Advanced Yiddish with Gennady Estraikh - A Century of YIVO, 1925-2025
In February 1925, Nokhem Shtif distributed his memorandum to leading Yiddish cultural figures in Berlin, New York, and Vilna. By far, the most enthusiastic response came from the last of these cities. There, the scholars Max Weinreich and Zalmen Reyzen (Reisen) organized a joint meeting of two local educational organizations to discuss Shtif’s plan. The assembled group, which met on March 24, proposed placing more weight on the envisioned institute’s teaching component, favoring work linked to the larger Jewish public and in particular to the secular Yiddish school system. With these modifications, later summarized in “Vilner tezisn vegn a yidishn visnshaftlekhn institut” (Vilna Theses on a Yiddish Scientific Institute), the participants voted to endorse the memorandum, an event later considered to mark the founding of YIVO.
In February 1925, Nokhem Shtif distributed his memorandum to leading Yiddish cultural figures in Berlin, New York, and Vilna. By far, the most enthusiastic response came from the last of these cities. There, the scholars Max Weinreich and Zalmen Reyzen (Reisen) organized a joint meeting of two local educational organizations to discuss Shtif’s plan. The assembled group, which met on March 24, proposed placing more weight on the envisioned institute’s teaching component, favoring work linked to the larger Jewish public and in particular to the secular Yiddish school system. With these modifications, later summarized in “Vilner tezisn vegn a yidishn visnshaftlekhn institut” (Vilna Theses on a Yiddish Scientific Institute), the participants voted to endorse the memorandum, an event later considered to mark the founding of YIVO.
In February 1925, Nokhem Shtif distributed his memorandum to leading Yiddish cultural figures in Berlin, New York, and Vilna. By far, the most enthusiastic response came from the last of these cities. There, the scholars Max Weinreich and Zalmen Reyzen (Reisen) organized a joint meeting of two local educational organizations to discuss Shtif’s plan. The assembled group, which met on March 24, proposed placing more weight on the envisioned institute’s teaching component, favoring work linked to the larger Jewish public and in particular to the secular Yiddish school system. With these modifications, later summarized in “Vilner tezisn vegn a yidishn visnshaftlekhn institut” (Vilna Theses on a Yiddish Scientific Institute), the participants voted to endorse the memorandum, an event later considered to mark the founding of YIVO.