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<\/a>Beyond material concerns, do you feel that your presence at the central bus station has any added meaning?<\/strong><\/p>\n Being in the central bus station also gives us a cultural context. We, after all, represent a culture in distress, like many other of the central bus station\u2019s tenants [the station is home to dozens of businesses run by immigrants living in Tel Aviv’s southern neighborhoods – Ed.]. We also love the polyphonic surroundings. It’s a bit like the West End in London or Second Avenue. This is a port. There is a lot of traffic and immigrants here. And yet, it\u2019s in the middle of Tel Aviv. Yiddish is also like that: something central and huge that has somehow been left crumpled on the sidelines.<\/p>\n Do you like being here?<\/strong><\/p>\n Definitely. I love this place. We can reach all kinds of audiences this way. Although there are people who are less likely to come here because of the fact that it\u2019s here<\/em>, on the other hand a lot of young people come by, eclectic, special types who wouldn\u2019t have found us anywhere else.<\/p>\n Will you be sad to leave?<\/strong><\/p>\n There’s not really anywhere to go. \u00a0No one’s waiting to receive us. Our location is also important in terms of the ability to bring books from all over the country. This is a collection project that has expanded beyond its dimensions and become a cultural and research center.<\/p>\n Any thoughts about what will happen when everything has to be vacated? Where will you go?<\/strong><\/p>\n There are plenty of thoughts. Thoughts and worries. Right now, there is no direction because we have nothing. We have no money. We can barely even afford this place. I can\u2019t imagine what it would mean to move to Rothschild Boulevard and calculate how much the property tax will cost us there. On the other hand, all the talk about the possibility of vacating the station in recent weeks has made me realize that we are sustaining a very, very big project. We have grown over time and stretched out into different directions. We do events, collect books and also try to catalog and sort, as well as do projects and exhibitions. There are a lot of things to do and we constantly feel a little behind and unable to keep up. Because we\u2019re always busy, it\u2019s difficult for us to stop for a moment and find solutions. We may need outside help from the establishment for that.<\/p>\n And there’s no support? How about the Tel Aviv Municipality or the Ministry of Culture?<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s nothing. The municipality only sends bills. We are a volunteer non-profit, no one receives a salary; there isn\u2019t even a paid manager. Even taking care of the bureaucracy required for that kind of funding is difficult; even filling out a form and knowing which office to contact, and sending the form in on time\u2014that\u2019s already complicated for us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Wide World of Yiddish<\/strong><\/p>\n Cahan came to Israel in 1980 and began studying at the Hebrew University. He studied philosophy, literature and other subjects in the humanities, until he decided to join the university\u2019s Yiddish department. \u201cThen the wide world of Yiddish opened up to me, in all its breadth and depth. I discovered how special this language is; how alive and connected it is to European cultures and also thriving in its own right. On the other hand, I thought to myself, here we are in the State of Israel and there is not even a whiff of this anywhere in the public space. I saw that there were no Yiddish books in stores, so I decided to collect them myself. I took up the responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n He started the book collection on his own, in the early 1990s. \u201cAt first it was in my house. I remember sitting in the sealed-off room [a protective measure meant to protect from potential chemical missile attacks during the first Gulf War \u2013 Ed.] with all the Yiddish materials around me. Then we moved to another place in Jerusalem, and slowly the collection grew. I collected fragments of dreams and memories.\u201d<\/p>\n When you started, were you only thinking of collecting books, or were you already planning for a wider collection?<\/strong><\/p>\n I collected everything. Anything that was in Yiddish. A book, a newspaper, anything printed. I also realized from the beginning that I wanted other people to be excited about it. I realized that I was collecting books, but that I also wanted to construct a huge tower made out of them \u2013 so that others would notice them. So very quickly, I took part in the Jerusalem International Book Fair.<\/p>\n Did you set any guidelines for this collection process?<\/strong><\/p>\n The only guideline was to be open to everything. I thought to myself: There’s the Bund, there\u2019s Beit Sholem Aleichem, there\u2019s the Kultur Lige, there\u2019s YIVO [all of these are Yiddish cultural institutions – A.N.] There are all of these islands with their own traditions; each organization has its own respective emphasis and specialization. Then it happens, for example, that in one place they don\u2019t want to store Hasidic melodies, and in another place they aren\u2019t interested in housing something else. But we live in a postmodern, eclectic world, so I wanted to collect everything. And we don\u2019t just collect, we also broadcast the collection outwards. From the first moment, I wanted people to take books, to come and talk to each other. The idea was to connect everyone.<\/p>\n Cahan is a native of Antwerp, Belgium, where he grew up speaking Yiddish. \u201cAntwerp is an interesting Jewish city. The pre-war local Jewish community hardly survived the Holocaust. The Jewish population after World War II was composed of many Holocaust survivors who came from Poland and Moldavia. There are about 20,000 Jewish residents with 30 different synagogues. That\u2019s why the Jewish community in Antwerp speaks Yiddish.\u201d<\/p>\n And you never felt any tension between European culture and Yiddish culture? Was Yiddish culture perhaps looked down upon?<\/strong><\/p>\n I read Sartre and Camus in the original language. But studying in the Yiddish Department, I understood the depth of Yiddish and its culture. Even having learned French and German culture, I came to the realization that my culture is something else. It\u2019s both European and something else. I dived into the history of Yiddish, into its power, its multifaceted dimensions.<\/p>\n And yet, in Israel this culture is almost forgotten<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Here, the vacuum surrounding Yiddish called on me to act. There\u2019s a saying in Yiddish, \u201cB’makom she’eyn ish, iz hering oykh a fish<\/em>\u201d (\u201cWhere there is no worthy man, even a herring is a fish.\u201d \u2013 A.N.). Yiddish is still significant; people still speak this language. It\u2019s not dead.<\/p>\n Have you felt a change in the attitude toward Yiddish in recent years?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, young people are showing more interest. The creative space of the language has grown. The audience is expanding. There\u2019s more research. It\u2019s considered less exotic. You also see it in the visitors. There are 18-year-old boys who come here to visit or volunteer. There was even a class of fourth graders, ten-year-olds, who came to hear about Yiddish for half an hour. Besides that, there are more Hebrew translations of Yiddish literature. New works as well, not just the classics. And there\u2019s poetry and klezmer bands. Interest in Yiddish is still alive in many forms.<\/p>\n How many Yiddish speakers are there in Israel?<\/strong><\/p>\n The numbers vary. Some say that there are several hundred thousand Yiddish speakers here. There are about a million in the world. But even those who remain silent in Yiddish are important to me, and there are many of those. People aged 40, 50, and 60 come for tours of the museum. I talk with them a little, sing a little, say a couple of phrases in Yiddish, and suddenly they\u2019re surprised to find out how much they understand. These people interest me as well. You know, Kafka gave only one lecture in his lifetime\u2014a lecture on Yiddish. He said, \u201cYou\u2019ll be surprised how much more Yiddish you understand than you think you do.\u201d And he was right.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A Creative Study House<\/strong><\/p>\n So what exactly is the Yung Yiddish museum? Until further notice, it\u2019s here, on the fifth floor of the New Central Bus Station. You\u2019re welcome to visit. After you enter through the glass doors, you’ll feel as if you’ve stepped into a kind of library-warehouse-pub-theater. Long rows of high shelves, filled to bursting with books, pamphlets and newspapers. There are other items as well. Posters of Yiddish cabaret performances, dresses and other costumes from the Yiddish theater, as well as a corner filled with records, CDs and sheet music. You can find memorial books here too, as Yiddish is the language of the destroyed communities of Eastern European Jewry, along with entertainment magazines, translations of literary masterpieces, science books and pamphlets of Hasidic tales that continue to be published in Yiddish in Israel. In another section are manuscripts by writers and artists. Somewhere among the shelves is a collection of thousands of jokes in Yiddish copied out in long hand\u2014an item that no Yiddish collection would be complete without, naturally. There\u2019s even a board game in Yiddish stashed somewhere in a closet if you feel like playing.<\/p>\n What do you do here besides collect books?<\/strong><\/p>\n We hold cultural events here. We have sing-alongs, launch parties, holiday celebrations, exhibitions. We did a rave, cabarets, klezmer music performances, Hasidic melody performances, everything. The place is open. We don\u2019t have money, so this is how we get by, by hosting all kinds of events. Besides that, there are a lot of groups that come to the central station for all sorts of reasons, and then the tours pass by here as well. Each visit, I reveal a little about Yiddish culture, the written culture, things that will soon be forgotten.<\/p>\n \u201cThis place is a theater, a tavern, a synagogue, a study house, a yeshiva,\u201d explains Eli Benedict, who serves as the association\u2019s director\u2014on a volunteer basis, of course. \u201cWhen I first came here, as a young volunteer, it was a community place, a place of shared creativity and this has vanished. It is reminiscent of the Strashun Library in Vilnius, a glorious library that attracted people from all corners\u2014secular, religious\u2014they all met there. This is a study house for creation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>