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About YIVO
Library & Archives
  Click to enlargeThe dais at the first YIVO Conference, Vilna, 1929. Among the scholars and communal leaders on the stage are (seated, center) Tsemah Szabad, (second to Szabad’s right) Max Weinreich, (second to Szabad’s left) Perets Hirshbeyn, (standing, third from right) Zelig Kalmanovitsh, and (seated, second from right) Eliyahu Tsherikover. (YIVO) |
Founded in 1925 in Vilna, Poland (Wilno, Poland, now Vilnius, Lithuania), as the Yiddish Scientific Institute, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is dedicated to the history and culture of Ashkenazi Jewry and to its influence in the Americas. Headquartered in New York City since 1940, today YIVO is the world's preeminent resource center for East European Jewish Studies; Yiddish language, literature and folklore; and the American Jewish immigrant experience. The YIVO Library holds over 385,000 volumes in 12 major languages, and the Archives contains more than 24,000,000 pieces, including manuscripts, documents, photographs, sound recordings, art works, films, posters, sheet music, and other artifacts. YIVO also offers a series of cultural events and films, adult education and Yiddish language classes (including the pioneering Uriel Weinreich Program in Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture six-week intensive summer program begun in 1968), various scholarly publications, research opportunities and fellowships. |
News & Information
| Steinberg Charitable Trust Awards $300,000 Challenge Grant for Online YIVO Encyclopedia Project Matching Fund Effort Underway : Cahnman Foundation Pledges $25,000 NEW YORK, Sept. 2008 – The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research has announced that it has received a three-year, $300,000 challenge grant from the Joseph S. and Diane H. Steinberg Charitable Trust to create an online edition of The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Under the terms of the grant, YIVO will raise an equal amount in matching funds over the same period, for which The Cahnman Foundation, Inc., of New York has made the first pledge, in the amount of $25,000. More... |
| The 2008 Jan Karski & Pola Nirenska Prize at YIVO
Awarded to Szymon Rudnicki NEW YORK, July 2008 – Prof. Dr. hab. Szymon Rudnicki is this year’s winner of the Jan Karski and Pola Nirenska Prize. Endowed by Professor Jan Karski at YIVO in 1992, the $5,000 prize goes to authors of published works documenting Polish-Jewish relations and Jewish contributions to Polish culture. The award ceremony will be held in October at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. More... |
| Lithuanian Prime Minister Visits YIVO NEW YORK, June 2008 – As part of his recent trip to the United States, Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas of Lithuania visited YIVO on June 30, 2008. He was given a tour of YIVO’s Rare Book Room and Archives, followed by a discussion that touched on YIVO-owned Hebrew- and Yiddish-language books, rediscovered in 1989, that are now housed in the Bibliographical Center of the Lithuanian National Library. More... |
| THE YIVO ENCYCLOPEDIA OF JEWS IN EASTERN EUROPE MAKES ITS DEBUT AS THE DEFINITIVE REFERENCE WORK ON JEWS IN EASTERN EUROPE NEW YORK, Mar. 2008 – For the first time, the centuries-long history and culture of East European Jewry is presented in a reference work representing seven years of research and collaborative scholarly effort. An unprecedented two-volume, 2,400-page resource makes its debut this month as “The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe,” published by Yale University Press. This work systematically represents the history and culture of Eastern European Jews from their first settlement in the region to the present day, reflecting on the ancestry of the vast majority of Jews in the world today. More... |