Join The Grolier Club as Translator Deborah A. Green and Aaron Lansky, Yiddish Book Center founder and president, have a conversation to celebrate the release of a translation of writings by the poet, translator, and literary journalist S. L. Shneiderman (1906-1996), Journey Through the Spanish Civil War: The Hinterlands (White Goat Press). Note: this event will also be available as a virtual webcast.

Shneiderman’s coverage of the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War earned him the moniker “the first Yiddish war reporter.” With his wife, Eileen, he became one of the 20th century’s most influential Yiddish journalists and a pillar of New York’s Yiddish literary and journalistic community. His book on the Spanish Civil War was published in 1938 (two years before he immigrated to the U.S.) as Krig in Shpanyen: hinterland. White Goat Press is bringing out its first appearance in English.

For this event, some of Shneiderman’s rare editions and related archival material will be on display.

Deborah A. Green is a native Yiddish speaker translator, author, and attorney. Her research focuses on Jewish participation in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War and with Polish partisan groups during WWII. Her translations of Yiddish letters written by Jewish fighters have been featured in anthologies, magazines, and journals.

Aaron Lansky is the founder and president of the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass., a nonprofit organization working to recover, celebrate, and regenerate Yiddish and modern Jewish literature and culture. White Goat Press, the Center’s imprint, publishes newly translated work in all genres of fiction and nonfiction. The Center grew out of Lansky’s discovery in the late 1970s of vast numbers of Yiddish books being discarded by younger Jews who could not read their ancestors’ language. Since his first public appeal for unwanted Yiddish books in 1980, when scholars believed just 70,000 volumes were extant and recoverable, more than a million volumes have been gathered at the Center. Lansky has earned degrees from Hampshire College, McGill University, Amherst College, the State University of New York, and Hebrew Union College; received a so-called “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation in 1989; and wrote a bestseller in 2005, Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books.

Registration

If you are a Grolier Club member, please register yourself and your guests via the Club website. Do not register via Eventbrite.

Support

We appreciate your interest in the Grolier Club’s programming on the art and history of the book. For more than 130 years we have offered our exhibitions and lectures to the public, free of charge. If you have enjoyed these offerings and would like to support the continuance of that tradition, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Grolier Club.

Accessibility

An ADA-compliant lift from the street level to the lobby is available to anyone with mobility issues. All desk staff should be ready and able to assist you in operating the lift, with or without advance notice.

A “T-Coil” assisted listening system is available to anyone attending a lecture in the Exhibition Hall. Visitors with hearing aids should turn their devices to the “T” setting to access the system; visitors without hearing aids may request a “loop receiver” with earphones.

Environment

The temperature and humidity in the exhibition hall are tightly controlled for the sake of the valuable items on display, and this may cause the room to feel chilly, particularly in warmer weather, to those coming in from outside. Members and visitors are advised to bring a light wrap when visiting an exhibition, or attending an event in the hall.

Time: 6:30-8:00 pm EST

Free!

Registration