YIVO Delegation Visits Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford

YIVO was invited to participate in the prestigious Oxford Literary Festival. Held in April, this annual event in Oxford is sponsored by the UK Financial Times. YIVO’s Executive Director & CEO, Jonathan Brent, delivered a master class on the history of YIVO and its recent landmark achievement in reuniting its pre-war archive. Brent was joined by the head of the Bodleian Library, Richard Ovenden, to discuss why an organization established nearly one hundred years ago is still as relevant and important as ever.

Stefanie Halpern, Director of the YIVO Archives, led a public workshop for the Literary Festival on Yiddish children’s books from YIVO’s collections. As a part of the same workshop Catriona Kelly and César Merchán-Hamann from the University of Oxford provided complementary presentations focusing on Russian language Jewish children’s books and Hebrew children’s books from the Bodleian’s collections.

YIVO’s delegation, which also comprised Shelly Freeman, YIVO’s Chief of Staff, and Alex Weiser, YIVO’s Director of Public Programs, was generously treated to tours of the Bodleian’s beautiful facilities, including the Bodleian Library’s digitization and conservation studios and its Leopold Muller Memorial Library which is a part of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. The visit presented opportunities for YIVO’s staff to exchange working methods and techniques and discuss programmatic activities with corresponding Bodleian staff.

The visit included a private show and tell led by Merchán-Hamann featuring some of the beautiful illuminated Makhzors and Tanakhs and incredible early print and manuscript Yiddish works that are a part of the Bodleian Library’s collections. A dinner with scholars, dignitaries, and supporters of Jewish studies at Oxford celebrated YIVO’s visit, and tea with Richard Ovenden provided an opportunity to discuss future exciting collaborations between YIVO and the Bodleian Library.