YIVO Staff Directory
- Administration & Finance
- Development & External Affairs
- YIVO Archives
- YIVO Library
- Max Weinreich Center for Advanced Jewish Studies (YIVO Education Department)
- Public Programs
- Digital Initiatives & Communications
Administration & Finance
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Jonathan BrentExecutive Director & CEO Jonathan Brent is a historian, publisher, translator, writer and teacher. For eighteen years (1991-2009) he was editorial director at Yale University Press where he established the Annals of Communism series. His books include Stalin’s Last Crime (2003); and Inside the Stalin Archives (2008). Brent has translated poems of Joseph Brodsky and Vladimir Mayakovsky and teaches history and literature at Bard College. He is currently writing a biographical study of the Russian writer, Isaac Babel, and finishing a novel. In 2009, Brent became Executive Director and CEO of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, where he initiated the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections project to conserve and digitize all of YIVO’s pre-WWII collections. Brent lectures widely on Jewish, Soviet and East European history. He has made three documentaries about his work: Stalin’s Last Plot (2009); Stalin: Man of Steel (2003); and Declassified: Stalin (2006). He is now participating a documentary on the life and disappearance of Raul Wallenberg. His books have been translated into French, Swedish, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and Polish. |
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Shelly FreemanChief of Staff Shelly Freeman holds a degree in Law and Economics from Monash University in Melbourne Australia and is the Chief of Staff at YIVO. Prior to joining YIVO Shelly worked as a lawyer and later in politics after which she set up her own consulting business which she ran in Australia for 11 years. Her consultancy focused on communications, project management and stakeholder relations. At YIVO, Shelly works closely with the CEO on a number of special projects including setting up the YIVO UK Office, developing relationships with other aligned organizations around the world and communications and media for the Institute. Shelly moved to New York for the role and in her spare time is busy enjoying all that Manhattan has to offer including going to see some great Yiddish theater. |
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Debbie CaliseExecutive Administrator Debbie manages the office of the Executive Director and CEO by providing seamless calendar support, making domestic and international travel arrangements, preparing expense reports, correspondence and project oversight. Debbie works closely with the Board of Directors. As Board Liaison, she assists in scheduling meetings, preparing agendas and meeting materials, writing and distributing meeting minutes and serves as the mail contact with Board on various new and organizational updates. In her capacity as Office Manager she works closely with HR to maintain office policies and procedures, organizes office operation, maintains and purchases supplies. Debbie is also responsible of maintaining the condition of the office and arranging for necessary repairs and coordinates IT purchases and repairs. Debbie previously worked briefly at the JCC Association as Coordinator of Development and Planning. She worked as an Executive Assistant for over 14 years at the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science where her responsibilities included: Board Liaison, Coordinator of the Bessie Lawrence Summer program, Donor Recognition and daily support to the COO and two Vice Presidents located in satellite offices in Washington DC and Los Angeles California. Debbie was born in the US and made Aliya with her family at an early age. She grew up in Israel where she was one of the first Touro College graduating classes in Israel earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology. |
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Robert WagmanChief Financial Officer As chief financial officer (CFO) , Robert has primary responsibility for managing YIVO’s finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financial reporting. |
Wilma GonzalesSenior Accountant |
Development & External Affairs
Membership Inquiries:membership@yivo.org | (212) 294-6131 |
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Melissa CohenChief Development Officer With more than 30 years of experience in not-for-profits, Melissa Cohen joined YIVO as its Chief Development Officer in September of 2019. She had most recently served on the development team in the New York offices of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Her prior experience includes serving as Director of Development at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale, an elder care community, and at Rosie’s Theater Kids, a youth development organization. Melissa has served on the board of Women in Development, a membership organization dedicated to the advancement of women in their fundraising careers. In her role at YIVO, Melissa leads efforts to facilitate philanthropic gifts and grants. |
Jordan RuttertAssociate Development Officer |
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Michelle SmithDatabase Administrator |
YIVO Archives
General Inquiries: |
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Stefanie Halpern, Ph.D.Director of the YIVO Archives Stefanie Halpern is Director of the Archives at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. She received her PhD from the department of Jewish Literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Her dissertation, "Crossing Over from the Yiddish Rialto to the American Stage," explores the ways the Yiddish theater intersected with and ultimately became part of the mainstream American theatrical institution. Stefanie has published on Yiddish and Jewish theater and performance and was the assistant curator of the exhibition “From the Bowery to Broadway: New York’s Yiddish Theater,” held at the Museum of the City of New York. |
Kara AdamsDigital Projects Specialist |
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Eléonore Biezunski, Ph.D.Sound Archivist Eléonore Biezunski serves as Sound Archivist in the The Max and Frieda Weinstein Archives of YIVO Recorded Sound since 2016, where she has coordinated the Ruth Rubin Legacy website (ruthrubin.yivo.org). She is a singer and violinist and has a PhD from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and a M.A. in Urban Geography from Paris Nanterre University (France). She was trained in classical violin, klezmer music, Yiddish song and voice. She has collected Yiddish songs and melodies between Paris and New York, where she has founded or joined groups (The Klezmographers, Yerushe, Shtetl Stompers, Ephemeral Birds, Shpilkes), written plays or joined theater companies, to which she lends her voice and her bow and plays a little comedy. Her song "Tshemodan" was awarded Best New Yiddish Song at the Bubbe Awards 2021. She is a 2017 recipient of a NYSCA Folk Arts Apprenticeship, for the study of Yiddish Folksongs with Joshua Waletzky, through the Center for Traditional Music and Dance. Her recordings include Yerushe (IEMJ, 2016), drawing from the Ruth Rubin Collection and other Yiddish music archives, and Zol zayn (2014). She is also a member of the Klezmer Institute's KMDMP and Klezmer Archive Project. She has taught and has published several book chapters and articles, and appears in several documentaries on the history of Yiddish music and culture. www.eleonorebiezunski.com |
Alyse DelaneyDigital Projects Specialist |
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Devora Geller, Ph.D.Digital Preservation Manager Dr. Geller holds a Ph.D. in musicology from The Graduate Center, CUNY. She has researched and published on Yiddish theater music in America, and has received awards from the Music Library Association and the American Association for Jewish Research. Geller has also served as an Adjunct Lecturer at Brooklyn College and a Quantitative Reasoning Fellow at Hostos Community College. She is proficient in Yiddish and French. |
Ettie GoldwasserProject Archivist Goldwasser has an M.A. in History from NYU, and an MLS from Queens College, CUNY. She has worked on the development of several YIVO websites, including the Milstein Family Jewish Communal Archive Project, YIVO Digital Archives on Jewish Life in Poland, and the Online Guide to the YIVO Archives. She was also part of the team which organized the records of Hebrew Actors Union. |
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Leo GreenbaumAccessions Archivist / Bund Archivist Greenbaum has a MA in Modern Jewish History from Dropsie College (now the Annenberg Center for Judaic Studies, U. of Pennsylvania). He worked in the Dropsie library and archives for ten years. From 1978 to 1989, Greenbaum worked in Bund Archives of the Jewish Labor Movement, a subdivision of the YIVO Archives since 1992. Since 1989, he has been the Associate Archivist/Accessioning Archivist/Bund Archives Archivist at YIVO. |
Saul HankinDigital Projects Specialist Hankin studied Yiddish as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan – where he double-majored in History and Judaic Studies – and in the advanced class of the Kadar summer program at Tel Aviv University. He has also studied Hebrew, German, and Polish. Hankin holds an M.A. in Jewish Studies from Columbia University, and an M.S. in Information Science from the University of Michigan. He was previously a graduate fellow at the Yiddish Book Center, a Yiddish Book Center translation fellow, and a summer intern at YIVO. |
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Beata KasiarzProject Archivist Kasiarz is a processing archivist, working on literary archives. |
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Jennifer KeefeDigital Projects Specialist |
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Ruby Landau-PincusReference & Outreach Archivist |
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Violet LutzProject Archivist Violet Lutz holds a Ph.D. in Germanic Languages and Literatures from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MLS from Queens College, CUNY, with a concentration in Archives. She previously worked as a manuscripts cataloger in the Rare Book & Manuscripts Library at the University of Pennsylvania, and as Special Collections Librarian at the German Society of Pennsylvania. Beginning in 2012 she was a processing archivist at the Center for Jewish History, before joining the Vilna Project in 2015. She is near-fluent in German, with experience reading old-style German handwriting (Kurrentschrift), is proficient in Yiddish, and has a reading knowledge of French. |
Mariia OstapiukProject Conservator |
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Jessica PodhorcerProject Archivist Podhorcer has a B.A. from Brandeis University, where she majored in History and minored in Judaic Studies. She is proficient in Yiddish with a working knowledge of Hebrew and German. Her previous archival experience includes working at the JDC Archives and the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People. |
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Tatiana PopovaHead of Conservation Popova has worked in archival conservation for YIVO and the Center for Jewish History for over 15 years, with experience in paper and book conservation. She received professional training at the Center for Jewish History and the Center for Book Arts and is fluent in English and Russian. |
Allison Hope RichardsProject Conservator Allison Hope Richards received a Masters of the Arts in Jewish studies through the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University in Fall 2018. She also received a Bachelors in American History from Purchase College in the Spring 2010, specializing in East Asian studies (modern China and Japan), Jewish studies and Mandarin Chinese. During her time at Purchase, she worked closely with the Classical Voice program through the Conservatory of Music and served as a figure model for drawing classes through the School of Continuing Education and the School of the Arts. During her time at Columbia, she performed with the chamber choir, Collegium Musicum, studying music ranging from Christian liturgy to Slavic folksong. She is an alumna of both the YIVO Summer Program (2013) and the Yiddish emersion program at Yiddish Farm in New Hampton, NY. She also served as an intern under the direction of Robert Lee at the Asian American Arts Centre located on the Lower East Side. |
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Lorin SklambergSound Archivist Lorin Sklamberg has served as YIVO’s Sound Archivist since 2000. He previously worked at YIVO from 1987-1994, as the aide to the then-Assistant Director Adrienne Cooper, and as YIVO’s in-house Yiddish typesetter, graphic designer and coordinator of KlezKamp: the Yiddish Folk Arts Program, which he administered for 14 years. Lorin is a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning Yiddish-American roots band the Klezmatics and has been heard on innumerable recordings and live shows, solo and in collaboration with such diverse artists as Itzhak Perlman, Jane Siberry, Chava Alberstein, Ehud Banai, Yoni Rechter, Emmylou Harris, Tracy Grammer, Neil Sedaka, Natalie Merchant, Tony Kushner and Theodore Bikel. He has composes and performs for film, dance, stage and circus, and has produced a number of recordings of world and theater music. He also teaches Yiddish song from São Paulo to St. Petersburg. Lorin’s work in the field of Yiddish music draws extensively on the unsurpassed wealth of materials held in YIVO’s library and archives. |
Yakov SklarHead of Archival Processing Sklar worked as a processing archivist at the Center for Jewish History from 2005 to 2015. From 2012-2015, he was a senior project archivist. He is a native-speaker of Russian and Ukrainian and is pursuing a Ph.D. in Information Studies at Long Island University. |
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Inna TkachenkoProject Conservator Inna has worked as a paper conservator at YIVO since March 2019, working under the direction of the Head of Conservation on documents and posters in the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections project. |
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Hallel YadinArchivist & Special Projects Manager Hallel Yadin is an archivist and special projects manager at YIVO. She holds an M.L.I.S. with an emphasis in archival studies from the University of Missouri and a B.A. in history from Rutgers University. She has reading knowledge of Yiddish and French. |
Judi YuenDigital Projects Specialist Judi Yuen joined YIVO in 2020 after a career as a newspaper copy editor, page designer and technical liaison for Newsday, Long Island. Her experience in image digitization started with a personal interest in scanning and digital photo restoration with Adobe Photoshop and eventually led to a M.S. in Library and Information Science with a Certificate in Archives and Records Management from Long Island University. She also worked as a processing archivist for the Robert Moses Collection Project at LIU and digitized records for historical societies as a fellow for Digitizing Local History Sources, an initiative sponsored by the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation. |
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Vital ZajkaInformation Manager in the Archives, Photo Archives & Library Zajka has thirteen years experience as an archivist for the Center for Jewish History and its partner organizations. He is an ASA certified archivist and has an M.A. in Library and Information Science from the Pratt Institute. Aside from his technical skills, he is fluent in Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, and German, with proficiency in French and Lithuanian. |
YIVO Library
General Inquiries: |
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Emily BarthCataloging & Metadata Manager, Library |
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Alexandra WeinsteinCataloging & Metadata Manager, Library |
Max Weinreich Center for Advanced Jewish Studies
(YIVO Education Department)
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Ben KaplanDirector of Education Ben Kaplan runs the educational programs at YIVO, which include the Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture, the YIVO-Bard Winter Program on Ashkenazi Civilization, and the Shine Online Educational Series. He studied at Williams College, the Middlebury School of Hebrew, and now at YIVO, where he makes a point to speak Yiddish every day. |
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Eddy Portnoy, Ph.D.Senior Academic Advisor & Director of Exhibitions Portnoy received his Ph.D. in Modern Jewish History from the Jewish Theological Seminary and holds an M.A in Yiddish Studies from Columbia. His articles on Jewish popular culture phenomena have appeared in The Drama Review, Polin, and Studies in Contemporary Jewry, among others. In addition to speaking on Jewish popular culture throughout Europe and North America, he has consulted on museum exhibits at the Museum of the City of New York, Musée d'art et d'histoire du judaïsme in Paris, and the Joods Historisch Museum in Amsterdam. He is the author of Bad Rabbi and Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press, published by Stanford University Press, 2017. |
Dovid BraunAcademic Advisor in Yiddish Language, Pedagogy, and Linguistics |
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Jonah TauberProgram Assistant, Education Jonah Tauber holds a BA in History from UC Berkeley and has studied Yiddish at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. Jonah took his passion for Yiddish education to the YIVO Institute in 2022 as a teaching assistant and now works full-time to support the administration of YIVO's educational programming. |
Public Programs
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Alex WeiserDirector of Public Programs Weiser is the Director of Public Programs at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research where he curates and produces programs combining a fascination with and curiosity for historical context, with an eye toward influential Jewish contributions to the culture of today and tomorrow. Born and raised in NYC, Weiser is also an active composer of contemporary classical music. Weiser’s debut album and all the days were purple, was named a 2020 Pulitzer Prize Finalist and cited as “a meditative and deeply spiritual work whose unexpected musical language is arresting and directly emotional.” Released by Cantaloupe Music in April 2019, the album includes songs in Yiddish and English. |
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Susannah TrubmanLearning and Media Center Educator Susannah Trubman holds a B.A. in English Literature from University of Wisconsin-Madison and an M.A. in History from Temple University. Susannah has been studying Yiddish language and culture with YIVO since 2019, is a three-time veteran of the Uriel Weinreich Summer Program, and served as an intern for the Landsmanshaftn Collection at the YIVO archive. |
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Julia RothkoffPublic Programs Associate Julia Rothkoff has a BA in Film Studies from Barnard College and an MA in Jewish Studies from Columbia University. After taking her first Yiddish course during her junior year of college, Julia became passionate about promoting Yiddish language and culture. Through her position as the Public Programs Associate at YIVO, Julia continues to pursue this interest. |
Digital Initiatives & Communications
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Karolina ZiulkoskiDirector of Digital Karolina Ziulkoski is a new media artist and designer. She holds a Master's degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU and bachelor's degrees in Architecture (UFRGS, summa cum laude) and Advertising (PUCRS, Outstanding Student Award). Ms. Ziulkoski is currently the Chief Curator of the YIVO Bruce and Francesca Cernia Slovin Online Museum. Before that, she developed interactive exhibitions for the American Museum of Natural History. She is a principal creator of Daemo, a Self Governed Crowdsourcing Marketplace, a project of the Stanford Crowd Research Collective, and served as an adjunct professor at Rutgers University Visual Arts-Design program. Ms. Ziulkoski is the recipient of numerous awards, including an Inovapps award from the Brazilian Ministry of Communications, a Communication Arts Interactive Award, the 2017 Shortlist for the Fashion & Beauty Clio Awards, and recognition as a Professional Notable at the Core77 Awards. As a partner at Bolota she develops installations, apps and exhibitions with cultural purposes, including the Museum of Municipalities, currently under construction in Brasília, Brazil, where Ms. Ziulkoski is the creative director. She was a member and a mentor at NEW INC, the New Museum's incubator for art, technology, and design in New York City. |
Alix BrandweinWeb and Graphic Designer |
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Shara FeitExhibition Developer, Online Museum |
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Jessica TauberMarketing and Communications Manager Tauber has a Masters from Pace University, where she received an M.S. in Publishing. She received her B.A. from Brandeis University, where she majored in English Language and Literature. She is proficient in Hebrew. Her previous work experience includes working as a Legislative Aide in Nassau County. |