YIVO

YIVO
Front entrance of YIVO in New York City
Established 1925 (1925)
Location 15 West 16th Street, Manhattan, New York City, United States
Coordinates 40°44′17″N 73°59′38″W / 40.738047°N 73.993821°W / 40.738047; -73.993821Coordinates: 40°44′17″N 73°59′38″W / 40.738047°N 73.993821°W / 40.738047; -73.993821
Director Jonathan Brent
Public transit access Subway: 14th Street–Union Square
Website YIVO

YIVO (Yiddish: ייִוואָ, [jiˈvɔ]), established in 1925 in Wilno in the Second Polish Republic (now Vilnius, Lithuania) as the Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut (Yiddish: ייִדישער װיסנשאַפֿטלעכער אינסטיטוט, pronounced [ˈjidiʃɛr ˈvisən.ʃaftlɛχɛr instiˈtut], Yiddish Scientific Institute[1]), is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. (The word yidisher means both "Yiddish" and "Jewish.") The English name of the organization was changed to the Institute for Jewish Research after its relocation to New York City, but it is still known mainly by its Yiddish acronym. YIVO is now a member of the Center for Jewish History and serves as the de facto recognized language regulator of the Yiddish language.

Activities

YIVO preserves manuscripts, rare books, and diaries, and other Yiddish sources. The YIVO Library in New York contains over 385,000 volumes[1] dating from as early as the 16th century.[2][3] The YIVO archives hold over 24,000,000 documents, photographs, recordings, posters, films, and other artifacts.[1] Together, they comprise the world's largest collection of materials related to the history and culture of Central and East European Jewry and the American Jewish immigrant experience.[1] The archives and library collections Include works in twelve major languages,[4] including English, French, German, Hebrew, Russian, Polish, and Judaeo-Spanish.[4]

YIVO also functions as a publisher of Yiddish-language books and of periodicals including YIVO Bleter[5] (founded 1931), Yedies Fun YIVO (founded 1929), and Yidishe Shprakh (founded 1941). It is also responsible for English-language publications such as the YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Studies (founded 1946).

History

YIVO was initially proposed by Yiddish linguist and writer Nochum Shtif (1879–1933). He characterized his advocacy of Yiddish as "realistic" Zionism, contrasted to the "visionary" Hebraists and the "self-hating" assimilationists who adopted Russian or Polish. Other key founders included philologist Max Weinreich (1894–1969) and historian Elias Tcherikower (1881–1943).[6]

YIVO was founded at a Berlin conference in 1925, but headquartered in Wilno, a city with a large Jewish population that had been annexed to Eastern Poland in 1922. The early YIVO also had branches in Berlin, Warsaw and New York City. Over the next decade, smaller groups arose in many of the other countries with Ashkenazi populations.

In YIVO's first decades, Tcherikover headed the historical research section, which also included Simon Dubnow, Saul M. Ginsburg, Abraham Menes, and Jacob Shatzky. Leibush Lehrer (1887–1964) headed a section including psychologists and educators Abraham Golomb, H. S. Kasdan, and Abraham Aaron Roback. Jacob Lestschinsky (1876–1966) headed a section of economists and demographers Ben-Adir, Liebmann Hersch, and Moshe Shalit. Weinreich's language and literature section included Judah Leib Cahan, Alexander Harkavy, Judah A. Joffe, Zelig Kalmanovich, Shmuel Niger, Noach Pryłucki, and Zalman Reisen.[7] YIVO also collected and preserved ethnographic materials under the direction of its Ethnographic Committee.[8] In 1925, YIVO's honorary board of trustees or "Curatorium" consisted of Simon Dubnow, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Moses Gaster, Edward Sapir and Chaim Zhitlowsky.

From 1934–1940, YIVO operated a graduate training program known as the Aspirantur. Named after Zemach Shabad, YIVO’s chairman, the program held classes and guided students in conducting original research in the field of Jewish studies. Many of the students' projects were sociological in nature (reflecting the involvement of Max Weinreich) and gathered information on contemporary Jewish life in the Vilna region.[9]

The Nazi advance into Eastern Europe caused YIVO to move its operations to New York City. A second important center, known as the Fundacion IWO, was established in Buenos Aires, Argentina.[10] All four directors of YIVO's research sections were already in the Americas when the war broke out or were able to make their way there.[11] For their own reasons, the Nazis carried the bulk of YIVO's archives to Berlin, where the papers survived the war intact, and were eventually moved to YIVO in New York City.

The YIVO Library was looted by the Germans and the ERR, but an organization that called itself "The Paper Brigade" were able to smuggle out many books and preserve them from destruction.[12]

The Chicago YIVO Society is a third active center today.[13]

Publications

YIVO has undertaken many major scholarly publication projects, the most recent being The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, published in March 2008 in cooperation with Yale University Press.[14] Under the leadership of editor-in-chief Gershon David Hundert, professor of history and of Jewish Studies at McGill University in Montreal, this unprecedented reference work systematically represents the history and culture of Eastern European Jews from their first settlement in the region to the present day. More than 1,800 alphabetical entries encompass a vast range of topics including religion, folklore, politics, art, music, theater, language and literature, places, organizations, intellectual movements, and important figures. The two-volume set also features more than 1,000 illustrations and 55 maps. With original contributions from an international team of 450 distinguished scholars, the encyclopedia covers the region between Germany and the Ural Mountains, from which more than 2.5 million Jews emigrated to the United States between 1870 and 1920.

The first complete English-language edition of Max Weinreich's classic book History of the Yiddish Language,[15] edited by Dr. Paul (Hershl) Glasser, was published in two volumes in 2008.

See also

References

Notes
  1. 1 2 3 4 yivo
  2. ↑ YIVO Institute for Jewish Research | Brief Introduction
  3. ↑ YIVO Institute for Jewish Research | Overview of Library Collections
  4. 1 2 YIVO Institute for Jewish Research | Overview
  5. ↑ YIVO Institute for Jewish Research | YIVO in the United States
  6. ↑ Liptzin, Sol (1972). A History of Yiddish Literature. Middle Village, NY: Jonathan David Publishers. pp. 127–130, 133. ISBN 0-8246-0124-6.
  7. ↑ Liptzin, 1972, 130, 133
  8. ↑ "Guide to the Records of the YIVO Ethnographic Committeeundated, 1885-1941RG 1.2". Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  9. ↑ "Guide to the Records of the YIVO Aspirantur1934-1940RG 1.3". Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  10. ↑ "Fundación IWO". Archived from the original on 12 August 2015. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  11. ↑ Liptzin, 1972, 3, 133
  12. ↑ Fishman, David E. The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis. 2017.n
  13. ↑ "Chicago Yivo Society". Chicago Yivo Society. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  14. ↑ "The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe - Hundert, Gershon David; YIVO Institute for Jewish Research - Yale University Press". Yalepress.yale.edu. 2008-05-28. Retrieved 2015-08-10.
  15. ↑ Yale University Press, 2008
Bibliography
  • Prager, Leonard, "Yiddish Studies in Israel III", Mendele, Vol. 6.277, April 4, 1997.
  • Liptzin, Solomon (December 1, 1985). A history of Yiddish literature. Jonathan David Publishers, Incorporated. ISBN 978-0-8246-0307-6.

Further reading

  • Dawidowicz, Lucy S. From that Place and Time: A Memoir 1938 - 1947. New York: Norton, 1989. ISBN 0-393-02674-4
  • *Fishman, David E. Embers Plucked From The Fire: The Rescue of Jewish Cultural Treasures in Vilna New York: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 1996. (in English and Yiddish)
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