Re-Elect DEMOCRAT

ANNETTA MILLER

Wayne State University
Board of Governors

increase the program from 6 to 20 stu-
dents), translating major Yiddish works
into English, and cultural programs —
in Amherst and around the country —
featuring Yiddish books as well as the
works of Jewish writers working in
English.
Lansky speaks with enthusiasm about
their current efforts to make Yiddish
texts available online. With new search
tools, "years of research can be done in
a matter of minutes."
He points out one of the great ironies
of contemporary Jewish life, that
Chasidic and fervently Orthodox Jews,
who continue to speak Yiddish and
teach it to their children, are complete-
ly hostile to modern Yiddish literature,
as though it was "unkosher."
Ever optimistic, Lansky is hopeful
that might change. "How many times
in Jewish history," he asks, "have things
been condemned? The day will soon
come when Yiddish literature is not a
threat but one more strata on the accre-
tion of Jewish texts."
These days, Lansky doesn't do a lot
of shlepping. He feels the years of lifting
books in his knees. "I'm like an old
Jewish guy going down stairs," he
jokes. There's a generation of young
people he's trained who set out with the
center's van to collect books when new
troves become available.
Sometimes when he looks out on the
sea of books — the center's repository
is visible throughout the building — he
feels like the books represent a lost civi-
lization, a whole aspect of Jewish cul-
ture that is missing.
"The books are tangible proof that
this culture exists," he says, adding,
"Yiddish is the entry point."

Lansky is married and the father of
two young daughters who don't speak
Yiddish, although he hopes they will
choose to learn the language when they
are older to have access to the literature.
Lansky grew up in New Bedford,
Mass., where his family attended a
Conservative synagogue regularly. He
always preferred sitting in the back
with the older men who spoke with
accents — the bootleggers, peddlers
and junkmen who munched on herring
and onions — to the American-born
professionals, like his parents, who sat
up front.
Doing this work has deepened his
sense of being Jewish. For him, the
dialectic between the cultural and reli-
gious sides of Judaism is a creative
force, and he has come to realize that
"you can't perpetuate culture without
ritual."
When asked if he sees his 25-year
effort as holy work, he says that's too
big a statement for him to make.
"I do feel I'm blessed in being able to
do the right thing at the right time.
Somehow everything has gone right for
us. Not that there aren't thousands of
challenges every day — and we've been
working 24 hours a day, six days a
week. I have a sense of momentum
about it that's very gratifying."
Not all people who love books can
write them, and Lansky writes well and
with understated humor, capturing his
love for the language on paper. He pep-
pers his prose with Yiddish sayings, so
the book provides some Yiddish les-
sons. At times, he ruminates on the his-
tory of Yiddish literature. Writing a
book, he says, "has given him a whole
new respect for every single book on
the shelf."
In his choice to do this work rather
than pursue his initial scholarly inter-
ests, he admits that he hasn't had time
to read as many Yiddish books as he
would have liked. But lately he has a
bit more time and is now reading a
new Yiddish novel by Boris Sandler,
editor of the Forward.
On the notion of a new Yiddish
book, he admits, "Yiddish has outwit-
ted me." ❑

AARON

LANslcy

Aaron Lansky:
"I do feel I qua
blessed in being
able to do the
right thing at
the right time."

Aaron Lansky delivers the Irwin
Shaw Memorial Lecture 8:15
p.m. Monday, Nov. 8, at the
Jewish Community Center in
West Bloomfield, $5 JCC mem-
bers/$8 nonmembers; he speaks
12 p.m. Monday, Nov. 8, at a
lunch and learn at the Jewish
Community Center in Ann
Arbor, $6 lunch/lecture free.

"ANNETTA MILLER is committed to
making sure Wayne State University
remains one of Michigan's treasures
and one of the nation's few public insti-
tutions of higher education devoted to
both an urban mission and research."
- U.S. Senator Carl Levin

• member: Jewish War Veterans • WWII Army Nurse Corps 1944-45

• US. Educator Representative in 1994 worldwide 6,000 student
pilgrimage March of the Living Auschwitz to Birkenau

• member: Michigan Steering Committee Veterans For Kerry

• member: Michigan State Board of Education 1970-1995

• member: Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation

• member: Wayne State University Board of Governors
1996-Incumbent

VOTE ANNETTA MILLER Et TINA ABBOTT FOR
WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY BOARD OF GOVERNORS

Committee to Re-Elect Annetta Miller: 25456 Wareham Drive, Huntington Woods, MI 48070
Campaign Chairs: Kay Brady & Jim Doyon, Treasurer: Hy Dooha 248-547-4333

904070

The American Diabetes Association
Michigan staff and volunteers
congratulate

K iezioye,

and his wife,

in their selections as
Justice Louis D. Brandeis Award
honorees,

The mission of the American Diabetes Association is:
to prevent and cure diabetes and to improve the lives
of all people affected by diabetes,

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