Book Launch: Yiddish Scholarship Comes to America - YIVO at 100

Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies and the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre are pleased to invite you to the launch of "Yiddish Scholarship Comes to America: YIVO at 100" by Professor Kalman Weiser.

This comprehensive history of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research—a groundbreaking American Jewish cultural organization, library, and research centre—details its longstanding efforts to preserve eastern European Jewish culture during a century of genocide and mass emigration. Founded in 1925, YIVO was a global organization with headquarters in Vilna until World War II. It represented the symbolic pinnacle of building a modern, secular Yiddish culture.

Yet post-war, YIVO struggled to establish itself on a new continent, to reclaim what had survived of its Vilna collections, to document a lost world, and to impart the value of eastern European Jewish history and culture to new generations. Through the institute's steady commitment to establishing itself in New York and beyond, Yiddish language learning and scholarship became a crucial part of post-Holocaust Jewish life in a time when Hebrew was increasingly promoted in Jewish communities. Drawing on extensive archival research and oral histories, Weiser focuses on the transitional period of the YIVO Institute from 1940 to 1970 and showcases how the institute carved its own path toward scholarship and public engagement that remained true to its founding ethos—"from the folk, for the folk, and with the folk"—while acclimating to American society and mainstream Jewish culture.

Following Professor Weiser’s illustrated presentation, Prof. Anna Shternshis (University of Toronto) and Prof. David Koffman (York University) will join Prof. Weiser to discuss the volume.

Join us after the launch for book sales and a kosher reception.

Advance registration recommended.

This event is presented in partnership with the UJA Committee for Yiddish.