Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This book is the first history of YIVO, the original center for Yiddish scholarship. Founded by a group of Eastern European intellectuals after World War I, YIVO became both the apex of secular Yiddish culture and the premier institution of Diaspora Nationalism, which fought for Jewish rights throughout the world at a time of rising anti-Semitism. From its headquarters in Vilna, Lithuania, YIVO tried to balance scholarly objectivity with its commitment to the Jewish masses. Using newly recovered documents that were believed destroyed by Hitler and Stalin, Cecile Esther Kuznitz tells for the first time the compelling story of how these scholars built a world-renowned institution despite dire poverty and anti-Semitism. She raises new questions about the relationship between Jewish cultural and political work and analyzes how nationalism arises outside of state power.

Jews --- Hebrews --- Israelites --- Jewish people --- Jewry --- Judaic people --- Judaists --- Ethnology --- Religious adherents --- Semites --- Judaism --- Intellectual life. --- Yivo Institute for Jewish Research --- YIVO --- IVO-Institut evreĭskikh issledovaniĭ (Nʹi︠u︡-Ĭork) --- ИВО Институт Еврейских Исследований --- יווא --- ייִדישער װיסנשאַפטלעכער אינסטיטוט --- יידישער וויסנשאפטלעכער אינסטיטוט --- יידישער וויסנשאפטלעכער אינסטיטוט ־ ייווא --- יידישער וויסענשאפטליכער אינסטיטוט --- ייווא --- ייווא אינסטיטוט פאר יידישער וויסענשאפט --- ייווא - יידישער וויסנשאפטלעכער אינסטיטוט --- ייװא --- ײדישער װיסנשאַפטלעכער אינסטיטו --- ײדישער װיסנשאפטלעכער אינסטיטוט --- ײדישער װיסנשאפטלעכער אינסטיטוט־־ײװא --- ײװא --- Yidisher ṿisnshafṭlekher insṭiṭuṭ --- History.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

"'A Mortuary of Books' explores Jewish culture after the World War II."-- In March 1946 the American Military Government for Germany established the Offenbach Archival Depot near Frankfurt to store, identify, and restore the huge quantities of Nazi-looted books, archival material, and ritual objects that Army members had found hidden in German caches. These items bore testimony to the cultural genocide that accompanied the Nazis' systematic acts of mass murder. The depot built a short-lived lieu de memoire--a "mortuary of books," as the later renowned historian Lucy Dawidowicz called it--with over three million books of Jewish origin coming from nineteen different European countries awaiting restitution. A Mortuary of Books tells the miraculous story of the many Jewish organizations and individuals who, after the war, sought to recover this looted cultural property and return the millions of treasured objects to their rightful owners. Some of the most outstanding Jewish intellectuals of the twentieth century, including Dawidowicz, Hannah Arendt, Salo W. Baron, and Gershom Scholem, were involved in this herculean effort. This led to the creation of Jewish Cultural Reconstruction Inc., an international body that acted as the Jewish trustee for heirless property in the American Zone and transferred hundreds of thousands of objects from the Depot to the new centers of Jewish life after the Holocaust. The commitment of these individuals to the restitution of cultural property revealed the importance of cultural objects as symbols of the enduring legacy of those who could not be saved. It also fostered Jewish culture and scholarly life in the postwar world. --

Jewish property --- World War, 1939-1945 --- Cultural property --- Jews --- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) --- Hebrew imprints --- Jewish libraries --- History --- Destruction and pillage --- Repatriation --- Civilization. --- Hessen --- Israel --- Europe. --- Israel. --- United States. --- Adolf Eichmann. --- American Jewish Congress. --- American Military Government in Germany. --- Berlin. --- Cecil Roth. --- Central Collecting Points. --- Commission on European Jewish Cultural Reconstruction. --- Committee on the Restoration of Continental Jewish Museums, Libraries, and Archives. --- Eichmann trial. --- Frankfurt Agreement. --- Frankfurt. --- Gegenwartsarbeit. --- Gershom Scholem. --- Gesamtarchiv. --- Hannah Arendt. --- Hugo Bergman. --- Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc. --- Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc. (JCR). --- Jewish Cultural Reconstruction. --- Jewish Restitution Successor Organization (JRSO). --- Jewish collections. --- Jewish identity. --- Jewish intellectuals. --- Joshua Starr. --- Judah Magnes. --- Lucy S. Dawidowicz. --- Nuremberg. --- Offenbach Archival Depot. --- Otzrot HaGolah. --- Paper Brigade. --- Salo W. Baron. --- Salo Wittmayer Baron. --- Shlomo Shunami. --- Vilna. --- Wiesbaden Depot. --- World Jewish Congress. --- World Zionist Organization. --- YIVO. --- Yiddish Scientific Institute (YIVO). --- book-restitution operation. --- cultural restitution. --- diaspora. --- displaced persons camps (DP camps). --- heirless cultural property. --- historical consciousness. --- looting. --- memory objects. --- post-war Europe. --- postwar history. --- reconstruction. --- reparations. --- restitution.