YIVO Institute for Jewish Research’s Landsmanshaftn Collections to be More Accessible through Grant from the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies

(New York, NY) – The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research was awarded the John Stedman Memorial Grant for its Landsmanshaftn Collection Portal Project. The award for $3,000 was presented today, August 4, 2021, at the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) virtual 41st International Conference on Jewish Genealogy.

The John Stedman Memorial Grant, matched in-kind by YIVO, will support the work of two advanced interns to increase online access to YIVO’s landsmanshaftn collections. Landsmanshaftn were Jewish benevolent societies that were formed to aid new immigrants in their transition from Eastern Europe to America. The YIVO Institute stewards about 1,400 collections of landsmanshaftn records and receives more every year. While most of these records are from organizations that operated in New York City, there are also records from across the United States and the world.

The grant will enable YIVO to create a single finding aid consolidating all the landsmanshaftn collections making them more accessible to the public.

The finding aid will include the town of origin, its variant spellings, and other genealogical resources from the town, as well as a description of the contents of each individual collection. Individual collections may include links to other landsmanshaftn collections at YIVO, materials which have been digitized through remote reference and digitization on demand, yizkor book links and translations from outside sources like the New York Public Library and JewishGen, and other relevant material.

“We are pleased to recognize the work of YIVO and to assist them in expanding access to their valuable collections,” said Ken Bravo, president of IAJGS.

There is a global audience for these materials. In addition to the 200 researchers who consult YIVO’s landsmanshaftn collections each year, nearly 50% of archival research sessions at YIVO are genealogy-related, and most genealogy appointments involve at least one landsmanshaft collection. “This project will help researchers all around the world more easily access important pieces of their own family histories,” said Dr. Stefanie Halpern, Director of the YIVO Archives.

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The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is dedicated to the preservation and study of the history and culture of East European Jewry worldwide. For nearly 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 outreach to a global community. The YIVO Archives contains 24 million unique items and YIVO’s Library has over 400,000 volumes—the single largest resource for the study of East European Jewish life in the world. yivo.org / yivo.org/the-whole-story