Jewish socialists

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 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.

The collection contains various materials pertaining to the Fürth-Katzenstein family.

This collection contains the papers of Jack Jacobs, a Jewish academic and former member of the New Jewish Agenda. The collection mostly contains Jewish leftist publications, materials from the founding of the New Jewish Agenda, and documents related to anti-Semitism in Argentina from the 1970s and 1980s.

This collection includes materials documenting the activities and publications of independent and activist American Jewish organizations. Sample news publications from a variety of independent presses are included, as are a variety of home-published newsletters and flyers. The collection addresses anti-war protests and U.S. draft avoidance; American Jewish activism on Israel; feminist involvement in Judaism; socialism and radicalism; and international affairs. Materials include newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, news clippings, articles, limited correspondence, speech notes, reports, and flyers.

The collection consists of the general, personal and professional correspondence of Moses Kligsberg, manuscripts for published and unpublished works, project proposals and outlines, research materials, printed matter and other records relating to Moses Kligsberg's involvement with the Bund and with Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe, to his functions at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and to his scholarly interests. Included are Moses Kligsberg's manuscripts on the subjects of Jewish sociology, psychology, youth, and political matters. The collection contains a great deal of YIVO administrative and publicity materials, among others editorial records of the Yedies fun yivo (YIVO News) and YIVO radio programs; materials on the Bund; records of the United Jewish Survivors of Nazi Persecution. Besides the personal documents and both personal and organizational correspondence, the collection also includes original musical compositions, acetate recordings, magnetic reels, and photographs.

The collection consists of:



1. Materials relating to the PPS (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna - Polish Socialist Party), including trial records and proclamations, 1905-1912



2. Proclamations by the Socialist-Zionist Party (SS) and the Bund, 1905 and 1934



3. Correspondence: family (1912-1938) and general (1911-1938, including a number of letters from Yiddish writers)



4. Records pertaining to the activities of various Łódź landsmanshaftn in the U.S.



5. Manuscripts, notes, printed articles, and personal documents of Gustav Eisner



6. Photographs taken in Poland, some during World War I



7. Records of the Gustave Eisner Travel Bureau, 1930s

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Shmuel Mordkhe Zygielbojm, a Jewish-Polish Socialist politician, Bund leader, member of the National Council of the Polish Government-in-Exile in London, and a labor and political leader. These materials include Zygielbojm’s writings, personal correspondence, clippings, and some photographs. These materials relate mainly to Zygielbojm’s work in London as well as the worldwide reactions after his suicide.