Renowned Scholar Samuel Kassow Joins YIVO as Research Historian

(New York, NY) – The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is delighted to announce the appointment of Samuel D. Kassow, one of the foremost historians of Eastern European Jewry and the Holocaust, as Visiting Research Historian. Beginning in November 2025, Dr. Kassow will contribute his distinguished scholarship and decades of experience to advance YIVO’s mission across research, education, and public engagement.

In his new role, Dr. Kassow will work closely with YIVO fellows, contribute to online and in-person exhibitions, and teach in the YIVO-Bard Winter Program in Ashkenazi Civilization, as well as advise in the development of the YIVO-Bard MA Program in Yiddish Civilization being developed jointly by Bard College and YIVO. He will also advise on the Jan Karski and Pola Nirenska Prize, awarded for outstanding scholarship in Polish-Jewish studies, mentor students in the Max Weinreich Center for Advanced Jewish Studies, and contribute his expertise to YIVO's future initiatives.

“Dr. Kassow’s appointment is vital to strengthens YIVO’s core mission of education, scholarship, and research,” said Jonathan Brent, YIVO’s CEO & Executive Director. “His expertise will play an important role in helping shape YIVO’s next chapter of intellectual and cultural achievement.”

“I am greatly honored to be joining YIVO as a Visiting Research Historian,” said Dr. Kassow. “As with most scholars of East European Jewry, the YIVO collections have been an indispensable resource for me, and I look forward to working with the excellent YIVO staff.”

Kassow is an internationally recognized scholar of Jewish history and a Fellow of the American Academy of Jewish Research. Born in a displaced-persons camp in Germany to Holocaust survivors, Kassow earned his PhD from Princeton University and has dedicated his career to illuminating the history and cultural legacy of Jewish life in Eastern Europe. From 2006 until 2013, he served as the lead historian for two core galleries of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, which opened in 2014. He is the author of Who Will Write Our History? Emanuel Ringelblum and the Secret Ghetto Archive (Indiana University Press, 2007), which received the Orbis Prize of the AAASS, was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, and has been translated into eight languages. His translation of Rokhl Aurbach's Warsaw Testament won the 2024 National Jewish Book Award for Holocaust Memoir.

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YIVO

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is dedicated to the preservation and study of the history and culture of Eastern European Jewry worldwide. For a century, YIVO has pioneered new forms of Jewish scholarship, research, education, and cultural expression. Our public programs and exhibitions, as well as online and on-site courses, extend our global outreach and enable us to share our vast resources. The YIVO Archives contains more than 24 million original items, and YIVO’s Library has over 400,000 volumes—the single largest resource for such study in the world. yivo.org / yivo.org/the-whole-story