Lansky Continued from page 5


we might think of as the back of a book is actually its front, when written in Yiddish. To an outsider, then, these texts seem


to begin at our accustomed ending point, challenging our most basically held assumptions.


The center’s appearance is also


distinct: it’s that of a classic, European thatched-roof building. Lansky explained that it was built to resemble small Jewish towns in Eastern Europe called “shtetls.” “I also wanted it to have the feel of


old wooden synagogues,” Lansky said. He added, paraphrasing the building’s architect Allen Moore, “It walks a very thin line. We wanted it to evoke a historical recall, and have echoes of the past, without being a


Yiddish


Disneyland.” Lansky’s group purchased a roughly 10-acre plot of land from Hampshire College (his alma mater) in the mid-1990s to construct the current home of the YBC. The mutual interests of the book center and the adjacent college continue to be vaguely related, as shown in their cooperative efforts, Lansky said. “The idea was to ring the campus with interesting nonprofit organizations,” Lansky said in his book. He calls the space, carved into an apple orchard, with its own woodland pond and an open view of the Holyoke range, “The most magnificent piece of land that Yiddish has ever known.”


The 37,000-square-foot headquarters


integrates an open Yiddish book repository, English-language bookstore, theatres, art galleries, museum exhibitions about Yiddish language and culture, and much more. Its total price tag amounted to roughly $7 million. The current building, however, is only the latest book warehouse occupied by Lansky’s group since about 1980. He originally started his collection in apartments, and moved his efforts to an old mill building in Florence upon incorporating as a nonprofit. Everything in that original location was either built from scrap or salvaged – bookshelves, office furniture, and a single telephone. “We were trying to save the world’s


Yiddish books before it was too late,” he recalled of the early days. His indomitable spirit ultimately


helped save an endangered language, and preserve an at-risk culture. Lansky referenced a Jewish story


about a “treger,” a Jewish person who makes a living hauling heavy burdens on his back. “Even the most humble Jew has the right and the responsibility to change the world,” Lansky summarized about this tale of one man’s conviction. It’s a metaphor for himself; Lansky’s burdens are multitude. He carries books and a cultural legacy on his shoulders.


Surviving Extinction


Although certain Yiddish words do seem to lend themselves to a punchline in the Catskills (one of the many places Lansky has spoken in support of the YBC), he also cautions in his book against the notion of pouring on the


politics starting around World War II. “It didn’t die a natural death,” he said.


“It was brutally uprooted by Hitler and Stalin.” Lansky added, “Most of these books technically survived World War II, but only because two-thirds of the publishing in Yiddish at that time was in the United States. The culture of these writers, however, was destroyed in the war.”


He’s said that not only were half of all


Yiddish-speaking Jews murdered in the Holocaust, but also Stalin ordered all of the Soviet Union’s leading Yiddish writers shot on a single night in 1952. When Lansky began his quest in


earnest around 1980, a much quieter threat endangered these same volumes. “Later [Yiddish books] would face


neglect,” he said. “In an astounding number of cases, the books were being thrown out. This was emblematic of a much larger problem: Jews kept the religion but lost the culture.” A byproduct of


American


“schmaltz,” or considering Yiddish to be a “darling” little language. Rather, he considers Yiddish “the language in which millions of Jews lived and died and affirmed their dignity in the face of cataclysmic violence and oppression, the language in which they cried out to God and man for justice.” Yiddish was the primary spoken language of Eastern European Jews for 1,000 years. However, the near- eradication of the Yiddish language from the face of the Earth paralleled the global


assimilation, as Phillip Roth famously wrote about in his books, the discarding of Yiddish writings was part of fitting in. Lansky called Yiddish “an unwelcome reminder of the immigrant culture they had worked so hard to forget.”


Pursuit of the Future


Asked if he knocks on every door to gather funds for the Yiddish book collection, he quipped, “Maybe every other door. [Fundraising] is kind of the bane of your existence in nonprofits. All of us pitch in. We also rely on our 17,000 members who each pay $36 a year. That


Excellence doesn’t fall far from the tree.


The reputation of the Jewish Nursing Home wasn’t built from steel and stone. It grew out of the values embraced by the compassionate individuals who founded Jewish Geriatric Services. So you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that this same tradition of quality and professional care is found throughout Jewish Geriatric Services’ family of healthcare programs: • Jewish Nursing Home


• Ruth’s House Assisted Living Residence • Spectrum Home Health and Hospice Care • Wernick Adult Day Health Care Center • JGS Family Medical Care • Genesis House Subsidized Housing


Open to all faiths, Jewish Geriatric Services provides health-related care to individuals no matter what stage of life they are in. And these services will continue to be here for clients as their lifestyles and health change — just as they have for nearly 100 years.


Come to know us for who we are. Call us at 413 567-6211 or visit www.jewishgeriatric.org.


12 PRIME FEBRUARY 2012


Thank you for reading our magazine!


PRIMEontheweb.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24