In 1873, as an experiment, the Association voted to make its library free to all community members for one year. The North Amherst Library officially became a free public Library in 1876 when it received its charter. The North Amherst Library building, “a neat and ornamental structure” owned by the Town, was dedicated in 1893 and became a branch of the Jones Library in 1925.

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The Yiddish Book Center is a nonprofit organization working to recover, celebrate, and regenerate Yiddish and modern Jewish literature and culture.

The million books recovered by the Yiddish Book Center represent Jews’ first sustained literary and cultural encounter with the modern world. They are a window on the past thousand years of Jewish history, a precursor of modern Jewish writing in English, Hebrew and other languages, and a springboard for new creativity. Since our founding in 1980 we have launched a wide range of bibliographic, educational, and cultural programs to share these treasures with the wider world.

Our educational programs include graduate fellowships and courses for high school students, college students, teachers, and adult learners.

Our translation initiative includes a fellowship to train new Yiddish-to-English translators and publishing projects that bring this great literature to new audiences.

Our Wexler Oral History Project is a growing collection of in-depth interviews with people of all ages and backgrounds, whose stories offer a rich, complex chronicle of Jewish identity.

The world’s first Yiddish museum, we’re home to permanent and visiting exhibits.

We offer a full calendar of public programs, such as film screening, talks, and concerts, including the annual Yidstock: The Festival of New Yiddish Music.

We publish our English-language magazine, Pakn Treger, with news from the Center and features on Yiddish and Jewish literature and culture. Available by subscription to Yiddish Book Center members.

You can also follow the latest news at Heft (Notebook) and on Facebook, Twitter (@YiddishBookCtr), and Instagram (yiddish_book_center).

Programs at the Yiddish Book Center:

• Field Trip Program
• Great Jewish Books Summer Program
• Steiner Summer Yiddish Program
• Graduate Fellowships
• Tent: Encounters with Jewish Culture
• Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library
• Translation Fellowship
• Wexler Oral History Project
• Yiddish Language Institute
• YiddishSchool
• Yidstock: The Festival of New Yiddish Music

The website of the Yiddish Book Center is made possible through the support of Walter, Arnee, Sarah, and Aaron Winshall.

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The Emily Dickinson Museum comprises two historic houses in the center of Amherst, Massachusetts associated with the poet Emily Dickinson and members of her family during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Homestead was the birthplace and home of the poet Emily Dickinson. The Evergreens, next door, was home to her brother Austin, his wife Susan, and their three children.

The Museum was created in 2003 when the two houses merged under the ownership of Amherst College. The Museum is dedicated to sparking the imagination by amplifying Emily Dickinson’s revolutionary poetic voice from the place she called home.

The Homestead and The Evergreens, with such close ties in the nineteenth century, saw their paths diverge in the twentieth. The Homestead was sold in 1916 to another Amherst family and underwent some modernization. In 1965, in recognition of the poet’s growing stature, the Homestead was purchased by Amherst College and open to the public for tours. It also served as a faculty residence for many years.

Next door, The Evergreens, occupied by Dickinson family heirs until 1988, remained virtually unchanged for a hundred years. In 1991, The Evergreens passed to a private testamentary trust, the Martha Dickinson Bianchi Trust (named in honor of Emily Dickinson’s niece), which began developing the house as a museum.

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