PHOTOS: Medfield Reads Visits Yiddish Book Center in Amherst

Editor's note: Submitted by Medfield Public Library Adult Services Librarian Andrea Fiorillo.

Medfield Reads hit the road for a trip to the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass. earlier this month. After reading about the adventures of Aaron Lansky in the book Outwitting History, forty community members boarded a charter bus, generously funded by the Friends of the Medfield Public and the IMLS, and set off for our own bookish adventure.

It was a beautiful day for a field trip. On arriving at the Yiddish Book Center we were given a guided tour.  The Center works to rescue Yiddish and other modern Jewish books and open up their content to the world. Their mission extends beyond books into many aspects of Yiddish culture. On the tour we learned about the Center’s language internship programs. We discovered treasures such as galleries full of art, interactive exhibits, a theater, rows and rows of books, printing presses, and an oral history recording booth.

Everywhere we looked we made connections; so much of what is offered at the Center ties into the programming we’ve enjoyed with Medfield Reads this year. We have our own oral history project with both a sound booth at the library and ongoing recordings with Medfield TV. The gorgeous architecture of the Center is modeled after traditional Polish wooden synagogues. Handshouse Studios came to Medfield in February to discuss efforts to replicate this building style, as all of the original synagogues were burnt down by anti-Semites during the WWII era. One of the Handshouse synagogue models was on display at the Center, illustrating how culture can be preserved in architecture as well as literature.

Attendees were pleased to find the work of Yiddish writer I.L. Peretz at the Center. On May 29^th the library will host a program on one of Peretz’s most provocative short stories Bontsha the Silent. Another direct connection between the Center and Medfield Reads can be found in the Center’s exhibit on the Russian revolutionary, writer, and ethnographer S. Ansky and Debra Olin’s art now on display at the library.  Her work is inspired by Ansky’s sociological studies of Russian Yiddish Culture.

Everywhere we looked we saw our own explorations of Outwitting History reflected back to us. The connections didn’t end with the building and exhibits though. The most valuable connections were between people. The neighbors, families, library staff, and even strangers who got on the bus together that morning in Medfield returned from Amherst with a fresh connection to one another.