Join us Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 12:00 noon at the Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust to honor Aaron Lansky
Celebrate the retirement of our founder and president after 45 years of service. Visit the event page for more information.
Tayere khaveyrim—Dear Friends,
Thanks to your steadfast support, the Yiddish Book Center has come farther than anyone thought possible. The Yiddish Book Center is one of the largest, liveliest, and most optimistic Jewish organizations in America. We’ve recovered 1.5 million books and posted them online, where they’ve been downloaded nearly five million times. We’ve trained translators and launched our own publishing house to bring Yiddish titles to English readers.
We’ve released a two-volume textbook that is revolutionizing Yiddish language learning. We recorded more than 1,300 oral history interviews to preserve Yiddish and Jewish stories for future generations. Demand for our educational programs is skyrocketing, as more people seek a deeper understanding of who Jews are, where we came from, and what we’ve created along the way. And in 2023, we opened our groundbreaking permanent exhibition, Yiddish: A Global Culture which is the first comprehensive survey of modern Yiddish culture.
Now, with so much good work behind us—and so much more yet to do—we are turning our eyes to the future. We are launching Tsukunft, our 50th Anniversary Campaign to ensure that everything we built together will endure. Our board has set the ambitious goal of increasing our endowment from its current $65 million in gifts and pledges to $100 million before our 50th anniversary in 2030.
This campaign also includes a remarkable challenge. Over the years, Larry Kaplen, a member of our board, has been enormously generous. He provided the leadership gift for the Kaplen Family Building, which doubled the size of our Amherst headquarters. Now he’s stepped forward again, this time with a challenge of $10 million in operating funds —provided you and other loyal donors match that sum with $20 million in new gifts and pledges in support of our endowment. As an added incentive, Larry has selflessly asked us to recognize his contribution—and your matching gifts—by naming the Yiddish Book Center’s campus for Aaron Lansky, in honor of his lifetime of leadership, vision, and devotion.
As you know, the Yiddish Book Center has accomplished the impossible many times before, and we are confident we can do it again now—but only if all of us do our part. To find out how you can help, please contact our director of institutional advancement, Zvi Jankelowitz, at [email protected], or phone him on his private line at 413-409-5117.
A sheynem dank—our sincere thanks.
The Yiddish Book Center’s Amherst headquarters was designed to recall a shtetl, a traditional Jewish town or village in Eastern Europe. Now, thanks to the generous support of Larry Kaplen and other loyal donors, we plan on naming the Yiddish Book Center’s campus for founder and president Aaron Lansky, in honor of his lifetime of leadership, vision, and devotion.
We continue to rescue Yiddish books and cultural artifacts. Thanks to your support, we are currently working on the Universal Yiddish Library, combining holdings to make Yiddish the first fully accessible literature in history.
We’re committed to bringing translated Yiddish works to English readers. Our Translation Fellowship program is training a new generation of Yiddish translators, and our publishing imprint, White Goat Press, is bringing affordably priced translations to English readers around the world.
Over the past four decades, our innovative educational programs have brought Yiddish language, literature, and culture to students of all ages.
Our Wexler Oral History Project is a growing collection of more than 1,300 in-depth video interviews chronicling a lost world and offering reflections on what it means to reinvent Jewish identity today.
Yiddish: A Global Culture, our groundbreaking permanent exhibition, is a rich and revelatory account that places Yiddish at the heart of the modern Jewish story.
The Yiddish Book Center offers lively programming year-round, including special appearances from the leading Yiddish performers of the day.
Our Endowment & Endowed Funds
A gift to the endowment at the Yiddish Book Center is an investment in the future. Endowed funds grow in value over time and provide annual income to support our programs and initiatives. Learn about how you can help secure our long-term future by creating a fund.
Yerushe Society
A hartsikn dank -- heartfelt thanks to the members of the Yerushe Society, who have designated the Yiddish Book Center in their estate plans.
Make your mark
To discuss how you can help us secure the future of the Yiddish Book Center, please contact Zvi Jankelowitz, Director of Institutional Advancement