About

Our Mission

The Center for Cultural Preservation is a nonprofit institution dedicated to preserving the culture, history, and adaptive strategies of our nation’s cultural legacies. By honoring and transmitting these cultural traditions, we offer today’s citizenry a closer connection with their recent past that’s more sustainable over the long term. The Center fulfills this mission through oral history, documentary films, and public programs that rekindle the power of local culture and the value of its continuance.

The Mountain Elder Wisdom Project focuses on Western North Carolina. We are now recording the skills and contributions of elders from the Scots-Irish, African-American, and Cherokee communities. The Center for Cultural Preservation and its predecessor organization, the Center for Yiddish Culture, have a documented record of more than twenty years of developing, administrating, and promoting cultural programs such as concerts, festivals, forums, film screenings, the publication of 13 books, and completion and the broadcasting of nearly a dozen PBS films.

HISTORY

We live in a world of constant activity, technological breakthroughs, and change. Yet we seem to be less happy, less connected to our community, and less self-sustaining than ever in our history. Yet there was a time not long ago in our own community when people lived connected to the land, connected to community and more resilient to issues that might affect the larger community. That knowledge still exists if we seek it out. The Center for Cultural Preservation and its predecessor organization, the Center for Yiddish Culture have worked for over twenty years to tell the stories of our elders throughout the Americas including the heritage experience of Native Americans, African-Americans, Jews, Scots-Irish, Cuban and many more.

The more we learn about the rich tapestry of cultural legacies in America, the deeper the well we can all tap that will enrich our lives and help us better connect to the unending thread of our ancestor’s wisdom.

VOLUNTEER

Volunteers are the lifeblood of many nonprofits, none more so than the Center for Cultural Preservation. By connecting with the elder wisdom of our community, recording the history and heritage that connected our community for hundreds of years, we can learn the lessons our elders have to teach and reclaim the self-reliance and happiness we so urgently need.

Volunteers assist with oral histories, transcribing interviews, audio and video editing, assisting shoots, and more. If you love history, and want to better understand the fabric of our community, we need YOU. Contact us today to let us know how you can assist. Training sessions are held periodically to teach oral history method and more.

STAFF

The Center for Cultural Preservation and its predecessor organization, the Center for Yiddish Culture, are run by Executive Director David Weintraub with more than twenty years of experience developing, administrating and promoting cultural programs that include concerts, festivals, forums, film screenings, colloquiums, and more. In addition to publishing 13 books he has produced over four dozen films, many of which have appeared at film festivals around the world and on PBS stations throughout the country. Weintraub is also the director of Weintraub Films a boutique documentary film production company.