[1] Together, they comprise the world's largest collection of materials related to the history and culture of Central and East European Jewry and the American Jewish immigrant experience.

He characterized his advocacy of Yiddish as "realistic" Zionism, contrasted to the "visionary" Hebraists and the "self-hating" assimilationists who adopted Russian or Polish.

In YIVO's first decades, Tcherikover headed the historical research section, which also included Simon Dubnow, Saul M. Ginsburg, Abraham Menes, and Jacob Shatzky.

[8] In 1925, YIVO's honorary board of trustees or "Curatorium" consisted of Simon Dubnow, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Moses Gaster, Edward Sapir and Chaim Zhitlowsky.

Named after Zemach Shabad, YIVO's chairman, the program held classes and guided students in conducting original research in the field of Jewish studies.

Many of the students' projects were sociological in nature (reflecting the involvement of Max Weinreich) and gathered information on contemporary Jewish life in the Vilna region.

[12] The YIVO Library was looted by the Germans and the ERR, but an organization that called itself "The Paper Brigade" were able to smuggle out many books and preserve them from destruction.

More than 1,800 alphabetical entries encompass a vast range of topics including religion, folklore, politics, art, music, theater, language and literature, places, organizations, intellectual movements, and important figures.

With original contributions from an international team of 450 distinguished scholars, the encyclopedia covers the region between Germany and the Ural Mountains, from which more than 2.5 million Jews emigrated to the United States between 1870 and 1920.