York University@HBT
Saving Yiddish, Saving American Jewry: Max Weinreich and the mission of YIVO in post-Holocaust America
Professor Kalman Weiser, Departments of History and Humanities
Having almost miraculously escaped the Holocaust, Max Weinreich, director of the Jewish Scientific Institute (YIVO) in Vilna, Poland, set about reclaiming what remained of its archives, library, and staff to rebuild the institution in 1940s New York City. Weinreich did not naively believe that he could recreate Yiddish-speaking Vilna in New York or Montreal. But he was nonetheless convinced that Yiddish language and culture had much to teach the Jews of North America. Weinreich's dramatic story of survival and his insistence upon the role of Yiddish in preparing American Jewry to meet the challenge of leadership of Diasporic Jewry in a post-Holocaust world are the subject of this talk.