News & Features

YIVO sometimes used its airtime on WEVD to broadcast recordings of its scholarly conferences. Here, Dr. Max Weinreich delivers the opening address at YIVO's Conference on Jewish Participation in Movements Devoted to the Cause of Social Progress, which took place in Carnegie Hall on September 10-13, 1964. From 1963-1976, YIVO had ...

by ROBERTA NEWMAN In December 1935, Yedies reported on the initial activities of a new division at YIVO devoted to research on Jews and sports. The ambitious goals of the Sports Division were: The establishment of a central archive of materials on Jewish sports movements in Poland and elsewhere; The creation of a ...

On Sunday, December 15, 2013 at 3:00 pm, YIVO will celebrate the work of the most popular composers from the golden age of Yiddish American theater, otherwise known as the “big four of Second Avenue”: Abraham Ellstein, Alexander Olshanetsky, Sholom Secunda, and Joseph Rumshinsky. This concert features the composers’ hits ...

YIVO mourns the loss of Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, who died last week at the age of 93. Beyle, one of the greatest contemporary writers of Yiddish song and poetry was an inspiration to younger generations interested in Yiddish culture. Her packed funeral on December 1 on the Upper West Side was ...

Gennady Estraikh Gennady Estraikh is an expert on Yiddish literary and intellectual history, particularly of the Soviet era. He teaches at New York University, where he is the Rauch Associate Professor of Yiddish Studies, in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies. He received his doctorate from Oxford in 1996, ...

On November 15, YIVO Executive Director Jonathan Brent appeared on the Chicago podcast, The Milt Rosenberg Show, where he spoke about Yiddish and the renewal of Ashkenazic civilization. On December 2, Jonathan appeared on the Chicago public radio show, Worldview,to discuss his participation in the International Commission for the Evaluation ...

by ROBERTA NEWMAN The YIVO Archives and Library contain many rare manuscripts and books. Some are from YIVO’s prewar collections, rescued from the Nazis by dedicated volunteers in Vilna (Wilno, Poland, present day Vilnius, Lithuania) or recovered with the help of the U.S. Army after the end of World War II. ...

Concert by the Klezmatics at YIVO's 88th gala benefit. "The Klezmatics' deep relationship with YIVO goes all the way back to 1987, when I first started working here. The oytsers (treasures) in YIVO's collections continue to be gems of creative inspiration to us as we approach our 28th year as a ...

by LEAH FALK

Curt Leviant is an esteemed translator, Yiddish scholar, and fiction writer. Among his translations are five volumes of Sholem Aleichem’s work, Chaim Grade’s The Agunah and The Yeshiva, and books by Avraham Reisen, Lamed Shapiro, I.B. Singer, and fabulist Eliezer Shteynbarg. Several of his seven critically acclaimed novels have been translated into major European languages.

For YIVO’s Winter Program, Leviant will teach a course on Yiddish Romantic poet Chaim Grade (1910-1982), “Chaim Grade and the World of Lithuanian Jewry.” In 2013, YIVO acquired Grade’s archive, including 20,000 volumes in multiple languages. (For more information on this acquisition, click here).

by LEAH FALK

Curt Leviant is an esteemed translator, Yiddish scholar, and fiction writer. Among his translations are five volumes of Sholem Aleichem’s work, Chaim Grade’s The Agunah and The Yeshiva, and books by Avraham Reisen, Lamed Shapiro, I.B. Singer, and fabulist Eliezer Shteynbarg. Several of his seven critically acclaimed novels have been translated into major European languages.

For YIVO’s Winter Program, Leviant will teach a course on Yiddish Romantic poet Chaim Grade (1910-1982), “Chaim Grade and the World of Lithuanian Jewry.” In 2013, YIVO acquired Grade’s archive, including 20,000 volumes in multiple languages. (For more information on this acquisition, click here).