Aaron Lansky, who rescued 1.5 million Yiddish books and founded the Yiddish Book Center, is retiring

Abstract

An article about Aaron Lansky, who founded the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA. Lanksly, and who is retiring as president of the Center. As a 23 year old graduate student in Jewish Studies at McGill University, he was trying to locate Yiddish books to help him with his research in Eastern European Jewish studies. He found many books that were being discarded by libraries and private collections. He took a 2-year leave of absence from his studies and set upon a mission of saving as many of these Yiddish books as possible. He is credited with saving 1.5 million volumes that would otherwise have been discarded and destroyed. His work at the Yiddish Book Center helped to spur a wider appreciated of Yiddish language and culture. Click on the link to read the article.