YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

“Someone had prepared a special place for it in the attic ... As if someone had wanted to protect it. As if someone believed that one day, someone would find it.”

Star of David band, siddur found hidden in attic from Bedzin's Jewish Ghetto | The Jerusalem Post “Someone had prepared a special place for [the siddur] in the attic,” the foundation explained. “Behind a separately partitioned space. Under a constructed hatch. Alone. Without other objects."

NOW OPEN: "Jews Are Magic" examines how Jewish traditions absorbed and reshaped surrounding occult practices, creating distinct cultural responses to questions of fate, illness, and protection.

Jews Are Magic: Occult Practices from Palmistry to Professional Psychics

This summer's Yiddish Civilization Lecture Series takes place on Tuesdays from June 23 through July 28. Featuring some of the field’s leading scholars, it will cover topics including Jewish history, literature, and culture.

2026 Yiddish Civilization Lecture Series | June 23 - July 28 | On Zoom

“By empowering students to document and share these testimonies, we are fostering empathy, historical understanding and a commitment to standing against antisemitism and hatred in all forms.”

Staten Island students document Holocaust survivors in new film project Students in the program interviewed Holocaust survivors Arnold Aronowitz, Thomas Karfunkel and Sonia Lam, capturing testimonies that reflec persecution and survival.

If you enjoyed today's exploration of the International Workers Order (IWO) and want to learn more, read "From Popular Front to Cold War: The In*******al Left and the International Workers Order, 1930–1954" available at the YIVO Store.

“We’re finding that broad unawareness of antisemitic violence and vitriol across the country continues to be the status quo.”

US Jews mark a year since Colorado firebombing, but most Americans never heard of it Blue Square polling finds that majority of US public is not familiar with deadly attacks on Jews, in line with other findings showing widespread ignorance about Holocaust, Israel

In a discussion led by Miriam Mora, Mariusz Kalczewiak traces how Jewish masculinities were debated and redefined across homes, study halls, and military spaces in the decades before World War II.

Polish-Jewish Masculinities and the Challenge of Modernity

"Jewish family members oftentimes will travel from all over the world to attend the stone-laying ceremonies, because many of the victims were gassed in the N***s’ concentration camps and these memorial stones are the closest thing to a grave or a burial." https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-new-holocaust-memorial-stone-laid-relative-says-plaque-serves-as-substitute-for-grave/amp/

TOMORROW: Elissa Sampson, Jennifer Young, and Felicia Bevel examine the International Workers Order to reveal how cultural life, mutual aid, and political activism intersected in the lives of working-class Americans, in a conversation led by Kate Rosenblatt.

Co-sponsored by The Workers Circle, Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at NYU, and the Kheel Center at Cornell University.

The In*******al Left and the International Workers Order, 1930–1954

Dig deeper with the books featured in our June programs:
- From Popular Front to Cold War: The In*******al Left and the International Workers Order, 1930–1954
- Credit to the Nation: Eastern European Jewish Immigrant Bankers and the Shaping of American Finance, 1873–1930
- Men of Valor and Anxiety: Polish-Jewish Masculinities and the Challenge of Modernity