YIVO Announces $1,160,000 Challenge Grant for International Project to Preserve Prewar Library and Archives

(NEW YORK, May 18, 2015) – The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is pleased to announce a generous anonymous challenge grant of $1,160,000 – and a new name – for its landmark international project to preserve, digitize, and virtually reunite YIVO’s prewar library and archival collections, located in New York City and Vilnius, Lithuania. The project will also digitally reconstruct the great Strashun Library of Vilna. The result of this work will be the single largest digital collection of materials related to East European Jewish civilization and the largest collection of Yiddish-language materials in the world. Formerly known as The YIVO Vilna Project, the initiative has been renamed The YIVO Vilna Collections - A Landmark Digital Initiative, to underscore the broad scope and historical significance of the collection.

Work on the project, which will take seven years to complete, began in January 2015. A free-access website will enable general audiences and scholars around the world to explore the unified digital library. The YIVO Vilna Collections - A Landmark Digital Initiative will encompass some 10,000 rare or unique publications and approximately 1.5 million documents chronicling roughly 500 years of Jewish life in Poland, Russia, Lithuania, and other European countries.

“The survival of these cultural treasures is nothing short of miraculous,” said Jonathan Brent, YIVO’s executive director. “During the Second World War, thousands of books and documents were hidden by Jews who risked their lives to save this precious material. Their publication in digital form will change the landscape of academic study, as well as provide a new foundation for general understanding of East European Jewish heritage and identity.” In 1941, the Nazis ransacked the YIVO archives and library in Vilna. Although they destroyed many documents, they shipped a portion of the archives to Frankfurt to become the basis of the Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question. In 1946, the U.S. Army recovered these documents and sent them to YIVO in New York. The rest of the collection, which was hidden in the Vilna Ghetto during the war, was saved from the Soviets by a Lithuanian librarian, Antanas Ulpis. These materials are now held in the Lithuanian Central State Archives and Martynas Mazvydas National Library of Lithuania.

The challenge grant, the single largest gift in YIVO’s 90 year history, will provide funds over the next 5 years to support the creation of The YIVO Vilna Collections project. Total project costs are estimated at $5.6 million. The anonymous donor will match all contributions, 1:2, up to $1,160,000. With this new gift, YIVO has raised $1,985,000 to date and needs to raise the remaining $3,265,000.

“By increasing the value of each donation we receive going forward, this challenge grant will provide a solid foundation of support for this ambitious multi-year project,” said Suzanne Leon, Director of Development. “We are deeply grateful to our anonymous donor, and to all of the supporters who share our commitment to preserving these priceless materials and making them accessible for generations to come.” Other major funders of the project to date include The Government of Lithuania, The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the Good Will Foundation, the Kronhill Pletka Foundation, and the Ruth and David Levine Charitable Fund.

To learn more about The YIVO Vilna Collections project and to make a matching gift, please click here.

For press inquiries, contact:

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