100 Essential Yiddish Books

by ROBERTA NEWMAN

In 1937, YIVO’s Philological Section sent out this proposed list of 100 essential books for a Yiddish library.

The bibliography includes not only the works of classic Yiddish writers such as Mendele Moykher Sforim, I.L. Peretz, and Sholem Aleichem, but also books by who were then contemporary writers such as Shalom Asch and Dovid Bergelson. Hebrew writers, such as Bialik and Mapu, are also noted. In addition, every good Yiddish library is expected to include the Tanakh, Aggadot, and religious literature in Yiddish, though interestingly enough, there is no mention of the Talmud here.

Notably, the majority of books recommended are Yiddish translations of works in other languages, ranging from selected works by Shakespeare, Schiller, Goethe, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy to Greek classics, such as The Iliad and The Odyssey. The list of American authors includes Mark Twain, Sinclair Lewis, Walt Whitman, and Booker T. Washington.

Important works of political theory by Marx, Lasalle, Mazzini, Garibaldi are also featured and the ideal Yiddish library is also expected to have works of history and books “about” other countries such as Japan, China, and South America. The library envisioned is one focused on the humanities: there are no science or mathematics books on the list.

This document was digitized at the Lithuanian Central State Archives for the YIVO Vilna Collections project. The project will digitally bring together YIVO’s collections from before World War II, which were dispersed during the Holocaust and are now located in both New York and Vilnius.

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Roberta Newman is YIVO’s Director of Digital Initiatives.