YIVO Receives Leadership Gift to Name The Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Collections

New York, NY – The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is thrilled to announce that Edward Blank, retired New York telemarketing pioneer, has made a leadership gift to name the YIVO Vilna Collections the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Collections. This seven-year international project will preserve, digitize and reunite YIVO’s prewar library and archives, located in New York City and Vilnius, Lithuania, through a dedicated web portal. The Project will also digitally reconstruct the historic Strashun Library of Vilna, one of the great prewar libraries in Europe. Project partners are the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the Central State Archives of Lithuania, and the National Library of Lithuania.

The Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Collections is the latest chapter in a dramatic story of Nazi looting during the Holocaust. In 1941, the Nazis destroyed YIVO in Vilna and ransacked its archives and library. A portion of YIVO’s archives was sent to Frankfurt to become the basis of the Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question; part was hidden in Vilna; and other materials were destroyed. In 1946, the U.S. Army discovered the seized YIVO materials in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, and returned them to YIVO. The part that remained in Vilna was saved from the Soviets by a Lithuanian librarian, Antanas Ulpis, and remained hidden in the basement of a church until 1989.The surviving books and documents, now split apart by history, are cultural survivors of the Holocaust.

The Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Collections Project will reunite the books and documents in Vilnius and New York in the single largest digital collection related to East European Jewish civilization, including the largest collection of Yiddish-language materials in the world. The project encompasses some 12,000 rare or unique publications and approximately 1 million documents, including literary works, letters, memoirs, theater posters, photographs, rare books, pamphlets, newspapers, political tracts, religious treatises, and communal records.

Simon Schama, historian and author of the BBC's five-part series A History of the Jews, has called the YIVO Institute the “embodiment of the collective memory of the Jewish people of Eastern Europe.” The core of this memory is the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Collections.

The collections tell us how Jews lived, where they came from, how they raised and educated their families, how they created art, literature, music and language itself. Furthermore, these documents reveal the relations between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors, how they understood their place in the world both politically and socially and how they faced the turmoil and the promise of modernity. The full story of Jewish life in Eastern Europe and Russia has not yet been written. These unique, original materials will enable us to do so. “It will transform the historiography of East European and Russian Jewish history by giving scholars and the general public access to little known and often completely unknown documents and books,” said Jonathan Brent, YIVO Executive Director.

Edward Blank remarked, “I am so proud to be able to help ensure the survival and accessibility of these historical records of Jewish civilization in Eastern Europe for future generations. This is my story, this is your story, this is everyone’s story – one that has had a broad impact on our world.”

Mr. Blank’s gift, along with other gifts, helps to satisfy 90% of the $5.6 million needed for the project.

For press inquiries, contact:

Melissa S. Cohen
Chief Development Officer
(212) 294-6156

Sarah Ponichtera
Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Collections Project Manager
(212) 294-6119

About YIVO

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

About the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Collections

The Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections project is an international preservation and digitization initiative to reunite YIVO’s prewar library and archival collections located in New York City and Vilnius, Lithuania, through a dedicated web portal. One of the most ambitious preservation and digital initiatives in Jewish history, the Project encompasses up to 12,500 rare or unique volumes and approximately 2 million pages of literary manuscripts, memoirs, diaries, communal records, religious sermons, letters and other materials. Total project costs are estimated at $7 million, of which YIVO has raised $5.9 million to date. vilnacollections.yivo.org