Lansky: Outwitting History
The last few weeks several people recommended to me Aaron Lansky’s Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books. They told me that it is funny and covers and amazing story. I still haven’t read it (so right now you can still borrow it), but wanted to share this recommendation with all of you. “[It is] about Aaron Lansky’s travels as he and a team of volunteers crisscrossed America, retrieving Yiddish books from dusty attics, crumbling basements, and dumpsters.” His (and his colleagues’) efforts led to the foundation of the National Yiddish Book Center. The book itself won numerous prizes and its author also received a MacArthur “genius” fellowship. Instead of trying to convince you that you should read it, why don’t you listen to chapter 20, titled Kaddish, read by the author himself. (It is 21 minutes long) Click the play button below or download the 4.7 MB MP3 file for later listening.
Sylvia Sucher:
You’d be interested to know that when Aaron Lansky got started in his rescue of Jewish books in NY, I was still living there and can remember the excitement we all felt as his project progressed, reported with much general interest regularly on radio and in the NYTimes.
Subsequently, some years later, Vivian Salmon,a member of the Book Club, and I visited the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Ma. It is a very impressive place, not only for the thousands of Yiddish books gathered there, but for the active educational program functioning there.
9 November 2008, 9:58 am