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.

The Abraham Sutzkever-Szmerke Kaczerginski Historical Collection contains letters, manuscripts, and historical documents which were saved by the Yiddish poets Avraham Sutzkever and Szmerke Kaczerginski in the Vilna Ghetto.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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

This record subgroup contains the "case files" of people in the United States who sought the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in locating their relatives in Europe after World War I and during the interwar period. The files consist of letters of inquiry, HIAS search application forms, correspondence with the inquiring parties, financial support letters and some official U.S. government correspondence.

This collection contains the minutes, correspondence and financial records of the I.L. Peretz Yiddish Writers’ Union from its founding in 1915 until 1973. Among the correspondence is a fair amount concerning the Fund for Jewish Refugee Writers, unions and union grievances, requests for aid from Jewish writers and activists in New York and abroad, and labor disputes and strikes.

Isaac Leib Goldberg Collection documents Isaac Goldberg’s active participation in the international Zionist movement. It also sheds light on his professional activities as a lawyer in the Russian Empire. The collection consists of circular letters, official documents, correspondence, court documents and Power of Attorney, leaflets, announcements, reports, minutes of meetings, financial reports and tables, balance sheets and Annual Reports, lists, and memoranda.

Playbills of performances of opera, ballet, and theater in the Soviet Union, and a collection of Jewish recipes.

An affiliate agency of the Jewish Welfare Federation in Detroit formerly called the Jewish Social Service Bureau (JSSB).

This collection consists predominantly of records of the Jewish Social Service Bureau and, to a much lesser extent, of records of the Jewish Family and Children's Service (JFCS). The bulk of the collection consists of records of individual cases which were processed by the JSSB. Additionally, there are administrative records which include the following: general correspondence, 1926-1963; minutes of staff and committee meetings, 1924-1958. Records of various institutions which at some point merged or were affiliated with the JSSB, such as the Resettlement Service, Jewish House of Shelter, Jewish Child Placement Bureau, Hebrew Orphan Home.

Joseph A. Rosen was an agronomist and official of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. In the 1920s and 1930s he organized and coordinated relief activities for impoverished Jews in the Soviet Union. Joseph A. Rosen was a director of the American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation (Agro-Joint) that tried to develop Jewish settlements and assisted with organization of Jewish factories, cooperatives, schools, and health care facilities. All these subjects are covered in this collection. These are the papers of Joseph A. Rosen in his official capacity as a Director of the Agro-Joint. The collection contains agreements between Agro-Joint and the Soviet government, reports, and field observations of the agronomists and officials of the relief organizations, particularly of the Agro-Joint, technical reports and documentation necessary for development and financial sustainability of the Jewish settlements. Maps and landscape plans are also part of this collection.

The Lev Aizenberg Collection documents Lev Aizenberg’s professional activities as a lawyer in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century. Collected here are materials pertaining to a large number of cases involving Jews of Kursk and Kursk Guberniya (Province) and their attempts to fight eviction orders and subsequent relocation back to the Pale of Settlement

Lucien Wolf (1857-1930) was a diplomat, foreign affairs expert, journalist, and historian. As the secretary of the Joint Foreign Committee of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association (earlier the Conjoint Foreign Committee), Lucien Wolf took a leading role in the efforts of Western Jewry to aid persecuted Jews in Eastern Europe. He was also a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference (1919), where he helped to draft the minorities treaties guaranteeing the rights of Jews and other ethnic and religious minority groups. David Mowshowitch (1887-1957) was Lucien Wolf's secretary and aide at the Joint Foreign Committee for many years and continued to work for the Joint Foreign Committee until the 1950s. The collection consists of the papers of Lucien Wolf and David Mowshowitch, as well as fragmentary records of the Joint Foreign Committee. The material includes personal papers, correspondence, reports, memoranda, minutes of meetings, copies of articles, and press clippings. The documents pertain to the situation of persecuted Jews throughout the world, most notably the efforts of the Joint Foreign Committee of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association to aid the Jews of Eastern Europe, and to the Peace Conference at Paris in 1919 and the minorities treaties. There is also material on Lucien Wolf's and David Mowshowitch's other activities, most importantly Lucien Wolf's career as a journalist and as a historian of the Jewish community in Britain.

Mel Gordon (1947-2018) was a drama scholar and historian of "deviant" sexual practices. He was a professor at New York University and the University of California, Berkeley, and authored a number of books, many of which were published by Feral House Press. This record group includes antisemitic and far-right artifacts.

The family papers related to Michel Sleppin (spelling varies). Materials primarily consist of family letters and business dealings related to his post as a textile and wool dealer in Europe until 1906. Family photograph (ca. 1904) included. Some business records are Rabbinic transaction permits. The collection is in Russian, Yiddish, and English.