yiddish. The earthiness of Yiddish has definitely inflitrated the English and the Yiddish I was brought up among. Also, the love of social justice and learning, intricately linked to the language, pervaded my upbringing and dominates my life today.Will I go out and learn Yiddish now? I will ask my grandma, aunt and dad for a few lessons. Probably not, but I will seek out the translated books, and yes something will be lost in the translation, but the spirit will stay on. Recommended readings and websites from the book:- A Brief History of Yiddish Literature- Modern Jewish Short Stories and Diasporan Culture \www.jafi.org.il/education/juice/histo...- Books by Isaac Loeb Peretz- Books by Sholom Aleichem, especially Tevye’s Daughters on which Fiddler on the Roof is basedFor information on the center, go to http://www.yiddishbookcenter.orgAleichem Sholom!
Aaron Lansky's unprettified tale of rescuing Jewish books is deceptively simple. He takes a simple story and retells it again and again, changing details each time, and advancing a larger narrative with each retelling. It goes like this. Someone called and said "come save our Yiddish books, they are (1) being thrown in a dumpster; (2) sitting in a basement that is about to flood; (3) moldering in an attic; (4) being thrown out because my parents just died; (5) etc." The author rents an old truck, gets some friends or coworkers together, drives through rain and snow, meets some interesting people, gets fed food from a long ago land, sits and listens to their stories, loads up the books into an old truck as they rest on the edge of destruction, and brings them back to his warehouse to save a culture and redistribute the books to new readers. This work continues throughout the 1980s and 1990s, as the last Yiddish speakers fade away, and continues to this day. He tells this story again and again, and each time we slice through a new corner of the Yiddish world that was, from North America to Eastern Europe to Latin America. We are reminded that this Yiddish speaking world was not all happy Rothsteinesque ("The Joy of Yiddish") cute one word expressions that you can throw into your conversation, but was filled with sophisticated intellectuals and political activists, people who hated each other to their dying day - communists who wouldn't speak to socialists, socialists who despised culturalists, religionists who despised them all, and many more - all of who whom were determined to go to their deaths waging war against their fellow travelers in the land of Yiddish, even as they built a Jewish literature in the larger cultural universe. Indeed, there once was a world. It washed up on American shores and lived fully, but was not able to transmit itself to the next generation.As Lansky travels from scene to scene, from old age home to dumpster to basement, hunting for every Yiddish book in existence, he introduces us to beautiful people and bitter people alike, and to a vast dying linguistic civilization. It's really fascinating.For his work Lansky received a McArthur "genius grant" and founded the Yiddish Book Center which collects, preserves, digitizes and distributes Yiddish books. But much more deeply, he meditates on the varieties of Jewish identities and civilizational choices. There was a time in the late 19th century early 20th century when Zionism was just one possible Jewish future, while Yiddish culture debated many others too- a Soviet future, a socialist future, a secularist future, even an American future. Hitler and Stalin annihilated most of those, with only the Zionist option left standing, together with a deracinated American version. When I lived in Israel in the 1980s, and was busy learning Hebrew, my aunt Elenore Lester, a theater critic in New York, told me about the Yiddish revival. I could not have been less interested - Yiddish was old news and I saw little future for Jewish life in America. Now, in middle-age, firmly rooted in the diaspora, I find questions of Jewish civilization in the diaspora much more engaging and important than questions involving Israel. For me the eternal Jewish question is not to regain the land, but to live in the condition of diaspora, galute. Yiddish civilization and literature puts me in touch with the last moment before the Holocaust and the rise of Israel when we Jews wrestled deeply and long with our place as a diaspora people. Yiddish will not be a spoken language (outside of the Hassidic world) in America again, but the questions raised by its literature are more relevant than ever to the Jewish project of building and maintaining a thriving diaspora civilization, and a unique cultural position within a multi-cultural mosaic.
What do You think about Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures Of A Man Who Rescued A Million Yiddish Books (2005)?
FascinatingWhile "Amazing Adventures" seems to overstate the case, this was a fascinating work about how one man, with some help, pretty much saved Yiddish books from extinction. I love books, and I'm a voracious reader. Just a look at my blog or goodreads pages will tell you that. I love old books. It's really hard for me to pass up a pre-copyright volume at a good price. The thought of people discarding books of their heritage because their children are not able to read the language is heartbreaking.Yet, that is precisely what was happening to books written in Yiddish. Yiddish is the product of the Jewish people having no homeland and incorporating Hebrew with the languages of the lands in which they lived. A hybrid language. Some would say an illegitimate language. While the younger generation just didn't know the language in America (their parents and grandparents saw that lack of knowledge as a way for integration to occur), there was a segment of the older population that abhorred Yiddish because it wasn't scholarly. These people actively refused to save Yiddish books, afraid they might corrupt young people. Aaron Lansky, the author of Outwitting History, grew up hearing Yiddish, but never learning it. In college he wanted a degree in Jewish studies and decided Yiddish was an important part of that education. It was during this time he realized that Yiddish books were scarce, and growing more rare by the day.Some of this was because of the Holocaust. Entirely groups of people had to abandon everything to flee or be sent to concentration camps. Their books, and indeed everything left behind that wasn't deemed valuable by their captors, was destroyed. When Aaron decided he needed to save Yiddish books from the destruction that was happening because young people weren't learning Yiddish anymore, scholars estimated that only 70,000 Yiddish books existed worldwide.He recovered that many books in six months. Over twenty years after starting this journey, Aaron and the non-profit he founded has saved over 1.5 million Yiddish books, sheet music, and pamphlets including some volumes which were believed to be entirely eradicated. Outwitting History is a fascinating look into what went into recovering a significant part of history that was almost lost forever. Aaron's story is truly one of being in the right place at the right time - and taking the appropriate action.While a basic knowledge of Hebrew or Yiddish is helpful for reading this book, it is not required. Translations are given whenever Yiddish is used, or context gives an explanation. If you like history, books, memoirs, Jewish culture, or David vs Goliath stories, this book is for you.A highly enjoyable read. Definitely recommend.
—Ruth Sophia
Lansky's quarter-century quest not only helped keep Yiddish literature from slipping into history, but also provided him with plenty of terrific material for his first book. Granted, a story about collecting old volumes in an obscure language initially sounds less than thrilling. But thanks to Lansky's storytelling skills, this memoir lives up to the "amazing adventures" advertised in its title; it's quickly clear why he's been dubbed "the Yiddish Indiana Jones" and "the Otto Schindler of Yiddish literature." Lansky's recounting of his personal mission may come off as self-aggrandizing to a few readers. But most will likely view the book as a great tale filled with memorable anecdotes and a rich cast of characters who reflect the endangered culture they're trying to save. This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
—Bookmarks Magazine
This was a delightful read - at times a romp, at times very sobering. I picked it out of the stacks mainly because it was about books - the cover image grabbed me. But I know almost nothing about Jewish history or Yiddish. What a delightful surprise. I knew nothing of this organization or its story, and I feel like a whole new window has been opened. I found myself affecting a Yiddish accent at times. I have new phrases now. But not like The Joy of Yiddish - but with the backstory to go with it. I found out much more than I could have anticipated about the Jewish experience, outside of the Holocaust. The experience in Russia stands out: "Every week Moscow would send the librarians a list of the latest banned books they were supposed to destroy. Every library had a special fireplace in the courtyard just for this purpose, and every week my mother had to join her colleagues all across the country in burning another batch of Yiddish books." p245Can you imagine? It goes against everything books stand for. Everything a library represents. It's like Fahrenheit 451 come to life. I don't know how people suffer things like this - and much worse. It makes me very happy to have my local branch libraries and our great, beautiful central libraries (of which I have access to two, being in the Twin Cities - how lucky am I?).This book was as much about hope as about books - hope of a future generation, hope of a world in which people can live in peace, no matter what their differences.This was the best serendipity that I've come across in the stacks in a long time, and one of the main reasons why I don't only rely on my online requests. If I wanted to, I could go no further than the pick-up shelves. But I'm often glad when I venture on.
—Linda
