If you’d simply like to donate to the Yiddish Book Center just click here. But if you’re curious about why Jessie chose this as her preferred charity read on!
Jessie spoke Yiddish as her mother tongue and grew up in a completely Yiddish-speaking neighborhood of NY. The charm and magic of Yiddish deserves more space and knowledge than we have, but Jessie was captivated by Yiddish and spent much of her last years re-exploring the language and music of her youth. In March of 2015 she braved a snowstorm and drove alone from her home near Washington, DC to the Center in Amherst, Ma. for a language seminar. We captured a phone call as the extremely excited Jessie told us about her discoveries (trigger warning: clip contains talk of both farting and pickle jars):
On September 1, 2020 Jessie participated in their Oral History project and gave a 85-minute interview to the Center which you can find here on their website.
To Quote (more soberly, less pickles and farty) from the Yiddish Book Center Webpage:
The Yiddish Book Center was founded in 1980 by Aaron Lansky, then a twenty-four-year-old graduate student of Yiddish literature (and now the Center’s president).
In the course of his studies, Lansky realized that untold numbers of irreplaceable Yiddish books—the primary, tangible legacy of a thousand years of Jewish life in Eastern Europe—were being discarded by American-born Jews unable to read the language of their Yiddish-speaking parents and grandparents. So he organized a nationwide network of zamlers (volunteer book collectors) and launched a concerted campaign to save the world’s remaining Yiddish books before it was too late. For more information see this documentary on the Center:
Again, if you would like to donate in her honor, click here