French Bishops Delegation

This week YIVO hosted a delegation of 20 Clergymen and Academics traveling from France to New York to visit key Jewish Institutions in Manhattan. 

During their visit to YIVO the delegation was briefed about the origins of YIVO, shown treasures from the YIVO archive, and taken on a tour of YIVO’s Paper Brigade Exhibit. The Exhibit details the harrowing story of how YIVO’s collections, along with other Jewish cultural treasures from Vilna, were buried in the Vilna Ghetto, unearthed after the war, and smuggled out of Lithuania to safety in New York. 

The delegation was led by Catholic Priest Father Patrick Desbois—who has devoted his life to researching the Holocaust, fighting antisemitism, and furthering relations between Catholics and Jews—and by the Archbishop of Paris, the Most Reverend Michel Aupetit.

YIVO Executive Director and CEO Jonathan Brent said, “I was honored to receive the delegation and look forward to further co-operation, promoting mutual understanding and helping to educate the world on the results of antisemitism both in the past and unfortunately in the present day as well.”