YIVO Institute Celebrates Launch Of New Archive Sponsored By Leonard Grunstein

This past Sunday, the YIVO Institute celebrated the launch of their new Digital Archive on Jewish Life in Poland, a website of memorabilia from the YIVO’s collections on Polish Jewry before the Holocaust. Leonard Grunstein helped bring the project to fruition with a generous $30,000 donation. His support was highlighted at the May 18 event, where numerous speakers took to the stage to thank the Grunstein family for their generosity. The remainder of the funding for the site came from the Gruss-Lipper Family Foundation.

The new project brings together thousands of artifacts from YIVO archives, including videos, photos, books, and posters. Jews in Poland once made up nearly 10 percent of the country’s pre-World War II population and the community one of the most vibrant in all of Europe. YIVO’s website puts this information into an easily accessible archive, making it easy for anyone, be it researchers or Jews of Polish heritage, to learn more about this rich community.

The May 18 event featured tours of YIVO’s rare books and the archives the website is based on. The tours followed a reception in YIVO’s main hall, where a slideshow played home movies from the archives that had been filmed by Eastern European Jews. Following tours, YIVO Institute CEO Jonathan Brent gave a presentation on the importance of documenting the heritage of Eastern European Jews, explaining that the Institute allows Jews to reclaim an empty space that had been left through the destruction of the Holocaust.

 

Leonard Grunstein celebrates the launch of the new YIVO Digital Archive on Jewish Life in Poland

Accomplished Scholar and Author Gives Lecture at Yeshiva University

Leonard Grunstein, Revel Graduate School board member, attended a lecture and book launch at Yeshiva University. Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff, accomplished professor of rabbinic literature at Yeshiva University’s Caroline and Joseph S. Gruss Institute in Jerusalem presented the lecture to celebrate the re-issuing of two of his previously published biographies.

A scholar and author Rabbi Rakeffet’s books, The Silver Era: Rabbi Eliezer Silver and His Generation, and Bernard Revel: Builder of American Orthodoxy, were the result of his doctoral dissertation at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies. The lecture specifically celebrated the relaunch of the biography of Bernard Revel, which is being re-issued by the OU Press with the inclusion of a new introduction by chairman of the Revel Board of Overseers, Mordecai D. Katz, Esq.

Thanks to Rakeffet’s research, both biographies give readers a glimpse into the lives of these two important leaders while simultaneously detailing the history of Orthodox Judaism in America. Both men are recognized for their dedication to the Jewish people.

Leonard Grunstein at Yeshiva University

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leonard Grunstein with Rabbi Rakeffet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Leonard Grunstein and family support digital archive on Jewish life in Poland

The YIVO Digital Archive is a new way to pay tribute to the people and Jewish culture tragically lost to the Holocaust. Begun by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in 2004, with a grant from the Gruss-Lipper Family Foundation, the site pulls together documents, posters and photographs from YIVO’s archived Polish Jewish collections.

Leonard Grunstein, a long-time proponent of Jewish heritage and descendant of Polish Holocaust survivors, provided a donation to support the completion of the site – paying tribute to his late father, Morris Grunstein. Grunstein recently commented on the archive in a feature by the Jewish Link of Bergen County, saying, “I believe my dad, of blessed memory, would have appreciated the efforts YIVO has made to accurately depict life as it was in pre-war Poland, based on the documents, photos, movies and other records that have been preserved and archived at the institute. There are many lessons that can be learned from Jewish life in Poland, and I applaud YIVO for opening their archives, letting people from all over the world learn about this rich period in the life of the Jewish people.”

Before World War II, Poland was home to the largest Jewish community in the world and The YIVO Institute, begun in 1925, served as a way to preserve Jewish culture and heritage in Poland. Though it all but came to an end at the start of WWII, with nearly all of the contents of Jewish libraries and archives in Europe having been destroyed by the Nazis, the portion that had been preserved was sent to New York City, where YIVO had reconvened in 1940.

Since then, YIVO has catalogued and digitized thousands of documents, posters, and photographs from its Polish Jewish collections. The new digital archive will provide public access to these materials that cover everything from everyday life, to reports of pogroms during World War I. The archive has been drawn from the private collections of families as well as from the records of Jewish communal organizations that provided materials to YIVO.

The official reception for the YIVO Digital Archive on Jewish Life in Poland will be held on Sunday, May 18, and will include an introduction by YIVO director, Jonathan Brent, and special presentations.Follow

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