National Yiddish Book Center

The National Yiddish Book Center is a non-profit organization working to rescue Yiddish and other modern Jewish books.  It was founded in 1980 by MacArthur Fellow Aaron Lansky who worked with student volunteers for the first two years.  When the work first began, it was estimated that there might be about 70,000 books still extant and recoverable.  The Center recovered that number in the first six months and went on to recover about 1.5 million volumes with hundreds still coming in every week.

These Yiddish books are priceless—they survived both Hitler and Stalin and tell about a culture that might otherwise disappear.   The goal of the Center is to return these old books to new readers.

Hatikvah co-sponsors many programs, often movies and book reviews with the National Yiddish Book Center. The center also sponsored the 2006 Yom Ha Shoah program.

Learn more about the National Yiddish Book Center.