RG 7 Music (Vilna Archives)

The materials in this collection document Jewish communal and cultural life in Poland, Lithuania, Russia, and in other communities around the world.

They include the records of the YIVO Institute itself, namely the Philological Section, in Shipping List 1, the Ethnographic Committee, in Shipping List 9, the Historical Section, in Shipping List 11, and the Administration in Shipping List 13-4. They also include the records of activities undertaken by YIVO itself or close YIVO associates, such as the Autobiography contest, in Shipping List 7 and Shipping List 21, and the Tcherikower archive documenting the pogroms, in Shipping Lists 2 and 10. They include part of the records of Zalman Reisen's correspondence to contributors to his Leksikon fun der yidisher literatur, prese un filologie (Lexicon of Yiddish Literature, Press and Philology), in Shipping Lists 5 and 20.

Theatrical materials held in this collection include the records of the Esther Rachel Kaminska Theater Museum, in Shipping Lists 3, 8, and 28; and the Yidisher Artistn Farayn, in Shipping List 12. A portion of the papers of Siegfried Bernfeld, organizer of the Zionist youth movement in Austria, can be found in Shipping List 22.

Materials documenting the history of the Jewish community of Vilna can be found in the records of the Vilna Kehillah, in Shipping Lists 6 and 17, and the Vilna Territorial Collection in Shipping List 15. Records of the Jewish community in Poland can be found in Shipping List 16. YIVO collections of materials relating to other countries can be found in Shipping List 27.

Materials relating to Jewish education can be found in the records of VILBIG in Shipping List 19, the records of the Rabbinical School and Teachers' Seminary in Shipping List 25, and the records of TSYSHO in Shipping List 26.

Religious life is documented in the records of the Vaad Hayeshivot in Shipping List 29 and a collection of Rabbinic and Historic Manuscripts in Shipping List 28.

Due to the time constraints under which these materials were arranged, some items remained identified but unsorted after the bulk of the materials had been arranged and described. These fragments can be found in Shipping Lists 24, 30, and 32. Photographs which did not clearly belong elsewhere were separated into their own Shipping List, Shipping List 31. The final Shipping Lists, 23 and 33, are comprised of materials that were taken out of their original collections by YIVO archivists for an exhibition at YIVO in New York in 1994.

With the exception of Shipping Lists 24, 30, and 32, each Shipping List of this collection corresponds to a record group of materials held at YIVO in New York. A concordance between the Shipping List of this collection and YIVO record groups can be found below.