Arts&Culture
From the reverent to the raunchy, YIVO’s vast archives of Yiddish life are reunited online Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York. Photo: Getty Images/Thos Robinson By Andrew Silow-Carroll Stefanie, can you describe how New York Jewish Week researchers will experience the The Holocaust all but destroyed archive? And what’s gained and a centuries-old Jewish civilization, what’s lost if you’re working in while the war carved up nations a digital-only format and don’t and left the Continent divided have the documents to hold in between the allied West and the your hands? Soviet-dominated East. The casuStefanie Halpern: Part of what alties of this upheaval included a we try to do with our digitization monumental collection of scholarmethod is replicate the experience ship and artifacts telling the story as much as possible of sitting in of Yiddish culture. the reading room. Of course, you Before World War II, the YIVO can’t replace the physicality of Institute for Jewish Research, touching a document, flipping founded in Vilna (now Vilnius), it over, feeling the brittle pages, Lithuania, collected millions smelling the leather. But we try to of documents and hundreds of shoot the documents so that you thousands of rare books. The see all of the edges. You see the Nazis, not satisfied with their war bends, you see the tears. We don’t on Jewish bodies, also plundered sanitize the materials. As you’re their past, stealing documents scrolling through the materifor a planned museum of the als, we try to replicate what you vanquished Jewish race in Frankwould actually see in the reading furt and condemning the rest to room. destruction. And so, this opens up research But much of the Frankfurt to a whole slew of people who material survived. After the war, it just never had access to these was returned to YIVO and ended Astronomy manuscript, 1751, by Issachar Ber Carmoly, also known as Behr Lehmann documents before. It allows up at its new headquarters in New Archives, about the diverse collection, the efforts that younger researchers or non-academic researchers to York, thanks to the “Monuments Men,” the U.S. army made the reunion possible and the ways a new genera- feel comfortable accessing them. We see a lot of family unit sent to recover artwork and scholarship stolen tion of scholars and regular folks can use the archives historians who are using these materials and wouldn’t by the Nazis. Meanwhile, Jews who were tasked with to expand their understanding and appreciation of a necessarily be in the reading room, and I think that’s sorting the collections under Nazi orders in the Vilna vast and endlessly surprising Jewish past. really great. Ghetto — the famed “Paper Brigade” — managed to hide a trove of materials. That tranche would again be New York Jewish Week: Jonathan and Stefanie, give Can you give me an example of how people are using threatened when the Soviets took over Lithuania, and me a sense of the significance of this project and how the archive? only survived thanks to a Lithuanian librarian who it’s a game changer. Halpern: The music collections are just top of my managed to hide the material in a church basement. Jonathan Brent: YIVO has never done anything like mind right now, because they’re the ones we’ve most Like a family divided by the war, the collections this in its history — a $7 million project over seven recently gotten online and the ones that have been offound homes in two countries — Lithuania and the years involving 11 archivists. It is an international proj- tentimes least accessible. I’ve had a scholar from Israel U.S. And like a child in a divorce, the Lithuanian trove ect that has social, historical, and also political meanemail me every month for almost the past year, asking was subject to a lengthy custody battle between YIVO ing. It is a step forward into the future for YIVO, even if handwritten manuscripts of operettas are available. and the Lithuanian government. The dispute was reA collection that we’re putting up this week is solved amicably in 2014, with a solution made possible as it is a step backward into the past and the recovery of all of these extraordinary materials. Group 1.2, the YIVO Ethnographic Commission reonly by modern technology: the digitization of all the It has demonstrated the viability of international cords. The materials that zamlers (amateur collectors) millions of materials, uniting them online if not under cultural projects on the subject acquired included folklore materials, songs, and chilthe same roof. Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania and the dren’s games. All of those materials are often written January marked the compleYIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York. of pre-war Jewish culture, and Photo: Getty Images/Thos Robinson what can be accomplished with on tiny scraps of paper that are extremely difficult to tion of the historic project, the the right spirit and the right read. Online you can blow them up as big as you want. Edward Blank YIVO Vilna focus and the right talent and the I know a lot of people are really excited to get their Online Collections, named for right leadership. hands on these materials, some of which actually have its lead donor. Professional and It is a project that establishes never been made available to researchers. amateur researchers are able to YIVO as a leading institution in We have the youth autobiographies that were colaccess the entirety of the YIVO various different ways, in terms lected by YIVO in the 1930s. We have several hundred archive of 4 million documents, of archival science, preservation, of them, but sometimes a few pages are missing and which are in Yiddish as well as accessibility, and the putting of archivists here and in Lithuania were able to connect dozens of other languages. The a massive amount of material and actually find the missing pages. Many scholars materials reflect the religious online — making it available, use the autobiographies because they are such a great and cultural diversity of Yidconstructing the proper website, snapshot of different types of Jewish life across Poland. dishland, from theatre posters Pinkas (Communal Record Book) of the Hevra The raunchy stories, the pornographic materials in and youthful memoirs to illumi- Lomde Shas (Learners of the Talmud Society) in using all of the proper software, engaging all the proper specialthis collection, were hidden from view for a very long nated synagogue ledgers and Lazdijai, a town in southwestern Lithuania, 1836 ists to make these materials time. These materials were collected by YIVO. They rare music scores. available online around the world. But it’s also a step were part of life. It’s that kind of stuff that’s going to The result, says Jonathan Brent, executive direcforward for us in terms of building the infrastructure create new scholarship and change the scholarship tor and CEO of YIVO, is a “reawakening of YIVO’s of the organization. that’s out there. historic mission, an important (and successful) experiYIVO has also become an archival training institument in international cultural activity, and an irreversible marker of YIVO’s future as a leading global Jewish tion under Stefanie’s leadership, whereby we are train- I have to ask: Who was creating raunchy ing a new generation of specialists who can conserve, pornographic Yiddish materials in the 1930s? institution.” process, and digitize this tremendous wealth of Jewish Halpern: The context for these is a little fuzzy, but In a Zoom call, the New York Jewish Week spoke materials. Continued on Page 26 to Brent and Stefanie Halpern, director of the YIVO
THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • FEBRUARY 2022
PAGE 25
