The Jewish Federation of the Berkshires presents:

Knosh & Knowledge "What To Do With What We've Found: A Blueprint for the Yiddish Book Center's Next Great Adventure"
with founder and president of the Yiddish Book Center, Aaron Lansky.

As the Yiddish Book Center turns 35, Lansky will offer an exciting preview of the museum's latest plans, which include an audacious strategy to place the greatest Yiddish library ever assembled at the fingertips of every computer, tablet, and smartphone user on the planet.  Other initiatives include a plan to train young people to translate the 98 percent of Yiddish books currently inaccessible to English readers, plus education programs designed to deepen, re-energize, and re-imagine contemporary Jewish culture.

In 1980, when Lansky issued the first public appeal for old Yiddish books, it was estimated that only 70,000 volumes were extant and recoverable.  He rescue that many in six months.  Today, the Yiddish Book Center's collection totals more than one million volumes, with the core collection stored in the center's state-of-the-art repository, and more than 12,000 titles available online from the Yiddish Book Center's Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library. 

The Center's education programs include the Great Jewish Books Summer Program for high school students, the Steiner Summer Yiddish Program for college students, a yearlong fellowship program, and Tent: Encounters with Jewish Culture, as well as online and on-site courses on Yiddish and Jewish culture.

It also publishes an English-language magazine Pakn Treger, and is home to the Wexler Oral History Project.

Advanced lunch reservations required by Thursday, September 24 before noon.

Cost: $11 includes program and farm fresh buffet lunch from Freund's Farm Market and Bakery.  Program only is $5.