Highlighting Yiddish

Book Talk
By EDITOR

In last month’s Chronicle, the Editor’s piece spoke about preserving our culture, specifically as relates to the collection of Yiddish-language books that would otherwise be discarded. The topic was prompted by a book called Outwitting History, which relates the story of Aaron Lansky, an American who has collected over a million Yiddish books that would otherwise have been lost.

The topic sparked some interest — in fact, our social media posts of the article resulted in hundreds of reactions, and quite a few people around the world shared the post with its link-through to the article itself. As a result of the interest, our colleagues at the Jacob Gitlin Library informed us of a children’s picture book in their collection that relates Aaron Lansky’s story and how he “preserved culture and history.” The book also reflects “the power of an individual to bind past and future generations through language and literature.” 

Included in the book are a number of Yiddish words that many of us know and use. In its glossary of words, it also highlights a few words that we probably think are English words, but that are in fact derived from the Yiddish language. For instance, the word ‘glitch’  — which in English refers to a malfunction — is the English version of a Yiddish word ‘glitsch’, which describes slippery conditions. 

Both the adult version of the book and the children’s picture book are available for borrowing from the Jacob Gitlin Library, which has mounted a special exhibition of their books about Yiddish. Some long-time favourites such as The Joys of Yiddish join a range of others, some with delightful titles like Rhapsody in Schmaltz: Yiddish Food and Why We Can’t Stop Eating It.’

• Published in the May 2024 issue – Click here to start reading.

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