Leonard Grunstein shares a video from this spring’s YIVO site launch

Leonard Grunstein has recently shared a slideshow including photos of a YIVO event that took place last May. The event was held in celebration of the launch of YIVO’s Digital Archive on Jewish Life in Poland, a website dedicated to memorabilia from the institute’s collections on Polish Jewry pre-WWII that was made possible in part by the Grunstein family.

The video features photos of the tours, presentation and reception held at the event. Tours were given of YIVO’s archives and rare book collection, followed by a reception and a presentation by YIVO CEO Jonathan Brent that discussed the importance of documenting the heritage of Eastern European Jews. The full video can be found below or on Leonard Grunstein’s YouTube channel.

Leonard Grunstein shares visit to Crown Heights

Leonard Grunstein recently shared a slideshow highlighting the Jewish world in and around New York City. Focusing mainly on the Crown Heights community in Brooklyn, NY, the video shows locations such as the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters, the Congregation Kol Israel synagogue, and The Jewish Children’s Museum.

In addition to touring the neighborhood, Grunstein was also able to pay a visit to the Chabad-Lubavitch Library’s exhibition hall, which is currently home to a collection of rare Jewish manuscripts and books.

Grunstein’s visit was inspired by a colleague at the YIVO Institute, a research institute on Eastern European Jewry to which he has been a prolific donor. In April, the Grunstein family contributed a generous gift to the organization that allowed it to launch an online archive of Jewish life in Poland before World War II.

Grunstein’s family lived in Crown Heights for a few years when they first moved to New York from Wisconsin in the late 1950s. Said Grunstein of the new exhibit, “It was thrilling to see ancient texts that were printed many hundreds of years ago and to talk to the extremely knowledgeable librarian. It is an amazing resource that should be experienced.”

The full slideshow of his experience can be viewed below as well as on Vimeo.

 

 

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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