IDC Publishers - Slavic Judaica in the YIVO Library

Slavic Judaica in the YIVO Library

Order		Background		Specifications

Guide
Full bibliographical records of the titles are available through RLIN. A printed title list (including the RLIN numbers) is available on request from IDC Publishers.

Content note
The Slavic Judaica in YIVO's Vilna and Tcherikower collections includes some very unusual and ephemeral books, pamphlets, and offprints. The pre-1917 imprints (about 90% of the total group) deal with such subjects as Jewish religious traditions, Jewish history, the struggle for equal rights for Jews under the Tsarist regime; political movements among Jews in Russia (e.g., Zionism, socialism); Jewish community organizations; Jewish-Christian relations; anti-Semitism (including some works reflecting anti-Jewish viewpoints); and emigration to America.

Language note
Russian

Biographical note
Elias Tcherikower was one of YIVO's founders and until his death in 1943 was head of the Institute's Historical Section.

Provenance
Elias Tcherikower collected many of his books in Russia and the Ukraine. The Tcherikower library and archive followed its owner from Kiev to Berlin, and then to Paris, where the collection was hidden during the Second World War. Tcherikower and his wife escaped from occupied France to New York, and after the war, his books and manuscripts were found and bequeathed to YIVO. The books in the Vilna collection have been the property of the YIVO Library since the YIVO institute's location in Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania). During the nazi occupation (1941-1943) the Vilna YIVO Library was confiscated and shipped to Germany, to be incorporated into an anti-semitic research centre. However, these library materials were recovered near Frankfurt am Main and returned to YIVO, now located in New York, in 1947.