Vera Szabó studies Yiddish folktales for a glimpse into the spoken language, as well as thoughts, desires, fears, and fantasies of those who told and listened to them.

Jonathan Brent explores the ultimate source of evil as it has been visualized and understood in the twentieth century by Thomas Mann and Arnošt Lustig whose works evolved out of their immediate experiences with Nazi totalitarianism.

For the 2025 Winter Program Keynote, Anne Applebaum and Jonathan Brent discuss how autocracies have evolved in the 21st century.

Abraham Lichtenbaum delves into the history of the Jewish population, Yiddish language and culture, and YIVO in Argentina.

Michael Lukin explores the various genres of Yiddish folk songs and old Hasidic wordless nigunim, including ballads, folk paraphrases, cumulative songs, lullabies, lyric songs, and “cleaving nigunim,” as well as dance, march, and joy-nigunim.

Hasia Diner examines landmark moments in the half decade between the passage of the National Origins Act and the 1929 onset of the Great Depression that shaped Jewish life in America.

Eugene Orenstein explores the development of a modern Yiddish prose style as seen in stories by Sholem Asch, Dovid Bergelson, Yosef Opatoshu, and Moyshe Nadir.

Anita Norich explores a range of familiar and unfamiliar Yiddish stories and poems to consider how Yiddish writers responded to the social and political issues of their day: emigration/immigration, various forms of nationalism, socialism, religious belief, and rejection of religious observance.

Jan Grabowski sheds light on the origins of Holocaust distortion as well as its impact on Holocaust memory and Holocaust education in Poland, in Europe, and beyond.

Join YIVO and the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene for a recording of the public radio show, Person Place Thing, with actor Steven Skybell and Artistic Director of the NYTF Zalmen Mlotek, hosted by humorist Randy Cohen

Sander Gilman discusses the ever-shifting meaning of being a Jew in our contemporary debates about antisemitism, looking at the continuities and discontinuities both among those who define themselves as Jewish and those who seek to define Jews, both from within and without.

Ilan Stavans tackles questions such as what constitutes a Jewish language, why have some developed more than others, when and where Jewish languages emerge from, and how Jewish languages die, if and when they do.

Perl Teitelbaum explores folksongs passed down from generation to generation and songs by beloved poets and composers.

Alex Wellerstein tracks the key figures, ethical debates, and geopolitical influences of Jewish scientists on the creation, proliferation, and plans for the use of nuclear weapons, beginning with the rise of Jewish prominence in theoretical physics in the early 1900s.

Mikhl Yashinsky examines a series of powerful theatrical scenes to explore the motivating forces and inspiration behind their creation.

Yael Levi examines an unpublished letter by Sholem Aleichem, situating it within the historical and cultural context of his biography and epistolary legacy, with a particular focus on the pivotal period of Jewish migration and the experience of East European Jewish children in America.

Mikhl Yashinsky examines a series of powerful theatrical scenes to explore the motivating forces and inspiration behind their creation.

Have you always wanted to study Yiddish at the YIVO-Bard Summer Program? Are you wondering what it would be like to take the program online or in person? Join faculty and staff of the Summer Program for a brief information session.

Have you always wanted to study Yiddish at the YIVO-Bard Summer Program? Are you wondering what it would be like to take the program online or in person? Join faculty and staff of the Summer Program for a brief information session.

Gennady Estraikh discusses Soviet Jewish literary life and the repression suffered by Yiddish writers under Stalinist rule, in a discussion led by Mikhail Krutikov. 

Join the Jewish Music Forum and YIVO for a screening of The City Without Jews accompanied by live original music composed and performed by world-renowned klezmer violinist Alicia Svigals and celebrated silent film pianist Donald Sosin. A Q&A session with the musicians will follow the cine-concert. 

This weekly class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner IV Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner III Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

Zachary M. Baker offers personal reflections on the legacy of the YIVO Library, focusing on its collections and leading personalities after its move to New York City in 1940.

Eugene Orenstein analyzes selected texts by Dovid Hofshteyn in order to appreciate the genius of his poetics and the synthesis of his Jewishness and universalism.

This twice-weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intensive Advanced II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner IV Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

Are you thinking of returning to the Summer Program to continue your advanced studies? Join Summer Program faculty and staff for a brief information session about YIVO’s advanced levels.

Samuel Glauber uses Jewish Warsaw as a lens by which to study the larger movements that characterized Jewish life in Eastern Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

This weekly class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is is appropriate for Yiddish students at the advanced level.

Aleksandra Jakubczak explores the complex and often precarious experiences of Jews in Eastern Europe, a region marked by centuries of military conflict and shifting political power.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Advanced I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Advanced I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate III Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate IV Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate III Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This weekly class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner III Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

Polly Zavadivker uncovers the history of Jews in the Russian Empire by revealing the stories of how Jewish civilians experienced World War I and its violent epicenter on the Eastern Front, in a discussion moderated by Eliyana Adler.

This weekly class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

Read, listen to, and talk about short stories, essays, journalistic writing, folklore, and more from a literary and linguistic point of view with Vera Szabó.

This weekly class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

Distinguished Warsaw-based clarinetist Andrzej Ciepliński performs a rare American recital performing Jewish classical music masterworks, joined by cellist Julian Schwarz, pianist Marika Bournaki, and others. 

Join YIVO for a panel discussion with Ronald Robboy, Sonia Gollance, and Josh Kun, as they explore the remarkable influence of Latin American music and dance on the culture of Yiddish speaking communities in the United States.

Alyssa Quint discusses art historian Otto Schneid and the creation of YIVO’s Museum of Jewish Art, Judaica, and Art History, a defunct project from the early days of the Institute.

Celebrate the 10-year anniversary of In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies with a discussion by Jessica Kirzane, Madeleine Cohen, Elena Hoffenberg, Eitan Kensky, Eddy Portnoy, and Rachel Rubinstein.

By studying the plight of agunot, Noa Shashar sheds light on Jewish family life in the early modern era and on the activity of the rabbinic experts with the authority to free an agunah.

YIVO sound archivist Eléonore Biezunski tells the story of the Max and Frieda Weinstein Archive of YIVO Sound Recordings in relation to the revitalization of klezmer music since the mid-1970s.

Enjoy a concert performed by Arturo O’Farrill and his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra featuring Jewish and Yiddish classics in Afro Latin big band versions and Latin classics in Klezmer arrangements.

This talk by Nancy Sinkoff will explore the influence of the YIVO on Lucy S. Dawidowicz (1915-1990), a postwar American Jewish public intellectual and historian, who was central to the field that is now called “Holocaust Studies.” 

Join YIVO for a panel discussion sharing new research on various historic YIVO initiatives featuring presentations by William Pimlott, Kamil Kijek, and Nicolas Vallois, followed by a conversation led by Jessica Kirzane.

Join YIVO for an enlightening journey to Lithuania and Poland. Reclaim your heritage as you examine the life that was lived in these lands. View the remarkable history of old Warsaw, Kraków, Vilnius, and Białowieża.

Join us for a celebration of YIVO’s 100th anniversary with a conference focusing on how YIVO’s founding vision for Jewish social sciences has been realized in America since its headquarters shifted to New York City in 1940.

Come and explore the rich history of Hungary, Austria, and Germany through a uniquely Jewish lens. This tour will visit beautiful synagogues, unrivaled museums, and landmarks of Jewish religious life and secular genius.

Join YIVO on a journey of discovery across northern Italy, exploring the fascinating, troubled, and glorious history of Italian Jews in the northern tier, unfamiliar to most of us.