Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books
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As a twenty-three-year-old graduate student, Aaron Lanskey set out to save the world's abandoned Yiddish books before it was too late. Today, twenty-five years and one and a half million books later, he has accomplished what has been called "the greatest cultural rescue effort in Jewish history." In Outwitting History, Lansky shares his adventures as well as the poignant and often laugh-out-loud stories he heard as he traveled the country collecting books. Introducing us to a dazzling array of writers, he shows us how an almost-lost culture is the bridge between the old world and the future—and how the written word can unite everyone who believes in the power of great literature.Publishers WeeklyLansky was a 23-year-old graduate student in 1980 when he came up with an idea that would take over his life and change the face of Jewish literary culture: He wanted to save Yiddish books. With few resources save his passion and ironlike determination, Lansky and his fellow dreamers traveled from house to house, Dumpster to Dumpster saving Yiddish books wherever they could find them-eventually gathering an improbable 1.5 million volumes, from famous writers like Sholem Aleichem and I.B. Singer to one-of-a-kind Soviet prints. In his first book, Lansky charmingly describes his adventures as president and founder of the National Yiddish Book Center, which now has new headquarters at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. To Lansky, Yiddish literature represented an important piece of Jewish cultural history, a link to the past and a memory of a generation lost to the Holocaust. Lansky's account of salvaging books is both hilarious and moving, filled with Jewish humor, conversations with elderly Jewish immigrants for whom the books evoke memories of a faraway past, stories of desperate midnight rescues from rain-soaked Dumpsters, and touching accounts of Lansky's trips to what were once thriving Jewish communities in Europe. The book is a testimony to his love of Judaism and literature and his desire to make a difference in the world. Agent, Carol Mann. (Oct. 1) Forecast: A Jewish Book Council-sponsored national tour should help put this at the forefront of books of Jewish interest this fall and lead to handsome sales. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
ForewordixPart 1Learning Yiddish11.Out of the Dumpster32.Bread and Wine93."Come Back after Yontef!"194."What Is Mendele Doing in a Fruit Basket on the Floor?"29Part 2On the Road415.A Ritual of Cultural Transmission436."Don't You Know That Yiddish Is Dead?"477.A Day in the Life578.A Brief History of Yiddish Literature699."People Are Dying Today Who Never Died Before"7910."Pretty Soon We'll Have a Whole Forest in Israel and No More Members Here"8611."Love and Peace"9312."Ostroff! Sea Gate!"10213.The Great Newark Book Heist118Part 3"Him I Don't Talk To!"12314."You're a Liar!"12515."They're Tearing Apart the Library"14016.A Ghost in the Attic15017."If Not Higher"15918."Hitler's Fault"170Part 4Ganvenen dem Grenets--Crossing the Border18119.Squandered at the Concord18320.Kaddish19421.A Job for the Young21022.The Four Corners of the Earth21923.Back in the U.S.S.R.241Part 5Bringing It All Back Home25924.Der Oylem Redt--The World Takes Notice26125.A Home of Our Own27726.Immortality28927.The Valise at the Bottom of the Sea301Notes313Acknowledgments317
