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Former Detroiter Michael Yashinsky and Jordan Brown, both senior fellows at the
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10

June 22 • 2017

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“They spend a lot of time arguing
about what’s the best way to trans-
late idiomatic Yiddish expressions,”
Driker said. Approximately 1-2 per-
cent of all the Yiddish books in the
YBC’s possession have been trans-
lated, leaving an enormous amount
of work still left to do.
Another work in progress is the
world’s first full-length Yiddish
textbook to be attempted in more
than 70 years, co-authored by three
Yiddishists, including Michael
Yashinsky, originally of Farmington
Hills, who said, “It will be a multi-
media, colorful, humorous, lively,
richly researched and eminently use-
ful guide and, hopefully, a real boon
to the world of people who involve
themselves in Yiddish.”
Currently, the YBC teaches inter-
ested folks to read, write and under-
stand Yiddish.
“We’re bringing this entire rich
culture to new generations, who’d
otherwise know nothing about it,”
Driker said. The YBC also initiated
programs for high school and col-
lege students: teaching them Yiddish
and then allowing them to exam-
ine boxes filled with dusty Yiddish
books and unearth the treasures
within.
The YBC has also helped establish
collections of Yiddish literature in
450 major universities in 26 countries
around the world.
“Embedded in the language
are 1,000 years of Jewish Eastern
European culture,” Driker said. “We’ve
been bringing Yiddish to new groups
of people, especially young people,
who are curious about their origins.
People are blown away by the wealth

of information available today and
how accessible we’ve made it for them
when they stumble upon the website
or visit intentionally,” said Driker.
The impressive YBC building is on
the Hampshire College campus and
is designed to look like a building
from a Polish shtetl.
Even the New York Times described
in glowing terms how the YBC res-
cued a language from near extinction
and made it the most readily acces-
sible language in the world.
A lot of it can be credited to Driker.
“Eugene is one of the most
remarkable, extraordinary and
noble people I’ve ever known,” YBC
founder Lansky said. “He’s the voice
of probity, vision and reason, and
always knows what to do. It’s hard
to say what he hasn’t helped us with
over the years.
“At 24 years old, I began from
scratch and it took a long time to
establish our standing and role in
the broader Jewish community;
Eugene helped us do that.”
Yashinsky concurred, and added,
“What a wonderful thing for the
YBC to have had such a dedicated
and clever, humble and truly kind
man serve as our chair, and what a
proud thing for the Jews of Detroit
to have someone like Eugene rep-
resenting us and our community at
institutions like this.”
Regarding the YBC’s future, a
recent focus has been on recording
live interviews with the few remain-
ing Yiddish speakers and writers in
the world. “These days, the YBC is
a very exciting place to be … and
it wouldn’t be like this if not for
Eugene,” Lansky said. •