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

This weekly reading class covers grammar and how to read Yiddish texts with the help of a dictionary. It is for students new to Yiddish, especially those interested in obtaining reading proficiency for academic or archival research.

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

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

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

Join YIVO for a screening of a short film exploring the poet Joseph Brodsky’s Jewish identity, his legacy, and the political undertones of his writing.

This panel will feature Drs. Tara Jordan, Mackenzie Pierce, Jules Riegel, Nicolette van den Bogerd, with a response by Dr. Bret Werb.

This US premiere of the POLIN Museum’s new documentary by Mikołaj Grynberg offers viewers a glimpse into what it means to be a Polish Jew today. Through interviews with the generation that has had no direct contact with the Holocaust survivors in their families, Grynberg’s film reflects on how Holocaust memory has evolved in Poland.

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 Intermediate II 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.

Join YIVO for the New York premiere of a documentary about Yiddish poet and fiction writer Celia Dropkin, followed by a discussion with filmmaker Eli Gorn, professor Agnieszka Legutko, and poet Edward Hirsch.

YIVO archivist Hallel Yadin will review the different kinds of documents available at YIVO, including pre-war community records, immigration case files, yizkor books, landsmanshaftn records, and more.

Jennifer Caplan explores several examples of Jewish television characters attempting to survive the holiday season. A kosher Chinese food dinner will follow the presentation.

This annual Hanukkah concert showcases songs and stories that charm and delight audiences in celebration of this joyous holiday. This year's concert will feature a performance by The Andy Statman Trio.

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

Josh Price prepares students to start learning Yiddish with an introduction to the Yiddish alphabet, basic reading, writing, and pronunciation.

Eve Jochnowitz examines how Ashkenazic foodways, along with the Yiddish language and the rhythms of Jewish practice, formed the medium in which Jewish life was and is lived in the Yiddish world.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

J. Hoberman examines the relationship between Jews and Hollywood, as producers, artists, and symbolic figures.

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

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.

Adam Kirsch shows how the concept of settler colonialism emerged in the context of North American and Australian history and how it is being applied to Israel today.

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

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

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.

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.

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 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.