PW: Why did you decide to write Outwitting History [click here to read the review]?
Aaron Lansky: I knew I was going to write this book from the very beginning, when I first started out 25 years ago in an old truck to rescue books. I understood that it was an amazing moment in history, when one generation was passing on its treasures to another, and that engenders a kind of candor that one would rarely encounter in normal life.
PW: Do you think this book can appeal to people who are not Jewish and have never heard of the Yiddish language?
AL: I guarantee it can appeal to a wide audience. I certainly did not write the book with a Jewish audience in mind. There are two great story lines in the book. One is the story of a culture that was almost destroyed—a kind of Jewish Atlantis that I had the privilege of discovering—and that is a universal story. The other, even more universal, story is simply the love of books that should speak to everyone.
PW: Where do you think Yiddish will be 50 years from now?
AL: I think that 50 years from now, Yiddish will remain as a spoken language almost exclusively among the Hasidic community. But that's not to say that it will all be forgotten. Yiddish was the language of Jews' first great sustained encounter with the modern world and therefore created a spectacular literature. I am absolutely certain that Yiddish books will be read 50, 100 and even 500 years from now. The literature is too good not to be.
PW: You've done so much in the past 20 years. What is next for the National Yiddish Book Center?
AL: We want to do two things. One is to let the world know that Yiddish literature exists and, in particular, to give it its rightful place in the intellectual universe of Jewish studies. Our most immediate project is to work with college students. We started an internship program in 1986, and it's been booming. We want to expand that program from six students this year to 20 students next year. The other part is championing what Yiddish represents. When we came to America, we were able to keep religious distinctions but we lost track of the everyday aspect of Jewish life and I think it's a moment in American history when we can begin to reclaim that now.
PW: Often during the writing process, authors have a chance to look back on what they've accomplished with a new perspective. What this the case for you?
AL: Sometimes when you're in the throes of the battle, it's hard to see what's going on, and when I began writing I got to appreciate the extraordinary passion and intellectual coherence of that world.
