News & Features

On Tuesday, October 22, Antony Polonsky, the Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University will appear at YIVO to discuss his monumental three-volume The Jews in Poland and Russia (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization). He is interviewed here by Yedies Editor Roberta Newman. RN: Why did you see a need ...

On Monday, October 21, 2013, YIVO and the Center for Jewish History will host Sex, Yiddish and the Law: Jewish Life in Metz in the 18th Century, in conjunction with an exhibition, a conference and two other public programs celebrating the pinkas (register) of the bet din (rabbinic court) of the Jewish community of Metz, France, two leather-bound volumes preserved in the YIVO Archives. Brimming with details of commercial transactions involving Jews and non-Jews, family law, inheritance, modes of jurisprudence, and recourse to civil courts, the pinkas is a monument to an extraordinary community and its remarkable rabbinical court.

Visit the exhibition and symposium website and buy tickets to the events.

Professor Jay Berkovitz of the University of Massachusetts is the author of the upcoming book, Protocols of Justice: The Pinkas of the Metz Rabbinic Court 1771-1789 (Brill), a transcription and annotations of the 400,000-word document.

On September 9, he sat down with Yedies Editor Roberta Newman to talk about the pinkas. This interview is the second in a three-part series.

Jay Berkovitz talks about Yiddish and sex in the Pinkas of Metz.

by ROBERTA NEWMAN In 1971, YIVO’s Annual Conference had, as its focus, the past hundred years of Jewish life in the United States. This was no strictly celebratory look at American Jewish history and culture, however. On the contrary, Yedies reported that many of the papers delivered at the conference commented ...

In 1939, Noah Golinkin, a student at Yeshiva University in New York, lately arrived from Vilna, wrote a booklet about YIVO for the Amopteyl, YIVO’s American division. His son, Professor David Golinkin, translated the booklet into English as a memorial on the occasion of his father’s tenth yahrzeit.

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Introduction to the English Translation

My father, Rabbi Noah Golinkin z"l, was born in Zhitomir, Ukraine, on the eighth night of Chanukah, 1913, to Rabbi Mordechai Ya'akov and Chana Chaya Freida Golinkin. When he was about seven years old, his family fled to Vilna in order to escape the Petlyura massacres.

The rest of his life can be divided into four periods.[1] He spent his formative years, ca. 1920-1938, in and around Vilna where he studied at the famous Ramayles Yeshiva together with the Yiddish writer Chaim Grade, as well as in a Polish gymnasium. He also spent time at YIVO, as is evident from this pamphlet. After graduating with a law degree from the Stefan Batory University in Vilna, which was rife with anti-Semitism, he realized that there was no future for the Jews of Poland. In February 1937, he wrote to Yeshiva University in New York and asked to study there; he finally arrived in the U.S. with a student visa in June of 1938.

In 1939, Noah Golinkin, a student at Yeshiva University in New York, lately arrived from Vilna, wrote a booklet about YIVO for the Amopteyl, YIVO’s American division. His son, Professor David Golinkin, translated the booklet into English as a memorial on the occasion of his father’s tenth yahrzeit. Introduction to the ...

YIVO Executive Director Jonathan Brent reviews Seth Lipsky’s newly published biography of Abraham Cahan, founder of the Forward, in the latest issue of Moment Magazine. Read the review.

Each year, YIVO awards a series of Max Weinreich Center Research Fellowships for scholarly research in YIVO’s library and archival collections. These fellowships are intended primarily, but not exclusively, for graduate students and emerging scholars. Each fellowship requires a public lecture by the holder, to be held during or immediately ...

From 1963-1976, YIVO had its own program on WEVD, the radio station established by the Socialist Party of America in 1927 (its call letters stand for the initials of American socialist leader Eugene V. Debs), which was purchased by the Jewish Daily Forward in 1932 and became a major venue ...

by SARAH PONICHTERA

Welcome to Di Nyu-yorkerin!*

This monthly blog will announce Yiddish happenings taking place in and around New York City, and sometimes beyond.

In the cultural sphere, the New Yiddish Rep and Castillo Theater’s production of “Waiting for Godot” has been getting rave reviews both from people well-versed in Yiddish culture (such as Leyzer Burko’s review) and mainstream news outlets (such as Anita Gates’ review in the New York Times). The Folksbiene is holding a concert series featuring previously unheard songs gathered from Jewish families who lived in Soviet Russia, titled “Notes from the Underground.” The songs will be performed by members of the klezmer band Golem, and the performance is directed by the eminent Zalman Mlotek. Details can be found here.