Skip to navigation

YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

Support YIVO
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

Photo

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.

A Special Letter to Our Friends from Executive Director Jonathan Brent
click here
New Exhibit
Yiddish Schools in Poland: Creating the Culture, Awakening the Spirit

Now on view at the Mezzanine Gallery
Featured Publications
NOW AVAILABLE
at the Fanya Gottesfeld Heller Book Store

News & Information


NEW YORK (June 10, 2010) - What is the history of the shtetl? How far was Minsk from Pinsk? Who wrote the first Yiddish novel? What did the Misnagdim believe? Why were so many Polish Jews tavern keepers in the 19th century? (www.yivoencyclopedia.org) More...
(June, 2010) The Award Committee of the Jan Karski and Pola Nirenska Award has the pleasure to announce that Dr. Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov of Warsaw, Poland, is this year’s recipient of the Jan Karski and Pola Nirenska prize. More...

On May 26, 2010, Martin Flumenbaum officially joined the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Board of Directors. A senior partner at the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in the Litigation Department (which he chaired from 1999 to 2005), More...

NEW YORK - The 9th Annual Heritage Dinner, held on April 26, was a great success. The honorees included Betty Trock Hendler, the Wagner family, and Cindy and David Stone. More...

NEW YORK, 7 January 2010 - The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is pleased to announce that it has received a gift of approximately $4.5 million from the estate of Michael (Mickey) Ross, an award-winning television writer who was first generation son of Jewish immigrant parents. The initial bequest will be supplemented by periodic residual payments from the estate. YIVO shares the estate with the National Yiddish Book Center and the Los Angeles Jewish Foundation. "This bequest comes at a critical time for us," said Jonathan Brent, YIVO's new executive director and CEO. More...

News & Information