Yizkor translation project listserv!

[Andy Carvin <acarvin@GSN.ORG>]

Hi everyone. Over the last day or so I've received tremendous feedback
concerning my idea of a web-based Yizkor book translation project. Because
so many folks have responded, I've created a listserv for discussing how
we might actually be able to design such a project. An intro to the
listserv is below. -ac

(Please feel free to distribute as widely as possible)


Introducing YIZKOR (listproc@ready.cpb.org)
A mailing list for the development of
an online Yizkor book translation project

Hi everyone. As many of you know, I've been interested in genealogy
research for many years. For my family, it's been particularly difficult
to come up with authoritative historical information because of our
origins in the Jewish shtetl communities of Eastern Europe. Despite the
fact that Jews lived in Eastern Europe for hundreds of years, the Nazis
did their best to erase all evidence of these communities - and in most
cases, they succeeded. The Holocaust was an egregious crime against
humanity not only for its human toll, but for its historical toll, as so
much evidence of Jewish community life was either destroyed or locked up
in archives and lost. To this day, millions of Jews know little about
their heritage because there are so few Holocaust survivors still alive,
nor accessible community records left to examine.

Following the war, many survivors were determined to preserve the memories
of their communities and the souls who died there. They would collect
stories, photographs and historical information concerning their town and
assemble them in the form of a memorial book: a Yizkor, or Remembrance. In
the decades following the Holocaust, survivors created hundreds of Yizkor
books in order to keep the spirits of their families and communities
alive.

Today these Yizkor books, written mostly in Hebrew, Yiddish and various
Eastern European languages, are scattered in libraries and private
collections around the world. The vast majority are long out of print,
their authors deceased. Because they are often so inaccessible, it is
almost as if these books were never written. Some groups, most notably the
Jewish Genealogical Society (jewishgen.org), have aggressively led efforts
to raise funds to translate these books and publish them online, but the
cost of translating so many books has made the process frustratingly slow
and sporadic.

Despite the obstacles I've encountered in my own research,  it occurred to
me that translating Yizkor books might provide a wonderful opportunity for
students of Hebrew and Eastern European languages. Additionally, these
translations could also be used as Holocaust units in primary and
secondary school classrooms, as students would explore genocide from the
point of view of a particular town. Perhaps most exciting, students would
serve as the researchers and translators of a lost world of knowledge that
might otherwise remain sealed and inaccessible.

Bilingual students would collaborate to translate Yizkor content online
while other students would research the Holocaust and its effect on each
Yizkor community. Two end projects would result from these collaborations:
an authoritative translation of Yizkor books that would be made publicly
available online via the jewishgen.org website, as well as in libraries
around the world; and student-developed websites that examined the
Holocaust in the context of that particular community, to be hosted on
school web servers or elsewhere.

Therefore, I have decided to create a mailing list in which educators,
researchers, parents and students could discuss the development of an
Internet-based Yizkor translation project. YIZKOR is open to anyone
interested in developing a curricular model for the project, teaching
Holocaust studies via primary source research, or offering other support
(translation, website hosting, etc), as well as anyone else who might want
to follow the project or have their students or children involved in it. A
successful project will undoubtedly involved a combination of K-12 and
higher education, public and private schools, US schools and schools
abroad.

In order to focus the project's development, we'll begin with the Yizkor
book for Busk, Ukraine. Sefer Busk, as it is known, is in the public
domain, and I have recently acquired a personal copy of it. Copies of the
book would be made available in paper as well as in digital form, archived
on the Web. If the translation effort and its associated curricula proved
successful, the project could then be scaled up to examine other Yizkor
books and related records.

If you would like to join YIZKOR, send an email to listproc@ready.cpb.org
that says

subscribe yizkor your name

and nothing else in the message. Be sure to replace "your name" with your
name of course. Once enough of us have assembled on the list, I'll offer a
summary of the project idea and then open things up for discussion.
Members can then choose to be as active in the discussion as they wish;
greater participation and input, of course, is always appreciated. :-)

A Yizkor translation project has the potential of giving a voice back to
some of the millions of Jews who died in the Holocaust, and to those who
were brave enough to tell their stories after surviving it. I hope you'll
be willing to join us.


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