With yellow roses adorningthe tables, the Grand Ball-
room of Manhattan’s PierreHotel took on a golden glow.Over 475 supporters gatheredon April 17th for YIVO’s Annual
Benefit Dinner, which raised$1.2 million. Dr. Ruth Gruberand Dr. Eric R. Kandel eachreceived YIVO LifetimeAchievement Awards.
Introducing Gruber, YIVO
International Women’s DivisionHonorary Chair Vera Sternnoted the honoree’s role in theheroic 1944 rescue of 1,000refugees. The event is doc-umented in the book Haven: TheUntold Story of 1,000 World WarII Refugees. After receiving astanding ovation, Gruber notedthat one of the rescued refugees,now a New York restaurantowner, was in the audience.
Kandel, whose research intothe molecular biology of me-mory earned him the 2000 NobelPrize in Medicine or Physiology,spoke of the importance ofJewish memory and continuity.As a Jew who fled Vienna due to the Nazi occupation, Kandelthanked Gruber, noting that,under different circumstances,he could have been one of thoseshe rescued.
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(L-R) YIVO Chairman Bruce Slovin with honorees Dr. Eric R. Kandel and Dr. RuthGruber, Francesca Slovin and Vera Stern, Honorary Chair, YIVO InternationalWomen’s Division. [continued on page 4]
Ida Kaminska, star of stage and screen, made her debut at the Center for Jewish History at 15
West 16th Street in Manhattan. An exhibit entitled“Ida Kaminska (1899-1980): Grande Dame of theYiddish Theater”opened on May 31, 2001 and willbe on display through October 19, 2001.
The exhibit traces the life of Ida Kaminska from1923-24, when she and her husband, ZygmuntTurkow, established their Warsaw Yiddish Art
Theater (WIKT) ensemble,to the post-war period,when she and her secondhusband, Meir Melman,founded the Jewish StateTheater in Warsaw.Kaminska's fame was en-hanced by her film work.Her most famous role wasin the Oscar-winning “TheShop on Main Street.” In1968, Kaminska andMelman left Poland to settlein the United States.
The 150 people who attended the opening wereaddressed by exhibit curator, Krysia Fisher, andKaminska’s son, Victor Melman.
Photos from the exhibit catalog, which is on saleat the Center for Jewish History bookstore, appearon page 23.
For YIVO’s Fall Public Programs Schedule, See Pages 18-19
Catalog from KaminskaExhibit, now showing at YIVO.
Holdthe Date
VladimirHeifetz
MemorialConcert
Nov. 14, 2001
CONTENTS:
Ihope each and every one of our readers andsupporters has had a chance to visit us at YIVO.
If so, you will have seen how fresh and vital weare here! So much is going on and so much isbeing planned for the future.
The 2001 Annual YIVO Benefit Dinner touchedus all. Thanks to our generous friends and sup-porters of YIVO and the legacy of Jewish EasternEuropean culture, we raised $1.2 million. We alsohad the privilege of honoring Dr. Ruth Gruber,heroic rescuer and journalist, and Dr. Eric R.Kandel, recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize inPhysiology or Medicine with YIVO LifetimeAchievement Awards. These two superb humanbeings reminded me strongly of why I amChairman of YIVO.
I want YIVO to set an example, creating manyways to help our friends contribute to a Jewishlegacy for our children and grandchildren. Threeways include:
• The YIVO Encyclopedia of the History and Cultureof Jews in Eastern Europe, a multivolume, defini-tive compendium (with CD-ROM) for univer-sity, synagogue and home libraries. It will serveas a port-of-entry to East European Jewishcivilization.
• Education Program on Yiddish Culture (EPYC),our new high school curriculum subtitled“Eastern European Jewish Culture: Life,Creativity and Expression”. It is designed toteach American youth about the magnificentlegacy of the East European Jewish experience.
•Fellowships, which are the backbone of research.New funds include the Abram and FannieGottlieb Immerman Endowment and the DinaAbramowicz Emerging Scholar FellowshipFund (whose first fellow is Dr. Adam Rubin ofHebrew Union College–Jewish Institute ofReligion in Los Angeles).
I also want to brag about our women, who havelaunched YIVO’s International Women's Division,under the motto “A New Link in the GoldenChain.” They are tapping the tremendous energyof Jewish women, linking era to era andreaffirming the importance of women in Jewishlife in prewar Europe and in our communitytoday.
I hope all of our readers will join us in YIVO’snoble and difficult work. We need your partner-ship. The legacy each of us leaves behind is apoignant testament to who we are and what wetreasure.
2
YIVO NewsFounded in 1925 in Vilna, Poland, as the YiddishScientific Institute and headquartered in New York since 1940, YIVO is devoted to the history,society and culture of Ashkenazic Jewry and to the influence of that culture as it developed in theAmericas. Today, YIVO stands as the preeminentcenter for East European Jewish Studies; Yiddishlanguage, literature and folklore; and the study ofthe American Jewish immigrant experience.
A founding partner of the Center for JewishHistory, YIVO holds the following constituentmemberships: • American Historical Association • Associationfor Jewish Studies • Association of JewishLibraries • Council of Archives and ResearchLibraries in Jewish Studies • Research LibraryGroup (RLG) • Society of American Archivistsand • World Congress of Jewish Studies.
Chairman of the Board: Bruce Slovin
Executive Director: Carl J. Rheins
Director of Development and External Affairs: Ella Levine
Director of Finance and Administration:Andrew J. Demers
Chief Archivist: Marek Web
Head Librarian: Aviva Astrinsky
Head of Preservation: Stanley Bergman
Editor: Elise Fischer
Yiddish Editor: Hershl Glasser
Production Editors: Jerry Cheslow, Michele Alperin
ContributorsErica Blankstein, Nikolai Borodulin, Adina Cimet,Jocelyn Cohen, Michael Cohen, Krysia Fisher, ShaindelFogelman, Marilyn Goldfried, Leo Greenbaum, Fern Kant,Yeshaya Metal, Chana Mlotek, Fruma Mohrer, RobertaNewman, Cori Robinson, David Rogow, Yankl Salant,Daniel Soyer, Steven Wander
“The legacy each of us leavesbehind is a poignant testament towho we are.”
In her powerful and evocative memoir, From ThatPlace and Time (New York, 1989), the late Lucy
S. Dawidowicz, Professor of Social History atYeshiva University, describes brilliantly the mag-nificent YIVO Institute building, opened in Vilnain January 1933, where she was a graduate studentduring the 1938-1939 academic year:
I had never seen a Jewish institution in so ver-dant a setting. The whole place shimmeredwith the sheen of its highly polished woodfloor. Everything about the YIVO — its loca-tion, its landscaped setting, its modern design,the gleaming immaculateness of the place —delivered a message. I interpreted it to meanthat the YIVO had class, was no molderinginstitution, but a place from which distinctionand excellence would issue. Even more: TheYIVO was no seedy relic of the past; it be-longed to the future.1
While Marc Chagall andothers were more modestin their portrayal of thebuilding, the fact remainsthat after a seven-yearcampaign (1926-1933),YIVO’s founders hadcreated what KhaykehLunski, Head Librarian of the Strashun Library inVilna, later described as “the Temple of the Spirit,the Palace of Wisdom, the Pride of Vilna.”2
The early leaders of YIVO had created, beforeWorld War II, a true center for Yiddish scholarship.So too have the founders of the Center for JewishHistory, led by YIVO’s brilliant Chairman, BruceSlovin, created the United States’ only center de-voted to the study of early modern and modernJewish history. As in its prewar Vilna building,YIVO today enjoys, for the first time since WorldWar II, splendidly appointed and richly equippedarchival, library and preservation facilities worthyof a true research institute.
Since January 1999, demand on YIVO’s Archivesand Library by scholars and other researchers hasincreased. Coupled with YIVO’s own expandingintellectual productivity, this is a testament to the wisdom of the Center for Jewish History’s“founding fathers and mothers” in creating anacademic institution of unlimited potential.
YIVO now receives requests for assistance fromover 8,000 researchers per year. Approximately2,700 of these inquiries are from individuals whotravel to New York to work in the new LibraryReading Room and Archives at the Center forJewish History.
To these numbers a special group of 11 doctoraland post-doctoral fellows must be added. Theseyoung men and women, who spend an average of three months at YIVO, are chosen to receive one of YIVO’s endowed research fellowships,following a rigorous and competitive screeningprocess. We are proud that three new endowedfellowships have been established since 1999 andwe hope to add two more next year.
Our current activities also parallel those of theprewar Institute. To meet the intellectual andcultural needs of our members, friends, and theJewish community, including those in our new
International Women’sDivision and LeadershipForum committees, inSeptember 2000 YIVOintroduced animpressive array ofpublic programs.Among them are adistinguished lecture
series, cultural exhibitions, film series and a hostof seminars, colloquia and concerts. Almost all ofthese events are held in the Center’s newForchheimer Auditorium.
YIVO this year presented at the Center forJewish History, free of charge, 38 major programsin English and Yiddish. These programs attracted8,000 persons.
Today, YIVO reflects and renews the glories of its prewar past. In our new home in a magnificentfacility in New York City, we are regaining muchof the stature associated with YIVO’s earliergolden era and sharing it with all the world.
Message from the Executive Director
YIVO’s New Home
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Dr. Carl J. Rheins
YIVO enjoys, for the first time sinceWorld War II, splendidly appointedand richly equipped archival, libraryand preservation facilities worthy ofa true research institute.
1Lucy S. Dawidowicz, From That Place and Time: A Memoir, 1938-1947 (New York, 1989), pp. 78-79.
2Khaykl Lunski, as quoted in Cecile E. Kuznitz, “The Origins of Yiddish Scholarship and the YIVO Institute forJewish Research” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Stanford University, 2000), p. 144.
Join YIVO TodayHelp ensure that our children and ourchildren’s children will study, enjoy andremember the history, language andculture of our East European ancestors.
Kandel was introduced by his friend and colleagueDr. Mortimer Ostow, President of thePsychoanalytic Research and Development Fund.
Bruce Slovin, Chairman of the Board, thankedYIVO’s loyal friends for generations of faithfulsupport. He also discussed YIVO’s renaissance,with the establishment of the Leadership Forum,the cultivation of new donors and patrons andsupport for emerging scholars and researchers.
“I am so proud to have so many younger peoplehere tonight,” he commented. “It is simply terrific.This is what we are striving to do — reach out toour children and to the future.”
Motl Zelmanowicz, devoted YIVO NationalBoard member, greeted the crowd in Yiddish,stressing the need to expand Yidishkayt in our livesand community.
Leadership Forum Chair Cathy Zises and Co-Chair Cindy Stone, speaking in English andYiddish respectively, outlined their committee’sgoal: the development of educational programsthat detail Jewish existence between the Bible and the Holocaust. The Leadership Forumlaunched its fundraising drive for the newly
established Education Program in Yiddish Culture(EPYC), headed by Dr. Adina Cimet-Singer.
“This has been an especially luminous evening,”Slovin concluded. “Our honorees have remindedus of the importance of action and memory, andthe need for each one of us to make a commitmentto Jewish continuity.“
Benefit Dinner [continued from page 1]
(L-R) YIVO Leadership Forum Co-Chair Cindy Stone, YIVOChairman Bruce Slovin and Leadership Forum Chair CathyZises.
(L-R) YIVO Chairman Bruce Slovin, Executive Director Dr. CarlJ. Rheins and Board member Charlie Rose.
(L-R) National YIVO Board member Larry Saper and wifeCarol, and Helen and Jack Nash.
(L-R) Leadership Forum Co-Chair Cindy Stone, FrancescaSlovin and Caren Constantiner, Leadership Forum member.
4 YIVO News Summer 2001
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Dear Friends:Think about honoring the memory of a loved
one, or paying tribute to a family member,relative or friend, by erecting a memorial plaquein the Kovno, Shavl, Bialystok or Vilna rooms.Your support will help carry on YIVO's missionand ensure that the culture and life of Jews in East Europe will live forever. Your plaque willhelp sustain the important work that began over75 years ago in Vilna for generations yet to come.
For more information, please call Ella Levineat: (212) 294-6128.
In Honor, In Memory
Ihave just returned from theYIVO Heritage Mission to
Berlin, Prague and Lithuaniawhere I stood with other YIVOtravelers in front of ruined andrecently renovated synagogues,former Jewish quarters andghettos, and places of mass des-truction to once again rememberand honor our ancestors. After
such a trip, the mission of YIVO — our mission —seems to take on even greater importance.
We are all called upon to remember, share andteach our collective treasures — the life andculture that is revealed and restored in YIVOdocuments. Working together we can make ourdream of respect, education and revival a reality.When we share both within our local communityand throughout the world, we provide examplesthat motivate others to follow in our footsteps.
Those of us who have not experienced YIVO'sgolden history want to learn about it, and youwho have lived it can share it with us. This partnerrelationship helps us cultivate a strong, young,Jewish intelligentsia that will prosper and spreadour teachings through history.
As we advance in 2001, YIVO is strengtheningand assisting other communities internationally.We are preserving documents and books, culti-vating Yiddish — the language and the culture —and developing new programs for our commu-nities. Here in New York we are offering lectures,programs and concerts, based on our tremendouswealth of resources. We are bringing our messageto today's younger generations and teaching themabout our prewar East European Jewish culture.
Our responsibility is great and our tasks aresacred!
Development and External Affairs
Sacred Task of Remembering, Sharing, Teaching by Ella Levine, Director of Development and External Affairs
Develo
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Ensuring that your children,grandchildren and genera-
tions yet to come know of andlearn from the great EasternEuropean Jewish culture,between the Bible and theHolocaust, is the greatest gift youcould give. This is celebrated byYIVO, through its programs,scholars, library, archives, films
and Yiddish Studies.A Planned Gift to YIVO is an investment in
YIVO’s future that will bring you financial re-wards as well. Of course, a financial gift to YIVOhas always brought yiches, benefits of the soul andspirit, the neshome. But now, in these unstable eco-nomic times, Planned Gifts are an opportunity toinvest in YIVO’s future as well as your own.
One of the most popular types of Planned Giftsis the Charitable Gift Annuity. You make a lumpsum gift to YIVO, which will pay a partially tax-exempt annuity for life at a fixed rate of income. Itmay provide you with better additional retirementplanning than a commercial annuity from a bro-kerage firm or insurance company. Why? Because
in the YIVO Gift Annuity, the “profit” usually paidto the bank becomes the charitable gift to YIVO.Sometimes, the tax savings resulting from the por-tion given to YIVO, along with the generousannuity rate, can provide you with greater valuethan you might get by purchasing a comparablecommercial annuity; and it can be established foras little as $2,500.
YIVO’s Planned Giving advisors would be glad to meet with you and your investmentcounselor or accountant to confidentially dis-cuss ways to appropriately maximize your taxdeductible Planned Gift as well as your incomethrough Planned Giving at YIVO. To learn moreabout Charitable Gift Annuities or other forms of Planned Gifts, please contact Ella Levine, Director of Development and External Affairs (212) 294-6128 or Development Associate SteveWander (212) 294-6137. Your inquiries will beconfidentially discussed.
Of course, the most traditional form of PlannedGiving is still the easiest to do. Remember YIVOin your will and help ensure that future genera-tions of Jews will be able to celebrate EasternEuropean Jewish culture.
Planned GivingA Safe Investment for You and YIVO — Retirement Planning for a Yiddish FutureRosina K. Abramson, Chair, Planned Giving Committee, YIVO National Board of Directors
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Ella Levine
Rosina K.Abramson
6 YIVO News Summer 2001
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The Immigrant Autobiographies Project ispreparing an anthology of stories detailing
Jewish life in eastern Europe and the United
States at the turn of the 20th century. More than220 immigrants submitted their autobiographiesas part of a contest sponsored by YIVO in 1942.Fifteen have been selected for possible inclusionin the published volume.
Editors Dr. Daniel Soyer and Dr. Jocelyn Cohenare searching for the authors’ heirs and forinformation on the children or grandchildren ofthe following writers: Aaron Domnitz(Baltimore); Minnie Goldstein (Providence, RI);Esther Kishner (Louisville, KY); Shmuel Krone(Denver and Chicago); Ben Reisman, father ofCarl Reisman (Pittsburgh); Rose Schoenfeld (NewYork); Moyshe Shapiro (New York); EstherShechter (Winnipeg); and Lena SchulmanWeinberger (Ellenville, NY).
Please contact Jocelyn Cohen at (212) 246-6080,ext. 5167, or email her at [email protected] ifyou have information.
he Politics ofYiddish Folk-
lore Collection inInterwar Poland —‘Vos iz azoyns yidisheetnografye?’” was thetopic of the inauguralDina AbramowiczMemorial Lecture.The talk was givenon July 11 at theCenter for JewishHistory by Dr. AdamRubin, AssistantProfessor of JudaicStudies at HebrewUnion College –Jewish Institute ofReligion in LosAngeles.
The first recipi-ent of the Dina Abramowicz Emerging ScholarFellowship, Rubin explored efforts by modernpolitical and scholarly movements to create aworkable Jewish past. Speaking before 150attendees, Rubin discussed his research on thecontrast between the Zionist-Hebraist use ofclassical texts to create a national canon and theDiaspora nationalist-Yiddishist use of Ashkenazicfolklore to create a competing canon.
The Dina Abramowicz Emerging ScholarFellowship Fund was established in memory ofthe late YIVO librarian extraordinaire. Thefellowship is intended for post-doctoral researchon Eastern European Jewish Studies leading to asignificant scholarly publication. It carries a sti-pend of $5,000 for research conducted at the YIVOLibrary and Archives for a period of two to threemonths during the spring or summer.
Rubin earned his Ph.D. from the University ofCalifornia at Los Angeles, with his dissertation on“Hayim Nahman Bialik and the Nationalization ofJudaism.” He has won numerous awards, amongthem a Fulbright Fellowship for dissertation re-search in Israel (1995-96) and the Hazel D. ColeEndowed Fellowship in Jewish Studies at theUniversity of Washington (1997-98). In addition tohis dissertation topic, Rubin has published,lectured and taught on ancient, medieval andmodern Jewish history, on Mishnaic texts, and onJewish-American literature.
Contributions to the Fellowship Fund or to theDina Abramowicz Memorial Book Fund may besent to: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 15West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011-6301.
For more information, please contact the YIVO Development Department by phone, (212) 246-6080; fax, (212) 292-1892; e-mail:[email protected]; or via the Web:www.yivoinstitute.org.
Dr. Adam Rubin speaking infront of a portrait of the lateDina Abramowicz.
First Dina Abramowicz Memorial Fellow Chosen“T
American Immigrant Autobiographies Project Search
Do You Recognize These People?
Minnie Goldstein, immigrantautobiographer, early 1940s.
1942 contest winner BenReisman and wife, Kayla,circa 1900.
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Maria and KazimierzPiechotka, Polish
architects renowned fortheir documentation ofPolish synagogues, wereawarded the Jan Karski-Pola Nirenska Prize forthe year 2000. The $5,000
prize was presented at a ceremony hosted by theJewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. The awardhonors authors whose published works docu-ment or interpret contributions to Polish cultureby Poles of Jewish origin and Polish Jews.
The prize was endowed at YIVO in 1992 by thelate Professor Jan Karski — World War II envoyof the Polish government in exile, who broughtthe West firsthand testimony about the conditionsin the Warsaw Ghetto and in concentration campsin Poland. The prize is also named for ProfessorKarski's late wife, choreographer Pola Nirenska.Members of this year’s selection committeeincluded Professors Czeslaw Milosz (1980 NobelLaureate in Literature), Jozef Gierowski, JerzyTomaszewski, Feliks Tych, and Marek Web, HeadArchivist of YIVO (ex officio).
The Piechotkas’s passion for Polish synagoguearchitecture is embodied in numerous publica-tions. Boznice drewniane (Wooden Synagogues),1957, published by Arkady in Warsaw, wasfollowed by an English-language 1959 edition. Anexpanded version was published in Warsaw in1996 by Krupski as Bramy nieba: boznice drewniane
(Heaven’s Gates: Wooden Synagogues). It drew onthe rich archives of the Pietchotkas’s friendSzymon Zajczyk, the art and architecture his-torian who photographed and made drawings ofscores of Polish wooden synagogues in the inter-war period. All of these synagogues were laterdestroyed in the Holocaust. Zajczyk perished inWarsaw in 1944. The Piechotkas dedicated theirbook to Szymon Zajczyk.
The Piechotkas’ most recent work was theirmagnum opus on brick-and-stonesynagogues, Bramy nieba: boznicemurowane (Heaven's Gates: MasonrySynagogues), published in 2000 inWarsaw by Krupski. They arepreparing a work that will explorethe relationship between Jewishpopulations and the urban space ofthe Polish towns they inhabited.
The Piechotkas studiedarchitecture at the WarsawPolytechnic before 1939. After thestart of the Second World War, theyattended secret courses in German-occupied Warsaw. The Piechotkaslater joined the Polish UndergroundHome Army and fought in theWarsaw Uprising in August 1944, forwhich they received high military distinctions. In1945, after being liberated from a German POWcamp, they resumed work as architects, whichthey continued through retirement.
Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka Receive 2000 Karski-Nirenska Prize
classic book, A Century ofAmbivalence: The Jews of Russiaand the Soviet Union, 1881 tothe Present, has just beenreleased by Indiana Univer-sity Press in association withYIVO. In a redesigned, smal-ler soft cover format, the newedition includes more than
200 photographs from the archives of the YIVOInstitute for Jewish Research and two substantialnew chapters on the fate of Jews and Judaism inthe former Soviet Union. This edition is ideal forgeneral readers and classroom use.
Japanese-language rights to the book have beenacquired by Akashi Shoten Press. They previouslyhave brought such authors as Lucy Davidowiczand Martin Gilbert to the Japanese public.
Zvi Gitelman is Professor of Political Science,Preston R. Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies, andDirector of the Jean and Samuel Frankel Center forJudaic Studies at the University of Michigan.
“Wonderful pictures of famous personalities,unknown villagers, small hamlets, markets andcommunal structures combine with the text tocreate an uplifting [book] for a broad and generalaudience,” Alexander Orbach commented in“Slavic Review.”
(A Century of Ambivalence can be purchasedthrough Indiana University Press)
A Century of Ambivalence: Second English Edition and Japanese Rights
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YIVO has launched its International Women’sDivision. The Inaugural Women’s Luncheon,
“A Heritage Journey — Me’dor Le’dor,” was heldon May 21st. The event, at the Center for JewishHistory, was attended by 200 people .
“Jewish women in Eastern Europe were verypowerful and so were their daughters,” remarkedEvent Chair Eta Wrobel. “Women were as out-standing and prominent as the men.”
Guest speaker, Professor Yaffa Eliach of theShtetl Foundation and Brooklyn College,expanded on Wrobel's theme, discussing criticalroles of women in prewar East European Jewishcommunities.
Event Co-Chairs, Rita K. Levy and Charles J.Rose, along with Bruce Slovin, served as emcees.The luncheon honored Dr. Fanya Gottesfeld Hellerand Sima Katz with Lifetime Achievement Awardsand paid special tribute to YIVO volunteers Esther
Ancoli-Barbasch and Esther Mishkin. In line with Wrobel’s appeal to support YIVO
“with both your heart and your wallet,” theluncheon raised $40,000 for the EducationalProgram on Yiddish Culture (EPYC), the YIVOpilot curriculum being developed to teach highschool students about Eastern European Jewishhistory and culture.
Esther Ancoli-Barbasch reflected the thoughts ofmany attendees in her remarks: “I knew I wantedto do something that called out to my soul… aboutmy life prior to the Holocaust…with my family,our culture, our heritage, our language…. Iwanted to…help preserve this precious past andhelp rejuvenate it and the language. So here I am. Icome here to YIVO, and I feel I belong. I feel athome.”
YIVO International Women’s Division“A New Link in the Golden Chain”
Founding Board of Directors
Leadership ForumWorking Together toRemember and Teach
After two years ofstrong leader-
ship by Rita K. Levy,Cathy Zises is be-coming the newChair of the YIVOLeadership Forumcommittee. BothZises and Levy arefounding membersof the Forum. Levy's continuing involvement inthe committee has facilitated the transition.
The new Co-Chair is Cindy Stone, anotherfounding member of the committee, and a strongsupporter of YIVO and EPYC, YIVO’s EducationalProgram on Yiddish Culture (see related article onpage 9). Stone, Zises, and Levy have been integralto the adoption of the EPYC project.
The Leadership Forum is developing a numberof activities and events to raise awareness andfoster involvement with YIVO and the preciousEast European Jewish legacy.
“The committee wants to ensure that we educateour children to remember,” Zises commented.“With EPYC, as we educate and involve ourchildren, we will also bring the name of YIVO intoa broader spectrum of Jewish homes.”
Stone, whose family sponsored the dedication ofthe Kovno Room (see article on page 20), noted,“YIVO's treasures are our treasures. Let's, together,share these treasures.”
Outgoing Chair Rita K. Levy (L)and her successor, Cathy Zises.
Chairman of the Executiveand Budget CommitteesJoseph D. Becker, Esq., hasdonated a copy of his newlypublished book to the YIVOLibrary. The American Law ofNations: Public InternationalLaw in American Courts (Juris Press, 2001), includes a foreword by JudgeStephen M. Schwebel,former President of theInternational Court ofJustice in The Hague.
Another YIVO Interna-tional Board member,Arthur Rosenblatt, FAIA,donated a copy of his newbook. Rosenblatt’s BuildingType Basics for Museums(Wiley: New York, 2001),includes a foreword byThomas Hoving.
an innovative, high school levelprogram for teaching about EastEuropean Jewish life, is progres-sing rapidly on the administra-tive and the curricular fronts. Asurvey of schools suggests anactive interest in the curricularmaterial being prepared. EPYC
Project Director Dr. Adina Cimet is also contactingschools to determine the best way to utilize theprogram.
EPYC is to include printed materials and a CD-ROM with samples of primary archival material. The program features two sections: an overview ofJewish history in Eastern Europe and a series ofmonographs on Jewish life in five selected cities.
The first monograph will cover the city ofLublin. EPYC will reconstruct the city as both acenter of Jewish autonomous rule and a thrivingtrade and commercial center. The materials willrecreate the historical life of the community, fromits origins as a Jewish settlement in the 16th cen-tury through its development as a major Jewish
center. It will examine the complex role of Jews inthe life of Lublin, which welcomed them, yet offi-cially banned them from living within the citywalls. By examining Podzamcze, the Jewish set-tlement that developed on the outskirts of Lublinduring the fifteenth century, EPYC will exploreJewish life and interaction with non-Jews amidconflicting notions of their role in society. It willalso highlight institutions that were created toexpress Jewish cultural identity.
Program Director Cimet is a graduate of theMexican National University, and received herM.A., M. Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in sociology from Columbia University. The child of Holocaustsurvivors from Lithuania and Poland, she grew upin Mexico City. She is the author of Ashkenazi Jewsin Mexico: Ideologies in the Structuring of a Com-munity (SUNY Press) as well as many scholarlyarticles in books and journals.
The program’s overarching goal is to link today’syouth to the life of East European Jewry — itsachievements, its problems and its solutions.EPYC aims to engage, involve and empowerstudents to ask questions and seek understandingof this important period of Jewish history.
Under Construction
EPYC Program Begins
Dr. Adina Cimet
YIVO Receives Lithuanian Ambassador
His Excellency Vygaudas Usackas (L), the new Lithuanian Ambassador to theUnited States, visited YIVO and presented Head Librarian Astrinsky with the bookLithuania: Past, Culture, Present. Accompanying him were Dr. Evan Zimroth,Professor of Jewish Studies, Queens College, and Dr. Rimantas Morkvenas, theLithuanian Consul General in New York City. YIVO Executive Director Dr. Carl J.Rheins (R) received the Ambassador.
Joseph D. Becker
Arthur Rosenblatt
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10 YIVO News Summer 2001
With old and new friends, YIVO embarked onits third Heritage study mission to Berlin,
Prague and Lithuania. Sixteen people, of differentbackgrounds and diverse ages, retraced theirhistory. Some relived early memories, othersrecalled precious stories. For all participants —Martha Fishkin, Elise Fischer, Florence Gesundheit,Lola Grabb, Samuel Kassow, Pearl and Ralph Kier,Nathan Levin, Gilda Ligorner, Charlie Rose, Alfredand Phyllis Schneider, Bea Schreter, Richard andRaquel Schwab and Anita Stone — the missionwas a unique experience. After exploring firsthandplaces so crucial to Jewish life and culture, theyviewed the traces of the vanished Jewish life,experiencing the beauty and the tragedy. Some of the participants shared their experiences andemotions with Yedies.
Charlie Rose
To assure a rich Jewish future in New York, it isessential to visit the places where Jewish life
once prospered before they — in a split second —became a vision of the past.
In Vilna, called Yerushalim d’Lita, there was oncesuch vibrant Jewish life, with a broad range ofschools, theaters and other communal and culturalinstitutions. Today, there is only evidence of thepast — 94% of Lithuanian Jewry was murdered.
Prague and Berlin were cradles of Jewish culture,too. Today, each stands as a monument to theJewish genocide. Even as I witnessed the rebirth ofJewish life in Prague, I could not forget the vigor-ous life that was destroyed. There is no substitutefor being there, in person, to see, hear, touch andhonor.
To visit these places is the best way to learn theimportance of the past and to obtain firsthandknowledge of our heritage and culture. Such tripsmake us witnesses to the most destructive facts ofhistory. We learn how fragile our Jewish identitycan be. Each generation should take up the
challenge to educate itself and to take advantageof every opportunity to become a witness to thepast.
YIVO’s task is to provide in-depth informationabout European Jewry and to keep our history inthe forefront of our thoughts. Through our YIVOmissions to where Judaism once flourished, weallow others to become personal witnesses, too, sothat our Jewish history will never be forgotten anda bright future secured.
Alfred and Phyllis Schneider
We feel we had a large degree of success inaccomplishing our primary objective. We
wanted a strong feeling for the vigorous EuropeanJewish community that existed before World WarII, the community and culture that made ourgrandparents, our parents and ourselves into whowe are. That community created Zionism andeventually Israel, established labor organizations,fostered the renaissance of Hebrew, made Yiddisha true language for literature and embodiedreligious creativity.
Kristallnachtmemorial plaquein front of GreatSynagogue inBerlin.
Professor Samuel Kassow, Trinity College (Hartford, CT),Scholar-in-Residence for YIVO Mission 2001, at the grave ofDr. Tsemakh Shabad in Vilna.
Retracing History on Heritage Mission
Mission participants in front of an armored police vehicleprotecting the Great Synagogue in Berlin.
Museum at Wannsee, site of the 1942, Naziconference to coordinate the “Final Solution.”
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In Kovno, we felt a closeness to our father andfather-in-law, who had spoken to us often aboutSlobodka, the old Jewish Quarter and its famousyeshiva, the chickens running around the dirt-floor houses and the family-like feeling of thecommunity.
We thought there was not much more that we, asJews, could learn about the horrors of the Shoah;we thought that was for non-Jews. However, thelectures by Professor Sam Kassow, our guides, and especially the young woman who lectured us about the Wannsee Conference (in which theNazis coordinated the “Final Solution”), deepenedour grasp of the situation. Rays of light were ourvisits to the Kovno Jewish Community Counciland the Sugihara Diplomats for Life Center.
The mission was a great experience. We aregrateful for our wonderful guides, travel compa-nions, Sam and our YIVO leaders Ella and Elise.
Anita Stone
In 1932, my mother took my sister and me toUtena, Lithuania, to meet her parents, brothers,
sisters and cousins. My father remained at home.The warmth of their cuddles, embraces and kisses
has never left me. Not much later, they were all tosuccumb to the Nazis.
This year, my sister and I decided to return toLithuania with the YIVO mission.
I stand in the middle of a forest, a splendor ofgreen, nurtured by the blood of my blood. Heresits a death camp and rooms with mattresses ofhay, surrounded by barbed wire. I see a train go by and envision the screechy wagons thatcarried the packed masses of my brethren toAuschwitz’s gas chambers. Verdict: condemnedfor being Jewish.
And I can see the blood of my blood seepingthrough the crevices of the soil, gurgling. Myinsides implode in ire; my outside explodes inrage: “Give me a machine gun. I want to kill.”
Then from across the ocean come the words ofmy son Martin, “Mom, two wrongs don’t make aright.”
On to Czechoslovakia. More ofthe Nazi horror. Whole Jewishcommunities decimated.Verdict: condemned for beingJewish. And I learn about theRighteous Gentiles, thosegood Samaritans who, atthe sight of suchinjustices, helped savemany people.
In between weenjoyed theopera inPrague,concertsin Lithuania, folk dancing in Hungary.
Listen world, listen humanity. Please listen!The embers are still there and could be fanned
by the winds. Let’s stamp them out hard so thatthey will never ignite again.
Back home again: dear God, how privileged weare to live in the United States. My anger is nowassuaged.
to Berlin, Prague and Lithuania
Great Synagogue, Vilna.
Ninth FortMemorial,
Kovno.
Memorial at Terezin.
Mission 2001 participants in front of a statue of the Golem,in Prague.
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YIVO and the U.S. Holocaust MemorialMuseum (USHMM) inaugurated an important
partnership on May 8, 2001 with a colloquium onthe previously neglected topic of the Holocaust’seffect on Romania and surrounding territories.Presented in New York before a crowd of 250, thepanel discussion entitled “The Holocaust inRomania, Bessarabia, and Transnistria: NewResearch and Perspectives” featured three expertson the fate of Romanian Jewry during theHolocaust and highlighted research in newlyavailable records.
“I am proud to have this opportunity to hostsuch a distinguished panel in cooperation with theUSHMM,” noted Dr. Carl Rheins, ExecutiveDirector of YIVO and moderator of the panel.“These scholars shed new light on the Holocaustin Romania and in territories under Romanian
administration.”The first speaker, Dr.
Dennis Deletant, discussed“Transnistria: The Roma-nian Solution to the JewishProblem.” Dr. Deletant isProfessor of RomanianStudies at the School ofSlavonic and East Euro-pean Studies, UniversityCollege, London. Heserved as a consultant to
the BBC during the Romanian Revolution. Next,Paul Shapiro reviewed new scholarship andsources on “The Iasi Pogrom” and its aftermath;Shapiro, who is Director of the Center forAdvanced Holocaust Studies, USHMM, waspreviously Staff Director for the Committee onConscience of the United States HolocaustMemorial Council. Finally, Dr. Radu Ioaniddelivered a paper entitled “To the Last Man,Woman, and Child: The Creation and Liquidationof the Chisinau (Kishinev) Ghetto;” Dr. Ioanid isAssociate Director of the International ProgramsDivision, USHMM; author of The Holocaust inRomania (2000) and The Sword of the Archangel:Fascist Ideology in Romania (1990); and a specialiston the history of fascism and the persecution ofethnic minorities in Romania.
Since the museum opened in l993, it has enjoyedclose ties with YIVO, using the Institute's photoarchives for material in various exhibitions. Twomembers of YIVO's National Board of Directors,Benjamin Meed (New York) and Leo Melamed(Chicago), are also members of the United StatesHolocaust Memorial Council.
The museum's Center for Advanced HolocaustStudies was established to promote the growth ofHolocaust studies at American universities, tostrengthen relationships between American andforeign scholars and to train a new generation ofscholars.
The second InternationalResearch Seminar in Yiddish
Culture took place on the cam-pus of the Jewish TheologicalSeminary of America (JTS) inNew York on June 18-19, 2001.Co-sponsored by YIVO, JTS, Beit
Sholem Aleichem (Tel Aviv), andthe Yiddish Department ofHebrew University (Jerusalem),the seminar was directed byProfessors Avrom Nowersztern(Hebrew University) and DavidRoskies (JTS), and coordinatedby Rebecca Margolis, a graduatestudent at Columbia Universityand former YIVO Fellow.
The seminar provided gradu-ate and post-graduate studentsin the fields of Yiddish languageand literature and Jewish historyand culture with the opportu-nity to deepen and broaden theirknowledge and to share theirinterests and research perspec-tives with colleagues from all
over the world. Among the 22participants in this year’s semi-nar were masters and doctoralcandidates from the UnitedStates, Canada, England,Germany, Hungary, Denmark,Russia, France, and Israel. Theprogram was conducted entirelyin Yiddish.
In addition to attending formallectures, the participantspresented their own research.Many also took the opportunityto conduct research at YIVO,JTS, and other New Yorklibraries and archives that haverich resources for Yiddish andJewish studies.
More Cooperative Events Planned
YIVO and U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Hold Joint Colloquium
Dr. DennisDeletant before amap of Romania,Bessarabia andTransnistria.
Scholars Share Interests and Research at Second International Research Seminar in Yiddish Culture
Participants in the International Research Seminar in YiddishCulture.
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As YIVO’s 34th session of the Uriel WeinreichProgram in Yiddish Language, Literature and
Culture (UWP) comes to a close at ColumbiaUniversity, we are proud to announce anotherrecord enrollment: 69 registered students. Thanksto the generous financial support of manyindividuals and foundations, these students, fromall over the world as well as the United Stateshave been able to attend the Summer 2001 UWPwith assistance of financial aid. As the programcosts have increased, this financial aid is ever morecrucial to keeping this unique experience open tothe broadest range of students.
With this in mind, YIVO offers a very specialthank you to Dr. Jaime Constantiner of MexicoCity, Mexico, who provided for five (5) tuitionscholarships to this year's UWP students. Bymaking this heartfelt gift, Constantiner hasprovided concrete support of Yiddish andyidishkayt. He has chosen to strengthen the studyof Yiddish as a language, by his donation, and hasdemonstrated a strong commitment to preservingand teaching the language, literature and culturefrom generation to generation. The students whohave received financial aid through his supportwould otherwise not have been able to attend theprogram. A shaynem dank.
New Yiddish Summer Times
To Reach 1,200 Alumni
The first edition of Yiddish Summer Times: Zumer in nyu-york, the eight-page alumni
newsletter aimed at the over 1,200 graduates of YIVO's Uriel Weinreich Program in YiddishLanguage, Literature and Culture is out! Editedand designed by Yankl Salant, Director of YiddishLanguage Programs, the Yiddish-English paperwill report on YIVO programs, alumni activitiesand Yiddish-related publications. The Aaron andSonia Fishman Foundation for Yiddish Culture haskindly underwritten the newsletter.
Continuing EducationAt YIVO
More Classes Planned for Fall 2001
The successful Spring 2001 term featured newcourses such as “Yiddish Literature in Trans-lation,” taught by Marc Caplan. NikolaiBorodulin, YIVO Bibliographic Specialist,taught “Elementary Yiddish,” and BrukheLang Caplan taught a “Beginning YiddishConversation” class that did not requireknowledge of the Yiddish alphabet. TheIntermediate Yiddish instructor was Avrom-Yankev Sachs and Paul (Hershl) Glasser led the “Advanced Yiddish” section.
Yiddish language classes will continue in Fall2001. Additional classes. If you have notreceived the announcement flyers listingclasses and instructors, please call (212) 246-6080.
Yiddish Courses/Programs
Record Enrollment, New Scholarships
Dr. Jaime Constantiner (R), who provided five scholarships.He visited YIVO with his daughter-in-law Caren, a member ofthe leadership forum.
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RECIPIENTS OF YIVO FACULTY AND GRADUATE STUDENT FELLOWSHIPS, 2001AWARD NAME AMOUNT RECIPIENT AFFILIATION TOPIC
Dina Abramowicz $5000 Adam Rubin, Ph.D. Asst. Prof., Judaic Studies, The Politics of Tradition: Nationalism,Emerging Scholar Hebrew Union College (L.A.) Nostalgia and the Reinvention of the
Jewish Past
Prof. Bernard $5000 Jack Prof. and Dir., Jewish Studies Impressions of a Journey:Jewish Travel Choseed Memorial Kugelmass, Ph.D. Program, Arizona State Univ. Accounts of Post-War Poland
Rose and Isidore $2000 Anne Polland Jewish and American history, The Adaptation of Ritual: Immigrant Jewish Drench Memorial Columbia University Families on the Lower East Side, 1880-1930
Vladimir and Pearl $1500 Marija History and Slavic Studies, Jewish Folksongs in Lithuania and BelarusHeifetz Memorial Krupoves, Ph.D. Vilnius University
Aleksander and $1500 Joshua Asst. Prof., Jewish History, From Politics to the New Yiddish Culture: Alicja Hertz Zimmerman, Ph.D. Yeshiva University The Bund in the Last Years of the Czarist Memorial Empire
Vivian Lefsky $1500 Alyssa Quint Yiddish literature, Avrom Goldfadn and the Origins of Hort Memorial Harvard University the Yiddish Theatre
Natalie and Mendel $1500 Natan Meir History, Columbia University The Jews of Kiev, 1874-1914: Community Racolin Memorial & Acculturation in an Imperial Russian City
Maria Salit-Gitelson $1500 Joanna Lisek Jewish language and culture, Yung-VilneTell Memorial Wroclaw University
Irving D. Klein $1500 Marian Jacobson Music, New York University The Committed Sound: Yiddish Folk Memorial Choruses and Jewish Expressive Culture
in N.Y.C.
In January 2001, Mr. BrianWeinstein, of Washington,
DC, established the Abram andFannie Gottlieb ImmermanEndowment Fund at YIVO. Thisnew endowment, named in
memory of his grandparents,will provide travel support forPh.D. dissertation research inarchives and libraries in theBaltic States. Preference will begiven to Jews of Courland andLatvia, as Weinstein hasrequested. The stipend will be aminimum of $1,500.
At this time of reopened libra-ries, archives and other collec-tions of cultural materials inEastern Europe, such a travelingfellowship will enable an ad-vanced graduate student to takeadvantage of these newly avail-able resources and to pursueoriginal research in the field.
By establishing this endow-ment and fellowship, Weinstein
is, ensuring that scholars will beable to travel the Baltic States;many interesting discoveriesamong these documents andrecords should result. TheAbram and Fannie GottliebImmerman Endowment Fund atYIVO is an important step inbuilding for the future, by sup-porting today's scholars in EastEuropean Jewish Studies. It isanticipated that the first Abramand Fannie Gottlieb ImmermanEndowment fellow will be an-nounced in early 2002.
YIVO supporters interested in establishing a scholarshipendowment should contact EllaLevine at (212-294-6128).
Making a Difference
New Fellowship Established
Abram and Fannie Gottlieb Immerman,grandparents of Brian Weinstein, whohas established a new fellowship atYIVO in their memory.
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The HIAS Arrangement and Description Projects,reported on in earlier issues of the YIVO News,
were completed in March. From 1995 through2001, YIVO Project Archivists completed 25 ex-panded, electronic finding aids to hundreds ofthousands of documents in the HIAS Archive.This will facilitate access to a much-used and un-paralleled source of documentation on the historyof Jewish immigration worldwide during the firsthalf of the 20th century.
The Guide to the HIAS Archives, begun in April, isan outgrowth and culmination of the previous fiveyears of work. When completed by ArchivistGunnar Berg and Project Director Fruma Mohrer,the Guide will be in both book and electronic for-mat, providing, in a nutshell, information aboutthe global holdings in the HIAS Archive. It willinclude entries for each of the 25 collections in theArrangement and Description Projects as well as aname and subject index. Just as the 25 finding aidsenhanced access to each of the HIAS collections,the Guide is expected to greatly expedite the re-search process in the vast, complex immigrationholdings, by providing efficient and focusedguidance.
The HIAS Archive, much used by writers, doc-toral students and genealogists, is noteworthy forits wide geographic range. It includes documen-tation from HIAS committees in Europe, LatinAmerica, China, Japan, Australia, South Africaand Palestine.
There are reports on the arrival of new immi-grants at Ellis Island; the arrangement of food,shelter and Passover seders for the newcomers;and the fight in the early 1920s against the Immi-gration and Quota Act of 1924 which broughtJewish immigration to the United States practi-cally to a halt.
From the Holocaust period, there are records ofBELHICEM, organized at the outbreak of WorldWar II to help Jews flee Belgium, as well as thou-ands of case records on Jews who fled from Franceto Lisbon, then from Lisbon to the Americas, orfrom Europe to the Far East. Systematic reportsdocument the occupation of Europe and the fatesof thousands of Jews searching for refuge. Fromthe post-war period, there are migration records ofsurvivors in Italy, France and Germany who wereabout to set sail or fly overseas to their adoptivecountries.
The executors of the composer VladimirHeifetz’s estate, chief among them Mr. Milton
Zisman, have released materials to YIVO thatcomprise a considerable addition to the HeifetzCollection. The collection was established withtwo gifts from Heifetz’s widow, Pearl. In 1980,ten years after Heifetz's death, and again in 1991,she donated his papers, photographs and manyother materials to the YIVO Archives. YIVOMusic Archivist Chana Mlotek added photoco-pies of his work from other sources and, in 1992,created a guide to the collection, which includesHeifetz's musical manuscripts, publications, pro-grams of his concerts, compilations, musicalarrangements, articles and manuscripts by othercomposers.
Through a grant from the estate of the late PearlHeifetz, Fern Kant has joined YIVO as a ProjectArchivist. Kant worked previously at the Robertand Molly Freedman Jewish Music Archive of theUniversity of Pennsylvania.
Vladimir Heifetz was born in 1893 in Chashnik,a village in Vitebskii Gubernye, Belorussia (nowBelarus), where he received early training inmusic and theory. His father, Khayim Heifetz,
was first violinist at the Imperial Court for 12years. At only eight years old, Vladimir com-posed “Grandfather's Clock,” usinginnovative and picturesque phrasing thatkept the work in print for more than 50 years.
Of paramount importance to Heifetz was themusical expression of the Jewish soul — bothYidishkayt and mentshlekhkayt — and of Jewishidentity. The great majority of his more than 150compositions and arrangements treated Jewishthemes. He is best known for the folk-inspired“Der yid der shmid” and for the music in thefilms Grine Felder (Green Fields) and The LastChapter.
Besides composing and arranging numerousworks for Jewish holidays and commemorations,he served as teacher, director and musicaldirector for numerous Jewish and Yiddish choralgroups and summer camps.
Heifetz died on May 3, 1970, at the SuffolkJewish Center in Deer Park, Long Island, in themiddle of his final concert, and the Center thenlocked the piano in his memory.
A YIVO CD featuring Heifetz's work will beissued later this year.
Guide to the HIAS Archives is Begun
Archives Completes HIAS Arrangement and Description Projects
New Additions to the Vladimir Heifetz Collection
Vladimir Heifetzin the 1950s
16 YIVO News Summer 2001
Arc
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compositions of Michl Gelbart for a concertpresentation and a possible CD recording? Areyou with a music publishing company that wantsto ascertain the correct Yiddish and Hebrew titlesof publications it was planning to reissue? Or, per-haps, you are a cantorial student wanting to knowabout the various types of music that have derivedfrom Bessarabia. Each of these problems, andmany more, was posed to the YIVO Music Archi-vist Chana Mlotek.
One student sought songs of longing for homeand native towns. The Music Archives also res-ponded to research questions on the connection ofHerman Yablokoff’s song “Shvayg, Mayn Harts”(Be Still, My Heart) to the popular English song“Nature Boy;” on how a popular Yiddish songduring the Holocaust, “Sha, Sha, Es Zol ZaynShtil” (Ssh, Let There Be Silence) evolved into asong about the concern over a child being seen inthe ghetto; and about the “Yortsayt” song that wassung by Cantor Josef (Yossele) Rosenblatt in thefilm The Jazz Singer.
A musician seeking to explore Slavic influenceson Yiddish song asked YIVO for direction. Mlotekpointed to relevant folk, theater and holiday
songs. A German publisher wanted to knowwhich publications of the Society for Jewish FolkMusic, established in l908 in St. Petersburg,Russia, were in YIVO's collections. Researchersalso wanted information on little known theaterand synagogue composer Joseph Brod and on themusic of clarinetist Simon Bellison.
Of course, scores of songs were requested, themost recent being “Kinder Yorn” (ChildhoodYears), “Am Yisroel Khay” (The Jewish PeopleLive), “Freyen Zikh Iz Gut” (Rejoicing Is Good),“Avek Di Yunge Yorn” (The Young Years AreGone) and many others. The appearances ofcertain topics and motifs in Yiddish songs andballads, particularly the “Golden Peacock” andfood images, were explored on behalf of scholars
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011-6301
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Join YIVO’s email listKeep on top of the latest news from YIVO. Find
out about programs and events not advertised inour regular calendars and newsletters. Learnabout new features and resources added to ourWeb site.
Subscribe to YIVO e-mail by writing to:[email protected], or use “Send Us YourFeedback” on our Web site: www.yivoinstitute.org.
Jost G. Blum of Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich,Germany, visited YIVO and presented Head Librarian AvivaAstrinsky with with several of his works. Among them wereGrunes Aquarium (Green Aquarium) and his translation ofpieces by the renowned Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever.
Munich Scholar Makes Gifts to YIVO
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Lib
raryEnglish, Hebrew and Polish
additions to YIVO’s Librarycollections cover a variety of to-pics. Some interesting ones are:• Zo lo otah Grodnah = Grodno Is
Not the Same: The Jewish Com-munity in Grodno and Its VicinityDuring the Second World Warand the Holocaust, 1939-1943,Tikva Fatal-Knaani (YadVashem, 2001).This Hebrewcompendium, which includesphotos and maps, describesthe Jewish community ofGrodno before and during the Holocaust. It covers theearly history of Grodno; theflourishing Jewish communityduring Polish independencefrom 1921 to 1940; the interimperiod from September 17,1939, when the Soviet armyoccupied Grodno, to June 22,1941, when the German armyconquered it; the Germanoccupation; the liquidation ofthe Grodno ghettos fromNovember 1942 to March1943; and, finally, youth move-ments, resistance and escape.
• The Holocaust and the Book:Destruction and Preservation,edited by Jonathan Rose ofDrew University (Universityof Massachusetts Press, 2002).
In this book, Prof. Rose esti-mates that 100 million bookswere destroyed during theHolocaust. The 14 essays andbibliography explore theconnection between book bur-nings and the gas chambers.The book includes severalYIVO contributions: the essay“The Library in the VilnaGhetto” by the late DinaAbramowicz; former YIVOhead librarian Zachary Baker’stranslation of “Library andReading Room in the VilnaGhetto,” a chapter fromHerman Kruk’s diary; andEmbers Plucked from the Fire:The Rescue of Jewish CulturalTreasures in Vilna by Dr. DavidFishman (first published byYIVO in soft-cover in 1996).
• Jewish Poland–Legends of Origin:Ethnopoetics and LegendaryChronicles, Haya Bar Itzhak(Wayne State University Press,2001). Written by the Chair ofthe Department of Hebrewand Comparative Literatureand head of Folklore Studiesat the University of Haifa, thisbook discusses legends aboutJewish life in Poland, begin-ning with those documentingJewish arrival more than 1,000years ago. The book alsoshares popular Yiddishetymologies of Polish place
names, including Po-Lin,which in Hebrew means “hereyou stay”.
Another important recentacquisition is the collection ofnewsletters Narod Knigi v mireknig = Am ha-Sefer im ha-Sefer =The People of the Book in the Worldof Books: Newsletter of the JewishLibrary Association of the Com-monwealth of Independent States(CIS). Edited by AleksandrFrenkel and published in SaintPetersburg (since August 1995)by the Evreiskii obshchinnyi Tsentr(Jewish Community Center),these newsletters are a majorbibliographical source for SlavicJudaica published in the formerSoviet Union (FSU). Each issueincludes bibliographical infor-mation on new books in Rus-sian, Ukrainian, Belorussian,Lithuanian, Latvian, Moldavian,Estonian and Romanian releasedin the CIS. For example, issueno. 28 (August 2000) lists 85 newbooks on subjects including:Judaism and Jewish philosophy(6), Jewish history (25), anti-Semitism (5), reference booksand directories (8), lives offamous Jews (11) and fiction(21). The newsletters also repro-duce book reviews, chiefly fromnon-Jewish journals. One dis-cusses the translation fromYiddish into Russian of SzmerkeKaczerginski's Mezhdu molotom Iserpom (BetweenHammer and Sickle).Published in Vilniusin 1999, it is a studyof the destruction ofJewish culture in theSoviet Union. Thenewsletters payspecial attention topublications on theHolocaust: issues no.27 and 28 list 123publications on thissubject that havecome out in the CISsince 1989.
Recent Acquisitions
Through the generosity ofYIVO National Board
member Dr. Arnold Richards,the Library purchased LodzNames, a five-volume workthat includes “a complete andauthentic list of all Jewishpersons officially known tohave been in the Lodz Ghetto.”Published by the LodzLandsmanshaft in Israel, incooperation with Yad Vashem,this work lists 205,000 Jewswho went through the ghettoon their way to the deathcamps. Intended to be a sym-bolic gravestone, it lists name,sex, date of birth, occupation,ghetto address and notes.
18 YIVO News Summer 2001
Tuesday, October 23 at 7:30 pm Professor Dov LevinJewish Resistance in the Baltic States, 1941-1945
Professor Dov Levin was born in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania andwas a member of the anti-Nazi underground movement in theKovno Ghetto and a partisan fighter. He is the acting director ofthe Oral History Division of the Avraham Harman Institute ofContemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.Professor Levin has published many books and articles on thehistory of East European Jewry before, during, and after WorldWar II, including Fighting Back: Lithuanian Jewry’s ArmedResistance to the Nazis, 1941-1945 (Holmes & Meir, 1985) and TheLitvaks: A Short History of the Jews in Lithuania (Yad Vashem, 2000).
Monday, November 12 at 7:30 pmSir Martin GilbertChurchill and the Jews
A special lecture on the complex relationship between one of thetwentieth-century’s great leaders and the Jews by Sir MartinGilbert, official biographer of Winston Churchill. Gilbert, one ofthe most widely read historians of modern times, is the author ofmany works of Jewish and world history, including Auschwitzand the Allies (1981), The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of EuropeDuring the Second World War (1987), The Atlas of Jewish History(1993), Israel: A History (1998), and A History of the TwentiethCentury (2000).
YIVO Public Programs – Fall/Winter 2001-2002 Distinguished Lecture Series — Partial Listing
Sunday-Monday, November 18-19The Memorialization of the Holocaust in AmericaA two-day colloquium on the significance of the Holocaust inAmerican consciousness. Lectures and panel discussions willexamine the social forces that have allowed the appropriation ofthe Holocaust into American culture, the place of Holocaustcommemoration in American Jewish life and visions of howAmericans will shape the memory of the Holocaust in the future.
Keynote address on Sunday evening, November 18 by AlanMintz, Kekst Professor of Hebrew Literature at the JewishTheological Seminary, New York City, and author of PopularCulture and the Shaping of Holocaust Memory in America(University of Washington Press, 2001). Call (212) 246-6080 fordetailed program schedule.
A joint program of YIVO, the American Jewish Historical Society andthe Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
All events are held at the Center for Jewish History.Admission is free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.
Seating is limited. Please call 212.246.6080 to reserve a place.
Max Weinreich Center Lectures
Tuesday, October 30 at 7:00 pmMaria Salit-Gitelson Tell Memorial LectureJoanna Lisek (Wroclaw University)The Identity of the Artistic Group "Yung Vilne"
Monday, November 26 at 7:00 pmThe Inaugural Vladimir and Pearl Heifetz Memorial LectureProfessor Marija Krupoves (Vilnius University)Traditional Songs of Litvakes: Perspectives for In-situ Research
Tuesday, January 15 at 7:00 pmNatalie and Mendel Racolin Memorial LectureNatan Meir (Columbia University)The Jews of "Yehupetz": Community, Class, and Identity inTurn-of-the-Century Kiev
Tuesday, January 29 at 7:00 pmAleksander and Alicja Hertz Memorial LectureProfessor Joshua Zimmerman (Yeshiva University)From Politics to the New Yiddish Culture: The Bund in the LastYears of the Czarist Empire
Please Note: this is a partial list. For a full list of YIVO Fall/Winter lectures and other public programs, please call (212) 246-6080 or e-mail your request to [email protected].
Monday, October 15 at 5:00 pmJewish Politics in Eastern Europe: The Bund Revisited
Join us to celebrate the publication of Jewish Politics in EasternEurope: The Bund at 100, edited by Professor Jack Jacobs (NewYork University Press, 2001). This new book draws on previouslyunexamined source materials to offer fresh perspectives on thesignificance of the Bund, the first modern Jewish political partyin Eastern Europe.
Jack Jacobs is Professor of Government at John Jay College ofCriminal Justice, the City University of New York. He is theauthor of On Socialists and “The Jewish Question” After Marx(New York University Press, 1992). Professor David Engel(NYU), Marek Web (YIVO) and Professor Joshua Zimmerman(Yeshiva University) will join Jacobs in a discussion andpresentation of short readings from the new book. Book signingby the author.
Book Party and Reading Colloquium
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Film and Discussion Series: Czechoslovakian Jewry During the Holocaust and Cold War
Curator & Moderator: Dr. Eric Goldman, Ergo MediaCo-Sponsored by The Czech Center.
This unique documentary from Czech Television offers a newperspective on efforts by Orthodox Jews and leftist Zionists tosave Jews during the Holocaust. To buy the freedom of Jews, theso-called “Bratislava Working Group” made overtures and gavemassive bribes to the highest echelon of Nazi officials. The filmincludes testimony from many participants in the actual events.
Speaker: Dr. Michael A. Riff
Monday, December 17 7:30 pmAll My Loved Ones
Czech Republic, 1999, 100 minutes
The Silberstein family is just like any other Czech family — untilthe Nazis invade Czechoslovakia. As new racial laws begin tohave an impact, each family member must confront his or herJewish identity. When it appears too late to flee, the Silbersteinstry to help children. This powerful drama, based on the story ofBritish stockbroker Nicholas Winton, who organized wartimekindertransports to England, is an evocative study of the period.
Speaker: Helen Epstein
Monday, January 7 7:30 pmA Trial in Prague
U.S.A., 2000, 83 minutes
At the height of the Cold War, in 1952, an infamous Stalinistshow trial took place in Czechoslovakia. Fourteen Communists,11 of whom were Jews, were charged with high treason and es-pionage. One of the men was Rudolf Slansky, the second mostpowerful man in the country. Although innocent, the accusedconfessed and were convicted, and most were hanged. Thisdocumentary tells the story of the trial through testimonies, trialfootage, archival footage and other extensive documentation.
Marie and Josef Cizek are a childless couple living under Nazioccupation in a small Czech town. One day, they come acrosstheir former neighbor David, a Jew who has managed to escapeimprisonment and return to his village. They are forced to decidewhether to give him shelter or turn him away. Not providinghim with refuge will almost surely mean his death. Hiding himwill put them in great peril. This Academy Award nominee forBest Foreign Picture explores the ways in which heroism andcollaboration, generosity and cowardice sometimes overlap,making it difficult to pass moral judgments.
Speaker: Arnost Lustig
Thursday, September 13 at 7:30 pmMiriam Hoffman and Rena BorowGhetto Cabaret (Yiddish with simultaneous translation)Dedicated to the memory of Sonya Staff and Mendl Hoffman
Preview a new, powerful Yiddish play about the last days of theVilna Ghetto. Written by Miriam Hoffman and Rena Borow,Ghetto Cabaret is based on research conducted in the YIVOArchives and Library. It uses sketches and songs performed inthe ghetto theater, and diaries and memoirs to depict both thedaily struggle for survival in the Vilna Ghetto and the creativeforce that fed Jewish spiritual and armed resistance.
Sun., October 7 at 5:00 p.m. and Thurs., October 11 at 8:00 p.m. Oscar Feltsman and the Siberian Klezmer (Admission $36)Jewish Happiness: Music from Russia’s "Irving Berlin”
Join us for the premiere American concert appearance of OscarFeltsman, one of Russia’s most popular entertainers. The fatherof world-renowned classical pianist Vladimir Feltsman, OscarFeltsman is the prolific composer of more than 1,600 songs,musicals, ballets, and concertos. Three generations of Russianshave grown up humming Feltsman’s songs.
Now, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Feltsman has turnedhis creative energies to writing music based on the RussianJewish experience. Here he will be accompanied by the Mazl TovTrio, an award-winning klezmer ensemble from Siberia, who alsoappear on Feltsman’s latest recording.
Wednesday, November 14 7 p.m.The Pearl and Vladimir Heifetz Memorial ConcertSongs Are All I Have!
Rediscover one of the 20th century’s talented musicians at thisconcert commemorating his work. Vladimir Heifetz (1883-1970)was a distinguished composer, conductor, choral director andpianist. His far-reaching career included serving as theaccompanist to the singer Chaliapin, working as musical directorof Jewish choruses and writing the scores for several movies,including the Russian film Potemkin and the Yiddish film Grinefelder (Green Fields).
Program made possible through the generous support of the Estate ofPearl Heifetz.
Music, Theater and Literature
All films $7.00/Students and seniors $3.50. Tickets may be purchased from the Center for Jewish History box office. To order with amajor credit card, call (917) 606-8200. To order by mail, indicate the program(s) for which you want tickets and send check payable to: Center for Jewish History/Box Office, 15 West 16 Street, New York, NY 10011-6301.
YIVO News Summer 2001
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Kovno Room Dedicated
December 3, 2000 was a milestone day at YIVO:the Kovno Room, and the original work “…
And the Air Stood Still” created especially for thatroom, were dedicated. The dedication was madepossible through the generous contributions ofCindy and David Stone and the Smart FamilyFoundation; and Rosina Abramson and JeffreyGlen.
The lives of Sonia Gerber and MartinKonichowski, the late parents of LeadershipForum Co-Chair Cindy Stone and YIVO Boardmember Rosina Abramson, are chronicled andcelebrated in “… And the Air Stood Still.” Eachguest received a copy of “Reflections of Sonia andMartin Konichowski,” which featured an inter-view with Martin and original writings by SoniaGerber Konichowski.
Plaques in honor and memory of the Kovno Jewswere sponsored by Ellen, Lewis and BarbaraChesler; George, Lonni, Roni and Michael Epstein;Helen, Chaya and Steven Krieger and families;Rhona Liptzin, Jerrold Wank and families; Esther,Jonathan and Arnon Mishkin and families; AdinaCimet and Michael Singer; and Hela, Steven andEdward Telzak and families.
The Stone children, Ben and Sam, togetheraffixed the mezuzah tothe Kovno Roomdoorpost. Cindy Stonethanked LindaRubinstein and MelanieMarcus Greenberg forhelping to design and edit thespecial book. RosinaAbramson urged every-one to understand thelost Jewish culture and
to keep Yiddishkayt alive, goals seconded by Dr.Adina Cimet, Director of YIVO's EPYC Program, achild of a Kovno mother, who is raising herchildren to speak Yiddish.
As Cindy and Rosina wrote in their essay,“Remembrances”:
Though a tragic history and rich heritagebound us to our neighbors without need ofwords, many, including our father, did speak ofthe war years. On this subject our motherremained silent, though her voice rang out as a leader in the community… why…are wecompelled to pay tribute to our parents? Wehonor our parents as well for the lives theylived before (the war) and created after….Separately and together (our parents) fell down
and got up, over and over, drawing on reserves of character and faith.
As sisters, we stand in awe of the lives ourparents wove for us…Rejecting fear, theyinspired us to travel the more adventurouspath, to stretch our abilities while reinforcingtraditions at home and recreating Jewishcommunal life. Our understanding of theseaccomplishments only deepens over time. We are the daughters of Martin and SoniaKonichowski.
The sisters reaffirmed, “We and our generationare the legacy of the Kovno Jews. We are honoringour parents’ lives and the Kovno promise to tellwhat happened. Now, we pass the story from ourhands into yours.”
Everyone who has sponsored a plaque in theKovno Room has accepted the responsibility ofremembering — and honoring — those who camebefore. They are helping YIVO keep the memoryalive, teaching about the Jewish life and culturethat once thrived there. Through the Kovno Room,and the commitment of those who are part of itscommemoration, links are forged from the past, tothe present and into the future.
Ellen Chesler and her husband, Matt Mallow, reading theMemorial Book.
Sisters Cindy Stone (L) and Rosina Abramson with YIVO ChairBruce Slovin.
David Stone withsons Sam and Ben.
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On December 12, 2000, Simaand Nathan Katz — Rita andMiriam’s parents — sponsored adinner and concert for familyand friends to mark the dedi-cation. YIVO Chair Bruce Slovinpresided over the ceremony,along with Mairon Genster, adescendant from Riteve, andRabbi Aron Shurin, who affixeda mezuzah to the doorpost of theroom. About 150 personsattended the commemorationand dedication.
Esther Ancoli-Barbasch andfamily also generously sponsoreda plaque in the Shavl and Riteveroom, which features threememorial plaques on the frontwall. Prewar photographs of thefamilies, Jewish educationalinstitutions and students of theJewish Gymnasium in Shavl arearranged on the other walls.
Miriam stressed that her pa-
rents had taught them Yiddishand the importance of Jewishculture past and present.
The Katzes survived the Shavlghetto and later hid in variousLithuanian villages. As Simanoted in her remarks to the as-sembled guests, “When I wasrunning from the ghetto, I tookonly two items with me. I took asiddur and family photographs.These were the most importantthings.”
Nathan Katz spoke about hischildhood in Riteve, his time inkheyder, his synagogue and pre-WWII Jewish life. He discussedhis family ties to Riteve and theimportance of remembering the
community life that once existedthere.
Rita Levy, active member andformer Chair of YIVO's Lead-ership Forum, introduced Dr.Adina Cimet, Project Director of the Education Program onYiddish Culture (EPYC), whichtheir committee helped to ini-tiate. She explained the newprogram, speaking in Yiddish,and discussed Shavl's richJewish history. The receptionwas followed by a rousing per-formance by Eleanor Riessa andZalmen Mlotek of the FolksbieneYiddish Theatre.
Hadassah Landesman, the 85-year-old sister of Nathan Katz,came from her home in Israel tocelebrate the occasion. Theyounger generation was repre-sented by Rebecca Levy, grand-daughter of Sima and Nathanand a member of the FolksbieneYiddish Theater. She dedicated asong in Yiddish to her grand-parents.
The Shavl and RiteveMemorial Room ensures thatthese once thriving Jewish com-munities — and the people wholived there for generations — areremembered and honored.
Shavl and Riteve Room Dedicated
Four generations (L-R): Rita K. Levy, Sima Katz, photo of Sima’s mother and Rebecca Levy, Sima’s grandaughter.
Sima and Nathan Katz speaking at the dedication.
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Donors of $5,000 and AboveThe YIVO Institute for Jewish Research thanks the following donors for helping to preserve our
Jewish heritage through their generous support. In the last issue, Yedies acknowledged gifts of $1,000–$4,999. This issue recognizes donors of $5,000 and above from June 1, 2000–May 31, 2001. Donorsof $1,000–$4,999 will appear in the next edition of Yedies.
Membership card from the Union of Artists of the Jewish Theater, issued to Ida Kaminska in 1946, with a notation indicating that she had been a membersince 1916.
Ida Kaminska, her husband Meir Melman, and their son,Victor, Moscow, 1946.
Gifts of $50,000 and AboveAtran Foundation, Inc.
Estate of Pearl Heifetz
Leucadia National CorporationDiane and Joseph S. Steinberg
Nash Family Foundation, Inc.Helen and Jack Nash
National Foundation for Jewish Culture
Philip Morris Companies Inc.Joan and Joseph F. Cullman III
Francesca and Bruce Slovin
Smart Family Foundation, Inc.Cindy K. and David S. Stone
Motl Zelmanowicz
Gifts of $25,000 and AboveAmerican Stock Transfer & TrustCompanyLeah and Michael Karfunkel
Dr. Sylvia Brody
Tanya and Sol Neil Corbin
Dibner Fund, Inc.David Dibner
Estate of Jacob Perlow
Estate of Julius Stamm
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
Fanya Gottesfeld Heller
Martin and Doris Payson CharitableFoundationDoris and Martin D. Payson
Rosa and David M. Polen
Slim Fast Nutritional FoodsFoundationS. Daniel Abraham
Steinhardt Management LLCJudy and Michael H. Steinhardt
Vera Stern
Gifts of $10,000 and AboveRosina K. Abramson and Jeffrey Glenn
Access Industries, Inc.Len Blavatnik
American International GroupWilliam Kane
Beate and Joseph D. Becker
California Federal BankJerry Ford and Carl B. Webb
Ellen Chesler and Matthew J. Mallow
Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & HamiltonBetsy and Max Gitter
Datascope CorporationCarol and Lawrence Saper
Bernice and Donald G. Drapkin
EL-KAM Realty Co.Ellen and Kamram Hakim
Ernst & YoungKatherine and Gerald D. Cohen
Each issue of Yedies highlights items from the YIVOcollections. These images are from the “Ida Kaminska (1899-1980): Grande Dame of the Yiddish Theater” exhibit,currently on display at the Center for Jewish History.
Estate of Chaim Diamond
Estate of Evelyn W. Minkoff
Estate of Hersh Stern
FAB Industries, Inc.Halina and Samson Bitensky
Family Management CorporationCathy and Seymour Zises
Bambi and Roger H. Felberbaum
The FJJ Foundation, Inc.Jaime P. Constantiner
Forward Association, Inc.
Fred & Sharon Stein FoundationSharon and Fred Stein
Jerrold P. Fuchs
Michael Fuchs
Diane and Mark Goldman
Jean Gotman
Yvette and Larry Gralla
Greystone & Co.Steve Rosenberg
Andrea and Warren Grover
Guardsmark, Inc.Barbara and Ira A. Lipman
HSBC Bank USADianne La Basse
Ann and Irwin Jacobs
Erica Jesselson
Kekst and Company Inc.Carol and Gershon Kekst
KPMG LLPRenee and Michael J. Regan
Lancer GroupMichael Lauer
Lazard Freres & Co. LLCKenneth M. Jacobs
Lehman Brothers Inc.Constance and Harvey M. Krueger
Ruth and David A. Levine
Max and Anna Levinson Foundation
Susanne and Jacob Morowitz
Morris and Alma Schapiro FundLinda S. Collins
Anne and Martin Peretz
Andrea Rabney and Samuel D. Waksal
Drs. Arlene and Arnold D. Richards
Charles J. Rose
Rosenwald Foundation, Inc.Rivki and Dr. Lindsay A. Rosenwald
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & KatzSusan and Martin Lipton
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & KatzToby and Bernard Nussbaum
Brian Weinstein
Whale Securities Co., LPClaudia and William G. Walters
Willis Corroon Corporation of New YorkSally and Anthony DeFelice
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From June 1, 2000 – May 31, 2001
[continued on page 24]
Left:Ida Kaminska in a role from J. Berstel’sZindikn Herr Tshu(The Sinful Mr.Tschu), 1923.
Center: Poster for a VIKTperformance ofDostoyevsky’sThe BrothersKaramazov,starring IdaKaminska andZygmunt Turkow,Warsaw, 1927.
Right: IdaKaminska in SholemAleichem’sMentshn(People).
Gifts of $5,000 and AboveAnonymous
Arthur and Marilyn Penn CharitableTrust
Bank of AmericaMark R. Antweil
Barclays CapitalTerrance Bullock
Baruch CollegeDavid Gallagher
Beyer Blinder BelleEllen and Richard Blinder
Bialkin Family FoundationAnn and Kenneth J. Bialkin
CIBC Oppenheimer Corp.Lotte and Ludwig Bravmann
City University of New YorkMatthew Goldstein
Cravath, Swaine & MooreAllen Finkelson, Esq.
Diane & Guilford Glazer Fund
E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Co., LLCLionel I. Pincus
Estate of Alma Dorin
Estate of Louis Weisfeld
Estate of Rose Vainstein
FJCTamar F. and Gerald R. Levin
Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. Inc.Kindy and Emanuel J. Friedman
Gittis Family FoundationHoward Gittis
Global Supply NetSteven Odzer
Trudy and Robert Gottesman
Harry and Celia ZuckermanFoundation, Inc.Mark Zuckerman
Herman Kaiser FoundationRandolph M. Nelson
Joseph H. Reich & Co.Carol and Joseph H. Reich
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.Anne and William B. Harrison, Jr.
Sima and Nathan Katz
Chaya, Helen and Steven Krieger, andfamilies
William Landberg
Rhona Liptzin, Gerald Wank andfamilies
MacKenzie Partners, Inc.Daniel H. Burch
The Martin Berman FoundationPhyllis and Martin L. Berman
Martin H. Bauman Associates, LLCSherry and Martin H. Bauman
Mary W. Harriman FoundationAverell H. Fisk
Esther, Arnon, and Jonathan Mishkin,and families
New York Metropolitan Reference and Research
NYC Department of Cultural AffairsSchuyler G. Chapin, Commissioner
Harold Ostroff
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton &GarrisonLaura and Robert C. Fleder
Evgenia S. Peretz
Plaza Construction CorporationRichard Wood
Diane and Robert Pryt
Sandra and William L. Richter
Rebecca E. Rieger
Linda S. and Herald Ritch
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Donors [continued from page 23]
(R) Certificate ofIda Kaminska’snomination for a1966 AcademyAward for BestDramatic Actressfor her role in TheShop on MainStreet (1965).
(L) Posteradvertising the first U.S.appearance of Ida Kaminska’sWarsaw JewishState Theater atthe Billy RoseTheater onBroadway, New York, 1967.
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RKK&G Museum & Cultural Facilities ConsultantsRuth and Arthur Rosenblatt
Sanders Morris Mundy Inc.Don A. Sanders
Phyllis and Alfred Schneider
Raquel and Richard Schwab
Adina and Michael C. Singer
The Sonya Staff Foundation
Sy Syms FoundationLynn and Sy Syms
Joyce B. Talal
Hela, Edward, and Steven Telzak, and families
Valerie Charles Diker Fund, Inc.Valerie and Charles M. Diker
Vison & Elkins LLPHarry M. Reasoner, Esq.
Vivendi UniversalRichard A. Marker
Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLPTodd Lang
Frances Weinstein
Wolf, Block, Schorr, Solis-Cohen LLPMatthew H. Kamens, Esq.
Zantker Charitable Foundation, Inc.Joseph H. Miller
Three generationsof Kaminskawomen. Left,actress Esther-Rachel Kaminska(1870-1925),mother of IdaKaminska. Above,Ida Kaminska andher daughter RuthTurkow-Kaminska,New York, 1980.
Amemorial plaque, made possible through a generous gift from Enrique and Max Grunstein, was dedicated in the
Bund Archives Room at YIVO on June 19. This plaque honored the memory of their parents, Hershl and Esther Grunstein, whooriginally came from Lodz.
The Grunsteins are active members of the Jewish community inMexico City. In addition to honoring their parents’ singular interestin the Bund, the family has a strong commitment to Israel and to avariety of Jewish institutions in Mexico and abroad.
Rina (R) and Enrique Grunstein with family members gather to dedicate a plaque inthe Bund Archives Room.
Grunstein Family of Mexico CityErects Plaque in Bund Archives Room
New
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YIVO News Summer 200126
HISTORY• Emily Ford donated the pa-
pers of her grandfather, Dr.Frank Rosenblatt, which re-flect Rosenblatt’s activities inthe Socialist movement and inYiddish culture in New York.However, the bulk of the doc-uments concern his work asrepresentative of the JointDistribution Committee inSiberia during the Russiancivil war. YIVO NationalBoard member and Archivesvolunteer Solomon Krystal ispreparing a finding aid to thiscollection.
• Sol Drachler donated, viaAllan Gelfond, two Yiddishessays on Russian Jewrywritten by his father, Israel.
• Prof. Henny Wenkartdonated the full typescript ofher translation of PaulineWengeroff’s memoirs ofJewish life in Tsarist Russia.The published version doesnot contain all of the chaptersof this famous work.
• Sivia Brodsky donateddocuments on Jacob Teitel,one of the first Jewish judgesin Tsarist Russia.
• Prof. Ruby Sherr donatedher mother’s Russian
midwife diploma from 1906.
• Dr. Alexander Grinstein andLouise Grinstein Richmandonated documents abouttheir Russian-Jewish parents,both of whom were German-trained physicians.
• Dina Voskoboynik donatedher unpublished history of theJews of Proskurov, Ukraine.
• Alfred Neil Kramer donatedSolomon Manishevitz’stranslation of the Sopockin,Belarus, memorial book.
• Gloria Donen Sosin donatedadditional documents for thepapers of Bernard Choseed,
whose maininterests includedthe history ofRussian Jewry.
• Lyber Katzdonated the traveldiary of ChaimSuller, an editor ofthe New YorkCommunist Yiddishdaily, Morgn Fraihait.The diary, whichspans 1952–1978,deals with Suller’strips to Western andEastern Europe.
• An anonymous donor gaveSamuel Lonschein’stranslation of Mayer A.Halevy’s “History of theJewish Communities of Jassyand Bucuresti.”
• Warren Grover, YIVO Nation-al Board member, donated thepapers of the sociologistAleksander Hertz. One ofHertz's main interests was theplace of Jews in Polish societyand culture.
• Majus Nowogrodzki donatedmemoirs, in the form of fivelong letters, of the Polish-Israeli Bund activist JoelNowikow, which are notidentical to Nowikow’s book.
• Fay Itzkowitz donated aninterview of her mother, ZeldaRenetsky Bloom, who wasactive in the Bund in Losice,Poland.
• Miriam D. Beckerman donatedthe memoirs, with hertranslation, of Moritz Falk,which concern Jewish life inAustralia before the 1920s.
• Prof. Shalom Luria donatedletters from his father, ZeligKalmanowicz, one of YIVO’sleading lights, who kept adiary in the Vilna ghetto. Hedied in the Narew labor campin 1944.
• Prof. Cecile Esther Kuznitz, a former YIVO Fellow, do-nated a copy of her StanfordUniversity (2000) dissertation,“The Origins of YiddishScholarship and the YIVOInstitution for JewishResearch.”
• Martina Koelch donated acopy of her Master’s degreethesis (2001), “The YIVOInstitute in Berlin and Vilna,1925-1940,” completed inGerman for the University ofMunich.
New Accessions to the YIVO Archives
Young women sewing, Merkin, Lithuania, 1930s. Donor: Emily R. Birnbaum.
Program for the film A Tree Grows inBrooklyn. Donor: Simon B. Golden.
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• A special apology to DorothyGelberg for incorrectlyreporting her name. Shedonated additional documentsfor the papers of Isaac Levin-Shatskes.
AMERICAN HISTORY• Natalie Ballen donated the
papers of her father, BenjaminWinter, a major New York realestate developer and a leaderof the American Federation forPolish Jews, who died in 1944.
• Susan Brailove and LindaKneucker donated the papersof their mother, MathildaBrailove, who was a leadingvolunteer fundraiser for theUnited Jewish Appeal fordecades.
• Simon R. Cohen donated aTroy, New York, tailor’s ledgerfrom the 1870s.
• Harold Savoy donated thememoirs of his father, MurrayLionel Savoy, who was a furmerchant in New York City.
• Special thanks to Prof. JuneSochen for putting in order thetypescript of Ida Hoffman'smemoir. Hoffman was anAmerican nurse in Palestineafter World War I.
• Special thanks also to ourdevoted zamlers Eiran Harris,Gerald Silverman, LibbyTaylor and Sol Zucker for theirindefatigable efforts to enrichour holdings.
• Donald Fifer donatedyearbooks of the SholemAleikhem Folkschool #15 inBrooklyn, as well as CampBoiberik materials.
• Dr. Benjamin Nadel of theJewish Labor Bund donatedcampers’ records of CampHemshekh.
FAMILY ANDLANDSMANSHAFTDOCUMENTS• Important family papers have
been donated by RobertCooperman, Ellen Dreher, JeanEastman, Prof. DeborahPincus Fedder, Robert FosterGreenstone, Dorothy R. Miller(via Estelle Guzik), LilyPresler, Susan M. Rogers, RitaRosenstein, the well-knownwriter Alix Kates Shulman,Sharyn Robbins Silverstein(via Teresa A. Pollin), RheaTabakin (photographs datingto the 1890s), Joan Tenin, JoyceVogel, Audrey H. Waxmanand Irving Zarember.
• Landsmanshaft and benevo-lent association documentswere received from BarbaraBeaton, Kynishiner BenevolentSociety; Martin Chaikin,Mohilev on the DnieprBenevolent Association; AdaGreenblatt, First SolotwinerSick Benevolent Society and the Shatter ProgressiveBenevolent Association;Samuel L. Sobel, IndependentKolomayer Sick BenevolentAssociation; and Edna and Dr. William B. Sweder,Kishenever SickBenevolentSociety andKisheneverProgressiveSociety.
• Congregationalpapers weredonated by SadieCohen (with thehelp of RobertAbelman), fromthe First BrooklynRumanian Con-gregation; NancyKlotz, from Con-gregation Help of
Israel Anshei Ramizow; andAaron Sobelman, from HevrasTehilim Thetford Avenue,Brooklyn.
HOLOCAUST• The Archives has received the
accounts by survivors fromthe following locations:Bodaczow, Poland (Donor:Harriett Feld); Berezno, nearRovno (Donor: Walter H.Weiner); the former SovietUnion (Donor: Ann Salzberg);Jaslo, Poland (Donor: EdwardBlonder, via Estelle Guzik);Rzeszow, Poland (Donor:Robert M. Kern) and Kovno(Donor: Cindy Stone);Lithuania (Donor: Miriam D.Beckerman) and fivetestimonies on Minsk from ananonymous donor.
• Rose Minsky donated hermemoirs of the Warsawghetto, Treblinka andAuschwitz.
• Krysia Fisher, YIVO's Photoand Film Archivist, donatedthe papers of her late father,Arthur, who inter alia was aresearcher at Yad Vashem in
Japanese troops at Vladivostok train station during civil war, Russia. Donor: Emily Ford.
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28 YIVO News Summer 2001
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New Accessions [continued from page 27]
Jerusalem. These papersinclude documentation onJewish folklore, Polish tradeunions, Vatican-Jewish rela-tions and, primarily, the Polishgovernment-in-exile and itspolicies regarding Jews.
• Isaac Kowalski donatedadditional materials to hiscollection on Jewish resist-ance in Lithuania.
• Albert Elmaleh donated ma-terials on his brother, Jacques,a leader of the resistance inLyon, who was tortured todeath in 1943.
• Prof. George Pieczenik donat-ed materials on Nazi genetics.
• Tara Gear of radio stationWNYC donated a CD copy ofthe station's recent program onthe first Holocaust commem-oration in New York in 1944.
LANGUAGE,LITERATURE ANDFOLKLORE• Emilia Klebanova, through
YIVO Project Archivist VitalZajka, donated the papers ofYiddish/Russian/Belarusianlinguist Shprintse Rokhkind,who co-compiled a 500-pageRussian-Yiddish dictionarypublished in Minsk in 1941.
• Susie Kusnetz Bobele donatedthe papers of her father, Yid-dish humorist Chaim Kusnetz.
• Shevi Glassman Herbstmandonated the papers of herfather, Samuel Glassman, theEnglish/Yiddish educator andwriter.
• Dvorah Telushkin donated, viathe National Yiddish BookCenter, audiotapes of theYiddish novelist RachmielBryks.
• Judith S. Bloch donated a largeincrement to the papers of herfather, the Yiddish/Englisheducator and writer ShloimeSimon.
• Photographer and writerBernard Gotfryd donatedadditional materials for hispapers.
• Betty Brandes donatedadditional materials to thepapers of her mother, SoniaRockler, Chicago Yiddish
cultural activist.
• Seymour Dalkoff do-nated poems by theMexican Yiddish poetChana Slodownik.
• J. Maynard Kaplandonated Yiddish essays and poems by IsraelKaminetsky.
• Lorraine Z. Nelsondonated Yiddish poems by Sophie Sacaroff.
• Dr. Paul (Hershl) Glasserdonated manuscripts sent tothe famed Yiddish magazine,Di Tsukunft.
• Rabbi Yakov Jacobs donatedmaterials he collected for hisresearch into Isaac BashevisSinger as well as speeches hewrote for the former New YorkCity Mayor Edward Koch.
• Adah Fogel donated her trans-lation of H. Leivick’s epicpoem, The Golem.
• Dr. Chaim F. Shatan donated atranslation of Chanan Ayalti’snovel, The Hotel Which Doesn’tExist.
• The Milwaukee Yiddish acti-vist Esther Feige Weingroddonated a letter from ChaimGrade, written to her and herhusband, Moishe, in 1962.
• Walter C. West donated a letter from the Yiddish writerYankev Apteiker.
• Dr. Daniel Goldberg donatedadditional materials for thepapers of his grandfather,Jacob Levin, the Yiddisheducator.
THEATER• Devorah Keinbeast donated
the papers of her father, SyKleinman, the raconteur andhumorist.
• Prof. Nahma Sandrowdonated her large collection of materials on the Yiddishtheater, accumulated duringher research for her pioneeringwork on this subject.
• The distinguished actressLuba Kadison Buloff donatedadditional materials for thepapers of her husband, thegreat Yiddish actor and reciter,Joseph Buloff.
• The theatrical producerHarold Leventhol donatedplaybills and posters relatingto Ida Kaminska’s perfor-mances on Broadway in theearly 1970s.
• Perel Boltman donated mate-rials about Ida Kaminska’sperformances in Australia in1960, as well as materials on the Polish-Australian Yiddishactress Rokhl Holzer.
Young men playingchess, Rzeszow,Poland, 1933.Donor: FlorenceRubinfeld.
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• Susane Worcman donatedmaterials on the Yiddishtheater in Brazil.
• Moshe Yassur donated mate-rials on the Yiddish theater inRomania.
• Lillian Feldman, Doris B. Goldand Rose Stenzler donateddocumentation on the Yiddishtheater in New York.
ART AND OBJECTS • Dr. Martin J. Evans and Dr.
Howard Evans donated a 19-inch high bronze bust ofChaim Weizmann, the firstPresident of Israel, sculpted by Sir Jacob Epstein in 1933.
• Senta K. Simon donated anilluminated, polychromewedding certificate written in Borszczow, Ukraine.
• Maria Birnbaum donated two large-scale etchings withHolocaust motifs by IsaacCelnikier; the France-based,Polish-born artist is himself asurvivor.
• Rachel Rippy donateddrawings by Sh. Seidenstadt,done in Italy in 1945.
• An anonymous donor gave anantique print of a street in OldVilna.
• Bella Cohen, Nochum Elek,Bella Lewensohn-Schaffer, Dr. Carl Rheins and Dr. RachelRojanski donated posters.
• Objects and ephemera of antique and historical value weredonated by Evelyn Josselson,Yankl Salant and Prof. DanielSoyer.
MUSIC ANDFOLKLORE• Ida Ruth Meisels, the
composer, donated her
arrangements of about 250Yiddish and Hebrew songs.
• Sam Teicher, President of theNew York Sheet Music Society,donated about 200 pieces ofJewish sheet music.
• The writer and storytellerPeninnah Schram donated 66pieces of Jewish sheet music,as well materials on her father,Cantor Samuel Manchester.
• Jeffrey Wolloch donatedYelena Irzabekova’s Anthologyof Soviet Yiddish Music, as wellas his study of klezmer musicduring the Soviet era.
• Ludmila V. Sholokhovadonated her fully annotatedcatalog of Yiddish musicalfield recordings in the col-lection of the VernadskyNational Library in Kiev. Ofthe 2,837 such recordings,many date back to the AnskyExpedition of 1912.
•Miriam Shmulevich Hoffmandonated the manuscript ma-terials for Songs of Paradise,based on the poetry of ItzikManger and produced by theJoseph Papp Yiddish Theaterin New York.
• Isabel Belarsky donated ad-ditional materials to thepapers of her father, bassoSidor Belarsky.
• Detlef Hutchenreuter do-nated manuscript materials for Yuri Sherling’s Black Bridlefor a White Mare, and othermusicals based on Yiddishliterature. Each of these waspresented by the DresdenRock Theater.
• Madeline Simon donated sheetmusic and music manuscripts, primarily pertaining toYiddish choirs.
• Chana Gordon Mlotek, YIVO’sMusic Archivist, donatedmaterials accumulated in the
course of writing her—and herlate husband’s, Joseph’s—bi-weekly Yiddish Forvertsfeature, “Pearls of YiddishPoetry.”
• Rhoda Lonow donatedYiddish theater sheet music.
• Paula Eisenstein Baker alsodonated Yiddish sheet music.
• Tamara Raize donated the full1100-page Russian typescriptof Yefim Samoilovich Raize’sJewish Folklore, an importantcollection and analysis ofYiddish aphorisms compiledin the Soviet Union.
• Dr. Gary S. Kantrowitzdonated a tape of a Yiddishfolk song sung by one of hispatients.
• Ettie Aman Goldwaterprovided materials on AvromRubinstein, the South AfricanYiddish folk singer.
MUSIC ANDRECORDINGS• Ralph Weiss donated six
Yiddish piano rolls, only thesecond such donation to theYIVO Sound Archives.
Mayor FiorelloLaGuardia greetsthe U.S. Maccabbiteam in late 1930s.Donor: NatalieBallen.
[continued on page 30]
New
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30 YIVO News Summer 2001
New
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ns • Elaine Katz donated tapes of
Ben Budowitz’s 1960s Miami,Florida,Yiddish radio program.
• Thanks to Rose Alexander,Natasha Brenner, GordonClarfield, Seymour Cohen,Rashi Fein, Jim Guttmann, Dr. Richard Leweson, JudithMarkowitz, Richard Rubin,Mildred Speiser, MargaretSussman, Hazel Tchernoff andBernard Zises, who donated78-rpm recordings and/orlong-playing recordings ofJewish music.
PHOTOGRAPHIC ANDVISUAL MATERIALS• Deena Weintraub and Maralin
R. Friedman donated a 15-minute film, taken in 1937 byIsidor Scheiderman, of Jewishlife in the town of PiaskiLubelskie, near Lublin, Poland.
• Sigmund Pluznik donated, viaTeresa A. Pollin, a video abouta Jewish resistance group inBedzin, Poland.
• Arthur M. Katz donated aprogram to the prewar Frenchfilm, Le Golem.
• Emily R. Birnbaum donatedprewar photographs of Jewishlife in Merkin, Lithuania, andRozwadow, Poland, as well asadditional materials to theGlenn family papers.
• Florence Rubinfeld donatedphotographs of Jewish life inprewar Rzeszow, Poland.
• Lucy Hirsch donatedphotographs of Jewish life inprewar Kelm and Shavl, bothin Lithuania.
• Milton Freedman donatedprewar postcards picturingKovno and other locations inLithuania.
• Sami Steigman donatedphotographs of Zionist groupsin postwar Rumania, as wellas family documents.
• Simon B. Golden donatedphotographs of postwarJewish Labor Bund activitiesin Belgium.
• Orit Daly donated 80 slides of Galveston, Texas, at the turnof the preceding century. Thiscity was the nerve center ofthe Galveston Plan, a coordi-nated attempt to have Jewishimmigrants settle beyond theEast Coast of the UnitedStates.
• Gitl Bialer donated photo-graphs of American LaborZionist gatherings and leadersas well as of Camp Kindervelt.
• Chuck and Irma Schoenhautdonated photographs of ThirdSeders of Israel HistadrutCampaign, as well as familyletters.
Ann (Chava) Salzberg and her parents leaving the DP camp forthe United States, ca. 1950. Donor: Ann Salzberg.
New Accessions [continued from page 29]
31hshgu, pui hHuu† bun' 291 zungr 1002
Lett
ers
LettersReaders are encouraged to write to us by regular mail or e-mail.
Thank You
It was a pleasure to speak at the YIVO Women’sLuncheon. You organized a beautiful event. YIVOhas always been central in my research. Mypaternal family has been supporting YIVO from itsfirst days in Vilna.
Professor Yaffa EliachPresident and FounderThe Shtetl Foundation
New York, NY
Simply, kol hakovod for the presentation of “BeyondHitler's Grasp” and discussion. My colleagues andI found the information presented fascinating.
Glenn RichterNew York, New York
I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to YIVO; it is truly aremarkable institution. Thank you for guiding andsharing with us some very intriguing information.I am looking forward to our continued association.
Yair KaganSenior National Director of Development
American Friends of The Hebrew University
Karski Prize Winners
We wish to express deepest gratitude for awardingus the Jan Karski and Pola Nirenska Prize for 2000(see page 9). This is the greatest honor andsatisfaction. We are very happy that our work wasnoted with appreciation by such an eminent groupas the members of the award jury.
Maria and Kazimierz PietchotkaWarsaw, Poland
International Cooperation
It was a pleasure to meet with Dr. Rheins and tohave an opportunity to share experiences, viewsand ideas regarding the performance and activitiesof the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. It wasvery interesting for me to visit the YIVO Institute.
Andrzej FolwarcznyMember of the Polish Parliament
Chairman, Polish-Israeli Parliamentary GroupPresident, Forum For Dialogue Among Nations
FoundationGliwice, Poland
Anita Stone’sfamily, taken in1932 in Lithuania.
Mourning Dina Abramowicz
To me, Dina Abramowicz represented theincarnation of the noble cosmopolitan secularspirituality that comprises the essence of Vilna andof YIVO and their deeply felt tradition of modernJewish scholarship. Ever since Dina welcomed mehalf a century ago to the YIVO Library, she mademe feel that I had become a member of a privi-leged inner circle, and that it was her simple dutyto remind all of us of our mutual good fortune. Inall our memories, Dina lives on, the cynosure ofwhat committed good life and work are all about.
Professor Moses RischinHistory Department
San Francisco State University
Editor’s note: Dina Abramowicz passed away last year,at age 90, after a 53-year career at YIVO.
Mission Trip Participants
The rage in my writing (see Mission, page 11) wasa catharsis. Here is a picture of my family, taken in1932. You will find Lolita (the writer’s sister) andme at the bottom center. Our mother’s littlebrother is between us. All succumbed to theHolocaust but me and my uncle Gdalie (top left),who migrated to Israel that year.
Anita StoneMiami, Florida
I enjoyed the expedition into Jewish history, lifeand culture. For me, the highlight of YIVO Mission2001 was Dzyatlava, where my family had livedfor generations. It was a great experience.
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