A literary rescue program to avoid the threatened extinction of historic Jewish literature is being started by B’nai B’rith. The project involves reproducing through low-cost offset printing, limited editions in facsimile of great Jewish works of the 18th and 19th centuries that might otherwise be lost to posterity. Over 1,000 volumes will be reproduced in the next 10 years, according to Dr. Harold Weisberg, of Brandeis University, chairman of the B’nai B’rith Commission on Adult Jewish Education.
Only scattered and decaying copies of many of these books exist. A preliminary list of 61 titles will be reproduced next spring. The works to be revived are Jewish classics of the Haskalah, the enlightenment movement that began in the 18th century.
Mrs. Lily Edelman, B’nai B’rith director of adult Jewish education, who is supervising the project, said that leading Jewish scholars, educators and librarians have expressed enthusiasm for the project.
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