Yiddish Book Center

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Welcome to the Yiddish Book Center. The center is dedicated to preserving and making accessible texts written in Yiddish, a language that originated in Jewish communities from Eastern Europe, but is now spoken all over the world! Inside, they have a collection of Yiddish children’s books, Yiddish music, and artifacts from Yiddish history.

Look out for Labzik the dog, the display about children’s books, the Yiddish typewriter, and to earn a sticker of the Yiddish Book Center’s Mascot, the tsigele (little white goat), by counting all the goats you see and bring that number to the front desk! If you would like to read some Yiddish children’s stories that have been translated into English, the Yiddish Book Center recommends Honey on the Page by Miriam Udel.

Inside the Yiddish Book Center, you will find thousands of books that deal with topics such as immigration, identity, race, and language. Those same topics have also been popular among some of our local children's book authors and illustrators. Below you can meet a few who have written about these topics. 

MEET THE AUTHORS

Richard Michelson:
Art dealer, poet, and children’s book author Richard Michelson loves the Yiddish Book Center!  He uses his writing as a way to explore the things he’s curious about, his Jewish heritage is one of his many interests. The Yiddish Book Center gave him plenty to learn about. The Yiddish Book Center has been a treasure trove of knowledge for him and Richard attributes his books such as Too Young For Yiddish, Fascinating: The Life Leonard Nimoy, and A is for Abraham to his long-standing relationship with the center! Read more here!  

Hannah Moushabeck:
Many different diasporic communities try to preserve things like the language, music, art, and literature of their traditional homelands! The Yiddish Book Center, for instance, is committed to preserving and providing access to texts written in Yiddish. Hannah Moushabeck's picture book Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine has a similar dedication to preservation. In Homeland family stories and memories of the Old City of Jerusalem are kept alive. Additionally, the book introduces new Arabic words like “Sitti” and “Teta” for grandmother, as well as, or “Habibi” for my love! What cultural or family traditions do you want to preserve for future generations? Read more here. 

Shelley Rotner
The Yiddish Book Center has an ever-changing and growing collection of interviews with people of all ages and backgrounds, whose stories about the heritage and continually developing nature of Yiddish language and culture offer a bountiful and complex description of Jewish identity. Children's Book author Shelley Rotner explores diversity in her many books, such as religious diversity in her work "Many Ways: How Families Practice Their Beliefs and Religions". Ms. Rotner also was one of two illustrators, along with David Hyde, for the children's book "Sign Language Shabbat" which teaches children how to use sign language for things people do in Shabbat, such as eat challah, drink wine or grape juice, sing Shabbat songs. Read more here. 

I SPY

I spy with my little eye a four-legged farm animal! 

I spy with my little eye a wall full of pictures!