YIVO Archives to Receive Organizational Records from the Congress for Jewish Culture

On Thursday, July 17, 2014, The New York Times reported on the shutting down of the offices of the Congress for Jewish Culture. The organization was founded by writers and intellectuals in 1948 to promote the work of Yiddish language and culture and once also had offices in Paris and Buenos Aires.

Read more about the Congress for Jewish Culture.

The newly donated records will join an existing collection of Congress for Jewish Culture in the YIVO Archives (Record Group 1148).

Other Yiddish cultural organizations in New York City carry on, thanks to the work of dedicated activists:

• The bookstore of CYCO, the Tsentrale yidishe kultur-organizatsye (Central Yiddish Cultural Organization), an organization founded in 1938, and once the publishing wing of the Congress for Jewish Culture, is located in Long Island City, and is open by appointment.
• The League for Yiddish is headquartered in downtown Manhattan. Among its several projects is the publication of the magazine Afn Shvel, which is committed to the promotion and preservation of Yiddish.
• The National Yiddish Theatre: Folksbiene was founded in 1915 and is the longest continuously producing Yiddish theater in the world.
• New Yiddish Rep is a new theater company. In late July, New Yiddish Rep will open the Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival in Ireland with a Yiddish version of  “Waiting for Godot,” a translation by Shane Baker.
• Yugntruf: Youth for Yiddish, an organization of young Yiddish-speaking adults that is dedicated to the spread of the Yiddish language through various programs and events; sponsors of the yearly "Yidish vokh" (Yiddish week), a retreat for Yiddish-speakers and learners.