YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture
Scholarship for the Yiddish Nation

This book is the first history of YIVO, an important center for Jewish culture and politics in the early twentieth century.

Cecile Esther Kuznitz (Author)

9781316634837, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 14 September 2017

323 pages, 16 b/w illus.
23 x 15.5 x 2 cm, 0.52 kg

'Kuznitz's lucid study demonstrates the importance of YIVO as the first institution ever dedicated to researching the language, history, and culture of the Jews in Eastern Europe and in the countries of their immigration. Her meticulous analysis of YIVO's surviving institutional records carefully reconstructs the institute's ambitious emancipatory project of freeing the Yiddish language from its allegedly inferior status as a 'jargon' and bestowing it a respectable place among the European national languages.' Laura Jockusch, The American Historical Review

This book is the first history of YIVO, the original center for Yiddish scholarship. Founded by a group of Eastern European intellectuals after World War I, YIVO became both the apex of secular Yiddish culture and the premier institution of Diaspora Nationalism, which fought for Jewish rights throughout the world at a time of rising anti-Semitism. From its headquarters in Vilna, Lithuania, YIVO tried to balance scholarly objectivity with its commitment to the Jewish masses. Using newly recovered documents that were believed destroyed by Hitler and Stalin, Cecile Esther Kuznitz tells for the first time the compelling story of how these scholars built a world-renowned institution despite dire poverty and anti-Semitism. She raises new questions about the relationship between Jewish cultural and political work, and analyzes how nationalism arises outside of state power.

Introduction
1. 'Language raised to the level of a political factor': Yiddish scholarship
2. 'The idea of the institute is already ripe': the founding and first stages of YIVO, 1924–5
3. 'From the folk, for the folk, with the folk': academic work, 1925–32
4. 'The capital of Yiddishland': the geography of Jewish culture, 1925–33
5. 'To forge intellectual weapons for our people!': scholarship in times of crisis, 1931–9
Epilogue: from Vilna to New York
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Jewish studies [JFSR1], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD]