YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture Cecile Esther Kuznitz Frontmatter More Information

Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-01420-6 — YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture Cecile Esther Kuznitz Frontmatter More Information

YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture

This book is the i rst 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. From its headquarters in Vilna (then Poland and now 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 i rst time the compelling story of how these scholars built a world-renowned institution despite dire pov- erty and antisemitism. She raises new questions about the relationship between Jewish cultural and political work and analyzes how nationalism arises outside of state power.

Cecile Esther Kuznitz is an associate professor of history and the director of Jewish Studies at Bard College. A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University, she received her Ph.D. from Stanford University. Her articles have been published in The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (2008), The Encyclopaedia Judaica (2007), The Worlds of S. An-sky (2006), The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies (2002), and Yiddish Language and Culture: Then and Now (1998). She previously taught at Georgetown University and has held fellowships at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

© in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-01420-6 — YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture Cecile Esther Kuznitz Frontmatter More Information

YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture Scholarship for the Yiddish Nation

CECILE ESTHER KUZNITZ Bard College

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Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107014206 © Cecile Esther Kuznitz 2014 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2014 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Kuznitz, Cecile Esther. YIVO and the making of modern Jewish culture : scholarship for the Yiddish nation / Cecile Esther Kuznitz. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-107-01420-6 (hardback) 1. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research – History. 2. Jews – Lithuania – Vilnius – Intellectual life. I. Title. AS267.V55K89 2014 025.1′97924–dc23 2013038171 ISBN 978-1-107-01420-6 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

זכרונו ל רכה In memory of my father, Isidore Kuznitz and איר צו לנגע י רן In honor of my mother, Betty Kuznitz

מיר ז מלען לץ ס אונדז איז טײַער We collect all that is dear to us אין אונדזער ל נגן עג ביז איצט; ;On our long path until now בל ט ון ד ן, בוך ון הײַי ר, – – ,A page from then, a book from today ז ל לץ מיט ליבע ז ײַן געשיצט. .Let us guard it all with love ( א רהם רזען, ״מיר ז מלען״ ) (”Abraham Reisen, “We Collect) ס׳ק ײַקלען זיך ר ן, רף נ ך רף, ,Hoops are rolling, one after the other די נעכטנס, די ה ײַנטס און די מ רגנס The yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows צו ילנע, צום י יִ , צום ציגלנעם סף, ,To Vilna, to YIVO, to the brick safe וּ ס׳ערט אונדזער לקסגוטס רב רגן. .Where the treasure of our people lies hidden (דניאל טש רני, ״ס׳ק ײַקלען זיך ר ן״) (”Daniel Charney, “Hoops Are Rolling) שטרעק אינעם ש ײַטער די רעמס I thrust my hands in the pyre און ר זיך׃ דער עיקר איז ד ! !And rejoice: the essential remains מ ײַנס איז נ ך מסטערד ם, רעמס, ,I still possess Amsterdam, Worms לי רנע, מ דריד און י יִ . .Livorno, Madrid, and YIVO ( א רהם סוצקעער, ״קערנדלעך ץ״ ) (”Abraham Sutzkever, “Kernels of Wheat)

Contents

List of Figures page ix Acknowledgments xi Note on Spelling, Transliteration, and Translation xv

Introduction 1 Language and Nation 3 Folk and Elite 5 Past and Present 8 Objectivity and Engagement 10 Diaspora and State 11 Sources and Organization 13 1. “Language Raised to the Level of a Political Factor”: Yiddish Scholarship before YIVO 17 Introduction: Setting the Stage 17 Precursors: Collection, Publishing, and Teaching 18 World War I and Its Aftermath 24 Wandering Scholars 30 Nokhem Shtif and the Dilemmas of Yiddish Scholarship 38 Conclusion 42 2. “The Idea of the Institute Is Already Ripe”: The Founding and First Stages of YIVO, 1924–1925 44 Introduction: Rising Interest in a Yiddish Institute 44 The Initial Plan and Reactions 45 The Mission of the Institute 55 The Start of Scholarly Work 62 Conclusion 69

vii

viii Contents

3. “From the Folk, For the Folk, With the Folk”: Academic Work, 1925–1932 71 Introduction: To Serve the Folk 71 Dos zamlen 72 Balancing Past and Present 80 Scholarship for the People 90 The Dilemmas of Political Engagement 99 Conclusion 110 4. “The Capital of Yiddishland”: The Geography of Jewish Culture, 1925–1933 112 Introduction: The Mystique of Vilna 112 Yiddish Scholarship between East and West 113 The Geography of Funding 118 YIVO at a Watershed 125 “The Temple of Yiddish Scholarship” 131 Conclusion 139 5. “To Forge Intellectual Weapons for Our People!”: Scholarship in Times of Crisis, 1931–1939 141 Introduction: “Jewish Reality Has Changed” 141 Recovering Finances and the World Convention 143 New Directions in Scholarship 149 Engaging the Jewish Public 154 Publications and Language Planning 163 Scholarship in Times of Crisis 172 Conclusion 178 Epilogue: From Vilna to New York 181 World War II and Its Aftermath 181 YIVO in the United States 184 Conclusion 190 The Reality of Interwar Yiddish Culture Versus the YIVO Myth 190 Academic Achievements and Symbolic Signii cance 192 The Economy of Yiddish Culture 195

Notes 199 Bibliography 277 Index 295

Figures

1. Yiddish activists at the Sholem Aleichem Club in Berlin, early 1920s page 36 2. Memorandum by Nokhem Shtif on his lecture in Berlin describing plans for a Yiddish academic institute, May 1925 49 3. The Press Archive and workroom of the Psychological- Pedagogical Section in a montage by Moshe Vorobeichic (Raviv), early 1930s 75 4. Members of the Terminological Commission at work in a montage by Moshe Vorobeichic (Raviv), early 1930s 83 5. Members of the Historical Section at the World Convention, 1935 88 6. “The Mother’s Curse,” folktale told by Yehoshua Estrin and collected for the Ethnographic Commission by Leyb Tsimmer, i fth-grade student in the Jewish elementary school in Szarkowszczyzna, Poland, 1929 98 7. Announcement of a “Grandiose Exhibit of the Treasures of the Yiddish Scientii c Institute” at the Vilna Real-gimnazye, Passover 1928 109 8. Cover of receipt booklet for donations to the Building Fund designed by Uma Olkenicki, c. 1930 127 9. Receipt for donations to the Building Fund designed by Uma Olkenicki, c. 1930 128 10. “Our Garden in Wilno,” painting of the headquarters by Bencion Cukierman in Heftn far yidisher kunst [Notebooks for Jewish Art], 1936 133 11. Cover of the brochure Der yivo nokh draytsn yor arbet [YIVO after Thirteen Years’ Work], 1938, showing the vestibule of the headquarters with a map of the world on the landing 138

x Figures

12. Staff, students, and supporters in the Esther-Rachel Kaminska Theater Museum, 1935 145 13. Max Weinreich (standing, right) with students at a seminar on psychoanalysis, 1936 151 14. Aspirants Ber Shlosberg (left) and Shmuel Zanvil Pipe, 1939 158 15. Staff of courses for Yiddish teachers, 1937–1938 160 16. Cover of the i rst issue of the journal Yivo bleter , 1931 166

Acknowledgments

I i rst entered the YIVO building as a recent college graduate on a job interview. I remember only one question that the Chief Archivist, Marek Web, asked that day: “Do you mind working in dust?” Little did I know that my answer in the negative would open the door to a corner of Yiddishland on Fifth Avenue and set me on a path culminating in the present volume. Without the encouragement of my colleagues at YIVO I would not have crossed the country to pursue a doctorate at Stanford University. It is a deci- sion I have never regretted. Steven J. Zipperstein advised the dissertation in which this book originated with remarkable insightfulness and sensitivity. Throughout my graduate studies and in the years since I have been grateful for his extraordinary intellectual passion and commitment to his students. I was also fortunate to study with Aron Rodrigue, whose incisiveness and erudition have immeasurably enriched my approach to Jewish history. At Stanford I found a cohort of fellow students who were supportive and stimulating colleagues and who have become cherished friends. My deepest thanks go to Tony Michels, Kenneth B. Moss, Sarah Abrevaya Stein, and Elissa Bemporad. My research would not have been possible without the dedicated Stanford library staff including Roger S. Kohn, Heidi G. Lerner, and Sonia H. Moss, who regularly went beyond the call of duty. I acknowledge with appreciation Bernard D. Cooperman, who i rst sparked my interest in Jewish history, and my teachers in hilkhes yidish Mordkhe Schaechter z”l ; Abraham Novershtern; Joshua (Shikl) and Gella Fishman; David Fishman; and David Roskies. Samuel Kassow and David Rechter offered important support for this project over the course of many years. I thank my former colleague at Georgetown University Aviel Roshwald as well as my current colleagues at Bard College, especially Myra Young Armstead, Robert Culp, and Joel Perlmann. For sharing their expertise on matters large and small

xii Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Natalia Aleksiun, Laimonas Briedis, Leyzer Burko, Justin Cammy, Paul (Hershl) Glasser, Itzik Gottesman, Joshua Karlip, Tamar Khitarishvili, Chana Pollack, Eddy Portnoy, Yermiyahu Ahron Taub, Barry Trachtenberg, Kalman Weiser, and Joshua Zimmerman. Roberta Newman and Vera Szab ó offered valuable advice and were there when I needed it most. While many people contributed to the completion of this project, without my work in the YIVO Archives I never would have begun it. For that opportunity as well as for their unl agging generosity and friendship for more than two decades I am grateful to my former colleagues Marek Web, Fruma Mohrer, Leo Greenbaum, and Chana Gordon Mlotek as well as Gunnar Berg, Ettie Goldwasser, and Rivka Schiller. Jesse Aaron Cohen and Krysia Fisher assisted me with photo research. In the YIVO Library I thank Head Librarian Dr. Lyudmila Sholokhova and Herbert Lazarus for facilitating my research. Over the course of many years, in locales ranging from New York to Stanford to Oxford, I have benei ted from the unmatched expertise and unique senses of humor of two former heads of the Library, Zachary M. Baker and Brad Sabin Hill. Jonathan Brent has enthusiastically encouraged this project since taking up the position of Executive Director at YIVO. I am fortunate to have him as a colleague at Bard and express my sincere thanks to him and to Director of Development Suzanne Leon for their support. Former Directors of Research at YIVO Drs. Lisa Epstein and Allan Nadler assisted my work in important ways at earlier stages. At YIVO I was privileged to work alongside Dina Abramowicz and Szloma Kowarski z”l, two witnesses of the Yerushalayim de-lite described in these pages. I am also grateful to the following individuals who sat for interviews and shared their invaluable memories: Victor Erlich, Ezekiel Lifschutz, and Eliyahu Yones z”l ; and Yonia Fain and Solomon Krystal zey tsu lange yorn. At Cambridge University Press I thank Lewis Bateman and Shaun Vigil. The i nal version of the text greatly benei ted from Jeffrey Edelstein’s care and skill. Creighton University Press and Yale University Press granted permission to draw on previously published work, and YIVO allowed the use of material from its collections. I am grateful to the families of Abraham Reisen, Daniel Charney, and Abraham Sutzkever who kindly agreed to have their verse appear in the epigraph; and to Yossi Raviv, who graciously permitted me to reproduce images by his father, Moshe Vorobeichic (Raviv). It is my pleasure to acknowledge the generous support of the American Council of Learned Societies, the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, the Natalie and Mendel Racolin and the Rachela and Abraham Melezin Fellowships at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies.

Acknowledgments xiii

I humbly recall the countless YIVO scholars, students, and supporters whose lives were brutally cut short by Hitler and Stalin yemakh shemom . To my great sorrow my beloved father, Isidore Kuznitz z”l , did not live to see the publication of this book. My debt to him and to my mother, Betty Kuznitz ir tsu lange yorn , is my most profound and least possible to express.

Note on Spelling, Transliteration, and Translation

Typically for the region and context, most personal and place names that appear in this study have multiple variants. In most cases I spell personal names as they appear in The Guide to the YIVO Archives or, for those not appearing there, The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe . Following the Guide I usually prefer the most common spelling of i rst names that have English-language equivalents, hence Elias (rather than Eliyahu or Elye) Tcherikower. However, when retaining the Hebrew or Yiddish form of names, I give preference to the Ashkenazi pronunciation, hence Shloyme (rather than Shlomo) Mendelsohn and Nokhem (rather than Nahum) Shtif. For cities and towns I usually employ the names by which locales were known in the national language of the country in which they fell in the period under discussion, hence interwar (Polish) Lwó w rather than (Yiddish) Lemberg or (present-day Ukrainian) L’viv. Where the common Yiddish name differs signii cantly I add the alternate in parentheses, hence Kaunas (Kovno). I use variants common in English where they exist, hence Warsaw rather than Warszawa. I refer to the seat of YIVO’s headquarters as Vilna, the most common English variant of the Yiddish Vilne. Yiddish transliteration follows YIVO standards. Hebrew and Russian transliteration follow the guidelines of the Library of Congress. However, I omit diacritical marks in Hebrew and render the letter sof as “s” in the body of the text when that seems appropriate in context, hence Agudas (rather than Agudat ) Israel . In referring to YIVO, its divisions and bodies, I prefer the most accurate English equivalent even when this differs from the version in YIVO’s own documents. Thus I translate Tsentrale farvaltung as “Central Board” rather than (as on YIVO letterhead) “General Board” or “General Executive,” sektsye as “Section” rather than “Department,” and komisye as “Commission” rather than “Committee.” While I follow the institute’s own practice and render its

xvi Note on Spelling, Transliteration, and Translation

proper name in English as the “Yiddish Scientii c Institute,” elsewhere I translate visnshaft and visnshaftlekh as “scholarship” and “scholarly” rather than “science” and “scientii c,” as this seems to me to better capture their meaning in English. All translations are the author’s unless otherwise noted, and all emphases are original.