28/08/2026
A memory of Edyth Geiger, 92, as seen in The JPost circa 2011 (via Laurie Sendler Rappeport):
"Miami to Jerusalem, 1953 to 1959
Miami to Safed, 1970
"The apartment library was cramped; patrons hung their coats on the shower rod. In 1998, the operation moved into a rented basement storage area lined with rickety old metal bookcases.
Patrons range from hassidim to kibbutzniks, and nobody pays a fee. All books, CDs and magazines are donated, many from the United States. Operating expenses are covered by contributions.
“We had to establish an amuta [non-profit corporation] immediately, and I am a fund-raiser, after all,” she says.
Two years ago, the amuta – chaired by an anthropology lecturer from Amuka – bought several additional basement rooms and then the two-level store above, so the library is now greatly expanded.
“A couple of very lovely people from Chicago sponsored us,” she explains. “We now own all of it.”
She has never invested in computerization. “We use an ancient system, where every book has a card in it. The borrower fills out the card, and a volunteer transfers that information to a notebook so we always know where each book is.”
The books are alphabetized within categories denoted by colored dots on their spines. Purple is for “highbrow” material, black for Holocaust, red for thrillers. If duplicate titles arrive, the older copy is given away – never sold.
She even mails requested books, for free, to people unable to get to the library. But they arrive from far and wide. “Thursday, a group is coming from Kibbutz Barkai [near Hadera],” she says. “They take lots of books and bring them back on their next visit months later. They not only return those books, but bring me new ones, too.”
She has also helped set up English libraries at a moshav and a kibbutz in the Golan.
“The library takes all my time, and what makes it wonderful is that there are people in and out of here all the time.” Suffering from macular degeneration, she cannot read as voraciously as she once did. She depends on large-print books and e-books on her iPad, and has reluctantly given up collecting stamps.
WORLD TRAVELER
Geiger has traveled extensively, visiting 70 countries. “My best friend in London was from New Zealand, and 32 years later I visited for the first time. I’ve now been there five times, and to Tahiti, Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa – all the islands.”
Despite completing several ulpanim, her Hebrew is not fluent, and her biggest frustration is dealing with healthcare and medical forms in Hebrew.
“If you live far from the Center, you do not have ready access to English-speakers, so I go to Jerusalem on occasion,” she says.
Three years ago, she lost her son Aryeh to cancer. “He was an amazing person who put pluralism on the map in Israel,” she says. He founded the Re’ut School in Jerusalem in 1999, where seventh- through 12th-graders receive a grounding in Jewish learning, social activism and respect for others.
If there is one thing she would still like to accomplish in her life, says Geiger, it is to help out her son’s school – and of course, to encourage more people to contribute books to her library."
