In 1939, Yiddish was the spoken language of 3/4 of the world's Jews.

By 1980, Jewish scholars estimated that only 70,000 Yiddish books remained in the world. This engaging, often funny documentary film chronicles the adventures of Aaron Lansky, who rallied an international network of volunteers and set out to rescue the world's Yiddish books. 20 years later, the National Yiddish Book Center has collected 1.5 million Yiddish books and helped save a rich, diverse, and surprisingly modern literature from oblivion. A Bridge Of Books celebrates a pursuit that has become a powerful vehicle for the transmission of history, culture and identity across several generations.

Join us for a screening of A Bridge of Books: The Story of the National Yiddish Book Center, followed by a virtual field trip of the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts by Jennifer Young, the Center’s Education Program Manager. The tour will include a look inside the repository and behind-the-scenes videos from the vault tour.

Doors open at 5:15 PM, program begins at 5:45 PM