YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

Library & archives (collections of judaica) - the Yivo library holds numerous books and periodicals in twelve languages. This includes the unique vilna collection with rabbinical works from as early as the 16th century. The library holdings are particularly strong in documentation of Jewish history, culture, and religion in eastern europe; the holocaust period; the experience of immigration to the united states; anti-semitism; and the continuing influence of ashkenazic Jewish culture today.

Education & Research (max weinreich center) - Yivo's max weinreich center for advanced Jewish studies, established in 1968, is dedicated to education and to the advancement of Research in the area of Jewish life and culture. Named after renowned scholar and Yivo founder max weinreich, the center works to make Yivo's unique resources and its specialized knowledge available to universities and other institutions of higher learning, to encourage study and promote Research concerning the life and culture of east european jewry and related topics, to marshal the intellectual resources in the field of scholarship, and to assist young scholars in qualifying for work in this field.

The bund archives - the bund archives project is a multi-year project to conserve, process, and digitize the 3.5 million pages of Jewish labor and political archives that were donated to Yivo by the bund archives in 1992. These materials are from eastern europe and america and cover major political, labor, and social movements in various countries. After the project is complete, these materials will be accessible online free-of-charge. Yivo essentially began working on this project in 2022.

Digital initiatives - includes the functions necessary to develop work processes to ensure the functionality, flexibility, and sustainability of all Yivo web and social media. Projects include further development of the online Yivo encyclopedia and online guide to the Yivo archives as well as a comprehensive redesign of the yivo.org website.

Publications and public programs - since its inception in 1925, in parallel with its Research, archival, and bibliographic work, the Yivo Institute has carried out an active program of scholarly publication. In Yivo's books, journals, catalogs, newsletters, and brochures, every aspect of the field of yiddish and east european Jewish history and culture, as well as many other fields of modern Jewish scholarship, has been represented: linguistics, culture and economic history, folklore and anthropology, social studies, theater history and music, literary history and bibliography.

Yivo's vilna collections project, renamed in 2017 to the edward blank Yivo vilna collections project, is a seven-year project, which began in april 2015, to preserve, digitize and reunite Yivo's prewar library and archival collections located in new york city and vilnius, lithuania, through a dedicated web portal. The project will also digitally reconstruct the historic private strashun library of vilna, one of the great prewar libraries in europe. The Yivo vilna project was completed in 2021 with residual expenses in the year ended december 31, 2022.

The Yivo bruce and francesca cernia slovin online museum project provides access worldwide to Yivo's archival and library collections, which are meaningful and important archival treasures instrumental in preserving the history and culture of the Jewish people. The museum contains extensive original documents and pages of books that have been digitized as part of the edward blank Yivo vilna collections project to create english language galleries that reflect the spectrum of Jewish life in eastern europe and russia from music, literature, and theater to mercantile guilds, municipal organizations, and rabbinic courts; from traditional ways of life and the education of children to zionism and revolution. The online museum serves as a comprehensive historical and educational platform for both jews and non-jews, and also serves as a key resource for europeans who seek to understand their own countries' multicultural histories. This project began in the year ended december 31, 2018 with the support of a major donor and the online museum was launched august 2020.