50 Years On, Learning and Leisure at Jewish Libraries

by Menachem Posner – chabad.org

A lot has changed since 1972, when Time magazine declared Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger as “Men of the Year,” the first video-game console (which displayed three square dots and a single line) was released, and the PC was still five years in the future.

That was the year the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—called for Torah libraries to be founded in Jewish communities all around the world, creating an inviting and attractive portal to Jewish learning and involvement.

And 50 years later, the comforting hush of the library, the exhilarating smell of freshly printed books, and the magical promise of wisdom and adventure on every page are as appealing as ever.

“It was about 4 to 4.30 a.m. here in London, and we were listening to a live broadcast of the Rebbe’s talk in New York,” librarian Zvi Rabin tells Chabad.org. “The Rebbe began speaking about the importance of creating Torah lending libraries. I was new to Chabad at the time, but everybody knew I was a librarian, so Rabbi Nachman Sudak told me this would be my work, and here I am, 50 years later, still running the Lubavitch Lending Library.”

In his talk, the Rebbe called for his audience—including those around the world, listening via live hookup—to start or expand existing libraries in every community. Along with the London library, others opened all over the world, including one as far off as Melbourne, Australia, and another in the Rebbe’s own Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights.

The Crown Heights library was—and still is—housed in a former bowling alley, the lower level of a building that had been recently purchased from the Farband, a far-left Yiddish cultural association.

When the Rebbe was informed of the decision to convert the space into a library, he urged the organizers to make the library inviting and clean so that people would want to stick around, discuss Jewish topics and get involved in other ways.

According to Rabbi Kasriel Kastel, longtime program director at Lubavitch Youth Organization, the Rebbe gave specific directives regarding the types of books to include, making sure that basic works of Jewish law should be present and that the bilingual edition of the Torah be from a G‑d-fearing translation.

After observing that the library was indeed developing into a world-class resource, the Rebbe provided a partial set of Talmud as his personal contribution and allowed it to be named The Levi Yitzchok Library, in tribute to his late father, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, of righteous memory.

In his talk, the Rebbe also specified that the libraries should have regular hours for walk-ins and allow people to check out books to read at home.

Growth of a Movement

Years later, the Rebbe’s directives became a guiding light for Devora Caytak, who founded the Jewish Youth Library in the basement of her home in Ottawa, Canada.

“Canadians are low-key,” she says, explaining why she and her husband, a medical doctor, chose to focus on this area of Jewish life. “They like libraries, and they like being able to read and process in the comfort of their own homes.”

“It’s called a ‘youth library,’ but it is really for people of all ages,” says Caytak, whose collection now includes an estimated 20,000 volumes and has long outgrown its original premises.

In 1989, which the Rebbe dubbed Shnat Habinyan (“Year of Building”), the Caytaks purchased the house across the street to hold the growing collection of books.

With plenty of room to spare, they then began using the space for children’s programs—story time, pre-Shabbat for tots, Mommy & Me programs—and even invited in a Jewish Montessori preschool, which was so successful that the library was nudged out of its own home.

Work is now underway on a 100-year-old house that will become the library’s new home. Designated a “heritage home,” the charming features of the stately structure will come together with custom lighting and shelving for what Caytak hopes will be a place where people will sit down with “a hot or a cold drink and exceed the experience they get at a bookstore.”

The library will also be the place where the Caytaks’ son and daughter-in-law, Rabbi Moshe and Sheina Caytak, launch the brand-new Chabad of Wellington West.

Being a springboard of Chabad activities is, of course, part and parcel of the mandate of the libraries.

Rabin explains that in addition to Stamford Hill locals, most of whom are now Orthodox Jews, there are some who come from cities with virtually no Jewish infrastructure, taking out books and gaining knowledge they need to deepen their Jewish engagement back home.

Of course, the movement to open libraries has extended far beyond the Chabad establishment.

In Chicago, Agudath Israel of Illinois maintains the burgeoning Antonia Spitzer Jewish Library, which opened in the mid-1980s.

Rabbi Yitzchok Bider, executive director of Agudath Israel of Illinois, says the library opened up right around the time that the Jewish publishing world was beginning to grow, with new titles and genres being added to what had been just a few staples, many of which had been around for decades.

“There were the books published by Lubavitch and a few other publishers but not enough for a library,” says Bider. “With the arrival of new books, we saw that we could provide a real service to the community.”

And the clientele has grown along with the collection.

From several dozen families in the ’80s, the library now has 250 active member families, most of whom come on a weekly or biweekly basis to restock on reading material.

According to librarian Ahuvah Schneider, there has been a decline of interest in reference material, perhaps linked to the growth of online resources and the growth of synagogue and yeshivah libraries, so the library has been gradually replacing less-popular reference works and textbooks with novels and entertaining books for children.

But not all librarians are making the switch.

“It comes back to bite you,” says Rabin, who also works in a secular library. “The common procedure is to get rid of anything that no one has taken out in a year. The day after you do that, someone comes in asking for that very book. We keep everything that has not been worn to shreds. Especially if it’s Torah, you never know when it will come to use.”

The Lingering Allure of Libraries

Even with the growth of digital media, the need for libraries remains strong.

The Jewish Family Library of Los Angeles was opened in 2021. “My children are constantly bombarded with both overt and subliminal messaging to the tune of, ‘This is how your life should be,’ and it can be very disorienting,” said Tanaz Yeroushalmi, a local parent who frequents the new library. “To have this space where everything is in line with our values—a place where my children can feel secure and comfortable with their way of life—is such a blessing.”

While the older libraries began with card catalogs and adjustable date stampers, they’ve all since gone digital. In many cases, they take advantage of the data entry already done by the Levi Yitzchak Library in Cedarhurst, N.Y.

The library was founded in memory of Levi Yitzchak Wolowik, son of Chabad emissaries to the Five Towns, who passed away at the age of 9.

His mother, Chani Wolowik, directs the library, which she says was designed to provide an uplifting and welcoming tribute to her son’s life. A display case contains some treasures of Levi Yitzchak, including kippahs, a snow globe collection and some of his notebooks.

Yet the place is clearly a colorful and uplifting celebration of life, replete with a 26-foot “mitzvah train” in which kids can curl up with a book; a giant dreidel that functions as a “spiral wishing well” tzedakah box; LED displays on the Six Days of Creation; and a puppet theater that looks like a historical synagogue in Europe.

Perhaps most impressive of all is their mail-order system, in which hundreds of families throughout the world receive shipments of six books at a time to read and enjoy before returning them and making another order.

Catering mostly to children of Chabad emissaries in remote locations, the mail-order library is provided in conjunction with MyShliach, which serves emissary children.

Many of those emissary children may soon have libraries in their home communities, as this 50th anniversary year has been celebrated with micro-libraries opening in 360 Jewish communities from Scotland to South Africa, and from Nashville to Nebraska.

The 300-volume libraries are customized to fit the language preference, target age and level of background knowledge of each community, and come with few strings attached other than that the books be made available for anyone wishing to read them.