News & Features

Steven J. Zipperstein, Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History at Stanford University and currently Jacob Kronhill Visiting Scholar at YIVO, will deliver a keynote address on June 16 in Budapest at the Central European University's international conference "Narratives of Violence." Professor Zipperstein's lecture, drawn from research he has conducted ...

In this broadcast from January 24, 1965, we hear the paper on Yiddish literature that Dr. Mikhl (Michael) Astour delivered not long before at YIVO’ annual conference: "One Hundred Years of Yiddish Literature: From Mendele's Little Man to Date." As the report on the conference in Yedies noted: Professor Michael Astour surveyed ...

by ROBERTA NEWMAN

The August-October 1937 issue of Yedies reports on a visit by the artist Emmanuel Mane-Katz. He had stopped off on his way back to Paris from a trip to the Baltic countries and to view an exhibition of his work in Vilna. The article reports on his donation of five of his paintings to YIVO’s art museum and his promise to collect more artworks from Jewish artists in Paris for YIVO.

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the Museum of the City of New York announce the U.S. premiere of Letters to Afar, a groundbreaking video art exhibition by award-winning artists Péter Forgács and The Klezmatics. The exhibition will be on view at the Museum of the City of New York from October 22, 2014 through March 22, 2015.

(NEW YORK, June 1, 2013)– The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is delighted to announce the launch of the YIVO Digital Archive on Jewish Life in Poland, at polishjews.yivoarchives.org. The website provides access to thousands of digitized documents, manuscripts, photographs, artworks, films, and audio recordings relating to the rich and ...

The bishop of Sandomierz and the chief rabbi of Poland at a prayer service at the Jewish cemetery. (Courtesy Magda Teter) On Thursday, June 12, at 7:00 pm, Professor Magda Teter will deliver the Podbrodzer Lecture at YIVO. In a small Polish town, over 300 years ago, Jews were accused of killing a Christian ...

Today’s episode was original heard on January 17, 1965. On the 40th anniversary of the founding of YIVO and the 25th anniversary of its relocation to New York, host Sheftl Zak talks about the annual YIVO conference which had begun the night before. As the February 1965 edition of Yedies ...

The new YIVO Digital Archive on Jewish Life in Poland is now linked to from many other websites and has received coverage in The New York Times: "New Web Portal Provides Access to Historic Materials on Jewish Life in Poland," Jewish Heritage Europe, and Arts Journal. Mosaic Magazine reprinted the Times article.

The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe was designated as "the single best resource on Jewish life in interwar Central and Eastern Europe" by the Centropa Summer Academy in its May e-newsletter.

Klezmer-rock band Golem has been reinterpreting Yiddish and East European Jewish music for the 21st century since 2000. YIVO Public Program Director Helena Gindi spoke with founder and lead singer of the band, Annette Ezekiel Kogan, about Golem’s latest album, Tanz, which was released on May 13 on the Mexican label Discos Corason.

Golem’s CD release party for Tanz will be held at Joe’s Pub on May 29, 2014.

Listen to clips from Tanz on Golem’s website.

Gary Bart, great-nephew of the circus strongman Zishe Breitbart, has just published an online photobookshowcasing artifacts related to his famous forebear that he has been roaming the world collecting for decades. Breitbart, known to Jewish audiences as Shimshn-hagibr (Samson the Mighty), was born into a family of blacksmiths in Lodz. ...