YIVO Commemorates the Jewish Community of Vilna

(New York, NY) – On Sunday, September 29, 2024 at 1:00pm (ET), the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research will host its annual Nusakh Vilne Memorial commemorating the Jewish community of Vilna – the birth place of YIVO.

Each year YIVO commemorates the Jewish community of Vilna through poetry, music, and artistic presentations. This year, Bret Werb will discuss Shmerke Kaczerginski’s work collecting songs of the Holocaust after which there will be a mini concert featuring musical settings of Kaczerginski’s poetry performed by Temma Schaechter and Binyumen Schaechter.

Vilna-born poet, partisan, and survivor-scholar Shmerke Kaczerginski was part of the Paper Brigade, a group of intellectuals and scholars who risked their lives to smuggle rare materials from the YIVO Institute to hiding places in the Vilna Ghetto, courageously saving them from destruction at the hands of the Nazis. When the Vilna Ghetto was liquidated, he joined the partisans and fought the Nazis. After the war, he returned to Vilna and recovered some of the materials that were hidden by the Paper Brigade and eventually sent them to YIVO’s new headquarters in New York.

What:            Nusakh Vilne Memorial
When:           Sunday, September 29, 2024, 1:00pm (ET)
Where:          Taking place live on Zoom and in person at YIVO Located in the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011)
Cost:              Free
Reservations Available at:  yivo.org/NusakhVilne2024

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

For more information contact:
Alex Weiser
Director of Public Programs

YIVO

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is dedicated to the preservation and study of the history and culture of East European Jewry worldwide. For nearly a century, YIVO has pioneered new forms of Jewish scholarship, research, education, and cultural expression. Our public programs and exhibitions, as well as online and on-site courses, extend our outreach to a global community. The YIVO Archives contains 24 million unique items and YIVO’s Library has over 400,000 volumes—the single largest resource for the study of East European Jewish life in the world. yivo.org / yivo.org/the-whole-story