YIVO Press Releases

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research mounts new exhibit, Yiddish Fight Club, based on a linguistic study of Yiddish fighting terms that appeared in YIVO's first publication in 1926. It combines the now-forgotten slang of a violent Yiddish underworld with images of Jewish brawlers from the past. This  exhibit reveals the little-known history of the unique Yiddish fighting slang used by Jewish gangsters, boxers and professional wrestlers, among other tough Jews.

Dr. David E. Fishman, professor of Jewish History at The Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS), serving as the Jacob Kronhill Visiting Scholar in East European Jewish History for the Spring 2015 semester at YIVO.

(NEW YORK, January 5, 2015) – The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Rakhmiel Peltz as the inaugural Atran Visiting Professor of Yiddish Language and Linguistics. Dr. Peltz, a specialist in the social history of Yiddish language and culture, is the Founding Director of ...

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research announces The YIVO Vilna Collections project, a seven-year international project to preserve, digitize and virtually reunite YIVO’s prewar archives located in New York City and Vilnius, Lithuania, through a dedicated web portal. The project will also digitally reconstruct the historic Strashun Library of Vilna, one of the great prewar libraries in Europe. Project partners are The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, The Central State Archives of Lithuania and the National Library of Lithuania.

(NEW YORK, July 8, 2014) – The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Gennady Estraikh as the first Albert B. Ratner Visiting Scholar in East European Jewish Literature. Dr. Estraikh will be in residence for the fall semester 2014. The Albert B. Ratner ...

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the Museum of the City of New York announce the U.S. premiere of Letters to Afar, a groundbreaking video art exhibition by award-winning artists Péter Forgács and The Klezmatics. The exhibition will be on view at the Museum of the City of New York from October 22, 2014 through March 22, 2015.

(NEW YORK, June 1, 2013)– The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is delighted to announce the launch of the YIVO Digital Archive on Jewish Life in Poland, at polishjews.yivoarchives.org. The website provides access to thousands of digitized documents, manuscripts, photographs, artworks, films, and audio recordings relating to the rich and ...

“New York and the American Jewish Communal Experience” (NEW YORK, February 28, 2014) – The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is pleased to announce the publication of the Milstein Conference Proceedings, “New York and the American Jewish Communal Experience,” published with the generous support of the Howard and Abby Milstein Foundation ...

(NEW YORK, January 2014) – On Thursday, February 13 the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research presents Unresolved History: Jews and Lithuanians After the Holocaust with European Union Parliament Member, Dr. Leonidas Donskis, and award-winning writer and political dissident, Tomas Venclova, to address Lithuania’s controversial treatment of the Holocaust, and Lithuanian-Jewish ...

(NEW YORK, November 4, 2013) – The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research announces with sadness the death of its longtime music archivist, Chana Mlotek, known worldwide for her expertise on the musical traditions of Jewish Eastern Europe. Senior Archivist Fruma Mohrer comments, “Chana had every single piece of music from the ...