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Showing Collections: 1 - 30 of 156

Abraham Moshe Bernstein Collection

 Collection
Identifier: RG 36
Abstract

This collection contains papers of Abraham Moshe Bernstein, a renowned cantor, choir master, composer of Jewish liturgical and secular music, music teacher, musicologist, writer, and translator. The bulk of the materials consists of Bernstein’s liturgical compositions and arrangements in both published and manuscript form, as well as a substantial collection of manuscripts and published works by various composers and arrangers. The materials include Hasidic folk songs and melodies, religious songs, Jewish hymns, popular songs, children’s songs, operettas, liturgical pieces, and musical exercises for students; choral volumes and partbooks; unidentified and fragmented musical manuscripts; manuscripts of Bernstein’s own writings; personal correspondence; a photo of Bernstein on his deathbed; secular and religious songs, Sabbath hymns, Hasidic folk songs and melodies, assembled by Bernstein for the S. Ansky Jewish Historical Ethnographic Society in Vilna.

Dates: 1878-1936; Majority of material found within 1898-1931

Abraham Sutzkever-Szmerke Kaczerginski Historical Collection

 Collection
Identifier: RG 223.2
Abstract

The Abraham Sutzkever-Szmerke Kaczerginski Historical Collection contains letters, manuscripts, and historical documents which were saved by the Yiddish poets Avraham Sutzkever and Szmerke Kaczerginski in the Vilna Ghetto. Sutzkever, Kaczerginski, and other members of the Paper Brigade, conscripted Jewish workers who were forced to work under the Einsatzstab Rosenberg, saved thousands of books, manuscripts and documents at great risk to their lives by hiding them in various places in the Vilna Ghetto. After the war the surviving members recovered many of the hidden items. Sutzkever sent many of these rescued materials to the YIVO Institute in New York from the period 1947 to 1956. The collection consists of 8 series and includes correspondence of writers, intellectuals, communal leaders, rabbinical figures; manuscripts of Yiddish and Hebrew writers; theater documents; folklore materials; rabbinical responsa and writings; historical and legal documents; pinkasim and Jewish communal records.

Dates: 1680-1941

Abraham Sutzkever-Szmerke Kaczerginski Vilna Ghetto Collection

 Collection
Identifier: RG 223.1
Abstract

The bulk of the collection contains documents generated by the Judenrats of the Vilna ghetto during Nazi occupation. The Yiddish poets Abraham Sutzkever and Szmerke Kaczerginski, interned in the Vilna Ghetto before escaping to the forests as partisans, were instrumental in the removal of this collection from Vilna and its subsequent transfer to the YIVO Archives in New York. The collection is therefore named in their honor.

Dates: 1939 - 1950

Additional Records of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in the Lithuanian Central State Archives

 Collection
Identifier: RG 8002
Abstract

The materials in this collection constitute a semi-random sample of the pre-war archive that was transferred to the Central State Archives of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic following the liquidation of the Vilnius Jewish Museum in 1949. The collection includes records of YIVO work and activities, financial records, correspondence, and publications; documents about pogroms in Ukraine, and Red Army and Soviet activity in Vilna and Bialystok; and a significant amount of records of socialist, communist, and Zionist political parties, as well as associated newspapers and one-time publications.

Dates: 1903-1941

Adler Family Papers

 Collection
Identifier: P-890
Abstract

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Celia Adler and Lazar Freed, including theatrical materials such as scripts, programs and sheet music, correspondence, newspaper clippings, assorted publications, and photographs of many of the members of the Adler family and their friends from the Yiddish theater. These materials reflect the wide scope of the Adler acting family and their immense influence on Yiddish theater, Broadway and motion pictures.

Dates: 1893-1992; Majority of material found within 1920 - 1977

Papers of Aliza Greenblatt (1885-1975)

 Collection
Identifier: P-855
Abstract

The papers of Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt include copies of published and unpublished songs, poems and articles in both typed and handwritten manuscript form, newsletters, newspaper clippings, programs, scrapbook pages, and sheet music. There are also drafts and correspondence regarding her autobiography, including original letters sent to her from her husband Isidore when he visited Palestine in 1920, which form a portion of her autobiography. The collection also contains correspondence and legal documents from Greenblatt’s family, documents relating to her Zionist and charitable activities, and correspondence from other Yiddish writers and poets.

Dates: undated, 1882-1983, 1993

Autobiographies of Jewish Youth in Poland

 Collection
Identifier: RG 4
Abstract

The collection consists of more than 300 autobiographies and supplementary biographical materials, such as correspondence, diaries, and documents collected by YIVO in the interest of Jewish youth research. The autobiographies were assembled through public competitions in 1932, 1934, and 1939 directed at Jewish youth aged 16-22. The collection also contains records of the contest, including lists of the contestants, correspondence with them, reports and clippings.

Dates: 1905-1940; Majority of material found within 1932-1939

Baron Horace (Naftali Herz) de Gunzburg Papers

 Collection
Identifier: RG 89
Abstract

Baron Horace (Naftali Herz) de Gunzburg Collection consists of diverse materials that pertain to the state of Jews in the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th century and to the philanthropic activities of Horace and Joseph Gunzburgs. Materials comprising the collection shed light on the Gunzburg family's involvement in improving Jewish education, civil rights movement, and their efforts to improve general well being of the Jews in the Russian Empire. Bulk of the collections consists of materials pertaining to the activities of the Hevrah Mefitsei Haskalah (Society for the Promotion of Culture Among the Jews of Russia, Rus. Обшество для Распространения Просвещения Между Евреями в России) and to the Committee for the Improvement of Daily Life of Jews in the North-West Region (Комиссия по Улучшению Повседневной Жизни Евреев в Северо-Западном Регионе)

Dates: 1850-1904

Ben Itzkowitz Papers

 Collection
Identifier: RG 2150
Dates: 1914 - 2012

Bernard G. Richards Papers

 Collection
Identifier: P-868
Abstract

The collection contains Bernard G. Richards personal and official correspondence, papers from his involvement with the American Jewish Congress and Jewish Information Bureau, published and unpublished writings, publications collected by Richards, articles about Richards and his activities, correspondence and articles from testimonial dinners in honor of Richards, and photographs. Significant correspondents include Joseph Barondess, Louis D. Brandeis, Vladimir Jabotinsky, J.L. Magnes, Louis Marshall, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jacob H. Schiff, Philip Slomovitz, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, Morris Winchovsky, and Stephen S. Wise.

Dates: undated, 1820, 1868, 1895-1996, 1999

Bund Foreign Committee Records

 Collection
Identifier: RG 1401
Abstract

The collection contains the records of the Foreign Committee of the Bund, a Jewish political party espousing socialist democratic ideology as well as cultural Yiddishism and Jewish national autonomism. While a Central Committee led the Bund in the Russian empire, outside of Russia the party was represented by its Foreign Committee, which was based in Geneva, Switzerland. During the period when the Bund had no legal status or was semi-legal in Russia, the Foreign Committee assumed many important organizational functions of the party apparatus.

Dates: undated, 1890-1929; 1950; Majority of material found in 1898-1916

Collection of Herbert A. Bernhard

 Collection
Identifier: RG 1578
Scope and Contents

American anti-Semitic material (1939-1967); a Soviet evacuation permit (July, 1941); genealogical materials from Hungary, Romania and Palestine, including marriage, divorce and birth certificates (1905-1961), death announcements, diplomas (1922, 1929), individual school report cards (1875-1922); documents relating to Jewish communal life in Hungary (1926); Hebrew-Yiddish prayer leaflet (1920s?); Soviet Jewish calendar for 5746 (1985-1986); two applications for residency in Palestine (1932); a song sheet in Hebrew from Jerusalem (1940); correspondence with Rachel Holcenberg of the Lewin-Epstein Publishing Co. and the B. Manischewitz Co. (1922-1928).

Dates: 1875 - 1986

Collection of Yiddish Literature and Language

 Collection
Identifier: RG 3
Abstract

This collection consists of the correspondence of Zalman Reisen, and correspondence to the Union of Yiddish Writers and Journalists in Vilna. In addition, it contains fragments of literary collections which were part of the YIVO Archives in Vilna before 1941 and of materials which originated in Jewish institutions of higher learning in the Soviet Union, specifically the Institut Far Yidisher Proletarisher Kultur (Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture) in Kiev and Invayskult in Minsk. The collection was formed in the YIVO Archives in New York ca. 1950. The bulk of the collection comprises files on about 600 Yiddish writers from Eastern Europe consisting of autobiographical notes and letters, biographies, bibliographies, manuscripts and typewritten copies, newspaper clippings, commemorative materials, announcements about lectures.

Dates: 1829-1944

David Trotsky (1904-1945) Collection

 Collection
Identifier: RG 235
Abstract

This collection contains materials collected by David Trotsky relating to the Jewish community of Belgium in the inter-war period. Materials include printed documents, posters, reports, meeting minutes, and newspaper clippings, mainly pertaining to the Jews of Brussels and Antwerp.

Dates: 1907-1940; Majority of material found within 1920-1938

David Waksberg Papers

 Collection
Identifier: P-895
Abstract

The David Waksberg Papers are comprised of materials generated while Waksberg served in a variety of leadership roles in the American Soviet Jewry Movement in the 1980s and early 1990s: Executive Director of the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews (BACSJ); National Vice-President of Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ); member of the UCSJ Board of Directors; Director of the Center for Jewish Renewal; Director of Development and Communication of UCSJ; a founder of the Russian-American Bureau on Human Rights in Moscow. The materials primarily consist of correspondence, reports, grant proposals, notes, clippings, newsletters and photographs.

Dates: 1970-1997; Majority of material found within 1982 - 1995

Displaced Persons Camps and Centers Poster Collection

 Collection
Identifier: RG 294.6
Abstract

This collection of posters includes approximately 1,000 rare or unique items pertaining to over 100 displaced persons (DP) camps and centers in Germany, Austria, and Italy, dating primarily from 1946 to 1952. Comprised of approximately 60% handpainted and 40% printed items, it includes posters produced by diverse Jewish groups within individual camps, such as administrative and cultural committees, sports clubs, Zionist and religious groups, and landsmanshaftn; as well as organizations active throughout the camps, including the Jewish central committees in the respective countries, the World ORT Union, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Jewish National Fund, and the Jewish Agency. A small number of items also document activities of the revived Jewish communities in the city centers of Munich and Vienna. Many of the posters use not only language but also color, graphic design, and pictorial and figurative elements to engage their audience with calls to entertainment, lectures, protests, and commemorations.

Dates: 1920-1926, 1939, 1946-1959, undated; Majority of material found within 1946-1952

Elias Tcherikower Collection

 Collection
Identifier: RG 81
Abstract

The Elias Tcherikower Collection documents the professional and personal life of Elias Tcherikower, a scholar, communal activist, and one of the founders of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and to a smaller extent personal life of his wife, Riva Tcherikower, née Teplitski. Collected here are Tcherikower’s writings, professional and personal correspondence, photographs, manuscripts by other scholars, research materials, printed materials, financial documents, conference and exhibit materials, minutes of meetings, bibliographic materials and personal materials of Riva Tcherikower, née Teplitski, and Chaim Tcherikower.

Dates: 1793-1976

Esther-Rachel Kaminska Theater Museum Collection

 Collection
Identifier: RG 8
Abstract

The collection contains play manuscripts, programs, playbills, posters, photographs, correspondence, agreements, scrapbooks, clippings, printed ephemera, and memorabilia relating to Yiddish theater primarily in the early twentieth century, especially the interwar period. Also included are items of printed ephemera related to Yiddish film, Hebrew theater, and a broad range of Jewish performers, including cantors, singers and dancers. Geographically, the materials originate predominantly in Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe, including parts of the Russian Empire and, later, the Soviet Union; and, to a lesser extent, the United States, especially New York City. Also included are materials from Western Europe, Palestine (Eretz Israel), South America, and other regions around the world. Among the theater personalities represented in the collection with significant amounts of material are Herz Grossbard, David Herman, Joseph Winogradoff, Rudolf Zaslavsky, Zygmunt Turkow, Jonas Turkow, Moyshe Lipman, Ida Kaminska, and Esther Rachel Kaminska. The theater groups best represented include the Varshever Yidisher Kunst-Teater (VYKT; Warsaw Yiddish Art Theater), founded by Zygmunt Turkow and Ida Kaminska; the Vilna Troupe; Yung Teater / Nay Teater (Warsaw; Vilna), under the direction of Michael Weichert; the Moscow State Yiddish Theater (known by its Russian acronym "GOSET"); Maurice Schwartz's Yiddish Art Theatre, of New York; and the Hebrew theater "Habimah." A wide variety of other professional as well as amateur theater groups are represented with smaller amounts of material.

Dates: 1887 - 1942; Majority of material found within 1900 - 1939

Evgenii Lendon Collection

 Collection
Identifier: RG 1853
Abstract

This collection contains 147 photographs of the city of L’viv, Ukraine (formerly Lemberg, Austria-Hungary; Lwów, Poland; L’vov, Russia). The photographs were taken by an unknown photographer(s) at various times during the period ca. 1890 through the 1930s. Three photographs are from the post-1945 years. The majority of the photographs were developed from glass negatives between 1987 and 1991. These negatives came to the attention of Evgenii Lendon in the 1980s, and Lendon preserved the images by making large, exhibition-quality prints from the negatives.

Dates: 1890s-1930s, 1987-1991, 1994

Florence Mendheim Collection of Anti-Semitic Propaganda

 Collection
Identifier: AR 25441
Abstract

This collection of mainly anti-Semitic material was compiled by a Jewish librarian of German descent who infiltrated the pro-Nazi community developing in New York City in the years leading up to World War II. The bulk of the collection consists of publications and printed matter, with the notable exception of narrative reports that describe first-hand experiences and observations of Nazi-affiliated events. Document types include advertisements, event announcements, books, clippings, correspondence, magazines and newspapers, travel guides, political memorabilia, and other print ephemera.

Dates: 1917-1994; Majority of material found within 1922-1948

Freedman Family Papers

 Collection
Identifier: RG 2245
Scope and Contents

1 2.5" box of family history material, personal correspondence, and photos of the Roth, Barsky, Friedman, and other families, including the following:

Photo of men at a factory Photo of Simon Barsky by a car, 1930s Passport in Russian and Yiddish, with list of different cities in Yiddish, 1910 Small residency-permit book with other official documents, including an army discharge, for Simon Barsky, Vinnytsia [in which Zhmerynka is located], Russian Empire [now Ukraine], 1896-1903 Train ticket, Kyiv, 1904 Soviet postcard with a Yiddish message sent to Simon Barsky, 1932, from Yalta in the Crimea Short book by Phyllis, My Family and Yours: The Past and The Future, with family history, autobiographical recollections, and recipes Oversized photo, probably of Rose Roth, at a writing desk, 1956 Album of members of the Roth family in Ryglice and elsewhere, 1920s-1930s; includes separate page with photos of the same kind

1 banker’s box of photos, mainly in envelopes, including copies, photo albums, and copies of newspaper clippings relating to the Barsky, Roth, Sokolow, Schnecks, Kaplan, Volkman, and other families, 1915-1964

2 flat boxes, one containing a photo of Hyman and Minnie Roth from ca. 1900 and a 1957-58 photo album celebrating the birth and babyhood of Howard Shainmark; the other containing a photo album of members of the Barsky, Volkman, and other families from 1951 and two separate pages, one with a photo from 1916 and one with photos from the 1930s

1 2.5’’ box with genealogical information for members of the Roth family and others and a box of photos of the wedding of Phyllis Shainmark and Henry Freedman, 1961

Dates: 1900 - 2019

General Jewish Council Records

 Collection
Identifier: I-170
Abstract

The General Jewish Council was an umbrella organization founded by the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, B’nai B’rith, and Jewish Labor Committee in order to coordinate their rights defense activities.

The bulk of the records in this collection date between from 1938-1944, the active years of the Council. Materials consist primarily of correspondence, minutes, memoranda, and reports.

Dates: 1934-1947

Papers of Cecilia Razovsky

 Collection
Identifier: P-290
Abstract

The papers consist of correspondence and reports of Cecelia Razovsky (married name: Davidson), noted social worker specializing in immigration and resettlement of refugees. The collection includes information about her work with the National Council of Jewish Women in the 1920s, and with the National Refugee Service (and predecessor organizations) in the 1930s. Information is included about her work as a Resettlement Supervisor in the post-World War II Displaced Persons camps in Europe, and as a field worker in the southwestern U.S. for the United Service for New Americans in 1950. The collection contains reports and correspondence from her trips to South America, primarily Brazil, to explore possibilities of refugee settlement in 1937 and 1946; as a representative for United HIAS Service to aid in settling Egyptian and Hungarian refugees in 1957-1958; and as a pleasure trip and evaluation of the changes in the Jewish community of the country in 1963. Also included in the collection are many of Razovsky's articles, plays, and pamphlets.

Dates: undated, 1913-1971

People's Relief Committee for Jewish War Sufferers Records

 Collection
Identifier: I-13
Abstract

The records of the People's Relief Committee for Jewish War Sufferers consist of correspondence with Jewish communities and relief organizations in Europe, Palestine, Cuba, South America, the United States, and Canada; as well as scrapbooks containing U.S. and Canadian Yiddish and English newspaper clippings and printed promotional literature pertaining to the fundraising activities of the People's Relief Committee in North America and abroad.

Dates: 1915-1924

Guide to the Records of the Yidisher Artistn Fareyn (Yiddish Actors' Union), 1909-1940

 Collection
Identifier: RG 26
Abstract

The Yidisher Artistn Fareyn, or Yiddish Actors' Union, advocated for actors' economic interests while striving to create a professionally run, artistically ambitious, Yiddish theatrical scene in Warsaw. From 1919-1938, its influence gradually increased until it included the majority of actors working in Poland, and collaborated with the most significant Polish Yiddish cultural figures and institutions, including E. R. Kaminska, YIVO, Literarishe Bleter, and the Landrat, or National Council of Class Trade Unions (Krajowa Rada Klasowych Związków Zawodowych). This collection contains records of annual conventions, Executive Committee meetings, correspondence with actors and theaters from Poland and around the world, and membership files on almost 600 actors.

Dates: 1909-1940; Majority of material found within 1920-1938

Hans Kohn Collection

 Collection
Identifier: AR 259
Abstract

Papers of Hans Kohn (1891-1971), historian and lawyer, who was active in Zionist organizations. He published extensively on questions of nationalism and related topics. The collection consists of documents relating to Hans Kohn's professional experience, materials relating to his political activities, correspondence, diaries, materials relating to his experience in World War I and as a prisoner of war, personal documents, photos, clippings.

Dates: 1866-1972

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) Records at YIVO

 Collection
Identifier: YA-HIAS
Scope and Contents

See "Related Materials" notes for links to every digitized Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) collection in the YIVO Archives.

Dates: 1905 - 1955

Herman Bernstein Papers

 Collection
Identifier: RG 713
Abstract

This collection contains the papers of the journalist, author, translator, and diplomat Herman Bernstein. It documents his work on behalf of Eastern European and Russian Jews and holds correspondence, memos, writings and translations by Herman Bernstein, writings by others, contracts, clippings, printed matter, and photographs.

Dates: 1899-1935

Hevrah Mefitsei Haskalah Society (Vilna)

 Collection
Identifier: RG 22
Abstract

The collection contains the records of the Vilna branch of the Hevrah Mefitsei Haskalah, an educational and publishing organization, established in 1863 to propagate secular knowledge and acculturation into the Russian society among the Jews of the Pale of Settlement. The Vilna Branch was organized in 1909 to assist Jewish education in Vilna and vicinity. During World War I and after Vilna became a part of independent Poland, the organization continued to propagate secular education and maintain schools, libraries and teachers’ courses. The materials include minutes, correspondence, memoranda, programs, leaflets, announcements, and clippings.

Dates: 1868-1933; Majority of material found within 1909-1919

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YIVO Institute for Jewish Research 119
American Jewish Historical Society 28
Leo Baeck Institute 9
 
Subject
Correspondence 89
Clippings (information artifacts) 62
Photographs 44
New York (N.Y.) 43
Manuscripts (documents) 40