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Explore books and journals published by YIVO.

The Yiddish Voices Series

The Yiddish Voices Series was prepared for publication with support from the family of Harriet R. Yassky.

Yiddish Voices is an exciting new series of translated works that connects today’s readers with Yiddish literature, in its full range of authors, genres, and subject matter. Published in partnership with Bloomsbury and YIVO, each volume presents a rich and engaging literary work in English translation with a well-matched historian’s introduction, one that is both erudite and readable. Expertly curated by Alyssa Quint and Elissa Bemporad, the series is organized to showcase first-time translations of enduring Yiddish texts—memoirs, novels, and plays—from which arise topics and themes that have powerful resonance today.

The first book in the series, Three Yiddish Plays by Women: Female Jewish Perspectives, 1880-1920, is out now.

Learn more about the series.

Buy Three Yiddish Plays by Women.
 


The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe

Gershon David Hundert, Editor in Chief
Yale University Press in cooperation with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Published in 2008

This unprecedented reference work systematically represents the history and culture of Eastern European Jews from their first settlement in the region to the present day. More than 1,800 alphabetical entries encompass a vast range of topics, including religion, folklore, politics, art, music, theater, language and literature, places, organizations, intellectual movements, and important figures. The two-volume set also features more than 1,000 illustrations and 55 maps.

Buy the book.

Explore the online version.
 


College Yiddish: An Introduction to the Yiddish Language and to Jewish Life and Culture

By Uriel Weinreich
Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
Published in 2011 by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Originally published in 1949

Buy the book.
 


Modern English-Yiddish / Yiddish-English Dictionary

By Uriel Weinreich
Published in 1968 by the McGraw-Hill Book Company
Reprinted by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in 2012

Dr. Uriel Weinreich’s Modern English-Yiddish Yiddish-English Dictionary has been praised by both scholars and Yiddish writers for its completeness, its remarkable insight into the meanings of Yiddish words and expressions, and its precise presentation of Yiddish grammar and pronunciation.

Buy the book.
 


History of the Yiddish Language: Volumes 1 and 2

By Max Weinreich
Edited by Paul Glasser
Translated by Shlomo Noble with the assistance of Joshua A. Fishman
Yale University Press/YIVO
Published in 2008

Max Weinreich’s History of the Yiddish Language is a classic of Yiddish scholarship and is the only comprehensive scholarly account of the Yiddish language from its origin to the present.

Buy the book.
 


The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook: Garden-Fresh Recipes Rediscovered and Adapted for Today's Kitchen

By Fania Lewando
With a foreword by Joan Nathan. Full-color illustrations throughout.
Translated from the Yiddish by Eve Jochnowitz.
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Originally published in 2015, reprinted in 2023

Beautifully translated for a new generation of devotees of delicious and healthy eating: a groundbreaking, mouthwatering vegetarian cookbook originally published in Yiddish in pre–World War II Vilna and miraculously rediscovered more than half a century later.

Buy the book.
 


Embers Plucked from the Fire: The Rescue of Jewish Cultural Treasures in Vilna

By David E. Fishman
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Second Expanded Edition
Published in 2009, 2015

A reprint of the original 1996 publication in English and Yiddish, updated and with an Appendix of Documents (English only), Embers Plucked from the Fire tells the compelling and miraculous story of the rescue of rare books and manuscripts from YIVO and other institutions in Vilna.

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The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps, 1939-1944

By Herman Kruk
Edited by Benjamin Harshav
Translated by Barbara Harshav
Yale University Press
Published in 2002

For five horrifying years in Vilna, the Vilna ghetto, and concentration camps in Estonia, Herman Kruk recorded his own experiences as well as the life and death of the Jewish community of the city symbolically called “The Jerusalem of Lithuania.” This unique chronicle includes many recovered pages of Kruk’s diaries and provides a powerful eyewitness account of the annihilation of the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe.

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Continuing Evolution: Yiddish Folksong Today

Essays, lyrics, program notes, and a resource guide

Edited by Alex Weiser, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated composer and the Director of Public Programs at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and Dovid Braun, Academic Director of the YIVO Summer Program.

Printed to accompany YIVO's Continuing Evolution: Yiddish Folksong Today (May 2022).

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Der Oytser fun der Yidisher Shprakh

By Nahum Stutchkoff
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Reprinted in 1991
Originally published in 1950

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Yidishe Shprakh, Vol. XXXIX

Edited by Paul Glasser and Yankl Salant
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Published in 2013

Volume XXXIX of Yidishe shprakh, the popular linguistics journal published by YIVO since 1941, is the first new issue available in over two decades. Many years in the making, it includes articles by leading scholars in the fields of Yiddish linguistics and Yiddish studies.

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YIVO Bleter, New Series Volume I

Edited by David E. Fishman
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
New Series, Volume I
Published in 1991

All essays in this book are in Yiddish. There is an English translation of the table of contents in the back of the book.

Buy the book.
 


YIVO Bleter, New Series Volume II

Edited by David E. Fishman
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
New Series, Volume II: Studies on the Culture and History of Lithuanian Jewry
Published in 1994

All essays in this book are in Yiddish. There is an English translation of the table of contents in the back of the book.

Buy the book.
 


YIVO Bleter, New Series Volume III

Edited by David E. Fishman and Avraham Nowersztern
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
New Series, Volume III: The Holocaust in Lithuania/Dr. Max Weinreich
Published in 1997

All essays in this book are in Yiddish. There is an English translation of the table of contents in the back of the book.

Buy the book.
 


YIVO Bleter, New Series Volume IV

Edited by Paul Glasser
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
New Series, Volume IV: Yiddish Folklore
Published in 2003

All essays in this book are in Yiddish. There is an English translation of the table of contents in the back of the book.

Buy the book.
 


Plant Names in Yiddish

By Mordkhe Schaechter
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Published in 2005

Yiddish linguist Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter confronts the stereotype that "there aren't any plant names in Yiddish” with the meticulously researched, long-awaited Plant Names in Yiddish, first published by YIVO in 2005. This groundbreaking Yiddish-English botanical dictionary draws on literary, scientific, linguistic and religious sources to document a wealth of Yiddish plant names—including many dialectal and regional variants.

OUT OF PRINT.