Aaron LanskyRezensionen

Update 11 April 2024.
I just read this for a second time for a bookgroup. I had to, it had been my nomination. As much as I liked it the first time, I might have liked it even more on this second reading. Lansky did a great job with his book rescue and he did a great job with this book. I just finished writing my own book about my father that I based on his memories that he wrote for me some years ago. My parents didn't speak Yiddish at home; they spoke Polish. We never went to synagogue, we didn't celebrate the high holidays -- we didn't even celebrate Chanukah and the only time we ever had a seder at our house (we always went to friends) my mother served shrimp on the salad. But I always knew we were Jewish. How can you not when all the family, except my parents, was murdered in the Holocaust? This time around I enjoyed the whole book again, from start to finish, but I found some of his comments at the end, of what it means to be Jewish, more meaningful.

This is the story of the rescue of a million Yiddish books. In the process of the rescue, Lansky met many fascinating and interesting people and ate some wonderful food, in great quantities. I laughed, I cried, and I learned quite a bit about my own, Jewish history and culture. I recommend the book for anyone who is interesting in books, culture, languages, modern Jewish history, deli food....
See my blog for more thoughts on the book:
http://beyondthepale-dvora.blogspot.com/2012/01/roots.html

"Engaging first-person account of how some committed young people rescued from history’s dustbin more than a million books published in Yiddish.

In prose that sometimes lurches and jolts along like the overloaded rental trucks that the author and his merry band used to collect books, Lansky unfolds a tale of rare emotion and devotion. He was only 23, in 1980, when he made the decision to dedicate himself to the cause of saving books in Yiddish. He had begun studying the language while at Hampshire College and was shocked to discover that many libraries were discarding Yiddish works by the thousands because so few circulated. His account of his rescue efforts takes the form of an adventure story, related with a breathless and appealing Andy Hardy earnestness. The author and his companions pluck books from Dumpsters in the rain, from closing libraries, from damp garages and basements, from dour doubters, from aging Jews who surrender them like favorite children—with flowing tears, many tales, and much food. They make harrowing missions to Russia and Cuba. But it all pays off: Lanksy now oversees a huge enterprise comprising a state-of-the-art facility, the National Yiddish Book Center, and a membership of some 35,000 supporters. He is digitizing the volumes, virtually all of which were printed on paper whose acid content assures disintegration. The purpose of the Book Center is not to hoard but to distribute the volumes. It maintains a core collection but considers putting books into the hands of readers among its chief purposes, in addition to making sure key titles are in libraries where scholars can consult them. Lansky also chronicles the history of Yiddish, his fundraising efforts (considerably accelerated by a 1989 MacArthur genius grant), and his countless public appearances (including a funny episode at a Catskills resort).

A rollicking ride in company with a man who has performed an enormously important public service." www.kirkusreviews.com, A Kirkus Starred Review

Gripping account of how one man's intellectual curiosity leads him, without obvious expectations of what he was getting into, to undertake a life's quest to preserve the Yiddish literature. He interrupted his schooling in Yiddish literature to take a year's leave to collect books because they were all but impossible to find, and never returned. It's true, I suppose, that life is what happens when we're making other plans, and that the biggest regrets of our lives will be not taking advantage of the opportunities that appear to do not only great things, but things we love with all our being.

The timeline in the book is a bit bumpy, but the major point is less to give a history than to evoke a sense of why the project was important, and worth the doing. On that level, the book succeeds brilliantly.½

This is definitely one of the best books I have read this year. Once I picked it up, I had go on until I was finished. This is the story of Aaron Lansky and his quest to save Yiddish books. At a time when even most Jews had given Yiddish up as dead, Lansky had the vision to rescue the lost books of Yiddish and then place them in the hands of people who needed them. So, pulling up his bootstraps, with help from various people, and a lot of guts, he went around collecting books, leading to the eventual foundation of the National Yiddish Book Center.

The stories in the book vary from very moving to humorous. From digging books out of dumpsters to meeting with elderly Jews who passed their collections to him one book at a time, Lansky's adventures take him around the world. And all this before the Internet was around. We take for granted that you can digitize books now (and they do digitize books now), but back in the early 90s, the technology to do so was brand new, untried. We also get to see him travel from Africa to Europe and even Latin America and the Soviet Union. And yet, for all the books he saves, there are so many lost. And indeed, Yiddish still is a relatively small language, so to speak, and one that is endangered. But it is also a language of history, of culture, of memory, and one that a new generation now wishes to discover, or rediscover, as a way to get to know its heritage. So there is some hope. ]

In the process of reading the book, you also get some lessons in the history of Yiddish and a little lesson in world history as well. So it makes for a very good book to read. If you are a reader who likes to read about books, who likes a good tale, and a little history, then this is definitely a book for you. It may, as it did for me, make you wish you could go out and read some of the many works and authors that Lansky mentions in the book. Sadly, I can't read Yiddish, but I can hope maybe to get a hold of one of the new translations of Yiddish works the NYBC is putting out (it would be nicer if one day I could learn to actually read the language). In the meantime, get a hold of this book.

7 stars: Good

From the back cover: As a 23 year old graduate student, Aaron Lansky set out to save the world's abandoned Yiddish books before it was too late. Today, 25 years and 1 1/2 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.

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I don't have a whole lot to add to the above. This book was different than I expected-- though I'm not certain why, as it does follow what is described above. I found I learned a fair amount about Yiddish and some details of Jewish cultural history I was not aware of. I am glad I read this, but ultimately didn't find anything stand out for a reread.½

In the late 1970s, Lansky began taking college Yiddish classes and soon found that it was quite difficult to find books in Yiddish, so he began taking them in. As word got out that he was accepting them, more and more people started calling with books for him to take. In the process, he learned a whole lot about Jewish culture, particularly in the aftermath of WWII, and of the often conflicting views of Yiddish as both language and social construct. I am not Jewish and the only Yiddish I know are the few words that have trickled into American English (kibbitz, tchotchke, etc.), so this book took me into quite unfamiliar territory. Which is really the best part about books.

Did not expect to enjoy this as much as I did. A happenstance mission to save all the Yiddish books, worldwide, becomes a grassroot journey, driven by the author, with many a mishap, history lesson and sit down dinner. The stories told by the numerous book donators were heartwarming, heartbreaking and humorous. I picked up a few Yiddish words that are now part of my vocabulary and learned a lot about the tenacity of preservation. A truly amazing story of how driving dilapidated rental trucks with nickle and dime finances eventually led to a multi-million dollar library housing over a million Yiddish publications. A Bravo! read.

Did not expect to enjoy this as much as I did. A happenstance mission to save all the Yiddish books, worldwide, becomes a grassroot journey, driven by the author, with many a mishap, history lesson and sit down dinner. The stories told by the numerous book donators were heartwarming, heartbreaking and humorous. I picked up a few Yiddish words that are now part of my vocabulary and learned a lot about the tenacity of preservation. A truly amazing story of how driving dilapidated rental trucks with nickle and dime finances eventually led to a multi-million dollar library housing over a million Yiddish publications. A Bravo! read.

The amazing story of a young man who discovers that as older Jews are dying, their Yiddish books are being discarded. He starts asking for the books and ends up creating a massive library of Yiddish literature, saving it from oblivion. Inspiring and exciting reading.

Rather compusively readable, even though I found the author's voice a bit irritating. He did a nice job of interweaving fun stories with details of the history of Yiddish speaking and literature so it wasn't all just cute and heartwarming. By the end it did start to loose it's charm and read more like an annual report and his reasons for why in particular he felt that Yiddish books were important to save were never clear to me, even though he did explain it alot. But a good read, nonetheless.

As a graduate in his young twenties, Aaron Lansky had a problem: he was studying Yiddish with friends, but there were no books. His grandparents' generation had books but they were dying out; his parents' generation had become so assimilated in America that they couldn't read them. So, Aaron put the word out and began collecting. Before he knew it, he had thousands of books and a dream of saving all of the Yiddish literature that he could.

Aaron Lansky's memoir is a great story of how he began saving Yiddish books, often quite literally from dumpsters, and preserved them for a new generation. His memoir recounts his adventures meeting people who had to pass on their inheritance of literature to him one story at a time, founding the Yiddish Book Center, and finding ways to get more books into the hands of young people. It's inspiring and funny by turns. It reads quickly for nonfiction, dragging a little for me in the middle, but generally page-turning good fun.½

This was a surprisingly well-written book, with stories that kept me interested, even fascinated, throughout! Lansky had to deal with a very wide range of issues, including marketing, fundraising, storage, domestic and international travel, and digitization, while working with people on an individual level, learning their personal histories at the kitchen table. I recommend this book very highly!

Lansky’s autobiographical account of the creation and history of the National Yiddish Book Center in Outwitting History is all at once heart-breaking, gut-wrenching, and awe-inspiring. If die a little inside every time you see someone cavalierly throwing away an old book, then you will immediately identify with Lansky’s cause. Even as a non-Jew, I was deeply touched by the efforts he went through to save every Yiddish text he could.

http://lifelongdewey.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/002-outwitting-history-by-aaron-la...½

Aaron Lansky started out as a graduate student interested in Yiddish literature when he set out with some friends to look for Yiddish books. At the advice of his professor, they began combing areas of New York where elderly Jewish people were still living. They were horrified to discover that entire generations of Yiddish speaking immigrants were dying off and their books were being dumped, as their children had never learned to read the Yiddish language. This autobiographical account details how Aaron began his life-long crusade to rescue a million Yiddish books, preserve Jewish history, and promote the Yiddish culture for future generations, through the eventual creation of the National Yiddish Book Center.

I really enjoyed this book, which took a compassionate and humorous look at the donors who lovingly passed on their "treasures" and the rescuers who were trying to save the books on limited funds and time (while continually being fed excessively by the donors). As a reader with limited experience of the Jewish/Yiddish world, I found the story to be culturally sensitive, enthralling and hillarious. I would strongly recommend this book. It is very well written as well as entertaining.

Book review by Connie Stolow

I grew up in a home where my grandmother lived with us and spoke Yiddish with my parents. I often wished I could speak with her but no one ever made any effort to teach me Yiddish.

I had heard about Aaron Lansky and the heroic efforts of his group of young people to rescue Yiddish books before they were all lost. This effort never resonated with me until I read this wonderful, funny and moving account of his adventures. His stories of the individuals who welcomed him and his team into their homes, fed them tea and cake, and shared their emotional connection to their books, has changed my understanding of the whole undertaking and given me a new appreciation of Yiddish literature and culture.

Aaron Lansky has written an amazing book. It won the Library Journal Best Book of 2004, the Massachusetts Book Award in nonfiction for 2005 and is an ALA Notable Book. Aaron Lansky is the founder and president of the National Yiddish Book Center (www.yiddishbookcenter.org) in Amherst, Massachusetts. He has also received a MacArthur “genius” fellowship.

The Boston Globe says in a review, “What began as a quixotic journey was also a picaresque romp, a detective story, a profound history lesson, and a poignant evocation of a bygone world.”

I think it is wonderful that many young people are now learning Yiddish and that there is now a Center where these beautiful and valuable books are being stored, loaned, and read. They are not just books, but the record of a whole culture that came close to being lost. Outwitting History by Aaron Lansky can be borrowed from the Temple Library and I recommend it highly.

I'm a huge lover of books about books, and first read about Mr. Lansky from Nicholas Basbanes. This was a real heart-warmer. Yiddish literature wasn't some tiny, obscure scrap of culture. It is amazing how it was saved, and begs the obvious question: How many other, more obscure, "smaller" cultures and written languages are we loosing?½

In this book, the author chronicles how he and a small dedicated group went about the process of rescuing the literature of a tongue from passing away.

Like it or not, Yiddish literature is finite, bound to a specific time and place. But precisely because Yiddish literature is finite, it is enormously important, a link between one epoch of Jewish history and the next. Its world's having been ferociously attacked and almost destroyed only serves to underscore its significance. The books we collect are the immediate intellectual antecedent of most contemporary Jews, able to tell us who we are and where we came from. Especially now, after the unspeakable horrors of the twentieth century, Yiddish literature endures as our last, best bridge across the abyss.

Well written and interesting.½

In the 1970s, 23-year-old Aaron Lansky recognizes that due to the aging of the population literate in Yiddish, the books are disappearing rapidly. Into trashbins, literal and historical. He sets out to rescue them from individuals and organizations. The stories are hilarious and poignant. The vignettes are so true to life.... because they are true. 90-year-olds turning over their precious collections in tears, but asking for the time to explain the books and what they meant, performing in the process an act of desperate and final cultural transmission. He has now built the effort into the National Yiddish Book Center. I highly recommend it for any interested reader!

When you see a book on the shelf with the words "hilarious" and "Yiddish" both on the front cover you are compelled to pick it up. This was my experience with Outwitting History. In the book, Lansky describes the long process of gathering withering Yiddish books from all over the globe. This body of literature faced possible destruction as older generations died off and younger generations moved on. I realize from this brief description I may not have enticed you into checking this book out. However, let me just say that this book is much, much better than I am describing.

The historical reasons leading Yiddish literature's demise are strongly tied to the Jewish experience. Lansky provides glimpses into this historical, and heart-wrenching, past and forces the reader to ask some very hard questions. Some of his stories sound a bit repetitive during the middle part of the book, but when he describes his experiences of crossing national borders to rescue books during the latter half of the book he really hits his stride.

Everyone go read Outwitting History. Right now.If you are a lover of books, of immigrants, of lost causes, of old Jewish ladies that feed you too much and say "nu?" (and who isn't?) you must read this book. You will be inspired. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll thank me. And then we'll all go take a Yiddish class together.

If the title of this book puts you off to reading it, like it did me for a great while, don’t waste another minute until you begin. This was a most delightful read, causing me both to laugh out loud and weep tears of nostalgia as author Aaron Lansky searched the United States and later around the world for Yiddish books. As I’m the sort of person who collects books to give to others, I felt a personal connection to the work of this author. I was cheering him on when he was able to discover some rarer books and feeling comforted by all of the home-cooked meals he was fed by his elderly donors during his book runs.

A favorite part of the book for me was the Yiddish phrases that were used throughout. For someone who knows Yiddish (or even, as I do, German), the book really comes alive. Yiddish is a language that not only conveys a message, but it also conveys an attitude. All of the Yiddish phrases are translated (albeit a few not quite literally), but with these phrases come the hearts and the souls of the people who utter them.

I adored reading this book. Its effect on me is my wish to help support Aaron Lansky’s cause, to encourage my friends to donate their Yiddish books to his center, to encourage others to learn and study Yiddish, and to find a Yiddish book to borrow just to see how much of it I can understand (as I do know how to sound out the Hebrew letters). I was truly inspired by this very entertaining read and would highly recommend it to others, Jewish or not. If you have a love of books, you’ll find a lot to like in Lansky’s story.½

This book is the last present I bought my grandfather before he died. I walked into a small bookstore and the owner recommended it to me (you simply cannot get this kind of service from the major book chains). I must have read half the book in a day, before I sent it to him, and got to finish it only after he passed away.

I'm glad I bought this book, he loved it and so did I.

The book tells the story of a graduate student trying to rescue Yiddish books from elimination, and all the characters he meets along the way. The book is easy to read, funny, inspiring, well writing and a page turner. A story of how one man's passion triumph over the odds.

Lansky does a wonderful thing by rescuing books, and it's heartening to read about his efforts. But after a while his story becomes repetitive (find books, save books, catalogue books), and he definitely spends time patting himself and his organization on the back -- a little off-putting, even if he's earned it.½