Poets, Yiddish

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The papers of Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt include copies of published and unpublished songs, poems and articles in both typed and handwritten manuscript form, newsletters, newspaper clippings, programs, scrapbook pages, and sheet music.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.

German, Lithuanian, and Polish. 1 printed page, with handwritten entries.

The collection of Jacob Mestel consists of the general, professional and personal correspondence of Jacob Mestel, manuscripts of plays by other authors, manuscripts of poetry, essays and plays by Jacob Mestel, translations of plays into Yiddish, production material, clippings, theater programs, personal documents, and theater photographs.

This collection consists of the general, professional and personal correspondence of the labor poet Morris Rosenfeld, whose works were originally in Yiddish but eventually became translated into other languages. The papers mainly describe his literary work, and include not only his poetry, but also his essays and articles. The collection contains personal papers and documents, printed works (books, articles, poems), unpublished manuscripts, translations of Rosenfeld's poems into English and other languages, sheet music, and reviews of Rosenfeld's work.