Ambassador to Albania: The Herman Bernstein Papers in the YIVO Archives

Herman Bernstein, 1929. (YIVO RG 713)

Lithuanian-born Herman Bernstein (1876-1935) was an author, translator, journalist, communal activist, and diplomat, who served as secretary of the American Jewish Committee and a founder of the Yiddish daily, Der Tog (The Day) in 1914. He served as correspondent for the New York Herald in Russia in 1917-1920 and at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. In the 1920s, he instituted a libel suit against Henry Ford and the Dearborn Independent for publishing the scurrilous antisemitic forgery, Protocols of the Elders of Zion. YIVO has an extensive collection of his papers, which includes correspondence with major cultural and political figures of the early 20th century, such as Hayyim Nahman Bialik, Louis Brandeis, Fyodor Chaliapin, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Herbert Hoover, Vladimir Jabotinsky, Horace M. Kallen, Henry Morgenthau, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, Sholem Aleichem, and Leo Tolstoy.

On Sunday, December 14, 2014, at 1:00pm at YIVO, the Ruth Gay Seminar in Jewish Studies will shed light on one important chapter of Bernstein’s illustrious career: 1930-1933, when he served as U.S. Ambassador to Albania, and championed positive Albanian-Jewish relations. This work had important implications for Albanian Jews during World War II. By the end of the war, Albania had tripled its Jewish population, sheltering Jews from Austria, Germany, and Yugoslavia.

Mal Berisha

The speaker, Mal Berisha, is Ambassador of the Republic of Albania to the United Kingdom and Ireland, as well as a historian, who has published many books and articles on Albanian history and culture. His latest publication, Charles Telford Erickson, A Life Dedicated to Albania (2012), is an extensive monograph on the life and work of the early 20th-century American missionary. He has also published articles and given talks on Jewish life in Albania and Jewish-Albanian relations.

Attend the program.

Letter from Leo Tolstoy to Herman Bernstein, 1908. (YIVO RG 713)

Herman Bernstein with Bektashi monks, Albania, 1930-1933. (YIVO RG 713)