JN Foundation
president
Arthur
Horwitz
welcomes
the crowd.
JN Foundation's
inaugural event
focuses on
preserving our
history digitally.
Keri Guten Cohen
Story Development Editor
T
he nonprofit Detroit Jewish News
Foundation held its inaugural
community event Oct. 18 at the
Berman Center in the Jewish Community
Center in West Bloomfield, drawing a-
crowd of 90 for a pre-event dinner and
a total of 325 people for a "Conversation
with Aaron Lansky," founder of the
National Yiddish Book Center in
Amherst, Mass.
Lansky beguiled the audience with
his stories of starting the book center as
a 23-year-old with a passion for saving
Yiddish literature and culture. He told of
picking up books from older Jewish read-
ers on the East Coast, who not only hand-
ed him hundreds of their treasures, but
also fed him like a grandson. The torrent
of donations became a flood and now
numbers more than 1 million volumes.
Near the end of his address, Lansky
talked of how technology is playing a
major role in making the center's riches
accessible worldwide. Calling the digi-
tized works a "portable homeland" of
Jewish culture and literature, Lansky said
that in six years, the Yiddish works will
be the first completely digitized literature
in human history. In the last three years,
Yiddish books online have been accessed
more than 400,000 times — mostly by
young people.
"It is not time to recite the Kaddish
for our Jewish future: he said. "We, as a
people, are poised for a renaissance like
we've never seen before. There is enor-
mous work to be done. It's a great time to
be alive."
Lansky's talk accentuated the impor-
tance of the Detroit Jewish News
Foundation's goal to have all 260,000-plus
pages of the Jewish News digitized and
accessible online by this time next year.
"The Jewish News Foundation's initia-
tive to convert more than 70 years of
content —from hard copies to electronic
access — is a significant turning point for
our community," Lena Epstein Koretzky of
Bloomfield Hills told the audience.
"Our past, our present and our future
are under the same roof tonight. In much
the same way, our past, present and future
are under the same roof through the
Foundation's dedication to securing our
history.
"History will repeat itself. I and the
generation of emerging Jewish leaders
that serve with me on the Foundation
board of directors are standing on the
shoulders of the ones who came before
us. Access to your story will assist us in
Horwitz and speaker Aaron Lansky, founder of the National Yiddish Book Center
honoring your legacy —in tapping into
your wisdom — while our generation
builds its own."
After an introduction by JN Foundation
President Arthur Horwitz, a video was
shown outlining the need for and benefits
of the foundation's digitization project.
Poignant scenes of the fire at the JN
offices in 2002 showed how, amid flames
and smoke, the bound volumes of the
newspaper survived.
"I was very pleased we were able to
communicate to a diverse group in the
Jewish community, from legacy leaders to
emerging leaders to people who just care,
that preservation, digitization and creat-
Accessibility on page 16
14 October 25 • 2012