A Turning Point in Remembrance: YIVO in the 1940s

Jeffrey Shandler | Delivered in English.

Shortly after the start of World War II, YIVO’s New York branch was designated as its temporary central headquarters, assuming that the Institute would return to Europe after the war. But by 1943, scholars from the Vilna YIVO who had recently moved to New York realized that there would be no going back; New York City would now be the Institute’s permanent home. How did YIVO’s leaders reconfigure its mission in the wake of the Holocaust and in response to their American home? This talk by Jeffrey Shandler will examine some of the Institute’s undertakings during this crucial decade—including unrealized plans to create a Museum of the Homes of the Past—as its leaders forged a new sense of purpose in response to their radically altered circumstances.

Part of the 2025 Yiddish Civilization Lecture Series.

You may also like the following events from YIVO Institute for Jewish Research:

• This Sunday, 22nd June, 07:00 pm, YIVO in America in New York
• Next month, 1st July, 06:00 pm, In the Shadow of the Shtetl: Yiddish Memories of Small-Town Jewish Life in Ukraine in New York, New York
• Next month, 3rd July, 06:00 pm, Kine un kloglid – The Yiddish Art of Lamentation in Early Modern Ashkenaz in New York, New York