Today I added a new link to this blog - that of the YIVO Institute of Jewish Research. YIVO is not new; its history is nothing less than illustrious -- set up over 80 years ago in Vilna by European Jewish luminaries such as Freud and Einstein to "snapshot" the disappearing world of Eastern European Jewish civilization. It is currently based in New York and, in addition to its library, publications and archives, it has a fabulous online resource. One of its online exhibitions, for example, is a retrospective of the Bund (here). The Bund's ideals were no less than to institute a socialist revolution while maintaining the autonomy of Jewish life.
I am neither a Bundist nor a socialist of any persuasion. Nonetheless, I found YIVO's online exhibitions to be deeply moving. They bring to life a time and its people for whom Zionism was but one option among many. BTW, Emanu-Elniks: be sure to ask our resident Yiddishist, Elly Gotz, about his and his father's conversion from ardent Bundism to passionate Zionism. He once succinctly described the process to me: Kovno, Dachau.
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