Outwitting History : How a Young Man Rescued a Million Books and Saved a Vanishing Civilisation

“In 1980, a twenty-three-year-old student named Aaron Lansky set out to rescue the world’s abandoned Yiddish books before it was too late. Precious volumes that had survived Hitler and Stalin were being passed down from older generations of Jewish immigrants to their non-Yiddish-speaking children – only to be thrown away or destroyed. With little more than his own chutzpah, Lansky issued a worldwide appeal for unwanted Yiddish books, and the response was overwhelming.” “Outwitting History is an adventure tale filled with unforgettable characters and told with the exuberance of a man whose passion led him from house to house, country to country, collecting treasured books and heartfelt, often hilarious stores of the vibrant intellectual world these older Jews inhabited. Lansky and a team of young volunteers crisscrossed America, shlepping books from attics and basements, demolition sites and dumpsters, while shmoozing with their owners, who insisted on feeding them a little nosh – gefilte fish, kasha, blintzes, latkes, kugel – before handing over, one book at a time, their beloved literary heritage.” When Lansky started out, experts believed that fewer than 70,000 Yiddish-language books still existed. Twenty-five years and 1.5 million books later, the organization Lansky founded, the National Yiddish Book Center, is one of the largest and fastest-growing Jewish cultural groups in the world. As he takes us along on his journey, Lansky explores the roots of the Yiddish language and introduces us to the Yiddish writers – from Mendele to Sholem Aleichem to I. B. Singer – whose lasting cultural relevance is evident on every page.