Amherst, MA – The National Yiddish Book Center has received an unexpected gift of $3 million from comedy writer Mickey Ross, who died in May.
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The gift from Ross, who worked on television shows such as “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons” and “Three’s Company,” was a surprise and is the largest in the 30-year-old Book Center’s history.
“As far as we know, Mickey Ross never visited here and we never met face-to-face,” said Aaron J. Lansky, founder and president of the center, 1021 West St.
Nancy L. Sherman, the center’s executive vice president, said center officials had learned several months ago that it had been named in Ross’s will, but it was not until recently they learned the amount of the gift.
“Until the check arrived, we didn’t know how large it was going to be,” Sherman said.
The center was aware of Ross because he was known as a Jewish philanthropist with an interest in Yiddish language and culture, she said.
“There aren’t many people like that around,” Sherman said.
The gift will go directly to the center’s endowment, providing financial stability and program support as the organization expands its work from book rescue to education. The center’s current endowment was approximately $8 million and it grew to $11 million with the gift, Sherman said. Its annual budget is about $3.5 million.
Some of the programs the gift will make possible are the appointment of a full-time Yiddish language instructor who will design and teach intensive Yiddish courses, both online and on-site in the center’s new Kaplen Family Building, which opened in May.
“Our intention is to create a Yiddish university for the hands-on exploration of Jewish language, history and culture. In this way, Mickey Ross’s gift is transformative,” Lansky said.
Ross, who died at age 89 of complications from a stroke and a heart attack, last year created the Michael and Irene Ross Program in Jewish Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles, his alma mater, with a $4 million gift to endow a chair in Yiddish language and culture.
Ross’s wife, Irene, died in 2000. They had no children.
Since its creation, the Yiddish Book Center has rescued a million endangered Yiddish books, strengthened collections at libraries worldwide, digitized and posted online the full texts of 11,000 Yiddish volumes, and offered a range of programs.
With most Yiddish books collected and safe, the center is now focusing on education for undergraduate and graduate college students and adults. More information is available at www.yiddishbookcenter.org
Poor Ross wasnt zoche to give tzedaka.
wish he would give his money to lakewood or yu or mir it would of done him a lot better up there.
Although he had great intentions.
and we should all learn from it
There are hungry yidden who don’t have proper clothes. There are yidden who can’t pay their bills. There are yidden who are on the verge of bankruptcy.
AND $3 million is given to save yiddish books?
Something is not right.
Poor misguided souls of the Yiddish Book Center. Their constituency is primarily secular Jews who haven’t given up on the Yiddish language. But they won’t and can’t recognize that the only ones who will ever perpetuate the spoken Yiddish language are the ultra-Orthodox Jews, both Yeshivish and Chasidish, who still speak and use Yiddish as a primary language on a daily basis. These people have no interest in the Yiddish culture of Sholom Asch or Sholom Aleichem or Isaac Bashevis Singer. Yes true there are hungry Jews and yeshivos could use that money to buy seforim and pay salaries. But obviously Der Eibishter has different ideas. Mr. Ross wasn’t zoiche to give tzedokoh in his lifetime nor was he zoiche to give tzedokoh to the proper institutions. Too bad. Secular Jews of course won’t realize this but let the rest of us, the Torah true community, take a mussar haskeil from this and open our pockets to the Torah true institutions.
To all the critics:
Have you actually visited the site before dismissing it as a waste of money, it actually has some very useful & interesting material which is of interest even to our community.
I’m not saying the cause is as worthy as a yeshiva, but it certainly does have some value.
I love it when people get all upset regarding what people do with their money. It is his money, he can do with it as he wishes. In his mind this is what he loved and wanted to promote. First, give 3 mil of your own to a Yeshiva and then tell others what to do with theirs. Until then, appreciate the fact that are well meaning Jews, who give large part of their fortunes to others.
we need to save these books if it were up to the yeshiva crowd we would ignore an entire culture that was yiddish based
# 6 Relatively speaking, your average Moshe, Yossel, and Leibel give more than three million dollars of tzedakah in his lifetime.
Would you all be complaining if instead he bought himself a $3 million house? No. So why do you care how he spends his money.
The center doesn’t want Jewish Yiddish books. They gave their local Chabad House all of the translated Chumashim and Gemaros etc.