From the Vault

Far from slowing donations of Yiddish books, our bibliographer reports that the pandemic seems to have prompted a deluge.

We see a lot of multi-part books at the Yiddish Book Center—bound collections of individual stories, plays, radical tracts, or popular knowledge pamphlets—but this is a first.

A manual on sexual health for Jewish immigrants in the early twentieth century

A document from 1970 illustrates how the Bund struggled to position itself in the bipolarity of the Cold War

An Author by the Name of 'Book Peddler'

A look at Chava Rosenfarb's portable Hermes Baby typewriter

Memorializing communities lost to pogroms after the Russian Revolution

Most of the books at the Center contain little pieces of evidence revealing who they were once owned by

What we can learn from stamps and card catalogs

A Look at the Not-So-Surprising Connection Between Yiddish and Japanese Literature

A year in the life of a Yiddish-speaking squirrel from interwar Poland

An exploration of the Center’s Yiddish sheet music collection—a tremendous resource that helps bring Yiddish language and culture to life.

The Yiddish Linotype at the Yiddish Book Center, once belonging to the Forverts newspaper, begs all kinds of questions about its past.

We have Yiddish dictionaries for every occasion

The works of Edgar Wallace have largely faded into obscurity, but they remain well preserved in Yiddish translation.

A look at the work of multitalented, multimedia artist and art critic Saul Raskin.

These machines have stories to tell about the people who made and used them

An examination Kultur-lige’s various series for adults and children, which reveal the impressive range of Kultur-lige’s publications throughout the 1920s and 30s

A chance discovery reveals a work of multiple literary layers.

When the McGill Hillel hosted Allen Ginsberg for a two night series in 1969, the legendary beat poet opened up about his life, his faith, and his politics.

The complexities of meaning, identity, and language in Yiddish detective fiction—past and present.

There's a story behind every one of the Center's books—sometimes you just have to dig a little to find it.

We often discover surprises in the boxes of books we receive. These objects, like the books they accompany, have stories to tell.

A few weeks ago, we found a small stack of colorful booklets with a young girl, a cat, and what looks like a tallis on the front.

A brief history of Yiddish astrologic practices

Jews were among the first to take up arms and fight against the fascists during the Spanish Civil War.

Shund Stories Escape a Fire

Fairy tales and the Jewish imagination

A 1920s booklet aimed to help Jewish immigrants to the United States, in both Yiddish and English.

A guide to some of the more colorful guides in our collections

A nineteenth-century edition of what would become a Yiddish classic.

Coping with the horrors of the Second World War through music

What is Jewish photography? What is Yiddish photography?

Yiddish translators took to Rudyard Kipling like a cobra to a feast of baby birds.

A brown paper bag on the outside. A world of culinary heritage within.

When Sarah Traister Moskovitz heard Aaron Lansky give a speech, it rekindled her passion for Yiddish—and inspired a poem.

A rare Yiddish tailors’ manual—and the industrious department store owner behind it

The wandering of a book from Mexico tells a larger story of Jewish wandering.

In her final years, the poet replaced her pen with a paintbrush.

Di ershte bagegenish (First Encounter) a bibliographic rarity

Former Yiddish Book Center translation fellow Ellen Cassedy on her new work

In 2002, Grace Paley, the legendary writer of short fiction, read from her work at the Yiddish Book Center's Great Jewish Books Conference