Visitors are always welcome at the architecturally distinctive museum and Visitors Center, designed to recall a shtetl, a small Jewish town or village in eastern Europe, and set on a ten-acre apple orchard at the edge of the campus of Hampshire College. 

The world's first Yiddish museum, the Yiddish Book Center is home to Yiddish: A Global Culture, our new permanent exhibition which places Yiddish at the very center of intellectual and creative life in Europe and the Americas. 

Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst. It was founded in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, and it continues to emphasize interdisciplinary, individualized, and self-directed learning. Hampshire College is known for its innovative curriculum, student-designed majors, narrative evaluations, and portfolio-based assessment. Hampshire College is also part of the Five College Consortium, which allows its students to take courses at four other nearby institutions: Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The idea for Hampshire College originated in 1958 when the presidents of Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, appointed a committee to examine the assumptions and practices of liberal arts education. Their report, "The New College Plan”, advocated many of the features that have since been realized in the Hampshire curriculum: inviting students to self-design their program of studies; training students to be able to educate themselves through their lifetimes; emphasis on each student's curiosity and motivation; learning among and across multiple disciplines; and close mentoring relationships with teachers.