Yivo Institute For Jewish Research - Guide to the YIVO Archives

First published 1998 by M.E. Sharpe

Published 2015 by Routledge

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Copyright 1998 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved.

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YIVO Archives.
Guide to the YIVO Archives/ by YIVO Institute for Jewish Research;
compiled and edited by Fruma Mohrer and Marek Web.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 0-7656-0130-3 (alk. paper)

1. YIVO Archives-Catalogs. I. Mohrer, Fruma. 1950-.

II. Web, Marek. III. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

IV. Title.

Z6375.Y59 1997 97-34858

026.909'04924 dc21

CIP

ISBN 13: 9780765601308 (hbk)

The publication of this guide marks the conclusion of a long and challenging project to create a comprehensive finding aid that will facilitate better access to the YIVO Archives. Much of the credit for making this undertaking possible goes to the generations of YIVO archivists who faithfully and painstakingly identified and cataloged hundreds of thousands of documents, giving shape and meaning to an inchoate mass of archival records. The present volume is intended to serve as a basic introduction to the YIVO Archives. It lists the collections in the archives and informs the reader in a concise manner about their contents. In addition, it makes it possible, with the help of the index, to do quick searches. While detailed reference is beyond the scope of this volume, the reader will find here enough clues to prepare himor herself for a fruitful exploration of this vast repository of Jewish historical and cultural documentation.

Besides achieving the practical goal of producing a research tool for the user, the publication of the Guide to the YIVO Archives is meant to heighten awareness of YIVOs place in the Jewish community, of its potential as a resource center for the community in general and for Jewish scholarship in particular. The YIVO Archives, now in its seventy-second year, has played a prominent role in Jewish culture and scholarship over the entire span of its existence. Tangible traces of it can be found in a multitude of works that make use of documents preserved in the YIVO Archives and in countless acknowledgments and credits from those who have used its resources.

From its earliest years the YIVO Archives followed a policy of seeking out and gathering contemporaneous records as well as documents of the more distant past. The result of this policy was the accumulation of a vast and rich documentation that reflects the layers of time and bears witness to the unfolding of events in the general movement of Jewish history. On the one hand, readers will discover historical records that document broad and sweeping developments in the Jewish world. On the other hand, they will also find materials that in minute detail describe daily life, work, learning, culture, religious observance, changing traditions, politics and more.

This repository-level guide is the first such publication in the long history of the YIVO Archives. The completion of the guide coincides with a momentous event in the life of the YIVO Archives, the return of the pre-war YIVO collections that had been held in Vilnius, Lithuania, from the time of the destruction of the Vilna YIVO by the Nazis in 1942. Immediately after the war YIVO initiated a drive to reclaim the treasures from its library and archives looted by the Nazis. Over the years this effort bore fruit, resulting in the return of major portions of pre-war YIVO archival collections from France in 1946 and from Germany in 1947, and culminating most recently in the recovery of the collections discovered in Vilnius.

The publication of this volume coincides also with the final preparations of the YIVO Institute to move into its new home, the Center for Jewish History, whose premises will be shared jointly by three major Jewish archives and a museum (the YIVO Institute, the American Jewish Historical Society, the Leo Baeck Institute, and Yeshiva University Museum). As a result of this unprecedented joint venture the horizons and opportunities for research in Jewish history and culture will be greatly expanded. That the Guide to the YIVO Archives is coming off the press at this juncture will help to emphasize the Archives research potential within the new partnership.

To all those who over the very long haul helped us make this project happen, we want to express our deepest gratitude. And to those who love to explore the Jewish past in the original, we offer this guide in the hope that it will be of value and assistance.

Fruma Mohrer and Marek Web

New York, April 1997

The YIVO Institute is deeply grateful to the J.M. Kaplan Fund and its president Joan K. Davidson and to the late Morris and Frieda Waletzky for generously funding the preparation of the Guide to the YIVO Archives for publication.

We wish to pay tribute to the late Hannah Fryshdorf, Assistant Director of the YIVO Institute, whose deep love for YIVO and its accomplishments was reflected in her firm and idealistic leadership and whose enduring influence is in no small measure responsible for the publication of this guide. We would like to thank the YIVO Board of Directors and its Chairman, Bruce Slovin, for their continuous support of this project. Our thanks to Samuel Norich, former Executive Director of the YIVO Institute, for his support and encouragement of the project from its inception, to Tom Freudenheim, Executive Director of YIVO, to Dr. Allan Nadler, YIVO Research Director and Dean of the Max Weinreich Center, and to Andrea Sherman, former YIVO Director of Publications.

For their daily collaboration and patient assistance with innumerable requests we are indebted to the entire YIVO staff, both past and present, as well as to all YIVO volunteers and, last but not least, to our friends and family members, for their support and participation.

In our work on the guide, we constantly relied on expert advice and generous help of many people. We wish to thank the following:

For assistance with bibliographical and published historical sources as well as standardization of foreign language words: Dina Abramowicz, Reference Librarian; Zachary Baker, Head Librarian; Elisheva Schwartz, Judaica Cataloger; Dr. Bella Hass Weinberg, Consulting Librarian; Beatrice Silverman Weinreich, Research Associate; Dr. Paul (Hershl) Glasser, Research Associate; Chana Mlotek, Music Archivist; Cathryn Krug, Senior Editor, University of Chicago Press; Pearl Lam; Chavie Mohrer; Herbert Lazarus; Nikolai Borodulin; Nina Warnke; Oscar and Sara Mohrer. For an in-depth review of the index and numerous valuable corrections and suggestions: Dr. Bella Hass Weinberg. For assistance with preparation of the manuscript and technical support: Yossi Weiss; Shaindel Fogelman; Sarah Levine; Jeffrey Salant; Jeffrey Shandler; Lorin Sklamberg; John Collis; Seth K.amil. For assistance with proofreading and reading the manuscript: Pearl Lam; Leo Greenbaum, Associate Archivist; Chana Mlotek; Nettie Krischer Plafker.