National Yiddish Book Center News

As many of you may know- this summer I worked as an intern at the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA. Much of the amazing experience that I had was because of some of the amazing people there this summer, one such was Mandy Cohen- an advisor and friend in Yiddish and life. She has made me aware of many disturbing happenings at the Book Center- and in this blog I have chosen to reprint her open letter to the Book Center, if you have any friends of Yiddish, please pass it on as well.

To the executives of the NYBC and staff of the summer internship program,

Hopefully you will all remember me. I was a summer intern at the NYBC
in 2006, and following that I worked part time as an assistant to Jane
Gronau in the visitor's center, as well as to Aaron Rubinstein and
Catherine Madsen in the books department, and Robby Peckerar in the
last few months that he was employed there. Last summer I was the
assistant for the internship program and had planned to return this
summer for the same position. It is interesting for me to think that I
have worked for the book center, on and off, longer now than many of
its current staff members. And if I were to return this summer, I
would be outlasting at least two more of the your staff, Aaron and
Jane.

I must inform you that I will not be returning to the book center this
summer and perhaps you will do me the courtesy of reading this email
through, so that I might explain why. I am extremely disturbed by the
poor treatment of the book center's staff that I have observed in my
time there. In fact, I have now watched almost every single staff
member who I respected lose their job in one way or another. This
included Robby Peckerar, Adam Siegel, Janet Kannel, and now Aaron
Rubinstein and Jane Gronau. I've also seen an alarmingly quick turn
over of the staff who were brought in to fill these and other
positions. This seems also to have created a change in staffing ratio
so that there is almost no one now working at the book center who
actually works in any way with the Yiddish language, literature or
history. Rather you have a staff of fundraisers and marketers. I'm
well aware that the book center executives would easily explain away
each of these examples as individual occurrences, or based on recent
financial troubles, but I don't think that can erase the very blatant
pattern that has been established.

The book center has played an incredibly important role in my life.
The summer internship which introduced me to Yiddish was a turning
point for me academically and personally, giving me a connection to my
Jewish history and defining the course of my academic studies. I am
now a graduate student at UC Berkeley in comparative literature, where
I study German and Yiddish. I truly believe it was the internship at
the NYBC that set me on this path, and I honestly cannot imagine what
my life would be like or where I might have ended up without Yiddish.
I love the stacks of the NYBC, and the warehouse, there are few other
places on earth where a person can find so much of the history of
Yiddish assembled. And I loved being a part of the internship last
summer, getting to facilitate that first encounter with Yiddish for 18
amazing students. And yet I've had to watch two very disturbing trends
develop in the organization to which I owe so much: first, I saw the
person who ran that first life changing internship lose his job and
since then I've watched the same thing happen to several other
employees, and second I've had to watch as the attention of the
organization moves further and further from any actual concern with
the Yiddish books which should be the primary focus of its existence.

I think these things are related. I think both are examples of the
willingness of the executives of the book center to use and manipulate
not only the cause the organization was created to serve, but also the
people who work there and by extension the members who support it. Let
me emphasize, I believe that the work of collecting, saving and
redistributing Yiddish books that the NYBC has accomplished over the
last 30 years is invaluable, miraculous, but at some point the
original spirit of the work was completely lost and since then the
NYBC seems only to serve the egotistical and self-promoting business
model of its executives. It is becoming a place devoid of content,
that puts up a front of supporting Yiddish only in order to raise
money for who knows what purpose.

It makes me wonder when the last time was that Mr. Lansky opened any
of the Yiddish books on the now badly disorganized and ill-stocked
repository floor (seeing as there is no full time staff actually
maintaining this collection) in order to think about the values
inherent in that literature. I direct this at Mr. Lansky personally as
I know none of the other executives read Yiddish in the first place.
The story of Yiddish literature, politics and history contained in
those books is one where the interests of the individual are put
behind the interests of working people, behind the interests of the
Jewish people, behind especially the preservation of the history and
literature itself. That was certainly the spirit in which the NYBC was
founded. The organization has accomplished such amazing work. If, in
fact, the executives have grown so tired of that work, as it seems
from the disconnected directions the book center now moves in, one
wishes they might have passed the organization on to people who do
still care about the books on the shelves, and the thousands of books
in storage that have never been properly sorted, cataloged or cared
for because the NYBC never employed the staff to do such work. They
were more interested in funding a new building (before having the
programming or a collection to fill that building) than finishing the
work of physically preserving the books.

I wish I were not so angry about this. I wish I could have returned
this summer in order to do some of the very needed work described
above. But the internship has ceased to be the kind of program that
could use the honest energy and passion of the interns to work with
the books in a meaningful way. The most obvious sign of this is the
center's inability to maintain any continuity in the direction or
support staff running the internship. Those students would be better
served if the Steiner endowment were used to send them to Yiddish
programs that actually offer support to the study of Yiddish, which
the book center cannot do, with it's unmaintained collection and
inaccessible warehouse, without Aaron Rubinstein or any educational
director who qualitatively fills the space that was left vacant by
Robby Peckerar. Unfortunately, I am so angry that instead of
continuing, as I have done for the past two years, to do my part
toward making the book center a place that does support Yiddish, I am
unhappily walking away from it. I do plan to continue expressing these
views with the hope, the very genuine hope, that perhaps your
organization will reflect upon itself and return to its so valid and
essential original work.

Sincerely,

Mandy Cohen

Fudge, Bond, Friends, and Shabbat

Friday was a most excellent day. I began the day with my friend Lydia. We made most delicious walnut-raisin fudge together. Oooooo...fudge, it is beginning to feel even more like the holidays. I have never made fudge before, and while my confectionery skills are not as highly developed as my other kitchen related ones- I was quite pleased with the outcome. Delicious fudge, luckily it is very rich- and thus challenging to eat too much at once. Unfortunately, I like challenges!

After making Fudge, the fun continued. My friend and I went to see the new Bond, our fudge in tow. While enjoyable and Bond, the film was a depressing Bond. Not once did an echo of warmth break through the cold exterior of the film. I laughed occasionally- but it had more to do with the ridiculousness of action scenes or something equally laughable- not true humor. Once, there was a glimmer of Bond wordplay, but it was quickly over and I wasn't sure if it had really happened afterward! I was reading the NYTimes review of the film, and they asked the question I was asking throughout- when did Bond become a tragic hero? Maybe he'll grow out of it. That all said, it was great and I would recommend it.

After the movie, I traveled West to attend the Shabbat dinner to which I had so kindly been invited. I came an hour early, to speak Yiddish, and had a great time. I found out that my friend was a fighter in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and continued with the Resistance throughout the war. He showed me pictures of his family, friends, and talked to me about his life in Yiddish. His Polish dialect was occasionally difficult to understand- but fortunately as a more common Yiddish dialect- I have some experience with it. It was a marvelous evening, so much food, so many Yiddish songs, so many compliments (I've never been complimented on my beauty so much) and so much friendship. Two friends of his came to dinner too, two women he knew from a now defunct Jewish organization in Berlin. They were adorable and spent an half hour arguing over the safety of my taking the metro home at 12.30 when our evening came to end. Eventually, it was decided I'd be okay- but I'd have to call when I got in. As it was close to 1.30am when I did get home, I thought it best to call when I woke up the next day. Well, at 9.30am I was awoken by a call from my Yiddish friend to make sure I had arrived safely. It was adorable, and I think I have made some new friends.

Yiddish! in Berlin

Well, it has finally begun- my Yiddish language circle. This past Monday I met with a professor, a very nice native Yiddish speaker, two middle aged women, and a girl a bit older than me to speak Yiddish. Besides myself and the native Yiddish speaker, all were German. The evening was very nice- we read some Peretz and spoke for a bit. There was however quite a bit of code switching going on- I was never quite sure when I should have been speaking in German or in Yiddish. This may have something to do with the fact that all the members of the group were German speakers and their Yiddish was fairly influenced by German- but it was nevertheless confusing. I spent most of the summer attempting (with varying degrees of success) to break myself of my "daytshmerish" Yiddish habits, that is my overuse of Germanisms. Now I find myself flung into a world were either they are switching languages willy-nilly, or their Yiddish is so inflected by German that I cannot tell what they are speaking!

Now some may say, hey Jenna, wait a sec, aren't Yiddish and German really similar?? Well, yes and no. There are very different vowel sounds, constructions of the past tense, and basic rules of word order in Yiddish. Often, these giveaways seemed to be missing, and I wasn't sure what we were speaking- but I guess I'll figure it out. Previously it is always been very clear for me when someone is speaking German and Yiddish. Hopefully we'll figure this odd group of people together.

Beyond the confusing code switching taking place, the evening was a success. I was able to speak some Yiddish and was invited to Shabbat at the very nice Yiddish man's house this Friday night. He is a Holocaust survivor, and as I mentioned, a native Yiddish Speaker. At language circle, he kept asking me what songs I knew in Yiddish and seemed to like me, so I think it'll be good. I am to come a bit early, so we can speak Yiddish together. I have the feeling that I may be invited every Friday night, which means...Yiddish every Friday night! Way to go!

Frozen Spinach

I have crossed over to the dark side- I am using frozen spinach on a regular basis- and loving it. I've never used frozen spinach before- fresh spinach is incredibly hard to come by here- and I've decided I am not eating enough vegetables- so frozen spinach- here I am! I would love recipes. I have fortunately found frozen spinach of the non-single-block variety, so I do have some control on how much I use.

Classes are going well, it is very clear that my favorite class will be Jewish Theology, but I am beginning to make friends in my other classes as well- which is quite exciting.


Time is beginning to fly and fall is very, very much upon us. I don't think we should be above 50 the next couple of days- which isn't too cold- but not very pleasant either. My theology professor was very intrigued by my learning Yiddish and recommended I go to Trier or Dusseldorf to chat with the Yiddishists there- we'll see if it is in the cards or not. Speaking of cards- I have lately received a few notes from friends and family at home- they made my day. I couldn't stop smiling for some time after opening the mail box. So, should you like to make me smile through the fall chill, here's my address in Berlin:

Jenna Ingalls
Schreinerstr. 24
10247 Berlin
Germany

I am a very good correspondent. I am also in love with The Frames right now- should you need inspiration for letter writing, check out this tune. At least the beginning, anyway.