YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

Watch this video from the class, in which actor and stand-up comedian Modi Rosenfeld discusses what inspires his comedy and the importance of knowing your audience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfFTzHSJpkg

Register for this free, self-paced class today: http://yivo.org/comedy

Know Your Audience YIVO's new free, self-paced online class "Is Anything Okay? The History of Jews and Comedy in America" is now available! Sign up at: https://yivo.org/ComedyD...

“Jews like Yitskhok defied the N**i regime by refusing to relinquish their culture and identity.”

Discover the lost diary of a Holocaust teenager from your home in St. Louis You may not know his name, or his diary, but just like Anne Frank’s written words, Yitskhok Rudashevski’s writings stand as a powerful testament to the voices of teenagers lost in the Holocaust. Rudashevski was not just a teenager; he was a gifted writer, a keen observer and a voice for his gene...

Yiddish writer and Nobel Prize Winner Isaac Bashevis Singer passed away on this day in 1991.

Photo: Union of Jewish Writers and Journalists of Warsaw membership card of Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991).

Which Jewish athletes will you be cheering for during this Olympics?

Claire Weinstein, Jessica Fox and 16 other Jewish athletes to watch in the 2024 Paris Olympics - Jewish Telegraphic Agency From wrestling and swimming to fencing and judo, here are the Jewish and Israeli Olympians to watch as the Paris Olympics approach.

Tomorrow, Karolina Szymaniak explores the overlooked roles of Chaim Chajes and Daniel Fajnsztejn in the field of Jewish ethnography. Delivered in Yiddish.

Ethnographers between Yiddish and Polish: a Study in Intellectual History On Zoom | Thursday, July 25 at 2:00pm ET

The world’s greatest athletes are preparing to compete, and so can you – from the comfort of your own home. Test your Yiddish sports knowledge today.

Take the quiz. Take the quiz by Thursday, August 15, 2024 for a chance to win a Yiddish Sports Mug!

“We tend to think about gas chambers and Auschwitz and piles of dead bodies, and we have this image of the way that people died. We don’t always have access to the way that people lived while they were in these circumstances.” https://www.jns.org/yivo-exhibit-of-holocaust-diary-shows-how-teen-retained-understanding-of-himself-as-a-jew/

https://yivo.org/YCLS2024-Lukin

Musical Pripetshik: Lyrics and Melodies of Traditional Yiddish Folksongs On Zoom | Tuesday, July 23 at 2:00pm ET

Poster with the demographic statistics on residents of the Jewish Center in Bad Reichenhall Displaced Persons Camp in, Germany, July 1947.

“Seeing how somebody else in what turned out to be a doomed set of circumstances, nevertheless exerted tremendous will and energy to try to live as fully as he could, and then left behind this incredible record, I think, in and of itself, is inspiring and kind of insightful.”

In a young boy’s diary, a record of how Jews lived to the fullest, even in the face of death The new YIVO exhibition highlights the diary of Jewish teenager Yitskhok Rudashevski, who lived in the Vilna ghetto during the Holocaust.

Explore Jewish life in the Vilna Ghetto (1941-43) through the story of Yitskhok Rudashevski, a teenager in Vilna with a talent for writing and a passion for politics and Jewish cultural life. Yitskhok, tragically murdered in the killing pits of Ponar in 1943, left behind a diary that chronicles his own and his community’s experiences in the Ghetto. The diary was miraculously discovered after World War II and has been preserved in the YIVO Archives in New York City.

Gain insights into cultural resistance, moral dilemmas, and the fierce passions of this young boy in the face of dire adversity.

Visit this free online exhibition now The second exhibition for the YIVO Bruce and Francesca Cernia Slovin Online Museum.

"Shalom Korai never knew his real name or his birthday. He was saved from the streets of a burning Warsaw neighborhood while he was a toddler during World War II, when the rest of his family was killed by N***s in Poland."

Holocaust survivor who never met any family finds cousins through DNA testing Saved from the streets of Warsaw in 1943, Shalom Korai had long accepted that he had no relatives, until a sample submitted to MyHeritage matched that of a woman in South Carolina

ICYMI - YIVO recently hosted a discussion about Anita Norich’s new translation of Celia Dropkin's Desires, featuring Norich in conversation with Yiddish Book Center’s Director of Publishing and Public Programs, Lisa Newman. If you weren't able to come, you can watch the recording now.

Desires by Celia Dropkin Desires (White Goat Press, 2024), the only novel by Celia (Tsilye) Dropkin (1887–1956), was originally serialized between March 31 and June 6, 1934, in the J...

A group of partisans pose at their camp in the woods shortly after the liberation of Vilna in July 1944.

Explore Jewish history and culture and access YIVO's unique collection of resources from the comfort of home.

Offering Five Free, Self-Paced Online Courses Join our global community of online learners!

Elizabeth Finkel discusses the visit to the Palatina Library as part of the YIVO Study Tour of Northern Italy.

Discovering Yiddish treasures in a glorious Italian library - The Jewish Independent Published: 2 July 2024Last updated: 2 July 2024 Parma, Italy is best known for parmesan and prosciutto, but it is also a place of Jewish pilgrimage, Yiddishists come here, as I did last October on a YIVO tour, to visit the Palatina Library and walk in the footsteps of the first Yiddish linguist – ...

The world’s greatest athletes are preparing to compete, and so can you – from the comfort of your own home. See how you stack up in your knowledge of sports in Yiddish.

Take the quiz and find out! Take the quiz by August 15 for a chance to win a free Yiddish sports mug!

"The first ghetto night. Three of us lie on two doors. I do not sleep. My ears are filled with the lamentation of this day. I hear the uneasy breathing of the people with whom I have so suddenly been thrown together, people who have suddenly been uprooted from their homes just like me.”

A Jewish Teen’s Diary Recounts Pain and Resilience in a N**i Ghetto In an online exhibition, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research will explore the account of Yitskhok Rudashevski. He was 13 when the Germans took over Vilnius, Lithuania.

Explore Jewish life in the Vilna Ghetto (1941-43) through the story of Yitskhok Rudashevski, a teenager in Vilna with a talent for writing and a passion for politics and Jewish cultural life.

Yitskhok Rudashevski: A Teenager’s Account of Life and Death in the Vilna Ghetto This free online exhibition is now live!

In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies has released a spe­cial issue on ​“Old Yid­dish Lit­er­a­ture: His­tor­i­cal and Cul­tur­al Per­spec­tives,” in which the contributors expand our knowledge of Old Yiddish literature, while shedding light on the study of popular culture, intercultural exchange, and gender.

Old Yiddish Literature | In geveb This special issue assembles a range of original contributions that shed light on the historical and cultural dimensions of Old Yiddish literature.

ICYMI - YIVO hosted an exploration the Museum of the Homes of the Past, an abandoned YIVO project that intended to document the European Jewish lives, places, and ways of living that were destroyed during the Holocaust. Watch the recording, featuring Jeffrey Shandler for a conversation with Deborah Dash Moore.

Homes of the Past: A Lost Jewish Museum with Jeffrey Shandler and Deborah Dash Moore In 1940s New York, immigrant Jewish scholars sought to build a museum to commemorate their lost worlds and people. Among the Jews who arrived in the United S...

One more day...

"Who could have ever imagined that from this single artifact, the untold story of this family would have been revealed again?"

An Italian Jewish family’s story rebuilt Norma Stella Colombo and her husband Moisè Vittorio Gentilli lived in Mereto di Tomba (Udine) and were murdered in Auschwitz in 1944, along with five other family members.

Join Karolina Szymaniak as she reveals the impact of Chaim Chajes and Daniel Fajnsztejn on Jewish ethnography, examining the cultural practices and traditions of Jewish communities. Delivered in Yiddish.

Ethnographers between Yiddish and Polish: a Study in Intellectual History On Zoom | Thursday, July 25 at 2:00pm ET

Renowned Yiddish poet Avrom Sutzkever was born on July 15, 1913. After the N***s invaded, he smuggled arms into the ghetto and concealed rare Jewish books and manuscripts from the YIVO collection as part of the Paper Brigade. He also wrote poetry about his experiences under German occupation. After the war, he testified at the Nuremberg Trials.

Here from student Tara Neuwirth about this year's summer program, in session now, on this week's Voice podcast!

Almost there...

Get excited!

Michael Lukin explores "musical pripetshik,"Eastern Yiddish musical folklore that evolved with Jewish culture over four centuries.

Musical Pripetshik: Lyrics and Melodies of Traditional Yiddish Folksongs On Zoom | Tuesday, July 23 at 2:00pm ET