Browse by Record Group
RG 347.1.29 American Jewish Committee. Subgroup: Executive Offices. Morris Waldman Files. Records. (RG 347.1.29)
Documents of an official of the AJC, including correspondence, reports, studies, statements, minutes of meetings, memoranda, speeches, and other papers related to Jewish affairs in Poland.
RG 335.2 American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Subgroup: American Joint Reconstruction Foundation. Records. (RG 335.2)
Records of American Joint Reconstruction Foundation, which helped rebuild the economy in Eastern Europe after WWI through the establishment of cooperative credit institutions and savings banks.
RG 335.7 American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Subgroup: JDC Landsmanshaftn Department. Records. (RG 335.7)
Records of the Landsmanshaftn Department of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, established to enlist the cooperation of landsmanshaftn in the AJDC's reconstruction program in Eastern Europe
Original art works, reproductions, and historical artifacts, including costume and stage designs; political cartoons; and Jewish ceremonial art
Autobiographies submitted to YIVO in Vilna as entries to three contests (1932, 1934, 1939) sponsored by the institute's Youth Research Division (Yugntforshung)
Printed musical works and music manuscripts of Abraham Bernstein, a cantor, choir master, composer of Jewish liturgical and popular music, music teacher, musicologist, and writer
Records related to the hiring of a rabbi, cantor, ritual slaughterer, teacher; the building of the mikve (ritual bath), the sale of the synagogue in Briesen, and other documents
Archives of the Bund (Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeter Bund in Lite, Poyln un Rusland - The General Union of Jewish Workers in Lithuania, Poland and Russia), including materials on the history of the Bund, Jewish and general socialist groups, and other political movements
Records of the Bund Foreign Committee in Geneva including letters and other documents related to Bund support groups in the Russian Empire and worldwide.
Records of the Central Committee for Religious Education, an educational organization that maintained a network of Orthodox Jewish schools for boys of all ages
Papers of the Jewish writer and journalist, including reports on the pogroms of 1918-1919 in Ukraine
Rare historical documents and research materials from the collection of the great historian Simon Dubnow (1860-1941), seminal scholar of Jewish history in Eastern Europe
Materials from the Jewish theater museum established by YIVO in Vilna: playscripts, playbills, posters, and clippings, with a special focus on Yiddish theater in Poland
Photographs of the city of Lwow
Correspondence with rabbis and Torah scholars, mostly in Poland, from the records of an organization in New York which provide financial assistance to rabbis and Torah scholars in Europe
Amateur film footage of Jewish communities in Poland from the YIVO Film Archive, digitized with the generous support of the Righteous Persons Foundation and the Steven Spielberg Foundation.
Manuscripts of a Yiddish folk poet and carpenter whose songs are among the best known in Yiddish folk literature
Papers of individuals and families; genealogical charts; family histories; birth, marriage, and death certificates; military service passes; diplomas; passports; memoirs; diaries; oral history interviews; and photographs
Papers of an early and prominent Zionist leader in Vilna, including reports and correspondence from 1901-1919 related to both local and international Zionist organizations
Several thousand 19th-century kvitlekh (written requests to a rabbi asking for a blessing or advice) sent to Rabbi Eliayahu Guttmacher, known as the Tsadik of Graetz
Records of the Vilna branch of the Society for the Promotion of Culture Among the Jews of Russia, founded in St. Petersburg in 1863 to disseminate Russian language and culture among the Jews
Records of a philanthropic association that assisted Jewish immigration and agricultural colonization throughout the world, including Poland
Records of an organization established to work for the interests of Jews with hearing disabilities
Records of Jewish state schools established in the Russian Empire in 1847 in order to undermine and replace the traditional heder system of education
Photographs of Jewish life in Poland in the 1920s-1930s
Costume and set designs, photographs, and playbills related to the career of the Yiddish theater director and actor who was a founder of the Vilna Troupe
Papers of a badkhen (wedding entertainer), including rhymed wedding songs, bar mitzvah speeches, tombstone epitaphs, a notebook recording the efforts of a matchmaker, and letters
125 photographs of Jewish life in Poland during the 1930s taken in some 30 communities. Subjects include: occupations such as coach drivers, street peddlers and street musicians, and scenes of life in the streets of Poland's cities and towns.
Records on taxation and communal administration, birth and marriage records, materials about the community's religious school, and other documents
A bound volume of songs, rhymes, and poems, handwritten by a badkhen (wedding entertainer)
Papers of the librarian of the Strashun Library, including copies of rare manuscripts, research materials for scholarship, and correspondence
Records of a landsmanshaft affiliated with the hometown of Makow
Printed and hand-drawn maps of countries, regions, cities, and towns around the world, including many localities in Poland
Rare recordings of Jewish music and oral history interviews with Jews from Poland
Registers of births, marriages and deaths, tax rolls, correspondence regarding Jewish military service in Minsk, and other documents
Published music and manuscripts: Yiddish and Hebrew folk and art songs; theater music; Holocaust songs; liturgical and Hasidic music; choral music; classical compositions. Materials about Jewish music organizations, choruses, and cantors.
Records of the Vilna branch of an organization that promoted vocational and agricultural training and established schools, agricultural colonies, and factories
Records of a vocational school founded in Vilna in 1921 to train young people in the fields of mechanics and electrical maintenance
Records of an organization dedicated to providing health care and health education to Jews in Poland
Synagogue seat contracts, brit (circumcision) and marriage registers, school and vocational apprenticeship records, and other documents
Photographs of individuals noted for their contributions to Jewish life: writers, scholars, historians, scientists, philosophers, community leaders, rabbinical figures, political figures, musicians, and cantors
Leaflets, posters, and other documents related to political organizations, elections, banks, trade unions, cultural activities, religious matters, and sports, from over 200 Jewish communities
Posters advertising political organizations, elections, banks, trade unions, cultural activities, religious matters, and sports, from over 200 Jewish communities
Records of the Rabbinical School and Teachers' Institute, one of several Jewish state schools established in the Russian Empire in 1847 in order to undermine and replace the traditional heder system of education
Correspondence of rabbinical (including Hasidic) and scholarly figures; rabbinical responsa; commentaries on the Torah and Talmud; prayers; kabbalistic and ethical works; and other writings of rabbis and scholars in Poland and around the world
Drawings, sketches, charcoals, and watercolors depicting scenes of Jewish life in Eastern Europe
Correspondence, manuscripts, and other materials related to scholarly work on the history of Poland in the pre-WWII period and the history of the Jews in Poland in the 1930s
Papers of the historian, writer, lecturer, lexicographer, bibliographer, and editor, including correspondence, materials and notes for articles, and bibliographies
Papers of a Yiddish linguist, co-founder of the YIVO Institute in Vilna, and chairman of the linguistics section of the Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture in Kiev, including manuscripts of his linguistic, literary, and political works
Records related to the activities of a secular Jewish high school (est.1906), which began as a Russian-language school but shifted to Yiddish after WWI
Bound manuscripts of liturgical compositions, Sabbath zmirot (melodies), and theatrical music
RG 223 Sutzkever, Abraham -Kaczerginski, Szmerke. Collection. Part II. Historical and Literary Manuscripts. (RG 223)
Historical and literary manuscripts belonging to YIVO that were rescued and hidden from the Nazis, including manuscripts by S. An-Ski, Theodor Herzl, Mendele Moykher Sforim, and Sholem Aleichem
Photographs and architectural drawings of synagogues in Poland
Records of the Tsentrale Yidishe Shul Organizatsye (Central Yiddish School Organization), a secular Yiddish school system active in Poland from 1921 to ca. 1940
Records of a seminary that trained teachers for the Hebrew elementary school system in Poland
Printed materials, posters, correspondence, and fragmentary personal papers and records of institutions related to Polish Jewish life before WWII
Thousands of photographs of Jewish life in Poland before WWII
Records of a landsmanshaft affiliated with the hometown of Brzesc nad Bugiem
Records of an organization in Vilna that promoted secular Yiddish education
Records of an organization that provided financial and spiritual assistance to a network of 70 yeshivot in the five Eastern provinces of Poland
Records of Jewish organizations and institutions; official government, municipal, and legal documents; memoirs of the German occupation, and other documents chronicling the life of the Jewish community in Vilna
Fragmentary records of the office of the Vilna Chief of Police, including dossiers on people suspected of revolutionary activities
Records of the administration of the Jewish community in Vilna from 1800 to 1940
Papers of an Anglo-Jewish diplomat who was a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and who was involved in the drafting of the minorities treaties
RG 1.1 YIVO - Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut (Vilna). Subgroup: Administration. Records. (RG 1.1)
Administrative records of the YIVO Institute in Vilna from 1925 to 1941, including records of the Psychological-Pedagogical and Philological Sections, materials on exhibitions, and correspondence with well-known scholars and Jewish cultural figures.
Research papers written by students in YIVO's graduate studies program in Vilna before WWII
RG 1.2 YIVO - Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut (Vilna). Subgroup: Ethnographic Committee. Records. (RG 1.2)
Materials on folklore, ethnography, and linguistics collected by YIVO in Vilna before WWII
Records and correspondence assembled by scholar Elias Tcherikower, relating to the founding of YIVO, its Executive Committee, and Historical Section; documents about the Historical Commission on Poland in Warsaw
Manuscripts by and biographical materials on Jewish writers and scholars, as well as other materials about Yiddish language and literature
Correspondence, leaflets, contracts, and other materials related to the work of a union for Jewish writers and journalists in Vilna
Records of the Jewish Actors Union, including 600 individual files on actors, singers, composers, and directors
Records of the Yiddish Teachers' Union, a professional association in Vilna which promoted the interests of its member teachers and was ideologically associated with the Yiddish secular school network known as TSYSHO