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Hillel Schenker's avatar

When my father passed away at the age of 98 1/2, he had a library with over 5,000 books. I took a few which I felt were relevant to me, and then the question was what to do with the rest. He had a huge collection of books dealing with American Jewry, and it turned out that Haifa University has a department which deals with American Jewish studies, so they came and took a few hundred of the books. There was also a huge collection of books dealing with Zionism and Israeli history and society. When I placed a notice about them on Facebook, a response came from the Palestinian Al-Quds University (!), which has an MA program in Israeli studies at their Old City campus, so they came with a big truck and took a few hundred books. Most of the novels went to a 2nd hand book shop in the Ramat Aviv neighborhood. I have tremendous difficulty parting with my own books, and the hundreds of paperback books that my partner, who now has dementia and can't read them, collected over the years. My answer has been to begin bringing some of them to the "public library" in nearby Bialik Square dedicated in memory of a teenage youth from the neighborhood who passed away and loved books. Such street "public libraries" are sprouting up all around Israel, people bring and take books. I still only read hard copy books, nothing digital, except for pdfs that some writers or reviewers have sent me. And two piles of treasured LP records, with no record player!

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Judith Seid's avatar

Can you please come over and collect the books I can’t make myself get rid of while I wail and try valiently to grab each precious baby from your hands?

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