A Bridge of Books by The Yiddish Book Center
The forty-nine books presented in this volume and on display in the Yiddish Book Center’s core exhibition Yiddish: A Global Culture, represent a journey into the modern Yiddish imagination. Yiddish readers were voracious in their curiosity and hungry for news of the world around them. Here you will find books about polar exploration, the life of gauchos and ostrich farmers, the origins of Islam, the Spanish Civil War, and Norse legends. The genres include politics, social science, memoirs, poetry, children’s stories, travel writing, reportage, fantasy, literary classics, guidebooks, scientific writing, and musical theater. A cornucopia of Yiddish literature, these books reflect the practical concerns as well as the hopes and dreams of a migrant people. Each of these volumes has been donated by friends and supporters of the Yiddish Book Center—a tiny sample of the million-plus books that the Center has received since 1980. They include some real rarities: Yapanishe mayselekh (Japanese