Outwitting History
Encyclopedia
Outwitting History by Aaron Lansky
is a book about Lansky and his book-saving adventures. At age 23 Lansky read that thousands of the few remaining Yiddish
books in North America were being discarded by the children of the books' original Yiddish-speaking owners. The books meant nothing to many of those who had inherited them, as they had no knowledge of Yiddish. Thousands of volumes were thus being consigned to dumpsters and a whole literature was in danger of being lost. Lansky felt compelled to preserve the language, and issued a public appeal for unwanted Yiddish books. He received a very large number of responses and set out, with a team of volunteers, to retrieve and store the remaining Yiddish books.
for his efforts in saving Yiddish books.
Outwitting History won the 2005 Massachusetts Book Award.
Aaron Lansky
Aaron Lansky is the founder of the National Yiddish Book Center, an organization he created to help salvage Yiddish language publications. When he began saving books in the early 1980s, most experts believe that there were fewer than 70,000 Yiddish volumes extant...
is a book about Lansky and his book-saving adventures. At age 23 Lansky read that thousands of the few remaining Yiddish
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
books in North America were being discarded by the children of the books' original Yiddish-speaking owners. The books meant nothing to many of those who had inherited them, as they had no knowledge of Yiddish. Thousands of volumes were thus being consigned to dumpsters and a whole literature was in danger of being lost. Lansky felt compelled to preserve the language, and issued a public appeal for unwanted Yiddish books. He received a very large number of responses and set out, with a team of volunteers, to retrieve and store the remaining Yiddish books.
Aaron Lansky's accomplishments
Today Aaron Lansky is the president of the National Yiddish Book Center, which holds more than 15 million Yiddish books. In 1985 he received a MacArthur FellowshipMacArthur Fellows Program
The MacArthur Fellows Program or MacArthur Fellowship is an award given by the John D. and Catherine T...
for his efforts in saving Yiddish books.
Outwitting History won the 2005 Massachusetts Book Award.
Sources
- Muse magazine March 2007 Volume 11, Number 3
- http://www.massbook.org/reading_guides/Outwitting%20History%20discussion%20guide2%20PDF.pdf
- http://yiddishbookcenter.org/+10183
External links
- National Yiddish Book Center website
- For more information about Musehttp://www.cricketmag.com/ProductDetail.asp?pid=12