YIVO

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YIVO, (Yiddish: ייִוואָ), founded in 1925 as the Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut (Yiddish: ייִדישער װיסנשאַפֿטלעכער אינסטיטוט), or Yiddish Scientific Institute, is the most authoritative source for orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to the Yiddish language. Though it was later renamed the Institute for Jewish Research, it is almost always known by its original initials, which, in Yiddish, form the acronym "YI-V-O".

YIVO preserves manuscripts, rare books, and diaries, and other Yiddish sources. The YIVO Library in New York contains over 360,000 volumes dating from as early as the 16th century. The YIVO Archives holds over 22,000,000 documents, photographs, recordings, posters, films, videotapes, and other artifacts. Together, they comprise the world's largest collection of materials related to the history and culture of Central and East European Jewry and the American Jewish immigrant experience. The Archives and Library collections also hold many works in twelve major languages, including English, French, German, Hebrew, Ladino, Polish, and Russian.

It also functions as a publisher of Yiddish-language books and of periodicals including YIVO Bleter (founded 1931), Yedies Fun YIVO (founded 1929), and Yiddishe Sprakh (founded 1941). It is also responsible for such English-language publications as the YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Studies (founded 1946).

YIVO was initially proposed by Yiddish linguist and writer Nochum Shtif (1879 – 1933). He characterized his advocacy of Yiddish as "realistic" Jewish nationalism, contrasted to the "visionary" Hebraists and the "self-hating" assimilationists who adopted Russian or Polish. Other key founders included philologist and theater director Max Weinreich (1894 – 1969) and historian Elias Tcherikover (1881–1943). [Liptzin, 1972, 127-130, 133]

Founded at a conference in Berlin, but headquartered in Vilna, the early YIVO also had branches in Berlin, Warsaw and New York City. Over the next decade, smaller groups arose in many of the other countries with Ashkenazic Jewish populations.

In YIVO's first decades, Tcherikover headed the historical research section, which also included Shimon Dubnow, Saul Ginsburg, Abraham Menes, and Jacob Shatzky; Leibush Lehrer (1887–1964) headed a section including psychologists and educators Abraham Golomb, H.S. Kasdan, and A.A. Roback; Jacob Leshchinsky (1876–1966) headed a section of economists and demographers Ben-Adir, Liebman Hersh, and Moshe Shalit; Weinreich's language and literature section included J.L. Cahan, Alexander Harkavy, Judah A. Joffe, Selig Kalmanovitch, Shmuel Niger, Noah Prilutzky, and Zalman Reisen. [Liptzin, 1972, 130, 133]

The Nazi advance into Eastern Europe caused YIVO to move its operations to New York, with a second important center established in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The organization's archives and leadership fortuitously survived the war. For their own reasons, the Nazis carried the bulk of YIVO's archives to Berlin, where the papers survived the war intact and eventually ended up in New York, and all four directors of YIVO's research sections were already in the Americas when the war broke out or were able to make their way there. [Liptzin, 1972, 3, 133]

A series of volumes of YIVO's Groiser Verterbukh Fun Der Yiddisher Shprakh (Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language) appeared over the years—volume 1, 1961; volume 2, 1966; volume 3, 1971; volume 4, 1980. The project, founded in New York, was officially moved to Jerusalem, but seems to have petered out. [Prager, 1997]

[edit] References

Liptzin, Sol, A History of Yiddish Literature, Jonathan David Publishers, Middle Village, NY, 1972, ISBN 0-8246-0124-6.
Prager, Leonard, "Yiddish Studies in Israel III", Mendele, Vol. 6.277, April 4, 1997