THE KEEPER OF STORIES - Susan Kay Phillips

by Caroline Kusin Pritchard Illustrated by Selina Alko

Reviewed by Susan Kay Phillips

©️ Selina Alko

THE KEEPER OF STORIES is a moving account of an amazing community response to a great loss. The “keeper of stories” is the name author Pritchard gives to the Jewish Theological Seminary Library in New York City. This vast library, housed 200,000 books and magazines, and functioned as the “spiritual, intellectual, and communal heartbeat of Judaism for over 130 years”. THE KEEPER OF STORIES by Caroline Kusin Pritchard and illustrated by Selina Alko tells of a devastating fire that threatened the library’s very existence and the community response that helped to restore it.

Located on the upper West side of New York City, the library was a unique and impressive building. Its striking tower-like structure held ten levels of books — some modern, some ancient — documenting stories of the Jewish people, their struggles and joys through their history.

On April 18, 1966, a fire broke out in upper reaches of the tower. The fire spread quickly. The tower functioned like a chimney, drafting heat upward and fanning the flames. Firefighters tried to shield the precious books from the flames but the cascading water from their hoses flooded the “Amamatic and the Ancient greek, the Yiddish and Ladino. It tumbled through the medical texts and medieval love stories”. By nightfall the fire was extinguished but what of the books?

The next morning, people gathered on the sidewalk outside the library building. Soon it became known that books on the highest levels of the tower had been reduced to ash. Books on lower levels had survived, but were soaked with water. Something had to be done. Unless the books were dried, they would mold and be destroyed.

Volunteers came together from the neighborhood and the wider community in New York and worked together in “Operation Booklift”. They formed a human chain up the stairs inside the library tower. They handed books down this human chain, hand to hand, one volume at a time. Volunteers on the street in front of the library laid the precious, water logged books out in the sunshine and fresh air, hoping the books would dry.

It soon became clear, however, that even with sunshine and fresh air the books were not drying quickly enough. Disparate, the volunteers tired other drying techniques but none worked. Then one clever volunteer suggested placing paper towels between the pages of the books. It worked.

Word went out across the city. More people came. Paper towel companies sent supplies. A kindergarten class had a cookie sale and donated their money to help save the books. Citizens of New York from all walks of life and all faiths worked together, placing paper towels page by page between millions of pages. One hundred and seventy thousand books were saved. The stories of the Jewish people told in these books would live on.

Pritchard’s sensitive, poetic text is brilliantly enhanced by Alko,’s acrylic, colored pencil and collage illustrations. The books and the library itself come to life in Alko’s depiction of the unfolding drama.

The Jewish Theological Seminary Library was rebuilt and restored. Today it continues as vibrant keeper of stories all because– “thousands of hands became keepers of the stories. Because we are the keepers of the stories too.”

REVIEWER’S NOTE

The Jewish Theological Seminary Library was founded in 1893, beginning with generous donations from private collectors. During the 1930s, when it became clear that the Jewish population in Europe was being gravely threatened, the library became a safe haven for many cherished Jewish manuscripts, preserving the stories of Judaism.

The original library building was ten stories high and housed over 200,000 books. Unfortunately, the upper stories of the original library were not separate floors, but rather a series of steel cat walks which allowed access to the metal shelves housing the books. This very open interior of the library tower contributed to the rapid spread of the 1966 fire and made extinguishing the fire extremely difficult.

Over 70,000 books housed on the upper levels of the tower were reduced to ash while 170,000 were saved by the efforts of the community. Fortunately, at that time of the fire, many of the library’s rarest books were housed in a separate location and were not damaged.

Today the library continues to preserve books, magazines, and newspapers that tell the stories of the Jewish people throughout their history. As Dr. David Kraemer, Jewish Theological Seminary professor and Director of the Jewish Theological Seminary Library, pointed out in the Youtube video referenced below, though these manuscripts present their stories through the lens of Judaism, they also offer Insight into the history of many traditions – Muslim, Christian, and other cultures where Jewish people have lived throughout history. https://youtu.be/JT9lzgaa_C4

I will end my Reviewer’s Note by quoting a letter Pritchard includes in her back matter. It was received by the library in 1966 from the kindergarten class that contributed the proceeds from their cookie bake sale ($62.65) to help the restoration of the library.

“Dear Mr. Finkelstein,

We are kindergarten children at Riverside Church in room 615.

We wanted to earn some money to help you replace your books. We thought of selling cookies. We baked cookies for four days. We baked about 500 cookies. We sold them for five cents each. We enjoyed doing it.

We are sorry the books got burned.

Love, Class 615″

As always, thank you for reading!

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