SAVE OUR LIBRARY By Eli Goldstein

Often referred to as “the People of the Book”, Jews have over the centuries turned to both Torah and secular cultural Jewish literature to inspire, enlighten and be a source of pleasure for them. A possible threat of closure hangs over the Beyachad Jewish Library, mainly due to insufficient funding to promote the awareness of the unique nature of this wonderful resource.

As the custodians of Jewish artifacts for future generations, is there once again a failure to realise the responsibility that lies with us?

The preservation of precious books that have been entrusted to the care of the library as donations or bequests by people who are no longer with us and who had hoped and trusted the collections would be made available for the benefit of future generations of the community as a whole is paramount.

These were selfless people, who, instead of just leaving their collections to their own heirs and descendants, made the decision to put their often priceless collections that had been carefully collected over many years into the custodianship of what was the SAZF or the Board of Deputies Library, now combined into the Beyachad Resource Centre. Many of the books in the now combined libraries have been out of print for many years and deserved to be cherished and vigilantly preserved.

Besides donated books, the resource centre at Beyachad houses carefully bound and stored copies of newspapers compiled and collected over many years which contain the very history of this community. Many of the books in the now combined libraries have been out of print for many years and deserved to be cherished and vigilantly preserved. In addition the Audio-visual section houses volumes of film titles many of which do not exist outside South Africa.

The archives has, inter alia, material going back to the beginning of Johannesburg in 1886 and id invaluable to genealogists, historian and other researchers. Recently the Yiddish Academy have started a Yiddish collection as well.

It is incumbent on the Jewish Community as a whole to ensure that through apathy we do not passively achieve a similar result to what the Nazis did when they burned Jewish books in 1934.

Benjamin Franklin said: “The man who achieves makes many mistakes, but he never makes the biggest mistake of all - doing nothing” Can we afford to be apathetic? I recently read the book “Outwitting History” by Aaron Lansky, who as a 23 year old student in 1980 who, as is stated on the website of the National Yiddish Book Centre in Amherst Massachusetts, “stumbled upon an alarming fact: thousands of priceless Yiddish books – books that had survived Hitler and Stalin – were being discarded and destroyed. As an older generation passed on, their Jewish volumes were often thrown in the trash by children and grandchildren unable to read the language. An entire literature was on the verge of extinction.”

“Originally, scholars estimated there were 70,000 Yiddish books extant and recoverable. The Center saved that number in six months and has gone on to recover one million volumes; the achievement has been hailed as the "the greatest cultural rescue effort in Jewish history” “In 1998, the Center's Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library made high-quality reprints available on demand. The Center then placed the full texts of 11,000 Yiddish titles online through our Digital Yiddish Library, where they are easily downloaded, free of charge. Yiddish, once the most endangered of literatures, is now the safest and most accessible”

To counter this, a core group of volunteers has formed a task team to initiate the “Save-the-Library” campaign. This effort aims not only to save the library but to transform it into a world class centre. The success of this initiative will largely depend on the involvement of the entire Jewish community of Johannesburg and other South African centres.

We need your input in the form of pledges, volunteer and advocacy support and promotion of awareness. Please make every effort to write letters to the editor of this newspaper, to send e-Mails to joburg.jewishlibrary@gmail.com.

BOOKS

Gilbert-Lurie - Bending Towards The Sun

Weaving together three generations of women, this is a first-hand account of courage. Rita Lurie was 5 years old when she and her family were hidden from the Nazis. Decades later, now in California, she unknowingly passes on to her children her feelings of fear generated by her experiences. Her daughter Leslie probes her mother's childhood, to discover how her mother's experiences have affected not only herself, but also her own daughter.

Chernin, Jack - Joburg To London; A Journey

This is a very personal story of a young Jewish boy growing up in a working class area of Johannesburg. The neighbours were mainly white Afrikaners, among whom were many Nazi sympathizers. The second part of the book deals with Jack's life in London, and his journeying across Europe and a visit to Israel.

DVDS

Sixty-Six

It is the summer of '66 and England is about to be consumed by World Cup fever. For twelve-year-old Bernie though, the biggest day of his life is looming: his Bar Mitzvah. Bernie's family, however, are increasingly distracted by personal problems, so much so that the scale of Bernie's Barmitzvah diminishes daily. Worst of all the Cup Final is scheduled to take place on the same day.

Walk On Water

A Mossad agent is given the mission to track down and kill a former Nazi officer.

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