Blog

The preserved pages of the guest book of Lublin’s renowned yeshiva tell us about the remarkable range of cyclists, Esperantists, local rabbinical students, Catholic seminary students, Hasidic rabbis, and Revisionist Zionists who all came to visit in the 1930s.

Dec 17, 2021

Idishe bilder writer Moyshele Vulfart describes the visit of two Arab men from Palestine to a kibbutz hakhshara, a preparation kibbutz, in Liepaja, Latvia, in 1938. While it was not uncommon for such reports to be conveyed by Jewish comrades on return visits from Palestine, in this instance the message-bearers were Palestinian men presumably on the other side of the conflict.

Nov 22, 2021

From the collections of the University of Capetown, recently damaged by fire, an important document of Bundist history and a reminder of the global breadth - and precarity - of Yiddish archives.

Apr 29, 2021

While we usually conceive of the archive as a place to learn about the past, today we’re looking at a repository that can tell us about the place of Yiddish in today’s world full of rapid digital communication… and spam.

Feb 17, 2021

In time for Valentine’s Day 2021, James Nadel introduces us to Uriel Weinreich’s 1948 bilingual, multi-page, anti-Valentine’s-Day valentine to his future wife, Bina Silverman.

Feb 12, 2021

A briv for khanike: a handmade menorah — complete with a row of tiny chairs — and handmade pedestal, a family heirloom donated to YIVO for safekeeping.

Dec 14, 2020

Moyshe Klaynman’s remarkable 1943 manuscript relates his ten-month imprisonment at the Treblinka II extermination camp, his escape during the August 2, 1943 prisoner revolt, and much more. There is only one other known survivor source written so early, and there are no other known Treblinka survivor memoirs available only in the original Yiddish.

May 22, 2020

Yiddish poet and translator Yehoash lived at the famous Hotel Klibitsky in Rehovot for almost four months in 1914; the hotel featured frequently in his published travelogue. This note in the hotel’s guestbook, now in the city archive, marks his stay.

May 15, 2020

Rachelle Grossman digs up a revealing clerical mix-up in the distribution of Shmuel Rollansky’s 100-volume Musterverk series — a moment both funny and tragic at the end of the series’ long run.

Apr 17, 2020

Michael Shapiro takes us to the Worker’s Circle section of Boston’s Baker Street Jewish Cemeteries, where he encountered a moving Yiddish poem.

Mar 06, 2020