In the spring of 2011, two Fellows from the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass. picked up more than 200 Yiddish books from the Jewish Public Library in Montreal. They brought those tapes back to the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, along with 1,100 recordings of lectures by and interviews with Yiddish writers and poets who visited the Library between 1953 and 2005. Both collections have now been digitized so that they are available for listening on your computer, tablet or mobile device. The collections are posted on the Center’s website at the links below, where they can be searched by title or by featured author. They can be listened to online or downloaded.

The Yiddish Book Center’s Sami Rohr Library of Recorded Books (the “talking books” that started the project) is posted at www.yiddishbookcenter.org/podcast/sami-rohr-library-recorded-yiddish-books.

The Yiddish Book Center’s Frances Brandt Online Yiddish Audio Library (the fascinating interviews and lectures) is at www.yiddishbookcenter.org/podcast/frances-brandt-library.

Read a blog post by Jordan Kutzik, the Yiddish Book Center Fellow who has been working with the collections, on our website at www.yiddishbookcenter.org/blog/13/02/treasures-from-frances-brandt-online-yiddish-audio-library.

While only a fraction of the recordings are posted now, the Center is continuing to add new ones each week until the full collections are posted. Altogether the Sami Rohr Library will have about 1,000 short stories and 50 novels, and the Brandt Library will grow to include 1,100 recordings. To be instantly notified of newly posted material, you can subscribe to the collections as podcasts through the iTunes store or our website.